O'er globes, and sceptres, now, on thrones it swells,
Now trims the midnight lamp in college cells.
'Tis tory, whig; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads,
Harangues in senates, speaks in masquerades.
It aids the dancer's heel, the writer's head,
And heaps the plain with mountains of the dead;
Nor ends with life; but nods in sable plumes,
Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs.

DXVI.

Young.

I have always looked upon alchymy in natural philosophy, to be like enthusiasm in divinity, and to have troubled the world much to the same purpose.-Sir W. Temple.

DXVII.

True wit is everlasting, like the sun,

Which, though sometimes behind a cloud retir'd,
Breaks out again, and is by all admir'd:
A flame that glows amidst conceptions fit,
E'en something of divine, and more than wit,
Itself unseen, yet all things by it shown,
Describing all men, but described by none.
Buckingham.

DXVIII.

It is more disgraceful never to try to speak (in public,) than to try it and fail: as it is more disgraceful not to fight, than to fight and be beaten.-Johnson.

DXIX.

Wishes run over in loquacious impotence; will presses on with laconic energy.-Lavater.

DXX.

Over and above the delight, and the virtue of obliging, one good turn is a shoeing-horn to another. This of all hints, is, perhaps, the most effectual, as well as the most generous.-Seneca.

DXXI.

Digressions in a book are like foreign troops in a state, which argue the nation to want a heart and hands of its

own; and often either subdue the natives, or drive them into the most unfruitful corners.-Swift.

DXXII.

A man who enters the theatre is immediately struck with the view of so great a multitude, participating of one common amusement: and experiences, from their very aspect, a superior sensibility or disposition of being affected with every sentiment which he shares with his fellow-creatures.-Hume.

DXXIII.

Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture, as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle size are alone entangled in it.—Shenstone.

DXXIV.

Were I to give my own notions of humour, I would deliver them after Plato's manner, in a kind of allegory, and by supposing humour to be a person, deduce to him all his qualifications, according to the following genealogy. Truth was the founder of the family, and the father of Good Sense. Good Sense was the father of Wit, who married a lady of a collateral line called Mirth, by whom he had issue Humour. Humour, therefore, being the youngest of this illustrious family, and descended from parents of such different dispositions, is very various and unequal in his temper; sometimes you see him putting on grave looks, and a solemn habit, sometimes airy in his behaviour and fantastic in dress: insomuch that at different times he appears as serious as a judge, and as jocular as a merry-andrew. But he has a great deal of the mother in his constitution, whatever mood he is in, he never fails to make his company laugh.

But since there is an imposter abroad, who takes upon him the name of this young gentleman, and would willingly pass for him in the world; to the end that wellmeaning persons may not be imposed upon by cheats, I would desire my readers, when they meet with this pretender, to look into his parentage, and to examine

him strictly,whether or no he be remotely allied to Truth, and lineally descended from Good Sense; if not, they may conclude him a counterfeit. They may likewise distinguish him by a loud and excessive laughter, in which he seldom gets his company to join with him. For as True Humour generally looks serious, whilst every body laughs about him; False Humour is always laughing, whilst every body about him looks serious. I shall only add, if he has not in him a mixture of both parents, that is, if he would pass for the offspring of Wit without Mirth, or Mirth without Wit, you may conclude him to be altogether spurious and a cheat.—Addison.

DXXV.

He who loves to that degree, that he wishes he were able to love a thousand times more than he does, yields in love to none, but to him who loves more than he could wish.-Bruyere.

DXXVI.

'Tis not denied that, when we write,
Our ink is black, our paper white,
And when we scrawl our paper o'er,
We blacken what was white before:
I think this practice only fit
For dealers in satiric wit.

But some white lead ink must get,
And write on paper black as jet;
Your interest lies to learn the knack
Of whitening what before was black.

Swift's Directions for a Birthday Song.

DXXVII.

The man who threatens the world is always ridiculous; for the world can easily go on without him, and, in a short time, will cease to miss him.-Johnson.

When the old clipped money was called in for a new coinage, in king William's time; to prevent the like for

the future, they stamped on the edges of the crownpieces these words, et decus et tutamen. That is exactly the case with good-breeding.-Chesterfield.

DXXIX.

A world of things must curiously be sought,
A world of things must be together brought,
To make up charms which have the pow'r to move,
Through a discerning eye true love;

That is a masterpiece above

What only looks and shape can do,
There must be wit and judgment too;

Greatness of thought and worth, which draw
From the whole world, respect and awe.
She that would raise a noble love, must find
Ways to beget a passion for her mind;
She must be that which she to be would seem;
For all true love is grounded on esteem:
Plainness and truth gain more a generous heart,
Than all the crooked subtleties of art.

DXXX.

Buckingham.

The art of wit is well enough, when confined to one day in a twelvemonth; but there is an ingenious tribe of men sprung up of late years, who are for making April fools every day in the year. These gentlemen are commonly distinguished by the name of Biters: a race of men that are perpetually employed in laughing at those mistakes which are of their own production.-Addison.

DXXXI.

It seems a matter pretty generally agreed between all tellers and hearers of stories, that one party shall work by the rule of addition, and the other by that of subtraction: in most narratives where the relater is a party in the scene, I have remarked that the says I, has a decided advantage in dialogue over the says he: few people take an under part in their own fable.-Cumberland.

DXXXII.

There are some people well enough disposed to be grateful, but they cannot hit upon it without a prompter: they must be taught to be thankful, and it is a fair step if we can but bring them to be willing, and only offer at it.-Seneca.

DXXXIII.

Smit with the love of honour-or the pence-
O'errun with wit, and destitute of sense,
Should any novice in the rhyming trade
With lawless pen the realms of verse invade,
Forth from the court where scepter'd sages sit,
Abus'd with praise, and flatter'd into wit,
Where in lethargic majesty they reign,
And what they win by dulness still maintain,
Legions of factious authors throng at once,
Fool beckons fool, and dunce awakens dunce.

DXXXIV.

Churchill.

For people to make invitations to their house and table, or offers of their fortune and services, is nothing. To be as good as their word is all the expense and difficulty.-Bruyere.

DXXXV.

Though some make slight of libels, yet you may see by them how the wind sits: as, take a straw and throw it up in the air, you shall see by that which way the wind is, which you shall not do by casting up a stone. More solid things do not show the complexion of the times so well as ballads and libels.-Selden.

DXXXVI.

Nothing grieves a real artist more, than that indifference of the public, which suffers work to pass uncriticised. Nothing, on the other side, rejoices him more than the nice view and inspection of the accurate examiner and judge of work. 'Tis the mean genius, the slovenly performer, who knowing nothing of true workmanship, endeavours by the best outward glass and daz