La Rochefoucauld is not fairly cynical, more than is Montaigne. But, as a man, he wins upon you less. His maxims are like hard and sharp crystals, precipitated from the worldly wisdom blandly solute and dilute in Montaigne. The wise of this world reject the dogma of human depravity, as taught in the Bible. They willingly accept it,--nay, accept it complacently, hugging themselves for their own penetration,--as taught in the "Maxims" of La Rochefoucauld. * * * Jean de La Bruyère is personally almost as little known as if he were an ancient of the Greek or Roman world, surviving, like Juvenal, only in his literary production. Bossuet got him employed to teach history to a great duke, who became his patron, and settled a life-long annuity upon him. He published his one book, the "Characters," in 1687, was made member of the French Academy in 1693, and died in 1696. That, in short, is La Bruyère's biography. His book is universally considered one of the most finished products of the human mind. It is not a great work,--it lacks the unity and the majesty of design necessary for that. It consists simply of detached thoughts and observations on a variety of subjects. It shows the author to have been a man of deep and wise reflection, but especially a consummate master of style. The book is one to read in, rather than to read. It is full of food to thought. The very beginning exhibits a self-consciousness on the writer's part very different from that spontaneous simplicity in which truly great books originate. La Bruyère begins:-- Every thing has been said; and one comes too late, after more than seven thousand years that there have been men, and men who have thought. La Bruyère has something to say, and that at length unusual for him, of pulpit eloquence. We select a few specimen sentences:-- Christian eloquence has become a spectacle. That gospel sadness, which is its soul, is no longer to be observed in it; its place is supplied by advantages of facial expression, by inflexions of the voice, by regularity of gesticulation, by choice of words, and by long categories. The sacred word is no longer listened to seriously; it is a kind of amusement, one among many; it is a game in which there is rivalry, and in which there are those who lay wagers. Profane eloquence has been transferred, so to speak, from the bar,... where it is no longer employed, to the pulpit, where it ought not to be found.