was the being somewhat passionate; "but he had got the better of it by reason, and it was very seldom that it did him or any one else any harm." Of Rudolf of Hapsburg we are told that he was by nature warm and choleric, but that as he advanced in years he corrected this defect. To some of his friends, expressing their wonder that since his elevation to the imperial dignity he had restrained the vehemence of his temper, the founder of the House of Austria replied, "I have often repented of being passionate, never of being mild and humane.” One of Cromwell's biographers reports his "temper exceeding fiery; but the flame of it kept down for the most part, or soon allayed with those moral endowments he had." The admirable Frederick Borromeo was admired for a placability, a sweetness of manner nearly imperturbable, which, however, as Manzoni reminds us, was not natural to the devout prelate, but was the effect of continual combat against a quick and hasty disposition. Lord Clarendon more than once in his autobiography, plumes himself on having mastered and "suppressed that heat and passion he was naturally inclined to be transported with." "They who knew the great infirmity of his whole family, which abounded in passion, used to say he had much extinguished the unruliness of that fire." Lord Macaulay turns to the advantage of his favourite chancellor the assertion of his detractors, that the disposition of the great Somers was very far from being so gentle as the world believed, that he was really prone to the angry passions, and that sometimes, while his voice was soft, and his words kind and courteous, his delicate frame was almost convulsed by suppressed emotion. His brilliant advocate is fain to accept this reproach as the highest of all eulogies. Again: Sir Archibald Alison assures us of Sir Robert Peel, that he was by nature afflicted with a most violent temper, and that so extreme were his paroxysms of anger, when a young man, that he used, while they were coming on, to shut himself up alone till the dark fit was over. "By degrees, however, he obtained the mastery of this infirmity, and this at length so effectually that he passed with the world, at a distance, as a man of a singularly cold and phlegmatic temperament." Lady Holland reports her distinguished father to have been naturally choleric,-prefacing the statement by a reflection, that, although it is not the part of a daughter to reveal faults, yet a fault nobly repaired, or repented of, adds to the respect and interest which a character inspires. By her showing, then, Mr. Sydney Smith was by nature quick and hasty, but always struggled against the failing, and made many regulations to avoid exciting any such emotions; and when he did give way, it often excited his biographer's admiration to see him gradually subduing his chafed spirit, and to observe his dissatisfaction with himself till he had humbled himself and made his peace, it mattered not with whom, groom or child. "He could not bear the reproaches of his own heart." So Mr. Henry Rogers observes of Locke, and his success, by dint of " immense pains" taken, in subjugating his choleric propensity, that his anxiety for its complete subjugation appears in his never being so angry with another as he always was with himself—for being angry. Those who are conversant with the journal and letters of Dr. Chalmers, may remember how often that good man takes himself to task for infirmities of temper, and how strenuously he resolves to strive to keep down every tendency to irrritation when in company, to "try to maintain a vigorous contest with this unfortunate peculiarity of my temper," to "school down every irritable feeling;" and how remorsefully he records such instances as getting "into a violent passion with Sandy," and getting "ruffled with Jane," in a manner and to a degree quite unchristian.” Passages abound such as, "Now is the time for reflecting on the evils of intemperate passion;""erred egregiously this evening in venting my indignation;" "I may at least ward off the assaults of anger;" "erred in betraying my anger to my servant and wife ;" "constant visitations of indignancy; this exceedingly wrong: there is not a greater foe to spirituality than wrath." "O my God, deliver me from all rancour and much irritableness," * etc., etc. “Here," to apply the lines of Wordsworth's son-in-law, 66 * See Hanna's Life of Chalmers, Journal of 1810 and of 1825-6, passim. "Here was a temper less by nature tuned The pen is too truly said to be a fruitful source of regrets to some of us, in regard of the outbreaks of temper we allow it to put on paper; and never is the sting sharper, says one essayist, than when we realize that our imprudence is in black and white, beyond our reach, irrevocable. "We send off our letter, to repent sometimes how bitterly!" Litera scripta manet. Hence the advice of another, never to write in anger, or, at any rate, to keep your letter till you are cool. We are recommended, when indignant at any one's conduct, to write a letter couched in the strongest terms possible, as satirical and cutting as we can make it, and having done this, to direct, seal, and put it in our desk for a few hours, then read it for our own satisfaction, and tear it up. Another popular authority, earnestly deprecating angry letters, lays down as a rule to be observed throughout the letter-writing world, that no angry letter be posted till four and twenty hours shall have elapsed since it was written. "We all know how absurd is that other rule, of saying the alphabet when you are angry. Trash! Sit down and write your letter; write it with all the venom in your power; spit out your spleen at the fullest; it will do you good you think you have been injured; say all that you can say with all your poisoned eloquence, and gratify yourself by reading it while your temper is still hot. Then put it in your desk, and, as a matter of course, burn it before breakfast the following morning. Believe me that you will then have a double gratification." Loquitur the perhaps most widely read, and without a perhaps the most prolific, writer of the day. When Coeur-de-Lion, in Scott's "Talisman," incensed and mortified at the Templar's tactics, yet foresaw the penalty of giving way to his headlong resentment, with a strong effort he remained silent till he had repeated a pater noster, that being the course which "his confessor had enjoined him to pursue when anger was likely to obtain dominion over him." The familiar "count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram," in one of Mr. Dickens' later stories is but another practical application of the selfsame text. Gibbon adds to his account of the public penance inflicted by Ambrose on Theodosius, for the massacre of Thessalonica, this remark: "and the edict which interposes a salutary interval of thirty days between the sentence and the execution, may be accepted as the worthy fruits of his [the emperor's] repentance." For it was by a hasty resolve that Theodosius swore in his wrath to expiate the blood of his lieutenant, Botheric, by the blood of a guilty people; his fiery and choleric temper being impatient of the dilatory forms of a judicial inquiry. In hot haste he despatched the messengers of death; but attempted, when it was too late, to prevent the execution of his own orders. Avenging furiously in haste, he had to repent at leisure; and he did repent. It is impossible, perhaps, observed Dean Swift, for the best and wisest among us to keep so constant a guard upon our temper but that we may at some time or other lie open to the strokes of fortune. Incensed on one occasion, "it was natural for me to have immediate recourse to my pen and ink; but before I would offer to make use of them, I resolved deliberately to tell over a hundred; and when I came to the end of that sum, I found it more advisable to defer drawing up my intended remonstrance till I had slept soundly on my resentments." We are told of the celebrated Macklin, that although so particular in drilling the performers at rehearsals, he was scrupulous in keeping his temper down, the irritability of which he knew too well; and that on one occasion he interposed an hour by his stop-watch, all retiring together from the stage to the green-room, at the end of which time all were in good humour again, and the rehearsal was resumed. "When the evil effects of hasty anger approach, the consequences of which may be irretrievable,"-thus moralizes a fellow-craftsman, John O'Keeffe,- "it would be no harm if all of us could suppress our own feelings, even for Macklin's green-room hour." His mighty master, Shakspeare, would have supplied him with a precedent, in the case of good Duke Humphrey, who says as he re-enters,— "Now, lords, my choler being overblown Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton's secretary, Mr. Nixon, on his own showing, could not refrain from blurting out just what he felt at the moment, when differences arose between the two. This used to vex Sir Thomas, who however would say nothing till the next day, and then, when the secretary thought that the whole matter had passed off (having perhaps received great kindness in the meantime), the remonstrance would come out, "What a silly fellow you were, Nixon, to put yourself in such a passion yesterday! If I had spoken then, we should most probably have parted. Make it a rule never to speak when you are in a passion, but wait till the next day." And we are assured that, if at any time he happened to transgress this rule himself, he was seriously vexed and grieved, and could not rest till he had in some way made amends for his want of selfrestraint. Molière's Arnolphe propounds the prophylactic rule with emphasis and discretion : "Un certain Grec disait à l'empereur Auguste, B EVANESCENCE OF THE EARLY DEW. HOSEA vi. 3. Y the word of the prophet Hosea, the Divine reproach fell on Ephraim and on Judah, that their goodness was as a |