DCCCCLI.

The tragi-comedy, which is the product of the Eng lish theatre, is one of the most monstrous inventions that ever entered into a poet's thoughts. An author might as well think of weaving the adventures of Æneas and Hudibras into one poem, as of writing such a motley piece of mirth and sorrow.-Addison.

DCCCCLII.

A man had need, if he be plentiful in some kind of expense, to be as saving again in some other: as if he be plentiful in diet, to be saving in apparel; if he be plentiful in the hall, to be saving in the stable, and the like; for he that is plentiful in expenses of all kinds will hardly be preserved from decay. In clearing of a man's estate, he may as well hurt himself in being too sudden, as in letting it run on too long; for hasty selling is commonly as disadvantageable as interest.-Lord Bacon.

DCCCCLIII.

Minutes are number'd by the fall of sands,
As by an hour-glass; the span of time

Doth waste us to our graves, and we look on it.
An age of pleasures, revell'd out, comes home
At last, and ends in sorrow: but the life,
Weary of riot, numbers every sand,

Wailing in sighs, until the last drop down;
So to conclude calamity in rest.

DCCCCLIV.

Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

DCCCCLV.

Ford.

Congreve.

Some pictures are made for the eyes only, as rattles are made for children's ears; and certainly that picture that only pleases the eye, without representing some well-chosen part of nature or other, does but show what fine colours are to be sold at the colour-shop, and mocks the works of the Creator.-Steele.

DCCCCLVI.

There lies within the very flame of love
A kind of wick, or snuff, that will abate it;
And nothing is at a like goodness still;
For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,

Dies in his own too-much, that we would do,

We should do when we would; for this would changes,
And hath abatements and delays as many,

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents:
And then this should is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing.

DCCCCLVII.

No, I'll not trust the honour of a man:

Shakspeare.

Gold is grown great, and makes perfidiousness
A most common waiter in most princes' courts:
He's in the check-roll: I'll not trust my blood:
I know none breathing but will cog a dye
For twenty thousand double pistolets.

DCCCCLVIII.

Marston.

Anaides.-Marry, I will come to her, (and she always wears a muff, if you be remembered,) and I will tell her, Madame, your whole self cannot be perfectly wise; for your hands have not wit enough to keep themselves

warm.

Hedon.-Now, before Jove, admirable! By Phoebus, my sweet facetious rascal, I could eat water-gruel with thee for a month, for this jest, my dear rogue.

Cynthia's Revels-Ben Jonson.

DCCCCLIX.

You won't have a friend left in the world, if you turn poet: I never think of the trade but the spirit of famine appears to me; sometimes like a decayed porter, worn out with pimping, and carrying billet-doux and songs; not like other porters, for hire, but for the jest's sake: now like a thin chairman, melted down to half his proportion, with carrying a poet upon tick, to visit some great fortune; and his fare to be paid him, like the

wages of sin, either at the day of marriage, or the day of death.-Love for Love-Congreve.

DCCCCLX.

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes,
And laugh, like parrots, at a bag-piper;
And other of such vinegar aspect,

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

DCCCCLXI.

Shakspeare,

Profit or pleasure there is none in swearing, nor any thing in men's natural tempers to incite them to it. For though some men pour out oaths so freely, as if they came naturally from them, yet surely no man is born of a swearing constitution.-Tillotson.

DCCCCLXII.

The metaphor of laughing, applied to fields and meadows when they are in flower, or to trees when they are in blossom, runs through all languages, which I have not observed of any other metaphor, excepting that of fire and burning when they are applied to love. This shows that we naturally regard laughter as what is in itself both amiable and beautiful. For this reason, likewise, Venus has gained the title of quads, "the laughter-loving dame," as Waller has translated it, and is represented by Horace as the goddess who delights in laughter.-Addison.

DCCCCLXIII.

A prison is a house of care,

A place where none can thrive;
A touchstone true to try a friend,
A grave for one alive;
Sometimes a place of right,

Sometimes a place of wrong,

Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves,
And honest men among.

Inscription on Edinburgh Tolbooth.

DCCCCLXIV.

They who place themselves on that side of the world in which every thing appears in a ridiculous or pleasing light, will find something in every occurrence to excite their good-humour. The most calamitous events, either to themselves or others, can bring no new affliction; the whole world is to them a theatre, on which comedies only are acted. All the bustle of heroism, or the rants of ambition, serve only to heighten the absurdity of the scene, and make the humour more poignant. They feel, in short, as little anguish at their own distress, or the complaints of others, as the undertaker, though dressed in black, feels sorrow at a funeral.-Goldsmith. DCCCCLXV.

I can get no remedy against the consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.-Shakspeare.

DCCCCLXVI.

I cannot think it extravagant to imagine, that mankind are no less in proportion accountable for the ill use of their dominion over creatures of the lower rank of beings, than for the exercise of tyranny over their own species. The more entirely the inferior creation is submitted to our power, the more answerable we should seem for our mismanagement of it; and the rather, as the very condition of nature renders them creatures incapable of receiving any recompense in another life for their ill treatment in this.-Pope.

DCCCCLXVII.

Crities to plays for the same end resort,
That surgeons wait on trials in a court:
For innocence condemn'd they've no respect,
Provided they've a body to dissect.

DCCCCLXVIII.

Congreve.

Lies, which are told out of arrogance and ostentation, a man should detect in his own defence, because he should not be triumphed over. Lies which are told out

VOL. II.

X

of malice he should expose, both for his own sake and that of the rest of mankind, because every man should rise against a common enemy; but the officious liar, many have argued, is to be excused, because it does some man good, and no man hurt.-Steele.

DCCCCLXIX.

From the king

To the beggar, by gradation, all are servants;
And you must grant, the slavery is less
To study to please one than many.

DCCCCLXX.

Massinger,

Counsel is of two sorts, the one concert manners, the other concerning business: for the the best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive; reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead; observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for our case; but the best receipt, (best, I say, to work, and the best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit for want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both of their fame and fortune; for, as St. James saith, they are as men "that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favour:" as for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more than one; or, that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or, that a man in anger is as wise as he that hath said over the four-and-twenty-letters; or, that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations, to think himself all in all; but when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight.-Lord Bacon.

DCCCCLXXI.

There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond;