ANTOINE ST.-JUST.

[One of the prominent characters of the French Revolution; born 1767 or 1768; member of the National Convention, of which he was president, 1794; member of the Committee of Public Safety; the friend of Robespierre, with whom he was executed, July, 1794.]

Happiness is a new idea in Europe (Le bonheur est une idée neuve en Europe).

The history of ante-revolutionary times even Taine's "Ancien Régime," bitterly opposed, as the author is, to the Revolution — will convince one that happiness, as an element of popular life, was unknown; but the means which men like St.-Just employed to introduce it were at least singular. Thus he said, "The Revolution is like a thunderbolt: it must strike" (La révolution est comme un coup de foudre; il faut frapper); and again, in 1794, "The foundation of all great institutions is terror."

One is disposed to doubt the sincerity of a man who governs his actions by maxims. Collot d'Herbois called St.-Just "a well-combed monster, who reels off apothegms" (un monstre bien peigné, et qui débite des apothégmes); which Taine enlarged: "A young monster, with calm, handsome features; a sort of precocious Sulla."— French Revolution. Carlyle calls him "more a student than a senator; not four and twenty yet; who has written books; a youth with slight stature, with mild, mellow voice, enthusiast olive complexion, and long black hair.” — French Revolution, II. 3, 7.

It is impossible to reign innocently.

He began his speech on the sentence of Louis XVI., by laying down the principle, On ne peut régner innocemment: from that his conclusion was easy, "Louis is another Catiline." When his apothegms were not startling, they were commonplace; as when he said, in 1792, "The clemency which compounds with tyranny is the worst kind of oppression."

The letter which St.-Just wrote to Daubigny, July 3, 1792, quoted by Taine ("French Revolution," II. 4, 12, note), contains some of his boldest expressions. He had been, so far, a spectator of the Revolution, the leaders of which had not gained his respect. He accordingly said to them, "Tear the heart out

of my body, and eat it, and you will become what you are not now, great!" (Arrachez mon cœur, et mangez-le, vous deviendrez ce que vous n'êtes point, — grands!) He described himself in this letter as "devoured by a republican fever;" he considered himself above misfortune (Je suis au-dessus du malheur); and, mixing his metaphors, although he felt that within him which would float on the crest of the age, his palm would rise and perhaps overshadow them (Je me sens de quoi surnager dans le siècle, ma palme s'élevera pourtant, et vous obscurcira peut-être). He closed with the cry of a mal compris statesman of twenty-four years: "Must Brutus languish forgotten and far from Rome! My mind is made up if Brutus slay not the others, he will kill himself." (0 Dieu, peut-il que Brutus languisse oublié loin de Rome! Mon parti est pris cependant; si Brutus ne tue point les autres, il se tuera lui-même.)

He uttered one truth, however, to Robespierre, who gave way to passion in a session of the Committee of Public Safety: "Power belongs to the self-possessed" (L'empire est au phlégmatique); or, as Emerson translates it, "Keep cool, and you command everybody."

SAINT-SIMON.

[Count Claude Henri de Saint-Simon, a French socialist; born in Paris, October, 1760; served in the American war; qualified himself by study to become a social reformer, and published several works on that subject; died 1825.]

In order to do great things, one must be enthusiastic. On his death-bed. " Nothing great," says Emerson, "was ever achieved without enthusiasm."— Essay on Circles.

Goethe, however, speaks of "empirical enthusiasts, who seize upon new ideas with ecstasy, as if, for the moment, nothing could be compared to them.”

MARSHAL SAXE.

[Herman Maurice, Comte de Saxe, a famous general; son of Augustus, Elector of Saxony; born Oct. 28, 1696; entered the French service, 1720; Marshal of France, 1744; gained the victory of Fontenoy, 1745; died 1750.]

Saying that after a declaration of peace soldiers were forgotten (Nous sommes comme les manteaux, on ne pense à nous que quand on voit venir la pluie).

He replied to the offer of a seat in the French Academy, "It would become me as a ring would a cat: I do not know how to spell," which will be evident when his exact words are quoted: "Ils veule me fere de la Cademie, cela miret come une bage a un chas" (Ils veulent me faire de l'Académie, cela m'irait comme une bague à un chat). He was told that Marshal Villars was a member, in spite of not knowing how to read, to say nothing of writing.

PAUL SCARRON.

[A French dramatist and comic writer; born in Paris, about 1610; having lost the use of his limbs by an accident at the age of twentyseven, devoted himself to literature; died 1660.]

The names of the wives of kings die with them, but the name of Scarron's wife shall live forever.

When the notary asked him what dowry he would give his wife, Mlle. d'Aubigné, afterwards Mme. de Maintenon.

Being seized, during his last illness, with so violent a hiccough that it was thought he would die, he said, “If I recover, I will write a fine satire on the hiccough!" (Si je m'en reviens, oh, la belle satire que je ferai contre le hoquet!) His death was worthy the gayety with which he had supported a life of unremitted physical suffering. "My good friends," he remarked to those at his bedside, "I shall never make you weep for me as much as I have made you laugh." After a long fainting-fit he rallied sufficiently to bequeath fifty pounds of patience to the brothers of Corneille, and to his wife the permission to marry again, of which she profitably availed herself twenty-four years afterwards. His last words were, "I should never have thought it was so easy a matter to laugh at the approach of death" (Je ne me serais jamais imaginé qu'il fût si facile de se moquer de la mort).

SCHLEIERMACHER.

[Friedrich Ernst Schleiermacher, a distinguished German theologian and preacher; born at Breslau, Nov. 21, 1768; educated at Halle; professor of theology there and at Berlin; died February, 1834.]

Bekker is silent in seven languages (Bekker schweigt in sieben Sprachen).

Said of the philologist Emmanuel Bekker, a member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin, a scholar whose modesty equalled his learning.

SCIPIO AFRICANUS.

[Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major, a Roman general; born 235 or 234 B.C.; gained great victories over Hasdrubal in Spain; invaded Africa, 204; defeated Hannibal at Zama, 202, and Antiochus in Syria; tried for receiving bribes, and, although acquitted, left Rome, and died at Liternum, 183 B.C.]

I am never less alone than when alone, nor less at leisure than when at leisure.

Quoted from Scipio by Cato, and recorded by Cicero (“De Officiis," III. 1), "Nunquam se minus otiosum esse, quam quum otiosus, nec minus solum, quam quum solus esset." Repeated by many authors since, as by Gibbon, "I was never less alone than when by myself.” — Memoir, 117. Seneca says, in his Sixth Epistle, "I am never more in action than when I am alone in my study."

"Never less alone than when alone."

"They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts." SIDNEY'S Arcadia, Book I.

"Little do men perceive," says Bacon, "what solitude is, and how far it extendeth; for a crowd is not company, and faces

are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.' - Essays, Friendship.

After leaving Rome in disgust that his probity should have been brought into question (v. Mirabeau, p. 392), Scipio ordered the following words to be placed upon his tomb in Campania: "Ingrata patria, ne ossa quidem habebis!" (Thankless country, thou shalt not possess even my bones!)

[Born in Edinburgh, Aug. 15, 1771; educated at the University; wrote "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," 1805; "Marmion," 1806; "Lady of the Lake," 1810; "Waverley," 1814, and other poems and romances to 1831; received the rank of baronet, 1820; died Sept. 21, 1832.]

Without courage there cannot be truth, and without truth there can be no other virtue.

Campbell [the poet] is afraid of the shadow that his own fame casts before him.

As for bidding me not work, Molly might as well put the kettle on the fire, and say, "Now, don't boil!"

Depend upon it, of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.

We wear out our teeth in the hard drudgery of the outset, and at length, when we do get bread to eat, we complain that the crust is hard; so that in neither case are we satisfied.

When our Saviour himself was to be led into temptation, the first thing the Devil thought of was to get him into the wilderness.

To Ballantyne, the printer and journalist, who thought of leaving Edinburgh to reside in the country.

MARSHAL SEBASTIANI.

[Count Horace François Sebastiani, a French general; born in Corsica, about 1775; served in Italy, Austria, Spain, and Russia; minister of marine and of foreign affairs under Louis Philippe; ambassador to London, 1835; Marshal of France, 1840; died 1851.]