Intimacy has been the source of the deadlies enmity, no less than of the firmest friendship; like some mighty rivers, which rise on the same mountain, but pursue a quite contrary course.

The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us froin ourselves, and we injure our own cause, in the opinion of the world, when we too passionately and eagerly defend it; like the father of Virginia, who murdered his daughter to prevent her violation. Neither will all men be disposed to view our quarrels in the same light that we do; and a man's blindness to his own defects will ever increase, in proportion as he is angry with others, or pleased with himself.

Falsehood, like a drawing in perspective, will not bear to be examined in every point of view, because, it is a good imitation of truth, as a perspective is of the reality, only in one. But truth, like that reality, of which the perspective is the representation, will bear to be scrutinized in all points of view, and though examined under every situation, is one and the same.

There are some characters whose bias it is impossible to calculate, and on whose probable conduct we cannot hazard the slightest prognostication; they often evince energy in the merest trifles, and appear listless and in different, on occasions of the greatest interest and importance; one would suppose they had been dipped in the fountain of Hammon, whose waters, according to Diodorus, are cold by day, and hot only by night'

There are some who refuse a favour so graciously, as to please us even by the refusal; and there are others who confer an obligation so clumsily, that they please us less by the measure, than they disgust us by the manner of a kindness, as puzzling to our feelings, as the politeness of one, who, if we had dropped our handkerchief, should present it unto us with a pair of tongs!

It has been said, that the retreat shows the general, as the reply the orator; and it is partly true; although a general would rather build his fame on his advances, than on his retreats, and on what he has attained, rather than on what he has abandoned. Moreau, we know, was famous for his retreats, insomuch, that his companions in arıns compared him to a drum, which nobody hears of, except it be beaten. But, it is nevertheless true, that the merits of a general are not to be appreciated by the battle alone, but by those dispositions that preceded it, and by those measures that followed it. Hannibal knew better how to conquer, than how to profit by the conquest; and Napoleon was more skilful in taking positions, than in maintaining them. As to reverses, no general can presume to say that he may not be defeated; but The can, and ought to say, that he will not be surprised. There are dispositions so skilful, that the battle may be considered to be won before it is fought, and the campaign to be decided, even be fore it is contested. There are generals who have accomplished more by the march, than by the musket; and Europe saw in the lines of Torres Vedras, a simple telescope in the hands of a Wellington, become an instrument, more fatal and destructive than all the cannon in the camp of his antagonist.

Expect not praise without envy until you are dead. Honours bestowed on the illustrious dead, have in them no admixture of envy; for the living pity the dead; and pity and envy, like oil and vinegar, assimilate not :

'Urit enim fulgore suo qui prægravat artes Infra se positas, extinctus, amabitur idem.'

Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved of by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment.

Those who have resources within themselves, who can dare to live alone, want friends the least, but at the same time, know how to prize them the most. No company, is far preferable to bad, because we are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a leeshore and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea, and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck. And thus, the legislator who meets some evils, half subdues them. In the grievous dearth that visited the land of Egypt, Joseph forestalled the evil, and adopted measures that proclaimed to the nation, You shall not feast, in order that you may not fast; and although you must sub

* He 'whose proud genius soars above the arts,

Burns while he shines, but dead, is loved again.-PUB

4

mit to a scarcity, you shall not endure a famine.' And those very persons who have been decried by shortsighted reasoners in this country, as regraters and monopolizers, are, in times of real deficiency, the actual Josephs of the land. Like the præstolatores in the camp of the Romans, they spy out the nakedness of the land before the main body are advised of it, and by raising the price of the commodity, take the only means to ensure an economy in the use of it.

Louis the Fourteenth having become a king by the death of his minister, Mazarin, set up the trade of a conqueror on his own account. The devil treated him as he does young gamesters, and bid very high for him at first, by granting him unexampled success; he finished by punishing him with reverses equally unexampled. Thus, that sun which he had taken for his device, although it rose in cloudless majesty, was doomed to set in obscurity, tarnished by the smoke of his defeats, and ⚫ tinged with the blood of his subjects.

It is an old saying, that Truth lies in a well,' but the misfortune is, that some men will use no chain to draw her up, but that which is so long that it is the labour of their life to finish it; or if they live to complete it, it may be that the first links are eaten up by rust, before the last are ready. Others, on the contrary, are so indolent, that they would attempt to draw up truth without any chain, or by means of one that is too short. Both of these will miss their object. A wise man will provide a chain for this necessary purpose, that has not a link too much, nor a link too little, and on the first he will write 'ars longa,'* and on the last, 'vita brevis.'†

Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass, before they can enter into the temple of wisdom; therefore, when we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained a something that will stay by us, and which will serve us again. But, if to avoid the trouble of the search, we avail ourselves of the superior information of a friend, such knowledge will not remain with us; we have not bought, but borrowed it.

Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good, by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds. Hence, like those erratic orbs in the firmament, it is their fate to be miscomprehended by fools, and misrepresented by knaves; to be abused for all the good they actually do, and to be accused of ills with which they have nothing to do, neither in design or execution.

Some men who have evinced a certain degree of wit and talent in private companies, fail miserably when they attempt to appear as public characters on the grand theatre of human life. Great men in a little circle, but little men in a great one, they show their learning to the ignorant, but their ignorance to the learned; the powers of their mind seem to be parched up and withered by the public gaze, as Welch cascades before a summer sun, which, by the by, we are told, are vastly fine in the winter, when nobody goes to see them.

• Art is long. PUB.

+ Life is short.-PUB.