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dominions: the one by the sword, making the acres more in number; the other by the plough, making the same acres more in value.- Fuller.

DLXXVI.

The fear of death often proves mortal, and sets people on methods to save their lives, which infallibly destroy them. This is a reflection made by some historians, upon observing that there are many more thousands killed in a flight, than in a battle: and may be applied to those multitudes of imaginary sick persons that break their constitutions by physic, and throw themselves into the arms of death, by endeavouring to escape it.-Addison.

DLXXVII.

What a luxurious man in poverty would want for horses and footman, a good-natured man wants for his friends or the poor.-Pope.

DLXXVIII.

Authors have not always the power or habit of throwing their talents into conversation. There are some very just and well expressed observations on this point in Johnson's life of Dryden, who was said not at all to answer in this respect the character of his genius. I have observed that vulgar readers almost always lose their veneration for the writings of the genius with whom they have had personal intercourse.-Sir E. Brydges.

DLXXIX.

Gluttony is the source of all our infirmities, and the fountain of all our diseases. As a lamp is choked by a superabundance of oil, a fire extinguished by excess of fuel, so is the natural heat of the body destroyed by intemperate diet.-Burton.

DLXXX.

It is not difficult to conceive, that, for many reasons, a man writes much better than he lives. For without entering into refined speculations, it may be shown much easier to design than to perform. A man proposes his

schemes of life in a state of abstraction and disengage ment, exempt from the enticements of hope, the solicitations of affection, the importunities of appetite, or the depressions of fear, and is in the same state with him that teaches upon land the art of navigation, to whom the sea is always smooth, and the wind always prosperous.-Johnson.

DLXXXI.

Usually speaking, the worst bred person in company, is a young traveller just returned from abroad.-Swift.

DLXXXII.

An injury unanswered in course grows weary of itself; and dies away in a voluntary remorse. In bad dispositions capable of no restraint but fear-it has a different effect-the silent digestion of one wrong provokes a second.-Sterne.

DLXXXIII.

Take, rather than give, the tone of the company you are in. If you have parts, you will show them, more or less, upon every subject; and if you have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people's than your own choosing.-Chesterfield.

DLXXXIV.

Mr. Locke has somewhere made a distinction between a madman and a fool: a fool is he that from right principles makes a wrong conclusion; but a madman is one who draws a just inference from false principles. Thus the fool who cut off the fellow's head that lay asleep; and hid it, and then waited to see what he would say when he awaked and missed his head-piece, was in the right in the first thought, that a man would be surprised to find such an alteration in things since he fell asleep; but he was a little mistaken to imagine he could awake at all after his head was cut off.-Tatler.

DLXXXV.

At every point that concerns himself the good parishioner turns down a leaf in his heart; and rejoiceth that God's word hath pierced him, as hoping that whilest

his soul smarts it heals. And, as it is no manners for him that hath good venison before him, to ask whence it came, but rather fairly to fall to it; so hearing an excellent sermon, he never inquires whence the preacher had it, or whether it was not before in print, but falls aboard to practise it.-Fuller.

DLXXXVI.

Remember that money is of a prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six; turned again it is seven and threepence; and so on till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.-Franklin.

DLXXXVII.

It would be an endless task to mention the innumerable shifts that small wits put in practice to raise a laugh. Bullock in a short coat, and Norris in a long one, seldom fail of this effect. In ordinary comedies, a broad and a narrow brimmed hat are different characters. Sometimes the wit of the scene lies in a shoulder belt, and sometimes in a pair of whiskers. A lover running about the stage, with his head peeping out of a barrel, was thought a very good jest in King Charles the Second's time; and invented by one of the first wits of that age. But because ridicule is not so delicate as compassion, and because the objects that make us laugh are infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much greater latitude for comic than tragic artifices, and by consequence a much greater indulgence to be allowed them.-Addison.

DLXXXVIII.

Retired thoughts enjoy their own delights,
As beauty doth in self-beholding eye;
VOL. II.

N

Man's mind a mirror is of heavenly sights,

A brief wherein all miracles scumm'd lie;
Of fairest forms, and sweetest shapes the store,

Most graceful all, yet thought may grace them more,
Southwell.

DLXXXIX.

What is it to me whether Penelope was honest or no? Teach me to know how to be so myself, and to live according to that knowledge.-Seneca.

DXC.

Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellencies, which are out of the reach of the rules of art; a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.-Sir Joshua Reynolds.

DXCI.

What'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
Not one will change his neighbour with himself.
The learn'd is happy nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more;
The rich is happy in the plenty given,

The poor contents him with the care of heaven.
See the blind beggar dance, the cripple sing;
The sot a hero, lunatic a king;

The starving chemist, in his golden views
Supremely blest, the poet in his muse.

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Behold the child by nature's kindly law,
Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw:
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite:

Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper age,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age:
Pleas'd with this bauble still, as that before,
Till tir'd he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er.

DXCII.

Pope.

Knighthood is a very frugal method of recompensing the most important services; and it is very fortunate for

kings that their subjects are satisfied with such trifling rewards. Should a nobleman happen to lose his leg in a battle, the king presents him with two yards of riband, and he is paid for the loss of his limb. Should an ambassador spend all his paternal fortune in supporting the honour of his country abroad, the king presents him with two yards of riband, which is to be considered as an equivalent to his estate. In short, while a European king has a yard of blue or green riband left, he need be under no apprehensions of wanting statesmen, generals, and soldiers.-Goldsmith.

DXCIII.

Do not we see how easily we pardon our own actions and passions, and the very infirmities of our bodies; why should it be wonderful to find us pardon our own dulness.-Swift.

DXCIV.

There are few men who are not ambitious of distinguishing themselves in the nation or country where they live, and of growing considerable among those with whom they converse. There is a kind of grandeur and respect which the meanest and most insignificant part of mankind endeavour to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The poorest mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his set of admirers, and delights in that superiority which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the soul of man, might methinks receive a very happy turn; and, if it were rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage; as it generally does to his uneasiness and disquiet.-Addison.

DXCV.

Many philosophers imagine that the elements themselves may be in time exhausted; that the sun, by shining long, will effuse all its light; and that, by the continual waste of aqueous particles, the whole earth will at last become a sandy desert. I would not advise my readers

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