MCCCXXV.

As a malicious censure craftily worded and pronounced with assurance is apt to pass with mankind for shrewd wit; so a virulent maxim in bold expressions, though without any justness of thought, is readily received for true philosophy.—Shaftesbury.

MCCCXXVI.

What a bridge

Of glass I walk upon, over a river

Of certain ruin, mine own weighty fears

Cracking what would support me! and those helps,
Which confidence lends to others, are from me
Ravish'd by doubts, and wilful jealousy.

MCCCXXVII.

Massinger.

To profess judgment, and to profess wit, both arise from the same failure; which is want of judgment. The poverty of the critic this way proceeds from the abuse of his faculty; that of the wit, from the neglect of it.Steele.

MCCCXXVIII.

The beasts show us plainly how much our diseases are owing to the perturbations of our minds. We are told that the inhabitants of Brazil die merely of old age, owing to the serenity and tranquillity of the air in which they live; but I ascribe it rather to the serenity and tranquillity of their souls, which are free from all passion, thought, or laborious and unpleasant employment. As great enmities spring from great friendships, and mortal distempers from vigorous health, so do the most surprising and the wildest phrensies from the high and lively agitations of our souls.-Montaigne.

MCCCXXIX.

A palsy may as well shake an oak, or a fever dry up a fountain, as either of them shake, dry up, or impair the delight of conscience. For it lies within, it centres in the heart, it grows into the very substance of the soul, so that it accompanies a man to his grave; he never outlives

it, and that for this cause only, because he cannot outlive himself.-South.

MCCCXXX.

Fame being a fruit grafted on the body, can hardly grow, and much less ripen, till the stock is in the earth. -Swift.

MCCCXXXI.

He who is a critic should consider, that, according to the natural progress of human opinions, he may become the subject of criticism. If Johnson had ever conjectured that he must one day be tried by his own laws, more lenity would probably have been shown to Pope. -Kett.

MCCCXXXII.

When a person is once heartily in love, the little faults and caprices of his mistress, the jealousies and quarrels to which that commerce is so subject, however unpleasant they be, and rather connected with anger and hatred, are yet to be found, in many instances, to give additional force to the prevailing passion.-Hume.

MCCCXXXIII.

Euripides was wont to say, silence was an answer to a wise man; but we seem to have greater occasion for it in our dealing with fools and unreasonable persons; for men of breeding and sense will be satisfied with reason and fair words.-Plutarch.

MCCCXXXIV.

Hope is a flatterer, but the most upright of all parasites; for she frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his superior.-Shenstone.

MCCCXXXV.

All love, at first, like gen'rous wine,
Ferments and frets until 't is fine,
But when 't is settled on the lee,
And from th' impurer matter free;
Becomes the richer still the older,
And proves the pleasanter the colder.

Butler.

MCCCXXXVI.

One of the most bitter circumstances of poverty has been observed to be, that it makes men appear ridiculous; but I believe this affirmation may with more justice be appropriated to riches, since more qualifications are required to become a great fortune, than even to make one; and there are several pretty persons, about town, ten times more ridiculous upon the very account of a good estate, than they possibly could have been with the want of it.-Steele.

MCCCXXXVII.

Seldom shall we see in cities, courts, and rich families, where men live plentifully, and eat and drink freely, that perfect health, that athletic soundness and vigour of constitution, which is commonly seen in the country, in poor houses and cottages, where nature is their cook, and necessity their caterer, and where they have no other doctor but the sun and fresh air, and that such a one as never sends them to the apothecary.-South.

MCCCXXXVIII.

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world. If the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself, seconded by the applauses of the public. A man is more sure of his conduct, when the verdict which he passes upon his own behaviour is thus warranted and confirmed by the opinion of all that know him.-Addison.

MCCCXXXIX.

He who, being master of the fittest moment to crush his enemy, magnanimously neglects it, is born to be a conqueror.-Lavater.

MCCCXL.

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished from the heart, nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.-Burke.

MCCCXLI.

Wine fills the veins, and healths are understood
To give our friends a title to our blood:

Who, naming me, doth warm his courage so,
Shows for my sake what his bold hand would do.
Waller.

MCCCXLII.

I have observed in most of the modern Latin poems which I have accidently run over, a remarkable barrenness of sentiment, and have generally found the poet degraded into the parodist. It is usually the little dealers on Parnassus, who have not a sufficient stock of genius to launch out in a more enlarged commerce with the Muses, that hawk about these classical gleanings. The style of these performances always puts me in mind of Harlequin's snuff, which he collected by borrowing a pinch out of every man's box he could meet, and then retailed it to his customers under the pompous title of tabac de mille fleurs. Half a line from Virgil or Lucretius, pieced out with a bit from Horace or Juvenal, is generally the motley mixture which enters into compositions of this sort.-Fitzosborne's Letters.

MCCCXLIII.

Hourly we see, some raw pin-feathered thing
- Attempt to mount, and fights, and heroes sing:
Who for false quantities was whipt at school
But t'other day, and breaking grammar-rule,
Whose trivial art was never tried, above
The bare description of a native grove:
Who knows not how to praise the country store,
The feasts, the baskets, nor the fatted boar;

Nor paint the flow'ry fields, that paint themselves before.
Dryden's Perseus.

MCCCXLIV.

It is a proverb in China, that a European suffers not even his spittle to be lost: the maxim, however, is not sufficiently strong, since they sell even their lies to great advantage. Every nation drives a considerable trade in this commodity with their neighbours.-Goldsmith.

MCCCXLV.

The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter.-Sir J. Reynolds.

MCCCXLVI.
As a horse

Is still a horse, for all his golden trappings,
So your men of purchased titles, at their best, are
But serving men in rich liveries.

MCCCXLVII.

Massinger.

The nicest constitutions of government are often like the finest pieces of clockwork, which, depending on so many motions, are therefore more subject to be out of order.-Pope.

MCCCXLVIII.

Sports and gaming, whether pursued from a desire of gain or love of pleasure, are as ruinous to the temper and disposition of the party addicted to them, as they are to his fame and fortune.-Burton.

MCCCXLIX.

To speak and to offend, with some people, are but one and the same thing; their words are fraught with gall and wormwood, from a proud, splenetic, and malevolent disposition; it had been well for them, had they been born stupid or mute; the little vivacity and wit they have, prejudice them more than dulness does others. They are not always satisfied with giving sharp answers; they insolently attack the present, and wound the character of the absent; they bristle up and butt on all sides like rams; and impudence being as natural to them as horns to a ram, no ridicule, no satire, can work upon these untractable savages; we had better at first sight betake ourselves to our heels, and by a prudent flight avoid their molestations.-Bruyere.

MCCCL.

No communication or gift can exhaust genius, or impoverish charity.-Lavater.

VOL. I.

A a