tions and noble sentiments. To be good, liberal, beneficent, and generous; to value riches only for the sake of distributing them, places of honour for the service of our country, power and credit to be in a condition to suppress vice, and reward virtue; to be really good without seeking to appear so; to bear poverty nobly, to suffer injuries and affronts with patience, to stifle resentment, and to do every good office to an enemy when we have it in our power to be revenged of him; to prefer the public good to every thing, to sacrifice our wealth, repose, life, and fame, if necessary to it; these make a man truly great and estimable.

Take away probity from the most shining actions, the most valuable qualities, and what are they but objects of contempt? Are the drunkenness of Alexander, the murder of his best friends, his insatiable thirst of praise and flattery, and his vanity in desiring to pass for the son of Jupiter, [s] though he did not believe it himself; are these consistent with the character of a great prince. When we see Marius, and after him Sylla, shedding torrents of Roman blood for the establishment of their own power, what re gard can we pay their victories and triumphs?

On the other hand, when we hear the emperor Titus utter that celebrated expression [t] My friends, I have lost a day, because he had done good to nobody; [u] and another, upon being pressed to sign a warrant for execution, saying I wish I could not write; or the emperor Theodosius, after having set the prisoners at liberty on an Easter-day, Would to God I could also open the graves, and give life to the dead. When we see a young Scipio courageously surmounting a. passion, which subdues almost all mankind; and upon another occasion giving lectures of continence and wisdom to a young prince, who had swerved from

[] Omnes, inquit Alexander, jurant me Jovis esse filium; sed vulnus hoc hominem me esse clamat. Senec. Ep. 59.

VOL. II.

[1] Amici, diem perdidi. Suet in Vit. Tit. n. 8.

[u] Vellem nescire literas. Senec. 1. 2. de Clem.

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his duty; when we see a tribune of the people, a declared enemy of this Scipio's, loudly to take upon him his defence against the unjust accusers, who had conspired his destruction; [] and lastly, when we read in history any actions of liberality, generosity, disinterestedness, clemency, or forgetfulness of injuries, is it in our power to deny them our esteem and admiration, and do we not still find ourselves affected after so many ages with the bare recital of them?

Our history supplies us with abundance of beautiful expressions and actions of our kings, and many other great men, which shew us plainly wherein true Grandeur and solid Glory consist.

If sincerity and truth were banished the rest of the earth, [y] said John I. king of France, when solicited to break a treaty, they ought to be found in the heart and mouth of kings.

It belongs not, [] says Lewis XII. to a courtier, who pressed him to punish a person that offended him before he came to the throne, it belongs not to the king of France to revenge the injuries done to the duke of Orleans.

[a] Francis I. after the battle of Pavia, wrote a letter to the regent his mother in these few words, Madam, all is lost but our honour. This was to think and write like a king indeed, who in comparison of his honour makes light of every thing beside.

[b] And when shameful conditions were demanded of him for his liberty, he ordered the emperor's agent to let his master know, that he was resolved rather to spend all his days in prison, than dismember his dominions; and to add, that though he should be so base as to do it, he was sure his subjects would never consent to it.

[*] Quis est tam dissimilis homini, qui non moveatur & offensione turpitudinis, & comprobatione honestatis!. .. An obliviscamur quantopere in audiendo legendoque moveamur, cùm piè, cùm amicè, cùm magno animo aliquid factum

[c] Instead of bearing ill-will to Francis de Montelon, who was the only lawyer of his time that ventured to plead in favour of Charles de Bourbon against Francis I. and Louisa of Savoy his mother, he valued him the more for it, made him attorney-general, then president au Mortier, and at last keeper of the seals.

[d] As Henry IV. was reproached with the little power he had in Rochelle, I do, says he, in that town whatever I please, by doing only what I ought.

Our magistrates, upon several occasions, have given proof of what [e] Tully says in his offices, that there is a domestic and private courage of no less value than military valour. [f] Achilles de Harlai, premier president, being threatened by the seditious with an immediate capital punishment, (these are the authors terms) I have neither head nor life, says he, which I prefer to the love of God, the service of my king, and the good of my country. On the day of the barricade, he gave no other answer to the injurious threatnings of the authors of the league, than these commendable words; My soul is God's, my heart the king's, and my body in the hands of violent men to do with it what they please. [g] When Bussy le Clerc had the boldness to enter the grand-chamber, and read the list of those he said he had orders to arrest, and named the premier president and ten or twelve more, all the rest of the company rose up, and generousy followed them to the Bastile.

It is well known that the premier president Molé, in a popular insurrection, without any dread of losing his life, went and shewed himself to the populace, and put a stop to the mutiny by his single presence.

It is of him that cardinal de Retz writes thus in his memoirs, "If it were not a kind of blasphemy to say "there is one in our age more intrepid than the great "Gustavus, and M. le Prince, I would say it was the premier president Molé.”

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This resolution is the less astonishing in the magistrates of a parliament, whose peculiar character is an inviolable fidelity to their kings, and an invincible courage in the greatest dangers. But can we sufficiently admire the extraordinary generosity, which inspired the townsmen of Calais with love to their country, and a view to the public good! The town reduced by famine to the last extremity, offered to capitulate. The king of England, [h] provoked at their holding out so long, refused them quarter, except upon this sole condition: "That six of the principal townsmen, with their heads uncovered, their "feet bare, and halters about their necks, should "bring him the keys of the town and castle in their "hands; that upon these he would execute his plea; ' sure, and receive the rest to mercy.' When they

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had assembled the town, one of the chiefest townsmen, named Eustace de St. Pierre, began to speak; and he spoke with a courage and resolution, which would have done honour to the ancient Roman citizens in the days of the republic; he said, that he offered himself to be the first victim for the safety of the rest of the people, and that rather than see his fellow-countrymen perish by hunger and the sword, he would be one of the six that should be given up to the king of England's vengeance. Five others, encouraged by his discourse and example, offered themselves with him. They were conducted in the equipage prescribed, amidst the confused cries and lamentations of the people. The king of England was inclined to execute them; but the queen, touched with compassion, and breaking out into tears, threw herself at his majesty's feet, and obtained their pardon.

When the great Condé commanded the Spanish army in Flanders, and laid siege to one of our towns, a soldier being ill treated by a general officer and struck several times with a cane for some disrespect

ful words he had let fall, answered very coolly, that he should soon make him repent of it. Fifteen days after, the same general officer ordered the colonel of the trenches to find him out a bold and intrepid fellow in his regiment for a notable piece of work he wanted to be done, for which he promised a reward of a hundred pistoles. The soldier we are speaking of, who passed for the bravest of the regi ment, offered his service, and taking with him thirty of his comrades, of whom the choice was left to himself, discharged his commission, [i] which was a very hazardous one, with incredible courage and success. Upon his return, the general officer highly com mended him, and gave him the hundred pistoles he had promised. The soldier presently distributed them among his comrades, saying, he did not serve for pay, and demanded only that if his late action seemed to deserve any recompence, they would make him an officer. And, now Sir, adds he to the general officer, who did not know him, I am the soldier you so much abused fifteen days ago, and I told you, I would make you repent of it. The general officer in great admiration, and melting into tears, threw his arms around his neck, begged his pardon, and gave him a commission that very day. The great Condé took a pleasure in telling this story, as the bravest action in a soldier he had ever heard of. I had it from a person to whom M. le Prince, the great Condé's son, has often told it.

The same cannon-ball that killed M. Turenne, carried off an arm from M. St. Hilaire, lieutenant general of the artillery. His son breaking out into tears and lamentations, Hold your tongue, child, says he to him, and pointing to M. de Turenne, as he lay dead, there's a proper subject for your tears.

[i] The business was to know, before they made a lodgment, whether the enemy were undermining the glacis. The soldier, as soon as it was night, throwing himself into

the covered way, discharged his commission so well, that he brought off the hat and instruments of one of the miners whom he had killed in the mine.

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