always glad to see in the public service; but, giving a smile which was hardly respectful, "Confide in you? Oh, no! you must pardon me, gentlemen. Youth is the season of credulity: confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom!" "True friendship," says Washington, "is a plant of slow growth." Social Maxims. "I see before me," said Disraeli, in a speech at the Mansion House, Nov. 9, 1867, "the statue of a celebrated minister, who said that confidence was a plant of slow growth. But I believe, however gradual may be the growth of confidence, that of credit requires still more time to arrive at maturity."

--

Much of Chatham's finest oratory was employed against the treatment of the American colonies by the ministry; but, as Brougham says, our idea of it rests upon a few scattered fragments. In opposing the Stamp Act, he said, "America, if she fall, will fall like the strong man: she will embrace the pillars of the state, and pull down the constitution along with her."

In allusion to a quotation of precedents, he protested: "I come not here armed at all points with law-cases and Acts of Parliament, with the statute-books doubled down in dog's-ears, to defend the cause of liberty."

In 1777 he made the ringing declaration, while speaking of the employment of German mercenaries: "If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never! never!

never!"

Equally famous is the figure he employed when opposing the use of Indians in the war, 1777: “I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country."

In the same year he contemptuously answered the ministerial boast of driving the Americans before the British army: "I might as well think of driving them before me with this crutch!"

Of the impulse to speak, which overcame his self-command, he once said to Lord Shelburne, "I must sit down; for when I am up, every thing that is in my mind comes out."

Other sayings of Chatham's are: "Politeness is benevolence in trifles." "Butler's Analogy' raises more doubts than it solves."

Burke, in a speech on the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, March 2, 1790, quoted a remark of Chatham's: "We have a Calvinistic creed, a Popish liturgy, and an Arminian clergy.”

ANDRÉ CHÉNIER.

[A French poet; born in Constantinople, October, 1762; secretary of legation to England, 1787; committed to prison as a Girondist, after pursuing a moderate course in the Revolution; and executed, July, 1794, two days before the fall of Robespierre.]

I have done nothing for posterity; nevertheless [striking his forehead], there was something there! (Je n'ai rien fait pour la postérité; pourtant j'avais quelque chose là !)

Fournier hesitates at setting aside the touching story of Chénier and his friend Roucher reciting in the fatal cart the first scene of "Andromaque," between Orestes and Pylades; and the despairing exclamation of the author of the "Jeune Captive," that he had done nothing for posterity. "I confess that I doubt," says the author of "L'Esprit dans l'Histoire,” “while I regret my doubts." He adds, that the narrative of a romancier, Hyacinthe de Latouche, is drawn from contemporaneous accounts of suspicious authenticity, and names Alfred de Vigny as contributing, in his "Stello," to fasten the romance upon history. Professor Caro, however, dismisses the scene as "a pure invention," and traces the famous mot of the poet to the notes of a poem by Loizerolles, on the death of his father, who shared Chénier's prison.-Études et Portraits, chap. xi. This same Loizerolles attributes to Chénier what history has assigned to his companion in prison, Trudaine, who was said to have drawn on the wall of his cell a tree, from which a branch had fallen, and above it the words, either in Latin, “Fructus matura tulissem,” as. asserted by the Marquis de Saint-Aulaire, in the "Lettres inédites. de Mme. du Deffand," I. 103, note; or in French, "J'aurais porté des fruits" (I should have borne some fruit.)

If, however, doubt is to be thrown on all that Loizerolles and Latouche have written on this subject, the following exclamation of Chénier to Roucher must share the same fate: "It is so beautiful to die young!" (Il est si beau de mourir jeune !).

LORD CHESTERFIELD.

[Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, courtier, orator, and wit, called by Sainte-Beuve "the La Rochefoucauld of England;" born in London, September, 1694; educated at Cambridge; entered Parliament, 1715, where his speeches were greatly admired; passed to the House of Lords, 1726; ambassador to Holland, 1728; Lord lieutenant of Ireland, 1745; principal secretary of state for two years from 1746; was intimate with Pope, Swift, and the other wits of the day; his "Letters to His Son" were published in 1774, the year after his death.]

Will your majesty command the insertion of the usual formula: "To our trusty and well-beloved cousin" "?

The question with which Chesterfield received the angry exclamation of George II., when the name of a person he disliked was suggested for an appointment: "I would rather have the Devil!" Laughing at the turn his minister gave to it, the king replied, "My lord, do as you please."

When asked how he got through so much work, he replied, "Because I never put off until to-morrow what I can do to-day." Dewitt, pensionary of Holland, answered the same question: "Nothing is more easy: never do but one thing at a time, and never put off until to-morrow what can be done to-day."

Being asked, when lord lieutenant, whom he thought the greatest man in Ireland, he replied, "The last man who arrived from England, be he who he might."

When walking in the street one day, Chesterfield was pushed off the flags by an impudent fellow, who said to him, "I never give the wall to a scoundrel." The great master of courtesy immediately took off his hat, and, making him a low bow, replied, "Sir, I always do." This has also been told of John Randolph of Roanoke, in an encounter with the editor of "The Richmond Whig."

Next to doing things that deserve to be written, there is nothing that gets a man more credit, or gives him more pleasure, than to write things that deserve to be read.

Letters to his Son, 1739.

If you can engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition, (or whatever is their prevailing passion), on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.

Letters to his Son, Feb. 8, 1746.

"Every man," says Seneca, "has his weak side.".

"The ruling passion, be it what it will,

The ruling passion conquers reason still."

POPE: Moral Essays, III. 153.

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

Ibid., March 10, 1746.

The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in the closet.

Ibid., Oct. 4, 1746.

You must look into people, as well as at them.

Ibid.

In this world the understanding is the voiture which must carry you through.

Ibid., Oct. 9, 1746.

Another form of Bacon's "Knowledge is power."

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

Ibid.

I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.

Ibid.

He quotes William Lowndes, secretary of the treasury under William and Mary, Anne, and George I., as saying, "Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves."

Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

Ibid., March 6, 1747.

Every man seeks for truth: God only knows who has found it.

Letters to his Son, July 30, 1747.

Human nature is the same all over the world, but its operations are so varied by education and habit that one must see it in all its dresses in order to be entirely acquainted with it.

Ibid., Oct. 2, 1747.

Again he writes, Feb. 7, 1749: "Modes and customs vary often, but human nature is always the same."

Merit and good-breeding will make their way everywhere.

Ibid., Oct. 9, 1747.

Endeavor as much as you can to keep company with people above you.

Ibid.

Genealogies are no trifles in Germany, where they care more for two and thirty quarters than for two and thirty cardinal virtues.

Ibid., Nov. 6, 1747.

It [the value of time] is in everybody's mouth, but in few people's practice.

Ibid., Dec. 11, 1747.

If we do not plant it [knowledge] when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.

Ibid.

Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.

Ibid., Jan. 21, 1748.

He also wrote, May 15, 1749: "Nine times in ten, the heart governs the understanding." Mazarin used to say, "The heart is every thing" (Quand on a le cœur, on a tout). It was the secret of his power over Anne of Austria.