wast hasty in seeking a sore. And yet, Philautus, I would not that all women should take pepper in the nose, in that I have disclosed the legerdemains of a few; for well I know none will wince except they be galled, neither any be offended unless she be guilty. Therefore I earnestly desire thee that thou show this cooling card to none, except thou show also this, my defense, to them all. For although I weigh nothing the ill-will of light housewives, yet would I be loath to lose the good-will of honest matrons. Thus being ready to go to Athens, and ready there to entertain thee whensoever thou shalt repair thither, I bid thee farewell, and fly women.

From Arber's reprint, 1579.

THE

HOW THE LIFE OF A YOUNG MAN SHOULD BE LED

HERE are three things which cause perfection in man, Nature, Reason Use. Reason I call Discipline, Use, Exercise. If any one of these branches want, certainly the tree of virtue must needs wither. For Nature without discipline is of small force, and discipline without Nature more feeble; if exercise or study be void of any of these, it availeth nothing. For as in tilling of the ground and husbandry, there is first chosen a fertile soil, then a cunning sower, then good seed, even so must we compare Nature to the fat earth, the expert husbandman to the schoolmaster, the faculties and sciences to the pure seeds. If this order had not been in our predecessors, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and whosoever was renowned in Greece, for the glory of wisdom, they had never been eternized for wise men, neither canonized, as it were, for saints, among those that study sciences. It is therefore a most evident sign of God's singular favor towards him that is endowed with all these qualities without the least of which man is most miserable. But if there be any one that thinketh wit not necessary to the obtaining of wisdom, after he hath gotten the way to virtue by industry and exercise, he is a heretic in my opinion, touching the true faith of learning, for if Nature play not her part, in vain is labor, and, as I said before, if study be not employed, in vain is Nature. Sloth turneth the edge of wit; study sharpeneth the mind; a thing, be it never so easy, is hard to the (idle); a thing, be it never so hard, is easy to the wit well employed. And most plainly we may see in many things the efficacy of industry and labor.

The little drop of rain pierceth hard marble; iron with often handling is worn to nothing. Besides this, Industry showeth herself in other things: the fertile soil if it be never tilled doth wax barren, and that which is most noble by nature is made most vile by negligence. What tree if it be not topped beareth any fruit? What vine if it be not pruned bringeth forth grapes? Is not the strength of the body turned to weakness with too much delicacy; were not Milo his arms brawnfallen for want of wrestling? Moreover by labor the fierce unicorn is tamed, the wildest falcon is reclaimed, the greatest bulwark is sacked. It is well answered of that man of Thessaly, who being demanded who among the Thessalians were reputed most vile, those, said he, that live at quiet and ease, never giving themselves to martial affairs. But what should one use many words in a thing already proved? It is custom, use, and exercise that bringeth a young man to virtue, and virtue to his perfection. Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Spartans, did nourish two whelps both of one sire and one dam. But after a sundry manner, for the one he framed to hunt, and the other to lie always in the chimney's end at the porridge pot. Afterward calling the Lacedæmonians into one assembly he said: To the attaining of virtue, ye Lacedæmonians, education, industry, and exercise is the most noblest means, the truth of which I will make manifest unto you by trial; then bringing forth the whelps, and setting down there a pot and a hare, the one ran at the hare, the other to the porridge pot. The Lacedæmonians scarce understanding this mystery, he said: Both of these be of one sire and one dam, but you see how education altereth nature.

Complete. From Arber's reprint of 1579.

LORD LYTTON

(EDWARD GEORGE EARLE LYTTON BULWER, BARON LYTTON)

(1803-1873)

gs AN orator, dramatist, poet, politician, and novelist, "Bulwer Lytton" acquitted himself with credit, winning his chief celebrity and perhaps his greatest usefulness by the long list of novels which continue to be read in spite of the disapproval of Thackeray whose usually mild temper was stirred almost to virulence by everything "Bulwig" did. But Thackeray to the contrary notwithstanding, several of these novels have already vindicated their places as classics, and at least one of them, "The Last Days of Pompeii," has taken almost as strong a hold on popular favor as the higher and more artistic fiction of Scott himself. As an essayist, Lord Lytton is at his best. He writes easily and gracefully, is always interesting and is frequently surprising in the novelty, if not in the originality, of his thought. As a poet, he lacked only a very little of high excellence; but in the useful translations of Horace, in which he attempts to represent the original rhythm of that most melodious of the Augustan lyric poets, he shows that this little is an inherent defect in his sense of time in language. Such failures at his climaxes are not altogether rare even in his prose; but in view of his excellencies, no one who follows him long will remember them against him. He was a "Conservative" in politics, and the violent animosities which some of his celebrated contemporaries wreaked upon him were largely a result of political partisanship, which his works have long ago outlived.

W*

THE SANGUINE TEMPERAMENT

E ARE always disposed to envy the man of a hopeful tem per; but a hopeful temper, where it so predominates as to be the conspicuous attribute, is seldom accompanied with prudence, and therefore seldom attended with worldly suc cess. It is the hopeful temper that predominates in gamblers, in speculators, in political dreamers, in enthusiasts of all kinds. Endeavoring many years ago to dissuade a friend of mine from

the roulette table, I stated all the chances which calculators sum up in favor of the table against the gamester. He answered gayly, "Why look to the dark side of the question? I never do!" And so, of course, he was ruined. I observe, in reading history and biography, that the men who have been singularly unfortunate have for the most part been singularly hopeful. This was remarkably the case with Charles I. It startles one to see in Clarendon how often he is led into his most fatal actions by a sanguine belief that fate will humor the die for him. Every day a projector lays before you some ingenious device for extracting sunbeams from cucumbers with the most sanguine expectation that the age has just arrived at the certainty that his cucumber alone can enlighten it. The late Mr. Robert Owen remained to the last as sure of converting the world to his schemes for upsetting it as if he had never known a disappointment. When, a short time before his death, that amiable logician, after rejecting all the evidences of nature and all the arguments of sages in support of the soul's immortality, accepted that creed on the authority of a mahogany table, the spirit of one of George IV.'s portly brothers, evidently wishing to secure so illustrious a convert, took care to rap out "Yes" when Mr. Owen asked if he should bring his plans before parliament, and to sustain his new faith in a heaven by promising him that within a year his old hope of reforming the earth should be realized. Had his Royal

Highness told him that he could never square the circle of life by a social parallelogram, I greatly fear that Mr. Owen would have remained a materialist, and declared table rapping to be a glaring imposture.

In my recollections of school and college, I remember that, as between two youths of equal ability and ambition, the odds of success in rivalry were always in favor of the one least sanguinely confident of succeeding, and obviously for this reason: He who distrusts the security of chance takes more pains to effect the safety which results from labor. To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says: "Leave no stone unturned."

As all men, however, have in their natures a certain degree of hope, so he is the wisest who husbands it with the most care. When you are engaged in any undertaking in which success depends partly on skill, partly on luck, always presuppose that the luck may go against you, for the presupposition redoubles all

your efforts to obtain the advantages that belong to skill. Hope nothing from luck, and the probability is that you will be so prepared, forewarned, and forearmed, that all shallow observers will call you lucky.

At whist, a game into which, of all games needing great skill, perhaps luck enters most, indifferent players, or even good players who have drunk too much wine, will back some run of luck upon system, and are sure to lose at the year's end. The most winning player I ever knew was a good but not a first-rate player, and, playing small stakes, though always the same stakes, he made a very handsome yearly income. He took up whist as a profession instead of the bar, saying ingenuously, "At the bar, if I devoted myself to it, I think I could make the same yearly sum with pains, which at whist I make with pleasure. I prefer pleasure to pain when the reward is equal, and I choose whist." Well, this gentleman made it a rule never to bet, even though his partner were a B. or a C. (the two finest players in England, now living since the empire of India has lost us General A.), and his adversaries any Y. Z. at the foot of the alphabet. «For,” said he, "in betting on games and rubbers, chance gets an advantage over the odds in favor of skill. My object is to win at the year's end, and the player who wins at the year's end is not the man who has won the most games and rubbers, but the man who in winning has made the greatest number of points, and who in losing has lost the fewest. Now if I, playing for, say, 10s. a point, with B. or C. for my partner, take a £5 bet on the rubber, X. and Y. may have four by honors twice running; and grant that I save two points in the rubber by skill, losing six points instead of eight points, still I have the bet of £5 to pay all the same; the points are saved by the skill of the playing, but the rubbers are lost by the chance of the cards.

Adhering to this rule, abridging the chances of the cards, concentrating his thoughts on the chances in favor of skill, this whist player, steady and safe, but without any of those inspirations which distinguish the first-rate from the second-rate player, made, I say, regularly a handsome income out of whist; and I do not believe that any first-rate whist player who takes bets can say the same, no matter what stakes he plays.

In life as in whist, hope nothing from the way cards may be dealt to you. Plav the cards, whatever they be, to the best of

your skill.