6.

How soon courage falls into the ditch,

which hath not the eye

7.

of wisdom.

How many head-achs a passionate life bringeth to! He whom passion rules, is bent to meet his death.

8.

Contentions for trifles can get but a trifling

victory.

Remark.

The trophy must be as contemptible as the cause of combat, and yet it may be bathed in blood; for a contentious spirit "hath disquieted many, and driven them from nation to nation; strong cities hath it pulled down; and overthrown the houses of great men. The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh, but the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones; whosoever hearkeneth unto it shall never find rest, and never dwell quietly." So saith the son of Sirach.

9.

Kindness is an unused guest to an arrogant

mind.

10.

The will of the violent man is his god, and his hand is his law.

:

Remark.

Many may obey such a man, but none can love him he is like Cain, who, by strength of passion, drives himself from the society of man; a creature whom beasts behold and tremble, and whom all men seek to avoid.

Great persons are wont to make the wrong they have done, to be a cause to do more wrong.

Remark.

The generality of men pass from anger to injury; but certainly there are a few who first injure and then become angry. This is an

ocious impudence. Not having the ingenuousness to acknowledge their error, they de-. termine to obliterate one injury by a greater; and thus confound and overwhelm what they have not the justice nor the courage to repair. He who has the self-denial to confess a fault, and the firmness to redress it, is more a moral hero than the self-devoted Regulus: universal fame is the sure attendant on the one, and almost general blame is the probable consequence of the other. There are few who know how to estimate the noble candour that prefers truth before public opinion.

12.

Cruelty in war buyeth conquest at the dearest price.

Remark.

For every drop of blood, whether of his own men or of his enemy, that a general sheds needlessly, he is answerable to his conscience and to man. Uncivilized and barbarous people deem all acquirement of territory, or any

other advantage, to be without honour, that is without a previous destruction of the rival party: but the true hero thinks that no laurels are so estimable as those which are grafted on the olive.

DUELLING.

SINCE bodily strength is but a servant to the mind, it were very barbarous and preposterous that force should be made judge over reason.

Remark.

Duelling is a custom derived from the ancient trial of combat; which rested on the same superstition that established and upheld the trial by ordeal. As neither of these institutions afforded any certain test of the innocence or guilt of the accused, the first is to be condemned, and the last abhorred by all

good men. But the trial by combat, unjust and absurd as it undoubtedly was, must be confessed to have been the perfection of equity and reason, when compared with the present system of duelling. The former was at least a test of personal valour, and was therefore conclusive in all cases of alleged cowardice.But the latter is no proof even of courage.There is great uncertainty in the pistol: many men, whom the dread of infamy and its inconveniences has enabled to stand the shots of their adversaries, without once attempting to retreat, would have shrunk from the stroke of a broad-sword, or the thrust of a single rapier. The dunghill-cock fights stoutly till he feels the spur. I maintain that the degree of hardihood displayed in duels of the present day, merits not the name of courage; that it is not the invincible courage of the ancient knight, which no despair of victory could depress, fatigue weaken, nor agony extinguish; that it is not the dauntless courage of the soldier, which animates its owner, fearlessly to rush amidst the bayonets and sabres of the enemy; nor yet the divine courage of the