In the following small selection of aphorisms, a considerable proportion are drawn from Eastern literature. Indian wisdom is represented by passages from the great epics, the _Mahābhārata_ and the _Rāmāyana_; the _Panchatantra_ and the _Hitopadesa_, two Sanskrit versions of the famous collection of apologues known in Europe as the Fables of Bidpaï, or Pilpay; the _Dharma-sastra_ of Manu; Bhāravi, Māgha, Bhartrihari, and other Hindu poets. Specimens of the mild teachings of Buddha and his more notable followers are taken from the _Dhammapada_ (Path of Virtue) and other canonical works; pregnant sayings of the Jewish Fathers, from the Talmud; Moslem moral philosophy is represented by extracts from Arabic and Persian writers (among the great poets of Persia are, Firdausī, Sa’dī, Hāfiz, Nizāmī, Omar Khayyām, Jāmī); while the proverbial wisdom of the Chinese and the didactic writings of the sages of Burmah are also occasionally cited. The ordinary reader will probably be somewhat surprised to discover in the aphorisms of the ancient Greeks and Hindus several close parallels to the doctrines of the Old and New Testaments, and he will have reasoned justly if he conclude that the so-called “heathens” could have derived their spiritual light only from the same Source as that which inspired the Hebrew prophets and the Christian apostles. Among English writers of aphorisms Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, is pre-eminent, but none of his pithy sentences find place here, because they are procurable in many inexpensive forms, (_e.g._, _Counsels from my Lord Bacon_, 1892), and must be familiar to what is termed “the average general reader.” _The Enchiridion_ of Frances Quarles and the _Resolves_ of Owen Feltham are, however, laid under contribution, as also Robert Chamberlain, an author who is probably unknown to many pluming themselves on their thorough acquaintance with English literature, some of whose aphorisms (published in 1638, under the title of _Nocturnal Lucubrations_) I have deemed worthy of reproduction. In more modern times, with the sole exception of William Hazlitt, our country has produced no very successful writer of aphorisms. Colton’s _Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think_, went through several editions soon after its first publication in 1820; it is described by Mr. John Morley—and not unfairly—as being “so vapid, so wordy, so futile as to have a place among those books which dispense with parody”; it is “an awful example to anyone who is tempted to try his hand at an aphorism.” Mr. Morley is hardly less severe in speaking of the “Thoughts” in _Theophrastus Such_: “the most insufferable of all deadly-lively prosing in our sublunary world.” However this may be, assuredly other works of the author of _Adam Bede_ will be found to furnish many examples of admirable apothegms.