Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

LKii) rnousics. 295
brokers on the Exchange, and in various and sundry
places, times, and societies, by officers, curates, collectors
of customs, justices of the peace, sea-captains, linen-dra«
pers, and apothecaries. Politics form a profound science,
assuredly. And I know not why the fire-king of Scalpa
should not dictate to one half, or to the other half of the
world, as well as the hireling- and hackneyed Mr. We,
who sits behind his desk once a day, for wages of three
hundred pounds a year, teaching the people what they
are to believe respecting themselves and all Europe, and
dictating oracles to those who have wisdom enough to
listen to them. When I read and believe what is called
the leading article of a newspaper, I will also bottom my
political creed on the politics of the Scalpa lighthouse ;
and when I borrow the opinion of one who is likely to
have as little judgment as myself, about the matter, and
whose judgment is less likely to be unbiassed by anger,
or interest, or hire, why, then I will borrow that of the
Regent of the Lamps of Scalpa. Yet thus, we of the
world are governed and led by We of the Post and the
Chronicle ;
and ten thousand men of sense and education
choose to imagine that their own opinions are of less
value than that of some scribbler, which they can pur-
chase for sixpence a day, and whom that very sufferance
and purchase erect to the dictatorship.
Somebody wonders how it happens that any man will
consent to be imprisoned in a lighthouse, particularly if
it should be such a lighthouse as the Bell Rock, or the
Edystone. That is a silly wonderment enough ; because
it is a ship without the chance of drowning. There can
be no dispute about the comparative merits; besides
which, the Castor and Pollux of the Pharos are not
obliged to turn out and reef topsails in a gale of wind,
to watch for ice islands on the mast-head, to overhaul
tackle and furl frozen sails in a snow-storm, to take in stud-