Many have been thought capable of governing, until they have been called to govern; and others have been deemed incapable, who, when called into power, have most agreeably disappointed public opinion, by far surpassing all previous anticipation. The fact is, that the great and little vulgar too often judge of the blade by the scabbard; and shining outward qualities, although they may excite first rate expectations, are not unusually found to be the companions of second rate abilities. Whereas, to possess a head equal to the greatest events, and a heart superior to the strongest temptations, are qualities which may be possessed so secretly, that a man's next door neighbour shall not discover them, until some unforeseen and fortunate occasion has called them forth.

The ignorance of the Chinese may be attributed to their language. A literary Chinese must spend half his life in acquiring a thorough knowledge of it. The use of metaphor, which may be said to be the algebra of language, is, I apprehend, unknown amongst them. And as language, after all, is made up only of the signs and counters of knowledge, he that is obliged to lose so much time in acquiring the sign, will have but little of the thing. So complete is the ignorance of this conceited nation, on many points, that very curious brass models of all the mechanical powers, which the French government had sent over as a present, they considered to be meant as toys for the amusement of the grandchildren of the emperor. And I have heard the late Sir George Stauntor. declare, that the costly mathematical instruments made by Ramsden and Dolland, and taken to Pekin by Lord Macartney, were as utterly useless to the Chinese, as a steam-engine to an Esquimaux, or a loom to a Hottentot. The father of Montaigne, not inaptly to my present subject, has observed, that the tedious time we moderns employ in acquiring the language of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which cost them nothing, is the principal reason why we cannot arrive at that grandeur of soul and perfection of knowledge that was in them. But the learned languages, after all, are indispensable to form the gentleman and the scholar, and are well worth all the labour that they have cost us, provided they are valued not for themselves alone, which would make a pedant, but as a foundation for further acquirements. The foundation, therefore, should be in a great measure hidden, and its solidity presumed and inferred from the strength, elegance, and convenience of the superstructure. In one of the notes to a former publication, I have quoted an old writer, who observes, 'that we fatten a sheep with grass, not in order to obtain a crop of hay from his back, but in the hope that he will feed us with mutton, and clothe us with wool." We may apply this to the sciences, we teach a young man algebra, the mathematics, and logic, not that he should take his equations and parallelograms into Westminster Hall, nor bring his ten predicaments to the House of Commons, but that he should bring a mind to both these places, so well stored with the sound principles of truth and of reason, as not to be deceived by the chicanery of the bar, nor the sophistry of the senate. The acquirements of science may be termed the armour of the mind; but that armour would be worse than useless, that cost us all we had, and left us nothing to defend.

That is not the most perfect beauty, which, in public would attract the greatest observation; nor even that which the statuary would admit to be a faultless piece of clay, kneaded up with blood. But that is true beauty, which has not only a substance, but a spirit, -a beauty that we must antimately know, justly to appreciate, -a beauty lighted up in conversation, where the mind shines, as it were, through its casket, where, in the language of the poet, the cloquent blood spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, that we might almost say her body thought.' An order and a mode of beauty, which, the more we know, the more we accuse ourselves for not having before discovered those thousand graces which bespeak that their owner has a soul. This is that beauty which never cloys, possessing charms, as resistless as the fascinating Egyptian, for which Antony wisely paid the bauble of the world-a beauty like the rising of his own Italian suns, always enchanting, never the same.

He that can please nobody, is not so much to be pitied, as he that nobody can please.

Revenge is a debt, in the paying of which, the greatest knave is honest and sincere, and, so far as he is able, punctual. But there is a difference between a debt of revenge, and every other debt. By paying our other debts, we are equal with all mankind; but in refusing to pay a debt of revenge, we are superior. Yet it must be confessed, that it is much less difficult to forgive our enemies, than our friends; and if we ask how it came to pass that Coriolanus found it so hard a task to pardon Rome, the answer is, that he was himself a Roman.

If rich, it is easy enough to conceal our wealth; but, if poor, it is not quite so easy to conceal our poverty. We shall find that it is less difficult to hide a thousand guineas, than one hole in our coat

'The cynic who twitted Aristippus, by observing, that the philosopher who could dine on herbs might despise the company of a king, was well replied to by Aristippus, when he remarked, that the philosopher who could enjoy the company of a king, might also despise a dinner of herbs.

' Non pranderet olus si sciret regibus uti.'*

Nothing is more common than to hear people abusing courtiers, and affecting to despise courts; yet most of these would be proud of the acquaintance of the one, and would be glad to live in the other. The history of the Conclave will show us how ready all men are to renounce philosophy for the most distant probability of a crown. Whereas, Casimir of Poland, and Christina of Sweden, are likely to remain the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, of those who have renounced a crown for the sake of philosophy.

Wars are to the body politic, what drams are to the individual. There are times when they may prevent a sudden death, but if frequently resorted to, or long persisted in, they heighten the energies only to hasten the dissolution.

It has been shrewdly said, that when men abuse us, we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them. It is a rare instance of virtue to despise censure, which we do not deserve; and still more rare, to despise praise, which we do. But the integrity that lives only on opinion, would starve without it; and that theatrical kind of virtue, which requires publicity for its stage, and an applauding world for its audience, could not be depended on, in the secrecy of solitude, or the retirement of a desert

This is the tax a man must pay to his virtuesthey hold up a torch to his vices, and render those frailties notorious in him, which would have passed without observation in another.

Those hypochondriacs, who, like Herodius, give up their whole time and thoughts, to the care of their health, sacrifice unto life, every noble purpose of living; striving to support a frail and feverish being here, they neglect an hereafter; they continue to patch up and repair their mouldering tenement of clay, regardless of the immortal tenant that must survive it; agitated by greater fears than the apostle, and supported by none of his hopes, they 'die daily.'