And shall we reject this exquisite philosophy--this profundity of thought--to substitute our own mean and common-place ideas?
P.S.--Apart from the philosophical beauty of this wonderful passage, there are other aspects in which it may be studied with not less interest.
How true is the poetical image of the _rack_ as the last object of dissipation! the expiring evidence of combustion! the lingering cloudiness of solution!
_Pseudo MSS._--_The Devil, Cromwell and his Amours._--It is too bad! In Vol. iii., p. 282., there is a good page and a half taken up with a verbatim extract from Echard, which has either been alluded to or quoted by every writer on Cromwell from Echard's time down to a few months ago, when it appeared in _Chambers's Papers for the People_, No. 11. Again, in Vol. iv., p. 19., there is another page and a half relating to Cromwell, which, I fearlessly assert, I have seen frequently in print, but cannot at present tell where; and more important avocations forbid me to search. As if that was not enough, in Vol. iv., p. 50. there is another half page respecting the preservation of these _precious MSS._! Is it not too bad? Do, worthy Mr. Editor, make the _amende honorable_ by publishing the true characters of the MSS. forwarded by S. H. H., which you have so inadvertently published as original.
[Our correspondent seems to doubt that the communications to which he refers were really printed from contemporary MSS. The Editor is able to vouch for that having been certainly the fact. They are not printed from transcripts from Echard, but from real MSS. of the time of Charles II., or thereabouts; while the fact of these early transcripts having been printed surely does not furnish any argument against the valuable suggestion of S. H. H. as to the preservation of similar documents for the use of the public, and in the manner pointed out in his communication.--ED.]
_Anonymous Ravennas_ (Vol. i., pp. 124. 220. 368.; Vol. iii., p. 462.).--Your correspondents have neglected to observe that this author's Chorography of Britain was published by Gale, "ad calcem Antonini Iter Britanniarum," viz., _Britanniæ Chorographia cum Autographo Regis Galliæ Ms'o. et Codice Vaticano collata; Adjiciuntur conjecturæ plurimæ cum nominibus locorum Anglicis, quotquot iis assignari potuerint_: Londini, 1709, 4to.