IF Justice has her eyes bandaged, so often have those who seek her, at any rate through the medium of law. MUCH is said about the freshness of a first love; but there are many whose second love may be better worth having, than the first love of others. THERE is one thing which the most unobservant person manages to see-that which we do not want him to see. WE might pardon the ungrateful if they would forget who are their enemies, as speedily and completely as they often forget who were their friends. I maintain this notwithstanding all that has been said about "good haters" being" good lovers :" and in the teeth of the line in the Fairy Queen: "For, in base minds nor friendship dwells, nor enmity." ** STRICT punctuality is perhaps the cheapest virtue which can give force to an otherwise utterly insignificant character. EVERY principal against whom a charge is brought is presumed to be honest, till he is proved to be the contrary. To listen to some cross-examining bar risters, we might suppose that the opposite presumption is entertained in the case of the witnesses. He behaved himself with that regard to the prisoners which became both the gravity of a judge, and the pity that was due to men whose lives lay at stake, so that nothing of jeering or unreasonable severity ever fell from him. He also examined the witnesses in the softest manner, taking care that they should be put under no confusion which might disorder their memory.-BURNET's Life of Hale. WOMEN love to find in men a difficult combination: a gentleness which will invariably yield, with a force which will invariably protect. The sex would disavow manfully, or rather womanfully, the first part of the clause in the abstract, or as a general truth, but I really am only speaking practically as regards each individual article or item of dispute, as it occurs. I do not know on what principle of human nature he grounds it, but Aristotle says, in his Politics, that the Lacedæmonians, like all martial nations, were governed by their wives.—(Notes to St. John's Milton.) If he is right in this point, (which I am inclined to doubt,) then, the combination referred to in the text may be expected often to occur. Henry the Fourth of France, who did not know what fear meant in the battlefield, declared himself wholly unequal to domestic disputes (Sully), though he often enough rendered himself amenable to curtain lectures. MANY men seem with reference to themselves to have no power of comparison. Their pride is an uncorrected self-adoration. A Spanish proverb says, "Love which has no ends, has no end." So we "Pride which has no measures, has no may say, measure. Be careful what you assume, what anticipations you raise. Remember the ancient kings of Poland, who were not allowed to abdicate. So perhaps Scribe's "Monsieur" was wrong when he said, "Je vais me dépêcher de faire un gros livre bien spirituel, pour avoir après, le droit d'être bête pendant toute ma vie.”Le Roi de Carreau. It would be as well perhaps to give out that you are in the course of writing one. ALMOST all sorts of follies frequently coexist with talent, except one-Pomposity. Prominent exceptions, I suppose, Thurlow, Johnson, and perhaps the first Chatham. WE refuse, and rightly enough, to permit popes, cardinals, and an "infallible church," to interpret our duties for us; but who is independent of the dogmatic interpretation which the "Spirit of the Age" insidiously gives to the simplest of them? WE often appear to the least advantage before those whom we respect the most; as if to make the contrast as strong as possible: like the Indian tribe mentioned by one of our divines, who made a point of putting on their shabbiest attire out of compliment to their monarch, on the days when he arrayed himself in his finest. INTELLIGENT love will find out our faults, even though it is ever ready to forgive them; but even this causes a jar: perhaps there can be no perfect love except for a perfect object. It would be a great advantage to some schoolmasters if they would steal two hours a day from their pupils and give their own minds the benefit of the robbery. THE most perfect would be the most exacting and severe; but, fortunately, mercy is one of the attributes of perfection. WHERE we find echoes, we generally find emptiness and hollowness; it is the contrary with the echoes of the heart. THE heart should have a capacity for infinite music: where its affections are strong but limited in their range, it reminds us of a good barrel-organ only set to a few tunes. This often arises from pride and an exaggerated estimation of our own family and immediate acquaintances. I should not have introduced this very old simile or metaphor except for the sake of the contrast: perhaps one of the earliest instances of its use, is the following,-Budha says that" the heart is like a musical instrument of many strings, all the chords of which require putting in har mony."-Huc's Thibet. Be careful how you put yourself at the mercy of critics or inferiors by going altogether out of your beat. Algernon Sydney tells us, that the king of Sabaa was worshipped as long as he kept himself within the walls of his palace, but might be murdered with impunity by his subjects if he showed himself outside it. CATO rejoiced when he got out of the Africa of serpents, into the Africa of lions; so may we, when we exchange insidious enemies for bold ones. Quanta dedit miseris melioris gaudia terræ, ** LUCAN, Phars. ix. 945. A MAN'S leisure is often a kind of Irish natural phenomenon, which diminishes in proportion as it becomes apparent: and, by the time people are fully convinced of its existence, disappears altogether. The same process often takes place in the case of his property. * SORROWS and disturbances, in some minds, produce the effects of fermentation, leaving that which is wholesome, sound, and clear: in others, those of effervescence, resulting in flatness, vapidity, and inanition. THERE are some reasoners and preachers with such a showily adroit mode of managing their argu |