DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT.

THE maxims of this noble author are in the hands of every one. To those who choose to derive every motive and every action from the solitary principle of self-love, they are inestimable. They form one continued satire on human nature; but they are not reconcileable to the feelings of the man of more generous dispositions, or who passes through life with the firm integrity of virtue. Even at court we find a Sully, a Malesherbes and a Clarendon, as well as a Rochefoucault and a Chesterfield.

The Duke de la Rochefoucault, says Segrais, had not studied; but he was endowed with a wonderful degree of discernment, and knew the world perfectly well. This afforded him opportunities of making reflections, and reducing into maxims those discoveries which he had made in the heart of man, of which he displayed an admirable knowledge.

It is perhaps worthy of observation that this celebrated French duke, according to Olivet in his History of the French Academy, could never summon resolution, at his election, to address the academy. Although chosen a member, he never entered; for such was his timidity, that he could

not face an audience and pronounce the usual compliment on his introduction; he whose courage, whose birth, and whose genius, were alike distinguished. The fact is, that it appears by Mad. De Sevigné, that Rochefoucault lived a close domestic life; and that there must be at least as much theoretical as practical knowledge in the opinions of such a retired philosopher.

Chesterfield, our English Rochefoucault, we are also informed, possessed an admirable knowledge of the heart of man; and he too has drawn a similar picture of human nature! These are two noble authors whose chief studies seem to have been made in courts. May it not be possible, allowing these authors not to have written a sentence of apocrypha, that the fault lies not so much in human nature as in the satellites of Power?

PRIOR'S HANS CARVEL.

WERE we to investigate the genealogy of our best modern stories, we should often discover the illegitimacy of our favourites; we should indeed trace them frequently to the East. My well-read friend Mr. Douce, has collected materials for such a work; but his modesty has too long prevented him from receiving the gratitude of the curious in literature.

This writer possessed delicacy and wit, and has written well, but with great inequality. His poetry is insipid, and his prose abounds with points; the antithesis was his favourite figure, and its prodigality fatigues. The comparisons he forms between some of the illustrious ancients will interest from their ingenuity.

In his day it was a literary fashion for writers to give their own portraits; a fashion that seems to have passed over into our country, for Farquhar has drawn his own character in a letter to a lady. Others of our writers have given these self-miniatures. Such painters are, no doubt, great flatterers, and it is rather their ingenuity, than their truth, which we admire in these cabinetpictures.

"I am a philosopher, as far removed from superstition as from impiety; a voluptuary, who has not less abhorrence of debauchery than inclination for pleasure; a man, who has never known want, or abundance. I occupy that station of life which is contemned by those who possess every thing; envied by those who have nothing, and only relished by those who make their felicity consist in the exercise of their reason. Young, I hated dissipation; convinced that a man must possess wealth to provide for the comforts of a long life. Old, I disliked economy; as I believe that

we need not greatly dread want, when we have but a short time to be miserable. I am satisfied with what nature has done for me, nor do I repine at fortune. I do not seek in men what they have of evil, that I may censure; I only discover what they have ridiculous, that I may be amused. I feel a pleasure in detecting their follies; I should feel a greater in communicating my discoveries did not my prudence restrain me. Life is too short, according to my ideas, to read all kinds of books, and to load our memories with an endless number of things at the cost of our judgment. I do not attach myself to the observations of scientific men to acquire science; but to the most rational, that I may strengthen my reason. Sometimes, I seek for more delicate minds, that my taste may imbibe their delicacy; sometimes, for the gayer, that I may enrich my genius with their gaiety; and, although I constantly read, I make it less my occupation than my pleasure. In religion, and in friendship, I have only to paint myself such as I am-in friendship more tender than a philosopher; and in religion, as constant and as sincere as a youth who has more simplicity than experience. My piety is composed more of justice and charity than of penitence. I rest my confidence on God, and hope every thing from his benevolence. In the bosom of providence I find my repose, and my felicity."

MEN OF GENIUS DEFICIENT IN CON

VERSATION.

THE student who may, perhaps, shine a luminary of learning and of genius, in the pages of his volume, is found, not rarely, to lie obscured beneath a heavy cloud in colloquial discourse.

If you love the man of letters, seek him in the privacies of his study. It is in the hour of confidence and tranquillity his genius shall elicit a ray of intelligence, more fervid than the labours of polished composition.

The great Peter Corneille, whose genius resembled that of our Shakspeare, and who has so forcibly expressed the sublime sentiments of the hero, had nothing in his exterior that indicated his genius; on the contrary, his conversation was so insipid that it never failed of wearying. Nature, who had lavished on him the gifts of genius, had forgotten to blend with them her more ordinary ones. He did not even speak correctly that language of which he was such a master.

When his friends represented to him how much more he might please by not disdaining to correct these trivial errors, he would smile, and say-“ I am not the less Peter Corneille!" Descartes, whose habits were formed in solitude and meditation, was silent in mixed company; and Thomas describes