get inclinations to love at first sight: 'tis ye who open the door and let the stranger in.-Sterne.

MLXIX.

Good wits, forgive the liberty we take,
Since custom gives the lovers leave to speak.`
But if, provok'd, your dreadful wrath remains,
Take your revenge upon the coming scenes.
For that damn'd Poet's spared who damns a brother,
As one thief 'scapes that executes another.

Prol. Mourning Bride-Congreve

MLXX.

Nature to each allots his proper sphere,
But, that forsaken, we like comets err:

Toss'd thro' the void, by some rude shock we're broke,
And all our boasted fire is lost in smoke.

MLXXI.

Congreve.

Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn.
The first, in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next, in majesty; in both, the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third, she join❜d the former two.
Under a portrait of Milton—Dryden.

MLXXII.

Must not that man be abandoned even to all manner of humanity, who can deceive a woman with appearances of affection and kindness, for no other end but to torment her with more ease and authority? Is any thing more unlike a gentleman, than when his honour is engaged for the performing his promises, because nothing but that can oblige him to it, to become afterwards false to his word, and be alone the occasion of misery to one whose happiness he but lately pretended was dearer to him than his own? Ought such a one to be trusted in his common affairs? or treated but as one whose honesty consisted only in his incapacity of being otherwise?➡ Steele.

MLXXIII.

Most of the trades, professions, and ways of living among mankind, take their original either from the love of pleasure, or the fear of want. The former, when it becomes too violent, degenerates into luxury, and the latter into avarice.-Addison.

MLXXIV.

Literary fame I now find, like religion, generally begins among the vulgar. As for the polite, they are so very polite, as never to applaud upon any account. One of these, with a face screwed up into affectation, tells you, that fools may admire, but men of sense only approve. Thus, lest he should rise in rapture at any thing new, he keeps down every passion but pride and self-importance, approves with phlegm, and the poor author is damned in the taking a pinch of snuff. `Another has written a book himself, and being condemned for a dunce, he turns a sort of king's evidence in criticism, and now becomes the terror of every offender. A third, possessed of full-grown reputation, shades off every beam of favour from those who endeavour to grow beneath him, and keeps down that merit, which, but for his influence, might rise into equal eminence: while others, still worse, peruse old books for their amusement, and new books only to condemn; so that the public seem heartily sick of all but the business of the day, and read every thing now with as little attention, as they examine the faces of the passing crowd.— Goldsmith.

MLXXV.

Lupus. Indeed, young Publius, he that will now hit the mark, must shoot through the law; we have no other planet reigns, and in that sphere you my sit and sing with angels. Why, the law makes a man happy, without respecting any other merit; a simple scholar, or none at all, may be a lawyer.

Tucca. He tells thee true, my noble neophyte, my little grammaticaster, he does; it shall never put thee to thy mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy, and I know

not what supposed sufficiencies; if thou can'st but have the patience to plod enough, talk and make a noise enough, be impudent enough, and 'tis enough.

Lup. Three books will furnish you.

Tuc. And the less art the better: besides, when it shall be in the power of thy chevril conscience; to do right or wrong at thy pleasure, my pretty Alcibiades.

Lup. Ay, and to have better men than himself, by many thousand degrees, to observe him, and stand bare.

Tuc. True, and he to carry himself proud and stately, and have the law on his side for 't, old boy.—The Poetaster-Ben Jonson.

MLXXVI.

Of those few fools who with ill stars are curst,
Sure scribbling fools, call'd poets, fare the worst:
For they're a set of fools which Fortune makes,
And after she has made them fools, forsakes.

MLXXVII.

Congreve.

For the moving of pity, our principal machine is the handkerchief; and, indeed, in our common tragedies, we should not know very often that the persons are in distress by any thing they say, if they did not from time to time apply their handkerchiefs to their eyes.-Addison. MLXXVIII.

There are some of you players honest gentlemenlike scoundrels, and suspected to have some wit, as well as your poets, both at drinking and breaking of jests, and are companions of gallants. A man may skelder ye, now and then, of half a dozen shillings, or so.

The Poetaster-Ben Jonson.

MLXXIX.

I should think a man of fashion makes but an indifferent exchange, who lays out all that time in furnishing his house, which he should have employed in the furniture of his head; a person who shows no other symptoms of taste than his cabinet or gallery, might as well boast to me of the furniture of his kitchen.-Goldsmith

MLXXX.

An inward sincerity will of course influence the outward deportment; but where the one is wanting, there is great reason to suspect the absence of the other.Sterne.

MLXXXI.

Thick waters show no images of things;

Friends are each other's mirrors, and should be Clearer than crystal, or the mountain springs, And free from cloud, design, or flattery. For vulgar souls no part of friendship share, Poets and friends are born to what they are.

MLXXXII.

Cath. Phillips.

Observation is an old man's memory.-Swift.

MLXXXIII.

Sir S. Legend.-To find a young fellow that is neither a wit in his own eye, nor a fool in the eye of the world, is a very hard task. But, faith and troth, you speak very discreetly. I hate a wit, I had a son that was spoiled among them; a good hopeful lad, till he learned to be a wit, and might have risen in the State. But, a plague on't! his wit ran him out of his money, and now his poverty has run him out of his wits.-Love for Love. Congreve.

MLXXXIV.

Wit, and 't be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits that think they have thee do very oft prove fools; and I, that am sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man: for, what says Quinapalus? Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.-Shakspeare.

MLXXXV.

The immortal gods

Accept the meanest altars, that are raised
By pure devotions; and sometimes prefer
An ounce of frankincense, honey, or milk,
Before whole hecatombs, or Sabæan gems,
Offer'd in ostentation.

Massinger.

MLXXXVI.

Science distinguishes a man of honour from one of those athletic brutes, whom, undeservedly, we call heroes. Cursed be the poet who first honoured with that name a mere Ajax, a man-killing idiot!-Dryden.

MLXXXVII.

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful, and ridiculous excess.

MLXXXVIII.

Shakspeare.

The vicious man lives at random, and acts by chance; for he that walks by no rule can carry on no settled or steady design.—Tillotson.

MLXXXIX.

'Tis virtue which they want, and wanting it,
Honour no garment to their backs can fit.

Cynthia's Revels-Ben Jonson.

MXC.

The tongue of a fool is the key of his counsel, which, in a wise man, wisdom hath in keeping.-Socrates.

MXCI.

Moderation, is the silken string running through the pearl-chain of all virtues.-Fuller.

MXCII.

Heaven first, in its mercy, taught mortals their letters, For ladies in limbo, and lovers in fetters;

Or some author, who, placing his persons before ye, Ungallantly leaves them to write their own story. Guy Mannering.

MXCIII.

Your legs do sufficiently show you are a gentleman born, Sir; for a man born upon little legs, is always a gentleman born.-Ben Jonson.