enough to fall down and worship it; but he tha knows it most, will most despise it. 'Tinnit, inanı est.'* Repartee is perfect, when it effects its purpose with a double edge. Repartee is the highest order of wit, as it bespeaks the coolest, yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused. Voltaire, on hearing the name of Haller mentioned to him by an English traveller at Ferney, burst forth into a violent panegyric upon him; his visiter told him that such praise was most disinterested, for that Haller by no means spoke so highly of him. 'Well, well, n'importe,' replied Voltaire, perhaps we are both mistaken.' Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow; but the misfortune is, that in this particular case, the substance belongs to the shadow, the emptiness to its cause. By privileges, immunities, or prerogatives to give unlimited swing to the passions of individuals, and then to hope that they will restrain them, is about as reasonable, as to expect that the tiger will spare the hart, to browse upon the herbage. A man who knows the world, will not only make the most of every thing he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his. • It rings, for it is empty.—PUB. erudition. In Scotland, the 'jus et norma loquendi’* has made it the fashion to pronounce the law term eur tor, cur tor. Lord Mansfield gravely corrected a certain Scotch barrister when in court, reprehending what appeared to English usage a false quantity, by repeating, 'cur tor, sir, if you please' The barrister immediately replied, 'I am happy to be corrected by so great an or tor as your lordship!' Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power, that avarice makes concerning wealth: she begins by accumulating power, as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end. Ambition is in fact, the avarice of power, and happiness herself is soon sacrificed to that very lust of dominion, which was first encouraged only as the best mode of obtaining it. Hyder, like Richard the Third, was observed by one of his most familiar companions, Gholaum Ali, to start frequently in his sleep; he once took the liberty to ask this despot of what he had been dreaming?' 'My friend,' replied Hyder, 'the state of a beggar is more delightful than my anviad me roty, awake, they see no conspirators; asleep, they dream of no assassins.' But ambition will indulge no other passions as her favourites, still less will she bear with them as rivals; but as her vassals, she can employ them, or dismiss them at her will; she is cold, because with her all is calculation; she is systematic, because she makes every thing centre in herself; and she regards policy too much, to have the slightest respect to persons. Cruelty or compassion, hatred or love, revenge or forbearance, are, * The rule and law of clocution.-PUB to her votaries, instruments rather than influences, and means rather than motives. These passions form indeed the disturbing forces of weaker ininds, not unfrequently opposing their march and impeding their progress; but ambition overrules these passions, and drawing them into the resistless sphere of her own attraction, she converts them into satellites, subservient to her career and augmentative of her splendour.* Yet ambition has not so wide a horizon as some have supposed: It is a horizon that embraces probabilities always, but impossibilities never. Cromwell followed little events before he ventured to govern great ones; and Napoleon never sighed for the sceptre, until he had gained the truncheon; nor dreamt of the imperial diadem, until he had first conquered a crown. None of those who gaze at the height of a successful usurper, are more astonished at his sudden elevation, than he himself who has attained it; but even he was led to it by degrees, since no man aspires to that which is entirely beyond his reach. Caligula was the only tyrant whe ever evcposted of longing for the moon; a proof of his madness, not of his ambition and if little children are observed to cry for the moon, it is because they fancy they can touch it; it is beyond their desire, the moment they have discovered that it is beyond their reach. God will excuse our prayers for ourselves, whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied by such good works as will entitle us to the prayers of others. * Sylla was an exception to this rule; ambition in him was subordinate to revenge. Pride often miscalculates, and more often misconceives. The proud man places himself at a distance from other men; seen through that dis tance, others perhaps appear little to him; but he forgets that this very distance, causes him to appear equally little to others. The truly great, consider first, how they may gain the approbation of God; and secondly, that of their own conscience; having done this, they would then willingly conciliate the good opinion of their fellow-men. But the truly little, reverse the thing; the primary object with them is to secure the applause of their fellow-men, and having ef fected this, the approbation of God and their own conscience may follow on as they can. There are some benefits which may be so conferred as to become the very refinement of revenge; and there are some evils, which we had rather bear in sullen silence than be relieved from at the expense of our pride. In the reign of Abdallah the Third, there was a great drought at Bagdad; the Mohammedan doctors issued a decree that the prayers of the faithful should be offered up for rain; the drought continued; the Jews were then permitted to add their prayers to those of the true believers; the supplications of both were ineffectual; as famine stared them in the face, those dogs, the Christians, were at length enjoined also to pray; it so happened that torrents of rain immediately followed. The whole conclave, with the Mufti at their head, were now as indignant at the cessation of the drought, as they were before alarmed at its continuance. Some explanation was necessary to the people, and a holy convocation was held; the members of it came to this uranimous determination: That the God of their Prophet was highly gratified by the prayers of the faithful; that they were as incense and as sweet smelling savour unto him, and that he refused their requests that he might prolong the pleasure of listening to their supplications; but that the prayers of those Christian infidels were an abomination to the Deity, and that he granted their petitions, the sooner to get rid of their loathsome importunities! Commenting lore makes a mighty parade, and builds a lofty pile of erudition, raised up like the pyramids, only to embalm some mouldering mummy of antiquity, utterly unworthy of so laborious and costly a mode of preservation. With very few exceptions, commentators would have been much better employed in cultivating some sense for themselves, than in attempting to explain the nonsense of others. How can they hope to make us understand a Plato, or an Aristotle, in cases wherein it is quite evident that neither of these philosophers understood themselves? The head of a certain college at Oxford was asked by a stranger, what was the motto of the arms of that university? He told him that it was Dominus illuminatio mea.' But he also candidly informed the stranger, that in his private opinion, a motto more appropriate might be found in these words.-' Aristoteles meæ tenebræ.'t *The Lord my light.-PUB. |