nineteenth century.

Our own generation in Great Britain has been singularly unfortunate
in the literature of aphorism. One too famous volume of proverbial
philosophy had immense vogue, but it is so vapid, so wordy, so futile,
as to have a place among the books that dispense with parody. Then,
rather earlier in the century, a clergyman, who ruined himself by
gambling, ran away from his debts to America, and at last blew his
brains out, felt peculiarly qualified to lecture mankind on moral
prudence. He wrote a little book in 1820; called _Lacon; or Many
Things in Few Words, addressed to those who think_. It is an awful
example to anybody who is tempted to try his hand at an aphorism.
Thus, "Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than
the dinner." I had made some other extracts from this unhappy sage,
but you will thank me for having thrown them into the fire. Finally, a
great authoress of our time was urged by a friend to fill up a gap in
our literature by composing a volume of Thoughts: the result was that
least felicitous of performances, _Theophrastus Such_. One living
writer of genius has given us a little sheaf of subtly-pointed maxims
in the _Ordeal of Richard Feverel_, and perhaps he will one day
divulge to the world the whole contents of Sir Austin Feverel's
unpublished volume, _The Pilgrim's Scrip_.

Yet the wisdom of life has its full part in our literature. Keen
insight into peculiarities of individual motive, and concentrated
interest in the play of character, shine not merely in Shakespeare,
whose mighty soul, as Hallam says, was saturated with moral
observation, nor in the brilliant verse of Pope. For those who love
meditative reading on the ways and destinies of men, we have Burton
and Fuller and Sir Thomas Browne in one age, and Addison, Johnson,