prudence. He wrote a little book in 1820, called Lacon; or Many Things in Few Words, addressed to those who think.1 It is an awful example to anybody who is tempted to try his hand at an aphorism. Finally, a

clear." On the contrary, they were declared to be " serpentine, flabby, and obscure." The London Literary Gazette, on the other hand, in a notice of the 21st edition (1855) said: "The popularity of the Proverbial Philosophy is a gratifying and healthy symptom of the present taste in literature, the book being full of lessons of wisdom and piety, conveyed in a style . .. irresistibly pleasing by its earnestness and eloquence." See also a notice in the N. A. Review for July, 1864, etc.

1 Lacon also had a great “run,” the 6th edition appearing in 1821, and Colton brought out a second volume in 1822. I remember that in my freshman days (184546) it was extremely popular among the students. It was not a "little" book, but a large one, and, with all its faults, was decidedly better than Tupper's.

great authoress of our time [George Eliot] was urged by a friend to fill up a gap in our literature by composing a volume of Thoughts: the result was that least felicitous of performances, Theophrastus Such."

Of a popular book of the Baconian age, Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, our critic remarks: "For my own part, though I have striven to follow the critic's golden rule, to have preferences but no exclusions, Overbury has for me no savour." Macaulay's remark that he finds La Bruyère "thin" provokes this sharp comment: "But Macaulay has less ethical depth, and less perception of ethical depth, than any writer that ever lived with equally brilliant gifts in other ways; and thin is the very last word that describes this admirable writer. If one

seeks to measure how far removed the great classic moralists are from thinness, let him turn from La Bruyère to the inane subtleties and meaningless conundrums, not worth answering, that do duty for analysis of character in some modern American literature " -an allusion which the curious reader may trace if he will.

In these rambling remarks on the aphorism-no formal dissertation on the subject would be possible in this brief introduction to Mrs. CowdenClarke's little book-I have drawn mainly from Morley's interesting and suggestive essay, because I know of nothing better as а concise yet scholarly treatise on the subject; but I have given only the merest fragments of it as appetizers to the feast which they should tempt the gentle reader to

enjoy in full. And for the special field of the proverb, strictly so called, I believe he can find no more attractive primary "lessons "-for such the title of the book implies that they arethan Trench has furnished him. Both the book and the essay will be alike enjoyable and helpful as companions to these selections from Shakespeare, which comprise not only "proverbs," but aphorisms, maxims, precepts, and every other type of wise saws and pithy moral sayings—forming, in short, a compact manual of "good counsel as to the ordering of character and of life."