summer he turns king of the gipsies: if not, some great man's protection is a sufficient warrant for his peregrination, and a meanes to procure him the town-hall, where hee may long exercise his qualities, with clownclaps of great admiration, in a tone suitable to the large eares of his illiterate auditorie. He is one seldome takes care for old age, because ill diet and disorder, together with a consumption, or some worse disease, taken vp in his full career, haue onely chalked out his catastrophe but to a colon: and he scarcely suruiues to his natural period of dayes.-Micrologia, 1629.

DCLXIV.

That part of life which we ordinarily understand by the word conversation, is an indulgence to the sociable part of our make; and should incline us to bring our proportion of good will or good humour among the friends we meet with, and not to trouble them with relations which must of necessity oblige them to a real or feigned affliction. Cares, distresses, diseases, uneasinesses, and dislikes of our own, are by no means to be obtruded upon our friends. If we would consider how little of this vicissitude of motion and rest, which we call life, is spent with satisfaction, we should be more tender of our friends, than to bring them little sorrows which do not belong to them. There is no real life but cheerful life; therefore valetudinarians should be sworn, before they enter into company, not to say a word of themselves until the meeting breaks up.-Spectator.

DCLXV.

Courts are too much for wits so weak as mine:
Charge them with heav'ns artillery bold divine!
From such alone the great rebukes endure,
Whose satire's sacred, and whose rage's secure:
'Tis mine to wash a few light stains, but theirs
To deluge sin, and drown a court in tears.
Howe'er, what's now apocrypha, my wit,
In time to come, may pass for holy writ.

Satires of Dr. Donne versified by Pope.

DCLXVI.

As in geometry, the oblique must be known, as well as the right; and in arithmetic, the odd as well as the even; so in actions of life, who seeth not the filthiness of evil, wanteth a great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue.-Sir P. Sidney.

DCLXVII.

A man who should write, and honestly confess that he wrote for bread, might as well send his manuscript to fire the baker's oven; not one creature will read him, all must be court-bred poets, or pretend, at least, to be court-bred, who can expect to please.-Goldsmith.

DCLXVIII.

The good merchant wrongs not the buyer in number, weight, or measure. These are the landmarks of all trading, which must not be removed: for such cosenage were worse than open felony. First, because they rob a man of his purse, and never bid him stand. Secondly, because highway thieves defie, but these pretend, justice. Thirdly, as much as lies in their power, they endeavour to make God accessary to their cosenage, deceiving by pretending his weights. For God is the principall clerk of the market. "All the weights of the bag are his work."-Fuller.

DCLXIX.

Alphonso of Arragon said, that he was greatly pleased with four things, viz. dry wood for firing, wine of a year old for drinking, an old friend for conversation, and an old book for reading.—(From the Italian.)

DCLXX.

Troubles spring from idleness, and grievous toils from needless ease, many without labour would live by their own wits only; but they break for want of stock.Franklin.

DCLXXI.

The prosperity of a people is proportionate to the umber of hands and minds usefully employed.

To

the community, sedition is a fever, corruption is a gangrene, and idleness is an atrophy. Whatever body, and whatever society wastes more than it acquires, must gradually decay: and every being that continues to be fed, and ceases to labour, takes away something from the public stock. The confinement, therefore, of any man in the sloth and darkness of a prison, is a loss to the nation, and no gain to the creditor. For of the multitudes who are pining in those cells of misery, a very small part is suspected of any fraudulent act by which they retain what belong to others. The rest are imprisoned by the wantonness of pride, the malignity of revenge, or the acrimony of disappointed expectation.-Johnson.

DCLXXII.

Those who in the common course of the world will call themselves your friends; or whom, according to the common notions of friendship, you may probably think such, will never tell you of your faults, still less of your weaknesses. But on the contrary, more desirous to make you their friend, than to prove themselves yours, they will flatter both, and, in truth, not be sorry for either. Interiorly, most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.—Chesterfield.

DCLXXIII.

Lusty youth

Is the very May-morn of delight;
When boldest floods are full of wilful heat,
And joy to think how long they have to fight
In fancy's field, before their life take flight;
Since he which latest did the game begin,
Doth longest hope to linger still therein.

DCLXXIV.

Gascoigne.

Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in all cases, and, like gook marksmen, to hit the white at any distance.-Seneca.

DCLXXV.

A man who is furnished with arguments from the mint, will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. Gold is a wonderful clearer of the understanding; it dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accomodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous, and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible. Philip of Macedon was a man of most invincible reason this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens, confounded their statesmen, struck their orators dumb, and at length argued them out of all their liberties.-Addison.

DCLXXVI.

Time wastes too fast; every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more precious, my dear Jenny! than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more-every thing presses on-whilst thou are twisting that lock,-see! it grows grey; and every time I kiss thy hand to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that eternal separation which we are shortly to make.— Sterne.

DCLXXVII.

I knew Anselmo. He was shrewd and prudent,
Wisdom and cunning had their shares of him;
But he was shrewish as a wayward child,
And pleas'd again by toys which childhood please;
As-book of fables grac'd with print of wood,
Or else the jingling of a rusty medal,

Or the rare melody of some old ditty,

That first was sung to please king Pepin's cradle.

DCLXXVIII.

The Antiquary.

every new

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exer cise and motion.-Johnson.

DCLXXIX.

It is not a fault in company to talk much, but to continue it long is certainly one; for, if the majority of those who are got together be naturally silent or cautious, the conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them who can start new subjects, provided he does not dwell upon them that leave room for answers and replies.-Swift.

DCLXXX.

When I ha'e sixpence under my thumb,
Then I get credit in ilka town;

But when I am poor, they bid me gae bye,
O poverty parts good company.

DCLXXXI.

Old Song.

Mere bashfulness without merit is awkward; and merit without modesty insolent. But modest merit has a double claim to acceptance, and generally meets with as many patrons as beholders.-Hughes.

DCLXXXII.

We

What is this life but a circulation of little mean actions? We lie down and rise again, dress and undress, feed and wax hungry, work or play, and are weary, and then we lie down again, and the circle returns. spend the day in trifles, and when the night comes we throw ourselves into the bed of folly, amongst dreams, and broken thoughts, and wild imaginations. Our reason lies asleep by us, and we are for the time as arrant brutes as those that sleep in the stalls or in the field. Are not the capacities of man higher than these? And ought not his ambition and expectations to be greater? Let us be adventurers for another world. It is at least a fair and noble chance; and there is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our passions. If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our fellow-mortals; and if we succeed in our expectations, we are eternally happy.-Burnet.