chase his virtue too dear; for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much, as when we have parted with our all to keep it. The Pagans (says Bayle), from the obscurity wherein they lived as to another life, reasoned very inconsequentially on the reality of virtue. It belongs to christians alone to argue upon it aright; and if those good things to come, which the scripture promises the faithful, were not joined to the desire of virtue, that, and innocency of life, might be placed in the number of those things on which Solomon pronounced his definitive decree, “vanity of vanities, all is vanity!"

XXVII.

MODERN reformers are not fully aware of the difficulty they will find to make converts, when that period which they so fondly anticipate shall arrive: an æra of universal illumination. They will then experience a similar rebuff, with those who now attempt to make proselytes amongst the Jews. These cunning descendants of Laban shrewdly reply, pray would it not be better for you Christians, first of all to decide amongst yourselves what Christianity is, and when that important point is fully settled, then we think it will be time enough for you to begin your attempts of converting others. And the reasoning and enlightened inquirer will also naturally enough demand of the reformist, what is reformation? This he will find to be almost as various as the advocates for it. The thorough-paced and Unitarian reformer, who thinks one year a sufficient period for a parliament, in order to bring in another unity still more absurd and dangerous, the majesty of the people, one and indivisible, must be at irreconcileable issue with the Trinitarian reformer, who advocates triennial parliaments, and who has not lost his respect for that old and orthodox association of King, Lords and Commons. And in poli

tics, as in religion, it so happens that we have less charity, for those who believe the half of our creed, than for those that deny the whole of it, since if Servetus had been a Mohammedan, he would not have been burnt by Calvin. There are two parties therefore, that will form a rent in the Babe! building of Reform, which unlike that of the temple, will not be confined to the vail, but will in all probability reach the foundation.

XXVIII.

TIMES of general calamity and confusion, have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.

XXIX.

HYPOCRITES act by virtue, like Numa by his shield. They frame many counterfeits of her, with which they make an ostentatious parade, in all public assemblies, and processions; but the original of what they counterfeit, and which may indeed be said to have fallen from heaven, they produce so seldom, that it is cankered by the rust of sloth, and useless from non-application.

XXX.

THE wealthy and the noble, when they expend large sums in decorating their houses with the rare and costly efforts of genius, with busts from the chisel of a Canova, and with cartoons from the pencil of a Raphael, are to be commended, if they do not stand still here, but go on to bestow some pains and cost, that the master himself be not inferior to the mansion, and that the owner be not the only thing that is little, amidst every thing else that is great. The house may draw visitors, but it is the possessor alone

that can detain them. We cross the Alps, and after a short interval, we are glad to return; we go to see Italy, not the Italians.

XXXI.

PUBLIC events of moment, when deeply and fully considered, are the fertile womb of political maxims, which ought to contain the very soul of the moral of history; and then they are imperishable, and indestructible, worthy of being resorted to as a tower of strength in the storm, and spreading their effulgence over the tide of time, as a beacon in the night.

XXXII.

SECRECY of design, when combined with rapidity of execution, like the column that guided Israel in the desert, becomes a guardian pillar of light and fire to our friends, a cloud of overwhelming and impenetrable darkness to our enemies.

XXXIII.

"FELIX quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum,” this is well translated by some one who observes that it is far better to borrow experience than to buy it. He that sympathizes in all the happiness of others, perhaps himself enjoys the safest happiness, and he that is warned by all the folly of others, has perhaps attained the soundest wisdom. But such is the purblind egotism, and the suicidal selfishness of mankind, that things so desirable are seldom pursued, things so accessible, seldom attained. That is indeed a twofold knowledge, which profits alike by the folly of the foolish, and the wisdom of the wise; it is both a shield and a sword; it borrows its security from the darkness, and its confidence from the light.

XXXIV.

“DEFENDIT numerus," is the maxim of the foolish; "Deperdit numerus," of the wise. The fact is, that an honest man will continue to be so, though surrounded on all sides by rogues. The whole world is turned upside down once in every twenty-four hours; yet no one thinks of standing upon his head, rather than on his heels. He that can be honest, only because every one else is honest, or good, only because all around him are good, might have continued an angel, if he had been born one, but being a man he will only add to that number numberless, who go to hell for the bad things they have done, and for the good things which they intended to do.

XXXV.

THE sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.

XXXVI.

THE drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honoured, so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest, in the end. Milton's expressions on his right to this remuneration, constitute some of the finest efforts of his mind. He never alludes to these high pretensions, but he appears to be animated by an eloquence, which is at once both the plea and the proof of their justice; an eloquence, so much above all present and all perishable things, that, like the beam of the sun, it warms, while it enlightens, and as it descends from heaven to earth, raises our thoughts from earth to heaven. When the great Kepler had at

length discovered the harmonic laws that regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, he exclaimed, "Whether my discoveries will be read by posterity, or by my contemporaries, is a matter that concerns them, more than me. I may well be contented to wait one century for a reader, when God himself, during so many thousand years, has waited for an observer like myself.

XXXVII.

AMBITION is to the mind, what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower, by reason of our blindness. But alas, when we are at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of real misery. We are placed where time cannot improve, but must impair us; where chance and change cannot befriend, but may betray us; in short, by attaining all we wish, and gaining all we want, we have only reached a pinnacle, where we have nothing to hope, but every thing

to fear.

XXXVIII.

WE should justly ridicule a general, who, just before an action, should suddenly disarm his men, and putting into the hands of all of them, a bible, should order them, thus equipped, to march against the enemy. Here, we plainly see the folly of calling in the bible to support the sword; but is it not as great a folly to call in the sword to support the bible? Our saviour divided force from reason, and let no man presume to join what God hath put asunder. When we combat error with any other weapon than argument, we err more than those whom we attack.