property? Not less than one hundred thousand families live in opulence, elegance, and ease, merely by securing our property.-Goldsmith.

DCCLXXVIII.

I believe it is no wrong observation, that persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of nature: as such are chiefly sensible, that all art consists in the imitation and study of nature. On the contrary, people of the common level of understanding are principally delighted with the little niceties and fantastical operations of art, and constantly think that finest which is least natural. A citizen is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews but he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants, like those of Guildhall. I know an eminent cook, who beautified his country seat with a coronation-dinner in greens; where you see the champion flourishing on horseback at one end of the table, and the queen in perpetual youth at the other.-Pope.

DCCLXXIX.

Irregularity in vision, together with such enormities, as tipping the wink, the circumspective roll, the sidepeep through a thin hood or fan, must be put in the class of Heteroptics, as all wrong notions of religion are ranked under the general name of Heterodox.Spectator.

DCCLXXX.

A field of corn, a fountain, and a wood,
Is all the wealth by nature understood.
The monarch, on whom fertile Nile bestows
All which that grateful earth can bear,
Deceives himself, if he suppose

That more than this falls to his share.
Whatever an estate does beyond this afford,
Is not a rent paid to the lord;

But is a tax illegal and unjust,

Extracted from it by the tyrant lust.

Much will always wanting be

To him who much desires. Thrice happy he

To whom the wise indulgency of heaven,
With sparing hand, but just enough has given.

DCCLXXXI.

Cowley.

Hunger has a most amazing faculty of sharpening the genius; and he who, with a full belly, can think like a hero, after a course of fasting, shall rise to the sublimity of a demi-god.-Goldsmith.

DCCLXXXII.

Swift alluding, in a letter, to the frequent instances of a broken correspondence after a long absence, gives the following natural account of the causes:-"At first one omits writing for a little while-and then one stays a little while longer to consider of excuses-and at last it grows desperate, and one does not write at all. In this manner," he adds, "I have served others, and have been served myself."

DCCLXXXIII.

So quickly sometimes has the wheel turned round, that many a man has lived to enjoy the benefit of that charity which his own piety projected.--Sterne.

DCCLXXXIV.

With us the soldier is brave, the lawyer learned; we proceed no farther. With the Romans, the gownman was brave, and the soldier learned. A Roman possessed both these professions, and was tam Marte quam Mercurio.-Bruyere,

DCCLXXXV.

Whatever may be the multiplicity or contrariety of opinions upon the subject of sleep, Nature has taken sufficient care that theory shall have little influence on practice. The most diligent inquirer is not able long to keep his eyes open; the most eager disputant will begin about midnight to desert his argument; and once in fourand twenty hours the gay and the gloomy, the witty and the dull, the clamorous and the silent, the busy and the idle, are all overpowered by the gentle tyrant, and all lie down in equality of sleep.-Johnson.

DCCLXXXVI.

O, happy persecution, I embrace thee
With an unfetter'd soul; so sweet a thing
Is it to sigh upon the rack of love,

Where each calamity is groaning witness
Of the pure martyr's faith. I never heard
Of any true affection, but 'twas nipt

With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats
The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose.
Love, bred on earth, is often nurs❜d in hell;
By rote it reads woe, ere it learn'd to spell.

DCCLXXXVII.

T. Middleton.

The day of election is madman's holiday; 'tis the golden day of liberty which every voter, on that day, takes to market, and is his own salesman; for man at that time being considered as a mere machine, is acted upon as machines are; and to make his wheels move properly, he is properly greased in the fist. Every freeholder enjoys his portion of septennial insanity, he'll eat and drink with every body without paying for it, because he's bold and free; then he'll knock down every body who won't say as he says, to prove his abhorrence of arbitrary power, and preserve the liberty of Old England for ever, huzza!-Steevens.

DCCLXXXVIII.

Heaven's gates are not so highly arched
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees.

DCCLXXXIX.

Webster.

Were women admitted to plead in courts of judicature, I am persuaded they would carry the eloquence of the bar to greater heights than it has yet arrived at. If any one doubt this, let him but be present at those debates which frequently arise among the ladies of the British fishery.-Addison.

DCCXC.

Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good humour, which is as much a virtue as drunkenness.Pope.

DCCXCI.

Dearest heart, and dearer image, stay;
Alas! true joys at best are dreams enough.
Though you stay here, you pass too fast away,
For even at first life's taper is a snuff.
Fill'd with her love, may I be rather grown
Mad with much heart, than idiot with none.

DCCXCII.

Donne.

Take a fine lady who is of a delicate frame, and you may observe, from the hour she rises, a certain weariness of all that passes about her. I know more than one who is much too nice to be quite alive. They are sick of such strange frightful people that they meet; one is so awkward, and another so disagreeable, that it looks like penance to breathe the same air with them. You see this is so very true, that a great part of ceremony and good-breeding among the ladies turns upon their uneasiness; and I will undertake, if the how-doye-servants of our women were to make a weekly bill of sickness, as the parish clerks do of mortality, you would not find, in an account of seven days, one in thirty that was not downright sick or indisposed, or but a very little better than she was, and so forth.-Steele.

DCCXCIII.

Tavern bills are often the sadness of parting, as the procuring of mirth; you come in faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too much drink; sorry that you have paid too much, and sorry that you are paid too much; purse and brain both empty: the brain the heavier for being too light, the purse too light, being drawn of heaviness.-O, the charity of a penny cord! it sums up thousands in a trice: you have no true debtor and creditor but it; of what's past, is, and to come, the discharge:-Your neck is pen, book, and counters; so the acquittance follows.-Shakspeare.

DCCXCIV.

The way to fame is like the way to heaven-through much tribulation.-Sterne.

DCCXCV.

A London parish is a very comfortless thing; as the clergyman seldom knows the face of one out of ten of his parishioners.-Johnson.

DCCXCVI.

Since, dearest friend, 'tis your desire to see
A true receipt of happiness from me:
These are the chief ingredients, if not all;
Take an estate neither too great or small,
Which quantum sufficit the doctors call.
Let this estate from parent's care descend;
The getting it too much of life does spend.
Take such a ground, whose gratitude may be
A fair encouragement for industry.

Let constant fires the winter's fury tame;
And let thy kitchens be a vestal flame.
Thee to the town let never suit at law,
And rarely, very rarely, business, draw.
The active mind in equal temper keep,
In undisturbed peace, yet not in sleep.
Let exercise a vigorous health maintain,
Without which all the composition's vain.
In the same weight prudence and innocence take;
And of each dose the just mixture make.
But a few friendships wear, and let them be
By nature and by fortune fit for thee.
Instead of art and luxury in food,

Let mirth and freedom make thy table good.
any cares into thy day-time creep,

If

At night, without wine's opium, let them sleep.
Let rest, which nature does to darkness wed,
And not lust, recommend to thee thy bed.
Be satisfied, and pleased with what thou art,
Act cheerfully and well the allotted part;
Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past,
And neither fear, nor wish, the approaches of the last.
Martial.

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