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surpass all external advantages; but, as virtue depends entirely on ourselves, it has, clearly, the precedence; for, as far as health does depend upon ourselves, it is by virtue that it is obtained.'

Any thing may be said, if it be spoken in the tone of society; the strongest metaphor appears without violence if it is familiarly expressed; and we the more easily catch the warmest feeling, if we perceive that it is, intentionally, lowered in expression, out of condescension to our calmer temper. It is that harangues and declamations, the last proof of bad taste and bad manners in conversation, are avoided, while the fancy and the heart find the means of pouring forth all their stores.2

Encourage your daughter to talk over with you what she reads, and take care that she does not mistake pert folly for wit and humour, or rhyme for poetry.3

In conversation, humour is more than wit, easiness more than knowledge: few desire to learn, or think they need it; all desire to be pleased, or, if not, to be easy.

Cette qualité précieuse que l'on apporte en naissant, et qu'aucun art ne peut faire acquérir; cette qualité qui tient lieu d'esprit, et que l'esprit seul ne remplace point, cet heureux don du ciel que les François, avec leur délicatesse ordinaire, ont si bien nommé" tact." 4

Raillery is of all weapons the most dangerous

1 Mackintosh (Life, ii.).
3 Lady M. W. Montague.

2 Ibid.

4 Goethe (Alfred).

and two-edged; it never should be handled but by a gentleman, and upon a gentleman.

Sufficiently attentive to the claims of others to be respectful and polite; but sufficiently conscious of what was due to himself to be firm and dignified.

Courteous, attentive, and animated, the women did not esteem him the less for admiring them, rather than himself.

That education only can be considered as complete and generous, which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both public and private, of peace and war.1

One should submit blindly to no one; preserve the liberty of one's own reason; dispute for instruction, not victory; and yield to reason, as soon as it appears, from whencesoever it come.2

The true liberty of a rational and moral agent consists in his being able to follow right reason only without hindrance or restraint."

By recent, as well as ancient, example, it has become evident that illegal violence, with whatever pretexts it may be covered, and whatever object it may pursue, must inevitably end at last in the arbitrary and despotic government of a single person.1

Compulsion never persuades; it only makes

1 Milton (Tractate on Education).
3 Clarke (Serm.).

2 Sir W. Temple.

4 Hume.

hypocrites. When kings interfere in matters of religion, they don't protect, they enslave it. Give civil liberty to all, not by approving all religions as indifferent, but by permitting, in patience, what God permits, and by endeavouring to bring persons to what is right- by mildness and per

suasion.'

De Witt, having proposed to Louis XIV. an invasion of England during the first Dutch war, the monarch replied, that "such an attempt would be entirely fruitless, and would tend only to unite the English." 2

The

Wise men say nothing in dangerous times. lion, you know, called the sheep to ask her if his breath smelt; she said, Ay; he bit off her head for a fool he called the wolf and asked him, he said, No; he tore him in pieces for a flatterer: at last he called the fox, and asked him-Truly, he had got a cold and could not smell. 3

:

Kings are sometimes said to have long hands: it would be as well, perhaps, if they had sometimes long ears.1

On some one speaking of a too great dread of reformation, it was well observed that, if Luther, the great reformer, and his followers, had been deterred by such arguments, all Europe would still have groaned under the ecclesiastical sway of the sovereign Pontiff.

The great principle, that grievances ought to be

1 Butler's Life of Fénélon, 32.
3 Selden's Table Talk.

2 Hume.

4 Swift.

redressed before supplies are granted, is agreeable enough to law and reason.'

Political truth is equally in danger from the praises of courtiers, and the exclamations of patriots.2

Malcolm has written not a bad thing at the end of Hume's Elizabeth: "The head cannot join the heart respecting Mary; nor can the heart follow the head about Elizabeth. "3

I shall never forget what I once ventured to say to a great man in England, that "few politicians, with all their schemes, are half so useful members of a commonwealth as an honest farmer, who, by skilfully draining, fencing, manuring, and planting, has increased the intrinsic value of a piece of land, and thereby done a perpetual service to his country."

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Jock! when you hae naething else to do, you be aye sticking in a tree: it will be growing, Jock, while you're sleeping.

may

When a prince is powerful, every thing he grants is a gift, every thing he does not take is a favour : if he be weak, that which he grants is only a debt due; that which he refuses to grant is an injustice."

You have let loose the bull", and now you complain that he gores you.?

1 Johnson (Life of Waller).

2 Johnson (Life of Pope).

4 Swift (Drapier's Letters).

3 Mackintosh (Life).

5 Mirabeau (Life by Dumont).

6 Has reference to the French Revolution.

7 Mirabeau to Sieyes (Dumont).

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On n'offense jamais plus les hommes que lorsqu'on choque leurs cérémonies, et leurs usages: cherchez à les opprimer, c'est quelquefois une preuve de l'estime que vous en faites; choquez leurs coutumes, c'est toujours une marque de mépris.' La Bruyère said of a certain work, on its first appearance, Que sa place était immédiatement au-dessous rien."

Napoleon's instructions to his ambassadors, "Tenez bonne table, et soignez les femmes." This, says Mackintosh, shows his profound contempt for the human race, without distinction of nation or

sex.

On another occasion, with reference to Prince Metternich as to the exchange of the Illyrian provinces, "Quoi," cried Napoleon; "le plaisant homme! il veut faire le diplomate avec moi. — C'est une foiblesse de l'esprit humain de croire qu'on peut lutter contre moi."

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Buonaparte discussed the propriety of suicide with Sebastiani and Flahaut, and concluded his reasons against it thus:-" D'ailleurs les sentimens religieux ne me sont pas tout-à-fait étrangers."

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The late Duke of Devonshire had great credit with the whigs, being a man of strict honour, true courage, and unaffected affability. He was sincere, humane, and generous; plain in his manners, negligent in his dress; had sense, learning, and modesty, with solid, rather than showy parts; and

1 Montesquieu (Grandeur et Décadence, &c. 102.).
2 See Life of Mackintosh, ii. 323. 3 Ibid. 320.

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