Page:Headlong Hall - Peacock (1816).djvu/165

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HEADLONG HALL.
157

men, women, and children, was entombed with all the pageantry of public lamentation, and figured as the hero of several thousand odes and a round dozen of epics; while the poor highwayman was twice executed,

'At the gallows first, and after in a ballad,
'Sung to a villainous tune.'

You observe, in both these skulls, the combined developement of the organs of carnage, plunder, and vanity, which I have just pointed out in the tiger, the fox, and the peacock. The greater enlargement of the organ of vanity in the hero, is the only criterion by which I can distinguish them from each other. Born with the same faculties and the same propensities, these two men were formed by nature to run the same career: the different combinations of external circumstances decided the differences of their destinies.