Nothing is more common than to hear people abusing courtiers, and affecting to despise courts; yet most of these would be proud of the acquaintance of the one, and would be glad to live in the other. The History of the Conclave will show us how ready all men are to renounce philosophy for the most distant probability of a crown. Whereas Casimir of Poland, and Christina of Sweden, are likely to remain the alpha and the omega, the first and the last of those who have renounced a crown for the sake of philosophy. ccxx WARS are to the body politic, what drams are to the individual. There are times when they may prevent a sudden death, but if frequently resorted to, or long persisted in, they heighten the energies, only to hasten the dissolution. CCXXXVI. IT has been shrewdly said, that when men abuse us, we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them. It is a rare instance of virtue to despise censure, which we do not deserve; and still more rare, to despise praise which we do. But that integrity that lives only on opinion, would starve without it; and that theatrical kind of virtue, which requires publicity for its stage, and an applauding world for an audience, could not be depended on in the secrecy of solitude, or the retirement of a desert. CCXXXVII. THIS is the tax a man must pay to his virtues,— they hold up a torch to his vices, and render those frailties notorious in him which would have passed without observation in another. CCXXXVIII. THOSE hypochondriacs, who, like Herodius, give up their whole time and thoughts to the care of their health, sacrifice unto life every noble purpose of living; striving to support a frail and feverish being here, they neglect an hereafter; they continue to patch up and repair their mouldering tenement of clay, regardless of the immortal tenant that must survive it; agitated by greater fears than the apostle, and supported by none of his hopes, they ❝ die daily." CCXXXIX. INTIMACY has been the source of the deadliest enmity, no less than of the firmest friendship; like some mighty rivers, which rise on the same mountain, but pursue a quite contrary course. CCXL. THE intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shews us to others, but hides us from 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 precisely 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. CCXLI. 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 situa tion, is one and the same CCXLII. THERE are some characters whose bias it is im possible to calculate, and on whose probable conduct we can not hazard the slightest prognostication; they often evince energy in the merest trifles, and appear listless and indifferent, 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! CCXLIII. granting 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 to us with a pair of tongs! CCXLIV. 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 arms 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 he can, and ought to say, that he will not be surprized. There are dispositions so skilful, that the battle may be considered to be won, even before it is fought, and the campaign to be decided, even before it is contested. There are generals who have accomplished more by the march, than by the musquet, 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. CCXLV. 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." CCXLVI. MENTAL pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved of by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment. CCXLVII. 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. CCXLVIII. IT is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, 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 submit to a scarcity, you shall not endure a famine." And those very persons who have been decried, by short sighted 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 insure an economy in the use of it. CCXLIX. 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. ་ CCL. 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, |