theatrical virtues, but that of our insufficiency; and instead of the arrogant maxims of philosophy, she demands of us only calmness, peace, and filial confidence. p. 336.

Descartes lays this down as the basis of the first natural truths, “I think, therefore, I exist." But I substitute in place of the argument of Descartes, that which follows, as it appears to me both more simple and more general, "I feel, therefore, I exist."

There are two powers in man, the one animal, the other divine. The first is incessantly giving him the sentiment of his wretchedness; the second, constantly awakening in him that of his own excellence: and from their conflicts are produced the varieties and contradictions of human life.

p. 350.

Dangers external and distant increase internal happiness and security.

p. 351.

Do good in this life, which is passing away with the rapidity of a torrent. Do good, not out of ostentation, and by the

hands of a stranger; but for the sake of Heaven, and with your own hand.

p. 358.

You always hear topers celebrating, in their songs, Bacchus, Mars, &c. It is further very remarkable, that men do not abandon themselves to blasphemy till they arrive at a state of intoxication; for it is an instinct as usual to the soul, to cleave to the Deity, when it is in its natural state, as to abjure him when it is corrupted by vice.

p. 361. Tobacco increases, in some measure, the powers of the understanding, by producing a species of intoxication in the nerves of the brain. Lery tells us, that the Brazilians smoke tobacco till it makes them drunk. It is to be observed, that those nations have found out the most cephalic plant of the whole vegetable kingdom, and that the use of it is the most universally diffused of all those which exist on the globe, the vine and the corn plants not excepted. I have seen it cultivated in Finland, beyond Viburg, in about the sixty-first degree of north latitude.

The habit of using it becomes so powerful, that a person who has acquired it, will rather forego bread, for a day, than his tobacco. This plant is nevertheless a real poison; it affects, at length, the olfactory nerves, and sometimes the sight. But man is ever disposed to impair his physical constitution, provided he can strengthen in himself the intellectual sentiment. p. 362.

Distance increases reverence.

p. 384.

Savages are fonder of their country than polished nations are; and those who inhabit regions rough and wild, such as mountaineers, than those who live in fertile countries and fine climates. Never could the court of Russia prevail upon a single Samoïède to leave the shores of the Frozen Ocean, and settle at Petersburg. Some Greenlanders were brought, in the course of the last century, to the court of Copenhagen, where they were entertained with a profusion of kindness, but soon fretted themselves to death. Several of them were drowned, in

attempting to return to their country in an open boat. They beheld all the magnificence of the court of Denmark, with extreme indifference; but there was one in particular, whom they observed to weep every time he saw a woman with a child in her arms; hence they conjectured that this unhappy-man was a father. The gentleness of domestic education, undoubtedly thus powerfully attaches those poor people to the place of their birth. p. 384.

In bad weather, the sentiment of my human misery is tranquillized, by my seeing it rain, while I am under cover; by my hearing the wind blow violently, while I am comfortably in bed. I, in this case, enjoy a negative felicity. In order to the enjoyment of bad weather, our soul must be travelling abroad, and the body at rest.

p. 394.

Though there be no difference between the dust of Nero and that of Socrates, no one would grant a place in his grove to the re

mains of the Roman emperor, were they deposited even in a silver urn; whereas every one would exhibit those of the philosopher, in the most honourable place of his best apartment, were they contained in only a vase of clay.

The attractions of love arise entirely out of the appearances of virtue. p. 404.

Our artists set statutes of marble a weeping round the tombs of the great. It is very proper to make statues weep, where men shed no tears; I have been many a time present at the funeral obsequies of the rich; but rarely have I seen any one shedding a tear on such occasions, unless it were, now and then an aged domestic, who was, perhaps left destitute.

Sometime ago, happening to pass through a little frequented street of the Fauxbourg Marceau, 1 perceived a coffin at the door of a house of but mean appearance. Close by the coffin was a woman on her knees, in earnest prayer to God, and who had all the appearance of being absorbed in grief