COLTON’S “Lacon” contains the best examples in English of what the French call Pensées. They illustrate the growth of the essay from the popular proverb towards its fully developed literary form. Colton frequently follows up an epigram or an apothegm with a fully developed essay, as when he writes on “Knavery” and “Pride” in a style not unworthy of Bacon, and relapses from it into epigrams in the style and spirit of La Rochefoucauld. In the preparation of “Lacon” it is said that he drew heavily on Bacon and Barton, but the book is nevertheless his own—so entirely original that it holds its place as almost the only book of its class in English which has a reasonable assurance of permanent survival. Colton was born at Salisbury, England, about the year 1780. He was educated at Cambridge for the Church and was placed as rector of Kew and Petersham, but his life was dissolute, and in 1828 he absconded to escape his creditors. He took up his residence in Paris and two years later published “Lacon, or Many Things in Few Words.” He had already published “Hypocrisy,” a satirical poem, which is now remembered only by title. He committed suicide in Paris, April 28th, 1832, on learning that his life depended on a painful surgical operation. This has occasioned much comment at the expense of his slender reputation for consistency, but he is by no means the first philosopher who showed himself unable to “bear the toothache patiently.”