109. TASTE.

Taste is the discernment of the Beautiful. A true connoisseur in the arts, who sees the work of a great master, seizes, at the first glance, its merit and its beauties. He may afterwards discover defects; but he always returns to that which pleased him, and would rather admire than find fault. To begin with finding fault where there are beauties to admire, is a sure proof of want of taste. This remark is the result of several years of my observation in Italy. All the young men looked for defects in the finest works of Correggio, Guido, and Raphael, in the Venus de Medicis, the Apollo Belvidere, and the Church of St. Peter: whereas, those who profited by the lessons which were given them, saw only the beauties. The absurd strikes the eyes of children; they have not yet a mind sufficiently formed to perceive good qualities.

110. THE GRACES.

The graces are the charms which accompany our deportment, our speech, and our

actions. They consist in the relation of our attitudes, gestures, expressions, and ideas, to the end proposed: they are the motions suitable to the thing.

111. ALEXANDER and Cesar.

It is a great pity, that Plutarch's parallel between Alexander and Cesar has not reached us. I think he would not have hesitated in assigning the pre-eminence to the former. One single consideration should decide the question. Alexander died at the age of thirty-three; and he had, before that time, performed all the great deeds which still astonish us: Cesar, long after that age, had done nothing remarkable. He was born a hundred years before Jesus Christ, and was killed in the forty-fourth year before He was about thirty-seven years old at the conspiracy of Cataline. It is still doubtful whether he had a share in that conspiracy, since he was entrusted with the care of one of the conspirators. The only action by which he was then distinguished, was, that at the age of twenty-five, he had armed some vessels against the pirates who

our era.

infested the environs of the island of Rhodes, and the neighbouring coasts of Asia. He was ten years in conquering the Gauls with the Roman armies, which were then victorious every where; and we know from himself, the trifling resistance made by Pompey at the battle of Pharsalia. On the other hand, let us consider Alexander, who, at the age of eighteen, decided by his own valour the battle of Chersonesus, and saved the life of his father: let us see him at the age of twenty causing himself to be declared Chief of Greece, in the expedition against the Persians; and before he went into Asia, that he might leave no enemies behind him, let us see him marching against the Illyrians and the Treballians (Hungary and Bulgaria), warlike nations which his father had never been able to subdue, and reducing them to the terms which he chose to prescribe and finding on his return, that the Thebans had declared against him, he beat them, destroyed their Republic, (which was then the first in Greece), and full of confidence, passed at the age of twenty with 35,000 men into Asia. If we consider his political

conduct afterwards, we cannot but admire' it as much as his valour. After gaining the battle of Issus, instead of pursuing Darius,' he reflected that it was proper not to leave him master of the sea: he therefore marched to Tyre, took it, secured the maritime force of the King of Persia, passed into Egypt, and there founded a city, whose name is still celebrated; subjugated Egypt, and thence returned and brought all Asia then known under his sway. He adopted, in part, the customs of the Persians, married a daughter of Darius, made his Generals marry the daughters of the principal Persian nobility, and had their sons brought up in' Macedonia. Nothing can be finer upon this subject than Plutarch's two treatises, intituled On the Fortune of Alexander. See No. 10.

112. DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE HEART AND THE SOUL.

The heart, in the language of metaphysicians, is the soul, considered as the seat of our sensations; the same as the mind is the soul, considered as the seat of

our ideas. Sensations, though occasioned by the same objects, may be different in different individuals, according to their particular constitution. The result of all sensations thus forming a whole in each individual, which is called the heart, as the result of ideas forms a whole, which is called the mind, it is natural that the heart, as well as the mind, should be different in different persons, and that each should have his heart, as it is said that each has his mind. Thus, though two persons love the same object, they will not be affected in the same manner; because, from the nature of their different constitutions, this object will not have made the same impression upon both. Hence arises that diversity in our manner of thinking and feeling, which is almost as remarkable as that in our countenances. This diversity would appear still greater, if each would open his heart, and communicate his thoughts without disguise.

113. GALLANTRY OF A FINANCier.

A Financier of Paris, knowing that a lady, whom he loved, had a strong desire to eat, every year, the first green peas of