Macaulay has his Sermon in a Churchyard. To that spot the homilist invites all and sundry, and he takes his standpoint for his text. Come to this school of his, he bids us, with the promise that there we shall learn, “in one short hour of placid thought, a stoicism more deep, more stern, than ever Zeno’s porch hath taught:” “The plots and feats of those that press To seize on titles, wealth, or power, Shall seem to thee a game of chess, Devised to pass a tedious hour. What matters it to him who fights For shows of unsubstantial good, Whether his kings, and queens, and knights, Be things of flesh, or things of wood? “We check and take, exult, and fret; Our plans extend, our passions rise, Till in our ardour we forget How worthless is the victor’s prize. Soon fades the spell, soon comes the night: Say will it not be then the same, Whether we play the black or white, Whether we lost or won the game?” This may remind us of Mrs. Battle’s apology for whist, or of the concluding sentence in a characteristic confession by Benjamin Constant—who, by the way, had said of himself in a previous letter, _Je passerai comme une OMBRE sur la terre entre le malheur et l’ennui_—he records his _sentiment profond et_ (like his name) _constant_ of the shortness of life—a sentiment, he says, so deep and so constant that it makes the pen or the book drop from his hand whenever he takes to study: “Nous n’avons pas plus de motifs pour acquérir de la gloire, pour conquérir un empire ou pour faire un bon livre, que n’en avons pour faire une promenade ou une partie de whist.” Even so utterly different a man in creed and character as Joseph de Maistre could exclaim, “Ah! le vilain monde! j’ai toujours dit qu’il ne pourrait aller si nous avions le sens commun.... C’est nôtre folie qui fait tout aller.” Else when we see—especially when death brings home to us, strikes home to us—what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue, “en vérité chacun se coucherait et daignerait à peine s’habiller.” _N’importe! tout marche et c’est assez._ And readers of M. de Tocqueville’s letters will remember how often that philosophic writer confides to his correspondents his conviction that there is no one thing in the world capable of fixing and satisfying him. He had attained a success unhoped for at the beginning of his career, but was far from happy. Often, in imagination, he would fancy himself at the summit of human greatness; and when there, the conviction would force itself irrepressibly upon him, that the same painful sensations would follow him to that sublime altitude.