the great, and thus achieve an imaginary superiority. "Since we cannot attain grandeur," says Montaigne, “let us take our revenge by abusing it." The envy that grudges the successes for which it would want the courage to contend, was well rebuked by the French Marshal Lefèvre. One of his friends, expressing the most unbounded admiration of his magnificent hotel, and exquisite cuisine, exclaimed, at the end of every phrase, “How fortunate you are!"—"I see you envy me," said the marshal; "but come, you shall have all that I possess at a much cheaper rate than I myself paid for it; step down with me into the court-yard, you shall let me fire twenty musket shots at you, at the distance of thirty paces, and if I fail to bring you down, all that I have is yours. What! you refuse!" said the marshal, seeing that his friend demurred. "Know, that before I reached my present eminence, I was obliged to stand more than a thousand musket shots, and sacre! those who pulled the triggers were nothing like thirty paces from me." EPICURE-An epicure has no sinecure; he is unmade, and eventually dished by made dishes. Champagne falsifies its name, when once it begins to affect his system; his stomach is so deranged in its punctuation, that his colon makes a point of coming to a full stop; keeping it up late, ends in his being laid down early; and the bon vivant who has been always hunting pleasure, finds at last, that he has been only whipping and spurring, that he might be the sooner in at his own death! EPITAPHS—Mortuary lies. Giving a good character to parties on their going into a new place, who sometimes had a very bad character in the place they have just left. For the de mortuis nil nisi bonum, it would be an improvement to substitute nil nisi verum; since the fear of posthumous disrepute would be an additional incentive to living good conduct. No man could pass through a truth-telling church-yard, without feeling the full value of character. What can more impressively stamp the evanescence of man and all his works, than an epitaph on a whole nation, which shall afford nearly the sole evidence of its ever having existed? Such are the cinerary urns of the Etruscans, of whose history we have little other record than their tombs, and of whose literature few other remains than their alphabet. A whole empire stat nominis umbra! The signs have survived the ideas of which they were the symbols: the chisel has outlasted the statue. Volterra, and other great Etruscan cemeteries, may be termed the skeletons of their cities. Few more appropriate epitaphs than the common Latin one of "Sum quod eris, fui quod sis"—"I am what thou shalt be, I was what thou art." Beloe, in his anecdotes, gives a good punning epitaph on William Lawes, the musical composer, who was killed by the Roundheads. "Concord is conquer'd! In this urn there lies The master of great Music's mysteries; And in it is a riddle, like the cause, Will Lawes was slain by men whose Wills were Laws." More witty than decorous was the epitaph composed in the reign of Henry III., for a Sir John Calfe, who died young, "O Deus omnipotens, Vituli miserere Joannis, Sir Christopher Wren's inscription in St. Paul's Church— "Si monumentum quæris, circumspice "—would be equally applicable to a physician, buried in a churchyard; both being interred in the midst of their own works. In the epitaph of Cardinal Onuphrio at Rome, there breathes a solemn, almost a bitter conviction of the vanity of earthly grandeur-“Hic jacet umbra, cinis-nihil”—“ Here lies a shadow, ashes-nothing." There is a great tenderness and beauty in the two lines found upon an ancient Roman tomb, supposed to be addressed by a young wife to her surviving husband: "Immaturi perî, sed tu, felicior, annos But a still more simple and affecting epitaph is the following, translated verbatim from a tomb at Montmartre, near Paris" To the memory of M. Jobart, a most excellent husband and father. His inconsolable widow still continues to carry on the grocery business in the Rue St. Denis, No. 242, near the Café Chinois." EQUAL-That which a man of talent will seldom find among his superiors. As the winds and waters, abrasion and gravitation, are perpetually tending towards a physical equalization, by lowering mountains and filling up valleys; so, in the moral world, does the progress of social improvement gradually tend to equalize all ranks, by reducing the higher, and elevating the lower-a levelling process, equally conducive to the happiness and melioration of both. Civilization is, in fact, a gravitation towards that happy medium which is the centre of attraction to the social circle. Almost every man is a loser by being elevated above the sphere to which he is habituated. When the Duke of Orleans proposed to make Fontenelle perpetual President of the Academy of Sciences, his reply was-"Take not from me, my Lord, the delight of living with my equals." ERROR OF CALCULATION-The life of nine-tenths of mankind is a gross error of calculation, since they attach themselves to the evanescent, and neglect the permanent, accumulating riches in a world from which they are constantly running away, and laying up no treasures in that eternity to which every day, hour, minute, brings them nearer and nearer. ESPRIT DE CORPS-is a corporate partiality or prejudice; a feeling of clanship and confraternity; a selfishness at second hand, which induces us to prefer the members of our own club, guild, or coterie, not only to others, but to reason and justice. It prefers Plato to truth, even though Plato be personally unknown, provided he belongs to the same clique. Nationality is but esprit de corps on a large scale, selfishness spread over the surface of a whole country; and the propen. sity sometimes exhibits itself in still more extensive divisions. In hunting or baiting wild beasts, there is a strong feeling of humanity, or, rather, of inhumanity, against bestiality. We sympathize with the basest of our own species, rather than with the noblest of the animal race. Among ourselves, there is a sexual esprit de corps,—the men siding with the males, the women with the females; the single with the single, and the married with the married. Of this latter propensity advantage was taken by an unfortunate Irishman, who, being arraigned for accidentally killing his wife, contrived, by objecting to the bachelors, to procure a jury of married men, when he stated that the deceased, an habitual drunkard, had used the most insulting language at the moment of the fatal occurrence. This appeal came so completely home to the business and bosoms of his auditors, several of whom had not improbably been placed in similar circumstances, that they were presently agreed in their decision, when the foreman coming forward, and addressing himself to the judge, exclaimed, with a voice and look of great energy—" Please, my Lord, our vardict is-Sarved her right!" ESTATE-a landed one for all!-Terra Firma for my money. Well may it be called real property; there is none other that deserves the name. What are public securities, as they are impudently termed? Ask the impoverished bondholders of the South American States, or of Greece. Neither their new nor old governments, neither despotism nor republicanism, can give certain tangibility or visibility to that ghost of defunct money yclept a dividend. What will tithes soon be worth in England?-what they are now worth in Ireland. In ten years, the claim for tenths will be no more observed than are the ten commandments at present. What is the value of houses? It is notorious that they are everywhere falling, especially the very old ones; rents threaten to be all peppercorns; house owners will not get salt to their porridge, even if they distrain upon their tenants and make quarter day a day without quarter. No-give me land. The man who walks upon his own estate carries himself erect, and plants his foot upon the ground with an air of confidence and consequence. Perhaps I feel this the more sensibly, because I have not a single acre in possession. Nothing, however, can prevent my succeeding to a small estate which I have lately been inspecting. It certainly possesses many advantages, being tithe-free, and the land-tax redeemed. In this snug retreat, which is perfectly sequestered, you are surrounded with wood, and yet close to a populous neighborhood, to the parish church, and the high road. Its proprietor enjoys several privileges and advantages: he pays no taxes, is exempt from serving in the militia, or sitting upon juries, his privacy is undisturbed by the impertinent intrusion of neighbors, he has no cares by day, and he is sure of a sound sleep at night. When a new occupant comes to take possession, he usually arrives in a coach and four, with numerous attendants, and he is not only received with bell-ringing, but the clergyman, and a portion of the parishioners, go out to meet him, and escort him home with much ceremony. The house, though it can hardly be called any thing better than a mere country box, has so many recommendations, that there is no instance of an occupant quitting it, after he has once given it a fair trial. Readers! whether gentle or simple, you need not envy me my expectations. A similar landed estate is entailed upon every one of you, and upon your children's children. If you want a description of it, refer to Blair's poem of "The Grave." One of the Roman emperors wept that nothing could prevent the master of the wide world from being finally imprisoned in an urn. I would counsel some of our landed propri etors "large-acred men, Lords of fat Evesham, and of Lincoln fen"— who, in the pride of their possessions, "bestride the narrow earth like a Colossus," to cast their eyes downwards, if looking upwards will not teach them humility, and to reflect that their huge estates must inevitably shrink into six feet by two! |