Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

*

He is a kind of a just judgment, sent into the world to punish the confidence and curiosity of ignorance, that out of a natural inclination to error, will tempt its own punishment, and help to abuse itself. He can put on as many shapes as the devil that set him on work, is one that fishes in muddy understandings and will tickle a trout in his own element, till he has him in his clutches, and after in his dish, or the market. He runs down none but those which he is certain are feræ naturæ, mere natural animals, that belong to him that can catch them. He can do no feats without the co-opering assistance of the chouse, whose crudulity commonly meets the impostor half way, otherwise nothing is done; for all the craft is not in the catching, (as the proverb says,) but the better half at least in being catched. He is one that, like a bond without fraud, covin, and further delay, is void and of none effect, otherwise does stand and remain in full power, force, and virtue. He trusts the credulous with what hopes they please at a very easy rate, upon their own security, until he has drawn them far enough in, and then makes them pay for all at once. The first thing he gets from him is a good opinion, and afterwards any thing he pleases; for after he has drawn him from his guards, he deals with him like a surgeon, and ties his arm before he lets him blood.Butler.

What is age

MCLVII.

But the holy place of life, chapel of ease
For all men's wearied miseries? and to rob
That of her ornament, it is accurst

As from a priest to steal a holy vestment,
Ay, and convert it to a sinful covering.

MCLVIII.

Massinger.

Many fathers there are, that so love their money, and hate their children, that lest it should cost them more than they are willing to spare to hire a good schoolmas

ter for them, rather choose such persons to instruct their children, as are of no worth; thereby beating down the market, that they may purchase a cheap ignorance. It was therefore a witty and handsome jeer which Aristippus bestowed on a sottish father, by whom being asked what he would take to teach his child? he answered, a thousand drachmes. Whereupon the other crying out, O Hercules! how much out of the way you ask! for I can buy a slave at that rate. Do then, said the philosopher, and thou shalt, instead of one, purchase two slaves for thy money; him that thou buyest for one, and thy son for another.-Plutarch.

MCLIX.

The most eloquent speaker, the most ingenious writer, and the most accomplished statesman, cannot effect so much as the mere presence of the man who tempers his wisdom and his vigour with humanity.-Lavater.

MCLX.

It is often observed of wits, that they will lose their best friend for the sake of a joke. Candour may discover, that it is the greater degree of their love of fame, not the less degree of their benevolence, which is the cause. Shenstone.

MCLXI.

All the inventions that the world contains,
Were not by reason first found out, nor brains;
But pass for theirs who had the luck to light
Upon them by mistake or oversight.

MCLXII.

Butler.

However the law, to make it a mystery and a trade, may be wrapt up in terms of art, yet it is founded on reason, and obvious to common sense.-Buckingham.

MCLXIII.

'Tis very natural for a young friend and a young lover, to think the persons they love have nothing to do but please them; when, perhaps, they, for their parts, had twenty other engagements before.-Pope.

MCLXIV.

The art of being agreeable, frequently miscarries through the ambition which accompanies it. Wit, learning, wisdom-what can more effectually conduce to the profit and delight of society? Yet I am sensible that a man may be too invariably wise, learned, or witty, to be agreeable: and I take the reason of this to be, that pleasure cannot be bestowed by the simple and unmixed exertion of any one faculty or accomplishment.--Cumberland.

MCLXV.

The study of triangles and circles interferes not with the study of minds; nor does the student in the mean while suppose himself advancing in wisdom, or the knowledge of himself or mankind. All he desires is to keep his head sound as it was before. And well he thinks indeed he has come off, if by good fortune there be no crack in it.-Shaftesbury.

MCLXVI.

There is no end of affection taken in at the eyes only; and you may as well satisfy those eyes with seeing, as control any passion received by them only.-Steele.

MCLXVII.

Sickness and disease are in weak minds the sources of melancholy; but that which is painful to the body may be profitable to the soul. Sickness, the mother of modesty, puts us in nind of our mortality, and while we drive on heedlessly in the full career of worldly pomp and jollity, kindly pulls us by the ear, and brings us to a proper sense of our duty.-Burton.

[ocr errors][merged small]

There is no arguing with Johnson; for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it. Cibber.

MCLXIX.

Oh! what a war of looks was then between them!
Her eyes petitioners to his eyes suing:

His eyes saw her eyes, as they had not seen them; Her eyes woo'd still, his eyes disdain'd the wooing: And all this dumb play had his acts made plain With tears, which chorus-like her eyes did rain. Shakspeare.

MCLXX.

The most inviolable attachment to the laws of our country is every where acknowledged a capital virtue; and where the people are not so happy as to have any legislature but a single person, the strictest loyalty is, in that case, the truest patriotism.-Hume.

MCLXXI.

An English poet should be tried b' his peers,
And not by pedants and philosophers,
Incompetent to judge poetic fury,
As butchers are forbid to b' of a jury;
Besides the most intolerable wrong
To try their matters in a foreign tongue,
By foreign jurymen, like Sophocles,
Or tales falser than Euripides;

When not an English native dare appear
To be a witness for the prisoner;

When all the laws they use t' arraign and try
The innocent and wrong'd delinquent by,
Were made b' a foreign lawyer, and his pupils,
To put an end to all poetic scruples,

And by th' advice of virtuosi Tuscans,
Determin'd all the doubts of socks and buskins;
Gave judgment on all past and future plays,
As is apparent by Speroni's case,
Which Lope Vega first began to steal,
And after him the French filou Corneille;
And since our English plagiaries nim,
And steal their far-fet criticisms from him,
And by an action falsely laid of Trover,
The lumber for their proper goods recover;
Enough to furnish all the lewd impeachers
Of witty Beaumont's poetry, and Fletcher's,

Who for a few misprisions of wit,

Are charg'd by those who ten times worse commit;
And for misjudging some unhappy scenes,
Are censur'd for't with more unlucky sense;
When all their worst miscarriages delight,
And please more than the best that pedants write.
Butler-upon Critics who judge of modern Plays
precisely by the Rules of the Ancients.

MCLXXII.

I know no manner of speaking so offensive as that of giving praise, and closing it with an exception,-Steele.

MCLXXIII.

In a glasshouse the workmen often fling in a small quantity of fresh coals, which seems to disturb the fire, but very much enlivens it. This seems to allude to a gentle stirring of the passions, that the mind may not languish.-Swift.

MCLXXIV.

A tavern is a degree, or (if you will) a pair of stairs above an alehouse, where men are drunk with more credit and apology. If the vintner's nose be at the door, it is a sign sufficient, but the absence of this is supplied by the ivy-bush. It is a broacher of more news than hogsheads, and more jests than news; which are sucked up here by some spungy brain, and from thence squeezed into a comedy. Men come here to make merry, but indeed make a noise, and this music above is answered with the clinking below. The drawers are the civilest people in it, men of good bringing up, and howsoever we esteem of them, none can boast more justly of their high calling. 'Tis the best theatre of natures, where they are truly acted, not played, and the business as in the rest of the world up and down, to wit, from the bottom of the cellar to the great chamber. A melancholy man would find here matter to work upon, to see heads as brittle as glasses, and often broken; men come hither to quarrel, and come hither to be made friends: and if Plutarch will lend me his simile, it is even Telephus's

« PředchozíPokračovat »