CXLIX.

SKETCHES FROM SHAKSPEARE.

'What! doth my Lord of Suffolk comfort me?
Came he right now to sing a raven's note,
Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers;
And thinks he, that the chirping of a wren,
By crying comfort from a hollow breast,
Can chase away the first conceived sound?
Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words.'
Henry VI. Second Part.

MEN in common life have not often an opportunity of acting in this manner. They have neither the policy nor the opportunity. The practice is chiefly reserved for the rich and the refined. Chesterfield, perhaps, was equal to its adoption; and Chatham to a contempt of it.

II.

"I think there's never a man in Christendom
Can lesser hide his love or hate than he;

For by his face, straight shall you know his heart.'

Richard III.

Men of this kind should never engage in intrigues, whether in war, in politics, or in illegitimate love. They are dangerous to their associates, compeers, and paramours.

To be known by our countenances, when honest, is a high advantage, when we have to deal with honest men; almost ruin, when we play at hazard with dishonest ones.

III.

- If our virtues

Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched,
But to fine issues; and nature never lends

The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use.'-Measure for Measure.

:

Certain if we have noble qualities, and use them not, as poor we are as misers. Can any one have noble qualities, and yet disdain to show them?

Can man ever be despised by noble men? Will he not, on the other hand, always be regarded by them as fitted for his sphere of action, and as an agent for the fulfilment of specific purposes in the economy of things?

Can lions disdain lions? Can eagles disdain eagles? Can boa-constrictors disdain boa-constrictors? Can men really be despised by men?

Little men look at man; great ones at men. Some take the circle of a village; some of a town; some of a city; some of a province; some of a kingdom; and some of the whole earth.

IV.

'This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands;

And though we lay these honours on him,
To ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads,
He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold;
To groan and sweat under the business,
Or led or driven as we point the way;

Then take we down his load, and turn him off

To graze on commons.'-Julius Cæsar.

A person of this kind,-if really of this kind,-almost deserves to be so treated: but vicious men,-espe

cially if they be courtiers or politicians,-make a practice of this by many of their inferior agents and associates. They would treat all men so, if they dared; that is, if it were their interest. All men, in their hands, being masters, dupes, tools, or martyrs.

CL.

WHO TURN THEIR HORSES' HEADS THE WRONG WAY.

'SHIPS are like my master's beard,' said a Turkish admiral to the Venetian, who had taken him with all his fleet at Lepanto; ships are like my master's 'beard; you may cut it off: but it will grow again. 'He has cut off from your government all the Morea, ' which is like a limb; and that you will never recover.'

This may be applied to those, who go the wrong way to work. Some, intending, as it were, to go from London to York, turn their horses' heads towards Canterbury. Napoleon accuses the Count d'Artois of acting after this manner, when he went to Lyons. When the 'count arrived there,' said he to Montholon,' he threw 'himself on his knees before the troops, in order to ' induce them to advance against me. He never put on 'the cordon of the legion of honour, though he knew 'that the sight of it would be most likely to excite the ' minds of the soldiers in his favour: as it was the 'order so many of them wore on their breasts, and required nothing but bravery to obtain but he

' decked himself out with the order of the Holy Ghost,

to be eligible for which, you must prove one hundred and fifty years of nobility; an order formed, pur

posely, to exclude merit; and one which excited indignation in the breasts of the old soldiers.'

To have adopted the cordon of the legion of honour would have excited various hostile associations; to wear the ensigns of the order of the Holy Ghost would have been still more injudicious :—what, then, could the unfortunate Count d'Artois have done? Wear neither!

CLI.

WHO SUCCEED IN PROJECTS DEEMED IMPOSSIBLE.

MANY men succeed in things for which they seem entirely unfit. They outlive dangers, too, to which they appear wholly inadequate. They survive,

To mock the expectations of the world;

To frustrate prophecies; and to raze out
Rotten opinions.'

They succeed in projects, also, which most men will not esteem possible, till they see them executed ;-a remark which gave life to Cardinal de Retz, when about to effect his very remarkable escape from his prison at Nantz.

II.

'Not one regards the method, how he gains,
But fixed his resolution, gain he must.'
Ben Jonson.

It was a favourite opinion of the Abbé de St. Pierre, that no person rises from a station of mediocrity to a splendid fortune by honourable means; and Roscoe justly remarks*, in allusion to the assassination of Alessandro de' Medici, that crime was never once necessary in the whole course of human affairs.

CLII.

WHO SINK INTO CONTEMPT AFTER THEY HAVE SUCCEeded.

No one can have peace while he thirsts for power and pleasure at the same time.

Men often shrink into contempt, when they have attained the full measure of their ambition. When Pulteney, for instance, crept into the House of Lords as an earl, he sunk into almost abject insignificance. The first William Pitt's fall was not so great; but though he, too, obtained an earldom, he had not set his mind exclusively upon it.

Mignet has a passage in regard to Danton, that awakens many useful reflections :-' He was formidable ' in his politics, when the question was to arrive at his end; but he became indifferent as soon as it was ' obtained.'

Men will, sometimes, attempt to increase their glory in an inverse ratio; but what wise man would attempt adding to his stature at the expense of his health? a question that reminds one of a passage in St. Augustine +.

CLIII.

WHO DO NOT ACT UP TO THEIR WISHES WHEN THEY CAN.

THE power of some to do what they wish, and who yet do not do what they desire, reminds me of the *Vol. i. 322.

Idonea verò causa ut magnum esset imperium cur esse 'deberet inquietum? nonne in corporibus hominum satius est 'modicam staturam cum sanitate habere, quam ad molem aliquam 'giganteam perpetuis afflictionibus pervenire.'