great crimes do not easily suspect others of

them.

536.

To be confident of pleasing is often an infallible means of displeasing.

537.

In mankind is not found any great excess either of good or evil.

538.

There is a kind of revolution of so general a character that it changes the mental tastes as well as the fortunes of the world.

539.

We do not always regret the loss of friends in consideration of their merit, but in consideration of our wants, and of the good opinion they entertained of us.

535.

"Whose nature is so far from doing harm,

That he suspects none."-King Lear.

Montaigne remarks, that "Confidence in another man's virtue is no slight evidence of a man's own ;" and he adds, "God is pleased to favor such confidence.”

536. M. Brotier, in his edition, reads "Moyen infaillible de plaire.

540.

The generality of women yield through weakness rather than through passion. Hence it is that enterprising men succeed generally better than others, although they may not be the most amiable.

541.

After having spoken of the falsity of so many apparent virtues it is reasonable to say something of the falsity of the contempt of death; I mean that contempt of death which the Pagans boast of deriving from their own strength, without the hope of a better life. There is a difference between enduring death with firmness, and despising it. The first is

540. "Brisk confidence still best with woman copes, Pique her and soothe in turn, soon passion crowns thy hopes.

BYRON, Childe Harold, canto ii. 34.

La Bruyère also has a severe, but graphic, description of the class of men who succeed best with women, “A un homme vain, indiscret, qui est grand parleur et mauvais plaisant; qui parle de soi avec confiance et des autres avec mépris; impétueux, altier, entreprenant; sans mœurs ni probité; de nul jugement et d'une imagination très libre; il ne lui manque plus, pour être adoré de bien des femmes, que de beaux traits et la taille belle."-Des Femmes.

common enough, but the other in my opinion is never sincere. Every thing however has been written which could by possibility persuade us that death is not an evil, and the weakest men as well as heroes have given a thousand celebrated examples to support this opinion. Nevertheless, I doubt whether any man of good sense ever believed it, and the pains men take to persuade others and themselves of it let us see that the task is by no means easy. We may have many causes of disgust with life, but we never have any reason for despising death. Even those who destroy their own lives do not reckon it as such a little matter, and are as much alarmed at and recoil as much from it as others, when it comes upon them in a different way from the one they have chosen. The inequality remarkable in the courage of a vast number of brave men arises from the fact of death presenting itself in different shapes to their imagination, and appearing more instant at one time than at another. Thus it results that after having despised what they knew nothing of they end by fearing what they do know. If we would not believe that it is the greatest of all evils, we must avoid looking it and all its circumstances in the face. The cleverest and bravest are those who take

N

the most respectable pretexts to prevent themselves from reflecting on it; but any man who is able to view it in its reality finds it a horrible thing. The necessity of dying constituted all the firmness of the philosophers. They conceived they should go through with a good grace what they could not avoid, and as they were unable to make their lives eternal, they had nothing left for it but to make their reputations eternal, and preserve all that could be secured from the shipwreck. To put a good face on the matter, let us content ourselves with not discovering to ourselves all that we think of it, and let us hope more from our constitutions than from those feeble reasonings which would make us believe that we can approach death with indifference. The credit of dying with firmness; the hope of being regretted; the desire of leaving a fair reputation; the certainty of being freed from the miseries of life, and of no longer depending on the caprices of fortune, are remedies which we should not reject. But at the same time we should not believe that they are infallible. They do as much to assure us as a simple hedge in war does to assure those who have to approach a place to the fire of which they are exposed. At a distance it appears capable of affording a

shelter, but when near it is found to be a feeble defence. It is flattering ourselves to believe that death appears to us when near, what we fancied it at a distance, and that our sentiments, which are weakness itself, are of a temper so strong as not to suffer from the attack of the harshest of trials. It is also but a poor acquaintance with the effects of self-love, to think that it can aid us in treating lightly what must necessarily destroy itself, and reason, in which we think to find so many resources, is too weak in this encounter to persuade us of what we wish. On the contrary, it is reason which most frequently betrays us, and instead of inspiring us with the contempt of death serves to reveal to us all that it has dreadful and terrible. All that reason can do for us is to advise us to turn away our eyes from death, to fix them on other objects. Cato and Brutus chose illustrious ones. A lackey a short time ago amused himself with dancing on the scaffold on which he was about to be executed. Thus, though motives may differ, they often produce the same effects. So that it is true that whatever disproportion there may be between great men and common people, both the one and the other have been a thousand times seen to meet death with the same countenance