MEMORY.

To remember and to recollect are different things. A man has not the power to recollect what is not in his mind; but when a thing is in his mind, he may remember it.

THE ELEMENTS OF CONVERSATION.

There must, in the first place, be knowledge, there must be materials; in the second place there must be a command of words; in the third place, there must be imagination, to place things in such views as they are not commonly seen in; and in the fourth place, there must be presence of mind, and a resolution that it is not to be overcome by failures. This last is an essential requisite ; for want of it many people do not excel in conversation.

FOX AND BURKE.

Fox never talks in private company, not from any determination not to talk, but because he has not the first motion. A man who is used to the applause of the House of Commons has no wish for that of a private company. A man

accustomed to throw for a thousand pounds, if sat down to throw for sixpence, would not be at the pains to count his dice. Burke's talk is the ebullition of his mind; he does not talk from a desire of distinction, but because his mind is full.

ORATORY.

Oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments, and putting better in their place.

THE JUSTICE OF THE WORLD.

All the complaints which are made of the world are unjust. I never knew a man of merit neglected: it was generally by his own fault that he failed of success. A man may hide his head in a hole: he may go into the country, and publish a book now and then, which nobody reads, and then complain he is neglected. There is no reason why any person should exert himself for a man who has written a good book: he has not written it for any individual. I may as well make a present to a postman who brings me a letter. When patronage was limited, an

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to seize what is another's; has no struggle with himself about it.

THEOCRITUS AND VIRGIL.

Theocritus is not deserving of very high respect as a writer; as to the pastoral párt, Virgil is very evidently superior. He wrote when there had been a larger influx of knowledge into the world than when Theocritus lived. Theocritus does not abound in description, though living in a beautiful country: the manners painted are coarse and gross. Virgil has much more description, more sentiment, more of nature, and more of art. Some of the most excellent parts of Theocritus are, where Castor and Pollux, going with the other Argonauts, land on the Bebrycian coast, and there fall into a dispute with Amycus, the king of that country, which is as well conducted as Euripides could have done it, and the battle is well related. Afterwards they carry off a woman, whose two brothers come to recover her, and expostulate with Castor and Pollux on their injustice; but they pay no regard to the brothers, and a battle ensues, where

Castor and his brother are triumphant. Theocritus seems not to have seen that the brothers have the advantage in their argument over his Argonaut heroes. "The Sicilian Gossips" is a piece of merit.

PURE HUMANITY.

He who has long had constantly in his view the worst of mankind, and is yet eminent for the humanity of his disposition, must have had it originally in a great degree, and continued to cultivate it very carefully.

THE EFFECTS OF DRINKING.

Drinking may be practised with great prudence. A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated has not the art of getting drunk; a sober man, who happens occasionally to get drunk, readily enough goes into a new company, which a man who has been drinking should never do. Such a man will undertake anything; he is without skill in inebriation. I used to slink home when I had drunk too much. A man accustomed to self-examination will be conscious when he is drunk, though an habitual