150.

Few people are wise enough to prefer useful reproof to treacherous praise.

151.

There are reproaches which praise, and praises which convey satire.

152.

A refusal of praise is a desire to be praised twice.

153.

The desire of meriting the praise we receive fortifies our virtue; and that bestowed on talent, courage, and beauty, contributes to augment them.

154.

It is more difficult to avoid being governed than it is to govern others.

155.

If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others would be very harmless.

155. See No. 3.

156.

Nature creates merit, and fortune brings it

into play.

157.

Fortune corrects us of more faults than reason is able to correct.

158.

Some people are disgusting with great merit -others with great faults are agreeable.

159.

The only merit of some people consists in saying and doing foolish things in a useful manner, and they would spoil all if they changed their conduct.

158. "Avec de la vertu, de la capacité, et une bonne conduite, on peut être insupportable. Les manières, que l'on neglige comme des petites choses, sont souvent ce qui fait que les hommes se décident de vous en bien ou en mal; une légère attention à les avoir douces et polies previent leurs mauvais jugemens. Il ne faut presque rien pour être cru fier, incivil, méprisant, désobligeant; il faut encore moins pour être estimé tout le contraire."-LA BRUYERE, De la Société.

159. "Tom Tweedle played a good fiddle, but nothing satisfied with the inconsiderable appellation of a fiddler,

E

160.

Kings do with men as with pieces of money -they give them what value they please, and we are obliged to receive them at their current, and not at their real value.

161.

The glory of men should always be propor

dropped the practice, and is now no character."-SHENSTONE, Men and Manners.

160. This remark is probably the origin of the following: "Titles of honor are like the impressions on coin, which add no value to gold and silver, but only render brass current."―The Koran, (a work attributed to Sterne, but of questionable parentage ;) and Burns' well-known lines:

"The king can make a belted knight,

A marquis, duke, and a' that,

The rank is but the guinea stamp,

The man's the gowd for a' that."

In the life of Dr. South, published by Curll in 1717, and prefixed to the Oxford edition of his works, 1823, this maxim, with the substitution of " commonwealths" for "kings," is with Maxim 235, attributed to the "characteristic terseness" of that learned divine. It was omitted by La Rochefoucauld in the last edition he published, on the ground, says the Abbé Brotier, that it is less a moral axiom than a conversational witticism; a dictum which would however exclude many others of the maxims.

tioned to the means they have employed to acquire it.

162.

It is not sufficient to have great qualities; we must be able to make proper use of them.

163.

However brilliant an action may be, it ought not to pass for great when it is not the result of a great design.

164.

There ought to be a certain proportion between actions and designs, if we would draw from them all the results they are capable of producing.

165.

The art of being able to make a good use of moderate abilities wins esteem, and often confers more reputation than real merit.

166.

There is an infinity of modes of conduct which appear ridiculous, the secret reasons of which are wise and sound.

167.

It is more easy to appear worthy of employments which we do not, than of those which we do

possess.

168.

Our merit gains us the esteem of the virtuous our star that of the public.

169.

The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than it does merit itself.

170.

Avarice is more opposed to economy than liberality is.

171.

Hope, deceitful as she is, serves at least to conduct us through life by an agreeable path.

167. This is the remark of Tacitus respecting Galba, "Major privato visus, dum privatus fuit, et omnium consensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset."-Hist. i. 49.

168.

"All give to dust that is a little gilt

More laud than gilt o'er dusted."

Troilus and Cressida, Act. iii. Sc. 3.