perceives that the wise are polite all the world over; but that fools are only polite at home.-Goldsmith.

MCCXVII.

He owns with toil he wrote the following scenes;
But, if they're nought, ne'er spare him for his pains:
Damn him the more; have no commiseration
For dulness on mature deliberation.

He swears he'll not resent one hiss'd-off scene,
Nor, like those peevish wits, his play maintain,
Who, to assert their sense, your taste arraign.
Some plot we think he has and some new thought,
Some humour too, no farce; but that's a fault.
Satire, he thinks, you ought not to expect;
For so reform'd a town, who dares correct?
To please, this time, has been his sole pretence:
He'll not instruct, lest it should give offence.
Should he by chance a knave or fool expose,
That hurts none here, sure here are none of those.
In short, our play shall (with your leave to show it)
Give you one instance of a passive poet,

Who to your judgments yields all resignation,
To save or damn, after your own discretion.

Prologue to the Way of the World-Congreve.

MCCXVIII.

Such is the present state of our literature, that the ancient sage, who thought a great book a great evil, would now think the multitude of books a multitude of evils. He would consider a bulky writer who engrossed a year, and a swarm of pamphleteers who stole each an hour, as equal wasters of human life, and would make no other difference between them, than between a beast of prey and a flight of locusts.-Johnson.

MCCXIX.

Those you make friends,

And give your hearts to, when they once perceive
The least rub in your fortunes, fall away

Like water from ye, never found again
But where they mean to sink ye.

MCCXX.

Shakspeare.

The heavenly choir who heard his notes from high,
Let down the scale of music from the sky;

They handed him along,

And all the way he taught, and all the way they sung.
Ye brethren of the lyre and tuneful voice,
Lament his lot, but at your own rejoice:
Now live secure, and linger out your days,
The gods are pleas'd alone with Purcell's lays,
Nor know to mend their choice.

Dryden-On the Death of Purcell.

MCCXXI.

There are in life a sort of pseudo-ascetics, who can have no real converse either with themselves, or with heaven, whilst they look thus a-squint upon the world, and carry titles and editions along with them in their meditations. And although the books of this sort, by a common idiom, are called good books, the authors for certain are a sorry race: for religious crudities are un doubtedly the worst of any.-Shaftesbury.

MCCXXII.

As we do turn our backs

From our companion, thrown into his grave;
So his familiars to his buried fortunes

Slink all away: leave their false vows with him,
Like empty purses pick'd; and his poor self,
A dedicated beggar to the air,

With his disease of all shunn'd poverty,
Walks, like contempt, alone.

MCCXXIII.

Shakspeare.

Pleasure, when it is a man's chief purpose, disappoints itself; and the constant application to it palls the faculty of enjoying it, though it leaves the sense of our inability for that we wish, with a disrelish of every thing else.

Thus the intermediate seasons of the man of pleasure are more heavy than one would impose upon the vilest criminal.-Steele.

MCCXXIV.

They are the moths and scarabs of a state,

The bane of empires, and the dregs of courts,
Who, to endear themselves to an employment,
Care not whose fame they blast: whose life they endanger;
And, under a disguised and cobweb mask
Of love unto their sovereign, vomit forth
Their own prodigious malice; a pretending
To be the props and columns of their safety,
The guards unto his person and his peace,
Disturb it most, with their false, lapwing cries.
Princes, that will but hear, or give access
To such officious spies, can ne'er be safe:
They take in poison with an open ear,
And, free from danger, become slaves to fear.
Ben Jonson.

MCCXXV.

In matters of great concern, and which must be done, there is no surer argument of a weak mind than irresolution; to be undermined where the case is so plain, and the necessity so urgent. To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking, and sleeping, from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.-Tillotson.

MCCXXVI.

I reckon this always-that a man is never undone, till he be hanged; nor never welcome to a place, till some certain shot be paid, and the hostess say, welcome. -Shakspeare.

MCCXXVII.

It is the fate of mankind, too often, to seem insensible of what they may enjoy at the easiest rate.-Sterne.

MCCXXVIII.

For theft, he that restores treble the value

Makes satisfaction, and for want of means

To do so, as a slave, must serve it out,
Till he hath made full payment.

MCCXXIX.

Massinger.

A drunken man is like a drown'd man, a fool, and a madman; one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.Shakspeare.

MCCXXX.

So many candidates there stand for wit,
A place at court is scarce so hard to get.
In vain they crowd each other at the door;
For e'en reversions are all begged before:
Desert, how known soe'er, is long delayed,
And then, too, fools and knaves are better paid
Yet, as some actions bear so great a name,
That courts themselves are just, for fear of shame;
So has the mighty merit of your play
Extorted praise, and forced itself a way.
"Tis here, as 'tis at sea; who farthest goes,
Or dares the most, makes all the rest his foes.

Dryden to Nat. Lee, on his Rival Queens

MCCXXXI.

Reputation with the people depends upon chance, unless they are guided by those above them. They are but the keepers, as it were, of the lottery which Fortune sets up for renown; upon which Fame is bound to attend with her trumpet, and sound when men draw the prizes.-Dennis.

MCCXXXII.

There is no bounty to be show'd to such
As have no real goodness: bounty is
A spice of virtue: and what virtuous act
Can take effect on them that have no power
Of equal habitude to apprehend it,
But live in worship of that idol, vice,
As if there were no virtue; but in shade
Of strong imagination, merely enforced?
This shows their knowledge is mere ignorance,

Their far-fetch'd dignity of soul a fancy,
And all their square pretext of gravity
A mere vain-glory: hence, away with them!
I will prefer for knowledge, none but such
As rule their lives by it, and can becalm
All sea of humour with the marble trident
Of their strong spirits: others fight below
With gnats and shadows; others nothing know.
Ben Jonson.

MCCXXXIII.

It is with a poet, as with a man who designs to build, and is very exact, as he supposes, in casting up the cost beforehand; but, generally speaking, he is mistaken in his account, and reckons short in the expense he first intended. He alters his mind as the work proceeds, and will have this or that convenience more, of which he had not thought when he began.-Dryden.

MCCXXXIV.

A

Think of you! to think of a whirlwind, tho' 'twere in a whirlwind, were a case of more steady contemplation; a very tranquillity of mind and mansion. fellow that lives in a windmill, has not a more whimsical dwelling than the heart of a man that is lodg'd in a woman. There is no point of the compass to which they cannot turn, and by which they are not turn'd; and by one as well as another; for motion, not method, is their occupation. To know this, and yet continue to be in love, is to be made wise from the dictates of reason, and yet persevere to play the fool by the force of instinct.-Way of the World-Congreve.

MCCXXXV.

All human business Fortune doth command
Without all order; and with her blind hand,
She, blind, bestows blind gifts, that still have nurst,
They see not who, nor how, but still the worst.

Ben Jonson.