Yet not always does "tact" array itself in silken softness, or "stoop to conquer:" some ply the trade with no less success under the guise of rough and candid honesty: these men declare loudly that they always speak their minds: come upon us with a bluff sincerity, disarming prudence by an appearance of incautious trust and open-heartedness. They "cannot cog," they cannot sue, they profess noisily to abhor "humbug," as they term it, in every shape:--a strange ingratitude _to what they chiefly thrive by_; for certain it is, that though doubtlessly "all honorable men," these are the most insidious tacticians, and generally of the worst kind. Hitherto we have spoken of "tact" in its deteriorated shape, and indeed the word seems to have got so bad a name that its bare mention breathes distrust. Yet there is a medium class of men who, like William of Orange, reduce violent feelings even to frigidity, and allowing discretion her widest scope, do not entirely obliterate the affections. Machiavelli says that "seldom men of mean fortunes attain to high degrees without force or fraud, and generally rather by the latter than the former," and hence he recommends guile to be adopted--but these, to whom we now allude, practise prudence, yet preserve their guileless sincerity. Here, though the term is rather univocal, and seems to apply only to our concerns with others, its healthy action is forcibly evinced on the individual's mind, for it disciplines the impulses and reviews for ready co-action reason's powers. So high did the ancients in their sense regard it, that they elevated it to a divinity--"Nullum numen adest si sit Prudentia," though, as Addison observes, "this sort of discretion has no place in private conversation between intimate friends. It occupies a neutral ground between caution and art, uses expediency instead of integrity, and hence deceives us by the first, when we look for the consistency of the latter." Almost ever combined with conceit (the pride of questionable success), it never possesses the magnanimity to confess an error; for this detracting from its arrogated infallibility might deteriorate its influence: it will acknowledge vices (if polite), but will never plead guilty to mistakes, since the grossest charge against the "man of tact" at the bar of self, much more of public judgment, is not the perpetration of a sin--but the commission of a blunder! From the "Revue des Deux Mondes." A WRECK OF THE OLD FRENCH ARISTOCRACY. AN INCIDENT OF TRAVEL IN THE LIMOUSIN.