sword that makes wounds and cures them. It is the com. mon consumption of the afternoon, and the murderer or maker-away of a rainy-day. It is the torrid zone that scorches the face, and tobacco the gunpowder that blows it up. Much harm would be done, if the charitable vintner had not water ready for these flames. A house of sin you may call it, but not a house of darkness, for the candles are never out; and it is like those countries far in the north, where it is as clear at midnight as at mid day. After a long sitting, it becomes like a street in a dashing shower, where the spouts are flushing above, and the conduits running below, while the Jordans like swelling rivers overflow their banks. To give you the total reckoning of it; it is the busy man's recreation, the idle man's business, the melancholy man's sanctuary, the stranger's welcome, the inns-of-court man's entertainment, the scholar's kindness, and the citizen's courtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup of canary their book, whence we leave them.-Bishop Earle.

MCLXXV.

The people's love, with bounty levied,
Is a sure guard-obedience forced from fear,
Paper, fortification, which, in danger,
Will yield to the impression of a reed,
Or of itself fall off.

MCLXXVI.

Massinger.

The numberless expedients practised to alleviate the burthen of life, are not less shameful, nor perhaps, much less pitiable, than those to which a trader on the edge of bankruptcy is reduced. I have seen melancholy overspread a whole family at the disappointment of a party for cards; and when, after the proposal of a thousand schemes, and the despatch of the footman upon a hundred messages, they have submitted with gloomy resig nation to the misfortune of passing one evening in conversation with each other, on a sudden, such are the revolutions of the world, an unexpected visiter has brought them relief, acceptable as provision to a starving city, and enabled them to hold out till the next day.-Johnson.

MCLXXVII.

O hard-believing love! how strange it seems
Not to believe, and yet too credulous!
Thy weal and wo are both of them extremes,
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous!

The one doth flatter thee, in thoughts unlikely,
With likely thoughts, the other kills thee quickly,
Shakspeare.

MCLXXVIII.

It is observed of camels, that having travelled long without water through sandy deserts "implentur cum bibendi est, et in præteritum est in futurum;" and so thirsty heirs soak it when they come to their means, who, whilst their fathers were living, might not touch the top of their money; and think they shall never see the bottom of it when they are dead.-Fuller.

MCLXXIX.

Gravity is the very essence of imposture.-Shaftesbury.

MCLXXX.

Forgiveness is the most necessary and proper work of every man; for, though, when I do not a just thing, or a charitable, or a wise, another man may do it for me, yet no man can forgive my enemy but myself.-Lord E. Herbert.

MCLXXXI.

Malice scorn'd, puts out

Itself; but argued, gives a kind of credit

To a fale accusation.

MCLXXXII.

Massinger.

The seat of wit, when one speaks as a man of the town, and the world, is the playhouse.-Steele.

MCLXXXIII.

Suffering is sweet when honour doth adorn it.

Who slights revenge? not he that fears, but scorns it.

Buckingham.

MCLXXXIV.

Old age seizes upon a great and worshipful sinner, like fire upon a rotten house; it was rotten before, and must have fallen of itself; so that it is no more but one ruin preventing another.-South.

MCLXXXV.

If men get name, for some one virtue; then,
What man art thou, that art so many men,
All virtuous Herbert-On whose every part,
Truth might spend all her voice, Fame all her heart.
Whether by learning they would take, or wit,
Or valour, or thy judgment seasoning it,
Thy standing upright to thyself, thy ends
Like straight, thy piety, to God and friends:
Their later praise would still the greatest be,
And yet they altogether less than thee.

Ben Jonson-To Edward Lord Herbert.

MCLXXXVI.

It is the great advantage of a trading nation, that there are very few in it so dull and heavy, who may not be placed in stations of life, which may give them an opportunity of making their fortunes. A well-regulated commerce is not, like law, physic, or divinity, to be overstocked with hands; but on the contrary, flourishes by multitudes, and gives employment to all its professors. Fleets of merchantmen are so many squadrons of floating shops, that vend our wares and manufactures in all the markets of the world, and find out chapmen under both the tropics.-Addison.

MCLXXXVII.

If music and sweet poetry agree,

As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other.
Downland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch
Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;
Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such,
As passing all conceit, needs no defence.

Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound,
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd,
When as himself to singing he partakes.
One god is god of both, as poets feign;
One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.

The good parishioner accuseth not his minister of spite in particularizing him. It does not follow that the archer aimed because the arrow hit. But foolish hearers make even the bells of Aaron's garments "to chink as they think." And a guilty conscience is like a whirlpool drawing in all to itself, which would otherwise pass by-Fuller.

MCLXXXIX.

In all mistakes the strict and regular

Are found to be the desp'rat'st ways to err,
And worst to be avoided, as a wound

Is said to be the harder cur'd that's round;
For errour and mistake the less they appear,
In th' end are found to be the dangerouser;
As no man minds those clocks that use to go
Apparently to over fast or slow.

MCXC.

Butler.

If any man thinks it a small matter, or of mean concernment, to bridle his tongue, he is much mistaken: for it is a point to be silent, when occasion requires; and better than to speak, though never so well.-Plutarch.

MCXCI.

The portable quality of good-humour seasons all the parts and occurrences we meet with, in such a manner, that there are no moments lost: but they all pass with so much satisfaction, that the heaviest of loads, (when it is a load,) that of time, is never felt by us.-Steele.

MCXCII.

To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves.-Pope.

VOL. I.

X

MCXCIII.

Virtue is of no particular form or station: the finest outlines of the human frame are frequently filled up with the dullest wits. A little diamond, well polished, is always of greater value than a rocky mountain, whatever may be its size and extent.-Burton.

MCXCIV.

The happy gift of being agreeable seems to consist not in one, but in an assemblage of talents tending to communicate delight; and how many are there, who, by easy manners, sweetness of temper, and a variety of other undefinable qualities, possess the power of pleasing without any visible effort, without the aid of wit, wisdom or learning, nay, as it should seem, in their defiance; and this without appearing even to know that they possess it.—Cumberland.

MCXCV.

I could wish for the sake of my country friends, that there was such a kind of everlasting drapery to be made use of by all who live at a certain distance from the town, and that they would agree upon such fashions, as should never be liable to changes and innovations. For want of this standing dress, a man who takes a journey into the country is as much surprised as one who walks in a gallery of old family pictures, and finds as great a variety of garbs and habits in the person he converses with. Did they keep to one constant dress they would sometimes be in the fashion, which they never are as matters are managed at present. If, instead of running after the mode, they would continue fixed in one certain habit, the mode would some time or other overtake them, as a clock that stands still is sure to point right once in twelve hours.-Addison.

MCXCVI.

Why should the world be so averse
To plagiary privateers,

That all men's sense and fancy seize,
And make free prize of what they please?