cise-man. So it is with wit, which generally succeeds more from being happily addressed, than from its native poignancy.-Goldsmith.

CLXXIV.

True honour is to honesty what the court of chancery is to common law.-Shenstone.

CLXXV.

The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government: the liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God, and of his country. -Cowley.

CLXXVI.

We are never present with, but always beyond, ourselves. Fear, desire, and hope are still pushing us on towards the future; depriving us in the mean time of the sense and consideration of that which is, to amuse us with the thought of what shall be, even when we shall be no more.-Montaigne.

CLXXVII.

The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, of wit; and wit in poetry, or wit-writing, (if you will give me leave to use a school distinction,) is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it springs the quarry it hunted after; or, without a metaphor, which searches over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things which it designs to represent.-Dryden.

CLXXVIII.

A lady's face, like the cart in the "Tale of a Tub," will wear well, if left alone, but if you offer to load it with foreign ornaments, you destroy the original ground. -Connoisseur.

CLXXIX.

It is with books as with women, where a certain plainness of manner and of dress, is more engaging, than that

glare of paint and airs and apparel, which may dazzle the eye, but reaches not the affections.-Hume.

CLXXX.

All courageous animals are carnivorous, and greater courage is to be expected in a people, such as the Enlish, whose food is strong and hearty, than in the half starved commonalty of other countries.-Sir W. Temple.

CLXXXI.

A young fellow who seems to have no will of his own, and does every thing that is asked of him, is called a very good-natured, but at the same time is thought a very silly young fellow.-Chesterfield.

CLXXXII.

It hath been observed both among ancients and mo derns, that a grey critic has been certainly a green one, the perfection and acquirement of his age being only the improved talent of his youth; like hemp, which some naturalists inform us, is bad for suffocations, though taken but in the seed.-Swift.

6

CLXXXIII.

The maxim, in vino veritas-a man who is well warmed with wine will speak truth'-may be an argument for drinking, if you suppose men in general to be liars: but, sir, I would not keep company with a fellow, who lies as long as he is sober, and whom you must make drunk before you can get a word of truth out of him.-Johnson.

CLXXXIV.

There seems to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth: the first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbours-this is robbery; the second by commerce, which is generally cheating; the third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.-Franklin. D

VOL. I.

CLXXXV.

He submits to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion.-Lavater.

CLXXXVI.

Death never happens but once, yet we feel it every moment of our lives. It is worse to apprehend than to suffer.-Bruyere.

CLXXXVII.

Few men are calculated for that close connexion, which we distinguish by the appellation of friendship; and we well know the difference between a friend and an acquaintance: the acquaintance is in a post of progression; and after having passed through a course of proper experience, and given sufficient evidence of his merit, takes a new title, and ranks himself higher.-Adventurer.

CLXXXVIII.

All smatt'rers are more brisk and pert,
Than those that understand an art;
As little sparkles shine more bright
Than glowing coals that give them light.

CLXXXIX.

Butler.

Deceit may serve for a need, but he only confesses himself overcome, who knows he is neither subdued by policy nor misadventure, but by dint of valour, in a fair and manly war.-Montaigne..

CXC.

The ancients talk so frequently of a fixed, stated portion of provisions assigned to each slave, that we are naturally led to conclude, that slaves lived almost all single, and received that portion as a kind of board-wages.Hume.

CXCI.

He that calls a man ungrateful, sums up all the evil that a man can be guilty of.-Swift.

CXCII.

Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of

envy after it,-it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hands.Sterne.

CXCIII.

It is taken for granted that, on every publication, there is at least a seeming violation of modesty: a presumption on the writer's side, that he is able to instruct or to entertain the world; which implies a supposition that he can communicate what they cannot draw from their own reflections.-Shenstone.

CXCIV.

What I blame philosophers most for, (though some may think it a paradox,) is chiefly their pride; nothing less than an ipse dixit, and you must pin your faith on their sleeve. And though Diogenes lived in a tub, there might be, for aught I know, as much pride under his rags, as in the fine-spun garments of the divine Plato.Swift.

CXCV.

Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than the small-pox.-St. Evremond.

CXCVI.

As I approve of a youth, that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man, that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule, may be old in body, but can never be so in mind. -Cicero.

CXCVII.

Virtue seems to be nothing more than a motion consonant to the system of things: were a planet to fly from its orbit, it would represent a vicious man.-Shenstone.

CXCVIII.

I am told so many ill things of a man, and I see so few in him, that I begin to suspect he has a real but troublesome merit, as being likely to eclipse that of others.Bruyere.

Every sect has a recipe. When you know it, you are

master of nature: you solve all her phenomena: you see all her designs, and can account for all her operations. If need were, you might, perchance, too, be of her laboratory and work for her. At least, one would imagine the partisans of each modern sect had this conceit. They are all Archimedes' in their way, and can make a world upon easier terms than he offered to move one.Shaftesbury.

CC.

Perfect friendship is indivisible: every one gives himself so entirely to his friend, that he has nothing left to distribute to others: but on the contrary, is sorry that he is not double, treble, or quadruple, and that he has not many souls, and many wills, to confer them all upon this one subject. Common friendships will admit of division; one may love the beauty of this, the good humour of that person; the liberty of a third, the paternal affection of a fourth, the fraternal love of a fifth, and so of the rest. But this friendship which possesses the whole soul, and there rules and sways with an absolute sovereignty, can possibly admit of no rival.-Montaigne.

CCI.

A courtier's dependant is a beggar's dog.-Shenstone.

CCII.

Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet every body is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.-Selden.

CCIII.

The first and chief rule of panegyric, is the golden rule of transformation; which consists in converting vices into their bordering virtues. A man who is a spendthrift, and will not pay a just debt, may have his injustice transformed into liberality; cowardice may be metamorphosed into prudence; intemperance into goodnature and good-fellowship; corruption into patriotism. The second is the rule of contraries.