its good, useful, or amiable side. He who discovers that side first in inanimate things is sagacious; and he who discovers it in the animate, is liberal.-Lavater. CCCLXIV. The pride of being first of a company is but too common; but is very silly, and very prejudicial. Nothing in the world lets down a character more than that wrong turn.-Chesterfield. CCCLXV. As benevolence is the most sociable of all virtues, so it is of the largest extent; for there is not any man, either so great or so little, but he is yet capable of giving and of receiving benefits.-Seneca. CCCLXVI. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learnt to die has forgot to serve.Montaigne. CCCLXVII. -Rhyme the rudder is of verses, With which, like ships they steer their courses. CCCLXVIII. Butler. Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.-Swift. CCCLXIX. I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these.Shakspeare. CCCLXX. To raise a fortune, and especially a great fortune, a man must have a kind of wit; but it is neither the good nor the fine, the great nor the sublime, the strong nor the delicate: I am at a loss to explain which it is; they who have experienced it, may probably help me out.--Bruyere. CCCLXXI. At the New Exchange they are eloquent for the want of cash, but in the city they ought with cash to supply their want of eloquence.-Spectator. CCCLXXII. He that makes himself famous by his eloquence, justice, or arms, illustrates his extraction, let it be never so mean; and gives inestimable reputation to his parents. We should never have heard of Soproniscus, but for his son, Socrates; nor of Ariosto and Gryllus, if it had not been for Xenophon and Plato.-Seneca. CCCLXXIII. There is a cunning, which we in England call the turning of the cat in the paw; which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays it as if another had said it to him.-Lord Bacon. CCCLXXIV. What scripture and all civilized nations teach concerning the crime of taking away another man's lifeis applicable to the wickedness of a man's attempting to bereave himself of his own. He has no more right over it, than over that of others: and whatever false glosses have been put upon it by men of bad heads or bad hearts -it is at the bottom a complication of cowardice, and wickedness, and weakness, is one of the fatalest mistakes desperation can hurry a man into.-Sterne. CCCLXXV. A game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his wit.-Johnson. CCCLXXVI. Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure, which is to last for ever. His chair was ready first; and he is gone before us. We could not all conveniently start together; and why should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow, and know where to find him?-Franklin on the Death of his Brother. CCCLXXVII. Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when they rise; for the distance is altered; and it is like a deceit of the eye, that when others come on they think themselves go back.-Lord Bacon. CCCLXXVIII. Nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconstancy, especially when it regards religion or party. In either of these cases, though a man perhaps does but his duty in changing his side, he not only makes himself hated by those he left, but is seldom heartily esteemed by those he comes over to.—Addison. CCCLXXIX. News-hunters have great leisure, with little thought; much petty ambition to be thought intelligent, without any other pretension than being able to communicate what they have just learnt. The instruction and intelligence of fools is but a minute old when 'tis delivered.-Zimmerman. CCCLXXX. Every movement of the theatre by a skilful poet is communicated, as it were, by magic to the spectators; who weep, tremble, resent, rejoice, and are inflamed with all the variety of passions which actuate the several personages of the drama.-Hume. CCCLXXXI. As to the business of being profound, it is with writers as with wells; a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there: and that often, when there is nothing in the world at the bottom besides dryness and dirt; though it be but a yard and a half under ground, it shall pass, however, for wondrous deep, upon no wiser a reason than because it is wondrous dark.-Swift. CCCLXXXII. The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavour to be what you desire to appear.-Socrates. CCCLXXXIII. We might, peradventure, be less noisy and more profitable in company, if at convenient times we discharged some of our articulate sound, and spoke to ourselves viva voce when alone. For company is an extreme provocative to fancy; and, like a hotbed in gardening, is apt to make our imaginations sprout too fast. But by the anticipating remedy of soliloquy, we may effectually provide against the inconvenience.-Shaftesbury. CCCLXXXIV. It is not necessary to be drunk one's self, to relish the wit of drunkenness. Do we not judge of the drunken wit of the dialogue between Iago and Cassio, (the most excellent in its kind,) when we are quite sober? Wit is wit, by whatever means it is produced; and, if good, will appear so at all times. I admit that the spirits are raised by drinking, as by the common participation of any pleasure: cock-fighting or bear-baiting will raise the spirits of a company, as drinking does, though surely they will not improve conversation. I also admit, that there are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking, as there are fruits which are not good till they are rotten: there are such men, but they are medlars.-Johnson. CCCLXXXV. That which has happened to one, may happen to every man: and therefore that excellent rule of our Saviour in acts of benevolence, as well as every thing else, should govern us; "that whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye also unto them."-Sterne. CCCLXXXVI, Horace appears in good humour while he censures, and therefore his censure has the more weight, as supposed to proceed from judgment, not from passion.Young. CCCLXXXVII. Time's glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light, To stamp the seal of time on aged things, CCCLXXXVIII. Shakspeare. A man that is out of humour when an unexpected guest breaks in upon him, and does not care for sacrificing an afternoon to any chance comer; that will be master of his own time and pursuer of his own inclinations, makes but a very unsociable figure in this life.Spectator. CCCLXXXIX. Such as are in immediate fear of losing their estates, of banishment, or of slavery, live in perpetual anguish, and lose all appetite and repose; whereas, such as are actually poor, slaves, and exiles, oftimes live as merrily as men in a better condition; and so many people, who, impatient of the perpetual alarms of fear, have hanged and drowned themselves, give us sufficiently to understand, that it is more importunate and insupportable than death itself.-Montaigne. CCCXC. Real friendship is a slow grower; and never thrives unless engrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit.-Chesterfield. CCCXCI. It passes in the world for greatness of mind, to be perpetually giving and loading people with bounties: but it is one thing to know how to give, and another thing to know how to keep. Give me a heart that is easy and open, but I will have no holes in it; let it be bountiful with judgment; but I will have nothing run out of it if I know it.-Seneca СССХСІІ. If it be necessary, as the case is with some barren wits, to take in the thoughts of others in order to draw forth their own, as dry pumps will not play till water is thrown into them; in that necessity, I would recommend some of the approved standard authors of antiquity for your perusal, as a poet and a wit; because maggots being what you look for, you will find they abound in good old authors, as in rich old cheese, not in the new; and for that reason you must have the classics, especially the most worm-eaten of them, often in your hands. But |