while no heed was paid by his physician to his
loss of appetite and depression of spirits.

In this state he declined rapidly, but without
dread of his end, to which he looked tranquilly
forward, "congratulating himself on it," said
his friend Burke, "as a happy conclusion of
a happy life." After his death, in February,
seventeen 'ninety-two, Burke wrote the obituary
notice, in which it is told how " in full affluence
of foreign and domestic fame, admired by the
expert in art and by the learned in science,
courted by the great, caressed by sovereign
powers, and celebrated by distinguished poets,
his native humility, modesty, and candour,
never forsook him, even on surprise or provocation;
nor was the least degree of arrogance or
assumption visible to the most scrutinising eye
in any part of his conduct or discourse. His
talents of every kind, powerful from nature, and
not meanly cultivated by letters, his social
virtues in all the relations and all the habitudes
of life, rendered him the centre of a very great
and unparalleled variety of agreeable societies,
which will be dissipated by his death. He had
too much merit not to excite some jealousy, too
much innocence to provoke any enmity."

WHITE LIES.

WHITE lies have always been debatable
ground. Of the iniquity of the black and of
the danger of the grey there are scarcely two
opinions, at least in Christendom; and if there
are, they belong to a morale of such low condition
as does not deserve consideration; but the
white—the purely innocent and conventional,
or it may even be philanthropic and human—
are they allowable by the canons of Christian
morality or not?

I was once much in a certain circle where
this question was under perpetual discussion;
and very fierce were the arguments on either
side; so fierce indeed, that Christian charity,
which I always observe makes shipwreck sooner
than any other virtue, foundered in mid seas,
and we flew at each other's throats to prove the
high mettled condition of our truth or our
liberality, respectively. I being but a loose slipshod
kind of body, with a soul in nothing better
than an old dressing-gown unbrailed and easy-
fitting—so said the more rigid—and certainly
caring much for peace, more for liberty, and
most of all for charity and kindly dealing, was
on the side of the admissibility of white lies if
innocent,—or in certain cases—if philanthropic
and told intentionally for good. But I stood
almost alone. The rest of the combatants were
for the most part in the camp of severe,
uncompromising, and unconditional truth—truth
at any price and under all circumstances—truth
however painful—truth however needless—
truth however violent—truth without reserve,
without disguise, and without softening or
shading, and white lies, relegated equally with
black and grey to the lowest depths of Tartarus;
whence indeed, they said, they had all sprung,
without distinction of parentage if with some
slight modification of complexion. Not that
one of these adherents did, or could, live up
to the standard; but that did not signify; the
standard was there all the same however
unattainable; and I and all who honestly proclaimed
that we conld not measure the full score of
inches, so it was no good trying, were despised
as mere abortive pigmies in the world of souls,
wretched paralytics afflicted with hopeless moral
deformity which rendered us unfit for soldiers
in the great army of progress and virtue. And
yet, the honest confession of incapability and
consequent non-exertion was a greater truth
than the pretence of trying to be what was
impossible.

There was one phrase about which we used
to have terrific skirmishes—the common
expression, "Not at home." No conventional or
understood meaning was allowed to be assigned
to this phrase. Not at home, they said, means
simply according to the words, " I am not in
the house; I am absent and abroad;" the second
or understood meaning, " I am not visible to
friends to-day, and it is no business of yours
whether I am in the house or not," not counting.
Well! let us take this not at home for
our first example of how far it is possible to
tell the exact truth; and remember, if we may
not have disguises in one thing neither may we
have them in another, and if one phrase is not
allowed as a mystical kind of domino neither
must be another.

Suppose then, instead of these three words
expressing all they do and just what you desire
they should express—out of the house, engaged,
indisposed to receive visitors generally, or indisposed
to receive that special visitor in particular—
at any rate a six foot bar put up between you
and the street door which not the most pushing
can very well force open, you were obliged to
tell the exact truth, and tell it too by Mary
Maid's lips. " Oh, sir, missis is having her new
wig tried on, and please she can't see you."

"Please, ma'am, missis is at home, but she
says as how you are so unpleasant to her she
can't abear to see you, and you do so run on
about yourself, and you have such a bonnet as
give her the jaundice to look at."

"Yes, sir, master and missis is both at home,
but master's in the dining-room a-blowiug up
missis awful, and missis's eyes they are as red
as red, and she'd rather you did not see her look
such a fright!"

"Yes, sir, they're all at home, but there's
young Mr. Sparrowhawk in the drawing-room
along with Miss Em'ly he is, and they are looking
out for him to say something like a gentleman
to-day, for they've all slinked down stairs
and left them alone!"

These are only a few of the possible features
of a perfectly unveiled and honest truth; and
pretty possibilities they are! lovely features,
certainly, to have handed round to all the
gossips of your set! Duns; it may be bailiffs
(I have known such things happen before now);
poor relations whom you love and value and of