And not endure to hear,

And yet may be divulg'd and fam'd,
And own'd in public every where:
So vain some authors are to boast
Their want of ingenuity, and club
Their affidavit wits, to dub

Each other but a knight o' the post,
As false as suborn'd perjurers,

That vouch away all right they have to their own

ears.

MDXXI.

Butler.

Of all the great human actions ever heard, or read of, of what sort soever, I have observed, both in former ages and our own, more have been performed before, than after the age of thirty; and oftimes in the very lives of the same men. May I not confidently instance in those of Hannibal and his great competitor Scipio? The better half of their lives they lived upon the glory they had acquired in their youth; great men afterwards, 'tis true, in comparison with others; but by no means in comparison with themselves.-Montaigne.

MDXXII.

That wit is false which can subsist only in one language; and that picture which pleases only one age or nation, owes its reception to some local or accidental association of ideas. Sir J. Reynolds.

MDXXIII.

Argument, as usually managed, is the worst sort of conversation; as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.-Swift.

MDXXIV.

I think a prudent man ought not to permit any thing at all to trust to fortune; but to trust and commit some things to his wife, some things to his servants, and some things to his friends, (as a prince to certain vicegerents, and persons accountable, and administrators,) while he is employing his reason about such matters as are most proper for him, and of greatest concernment.-Plutarch.

MDXXV.

Some persons make their own epitaphs, and bespeak the reader's good-will. It were, indeed, to be wished, that every man would early learn in this manner to make his own, and that he would draw it up in terms as flattering as possible, and that he would make it the employment of his whole life to deserve it.-Goldsmith.

MDXXVI.

We may range the several kinds of laughers under the following heads:

The dimplers,
The smilers,
The laughers,

The grinners,

The horse-laughers.

The dimple is practised to give a grace to the features, and is frequently made a bait to entangle a gazing lover; this was called by the ancients the Chian laugh.

The smile is for the most part confined to the fair sex, and their male retinue. It expresses our satisfaction in a silent sort of approbation, doth not too much disorder the features, and is practised by lovers of the most delicate address. This tender motion of physiognomy the ancients called the ionic laugh.

The laugh among us is the common risus of the an

cients.

The grin, by writers of antiquity, is called the Syncrusian; and was then, as it is at this time, made use of to display a beautiful set of teeth.

The horse-laugh, or the Sardonic, is made use of with great success in all kinds of disputation. The proficients in this kind, by a well-timed laugh, will baffle the most solid argument. This upon all occasions supplies the want of reason, is always received with great applause in coffee-house disputes; and that side the laugh joins with is generally observed to gain the better of his antagonist. Steele.

MDXXVII.

The generous, who is always just, and the just who is always generous, may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven.-Lavater.

When a writer of any kind is so considerable as to deserve the labour and pains of some shrewd heads to refute him in public, he may, in the quality of an author, be justly congratulated on that occasion.-Shaftesbury.

MDXXIX.

It is a harder thing for men to rate
Their own parts at an equal estimate,

Than cast up fractions, in th' accompt of heav'n,
Of time and motion, and adjust them ev❜n;
For modest persons never had a true
Particular of all that is their due.

MDXXX.

Butler.

Madmen show themselves most by over-pretending to a sound understanding, as drunken men do by over-acting sobriety.-Congreve.

MDXXXI.

England can furnish not a few instances of men of taste who have sold the best oaks of their estates for gilding and girandoles;-of fathers who have beggared their families to enjoy the pleasure of seeing greenhouses and pineries arise under their inspection;-and of fox-hunters who have begun with a dog-kennel, and ended with a dwelling-house. Enough is done every day by the amateurs of Wyat and Chambers to palliate the censure of ostentation and uselessness that is lavishly thrown upon the king's house at Winchester, and the Radcliffe library at Oxford.-Kett.

MDXXXII.

Love, when founded in the heart, will show itself in a thousand unpremeditated sallies of fondness; but every

cool deliberate exhibition of the passions only argues little understanding or great insincerity.-Goldsmith

MDXXXIII.

All promise is poor dilatory man,
And that through every stage.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool,
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve,
In all the magnanimity of thought

Resolves and re-resolves, then dies the same.
In human hearts what bolder thought can rise
Than man's presumption on to-morrow's dawn.
Where is to-morrow? in another world.
And yet on this perhaps, this peradventure
(Infamous for lies) as on a rock of adamant

We build our mountain hopes, spin our eternal schemes,
And big with life's futurities expire.

MDXXXIV.

Young.

The true nobleman conceives this word, on mine honour, wraps up a deal in it, which unfolded, and then measured, will be found to be a large attestation, and no lesse then an eclipticall oath, calling God to witnesse, who hath bestowed that honour upon him. And seeing the state is so tender of him, that he shall not be forced to swear in matters of moment, in courts of justice, he is careful not to swear of his own accord in his sports and pleasures.-Fuller.

MDXXXV.

As the world now goes, we have no adequate idea of what is meant by "gentlemanly, gentleman-like, or much of a gentleman;" you cannot be cheated at play, but it is certainly done by "a very gentleman-like man;" you cannot be deceived in your affairs, but it was done in some "gentlemanly manner;" you cannot be wrong in your bed, but all the world will say of him that did the injury, it must be allowed "he is very much of a gentleman." Here is a very pleasant fellow, a corres

pondent of mine, that puts in for that appellation even to highwaymen.-Steele.

MDXXXVI.

To rob a lady

Of her good name is an infectious sin,
Not to be pardon'd; be it false as hell,
"Twill never be redeem'd, if it be sown
Among the people, fruitful to increase
All evil they shall hear. Let me alone.
That I may cut off falsehood while it springs;
Set hills and hills betwixt me and the man
That utters this, and I will scale them all,
And from the utmost top fall on his neck,
Like thunder from a cloud.

The Restoration.—Buckingham.

MDXXXVII.

When a man writes from his own mind, he writes very rapidly: the greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.-Johnson.

MDXXXVIII.

Nothing is so great an instance of ill manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; if you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest.Swift.

MDXXXIX.

The same God, to whom we are but tenants-at-will for the whole, requires but the seventh part to be paid to him as a small quit-rent in acknowledgment of his title. It is man only that has the impudence to demand our whole time, though he never gave it, nor can restore it, nor is able to pay any considerable value for the least part of it.-Cowley.

MDXL.

As at th' approach of winter all

The leaves of great trees use to fall,
And leave them naked to engage

With storms and tempests when they rage,