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one who salutes a man at a distance, calls him the best of creatures, seizes both his hands with expressions of admiration, and will not let him go: he insists upon accompanying him a little way, teazes him with inquiries of "when he shall have the honour of seeing him," and at last leaves him with exclamations of praise. If he is called to an arbitration between two parties, he is not more anxious to please the person for whom he appears than his opponent, that he may be called impartial and a common friend. He tells foreigners that their pronunciation is superior to that of the natives. When invited to dinner, he entreats the host to call in his children, and when they come, he observes, that one fig is not more like another than they to their father: he takes and kisses them, and makes them sit by him: with some of them he cracks childish jokes, and others he dandles to sleep on his knee, at the same time feeling the greatest discomfort and inconvenience. He is shaved with the greatest nicety, and whitens his teeth with dentifrice: he changes his garments before they have the least soil, and always smells of perfumes. On the forum you always see him among the men of most note and substance, and at the theatre he is always close to the people of rank and fashion. He buys nothing for himself, but purchases little presents for his friends abroad, which he takes care to make known through all the city. He keeps monkeys, doves, vases, and every sort of knick-knack and curiosity, for the amusement of his friends. he fits up in his mansion a little wrestling-room and a tennis-cout: he goes about to the philosophers, the sophists, the teachers of fencing and dancing, and offers them the use of his rooms for the exercise of their respective arts; and takes care himself to be present at their exhibitions, to give some spectator the opportunity of saying to another,"That is the gentleman to whom this place belongs." Theophrastus.

DCCCXCIX.

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavours with his utmost care, to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.-Johnson.

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To my certain knowledge, some of our greatest wits in your poetical way, have not as much real learning, as would cover a sixpence in the bottom of a basin; nor do I think the worse of them; for, to speak my private opinion, I am for every man's working upon his own materials, and producing only what he can find within himself, which is commonly a better stock than the owner knows it to be.-Swift.

DCCCCI.

Political reason is a computing principle; adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing, morally, and not metaphysically or mathematically, true moral denominations.-Burke.

DCCCCII.

In spite of dulness, and in spite of wit,
If to thyself thou canst thyself acquit;

Rather stand up, assur'd with conscious pride,
Alone, than err with millions on thy side.

DCCCCIII.

Churchill.

Synonymes are several dictions, or different phrases, signifying the same thing. An antithesis is the opposition of two truths, communicating light to each other. A metaphor, or comparison, borrows from a thing of another kind the natural and sensible image of a truth. An hyperbole expresses things above a truth, to give the mind a stronger perception. The sublime paints nothing but the truth; only in a noble subject it paints it all entire in its causes and effects: it is the expression or the image, the fullest of dignity of that truth. Little wits cannot find the proper single expression, and therefore use synonymes. Young men are dazzled with the lustre of an antithesis, and fondly use it. True wits, and such who delight in exact imagery, are for metaphors and comparisons. Quick wits, full of fire, and carried by a vast imagination beyond rules of nature, are scarce satisfied even with an hyperbole. As for the sublime, it is even among the greatest genius, only the most elevated that can reach it.-Bruyere.

DCCCCIV.

Flattery, though a base coin, is the necessary pocketmoney at court; where, by custom and consent, it has obtained such a currency, that it is no longer a fraudu lent, but a legal payment.-Chesterfield.

DCCCCV.

Some wits, like oracles, deal in ambiguities; but not with equal success; for though ambiguities are the first excellence of an imposter, they are the last of a wit.Young.

DCCCCVI.

The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly: for men laugh at the follies of themselves past, when they come suddenly to remembrance, except they bring with them any present dishonour.-Hobbes.

DCCCCVII.

There are four good mothers, of whom are often born four unhappy daughters; truth begets hatred, happiness pride, security danger, and familiarity contempt.-Steele.

DCCCCVIII.

If the demon of gaming shall enter the same breast, where honour, courage, wit, wisdom reside, such a mind is like a motley suit of cards, where kings, queens, and knaves are packed together, and make up with the game with temporary good fellowship, but then it is a hundred to one but the knave will beat them out of doors in the end.-Cumberland.

DCCCCIX.

In our ordinary actions there is not one of a thousand that concerns ourselves.-Montaigne.

DCCCCX.

Gamesters for whole patrimonies play;
The steward brings the deed which must convey

The lost estate: what more than madness reigns
When one short sitting many hundreds drains,
And not enough is left him to supply
Board wages, or a footman's livery.

DCCCCXI.

Dryden's Juvenal.

Widows are the great game of fortune-hunters. There is scarce a young fellow in the town of six foot high, that has not passed in review before one or other of these wealthy relicts.-Spectator.

DCCCCXII.

When a man has once forfeited the reputation of his integrity, he is set fast; and nothing will then serve his turn, neither truth nor falsehood.-Tillotson.

DCCCCXIII.

There are peculiar ways in men, which discover what they are, through the most subtle feints and closest disguise. A blockhead cannot come in, nor go away, nor sit, nor rise, nor stand, like a man of sense.-Bruyere.

DCCCCXIV.

As thistles wear the softest down;

To hide their prickles till they're grown,
And then declare themselves, and tear
Whatever ventures to come near;
So a smooth knave does greater feats
Than one that idly rails and threats,
And all the mischief that he meant
Does, like the rattle-snake prevent.

DCCCCXV.

Butler.

Travellers on a business of the last and most important concern, may be allowed to please their eyes with the natural and artificial beauties of the country they are passing through, without reproach of forgetting the main errand they were sent upon; and if they are not led out of their road by a variety of prospects, edifices, and ruins, would it not be a senseless piece of severity to shut their VOL. I.

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eyes against such gratifications?-For who has required such service at their hands?-Sterne.

DCCCCXVI.

I have taken notice of several in my time, whó, convinced by their consciences of unjustly detaining the goods of another, have endeavoured to make amends by their will, and after their decease: but they had as well do nothing as delude themselves both in taking so much time in so pressing an affair, and also in going about to repair an injury with so little demonstration of resentment and concern. They owe over and above something of their own, and by how much their payment is more strict and incommodious to themselves, by so much is their restitution more perfect, just, and meritorious; for penitency requires penance.-Montaigne.

DCCCCXVII.

That was excellently observed, say I, when I read a passage in an author, where his opinion agrees with mine. When we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.--Swift.

DCCCCXVIII.

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Curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,
Or from the soft ey'd virgin steal a tear!
But he who hurts a harmless neighbour's peace,
Insults fall'n worth, or beauty in distress,
Who loves a lie, lame slander helps about,
Who writes a libel, or who copies out;
That fop whose pride affects a patron's name,
Yet absent wounds an author's honest fame;
Who can your merit selfishly approve,
And show the sense of it, without the love;
Who has the vanity to call you friend,
Yet wants the honour, injur'd, to defend:
Who tells whate'er you think, whate'er you say,
And if he lie not, must at least betray;

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