Socrates, when told by the Delphic oracle that he was the wisest man in all Greece, ""Tis because that I alone of all the Greeks know that I know nothing." Horace Walpole wrote: "In all sciences the errors precede the truths, and it is better they should, first than last."

Of the contest over the personality of Homer, Dr. Parr remarked with the enthusiasm of the literary partisan, "I for one would stick to Homer, even if he never existed."

Dr. Parr prided himself on his Latin epitaphs, and said he meant to write Erskine's; as he was an older man than the lord chancellor, the latter replied with a manner intended to be very complimentary, "It is a temptation to commit suicide."

LUCIUS EMILIUS PAULUS.

[A distinguished member of the Roman aristocracy; born about 350 B.C.; defeated the Lusitani in Spain, 191; took prisoner Perseus,. the last king of Macedonia; twice consul; died 160.]

None of you know where the shoe pinches.

He divorced his wife Papiria, the mother of many fine children, among them Scipio and Fabius Maximus; and when his friends remonstrated, and asked him, "Was she not chaste? was she not fair?" he held out his shoe, and said, "Is it not. handsome? is it not new? And yet none of you know where it pinches, but he that wears it." - PLUTARCH: Life.

I require the same genius to draw up an army and order an entertainment.

SIR ROBERT PEEL.

[A distinguished English statesman; born in Lancashire, Feb. 5, 1788; educated at Oxford; entered Parliament, 1809; secretary for Ireland, 1812; for the home department, 1822; first lord of the treasury, 1834-35, 1841-46; supported the repeal of the Corn-Laws; died by a fall from his horse, June 29, 1850.]

I will not stand at the helm during the tempestuous night, if that helm is not allowed freely to traverse. During the agitation for the repeal of the Corn-Laws.

Of the different departments of government he said in 1846,,

"It is no easy task to insure the harmonious and united action of an ancient monarchy, a proud aristocracy, and a reformed House of Commons."

When Shiel had learned by heart, but forgotten, the exordium of a speech beginning with the word "Necessity," which he repeated three times, Peel added, "is not always the mother of invention." JENNINGS: Anecdotal History of Parl., 248.

Feargus O'Connor denied the charge of being a republican, and said he did not care whether the Queen or the Devil was on the throne. Peel observed, "When the honorable gentleman sees the sovereign of his choice on the throne of these realms, I hope he'll enjoy, and I'm sure he'll deserve, the confidence of the crown."

WILLIAM PENN.

[The founder of Pennsylvania; born in London, Oct. 14, 1644; educated at Oxford; joined the Quakers; obtained a grant of land in America in payment of a claim against government; sailed 1682, and made a treaty with the Indians on the site of Philadelphia; returned 1684, and obtained relief for Quakers from James II.; tried for treason, but acquitted; visited America, 1699; died 1718.]

The Tower is to me the worst argument in the world.

When threatened with imprisonment for joining the Quakers. Of their preachers he said, "Poor mechanics are wont to be God's great ambassadors to mankind."

When asked why he, an "ingenious" gentleman, joined the "simple" Quakers, he replied, "I prefer the honestly simple to the ingeniously wicked."

The maxim on which he preached religious toleration in Pennsylvania was, "Whoever is right, the persecutor must be wrong."

PERICLES.

[An Athenian author and statesman; entered public life, 470 B.C., as a leader of the democratic party; directed the government after 446; commanded in the Samian war, 440; patronized the arts, and discouraged foreign conquest; involved in the Peloponnesian war, during which he was deprived of his command; died 429 B.C.]

The whole earth is the monument of great characters.

66

In the oration pronounced over the Athenians killed in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, 431-30 B.C. He was accustomed to say, when putting on his war-cloak, Remember, Pericles, that you govern freemen, Grecians, Athenians." PLUTARCH: Apothegms.

To a friend who wished him to bear false witness in a lawsuit, and to bind himself with an oath, he replied, "I am a friend only as far as the altar.". - Ibid.

He consoled himself on his death-bed with the thought, "No Athenian ever went into mourning on my account." - Ibid. So when Chares, the orator, observed, to the merriment of the Athenians, what terrible brows Phocion had, the latter rejoined, "This brow of mine never gave one of you an hour of sorrow, but the laughter of those sneerers has cost the country many a tear." — Life.

COUNT PESTEL.

[Paul, Count Pestel; born in Russia, 1794; author of "Pestel's Hymn;" became the leader of a secret society formed to introduce by force liberal institutions; executed 1826.] '

Stupid country, where they do not even know how to hang!

When the rope broke by which he was to be hanged.

PETER THE GREAT.

[Peter I., Czar of Russia; born at Moscow, June 10, 1672; ascended the throne, 1682; visited Western Europe, and worked as a shipcarpenter in Holland, 1697; introduced reforms into Russia on his return; defeated Charles XII., 1700; founded St. Petersburg, 1703; engaged in war with Turkey; visited European countries, 1716; died 1725.]

I built St. Petersburg as a window to let in the light of Europe.

Charles XII. of Sweden said of Peter's new capital, "Let him build his wooden houses: we will soon come and burn them." Peter exclaimed before Richelieu's monument, during his visit

to Paris in 1717, "Ah, great man! if thou wert still alive, I would give thee one half of my kingdom to teach me to govern the other!" A Frenchman standing by remarked, that if Richelieu had the one half, he would take and keep the other.

While in London, he attended a meeting of Quakers, and observed at the close of the service, "How happy must be a community instituted on their principles !"

During his visit to Westminster Hall, he asked who the busy people in black gowns and wigs were; and, being told they were lawyers, exclaimed, "Lawyers! I have but two in my dominions, and I believe that I shall hang one of them the moment I get home!"

Having violently assailed, in a fit of passion, Le Fort, his friend and the author of many administrative reforms, Peter bitterly exclaimed, "It is my great desire to reform my subjects, and yet I am ashamed to confess that I am unable to reform myself." When asked why he built ships when he had no ports, he replied, "My ships shall make ports for themselves."

Seeing in Paris a courtier dressed every day in a different suit of clothes, he remarked, "That gentleman seems to be much dissatisfied with his tailor."

His opinion of his great enemy, Charles XII. of Sweden, may be inferred from his saying, "One word from my brother Charles is worth a hundred treaties."

PHILIP OF MACEDON.

[Philip II., king of Macedonia; born 382 B.C.; succeeded his brother, 359; gained victories over Athens in the Social and subsequent wars, until the battle of Chæronea, 338, made him master of Greece; appointed commander-in-chief of the Greek armies against Persia, but was assassinated while making preparations, 336.]

O Fortune, for all these so great kindnesses, do me some small mischief!

When news was brought to him of divers and eminent successes in one day. — PLUTARCH: Apothegms.

When advised to put garrisons in Greek cities which he conquered, he replied, "I had rather be called merciful a great while, than lord a little while."— Ibid.

Being told that a certain city was impregnable: "Is there not a pathway to it," he asked, "wide enough for an ass laden with gold?"— Ibid.

Men that call a spade a spade.

When Lasthenes the Olynthian, and his friends, complained to Philip that some of his retinue called them traitors: "These Macedonians," replied the king, "are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade.' — Ibid. Philip Melanchthon in a letter to Cranmer, May 1, 1548, said, “In ecclesia rectius scapham, scapham dicere."

Having made a man a judge, on Antipater's recommendation, and perceiving afterwards that his hair and beard were dyed, he removed him, saying, "I could not think one that was faithless in his hair could be trusty in his deeds." - Ibid.

Aster, an expert marksman, offered his services to Philip during the siege of Methone, asserting that he could shoot birds in their flight. The king declined the offer, saying, “I will take you into my service when I make war upon starlings;" whereupon Aster shot an arrow from the city, inscribed, "To Philip's right eye," and put it out. The king sent back the arrow with the message that if he took the city he would hang Aster, which he did. Philip could never thereafter bear to hear the Cyclops, or one-eyed men, mentioned.

Philip, remember that thou art mortal.

The words he had a servant repeat in the audience-room. Augustus once received a more pointed hint; for, when condemning men in a passion, Mæcenas threw his tablets to him, on which he had written, "Rise, butcher!" (Surge, carnifex!)

He complimented his prime minister by saying, when reproached with devoting so many hours to sleep, "I sleep, but Antipater wakes." - PLUTARCH: Apothegms.

When suffering from a wound in the throat, his surgeon daily importuned him with some new request. "Take what thou wilt," Philip at last exclaimed," for thou hast me by the throat."

He refused to banish a defamer, preferring "that he speak where we are both known, than both unknown."