all these without the tormenting fears and jealousies of being rivalled in their prince's favour, or supplanted at court, or tumbled down from their high and beloved stations. All these storms fly over their heads, and break upon the tow'ring mountains and lofty cedars; they have no ill-got places to lose; they are neither libelled nor undermined, but without invading any man's right, sit safe and warm in a moderate fortune of their own, free from all that grandeur and magnificence of misery, which is sure to attend an invidious greatness. And he who is not contented with such a condition, must seek his happiness (if ever he have any) in another world; for Providence itself can provide no better for him, in this.-South.

MDV.

With the vulgar, and the learned, names have great weight; the wise use a writ of inquiry into their legitimacy when they are advanced as authorities.-Zimmer

man.

MDVI.

It is very hard for the mind to disengage itself from a subject on which it has been long employed. The thoughts will be rising of themselves from time to time, though we give them no encouragement; as the tossings and fluctuations of the sea continue several hours after the winds are laid.-Addison.

MDVII.

Happiness and misery are the names of two extremes, the utmost bounds whereof we know not; but of some degrees of both, we have many lively impressions, by delight on the one side, and sorrow on the other, and therefore we may distinguish them by the names of pleasure and pain. Happiness in its full extent, is the utmost pleasure we are capable of, and the lowest degree of it, is so much ease from all pain, and so much pleasure, as without which one cannot be content, we therefore judge that whoever is contented is happy.— Locke.

MDVIII.

When I have been upon the 'Change, I have often fancied one of our old kings standing in person, where he is represented in effigy, and looking down upon the wealthy concourse of people with which that place is every day filled. In this case, how would he be sur prised to hear all the languages of Europe spoken in this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so many private men, who in his time would have been the vassals of some powerful baron, negotiating like princes for greater sums of money than were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury.-Addison.

MDIX.

How happy had I been if, for a curse,
The Fates had never sentenc'd me to verse;
But ever since this peremptory vein,
With restless frenzy first possess'd my brain,
And that the devil tempted me, in spite
Of my own happiness, to judge and write,
Shut up against my will, I waste my age
In mending this, and blotting out that page,
And grow so weary of the slavish trade,
I envy their condition that write bad.

MDX.

Butler-to a bad Poet.

Those on the highway, who make a stand with a pistol at your breast, (compelled perhaps by necessity, misfortune, or driven out of an honest way of life to answer the wants of a craving family,) are much more excusable than those of their fraternity, who join the conversations of gentlemen, and get into a share of their fortunes, without one good art about them.-Steele.

MDXI.

A mere empty wit is like one that spends on the stock without any revenues coming in, and will shortly be no wit at all; for learning is the fuel to the fire of wit, hich, if it wants this feeding, eats out itself. A good

"

conceit or two bates of such a man, and makes a sensible weakening in him; and his brain recovers it not a year after. The rest of him are bubbles and flashes, darted out on a sudden, which, if you take them while they are warm, may be laughed at; if they are cool, are nothing. He speaks best on the present apprehension, for meditation stupifies him, and the more he is in travail, the less he brings forth. His things come off then, as in a nauseating stomach, where there is nothing to cast up, strains and convulsions, and some astonishing bombast, which men only, till they understand, are scared with. A verse or some such work he may sometimes get up to, but seldom above the stature of an epigram, and that with some relief out of Martial; which is the ordinary companion of his pocket, and he reads him as he were inspired. Such men are commonly the trifling things of the world, good to make merry the company, and whom only men have to do withal when they have nothing to do, and none are less their friends than who are most their company. Here they vent themselves over a cup somewhat more lastingly, all their words go for jests, and all their jests for nothing. They are nimble in the fancy of some ridiculous thing, and reasonable good in the expression. Nothing stops a jest when it's coming, neither friends, nor danger, but it must out howsoever, though their blood come out after, and then they emphatically rail, and are emphatically beaten, and commonly are men reasonable familiar to this. Briefly, they are such whose life is but to laugh and be laughed at; and only wits in jest and fools in earnest.-Bishop Earle.

MDXII.

In other things the knowing artist may
Judge better than the people; but a play,
(Made for delight, and for no other use,)
If you approve it not, has no excuse.

Waller-Prologue to the Maid's Tragedy.
MDXIII.

There is a brain that will endure but one scumming: let the owner gather it with discretion, and manage his

little stock with husbandry; but of all things let him beware of bringing it under the lash of his betters; because that will make it all bubble up into impertinence, and he will find no new supply.-Swift.

MDXIV.

If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art of painting, there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would be more apt to succeed; but it is not the eye, it is the mind, which the painter of genius desires to address; nor will he waste a moment on those smaller objects, which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his design of speaking to the heart.-Sir J. Reynolds.

MDXV.

Equal Nature fashion'd us

All in one mould. The bear serves not the bear,
Nor the wolf the wolf; 'twas odds of strength in tyrants,
That pluck'd the first link from the golden chain
With which that THING of THINGS bound in the world.
Why then, since we are taught, by their examples,
To love our liberty, if not command,

Should the strong serve the weak, the fair deform'd ones?
Or such as know the cause of things, pay tribute
To ignorant fools? All's but the outward gloss,
And politic form, that does distinguish us.

The Born Man-Massinger.

MDXVI.

Close men are incapable of placing merit any where but in their pence, and therefore gain it: while others, who have larger capacities, are diverted from the pursuit of enjoyments which can be supported only by that cash which they despise; and therefore are in the end slaves to their inferiors both in fortune and understanding. I once heard a man of excellent sense observe, that more affairs in the world failed by being in the hands of men of too large capacities for their business, than by being in the conduct of such as wanted abilities to execute them.-Steele.

MDXVII.

A good schoolmaster minces his precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his scholars may go along with him.—Fuller.

MDXVIII.

The follies, vices, and consequent miseries of multitudes, displayed in a newspaper, are so many admonitions and warnings, so many beacons, continually burning, to turn others from the rocks on which they have been shipwrecked. What more powerful dissuasive from suspicion, jealousy, and anger, than the story of one friend murdered by another in a duel? What caution likely to be more effectual against gambling and profligacy than the mournful relation of an execution, or the fate of a despairing suicide? What finer lecture on the necessity of economy than an auction of estates, houses, and furniture, at Skinner's or Christie's? "Talk they of morals?" There is no need of Hutcheson, Smith, or Paley. Only take a newspaper, and consider it well; read it, and it will instruct thee; plenius et melius Chrysippo et Crantore.-Bishop Horne.

MDXIX.

A coxcomb is ugly all over with the affectation of the fine gentleman.-Tatler.

MDXX.

Two self-admirers, that combine
Against the world, may pass a fine,
Upon all judgment, sense, and wit,
And settle it as they think fit
On one another like the choice

Of Persian princes, by one horse's voice:
For those fine pageants which some raise,
Of false and disproportion'd praise,
T'enable whom they please t' appear,
And pass for what they never were,
In private only b'ing but nam'd,
Their modesty must be asham'd,
nd?