Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

get, right or wrong. His tongue and his heart are always at variance, and fall out like rogues in the street, to pick somebody's pocket. They never agree but, like Herod and Pilate, to do mischief. His conscience never stands in his light, when the devil holds a candle to him; for he has stretched it so thin that it is transparent. He is an engineer of treachery, fraud, and perfidiousness; and knows how to manage matters of great weight with very little force, by the advantage of his trepanning screws. He is very skilful in all the mechanics of cheat, the mathematical magic of imposture; and will outdo the expectations of the most credulous, to their own admiration and undoing. He is an excellent founder, and will melt down a leaden fool, and cast him into what form he pleases. He is like a pike in a pond, that lives by rapine, and will sometimes venture on one of his own kind, and devour a knave as big as himself; he will swallow a fool a great deal bigger than himself; and if he can but get his head within his jaws, will carry the rest of him hanging out at his mouth, until by degrees he has digested him all. He has a hundred tricks to slip his neck out of the pillory without leaving his ears behind. As for the gallows, he never ventures to show his tricks upon the highrope, for fear of breaking his neck. He seldom commits any villany, but in a legal way, and makes the law bear him out in that for which it hangs others. He always robs under the vizor of law, and picks pockets with tricks in equity. By his means the law makes more knaves than it hangs; and, like the inns of court, protects offenders against itself. He gets within the law and disarms it. His hardest labour is to wriggle himself into trust, which if he can but compass, his business is done; for fraud and treachery follow as easily as a thread does a needle. He grows rich by the ruin of his neighbours, like grass in the streets in a great sickness. He shelters himself under the covert of the law, like a thief in a hempplot, and makes that secure him which was intended for his destruction.-Butler.

XXI.

Royal bounties

Are great and gracious, while they are dispensed

With moderation; but, when their excess,
In giving giant bulks to others, takes from
The prince's just proportion, they lose

The name of virtues, and their natures changed,
Grow the most dangerous vices.

XXII.

Massinger.

Reformation is a work of time. A national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once; we must yield a little to the prepossession which has taken hold on the mind, and we may then bring people to adopt what would offend them, if endeavoured to be introduced by violence.-Sir J. Reynolds.

XXIII.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall.-Confucius.

XXIV.

The estimate and valour of a man consist in the heart, and in the will; there his true honour lives; valour is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul; it does not lie in the valour of our horse nor of our arms, but in ourselves. He that falls obstinate in his courage, Si succiderit de genu pugnat; if his legs fail him, fights upon his knees.-Montaigne.

XXV.

In a vain man, the smallest spark may kindle into the greatest flame; because the materials are always prepared for it.-Hume.

XXVI.

Be not mealy-mouthed in refusing him that you are satisfied has a pique against you; and let it be no inducement to trust him because he has confided in you. For if you invite, you must expect to be invited again, and some time or other your entertainment will be repaid you, if bashfulness has once softened or turned the edge of that diffidence which ought to be your guard.

Plutarch.

XXVII.

It is a common and just observation, that, when the meaning of any thing is dubious, one can no way better judge of the true intent of it, than by considering who is the author, what is his character in general, and his disposition in particular.—Pope.

XXVIII.

Haste and rashnesse are storms and tempests, breaking and wrecking businesse, but nimblenesse is a full, fair wind, blowing it with speed to the haven.-Fuller.

XXIX.

Human nature is not so much depraved as to hinder us from respecting goodness in others, though we ourselves want it. This is the reason why we are so much charmed with the pretty prattle of children, and even the expressions of pleasure or uneasiness in some part of the brute creation. They are without artifice or malice; and we love truth too well to resist the charms of sincerity.-Steele.

XXX.

There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in the flutter of a fan. There is the angry flutter, the modest flutter, the timorous flutter, the confused flutter, the merry flutter, and the amorous flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any emotion in the mind which does not produce a suitable agitation in the fan; insomuch, that, if I only see the fan of a disciplined lady, I know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes. -Addison.

XXXI.

There is, perhaps, nothing more easy than to write properly for the English theatre; I am amazed that none are apprenticed to the trade. The author, when well acquainted with the value of thunder and lightning, when versed in all the mystery of scene-shifting and trap-doors, when skilled in the proper periods to introduce a wire walker or a waterfall; when instructed in every actor's peculiar talent, and capable of adapting his speeches to

the supposed excellence; when thus instructed, knows all that can give a modern audience pleasure.—Goldsmith.

XXXII.

The task of our present writers requires, together with that learning which is to be gained from books, that experience which can never be attained by solitary diligence, but must arise from general converse and accurate observation of the living world. Their performance have, as Horace expresses it, plus oneris quantum veniæ minus, little indulgence, and therefore more difficulty. They are engaged in portraits of which every one knows the original, and can detect any deviation from exactness of resemblance. Other writings are safe, except from the malice of learning, but these are in danger from every common reader; as the slipper ill-executed was censured by a shoemaker who happened to stop in his way at the Venus of Apelles.-Johnson.

XXXIII.

As none but kings have pow'r to raise
A levy, which the subject pays,
And tho' they call that tax a loan,
Yet when't is gather'd 't is their own;
So he that's able to impose

A wit-excise on verse or prose,
And still the abler authors are,
Can make them pay the greater share,
Is prince of poets of his time,
And they his vassals that supply him;
Can judge more justly of what he takes
Than any of the best he makes,
And more impartially conceive
What's fit to choose, and what to leave.
For men reflect more strictly upon
The sense of others than their own;
And wit, that's made of wit and slight,
Is richer than the plain downright;
As salt that's made of salt's more fine
Than when it first came from the brine

And spirits of a nobler nature

Drawn from the dull ingredient matter.

XXXIV.

Butler.

He only sees well who sees the whole in the parts, and the parts in the whole. I know but three classes of men-those who see the whole, those who see but a part, and those who see both together.-Lavater.

XXXV.

'Tis necessary a writing critic should understand how to write. And though every writer is not bound to show himself in the capacity of critic, every writing critic is bound to show himself capable of being a writer. For if he be apparently impotent in this latter kind, he is to be denied all title or character in the other.Shaftesbury.

XXXVI.

A modest person seldom fails to gain the goodwill of those he converses with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to be pleased with himself.-Steele.

XXXVII.

The same word in the Greek (os) signifies rust and poyson; and some strong poyson is made of the rust of metals, but none more venomous than the rust of money in the rich man's purse, unjustly detained from the labourer, which will poyson and infect his whole estate.-Fuller.

XXXVIII.

When I have found the weather set in to be very bad, I have taken a whole day's journey to see a picture gallery that is furnished by the hands of great masters. By this means, when the heavens are filled with clouds, when the earth swims in rain, and all nature wears a louring countenance, I withdraw myself from these uncomfortable scenes into the visionary worlds of art; where I meet with shining landscapes, gilded triumphs, beautiful faces, and all those other objects that fill the mind with gay ideas, and disperse that gloominess which

« AnteriorContinuar »