of power cannot overcome. In the heat and frenzy of the French revolution, the contentions for place and power never sustained the smallest diminution; appointments and offices were never pursued with more eagerness and intrigue, than when the heads of those who gained them, had they been held on merely by pieces of sticking plaster, could not have sat more loosely on their shoulders. Demagogues sprung up like mushrooms, and the crop seemed to be fecundated by blood; although it repeatedly happened that the guillotine had finished the favourite, before the plasterer had finished the model, and that the original was dead, before the bust was dry.

XLV.

A man may arrive at such power, and be so successful in the application of it, as to be enabled to crush and to overwhelm all his enemies. But a safety, built upon successful vengeance, and established not upon our love, but upon our fear, often contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. It is at best a joyless and a precarious safety, as short-lived as that of some conquerors, who have died from a pestilence, excited by the dead bodies of the vanquished.

XLVI.

Many men fail in life, from the want, as they are too ready to suppose, of those great occasions wherein they might have shown their trust-worthiness, and their integrity. But all such persons should remember, that in order to

try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water, before we trust it with wine. The more minute, trivial, and we may say vernacular opportunities of being just and upright, are constantly occurring to every one: and it is an unimpeachable character in these lesser things, that almost invariably prepares and produces those very opportunities of greater advancement, and of higher confidence, which turn out so rich a harvest, but which those alone are permitted to reap, who have previously sown.

XLVII.

Of all the passions, jealousy is that which exacts the hardest service, and pays the bitterest wages. Its service is-to watch the success of our enemy; its wages-to be sure of it.

XLVIII.

Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right without them. The former would rather stumble in following the dead, than walk upright by the profane assistance of the living.She worships the mouldering mummies of antiquity, and her will is, that they should not be buried, but embalmed. She would have truth herself bow to the authority of great names; while common sense would have great names bow to the authority of truth. Folly disgusts us less by her ignorance, than pedantry by her learning; since she mistakes the nonage of things for their virility; and her creed is, that darkness is increased by the accession of light;

that the world grows younger by age; and that knowledge and experience are diminished, by a constant and uninterrupted accumulation.

XLIX.

There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres makes every difficulty an advancement, and every contest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire after virtue, is to gain her; and zealously to labour after her wages is to receive them. Those that seek her early, will find her before it is late; her reward also is with her, and she will come quickly. For the breast of a good man is a little heaven commencing on earth; where the Deity sits enthroned with unrivalled influence, every safety from danger, resource from sterility, and subjugated passion, "like the wind and storm, fulfilling his word."

· L.

Even human knowledge is permitted to approximate in some degree, and on certain occasions, to that of the Deity, its pure and primary source; and this assimilation is never more conspicuous, than when it converts evil into the means of producing its opposite good. What, for instance, appears at first sight to be so insurmountable a barrier to the intercourse of nations as the ocean; but science has converted it into the best and most expeditious mean, by which they may supply their mutual wants, and

carry on their most intimate communications. What so violent as steam? and so destructive as fire? What so uncertain as the wind? and so uncontrollable as the wave? Yet art has rendered these unmanageable things instrumental and subsidiary to the necessities, the comforts, and even the elegancies of life. What so hard, so cold and so insensible as marble? Yet the sculptor can warm it into life, and bid it breathe an eternity of love. What so variable as colour ? so swift as light? or so empty as shade? Yet the pencil of a Raphael can give these fleeting things both a body and a soul; can confer upon them an imperishable vigour, a beauty that increases with age, and which must continue to captivate generations. In short, wisdom can draw expedient from obstacle, invention from difficulty, remedy from poison. In her hands all things become beautiful by adaptment; subservient by their use; and salutary by their application.

LI.

As there are none so weak, that we may venture to injure them with impunity, so there are none so low that they may not at some time be able to repay an obligation. Therefore, what benevolence would dictate prudence would confirm. For he that is cautious of insulting the weakest, and not above obliging the lowest, will have attained such habits of forbearance and of complacency, as will secure him the good-will of all that are beneath him, and teach him how to avoid the enmity of all that are above him.

For he that would not bruise even a worm, will be still more cautious how he treads upon a serpent.

LII.

The only thing in which we can be said to have any property, are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison, they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken from us by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death.But our actions must follow us beyond the grave; with respect to them alone, we cannot say that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world. Our actions must clothe us with an immortality, loathsome or glorious; these are the only titledeeds of which we cannot be disinherited; they will have their full weight in the balance of eternity, when every thing else is as nothing; and their value will be confirmed and established by those two sure and stateless destroyers of all other things,-Time-and Death.

LIII.

He that abuses his own profession, will not patiently bear with any one else that does so. And this is one of our most subtile operations of self love. For when we abuse our own profession, we tacitly except ourselves; but when another abuses it, we are far from being certain that this is the case.