, though he has had so many intrigues, he was
never sincerely beloved. "In order to be loved," says Cupid, "you must
lay aside your aegis and your thunder-bolts; you must curl and perfume
your hair, and place a garland on your head, and walk with a soft
step, and assume a winning, obsequious deportment." "But," replied
Jupiter, "I am not willing to resign so much of my dignity." "Then,"
returned Cupid, "leave off desiring to be loved."'

These remarks by Mrs. Barbauld are full of sound philosophy. Who has
not observed, in his circle of acquaintance, and in the recesses
of his own heart, the same inconsistency of expectation, the same
peevishness of discontent.

Says Germanicus, 'There is my dunce of a classmate has found his
way into Congress, and is living amid the perpetual excitement of
intellectual minds, while I am cooped up in an ignorant country
parish, obliged to be at the beck and call of every old woman, who
happens to feel uneasy in her mind.'

'Well, Germanicus, the road to political distinction was as open to
you as to him; why did you not choose it?' 'Oh, I could not consent to
be the tool of a party; to shake hands with the vicious, and flatter
fools. It would gall me to the quick to hear my opponents accuse me of
actions I never committed, and of motives which worlds would not tempt
me to indulge.' Since Germanicus is wise enough to know the whistle
costs more than it is worth, is he not unreasonable to murmur because
he has not bought it?

Matrona always wears a discontented look when she hears the praises of
Clio. 'I used to write her composition for her, when we were at school
together,' says she; 'and now she is quite the idol of the literary
world; while I am never heard of beyond my own family, unless some one
happens to introduce me as the friend of Clio.' 'Why not write, then;
and see if the world will not learn to introduce Clio as the friend of
Matrona?' 'I write! not for the world! I could not endure to pour my
soul out to an undiscerning multitude; I could not see my cherished
thoughts caricatured by some soulless reviewer, and my favorite
fancies expounded by the matter-of-fact editor of some stupid paper.'
Why does Matrona envy what she knows costs so much, and is of so
little value?

Yet so it is, through all classes of society. All of us covet some
neighbor's possession, and think our lot would have been happier, had
it been different from what it is. Yet most of us could obtain wor