Ere clean it o'erthrow nature, makes it valiant.
Plenty and peace breed cowards: hardness ever
Of hardiness is mother.

Cymbeline. Act iii. Scene 6.

THE Poet has exhausted the subject, and positively leaves one nothing to say on it. He has exhibited it in all its phases, shown the superiority of moral over animal courage, how it is affected by sympathy and imagination, and above all, placed before us its highest triumph, viz. a conquest over our own bad dispositions. "Verbum sat sapientibus.”

CUSTOM AND HABIT.

Valentine. How use doth breed a habit in a man!
Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act v. Scene 4.

MEN'S JUDGMENTS AFFECTED BY HABITS AND

Enobarbus.

CIRCUMSTANCES.

I see men's judgments are

A parcel of their fortunes: and things outward

Do draw the inward quality after them,

To suffer all alike.

Antony and Cleopatra. Act iii. Scene 11.

King Lear. The art of our necessities is strange,

That can make vile things precious.

King Lear. Act iii. Scene 2.

Hamlet.

VIRTUE ATTAINED BY HABIT.

Refrain to-night:

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,

And either curb the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency.

Hamlet. Act iii. Scene 4.

SENSIBILITY BLUNTED BY HABIT.

Hamlet. Has this fellow no feeling of his business? He sings at grave-making.

Horatio. Custom hath made it in him a property of

easiness.

Hamlet. 'Tis even so: the hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.

Hamlet. Act v. Scene 1.

THE vulgar proverb, "Habit is second nature," is in every
body's mouth, and in nobody's practice-at least, with the
knowledge that the formation of our second nature lies
very much in our own determination, we seem bent upon
acquiring such habits as will make our second nature
worse than the first: "We know what's right, and do the
wrong with all our might." Verily the world is fond of
uttering wise saws, and good maxims, but very averse to
following them. And so strikingly does it resemble, in
this particular, the character of Joseph Surface in the
play, that whenever one of these proverbs is paraded
ostentatiously, we are apt to address the world, as the
said Joseph was addressed, in the following (somewhat
profane) ejaculation: "Damn your fine sentiments." But
as this subject, of good and bad habits, is rather hacknied,
I willingly pass on to observe the beauty and truth of
those lines just extracted from King Lear:

"The art of our necessities is strange
That can make vile things precious."

*The School for Scandal,

The effect of custom, in accommodating man to circumstances, strikingly distinguishes him from the lower animals. A few of the latter, it is true, may be removed from their native climate and, like parrots, taught habits foreign to their nature; but they are exceptions to the general rule, as will be apparent by taking a mere glance at what man can do in this respect.

We see the European broiling under the tropical sun, and anon behold him slumbering peacefully under a hut of ice, with the thermometer 50° below Zero! Then again fancy a man, accustomed to every luxury, and enjoying with fine palate the exquisite viands of modern cookery, accustoming himself, by the force of habit and necessity, to make a hearty dinner off shoe leather!* Take another instance. A man of intellect, fond of the society of superior beings like himself, is imprisoned, is shut out entirely from all intercourse with his fellow-men. What does he do? He cultivates acquaintance with a spider that frequents the walls of his dungeon, is pleased with its presence, laments its absence, loves it! Here is a change of habits and circumstances! Which of the lower animals can be put to such a test?

An enquiry into the force of habit and custom, in accommodating man to the various necessities of this life, would be one of endless interest and curiosity, and must needs excite feelings of gratitude towards the Author of our being, who has endowed us with a power that may become so essential to our happiness.

*See Captain Franklyn's Expedition in the arctic regions.

DEATH.

SPEAKING PHYSICALLY.

Isabella. The sense of death is most in apprehension; And the poor beetle, that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

Measure for Measure. Act iii. Scene 1.

THE FRIEND OF MISERY-AND TERROR OF PROSPERITY.

Constance. Death, death!-oh, amiable, lovely death! Thou odoriferous stench! sound rottenness!

Arise forth from the couch of lasting night,
Thou hate and terror to prosperity,
And I will kiss thy detestable bones;

And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows;

And ring these fingers with thy household worms;
And stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust,
And be a carrion monster like thyself;

Come, grin on me; and I will think thou smil'st,
And kiss thee as thy wife! Misery's love,

Oh, come to me!

King John. Act iii. Scene 4.