no more of pity than is consistent with a smile.  The mad tailor, the poor driveller that has gone out of his wits (and truly he appears to have had no great journey to go to get past their confines) for the love of Charming Betty Careless,—. these half-laughable, scarce-pitiable objects, take off from the horror which the principal figure would of itself raise, at the same time that they assist the feeling of the scene by contributing to the general notion of its subject:—­

  “Madness, thou chaos of the brain,
  What art, that pleasure giv’st and pain? 
  Tyranny of Fancy’s reign! 
  Mechanic Fancy, that can build
  Vast labyrinths and mazes wild,
  With rule disjointed, shapeless measure,
  Fill’d with horror, fill’d with pleasure! 
  Shapes of horror, that would even
  Cast doubts of mercy upon heaven;
  Shapes of pleasure, that but seen,
  Would split the shaking sides of Spleen."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Lines inscribed under the plate]

Is it carrying the spirit of comparison to excess to remark, that in the poor kneeling weeping female who accompanies her seducer in his sad decay, there is something analogous to Kent, or Caius, as he delights rather to be called, in Lear,—­the noblest pattern of virtue which even Shakspeare has conceived,—­who follows his royal master in banishment, that had pronounced his banishment, and forgetful at once of his wrongs and dignities, taking on himself the disguise of a menial, retains his fidelity to the figure, his loyalty to the carcass, the shadow, the shell, and empty husk of Lear?

In the perusal of a book, or of a picture, much of the impression which we receive depends upon the habit of mind which we bring with us to such perusal.  The same circumstance may make one person laugh, which shall render another very serious; or in the same person the first impression may be corrected by after-thought.  The misemployed incongruous characters at the Harlot’s Funeral, on a superficial inspection, provoke to laughter; but when we have sacrificed the first emotion to levity, a very different frame of mind succeeds, or the painter has lost half his purpose.  I never look at that wonderful assemblage of depraved beings, who, without a grain of reverence or pity in their perverted minds, are performing the sacred exteriors of duty to the relics of their departed partner in folly, but I am as much moved to sympathy from the very want of it in them, as I should be by the finest representation of a virtuous death-bed surrounded by real mourners, pious children, weeping friends,—­perhaps more by the very contrast.  What reflections does it not awake, of the dreadful heartless state in which the creature (a female too) must have lived, who in death wants the accompaniment of one genuine tear.  That wretch who is removing the lid of the coffin to gaze upon the corpse with a face which indicates a perfect negation of all goodness or womanhood—­the hypocrite parson and his demure partner—­all the fiendish group—­to a thoughtful mind present a moral emblem more affecting than if the poor friendless carcass had been depicted as thrown out to the woods, where wolves had assisted at its obsequies, itself furnishing forth its own funeral banquet.