As if, because they huff and swell,
Like pilf'rers, full of what they steal,
Others might equal pow'r assume,
To pay 'em with as hard a doom;
To shut them up, like beasts in pounds,
For breaking into other's grounds;
Mark 'em with characters and brands,
Like other forgers of men's hands,
And in effigy hang and draw
The poor delinquents by club-law,
When no indictment justly lies,
But where the theft will bear a price.

MCXCVII.

Butler.

To pay for, personate, and keep in a man's hands, a greater estate than he really has, is of all others the most unpardonable vanity, and must in the end reduce the man who is guilty of it to dishonour. Yet if we look round us in any county of Great Britain, we shall see many in this fatal error: if that may be called by so soft a name, which proceeds from a false shame of appearing what they really are, when the contrary behaviour would in a short time advance them to the condition which they pretend to.-Steele.

MCXCVIII.

Virtue, if not in action, is a vice;

And, when we move not forward, we go backward.

MCXCIX.

Massinger.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence and merit.-Swift.

MCC.

In oratory affectation must be avoided; it being better for a man by a native and clear eloquence to express himself, than by those words which may smell either of the lamp or inkhorn; so that, in general, one may observe, that men to fortify and to uphold their speeches with strong and evident reasons, have ever operated

more on the minds of the auditors than those who have made rhetorical excursions. It will be better for a man who is doubtful of his pay to take an ordinary silver piece with its due stamp upon it, than an extraordinary gilded piece which may perchance contain a baser metal under it; and prefer a well-favoured wholesome woman, though with a tawny complexion, before a besmeared and painted face.-Lord Herbert.

MCCI.

Rabelais and all other wits are nothing compared with Johnson. You may be diverted by them: but Johnson gives you a forcible hug, and shakes laughter out of you, whether you will or no.-Garrick.

MCCII.

The application of wit in the theatre has as strong an effect upon the manners of our gentlemen, as the taste of it has upon the writings of our authors.-Steele.

MCCIII.

Valour employed in an ill quarrel, turns

To cowardice, and virtue then puts on

Foul vice's vizor.

MCCIV.

Massinger.

He lives long that lives well; and time mispent, is not lived, but lost. Besides, God is better than his promise if he takes from him a long lease, and gives him a freehold of a better value.-Fuller.

MCCV.

A nasty tribe true friendship's hypocrites:
(As like the dying) they do poor men fly;
But wealth (as wasps doth honey) them invites,
Whose servile spirits ne'er tasted liberty:
That dance about ungovern'd youth in swarms,
And play the tune, that their affections charms,
Who echo laughter, where they have their food,
Whose souls are changlings, apes of human kind,
Whose lives are governed by each potent nod;

By fortune not enslav'd, but their own mind,

Th' anvils of raillery; so to it us'd,

That when they're not, they think they're most abus'd.

MCCVI.

Plutarch.

He must be very indifferently employed, who would take upon him to answer nonsense in form; ridicule what is of itself a jest; and put it upon the world to read a second book for the sake of the impertinencies of a former.-Shaftesbury.

MCCVII.

When a scar

"Love covers a multitude of sins." cannot be taken away, the next kind office is to hide it. Love is never so blind as when it is to spy faults.—It is like the painter, who, being to draw the picture of a friend having a blemish in one eye, would picture only the other side of his face.-It is a noble and great thing to cover the blemishes and to excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his stains, and to display his perfections; to bury his weaknesses in silence, but to proclaim his virtues upon the house-top.-South.

MCCVIII.

The truest characters of ignorance
Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance;

As blind men use to bear their noses higher
Than those that have their eyes and sight entire.

МССІХ.

Butler.

Whereas men that marry women very much superior to themselves, are not so truly husbands to their wives, as they are unawares made slaves to their portions.— Plutarch.

MCCX.

Those men who are fortunate enough to preserve their wits, become in the opinion of the world, little better than madmen, because in sooth they are unable to ride a horse with spirit, to carve dexterously at table, to cringe, to make congees, and to " kiss away their hands in courtesies," which every fop and common swasher

can do. Their personal appearance, to say the truth, is in general extremely awkward, odd and singular.— Burton.

MCCXI.

The sufficiency of my merit, is to know that my merit is not sufficient.-St. Augustine.

You must not spare expense, but wear gay clothes,
And you may be, too, prodigal of oaths,
To win a mistress' favour; not afraid

To pass unto her through her chambermaid.
You may present her gifts, and of all sorts,
Feast, dance, and revel; they are lawful sports.
The choice of suitors you must not deny her,
Nor quarrel though you find a rival by her;
Build on your own deserts, and ever be
A stranger to love's enemy, jealousy.

MCCXIII.

Massinger.

Politeness is nothing more than an elegant and concealed species of flattery, tending to put the person to whom it was addressed in good humour and respect with himself; but if there is a parade and display affected in the exertion of it, if a man seems to say-Look how condescending and gracious I am!—whilst he has only the common offices of civility to perform, such politeness seems founded in mistake, and calculated to recommend the wrong person; and this mistake I have observed frequently to occur in French manners.-Cumberland.

MCCXIV.

To be a husbandman, is but a retreat from the city; to be a philosopher, from the world; or rather, a retreat from the world, as it is man's, into the world, as it is God's.-Cowley.

MCCXV.

'Tis a certain truth, that a man is never so easy, or so little imposed upon, as among people of the best sense: it costs far more trouble to be admitted or continued in

ill company than in good; as the former have less understanding to be employed, so they have more vanity to be pleased; and to keep a fool constantly in good humour with himself, and with others, is no very easy task.Pope.

MCCXVI.

It

I fear pleasure is less understood in this age, which so much pretends to it, than in any since the creation. was admirably said of him, who first took notice, that (Res est severa voluptas) "There is a certain severity in pleasure." Without that, all decency is banished; and if reason is not to be present at our greatest satisfactions, of all the race of creatures, the human is the most miserable. It was not so of old. When Virgil describes a wit, he always means a virtuous man; and all his sentiments of men of genius are such as show persons distinguished from the common level of mankind; such as place happiness in the contempt of low fears, and mean gratifications: fears which we are subject to with the vulgar; and pleasures which we have in common with beasts. With these illustrious personages, the wisest man was the greatest wit; and none was thought worthy of that character unless he answered this excellent description of the poet:

Qui metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.
VIRG. Georg. ii. 492.

Happy the man,

His mind possessing in a quiet state,

Fearless of fortune, and resigned to fate.

DRYDEN.

MCCXVII.

Steele.

The modern world considers it as a part of politeness, to drop the mention of kindred in all addresses to relations. There is no doubt, that it puts our approbation and esteem upon a less partial footing. I think, where I value a friend, I would not suffer my relation to be obliterated even to the twentieth generation: it serves to