"My wound is great, because it is so small:
"Then it were greater, were there none at all."

A Noble Excuse.

It was a magnanimous reply of M. Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigné to Henry III. of France, who expressed a wish that he would write the history of his reign, "I am too much the humble servant of your Majesty to be your historian." The converse of this sentiment would be equally true. A man may be too much the enemy of his sovereign to write his history with honest impartiality.

How difficult impartiality is in a writer of history, is strongly set forth by the great Tacitus. "When kings are alive, the fear of giving offence to them, and when they are dead, the hatred attached to their memories, are both equally fatal to the veracity of history."

Favourites.

The same acute observer and eloquent writer on politics remarks, "that the friends of kings seldom continue in their stations to the ends of their lives; they are either by their masters dismissed, long tired of bestowing endless benefactions on them; or the favourites, having no longer any hopes of receiving them, desert their royal masters.

Liberty and Bribery.

The theory of liberty is most clamorous, when bribery is most lucrative. It is in corrupt boroughs that we hear persons most loud in their boast of their love of liberty. What is their noise else, but the declaration," that I hold my liberty of voting very high, and expect to be paid accordingly for giving it up, and so I must part with it for a valuable consideration; and not be, at the same time by accepting a small bribe, both a fool and a rogue." The facetious bard has well described the value of liberty in voting,

For what's the value of a thing
But so much money as 'twill bring?

Good-Kind of People.

Hudibras.

This is a description of people, vulgarly so called, whom every body knows, and yet few can commend. They are in general persons of very moderate abilities, very feeble passions, and very disputable integrity; for where there are no very marked features in a countenance, no decisive character can be ascertained. In natural history, they might be described of the snail kind: the evil that they do is not quickly discerned, whilst the good which they may perform is always a matter of doubt. But Poets describe these persons with

greater force than prose men can pretend to. Such persons are described by Dr. Young as those

Who want, while through blank life they dream along, Sense to be right, and passion to be wrong.

Love of Fame, sat. iv. l. 89.

Some Modern Comedies.

Kotzebue, Schiller, and other German writers, seem to have infected the English stage with their lugubrious style. Pathos has rendered our comedy quite tragical. When some writers preserve a little regard for the nature of the comic genius, and are unwilling that their audience should cry all through their sad comedies, they endeavour by frequent puns to prevent this evil to themselves and others. Pope seems, by anticipation, to have described our modern comedians, and their sole motives for writing

But fill their purse, our poet's work is done,
Alike to them by pathos or by pun.

Epist.i. v. 294.

Modern Greeks.* An Anecdote.

As the present times convince us that the spirit of liberty in ancient Greece is not extinct in their posterity, the following authentic anecdote may be read with pleasure and interest. When the late Mr. Anson (Lord Anson's brother) was upon his This story, says Mr. Harris, was told me by Mr. Anson himself.

travels in the East, he hired a vessel to visit the Isle of Tenedos. His pilot, an old Greek, as they were sailing along, said, with some satisfaction, "There 'twas that our fleet lay." Mr. Anson demanded what fleet? "What fleet! replied the old man, (a little piqued at the question;) Why our fleet at the siege of Troy."-Harris's Philolog. Enquiri es, vol. ii.p. 326.

Singular Use of the Word Embrace.

It is dangerous to sever a word, especially a verb, : from its original combination, as it is in fact so altered as to become very awkward and ridiculous. To embrace an offer, an opportunity, or a proposition, are acknowledged and common phrases; but we smile at the old steward who wrote to his master that he was in pursuit of the purchasing some oxen; and that when he met some large and fat ones, his Lordship might depend upon him that be would immediately embrace them.-Harris's Philolog. Enquiries, vol. i. p. 199.

A singular Anti-Climax.

Those who ascend too high may meet with sad falls. The Sophi of Persia is called a star, whose crown is the sun, lord of the mountains Caucasus and Taurus, and of the four rivers Euphrates,

Tigris, Araxes, and Indus; the fountain of honour, the mirror of virtue, the rose of pleasure, and the nutmeg of delight.-See Howel's Letters.

Tobacco: an Anecdote from the Same Writer.

If one would try a pretty conclusion, how much smoke there is in a pound of tobacco, the ashes will tell him. Let a pound of tobacco be exactly weighed, and the ashes kept charily, and weighed afterwards; what is wanting of a pound weight in the ashes cannot be denied to have been smoke, which evaporated into air. I have heard that Sir Walter Raleigh won a wager of Queen Elizabeth on this nicety.

Conscience.

This word is apt to mislead the individual, and to superinduce bad habits of hypocrisy. When a man pretends to hold a court of conscience in his bosom, where he is judge and jury too, his conduct requires looking after. "No man," says an eminent writer,* "should be allowed, under the pretence of a liberty of conscience, to have no conscience at all."

Mercy.

We see daily instances of what is called mercy held out to persons whose crimes are manifestly Right Hon. Edm. Burke.