ever badly you want money; and to decline pecuniary assistance from your dearest friend.

Have the courage to shut your eyes at the prospect of large profits, and to be content with small ones.

Have the courage to tell a man why you will not lend him your money; he will respect you more than if you tell him you can't.

Have the courage to "cut" the most agreeable acquaintance you possess, when he convinces you that he lacks principle; "a friend should bear with a friend's infirmi ties" not his vices.

Have the courage to show your preference for honesty, in whatever guise it appears; and your contempt for vice, surrounded by attractions.

Have the courage to give occasionally that which you can ill afford to spare; giving what you do not want nor value neither brings nor deserves thanks in return; who is grateful for a drink of water from another's overflowing well, however delicious the draught?

Have the courage to wear your old garments till you can pay for new ones.

Have the courage to obey your Maker, at the risk of being ridiculed by man.

Have the courage to wear thick boots in winter, and to insist upon your wife and daughter doing the like.

Have the courage to acknowledge ignorance of any kind; every body will immediately doubt you, and give you more credit than any false pretensions could secure. Have the courage to prefer propriety to fashion—one is but the abuse of the other.

Have the courage to listen to your wife, when you should do so, and not to listen when you should not.

Have the courage to provide a frugal dinner for a friend whom you "delight to honor;" when you cannot afford

wine, offer him porter; the importance of most things is that which we ourselves attach to them.

Have the courage to ask a visitor to excuse you when his presence interferes with your convenience.

Have the courage to throw your snuff-box into the fire or the melting-pot; to pass a tobacconist's shop; and to decline the use of a friend's box, or even one pinch.

Have the courage to be independent if you can, and act independently when you may.

CHESTERFIELD

(A. D. 1694-1773.)

PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, celebrated in his day as an orator and a politician, but still more as a polished man of the eighteenth century English world, its glass of fashion and its mould of form, is made known to posterity mainly by the "Letters to his Son, which were published after his death. The son was a lout, with whose manners he was concerned, rather than with his morals, and these letters were written principally to that end. While showing a polite deference to some ethical principles, the immorality of the advice given in other directions. is rank, even for the first half of the eighteenth century. But the fund of worldly wisdom in the "Letters" has rarely been excelled. Dr. Johnson thought that, with the immorality taken out, they ought to be put into the hands of every gentleman. On the other hand, the French critic, Taine, says of Chesterfield and his letters: "He wishes to polish his son, to give him a French air, to add to solid diplomatic knowledge and large views of ambition an engaging, lively, and frivolous manner. This outward polish, which at Paris is of the true color, is here but a shocking veneer. transplanted politeness is a lie, this vivacity is senselessness, this worldly education seems fitted only to make actors and rogues."

This

Chesterfield was born in London in 1694, and died in

1773.

CHESTERFIELDIAN MAXIMS.

(From Lord Chesterfield's "Letters to his Son.")

If a fool knows a secret, he tells it because he is a fool; if a knave knows one, he tells it wherever it is his

interest to tell it. But women, and young men, are very apt to tell what secrets they know, from the vanity of having been trusted. Trust none of these, whenever you can help it.

In your friendships, and in your enmities, let your confidence and your hostilities have certain bounds: make not the former dangerous, nor the latter irreconcilable. There are strange vicissitudes in business!

Smooth your way to the head, through the heart. The way of reason is a good one; but it is commonly something longer, and perhaps not so sure.

A man's own good breeding is his best security against other people's ill manners.

Good breeding carries along with it a dignity, that is respected by the most petulant. Ill breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid. No man ever said a pert thing to the Duke of Marlborough. No man ever said a civil one (though many a flattering one) to Sir Robert Walpole. . . .

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments only give lustre; and many more people see than weigh.

Most arts require long study and application; but the most useful art of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire. . .

It is very difficult to fix the particular point of economy; the best error of the two is on the parsimonious side. That may be corrected, the other cannot.

Take care always to form your establishment so much within your income, as to leave a sufficient fund for unexpected contingencies, and a prudent liberality. There is hardly a year, in any man's life, in which a small sum of ready money may not be employed to great advantage.

PRECEPTS SELECTED FROM "THE ECONOMY OF HUMAN LIFE."

(Attributed to Chesterfield.)

In 1750 there was published at London a little book entitled "The Economy of Human Life," containing a collection of maxims which purported to be "from an Indian manuscript, written by an ancient Brahmin." It excited no little interest, and the authorship of the work was attributed to Lord Chesterfield, without denial on his part. Not long after its publication, a spurious second part appeared, which the anonymous author of the original found it necessary to disown, by public advertisement. Altogether, the book made a good deal of stir, and successive editions of it have been published, nearly, if not quite, down to the present day. That Chesterfield was the author, does not seem to have been questioned until after the death of the publisher, Dodsley. It was then said that Dodsley wrote "The Economy of Human Life," and that Chesterfield permitted his name to be connected with it by rumor, in order to promote the sale, for Dodsley's benefit. There seems to be, however, no good reason for doubting that the book is really Chesterfield's. The question is discussed in volume ten of the First Series of "Notes and Queries," pages 8, 74, and 318.

The following is a selection from the precepts of the pseudo- "Brahmin.

The first step towards being wise, is to know that thou art ignorant; and if thou wouldst not be esteemed foolish in the judgment of others, cast off the folly of being wise in thine own conceit.

Since the days that are past are gone for ever, and those that are to come may not come to thee; it behoveth thee, O man! to employ the present time, without regretting the loss of that which is past, or too much depending on that which is to come.

Endeavour to be first in thy calling, whatever it be;