BONIFACE VIII.

[Benedetto Gaetani, born at Anagni about 1228; succeeded Celestine V. as Pope of Rome, 1294; became involved in a contest with Philip the Fair of France, whom he excommunicated, and by whom he was imprisoned; died soon after his release, 1303.]

Silence gives consent.

A favorite motto of the Pope, which he derived from the Canon Law," Qui tacet, consentire videtur."— Decretals, Book V., 12, 43.

PIERRE BOsquet.

[A French general, born at Pau, 1810; a general of division in the Crimean war; marshal of France, 1856; died 1862.]

It is magnificent, but it is not war (C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.)

Of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, Oct. 25, 1854. About twelve thousand Russians had taken some feebly defended redoubts, and then attacked the British, by whom they were obliged to retire. After this, from an unfortunate misconception of the order of the commander-in-chief, Lord Raglan, Lord Lucan, commanding the cavalry, ordered the Earl of Cardigan, with the light cavalry, to charge the Russian army, which had reformed on its own ground with its artillery in front. The order was gallantly obeyed, and great havoc was made with the enemy; but of six hundred and seventy British cavalrymen, only one hundred and ninety-eight returned. Tennyson immortalized the action in "The Charge of the Light Brigade;" and Disraeli called it in the House of Commons, on a motion for a vote of thanks to the allied army, Dec. 15, 1855, a feat of chivalry, fiery with consummate courage, and bright with flashing valor."

JACQUES BOSSUET.

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[A French pulpit-orator and controversalist, born at Dijon, 1627; bishop of Condom, 1669; preceptor to the dauphin, 1670; bishop of Meaux, 1681; died 1704.]

No man is more easily deceived than he who hopes, for he aids in his own deceit.

The maxim, "Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur" (The world wishes to be deceived, let it therefore be deceived), is ascribed by Zincgref, “German Apothegms," to the papal legate Caraffa, afterwards Paul IV. Its German equivalent, "Die Welt will betrogen sein," was already a common expression, which finds frequent quotation in Luther, and was in Goethe's mind when he said, "Man is never deceived: he deceives himself."

The princess had all the virtues with which hell is filled (toutes les vertus dont l'enfer est rempli).

Sermon on the death of Anne de Gonzaga de Cleves, Princess Palatine, 1684; who was converted at fifty-six, after a life of political and personal intrigue, during which she said that the greatest miracle would be her conversion to Christianity. The saying, "Hell is paved with good intentions," quoted from Dr. Johnson by Boswell ("Life," 1775), is referred in a note to George Herbert, "Hell is full of good meanings and wishes" (Jacula Prudentum, 1651, p. 11). The Germans have a proverb, "Der Weg zur Hölle ist mit guten Vorsätzen gepflastert," and St. Francis de Sales attributes to St. Bernard, "Hell is full of good intentions and wills."

Bossuet said of the retirement of Mme. de la Vallière to a convent, "The world itself makes us sick of the world."

Well-meant ignorance is a grievous calamity in high places.

Goethe says, "Nothing is more terrible than active ignorance.” The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.

A marginal note in a sermon on brotherly love contains the words, "We cannot love our neighbor without loving God" (On ne peut jamais aimer son prochain sans aimer Dieu).

When God intends to show that any work is only his, he lets helplessness and despair overpower us, and then he acts.

LOUIS BOURDALOUE.

[A French pulpit-orator, preacher to Louis XIV.; born 1632; died 1704.]

In his church thieves give up the purses they stole in mine..

Louis XIV. having asked Bourdaloue what he thought of Père Honoré, a Capuchin who preached at St. Antoine, he replied, "Sire, Père Honoré scorches the ears and tears the heart: at his sermons thieves return the purses they stole in mine' (à ses sermons on rend les bourses que l'on a coupées aux miens).

The great Condé could not separate himself from thoughts of war, even in church. Going one day with his sister, the Duchess de Longueville, to hear Bourdaloue preach at St. Sulpice, and noticing when the orator entered the pulpit that his sister was asleep, he woke her with the exclamation, "Wake up, sister, here comes the enemy!" (Alerte, ma sœur, voici l'ennemi !)

BRENNUS.

[A chief of the Gaulish tribe of the Senones; invaded the Roman State about 390 B.C.: having entered Rome, he found the city deserted, except by some aged senators, who were murdered in their ivory chairs. The Capitol was, however, defended by a garrison, which was saved from a night attack by the cackling of some geese.] Væ victis!

Brennus consented to leave Rome upon the payment of one thousand talents. Reproached with using false measures, he threw his sword into the scale, exclaiming, "Woe to the conquered!"— PLUTARCH: Life of Camillus (by whom the Gauls were finally expelled).

JOHN BRIGHT.

[A distinguished English orator and statesman; born 1811; entered Parliament, 1834; president of the Board of Trade, 1868; chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1880-82.]

The angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land: you may almost hear the beating of his wings.

Against the continuance of the Crimean war; in the House of Commons, Feb. 23, 1855.

The right honorable gentleman is the first of the new party who has retired into what may be called his political cave of Adullam.

Of Mr. Horsman and a few other Liberals, who disapproved of the Reform Bill introduced in 1866 by Earl Russell's administration; a reference to the discontented and distressed, who gathered about David in the cave of Adullam (1 Sam. xxii. 1, 2). He alluded to Mr. Lowe and Mr. Horsman, the most distinguished of the Adullamites, as reminding him of "the Scotch terrier, which was so covered with hair that you could not tell which was the head and which was the tail of it." Disraeli once advised Mr. Robert Lowe to retire "not to his cave, but to a more cynical place.”

And he adores his maker.

When told that he ought to give Mr. Disraeli credit for being a self-made man.

He said of a gentleman's ancestors, who came over with the Conqueror, "I never heard that they ever did any thing else."

Being told, while temporarily indisposed, that a nobleman had declared that Providence had inflicted upon him a disease of the brain by way of punishment for the misuse of his talents, Mr. Bright quietly observed, "It will be some consolation to the friends and family of the noble lord to know that the disease is one which Providence could not inflict upon him."

He once declared of the Tories, "Had they been in the wilderness, they would have complained of the Ten Commandments." He used the expression "a free breakfast-table," in addressing the Edinburgh Chamber of Commons in 1868, advocating the repeal of the remaining duties on tea, coffee, and sugar.

Mr. Bright made an assertion during the land troubles in Ireland in 1880, which has often been repeated, "Force is no remedy."

JEAN PIERRE BRISSOT.

[A politician of the French Revolution, born 1754; one of the leaders of the Girondists, with whom he was executed, October, 1793.]

How much blood will be required to wash out our own!

During "the last night of the Girondists."

He said of Mme. Roland, "It is less difficult for a woman to obtain celebrity by her genius, than to be forgiven for it."

Dufocé, a Girondist, being asked, on his trial by the revolutionary tribunal, what he thought of Brissot, replied, "He lived like Aristides, and died like Sidney." Taine, however, calls him "one of those presuming, threadbare, talkative fellows, who, living in a garret, lectures foreign cabinets, and reconstructs all Europe."- French Revolution.

LORD BROUGHAM.

[Henry Brougham, born 1799; entered Parliament, 1810; lord chancellor, 1830; raised to the peerage under the title of Baron Brougham and Vaux; retired 1834; died 1868.]

The schoolmaster is abroad.

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In a speech on the address to the crown, Jan. 28, 1828, after the Duke of Wellington had become prime minister, Brougham said that "the country sometimes heard with dismay that the soldier was abroad. Now there is another person abroad, less important person; in the eyes of some, an insignificant person, whose labors had tended to produce this state of things. The schoolmaster is abroad! and I trust more to the schoolmaster armed with his primer, than to the soldier in full military array, for upholding and extending the liberties of my country."

Brougham refused Canning's offer of the office of chief baron of the exchequer, on the ground that it would keep him out of Parliament. "True," said Canning, "but you will be only one stage from the woolsack."—"Yes," rejoined Brougham, "but the horses will be off." -JENNINGS: Anecdotal History of Parliament.

Measures, not men.

Brougham said in the House of Commons, November, 1830, "It is necessary that I should qualify the doctrine of its being not men, but measures, that I am determined to support. In a