All the cattle lying abroad in the fields through a
breadth of eighteen miles, were thrown into terror and agitation. Men, of
course, read in this hurrying overhead of scintillating and blazing
vortices, the annunciation of some gigantic calamity going on in
Liverpool; and the lamentation on that account was universal. But that
mood of public sympathy did not at all interfere to suppress or even to
check the momentary bursts of rapturous admiration, as this arrowy sleet
of many-colored fire rode on the wings of hurricane, alternately through
open depths of air, or through dark clouds overhead.
Precisely the same treatment is applied to murders. After the first
tribute of sorrow to those who have perished, but, at all events, after
the personal interests have been tranquillized by time, inevitably the
scenical features (what aesthetically may be called the comparative
_advantages_) of the several murders are reviewed and valued. One
murder is compared with another; and the circumstances of superiority, as,
for example, in the incidence and effects of surprise, of mystery, &c.,
are collated and appraised. I, therefore, for _my_ extravagance, claim an
inevitable and perpetual ground in the spontaneous tendencies of the human
mind when left to itself. But no one will pretend that any corresponding
plea can be advanced on behalf of Swift.
In this important distinction between myself and the Dean, lies one reason
which prompted the present writing.
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