“There is not a character in the world which has so bad an influence upon it as this of Shimei.  While power meets with honest checks, and the evils of life with honest refuge, the world will never be undone; but thou, Shimei, hast sapped it at both extremes:  for thou corruptest prosperity, and ’tis thou who hast broken the heart of poverty.  And so long as worthless spirits can be ambitious ones ’tis a character we never shall want.  Oh! it infests the court, the camp, the cabinet; it infests the Church.  Go where you will, in every quarter, in every profession, you see a Shimei following the wheels of the fortunate through thick mire and clay.  Haste, Shimei, haste! or thou wilt be undone forever.  Shimei girdeth up his loins and speedeth after him.  Behold the hand which governs everything takes the wheel from his chariot, so that he who driveth, driveth on heavily.  Shimei doubles his speed; but ’tis the contrary way:  he flies like the wind over a sandy desert....  Stay, Shimei! ’tis your patron, your friend, your benefactor, the man who has saved you from the dunghill.  ’Tis all one to Shimei.  Shimei is the barometer of every man’s fortune; marks the rise and fall of it, with all the variations from scorching hot to freezing cold upon his countenance that the simile will admit of.[1] Is a cloud upon thy affairs?  See, it hangs over Shimei’s brow!  Hast thou been spoken for to the king or the captain of the host without success?  Look not into the Court Calendar, the vacancy is filled in Shimei’s face.  Art thou in debt, though not to Shimei?  No matter.  The worst officer of the law shall not be more insolent.  What, then, Shimei, is the fault of poverty so black? is it of so general concern that thou and all thy family must rise up as one man to reproach it?  When it lost everything, did it lose the right to pity too?  Or did he who maketh poor as well as maketh rich strip it of its natural powers to mollify the heart and supple the temper of your race?  Trust me you have much to answer for.  It is this treatment which it has ever met with from spirits like yours which has gradually taught the world to look upon it as the greatest of evils, and shun it as the worst disgrace.  And what is it, I beseech you—­what is it that men will not do to keep clear of so sore an imputation and punishment?  Is it not to fly from this that he rises early, late takes rest, and eats the bread of carefulness? that he plots, contrives, swears, lies, shuffles, puts on all shapes, tries all garments, wears them with this or that side outward, just as it may favour his escape?”

And though the sermon ends in orthodox fashion, with an assurance that, in spite of the Shimeis by whom we are surrounded, it is in our power to “lay the foundation of our peace (where it ought to be) within our own hearts,” yet the preacher can, in the midst of his earlier reflections, permit himself the quaintly pessimistic outburst:  “O Shimei! would to Heaven, when thou wast slain, that all thy family had been slain with thee, and not one of thy resemblance left!  But ye have multiplied exceedingly, and replenished the earth; and if I prophesy rightly, ye will in the end subdue it.”