292 LIFE AND HABIT. 



"As physicians have always their instruments and 

 knives ready for cases which suddenly require their 

 skill, so do thou have principles ready for the under- 

 standing of things divine and human, and for doing 

 everything, even the smallest, with a recollection of the 

 bond that unites the divine and human to one another. 

 For neither wilt thou do anything well which pertains 

 to man without at the same time having a reference to 

 things divine ; nor the contrary." 



Unhappy one ! No wonder the Roman empire went 

 to pieces soon after him. If I remember rightly, he 

 established and subsidised professorships in all parts of 

 his dominions. Whereon the same befell the arts and 

 literature of Rome as befell Italian painting after the 

 Academic system had taken root at Bologna under the 

 Caracci. Mr. Martin Tupper, again, is an amiable and 

 well-meaning man, but we should hardly like to see 

 him in Lord Beaconsfield's place. The Athenians 

 poisoned Socrates ; and Aristophanes — than whom few 

 more profoundly religious men have ever been born — 

 did not, so far as we can gather, think the worse of his 

 countrymen on that account. It is not improbable that 

 if they had poisoned Plato too, Aristophanes would have 

 been well enough pleased ; but I think he would have 

 preferred either of these two men to Marcus Aurelius. 



I know nothing about the loving but manly devotion 

 of a St. Lewis, but I strongly suspect that Mr. Mivart 

 has taken him, too, upon hearsay. 



On the other hand, among dogs we find examples of 

 every heroic quality, and of all that is most perfectly 

 charming to us in man. 



