The truth, however, seems to be, that this saying, like most good things of its kind, has been repeated by so many eminent writers, that it is impossible to trace it to any one in particular, in the precise form in which it is now popularly received. I shall quote, in succession, all those who have expressed it in words of the same, or a nearly similar, import, and leave the reader to judge for himself.

Jeremy Taylor had the sentiment clearly in view in the following sentence:

"There is in mankind an universal contract implied in all their intercourses; and words being instituted to declare the mind, and for no other end, he that hears me speak hath a right in justice to be done him, that as far as I can, what I speak be true; for else he by words does not know your mind, and then as good and better not speak at all."

Then comes David Lloyd, who, in his "State Worthies," thus remarks of Sir Roger Ascham :

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"None is more able for, yet none is more averse to, that circumlocution and contrivance, wherewith some men shadow their main drift and purpose. Speech was made to open man to man and not to hide him; to promote commerce and not betray it."

Dr. South, Lloyd's contemporary, but who survived him more than twenty years, expresses the sentiment in nearly the same words:—

"In short, this seems to be the true inward judgment of all our politick sages, that speech was given to the ordinary sort of men whereby to communicate their mind, but to wise men whereby to conceal it."

The next writer in whom it occurs is Butler, the author of "Hudibras." In one of his prose essays on the "Modern Politician," he says:

"He [the modern politician] believes a man's words and his meanings should never agree together; for he that says what he thinks lays himself open to be expounded by the most ignorant; and he who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than discover the sense of his heart, deserves to have it pulled out like a traitor's, and shown publicly to the rabble."

Young has the thought in this couplet on the duplicity of courts:

"When Nature's end of language is declined,

And men talk only to conceal their mind."

From Young it passed to Voltaire, who, in the dialogue entitled "Le Chapon et la Poularde,” makes the former say of the treachery of men :

"Ils n'emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées."

Goldsmith, about the same time, in his paper in the " Bee," produces it in the well-known words:

"Men who know the world hold that the true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them."

Then we have Talleyrand, who is reported to have said,

"La parole n'a été donnée à l'homme que pour déguiser sa pensée."

The latest writer who employs this remark is, I believe, Lord Holland. In his "Life of Lope de Vega," he says of certain Spanish writers, promoters of the cultismo style :

"These authors do not avail themselves of the invention of letters for the purpose of conveying, but of concealing their ideas."

From these passages it will be seen that the germ of the thought is to be found in Jeremy Taylor; that Lloyd and South have improved upon his mode of expressing it; that Butler, Young, and Goldsmith have repeated it after them; that Voltaire has translated it into French; that Talleyrand has echoed Voltaire's words; and that it has now become so familiar an expression that any one may employ it, as Lord Holland has done, without being at the trouble of citing his authority.

There is a notion in Bentham's "Book of Fallacies" which is often quoted for its depth and acuteness. It is where he ridicules the expression "the wisdom of our ancestors," and shows that, as wisdom increases with years, so we who live in the present age are possessed of a greater degree of it than those who lived in the early ages of the world. The origin of this thought is assigned to Lord Bacon, who, in his "Advancement of Learning," says:

"And indeed, to speak truly, 'Antiquitas sæculi juventus mundi;' certainly our times are the ancient times, when the

world is now ancient, ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from our own times."

Pascal, in one of his "Pensées," has borrowed this from Bacon, enlarging upon it after his own fashion; and Bentham has done little more than copy Pascal. The latter remarks:

:

"Toute la suite des hommes, pendant le cours de tant de siècles, doit être considérée comme un même homme qui subsiste toujours et qui apprend continuellement d'où l'on voit avec combien d'injustice nous respectons l'antiquité dans ses philosophes; car comme la vieillesse est l'âge le plus distant de l'enfance, qui ne voit que la vieillesse de cet homme universel ne doit pas être cherchée dans les temps proches de sa naissance, mais dans ceux qui en sont le plus éloignés ? Ceux que nous appelons anciens étaient véritablement nouveaux en toutes choses, et formaient l'enfance des hommes, proprement; et comme nous avons joint à leurs connaissances l'expérience des siècles qui les ont suivis, c'est en nous que l'on peut trouver cette antiquité que nous révérons dans les autres."

Dugald Stewart, however, in his dissertation

prefixed to the Encyclopædia Britannica,"

assigns a higher origin to this thought than even Lord Bacon, and refers it to the following passage in the "Opus Majus" of Roger Bacon:

"Quanto juniores, tanto perspicaciores, quia juniores, posteriores successione temporum, ingrediuntur labores priorum."

Although Roger Bacon's "Opus Majus was not published till the eighteenth century, there is every reason to suppose that Lord Bacon had seen the manuscript. The fame of a man bearing

his patronymic would naturally lead him to make inquiries respecting his writings and the presumption that he did so is confirmed by more than one passage in his lordship's works, which present a striking similarity, both in thought and expression, to the remarks of his great namesake.

Another, and indeed far from improbable, conjecture is, that the source of this remarkable thought is to be found in the following verse in the "Book of Esdras :".

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Sæculum perdidit juventutem suam, et tempora appropinquant senescere."

There is a thought in Pascal to which La Rochefoucauld furnishes a parallel. Pascal

says:

"Il n'y a point d'homme plus différent d'un autre que de soi-même, dans les divers temps."

La Rochefoucauld has it :

"On est quelques fois aussi différent de soi-même que des autres."

Which is the borrower, it is not easy to determine; but one or the other has adopted it from this of Horace :

"Nihil fuit unquam

Sic dispar sibi."

Another of La Rochefoucauld's aphorisms:

L'hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend à la vertu,”