action of yours.  The holy rites of hospitality are by you abused and set at naught; and the very roof which shelters you is desecrated with the marks of your irreverential contempt for all things human and divine.  Would that—­(and the wish is expressed more in sorrow than in anger)—­would that your entire species were condensed into one enormous bluebottle, that we might crush you all at a single swoop!

Many, calling themselves philanthropists and Christians, have omitted to squash a fly when they had an opportunity of so doing; nay, some of these people have even been known to go the length of writing verses on the occasion, in which they applaud themselves for their own humane disposition, and congratulate the object of their mistaken mercy on its narrow escape from impending fate.  There is nothing more wanting than to propose the establishment of a Royal Humane Society for the resuscitation of flies apparently drowned or suffocated.  Can it possibly be imagined by the man who has succeeded after infinite pains in rescuing a greedy and intrusive insect from a gin-and-watery grave in his own vile potations, that he has thereby consulted the happiness of his fellow creatures, or promoted the cause of decency, cleanliness, good order, and domestic comfort?  Let him watch the career of the mischievous little demon which he has thus been the means of restoring to the world, when he might have arrested its progress for ever.  Observe the stout and respectable gentleman, loved, honoured, and esteemed in all the various relations of father, husband, friend, citizen, and Christian, who is on cushioned sofa composing himself for his wonted nap, after a dinner in substance and quantity of the most satisfactory description, and not untempered by a modicum of old port.  His amiable partner, with that refined delicacy and sense of decorum peculiar to the female sex, has already withdrawn with her infant progeny, leaving her good man, as she fondly imagines, to enjoy the sweets of uninterrupted repose.  At one moment we behold him slumbering softly as an infant—­“so tranquil, helpless, stirless, and unmoved;” in the next, we remark with surprise sundry violent twitches and contortions of the limbs, as though the sleeper were under the operation of galvanism, or suffering from the pangs of a guilty conscience.  Of what hidden crime does the memory thus agitate him—­breaking in upon that rest which should steep the senses in forgetfulness of the world and its cares?  On a sudden he starts from his couch with an appearance of frenzy!—­his nostrils dilated, his eyes gleaming with immoderate excitation—­an incipient curse quivering on his lips, and every vein swelling—­every muscle tense with fearful and passionate energy of purpose.  Is he possessed with a devil, or does he meditate suicide, that his manner is so wild and hurried?  With impetuous velocity he rushes to the window, and beneath his vehement but futile strokes, aimed at a scarcely visible, and certainly impalpable