nto juxtaposition with a great. I do not express
myself clearly--take an example. In London there are sharpers who
advertise L70,000 to be advanced at four per cent; principals only
conferred with. The gentleman wishing for such a sum on mortgage goes to
see the advertiser; the advertiser says he must run down and look at the
property on which the money is to be advanced; his journey and expenses
will cost him a mere trifle,--say, twenty guineas. Let him speak
confidently; let the gentleman very much want the money at the interest
stated, and three to one but our sharper gets the twenty guineas,--so
paltry a sum in comparison to L70,000 though so serious a sum had the
matter related to halfpence!

XIX.

Lord Coke has said: "To trace an error to its fountainhead is to refute
it." Now, my young pupils, I take it for granted that you are interested
in the preservation of error; you do not wish it, therefore, to be
traced to its fountain head. Whenever, then, you see a sharp fellow
tracking it up, you have two ways of settling the matter. You may say,
with a smile, "Nay, now, sir, you grow speculative,--I admire your
ingenuity;" or else look grave, colour up, and say, "I fancy, sir, there
is no warrant for this assertion in the most sacred of all authorities!"
The Devil can quote Scripture, you know; and a very sensible Devil it is
too!

XX.

Rochefoucauld has said: "The hate of favourites is nothing else but the
love of favour." The idea is a little cramped; the hate we bear to any
man is only the result of our love for some good which we imagine
he possesses, or which, being in our possession, we imagine he has
attacked. Thus envy, the most ordinary species of hate, arises from our
value for the glory, or the plate, or the content we behold; and revenge
is born from our regard for our fame that has been wounded, or our acres
molested, or our rights invaded. But the most noisy of all hatreds is
hatred for the rich, from love for the riches. Look well on the poor
devil who is always railing at coaches and four! Book him as a man to be
bribed!

XXI.

My beloved pupils, few have yet sufficiently studied the art by which
the practice of jokes becomes subservient to the science of swindlers.
The heart of an inferior is always fascinated by a jest. Men know this
in the knavery of elections. Know it now, my