melancholy.[A]

[Footnote A: It is reported of him that his only mode of alleviating his
melancholy was by walking from his college at Oxford to the bridge, to
listen to the rough jokes of the bargemen.]

Could one have imagined that the brilliant wit, the luxuriant raillery,
and the fine and deep sense of PASCAL, could have combined with the most
opposite qualities--the hypochondriasm and bigotry of an ascetic?
ROCHEFOUCAULD, in private life, was a conspicuous example of all those
moral qualities of which he seemed to deny the existence, and exhibited in
this respect a striking contrast to the Cardinal de Retz, who has presumed
to censure him for his want of faith in the reality of virtue; but DE RETZ
himself was the unbeliever in disinterested virtue. This great genius was
one of those pretended patriots destitute of a single one of the virtues
for which he was the clamorous advocate of faction.

When Valincour attributed the excessive tenderness in the tragedies of
RACINE to the poet's own impassioned character, the son amply showed that
his father was by no means the slave of love. RACINE never wrote a single
love-poem, nor even had a mistress; and his wife had never read his
tragedies, for poetry was not her delight. Racine's motive for making love
the constant source of action in his tragedies, was from the principle
which has influenced so many poets, who usually conform to the prevalent
taste of the times. In the court of a young monarch it was necessary that
heroes should be lovers; Corneille had nobly run in one career, and Racine
could not have existed as a great poet had he not rivalled him in an
opposite one. The tender RACINE was no lover; but he was a subtle and
epigrammatic observer, before whom his convivial friends never cared to
open their minds; and the caustic BOILEAU truly said of him, "RACINE is
far more malicious than I am."

ALFIERI speaks of his mistress as if he lived with her in the most
unreserved familiarity; the reverse was the case. And the gratitude and
affection with which he describes his mother, and which she deserved,
entered so little into his habitual feelings, that, after their early
separation, he never saw her but once, though he often passed through the
country where she resided.

JOHNSON has composed a beautiful Rambler, describing the pleasures which
result from the influence of good-humour; and somewhat remarkably says,
"Without good-humour learning and bravery can be o