few people; and that which we generally see is nothing but a subtle dissimulation to attract the confidence of others.

The pleasure of love is in loving. We are happier in the passion we feel than in that we excite.

It is more disgraceful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them.

Politeness of mind consists in the conception of honorable and delicate thoughts.

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

Avarice is more opposed to economy than liberality is. Hope, deceitful as she is, serves at least to conduct us through life by an agreeable path.

It is better to employ our minds in supporting the misfortunes which actually happen, than in anticipating those which may happen to us.

He who thinks he can find in himself the means of doing without others is much mistaken; but he who thinks that others cannot do without him is still more mistaken.

A truly virtuous man is he who prides himself upon nothing.

Hypocrisy is the homage which vice renders to virtue. Nothing is so contagious as example; and we never do any great good or evil which does not produce its like. Flattery is a false coin, which only derives its currency from our vanity.

Magnanimity is well enough defined by its name; nevertheless, we may say that it is the good sense of pride, and the most noble way of earning praise.

In jealousy there is more self love than love.
Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.

Little minds are too much hurt by little things. Great minds perceive them all, and are not touched by them.

Humility is the true proof of Christian virtues; without it we retain all our faults, and they are only hidden by pride, which conceals them from others, and often from ourselves.

We should often be ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.

We have few faults which are not more excusable than the means we take to conceal them.

The truest mark of being born with great qualities is being born without envy.

We should not judge of a man's merit by his good qualities, but by the use he can make of them.

Quarrels would not last long, if the fault was only on one side.

When we cannot find contentment in ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

LORD HALIFAX

(A. D. 1630–1695.)

Or George Savile, first Marquis of Halifax, who held a distinguished place among the wiser and better Englishmen of the age of the Restoration and the Revolution, Macaulay has written in his "History of England:" "Among the statesmen of those times Halifax was, in genius, the first. His intellect was fertile, subtle, and capacious. His polished, luminous, and animated eloquence, set off by the silver tones of his voice, was the delight of the House of Lords. His conversation overflowed with thought, fancy, and wit. His political tracts well deserved to be studied for their literary merit, and fully entitled him to a place among English classics. He always saw passing events, not in the point of view in which they commonly appear to one who bears a part in them, but in the point of view in which, after the lapse of many years, they appear to the philosophic historian. His understanding was keen, skeptical, inexhaustibly fertile in distinctions and objections; his taste refined; his sense of the ludicrous exquisite; his temper placid and forgiving, but fastidious, and by no means prone either to malevolence or to enthusiastic admiration."

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Recently, for the first time, the writings of Lord Halifax have been published in a collected form, edited with ability by Miss H. C. Foxcroft, who had written previously, in the "English Historical Review," of the need of an edition that would make them better known. In the article referred to, she describes the "Moral and Miscellaneous Maxims " as being "sagacious and brilliant, shrewd, incisive, forcible, flavoured with a cynicism which is never after all very bitter, and as embodying the comments of "a keen and not unkindly observer, whose experience had been scarcely calculated to induce a very exalted opinion of average human nature.' Of the "Advice to a Daughter," from which some passages

are quoted, she wrote: "Addison mentions it among the contents of Leonora's library, and we suspect that, till the close of the eighteenth century, it was the most popular manual for the benefit of young girls. It is certainly the most entertaining, since its pages are as remarkable for their wit and vivacity as for their strong good sense. His admonitions, though addressed to the sex in whose education external graces have ever played so prominent and so natural a part, show hardly a trace of the foppery intellectual, social, and moral to which the virile understanding of Lord Chesterfield so often stooped. Nor can they be reproached with the laxity which has been made a charge against the celebrated Letters.' Lord Halifax had lived upon terms of intimacy with the most respected women of his time with Catharine of Braganza, with Rachel, Lady Russell, with ́ Sacharissa,' Lady Sunderland and his standard of womanly decorum was high to the verge of prudery."

SELECTIONS FROM LORD HALIFAX'S "MORAL
THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS."

(From "Life and Works of Sir George Savile, Bart., First Marquis of Halifax," by H. C. Foxcroft.)

Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought; it is only a virtue where men have it whether they will

or no.

An honest man must lose so many occasions of getting, that the world will hardly allow him the character of an able one.

There is, however, more wit requisite to be an honest man than there is to be a knave.

There is no such thing as a venial sin against morality, no such thing as a small knavery; he that carries a small crime easily, will carry it on when it grows to be an

Ox.

Mistaken kindness is little less dangerous than premeditated malice.

There is so much danger in talking, that a man strictly wise can hardly be called a sociable creature.

Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is very good company by the way. . . .

There can be no entire disappointment to a wise man, because he maketh it a cause of succeeding another time.

Where ill-nature is not predominant, anger will be short-breathed; it cannot hold out a long course. . . .

There is a dignity in good sense that is offended and defaced by anger.

The defending an ill thing is more criminal than the doing it, because it wanteth the excuse of its not being premeditated.

There is hardly any man so strict as not to vary a little from truth when he is to make an excuse.

Not telling all the truth is hiding it, and that is comforting or abetting a lie.

Malice is a greater magnifying glass than kindness. Anger may have some excuse for being blind, but malice none; for malice hath time to look before it.

Malice may be sometimes out of breath, envy never.

A man may make peace with hatred, but never with envy.

If men considered how many things there are that riches cannot buy, they would not be so fond of them. The things to be bought with money are such as least deserve the giving a price for them.

Great reading, without applying it, is like corn heaped that is not stirred; it groweth musty.

There must be a nice diet observed to keep friendship from falling sick; nay, there is more skill necessary to keep a friend than there is to reclaim an enemy.

Wise venturing is the most commendable part of human prudence. It is the upper story of prudence, whereas