179.

Constancy in love is a perpetual inconstancy, which causes the heart to attach itself successively to all the qualities of the person we love, giving the preference sometimes to one, sometimes to another; so that this constancy is nothing but an inconstancy, limited and confined to one object.

180.

There are two sorts of constancy in loveone arises from continually discovering in the

178. "Our sensibilities are so acute,

The fear of being silent makes us mute."

COWPER, Conversation.

179. There appears to be an instance of this kind of inconstancy in SHAKSPEARE'S Winter's Tale, Act iv. Scene 3:

"What you do

Still betters what is done.

When you speak, sweet,

I'd have you do it ever;

when you sing

I'd have you buy and sell so; so give alms;
Pray so; and for the ordering your affairs,

To sing them too.

A wave of the sea,

Nothing but that;

When you do dance, I wish you that you might ever do

move still, still so, and own

No other function: each your doing,

So singular in each particular,

Crowns what you're doing in the present deeds,

That all your acts are queens.'

loved person new subjects for love, the other arises from our making a merit of being con

stant.

181.

There are very few people who, when their love is over, are not ashamed of having been in love.

182.

We can love nothing except with reference to ourselves; and we are merely following our own taste and pleasure when we prefer our friends to ourselves. It is, nevertheless, by this preference alone that friendship can be true and perfect.

183.

The first movement of joy which we experience at the good fortune of our friends does not always arise from the goodness of our nature, nor from the friendship we have for them. It is more often the result of self-love which flatters us with the hope of being fortunate in our turn, or of deriving some advantage from their good fortune.

184.

Men would not live long in society if they were not the dupes of each other.

185.

Perseverance deserves neither blame nor praise, inasmuch as it is merely the duration of tastes and opinions, which we can neither give nor take away from ourselves.

186.

We sometimes make frivolous complaints of our friends to justify beforehand our own fickle

ness.

187.

Our repentance is not so much regret for the evil we have done, as fear of its consequences to us.

186. It is difficult to render in English the exact point of this maxim, from there being in the original an untranslateable play on the words "légèrement" and "légèreté."

187.

"You do repent

As that the sin hath brought you to this shame,

Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not heaven,
Showing, we'd not spare heaven as we love it,
But as we stand in fear."

Measure for Measure, Act ii. Scene 3.

So Cassio, on recovering from his drunken fit, is not so much concerned for his fault as distressed at his loss of reputation :-" Reputation, reputation, reputation. Oh! I

188.

There is a kind of inconstancy which arises from levity of mind, or from its weakness causing it to receive all the opinions of others. There is another kind, more excusable, which comes from satiety.

189.

What makes us like new acquaintances is not so much any weariness of our old ones, or the pleasure of change, as disgust at not being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well, and the hope of being more so by those who do not know so much of us.

190.

The vices enter into the composition of the virtues, as poisons into that of medicines. Pru

have lost my reputation. I have lost the immortal part, sir, of myself, and what remains is bestial."—Othello, Act ii. Scene 3.

"We are all

A modern authoress has gone still deeper: liable to this error, of imagining that we are grieved at a fault, when we are only grieved at having done something to lower ourselves in our own estimation.”—Margaret Percival, vol. ii. chap. 33.

190. As our bodies are compounded of different elements, so are our minds of various passions. And as the

dence collects and arranges them, and uses them beneficially against the ills of life.

191.

For the credit of virtue it must be admitted that the greatest evils which befall mankind are caused by their crimes.

192.

There are some crimes which become innocent, and even glorious, by their renown, their number, and their excess. Hence it is that public robberies become proofs of talent, and seizing whole provinces unjustly is called making conquests.

193.

We confess our faults, to make amends by

blending of the former creates the union of body, so is all virtue produced by the balancing or commixing of the several affections and propensities of the soul. As our bodies are formed of clay, so are even our virtues made up of meanness or vice. Add vain-glory to avarice and it rises to ambition. Lust inspires the lover, and selfish wants the friend. Prudence arises from fear, and courage arises from madness or from pride."-STERNE, Koran.

192. "Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."TACITUS, Agricola, c. 30.