"Horace, s'il voulait émettre une idée, en était choqué, et il l'était lui-même du plagiat manifeste, car, cette idée n'était point à lui, elle était à tout le monde. Pour y mettre son cachet, il eût fallu qu'il la portât dans sa conscience, et dans son cœur, assez profondement, et assez long temps, pour qu'elle y subit une modification particulière : car aucune intelligence n'est identique à une autre intelligence, et les mêmes causes ne produisent jamais les mêmes effets dans l'une et dans l'autre. Aussi plusieurs maîtres, peuvent ils s'essayer simultanément à rendre un même fait, ou un même sentiment, à traiter un même sujet sans le moindre danger de se rencontrer. Mais pour qui n'a point subi cette cause, pour qui n'a pas vu ce fait, ni épreuvé ce sentiment par lui-même, l'individualité, l'originalité sont impossibles.”*

I should not have gone to the French, if I could have found the same thought rendered by any English writer, with equal fluency and faithfulness.

Whatever other and worthier authors have said in connection with the subjects referred to *Sand. Horace.

in the present volume, I have given both compendiously and sincerely, to the extent of my knowledge. I cannot forget their words; I will not steal their thoughts; and I do not see why I should suppress either the one or the other. Their remarks may, at any rate, be worthy of notice, if mine are not; so that the reader need not be altogether disappointed, since he will have some of the best words of the best writers, on subjects either of present or perpetual interest; whilst my recollection of what such authors have said enables me to make a pretty fair estimate of the originality of that portion of the work which is evidently presented as my own. Any person of moderate discernment can see the difference between that which is merely illustrated or supported by the thoughts of others, and that which is purely fabricated out of them, when those thoughts are fairly and candidly set before the reader, together with the writer's own.

A great many people are disposed to deny that anything new can be said respecting the character of man; they see, or think they see, all Shakespeare, in Solomon. Perhaps, indeed,

a man of very quick eye, and ingenious reason, might show, in some way or other, how all the former is essentially included in the latter; but it is precisely such a man who would be the most likely to feel the profoundest admiration for the ingenuity of Shakespeare's deductions. Most of those, however, who are in the habit of saying that nothing has been written since, on human character, which was not before written in the "Proverbs," say so rather from confusion than from accuracy or clearness of thought, or from what is by no means uncommon in England,

-a most thorough, though not openly confessed, impatience to examine carefully any truth which is presented in an abstract form.

If, however, there is nothing of the kind referred to above, "new, under the sun," at any rate there are some things far more trite than others; and if a man cannot by any possibility search all the records of human thought, to discover that no one has preceded him in his idea, he can, at least, by a moderate share of reading, avoid repeating that which tens, or perhaps hundreds, have said before him, and he must be content with the hope of comparative

novelty. There are two points, however, on which he may be more sure; the newness of his metaphors, and the comparative freshness of his citations, because the sources of these need not, and, indeed, cannot be sought for indefinitely, up all time, as those of some of his moral maxims may.

There are now so many writers, so many calls on the attention of the public, that it becomes almost a duty for a man who professes to add nothing of the artist to the author, to say as briefly as may be, what he has to say. There has been, in the case of the present work, a desire to avoid verbiage, even to the degree of hazarding the charge of abruptness. The latter fault, if it exists, it is hoped will be pardoned by the reader, because the writer has wished to offer him what he believes to be some of his best thoughts in a form as direct as possible, and certain conclusions, with a few of the best, not all the conceivable reasons for them.

It would have been no difficult matter to work up the present materials into something more regular, as lectures, essays, or dialogues; but those to whom the substance appears to be

of intrinsic value, small as it may be, will, I

hope, not grudge my having saved myself this slight labour. With abruptness there is generally, at any rate, plain speaking. The reader, too, can quit me at any moment; at least the longest call made upon his patience, on any one subject, will not exceed five or ten minutes at the utmost.

Notes and remarks will often be found separate, which, I am aware, might well have been put in connection; but this, though unintentional in the first instance, may not be without its use, for the thoughts of readers are sometimes as much, nay even more, won to a subject by having it recalled to them at intervals, in various aspects, than by attempting to keep it before their eyes for a long time together.

As for the sentiments, I profess to write, as Boileau says, "En ami de vertu, plutôt que vertueux." I hope, however, they will be found. to be what I profess them to be, actuated by a fearless love of fairness and justice, without any real severity, except in the words of Dryden:

In censuring those who censure all besides.