it was the grandest library of that age, and the Emperor Julian used to borrow books 'from it.

Then, of course, he is represented to have behaved infamously as an archbishop; but it must be recollected that these infamies are chiefly narrated by members of the Athanasian party, after he had been torn to pieces by that party. Now, suppose there should ever come to be such a person as a Protestant pope, and he, or one of his successors, were to make saints of the two great leaders of political parties in England, what spiteful things, by no means absolutely true, would the partizans of the opposite factions (a party would be sure to be called a faction in the future "Gibbon's" pages) bring against St. William and St. Benjamin?

Ill-natured deeds are very rare when compared with ill-natured words; in short, the proportion of the deeds to the words is as Falstaff's pennyworth of bread to his monstrous quantity of sack. It would be a shrewdly good bargain for the world to agree that ill-natured deeds should be multiplied by ten, if only the ill-natured words were to be diminished by one-half; for, though the deed may be a much larger and more potent thing than the word, it often does not give nearly as much pain. Dependents would gain very much by this bargain, for they seldom suffer much from deeds, but a great deal from words. Many a man goes through life scattering ill-natured remarks in all directions, who has never done to his knowledge, an ill-natured deed, and who probably considers himself a very good-natured fellow, but one, however, who takes a knowing view of all human beings, and of all human affairs, and is not to be imposed upon by anything or anybody.

Which, of the seven supports to human nature, under troubles and difficulties, can be most relied upon, and least spared? The seven supports are good spirits, good temper, pride, vanity, power of endurance, hopefulness, and the love of others. To the above question, a cynic answered, "Without doubt, vanity."

Why?

Because it is always present. Common parlance proves this fact. You can say of a man, He has lost his good spirits, his good temper, his love for others, his pride, his

power of endurance, his hopefulness; but who ever heard any one say of another, "He has lost his vanity?"

It would be a curious subject for investigation, to observe how those resolves are adopted which have great influence upon the lives of men. A statesman of our time once remarked that he had not been so much influenced by the things that were meant to influence him, such as wise sayings in books, or by anything that had been directly addressed to him, as he had by chance remarks, made, perhaps in common conversation, which he found were singularly applicable to himself. Perhaps a similar thing might be observed, if men were observant in such matters, as regards their resolves generally. It is in this case, as often happens, that the shaft, shot carelessly, which was not aimed at the gold, goes right into the centre of it.

That word "gradually" has come to have a wrong meaning in most men's minds. They do not think of it as applying to something which occurs by steps according to the Latin derivation, but as something which moves up or down an inclined plane. Now it was the remark of one of the shrewdest men of our time, that almost every mental operation seems to go by steps. In learning anything this is to be seen. Yesterday there was a great difficulty; to-day it is overcome by some sudden apprehension of the mind, which may be compared to a step. So, in the moral workings of our nature, every movement seems to go by steps. He noted this especially as regards retrograde movement. A good resolve is formed, but, as he said, it is gradually let down like a boat in a canal, by successive locks. This is admirably illustrated by one of Miss Ferrier's or Miss Austin's novels, where a son left very well off, is enjoined by his father, on his death-bed, to provide for his sisters. The son begins by thinking that he must allow his sisters £1,000 a-year; but by successive locks he gradually lowers his generous intention till it comes down to a determination to send them some fruit, flowers, and game occasionally, which as he, or his wife, says, is all that his good father could have intended.

What an immense respect one has for a

man who is just dead, thinking that he may have suddenly come into such a vast estate of knowledge! This feeling goes off after a time, when one thinks that he is only one of the majority; but at first it is a striking -nay, an almost appalling thought. And the newly-dead man may be what we call an ignorant peasant, which adds much to the dread nature of the thought.

What a remarkable thing is the claque in French theatres. It may not be known to all readers what this claque is, and so I will describe it. It consists of a body of men hired to applaud, and whose applause is regulated by the leader of the claque. The applause begins and ends simultaneously, and is totally unlike real applause, which rises gradually, and afterwards falls into a dropping fire of clapping.

When I am at a French theatre I am fascinated by the claque, which suggests to me two or three strange thoughts. First it shows me the immense strength that there is in an institution, however absurd it may be and uncalled for. Everybody despises the claque; it checks the very thing it was meant to encourage; but still it lives on. That, too, amongst such an intelligent people as the French.

Then I think how, in modern times, business, elaborate arrangement, and mechanism, have entered into all forms of pleasure. The sportsman no longer shoulders his gun and takes what luck he may find in sport; but all is arranged for him beforehand, and he keeps his game-books with an accuracy worthy of a merchant's clerk. Dinners, balls, evening-parties, have become matters of business and policy, and there is little left in the way of pleasure that is hearty, genuine, joyous, or spontaneous.

Let us see who are the people who make society disagreeable.

First, there are managing people. The managing people are of three kinds. They are either imperious persons, or very good-natured persons, or very conceited persons. And sometimes the three motives which cause a man or woman to be troublesomely managing are combined in one and the same person.

Now, the objection which most people have to being managed is, that they have an unconquerable wish to manage for themselves.

But there is another and a very potent cause why people often reject the most excellent proposals for being managed. It is, that the managing person does not know some secret, but very strong, motive of the person to be managed; and therefore all the manager's wise suggestions are beside the mark.

Let us take a familar instance which might occur in real life. There is a young man (we will call him Mr. Amans) in the same house with one of the tribe of managers. Mr. Amans is asked by what train he is returning to London, and he says by the 10 o'clock train. This is in the smoking-room, after the ladies have gone to bed. Up jumps the manager, whips out his "Bradshaw," and tells Mr. Amans | that it is positive insanity not to go by the 9 o'clock train. "If you go by the 10 o'clock | train, a very slow train, you will not get into town till 4 o'clock in the morning-a most uncomfortable time; whereas, if you go by the 9, you will be in by 12 at night, and have a good night's rest. Do let me order the carriage for half-past 8 o'clock !" The young man looks very sheepish, stammers out some foolish objection to the 9 o'clock train; but holds his ground, and will not be managed. And why? Mr. Amans thought that there was a faint return on the part of Miss Amata to the warm pressure of his hand when he bade her good night that evening; and he would lose fifty nights' rest, and rightly too, in order to ascertain whether that faint return of pressure will be repeated, or, perhaps, increased, on the ensuing morning. Now, the family breakfast is not until 9 o'clock.

The above is an instance of a trivial and familiar nature; but the same thing runs through life. When the manager thinks any of us unreasonable, he may reflect that perhaps he does not know all the motives, which, however unreasonable, determine us to a course of action contrary to that which he so ably recommends.

Then there is the class of people whom I venture to call the observantines. They must make remarks about everything; and there are a great many things in this life which had better pass without any remark.

Let

Then there are the objective people. any one say anything, however wise or foolish, important or unimportant, they must instantly take an objection. They really do not mean to abide by their objection; but they must take it. Nothing should be done without being well argued over; and it is their business to see that objection is made to whatever is proposed.

Then there are the explanative people. Now, even the cleverest man, and the most adroit talker, utters many sentences which are needless. You see at once what he is going to say. But the explanative person will not let you off one single jot of explanation. His talk is like the writing of a stupid book for children.

Then there is the discursive talker. You are discussing the effect of the large importations of gold from Australia. He unfortunately enters into the discussion, and in a short time you find that the original subject has vanished, and that you are discussing the mode of rearing pine-apples at Chatsworth. This kind of man seems to be sent into the world to destroy everything like good conversation.

is always very great upon the subject of the rights, privileges, and duties of belligerents. One of his conclusions is rather startling. It is that a general has no right to lay waste a country and to destroy its provisions without first killing the inhabitants; for, as he says with much emphasis, nature does not provide too much food, and starvation is a most cruel form of death. Such are the tender mercies which can be maintained to be duties in the prosecution of war.

Courage is a most difficult thing either to understand or to define, as there are so many sorts of it, and it is so complicated with nervousness or the absence of nervousness. We now know that sensation is conveyed from the eye to the brain more rapidly in some men than in others. This must make a difference in readiness—a thing which is often mistaken for courage. Then again the different degrees of largeness and swiftness of intellectual apprehension must greatly affect the outward show of courage. One man, for instance, takes in at once the total danger: another, whose apprehension is not so rapid, takes in only a part. Supposing the courage of these two men to be equal, the manifestation of that courage on any given occasion of danger occurring to both of them, will be very different. And, in general, as we never know how great or how small the danger in question appears to the man whose courage we are considering, we cannot measure the extent of his courage. Then there are unconquerable aversions and terrors-probably descending from ancestors, or implanted in

early childhood; and the man who is exceedingly brave on all ordinary occasions, is childishly timid when his particular terror or aversion comes upon him. We see this when a great general shivers away from a spider, but we do not consider that there may be something similar in the case of dangers which nearly resemble one another-such, for example, as a battle and a fire. The man, who could withstand, with his fellow-men in single line, a charge of cavalry, may lose all command of himself on the occurrence of a fire in his own house, because of some homely reminiscence unknown to the observing bystander. Altogether I think it is very rash to pronounce about any man, that he is a brave man or a coward.

Of all the resources of government, none are so wastefully employed as their powers of conferring honour. This is true of nearly all countries. In Great Britain the waste is not occasioned by profusion, but by caprice, uncertainty, irrelevancy. The king (it was in George III.'s time) is asked to give a right of going through the park to some gentleman. No, no," replies the king, "I cannot do that; but you may make him an Irish baron.” The above is not an unfavourable specimen of the way in which honours have been granted.

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There are many points worthy of notice as regards this subject.

First, there is the foolish idea that men do not care for honours. This is an entire mistake. There is nothing in the world they care for more.

Then there is the delusion that the granting of many honours would weaken the value of them. At present, when what few honours are granted, are given for the most trivial and inadequate reasons, these honours have anything but their full value. Of course, it takes away from the value of a peerage when a man is made a peer because he is rich, and because he has fought party battles in his county or his borough, with liberality and vigour. Everybody feels that that is not a service done to the state; and accordingly the honour loses much of its value and its dignity.

The same with knighthood. If that honour is given as a mere formality because a man has presented an address, or has received a sovereign at dinner, the honour in question is proportionately lowered.

Then it is said, and this is a favourite argument of men in power, that if you oblige

one man by giving him an honour, you disoblige three or four persons who think that they have exactly similar claims. There is some truth in this, but it must be remembered that you keep all those three or four persons in a state of hopeful expectation that if they work on, they too will eventually gain the honour. There is no telling the quantity of good service that a government might get from people, if these people only saw that they had a fair chance of receiving honour for good service. And frequently there is no other way of paying them, for they do not want money. Now, as the tendency in modern times is to make government more and more difficult, it behoves government to husband all its resources, and to make the best use of them.

I pass to another head of the subject. A state which has many colonies should seek to win its eminent colonists, and to knit the infant to the parent state by a careful distribution of honours in these colonies. When an eminent colonist can say, not merely civis Anglicanus sum, but eques Anglicanus sum, depend upon it, he is sure to become an attached citizen to the imperial government. The Privy Council of England should be enriched and enlightened by the introduction into it of some of the most distinguished colonists, who, when in this country, should be able, as it were, to have some voice in the government.

Now, to another branch of the subject.

SPRING

Why should we chiefly honour and dignify the members of one or two professions or callings, to the exclusion of the rest? Why should many lawyers and soldiers be promoted to honour, while doctors and surgeons, men of science, men of letters, great merchants, great employers of labour, distinguished civil servants, are for the most part left out in the cold? In France they could have their Baron Dupuytren, while in England there is not an instance of a great medical man being raised to the peerage, though it is said Sir Astley Cooper much desired that honour.

Again, as to men of science, art, and literature, people say it would be so difficult to found an order of merit for such men. I cannot see it. It appears to me that the world knows very well, or nearly well enough, who are the distinguished men in science, art, and literature. Some mistakes would of course be made; but, upon the whole, the public would take care that the dispensers of honours to this class of men should not go far wrong.

There is another very important point connected with this subject, namely, that this just dispensation of honours would tend to correct the inordinate craving after wealth, which is the sin and sorrow of the present day. Moreover, it would tend to correct the frantic desire of getting into Parliament which besets so many men who are unfit for that vocation, but who discern in it the only way of arriving at personal honour and social dis tinction.

HORACE.