possession, and knows not what to do with it.  The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant.  It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God or man.  A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or earth.  The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will.  He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure.  He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts.  It has become his master.  It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence.  When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth.  It must be confessed, it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession.

Much has been said, on this occasion, of the excitement which has existed, and still exists, and of the extraordinary measures taken to discover and punish the guilty.  No doubt there has been, and is, much excitement, and strange indeed it would be had it been otherwise.  Should not all the peaceable and well-disposed naturally feel concerned, and naturally exert themselves to bring to punishment the authors of this secret assassination?  Was it a thing to be slept upon or forgotten?  Did you, Gentlemen, sleep quite as quietly in your beds after this murder as before?  Was it not a case for rewards, for meetings, for committees, for the united efforts of all the good, to find out a band of murderous conspirators, of midnight ruffians, and to bring them to the bar of justice and law?  If this be excitement, is it an unnatural or an improper excitement?

It seems to me, Gentlemen, that there are appearances of another feeling, of a very different nature and character; not very extensive, I would hope, but still there is too much evidence of its existence.  Such is human nature, that some persons lose their abhorrence of crime in their admiration of its magnificent exhibitions.  Ordinary vice is reprobated by them, but extraordinary guilt, exquisite wickedness, the high flights and poetry of crime, seize on the imagination, and lead them to forget the depths of the guilt, in admiration of the excellence of the performance, or the unequalled atrocity of the purpose.  There are those in our day who have made great use of this infirmity of our nature, and by means of it done infinite injury to the cause of good morals.  They have affected not only the taste, but I fear also the principles, of the young, the heedless, and the imaginative, by the exhibition of interesting and beautiful monsters.  They render depravity attractive, sometimes by the polish of its manners, and sometimes by its very extravagance;