abdication, amused himself in his retirement at St. Yuste, by attempting to make a number of watches go exactly together. Being constantly foiled in this attempt, he exclaimed, "What a fool have I been, to neglect my own concerns, and to waste my whole life in a vain attempt to make all men think alike on matters of religion, when I cannot even make a few watches keep time together!"

"Atque utinam his potius nugis tota ista dedisset
Tempora sævitiæ."*

RELIGION, like its votaries, while it exists on earth, must have a body as well as a soul. A religion purely spiritual might suit a being as pure; but men are compound animals, and the body too often lords it over the mind.

WHERE true religion has prevented one crime, false religions have afforded a pretext for a thousand.

MEN will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; any thing but- -live for it.

Religion and Knowledge.

RELIGION has treated Knowledge sometimes as an enemy, sometimes as a hostage; often as a captive, and more often as a child. But Knowledge has become of age; and Religion must either renounce her acquaintance, or introduce her as a companion, and respect her as a friend.

*Juv., Sat., iv., 150, 151.

*I do most particularly except from the observations above that religion which 'has been justly termed the reformed; for the Reformation was a glorious and practical assent to my position, that "Knowledge has become of age." While the Christian looks to this faith chiefly as a future good, even the sceptic should befriend it as a present good, and the sound philosopher as both. I shall finish this note by a splendid quotation from Sir William Drummond, who began by going to the skies for scepticism, and finished by making a pilgrimage to Rome, not to establish his faith, but his infidelity. "He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; and he that dares not reason is a slave." This passage is taken from his preface, an effort so superior to his book that one wonders how the two could have come together. I have, however, heard such an union accounted for, by an observation that the match was perfectly legal, because they were not of kin.

Renegadoes.

Ar the restoration of Charles the Second, the tide of opinion set so strong in favour of loyalty, that the principal annalist of that day pauses to express his wonder where all the men came from, who had done all the mischief: but this was the surprise of ignorance; for it is in politics as in religion, that none run into such extremes as renegadoes, or so ridiculously overact their parts. The passions, on these occasions, take their full swing, and re-act like the pendulum, whose oscillations on one side will always be regulated by the height of the arc it has subtended on the other.

Repartee.

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 visitor 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."

Repentance.

THE seeds of repentance are sown in youth by Pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by Pain.

Reproof.

IF none were to reprove the vicious, excepting those who sincerely hate vice, there would be much less censoriousness. in the world. Our Master could love the criminal, while he hated the crime; but we, his disciples, too often love the crime, but hate the criminal. A perfect knowledge of the depravity of the human heart, with perfect pity for the infirmities of it,. never co-existed but in one breast, and never will.

Reputation.

THE two most precious things on this side the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the

most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be more anxious to deserve a fair name than to possess it; and this will teach him so to live as not to be afraid to die.

THOSE who take their opinion of women from the reports of a rake, will be no nearer the truth than those who take their opinions of men from the lips of a prostitute.

Requests, Impracticable.

INGRATITUDE in a superior is very often nothing more than the refusal of some unreasonable request; and if the patron does too little, it is not unfrequently because the dependant expects too much. A certain pope who had been raised from an obscure situation to the apostolic chair, was immediately waited upon by a deputation sent from a small district in which he had formerly officiated as curé. It seems that he had promised the inhabitants that he would do something for them, if it should ever be in his power; and some of them now appeared before him, to remind him of his promise, and also to request that he would fulfil it, by granting them two harvests in every year! He acceded to this modest request, on condition that they should go home immediately, and so adjust the almanack of their own particular district as to make every year of their register consist of twenty-four calendar months.

Reserve.

A MAN's profundity may keep him from opening out on a first interview, and his caution on a second; but I should suspect his emptiness, if he carried on his reserve to a third.

Resignation.

MURMUR at nothing: if our ills are reparable, it is ungrate ful; if remediless, it is vain. But a Christian builds his fortitude on a better foundation than Stoicism: he is pleased with every thing that happens, because he knows it could not happen unless it had first pleased God, and that which pleases

him must be the best. He is assured that no new thing can befall him, and that he is in the hands of a Father who will prove him with no affliction that resignation cannot conquer, or that death cannot cure.

Restorations.

RESTORATIONS disappoint the loyal. If princes at such times have much to give, they have also much to gain; and policy dictates the necessity of bestowing rather to conciliate enemies than to reward friends.*

CHARLES FOX said that restorations were the most bloody of all revolutions; and he might have added, that reformations are the best mode of preventing the necessity of either.

Retirement.

THOSE who have resources within themselves, who can dare to live alone, want friends the least, but, at the same time, best know how to prize them the most. But 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.

Revenge.

SOME philosophers would give a sex to revenge, and appropriate it almost exclusively to the female mind. But, like most other vices, it is of both genders; yet, because wounded vanity, or slighted love, are the two most powerful excitements to revenge, it has been thought, perhaps, to rage with more violence in the female heart. But as the causes of this passion are not confined to the women, so neither are the effects. History can produce many Syllas, for one Fulvia or Christina. The fact, perhaps, is, that the human heart, in both sexes, will more readily pardon injuries than insults, particularly if they appear to arise, not from any wish in the offender to degrade

*The Amnesty Act of Charles the Second was termed an Act of Oblivion to his friends, but of grateful remembrance to his foes. And on another occasion, the loyalty of the brave Crillon was not strengthened by any reward, only because it was considered too firm to be shaken by any neglect.

us, but to aggrandize himself. Margaret Lambrun assumed a man's habit, and came to England, from the other side of the Tweed, determined to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. She was urged to this from the double malice of revenge, excited by the loss of her mistress, Queen Mary, and that of her own husband, who died from grief at the death of his queen. In attempting to get close to Elizabeth, she dropped one of her pistols; and on being seized and brought before the queen, she boldly avowed her motives, and added, that she found herself necessitated, by experience, to prove the truth of that maxim, that neither force nor reason can hinder a woman from revenge, when she is impelled by love. The queen set an example that few kings would have followed; for she magnanimously forgave the criminal, and thus took the noblest mode of convincing her that there were some injuries which even a woman could forgive.

FEW things are more agreeable to self-love than revenge, and yet no cause so effectually restrains us from revenge as self-love. And this paradox naturally suggests another, that the strength of the community is not unfrequently built upon the weakness of those individuals that compose it; a position not quite so clear as the first, but I conceive equally tenable and true. We receive an injury, and we are so constituted that the first consideration with most of us is revenge. If we happen to be kings, or prime ministers, we go straightforward to work, unless indeed it should happen that those that have inflicted the injury are as powerful as those that have received it. It is fortunate, however, for the interests of society, that the great mass of mankind are neither kings nor prime ministers, and that men are so impotent that they can seldom bring evil upon others without more or less of danger to themselves. Thus, then, it is that public strength, security, and confidence grow out of private weakness, danger, and fear. These considerations have given rise to this saying: "It is better to quarrel with a knave than with a fool: " for with the latter all consideration of consequences to himself is swallowed up and lost in the blind and brutal impulse that goads him on to bring evil upon another. We hate our enemy much, but we love ourselves more. We have been injured, but we will not avail ourselves of the legal means of redress, because of the certain expense and trouble, and the uncertain success; neither will we resort to illegal modes of retaliation, because we will not run the risk of the mortification, the disgrace, and the danger of a discovery.