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While humbler plants are found to wear
Their fresh green liv'ries all the year;
So when the glorious season's gone
With great men, and hard times come on,
The great'st calamities oppress

The greatest still, and spare the less.

MDXLI.

Butler.

'Tis not wit merely, but a temper, which must form the well-bred man.

In the same manner 'tis not a head merely, but a heart and resolution, which must complete the real philosopher.-Shaftesbury.

MDXLII.

I am so apt to frame a notion of every man's humour or circumstances by his looks, that I have sometimes employed myself from Charing Cross to the Royal Exchange in drawing the characters of those who have passed by me. When I see a man with a sour rivell'd face, I cannot forbear pitying his wife: and when I meet with an open ingenuous countenance, think on the happiness of his friends, his family and relations.-Addison.

MDXLIII.

A prince is never so magnificent
As when he's sparing to enrich a few
With the injuries of many."

MDXLIV.

Massinger.

The letters of this age consist more in fine foldings and prefaces, than matter; where I had rather write two letters, than close and fold up one, and always assign that employment to some other; as also when the business of my letter is despatched, I would with all my heart transfer it to another hand, to add those long harangues, offers, and prayers we place at the bottom, and should be glad that some new custom should discharge us from that unnecessary trouble; as also superscribing them with a long ribble-row of qualities and titles, which, for fear of mistakes, I have several times given over writing, especially to men of the long robe.-Montaigne.

MDXLV.

No

I look upon enthusiasm, in all other points but that of religion, to be a very necessary turn of mind; as indeed it is a vein which nature seems to have marked with more or less strength, in the tempers of most men. matter what the object is, whether business, pleasures, or the fine arts; whoever pursues them to any purpose, must do so con amore, and inamoratos, you know, of every kind, are all enthusiasts.-Fitzosborne's Letters.

MDXLVI.

There is nothing so ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. The writers of books in Europe seem to themselves authorized to say what they please; and an ingenious philosopher among them (Fontenelle) has openly asserted that he would undertake to persuade the whole republic of readers to believe, that the sun was neither the cause of light nor heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side.Goldsmith.

MDXLVII.

As those that pull down private houses adjoining to the temples of the gods, prop up such parts as are contiguous to them; so, in undermining bashfulness, due regard is to be had to adjacent modesty, good nature, and humanity.-Plutarch.

MDXLVIII.

I live in a constant endeavour to fence against the infirmities of ill-health, and other evils of life, by mirth: being firmly persuaded that every time a man smilesbut much more so when he laughs, it adds something to this fragment of life.-Sterne-Dedication-Tristram Shandy.

MDXLIX.

Pedantry is but a corn or wart,

Bred in the skin of judgment, sense, and art,
A stupify'd excrescence, like a wen,
Fed by the peccant humours of learn❜d men,
That never grows from natural defects
Of downright and untutor❜d intellects,

But from the over-curious and vain
Distempers of an artificial brain.

MDL.

Butler.

The greatest monuments of men are letters-they are not only the foundation of all, but they outlive each other. Yet it were much to be wished, that reading was more confined, and writing less frequent, which would be the case, provided everywriter had some laudable end in view.

For otherwise, it is but like wheeling rubbish to the mountain's foot, without adding to the height, and enlarging the prospect; or carrying stones to the vast pile, which only adds to the bulk, but increases not the strength and magnificence of the building.-Joineriana, 1772.

MDLI.

In shabby state they strut,* in tatter'd robe,
The scene a blanket, and a barn the globe:
No high conceits their mod'rate wishes raise,
Content with humble profit, humble praise.
Let dowdies simper, and let bumpkins stare,
The strolling pageant hero treads in air:
Pleas'd for his hour he to mankind gives law,
And snores the next out on a truss of straw.
Churchill.

MDLII.

The house of correction is the fittest hospital for those eripples, whose legs are lame through their own lazinesse. Surely king Edward VI. was as truly charitable in granting Bridewell for the punishment of sturdy rogues, as in giving St. Thomas's Hospitall for the relief of the poore.-Fuller.

MDLIII.

I look upon premeditated quibbles and puns committed to the press, as unpardonable crimes. There is as much difference betwixt these and the starts in common discourse, as betwixt casual rencounters, and murder with malice prepense.-Birch.

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MDLIV.

This globe portray'd the race of learned men,
Still at their books, and turning o'er the page,
Backwards and forwards: oft they snatch the pen
As if inspir'd, and in a Thespian rage,

Then write and blot, as would your ruth engage;
Why, authors! all this scrawl and scribbling sore?
To lose the present, gain the future age,

Prais'd to be, when you can hear no more:

And much enrich'd with fame, when useless worldly store?

Castle of Indolence.-Thomson.

MDLV.

Lucian has well described the fate of prodigals in his picture of Opulentia, whose residence he represents to be on a lofty mountain, the summit of which her fond votaries are eagerly endeavouring to reach. While their money lasts, they are conducted on their way over flowery meads by the fairy hands of dalliance and pleasure; but when fortune fails, their treacherous conductors revile them for their vain attempt, and thrusting them down headlong into the vale of tears, expose them to the torments of shame, misery, reproach, and despair.Burton.

MDLVI.

A finished gentleman is perhaps the most uncommon of all the great characters in life. Besides the natural endowment with which this distinguished man is to be born, he must run through a long series of education.Steele.

MDLVII.

Avoid him who, from mere curiosity, asks three questions running, about a thing that cannot interest him.Lavater.

MDLVIII.

-Too powerful love,

The best strength of thy unconfined empire

Lives in weak women's hearts; thou art feign'd blind, And yet we borrow our best sight from thee.

Massinger.

MDLIX.

Reason and virtue alone can bestow liberty.-Shaftesbury.

MDLX.

The best kind of glory is that which is reflected from honesty, such as was the glory of Cato and Aristides; but it was harmful to them both, and is seldom beneficial to any man, whilst he lives; what it is to him after his death, I cannot say, because I love not philosophy merely notional and conjectural, and no man who has made the experiment has been so kind as to come back to inform us.-Cowley.

MDLXI.

Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so useful as common sense. There are forty men of wit for one man of sense; and he that will carry nothing about him but gold, will be every day at a loss for want of readier change.-Pope.

MDLXII.

"Tis pity wine, which nature meant
To man in kindness to present,
And give him kindly to caress
And cherish his frail happiness,
Of equal virtue to renew
His weary mind and body too,
Shou'd (like the cider tree in Eden,
Which only grew to be forbidden)
No sooner come to be enjoy'd,
But th' owner's fatally destroyed.

MDLXIII.

Butler.

Some men are called sagacious, merely on account of their avarice; whereas a child can clench his fist the moment it is born.-Shenstone.

MDLXIV.

Whoever considers the study of anatomy, I believe, will never be an atheist; the frame of man's body, and coherence of his parts, being so strange and paradoxical, that I hold it to be the greatest miracle of nature; though

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