ANTIQUITY IS STRANGE.--We read every day, with astonishment, things which we see every day without surprise. We wonder at the intrepidity of a Leonidas, a Codrus, and a Curtius; and are not the least surprised to hear of a sea captain who has blown up his ship, his crew, and himself, that they might not fall into the hands of the enemies of his country. I cannot help reading of Porsenna and Regulus with surprise and reverence; and yet I remember that I saw, without either, the execution of Shepherd, a boy of eighteen years old, who intended to shoot the late king, and who would have been pardoned if he would have expressed the least sorrow for his intended crime; but, on the contrary, he declared, that, if he was pardoned, he would attempt it again; that he thought it a duty which he owed his country; and that he died with pleasure for having endeavored to perform it. Reason equals Shepherd to Regulus; but prejudice, and the recency of the fact, make Shepherd a common malefactor, and Regulus a hero. [_Same date._] SECRETS.--The last observation that I shall now mention of the Cardinal’s is, “That a secret is more easily kept by a good many people than one commonly imagines.” By this he means a secret of importance among people interested in the keeping of it. And it is certain that people of business know the importance of secrecy, and will observe it where they are concerned in the event. To go and tell any friend, wife, or mistress, any secret with which they have nothing to do, is discovering to them such an unretentive weakness as must convince them that you will tell it to twenty others, and consequently that they may reveal it without the risk of being discovered. But a secret properly communicated only to those who are to be concerned in the thing in question, will probably be kept by them, though they should be a good many. Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally kept. Adieu. [_Same date._] TRIFLES.--How trifling soever these things may seem, or really be, in themselves, they are no longer so, when above half the world thinks them otherwise. And, as I would have you _omnibus ornatum--excellere rebus_, I think nothing above or below my pointing out to you, or your excelling in. You have the means of doing it, and time before you to make use of them. Take my word for it, I ask nothing now but what you will, twenty years hence, most heartily wish that you had done. [_Sept. 20, 1748._]