He who gets a good husband for his daughter, hath gained a son; and he who meets with a bad one hath lost a daughter.

II. There is nothing, said Plato, so delightful as the hearing or speaking of truth. For this reason there is no conver sation so agreeable as that of the man of integrity, who hears without any intention to betray, and speaks without any intention to deceive.

He that follows his recreation when he should be minding his business, is likely, in a short time, to have no busi ness to follow.

LESSON XXXVIIT.

TO carry the triumph over a person you have got the better of, too far, is mean and imprudent; it is mean, because you have got the better; it is imprudent, because it may provoke him to revenge your insolence in some desperate way.

He who rather discovers the great in the little than the little in the great, is not far distant from greatness.

II. The loss of wealth may be regained, of health recov ered, but the loss of precious time can never be recalled. Give me a retired life, a peaceful conscience, honest thoughts, and virtuous actions, and I can pity Cæsar.

Set bounds to your zeal by discretion, to error by truth, to passion by reason, to divisions by charity.

It is seldom that either borrower or lender gets by the bargain.

LESSON XXXIX.

SELF LOVE is the love of self, and of every thing for the sake of self. Self-love makes men idolize themselves, and tyrannize over others when fortune gives the means. There are reproaches that praise, and praises that reproach.

Absence destroys small passions, and increases great ones; as the wind extinguishes tapers and kindles fires.

II. If you want to show a person that you see through his crafty designs, a hint between jest and earnest may do better than telling him bluntly and fully how he stands in your mind; from a little he will guess the rest.

Disdain not your inferior in the gifts of fortune, for he may be your superior in the gifts of the mind.

Never defer the amendment of your life to the last hour, because the thief was saved; for as that was a precedent that none should despair, so it was but one example, that none should presume.

LESSON XL.

NONE but the contemptible are apprehensive of contempt.

He who imagines he can do without the world, deceives himself much; but he who fancies the world cannot do without him, is still more mistaken.

There is as much meanness in taking every trifle for an affront, as in putting up with the grossest indignity. The first is the character of a bully; the latter of a coward.

II. There is more good to be done in life, by obstinate diligence and preservance, than most people seem aware of. The ant and the bee are but little and weak animals * and yet by constant application they do wonders!

He hath made a good progress in business, who has thought well of it beforehand.

It is better to suffer without cause, than that there should be cause for our suffering.

LESSON XLI.

TO get an estate fairly requires good abilities. To keep and improve one, is not to be done without diligence and frugality. They, who have wasted their own estates, will help you to consume yours.

Instructers should not only be skilful in those sciences which they teach; but should have skill in the method of teaching, and patience in the practice.

Learning and knowledge must be attained by slow degrees; and are the reward of diligence and patience only.

II. Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name; yet we may say of it, that it is the good sense of pride, and the noblest way of acquiring applause.

Use law and medicine only in cases of necessity; they that use them otherwise, abuse themselves into weak bodies and light purses; they are good remedies but bad recrea tions.

LESSON XLII.

NEVER take credit where you can pay ready money, especially of low dealers: they will make you pay interest with a vengeance.

Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unex. pected regret, or convicts us of any fault which has escaped our notice, but because it shows that we are known to others as well as ourselves.

An officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes the superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desired to conceal.

II. To get a name can happen but to few. A name, even in the most commercial nation, is one of the few things which cannot be bought-it is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

Have not thy cloak to make when it begins to rain,

LESSON XLIII.

PRIDE is seldom delicate, it will please itself with very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own happiness, but when it may be compared with the miseries of others.

Peevishness, though it sometimes arises from old age, or the consequence of some misery, is frequently one of the attendants on the prosperous, and is employed by inse lence in exacting homage, or by tyranny in harassing subjection.

II. Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world, by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practised perfidy, grow faith less to one another.

To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind, unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordi nances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influ ence of example.

TO tell our own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt. To communicate those, with which we are entrusted, is always treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly..

Who could imagine it possible to forget death, which every object puts one in mind of, and every moment brings hearer ?

II. He who is open without levity; generous without waste; secret without craft; humble without meanness; bold without insolence; cautious without anxiety; regular, yet not formal; mild yet not timid; firm, yet not tyrannical is made to pass the ordeal of honour, friendship, and virtue.

Suspicion is no less an enemy to virtue than to happiness. He that is already corrupt, is naturally suspicious; and he that becomes suspicious, will quickly be corrupt. A man that breaks his word bids others be false to him.

IDLE and indecent applications of sentences taken from scripture, is a mode of merriment which a good man dreads for its profaneness, and a witty man disdains for its easiness and vulgarity.

D

Youth is of no long duration; and in maturer age, when the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and phantoms of delight dance no more about us, with what different feelings shall we retrospect the history of our lives!

He that would pass the latter part of his life with honour and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

II. Frugality may be termed the daughter of prudence, the sister of temperance, and the parent of liberty.

Flatterers only lift a man up, as it is said the eagle does the tortoise, to get something by his fall.

A man had better be poisoned in his blood, than in his principles.

LESSON XLVI.

THERE is more true greatness in ingenuously owning a fault and making proper reparation for it, than in obsti nately defending a wrong conduct. But, quitting your purpose, retreat rather like a lion than like a cur.

The gazer in the streets wants a plan for his head, and an object for his heart.

There is no end to the inconveniences arising from the want of punctuality.

II. Conclude at least nine parts in ten of what is handed about by common fame to be false.

A hypocrite is under perpetual constraint. And what a torment must it be for a man always to appear different from what he really is!

If sensuality were pleasure, beasts are happier than men 790 But human felicity is lodged in the soul, not in the flesh.

LESSON XLVII.

MANY people have sense enough to keep their own ecrets; but from being unused to company, have unforunately such a tell-tale countenance, as involuntarily delares what they would wish to conceal.