and the censures of the malignant. The approbation of God is her "exceeding great reward," and she would not debase a thing so precious, by an association with the contaminating plaudits of man.

XL.

WOMEN that are the least bashful, are not unfrequently the most modest; and we are never more deceived, than when we would infer any laxity of principle, from that freedom of demeanour, which often arises from a total ignorance of vice. Prudery, on the contrary, is often assumed rather to keep off the suspicion of criminality, than criminality itself, and is resorted to, to defend the fair wearer, not from the whispers of our sex, but of her own; but it is a cumbersome panoply, and, like heavy armour, is seldom worn, except by those who attire themselves for the combat, or who have received a wound,

XLI.

WHAT Fontenelle said of cuckoldom, might more truly be said of fame; it is nothing if you do not know it, and very little if you do. Nor does the similarity end here; for in both cases, the principals, though first concerned, are usually the very parties that are last informed.

XLII.

AN ambassador* from Naples, once said of the young ladies of Paris, that they loved with their heads, and thought with their hearts; and could the same ambassador

This same ambassador was no disgrace to his corps, and some of his fraternity would not be the worse for a spice of his penetration: On being asked by a lady, how it happened that the women have so much political influence in France, but so little in England? he replied, the reason is that men govern in France, but in England the Laws; the women can influence the men, but they can have nothing to do with the laws, but to obey them.

now see a certain class of young gentlemen in London, he might as truly say of them, that they did neither, with either.

XLIII.

GOOD faith is the richest Exchequer of Princes, for the more it is drawn upon, the firmer it is, and its resources increase, with its payments. But a falsehood from Royal Lips, is to a nation, what the mistake of a signal is to an army: the word of a king is as a pharos to the mariner, to withhold his word is to withhold the light, but to give his word and not to fulfil it, is not only to withhold the true light, but to set up a false one.

XLIV.

WE pity those that have lost their eyes, because they admit their infirmity, are thankful for our assistance, and do not deny us that light which they themselves have lost. But it is far otherwise with the blindness of the mind, which, although it be a calamity far more deplorable, seldom obtains that full commiseration it deserves. The reason is, that the mentally blind too often claim to be sharp sighted, and in one respect are so, since they can perceive that in themselves which no one else can discover. Hence it happens that they are not only indignant at the proffered assistance of the enlightened, but most officiously obtrude their guidance upon them. Inflexibility, alas, is not confined to truth, nor inconstancy to error, and those who have the least pretensions to dogmatize, are not always those who have the least inclination to do so. It is upon such lamentable occasions as these, that the Scriptural Paradox has been carried to a still greater excess of absurdity, when the presumption of those that are blind, would insist upon leading those that can see.

XLV.

EVERY man, if he would be candid, and sum up

his own case, as impartially as he would that of his neighbour, would probably come to this conclusion, that he knows enough of others to be certain that he himself has enemies, and enough of himself, to be as certain that he deserves them. But we are dissatisfied, not so much with the quantum .of the requital, as with the quarter from whence it comes, and are too apt to fancy that our punishment is not deserved, because it is not always inflicted precisely by the proper hand. But in as much as the bitter seeds of offence are sometimes sown without producing revenge, their proper harvest, so we also are not to wonder, if at other times the harvest should spring up, even where no seed has been sown.

XLVI.

GROSS and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent, for wealth, although it be a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.

XLVII.

MARRIAGE is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.

XLVIII.

THE freest possible scope should be given to all the opinions, discussions, and investigations of the learned; if frail they will fall, if right they will remain; like steam they are dangerous only when pent in, restricted, and confined. These discordancies in the moral world, like the apparent war of the elements in the natural, are the very means by which wisdom and truth are ultimately established in the one, and peace and harmony in the other.

XLIX.

GREAT examples to virtue, or to vice, are not so productive of imitation as might at first sight be supposed. The fact is, there are hundreds that want energy, for one that wants ambition, and sloth has prevented as many vices in some minds, as virtues in others. Idleness is the grand pacific ocean of life, and in that stagnant abyss, the most salutary things produce no good, the most noxious no evil. Vice indeed, abstractedly considered, may be, and often is, engendered in idleness, but the moment it becomes efficiently vice, it must quit its cradle and cease to be idle.

our art.

L.

WHETHER we are fidlers or philosophers we are equally puffed up by our acquirements, and equally vain of But the fidler is more ingenuous than the philosopher, since he boldly places his own profession at the head of every other, and in all the self complacency of egotism exclaims "one God, one Farrinelli." Perhaps he is right, for in both pursuits the value of the prize often consists solely in the difficulty of attaining it. But the philosopher, with as much arrogance as the fidler, has a trifle more of circumspection. Proud of being thought incapable of pride, he labours less to exalt his particular pursuit, than to lower those of his neighbours, and from the flimsiness of their structures, would slyly establish the solidity of his own. He would rather be the master of a hovel amidst ruins, than of a palace if confronted by piles of equal grandeur and dimensions. But pride is a paradoxical Proteus, eternally diverse yet ever the same; for Plato adopted a most magnificent mode of displaying his contempt for magnificence, while neglect would have restored Diogenes to common sense and clean linen, since he would have had no tub, from the moment he had no spectators. "Thus I trample," said Diogenes, " on the pride of Plato;" but, rejoined Plato, "with greater pride, O Diogenes."

LI.

SO idle are dull readers, and so industrious are dull authors, that puffed nonsense bids fair to blow unpuffed sense wholly out of the field.

LII.

CONTEMPORARIES* appreciate the man rather than the merit; but posterity will regard the merit rather than the man.

LIII.

WE shall at times chance upon men of profound and recondite acquirements, but whose qualifications, from the incommunicative and inactive habits of their owners, are as utterly useless to others, as though the possessors had them not. A person of this class may be compared to a fine chronometer, but which has no hands to its dial; both are constantly right, without correcting any that are wrong, and may be carried round the world without assisting one individual either in making a discovery, or taking an obser

vation.

LIV.

Two σautov, know thyself, is a precept which we are informed descended from heaven, a cælo descendit, yvw σεαυτον. But the same authority has not been bold enough to affirm that it had yet reached the earth; and from all that we can observe, we might be pardoned for suspecting that this celestial maxim was still on its journey. The mind, like the eye, sees all things rather than itself, and philosophers, like travellers, are often far better informed as to what is going on abroad than at home. I blame not those who run to scale the wall of China, or the pyramids of Egypt, the cataracts of the Missouri, or the apex of Chimborasso; but

• Blair complains of the dearth of good Historians in his day; an era that could boast of Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon.