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the evil of which human nature is capable, was unawarethat these very passions, regulated by moral principleand religion, would animate men to virtue as well as tovice. He read this lesson subsequently in his own heart,when, turning from the libertine society with which hespent his youth, he became the friend of madame de laFayette, madame de Sevigne , and the most distinguishedpersons of the reign of Louis XIV . Yet the taint couldnot quite be effaced. It left his heart, but it blotted hisunderstanding. He could feel generous, noble, and pioussentiments ; but having once experienced emotions thereverse of these, and having found them deep-rooted inothers, he fancied that both virtue and vice, good andevil, sprang from the same causes, and were based onthe same foundations. Added to this, we may observethat his best friends belonged to a court. True andjust as was madame de la Fayette, —amiable and dis-interested as madame de Ssvigne,— brave as Turenne,—■noble asCcnde,—pious as Itacine,—honest as Boilcau,

■—devout and moral as madame de Main tenon might be,and were, the taint of a court was spread over all;the desire of being well with the sovereign, and makinga monarch’s favour the cynosure of hearts and the mea-sure of merit. Rochefoucauld fancied that he coulddiscern selfishness in all ; yet, had he turned his eye in-ward with a clearer view, he had surely found that theimpulses that caused his own heart to warm with friend-ship and virtue, were based on a power of forgettingself in extraneous objects ; for he was a faithful, affec-tionate, and disinterested friend, a fond father, and anhonourable man. He was brave also ; though madamede Maintenon tells us that he was accustomed to saythat he looked on personal bravery as folly. Thisspeech lets us into much of the secret recesses of hismind. His philosophy was epicurean ; and, wanting thestoic exaltation of sentiment, and worship of good forgood’s sake, he mistook the principles of the humanmind, and saw no excellence in a forgetfulness of self,e 4