Their word's sufficient; and to ask a reason, MCCCCLXI. Churchill. Worldly wealth, is the devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches, recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase; as the moon when she is fullest of light is farthest from the sun.-Burton. MCCCCLXII. Good counsels observed are chains to grace, which neglected, prove halters to strange undutiful children. -Fuller. MCCCCLXIII. As when a greedy raven sees A sheep entangled by the fleece, To attack him, and pick out his eyes; That in their rav'nous clutches fall: And were no part o' th' first creation, T'enclose the earth with living walls. MCCCCLXIV. Butler. He who is always in want of something cannot be very rich. "Tis a poor wit who lives by borrowing the words, decisions, mien, inventions, and actions, of others.Lavater. MCCCCLXV. When empire in its childhood first appears, Till, grown more strong, it thrusts and stretches out, The place thus made for its first breathing free, Till, swelling by degrees, it has possest, The greater space, and now crowds up the rest. MCCCCLXVI. Dryden. In story-telling, besides the marking distinct characters, and selecting pertinent circumstances, it is likewise necessary to leave off in time, and end smartly. So that there is a kind of drama in the forming of a story, and the manner of conducting and pointing it, is the same as in an epigram. It is a miserable thing, after one hath raised the expectation of the company by humorous characters, and a pretty conceit, to pursue the matter too far. There is no retreating, and how poor is it for a storyteller to end his relation by saying, "that's all!”—Steele. MCCCCLXVII. "Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride," is a common proverb, and a real truth. The "novus homo" is an "inexpurtus homo," and consequently must purchase finery, before he knows the emptiness of it experimentally. The established gentleman disregards it through habit and familiarity.-Shenstone. MCCCCLXVIII. Excess of love can work such miracles! This hand, Sybilla's golden bough to guard them Such of the virtues as your mind invite, MCCCCLXIX. Massinger. If the choice had been left to me, I would rather have trusted the refinement of our language, as far as it relates to sound, to the judgment of the women, than of illiterate court fops, half-witted poets, and university boys.Swift. MCCCCLXX. Commonly, physicians, like beer, are best when they are old; and lawyers, like bread, when they are young and new.-Fuller. MCCCCLXXI. London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is intellectual, London is the place. And there is no place where economy can be so well practised as in London: more can be had here for the money, even by ladies, than every where else. You cannot play tricks with your fortune in a small place; you must make a uniform appearance. Here a lady may have well-furnished apartments, and elegant dress, without any meat in her kitchen.-Johnson. MCCCCLXXII. When blockheads rattle the dicebox, when fellows of vulgar and base minds sit up whole nights contemplating the turn of a card, then stupid occupation is in character; but whenever a cultivated understanding stoops to the tyranny of so vile a passion, the friend to mankind sees the injury to society with that sort of aggravation as would attend the taking of his purse on the highway, if, upon the seizure of the felon, he was unexpectedly to discover the person of a judge.—Cumberland. MCCCCLXXIII. Those get the least that take the greatest pains, A natʼral sign of weakness, as an ant And children are more busy at their play MCCCCLXXIV. Butler. We are but too apt to consider things in the state in which we find them, without sufficiently adverting to the causes by which they have been produced, and possibly may be upheld. Nothing is more certain than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages, upon two principles; and were indeed the result of both combined; I mean the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion. The nobility and the clergy, the one by profession, the other by patronage, kept learning in existence even in the midst of arms and confusion, and whilst government were rather in their causes than formed. Learning paid back what it received to nobility and priesthood, and paid it with usury, by enlarging their ideas and by furnishing their minds. -Burke. MCCCCLXXV. Like buds appearing ere the frosts are past, Waller.-Epitaph on a young nobleman. MCCCCLXXVI. Those who are taken with the outward show of things, think that there is more beauty in persons who are trimmed, curled, and painted, than uncorrupt nature can give; as if beauty were merely the corruption of manners.-Quintilian. MCCCCLXXVII. He alone is an acute observer, who can observe minutely without being observed.—Lavater. MCCCCLXXVIII. To poore people the good physician prescribes cheap but wholesome medicines: not removing the consumption out of their bodies into their purses: nor sending them to the East Indies for drugs, when they can reach better out of their gardens.-Fuller. MCCCCLXXIX. As the choosing of pertinent circumstances is the life of a story, and that wherein humour principally consists; so the collectors of impertinent particulars are the very bane and opiates of conversation.-Steele. MCCCCLXXX. Princes can never more make known their wisdom They can give wealth and titles, but no virtue; With all the trim of greatness, state, and pow'r, And what was dreadful proves ridiculous. MCCCCLXXXI. Massinger. Nature has left every man a capacity of being agrecable, though not of shining in company: and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified for both, who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.—Swift. MCCCCLXXXII. Death may be said with almost equal propriety to confer as well as to level all distinctions. In consequence of that event, a kind of chemical operation takes place; for those characters which were mixed with the gross |