The scoundrels who are called great do not usually come under the gallows-tree, and their last dying speeches are somewhat rare; but we may be pretty certain, from the little we know, that each one of them fancies himself an estimable person.  Ivan of Russia, the ferocious ruler, who had men torn to pieces before his eyes, the being who had forty thousand men, women, and children massacred in cold blood, regarded himself as the deputy of the Supreme Being.  The mad Capet, who fired the signal which started tho massacre of St. Bartholomew, believed that he was fulfilling the demands of goodness and orthodoxy.  The deadly inquisitors who roasted unhappy fellow mortals wholesale believed—­or pretended to believe—­that they were putting their victims through a benign ordeal.  The heretic was a naughty child; roast him, and his sin was purged; while the frosty-blooded old men who murdered him looked to heaven and returned thanks for their own special allowance of virtue.  Conqueror and inquisitor, burglar and murderer, forger and wife-beater, brutal sea-captain and prowling thief—­all the scoundrels go about their business with a full faith in their own blamelessness.  I do not like to class them as automata, though the wise and genial Mr. Huxley would undoubtedly do so.  What shall we do with them?  Is it fair that a wearied world and a toil-worn society should maintain them?  My own idea is that sentiment, softness, regrets for severity should be banished, and we should say to the scoundrel, “Attend, rascal!  You say that you are wronged, and that you are driven to harm your fellow-creatures by the force of external circumstances; that may be so, but we have nothing to do with the matter.  Take notice that you shall eat bitter bread on earth, no matter how you may whine, when our just grip is on you; if you persist in practising scoundrelism, we shall make your lot harder and harder for you; and, if in the end we find that you will go on working evil, we shall treat you as a dangerous wild beast, and put you out of the world altogether.”

XXI.

QUIET OLD TOWNS.

A rather popular writer, who first came into notice by dint of naming a book of essays, “Is Life worth Living?” gave us not long ago a very sweet description of an English country town; and he worked himself up to quite a moving pitch of rapture as he described the admirable social arrangements which may be perceived on a market-day.  This enthusiast tells us how the members of the great county families drive in to do their shopping.  The stately great horses paw and champ at their bits, the neat servants bustle about in deft attendance, and the shopkeeper, who has a feudal sort of feeling towards his betters, comes out to do proper homage.  The great landowner brings his wealth into the High Street or the market place, and the tradesmen raise their voices to bless him.  We have all heard of institutions called