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Rh acquiesced in:—"One of the works which most cohtaibnted- te~form the taste of the nation, and to give it a spirit of justness and precision, was the collection of the 'Maxims' of Francis, Due de la Rochefoucauld. Though there is scarcely more than one truth running through the book—^that ' self-love is the motive of every thing;' yet Ais thought is presented under so many various aspects, that it is almost always striking; it is not so much a book as materials for ornamenting a book. This little collection was read with avidity; it taught people to think and to comprise their thoughts in a lively, precise, and delicate turn of expression. This was a merit which, before him, no one in Europe had attained, since the revival of letters."

It would be difficult to give higher praise than this to the style of the " Maxims," to which, no doubt, the work owes a great part of its popularity. If not precisely the in* ventor. La Rochefoucauld is, at all events, the model of this mode of writing, in which success indeed is rare, but