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their locks neatly combed and curiously curled, to adorn their shoes with elegant ties, their points with becoming gaieties; to be point device in all their accoutrements; to appear, as it were, in print; in short, to walk in print, to eat in print, to drink in print, and to be mad in print. -Burton.

MCCCIII.

In England, every man may be an author that can write; for they have by law a liberty, not only of saying what they please, but of being also as dull as they please. -Goldsmith.

MCCCIV.

Plenty and indigence depend upon the opinion every one has of them; and riches, no more than glory or health, have no more beauty or pleasure, than their possessor is pleased to lend them.-Montaigne.

MCCCV.

Lamentation is the only musician that always, like a screech owl, alights and sits on the roof of an angry man, while within, the stewards are beaten, and the maid-servants tormented.-Plutarch.

MCCCVI.

Our booksellers' shelves are loaded with volumes in the unfruitful road of plain sense and nature: and unless an author can shame himself from this common track, he stands as little chance to be known, as a comet in its aphelion. Mrs. Cowley.

MCCCVII.

We never are satisfied with our opinions, whatever we may pretend, till they are ratified and confirmed by the suffrages of the rest of mankind. We dispute and wrangle for ever; we endeavour to get men to come to us, when we do not go to them.-Sir J. Reynolds.

MCCCVIII.

I am not at all mortified, when sometimes I see my works thrown aside by men of no taste nor learning.

There is a kind of heaviness and ignorance that hangs upon the minds of ordinary men, which is too thick for knowledge to break through. Their souls are not to be enlightened.

Nox atra cavâ circumvolat umbrâ.

Virg. En. ii. 360.

Black night enwraps them in her gloomy shade.

To these I must apply the fable of the mole, that after having consulted many oculists for the bettering of his sight, was at last provided with a good pair of spectacles, but upon his endeavouring to make use of them, his mother told him very prudently, "That spectacles, though they might help the eye of a man, could be of no use to a mole."-Addison.

MCCCIX.

As wine that with its own weight runs is best,
And counted much more noble than the prest;
So is that poetry whose gen'rous strains
Flow without servile study, art, or pains.

MCCCX.

Butler.

It is a point out of doubt with me, that the ladies are most properly the judges of the men's dress, and the men of that of the ladies.-Shenstone.

MCCCXI.

Zeal for the public good is the characteristic of a man of honour, and a gentleman, and must take place of pleasures, profits, and all other private gratifications. Whoever wants this motive, is an open enemy, or an inglorious neuter to mankind, in proportion to the misapplied advantages with which nature and fortune have blessed him.-Guardian.

MCCCXII.

Wit, to be well defined, must be defined by wit itself: then 'twill be worth listening to.-Zimmerman.

MCCCXIII.

When a dull copier simple grace neglects,
And rests his imitation in defects,

We readily forgive; but such vile arts
Are double guilt in men of real parts.

MCCCXIV.

Churchill.

A philosopher seats himself as spectator and critic on the theatre of the world, and gives sentence on the plots, language, and action of whatsoever he sees represented, according to his own fancy. He will pretend to know what is done behind the scene; but so seldom is in the right, that he discovers nothing more than his own mistakes. When his profession was in credit in the world, and money was to be gotten by it, it divided himself into multitudes of sects, that maintained themselves and their opinions by fierce and hot contests with one another; but since the trade decayed and would not turn to account, they all fell of themselves; and now the world is so unconcerned in their controversies, that three reformado sects joined in one, like Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana, will not serve to maintain one pedant. He makes his hypotheses himself, as a tailor does a doublet, without measure; no matter whether they fit nature, he can make nature fit them, and, whether they are too strait or wide, pinch or stuff out the body accordingly. He judges of the works of nature just as the rabble do of state-affairs: they see things done, and every man according to his capacity guesses at the reasons of them, but knowing nothing of the arcana or secret movements of either, they seldom or never are in the right; however they please themselves, and some others, with their fancies, and the farther they are off truth, the more confident they are they are near it; as those that are out of their way believe, the further they have gone, they are the nearer their journey's end when they are furthest of all from it. Heretofore his beard was the badge of his profession, and the length of that in all his polemics was ever accounted the length of his weapon; but when trade fell, that fell too. In Lucius's time they were commonly called beard-wearers; for all the strength of their wits lay in their beards, as Sampson's did in his locks: but since the world began to see the vanity of that hair-brained cheat, they left it to save their credit.-Butler.

MCCCXV.

Self-love is a principle in human nature of such extensive energy, and the interest of each individual is, in general, so closely connected with that of the community, that those philosophers were excusable, who fancied, that all our concern for the public might be resolved into a concern for our own happiness and preservation.Hume.

MCCCXVI.

I have heard

Of men in debt, that lay'd for by their creditors,
In such places where it could be thought
They would take shelter, chose, for their sanctuary,
Their lodgings underneath their creditors' noses,
Or near that prison to which they were design'd
If apprehended; confident that there

They never should be sought for.

MCCCXVII.

Massinger.

When knowledge, instead of being bound up in books, and kept in libraries and retirement, is obtruded on the public in distinct sheets; when it is canvassed in every assembly, and exposed upon every table, I cannot forbear reflecting upon that passage in the Proverbs: "Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the opening of the gates. In the city she uttereth her words, saying, how long ye simple ones will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning? and fools hate knowledge?"-Spectator.

MCCCXVIII.

There are few, very few, that will own themselves in a mistake, though all the world see them to be in downright nonsense.-Swift.

MCCCXIX.

Some hold, when hospitality died in England, she gave her last groan among the yeomen of Kent. And still at our yeoman's tables, you shall have as many joints as dishes. No meat disguised with strange sauces; no

straggling joynt of a sheep in the midst of a pasture of grasse, beset with salads on every side, but more solid substantial food: no serviters (more nimble with their hands than the guests with their teeth) take away meat before stomachs are taken away. Here you have that which in itself is good, made better by the store of it, and best by the welcome to it.-Fuller.

MCCCXX.

If the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sincerity is better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he pretends to.-Tillotson.

MCCCXXI.

Is it not a mortifying consideration, that the powers of reason should be less prevalent than those of matter; and that a page of Seneca cannot raise the spirits, when a pint of claret will?-Fitzosborne's Letters.

MCCCXXII.

To see sad sights moves more, than hear them told;
For then the eye interprets to the ear
The heavy motion, that it doth behold;
When every part a part of wo doth bear,
'Tis but a part of sorrow that we hear.

Deep sounds make lesser noise, than shallow fords;
And sorrow ebbs being blown with wind of words.
Shakspeare.

MCCCXXIII.

A pension, given as a reward for service to the state, is surely as good a ground of property as any security for money advanced to the state. It is a better; for money is paid, and well paid, to obtain that service.-Burke.

MCCCXXIV.

Affections, like the conscience, are rather to be led than drawn; and 'tis to be feared, they that marry where they do not love, will love where they do not marry.Fuller.

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