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of it left, on condition you were to be miserable for ever after; or supposing that you might be happy for ever after, on condition you would be miserable until the whole mass of sand were thus annihilated, at the rate of one sand in a thousand years: which of these two cases would you make your choice?-Swift.

CCCCXV.

If we take a general view of the world, we shall find that a great deal of virtue, at least outward appearance of it, is not so much from any fixed principle as the terror of what the world will say, and the liberty it will take upon the occasions we shall give.-Sterne.

CCCCXVI.

Prejudice is an equivocal term; and may as well mean right opinions taken upon trust, and deeply rooted in the mind, as false and absurd opinions so derived, and grown into it.-Hurd.

CCCCXVII.

Present time and future may be considered as rivals; and he who solicits the one, must expect to be discountenanced by the other.-Sir Joshua Reynolds.

CCCCXVIII.

There is nothing so disagreeable in works of humour, as an insipid, unsupported vivacity, the very husks of drollery, bottled small beer, a man out riding his horse, lewdness and impotence, a fiery actor in a phlegmatic scene, an illiterate and stupid preacher discoursing upon Urim and Thummim, and beating the pulpit cushion in such a manner, as though he would make the dust and the truth fly out of it at once.-Shenstone.

CCCCXIX.

She that has once demanded a settlement has allowed the importance of fortune; and when she cannot show pecuniary merit, why should she think her cheapener obliged to purchase?-Johnson.

CCCCXX.

The pretence of public good, is a cheat that will ever pass in the world; though so often abused by ill men,

that I wonder the good do not grow ashamed to use it any longer.-Sir W. Temple.

CCCCXXI.

No one who was ever so little a while an inspector, could fail of becoming acquainted with his own heart. And, what was of singular note in these magical glasses, it would happen, that by constant and long inspection, the parties accustomed to the practice would acquire a peculiar speculative habit; so as virtually to carry about with them a sort of pocket mirror, always ready and in use.—Shaftesbury.

CCCCXXII.

A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another, than to knock him down.-Johnson.

CCCCXXIII.

A generous, a brave, a noble deed, performed by an adversary, commands our approbation; while in its consequences it may be acknowledged prejudicial to our particular interest.-Hume.

CCCCXXIV.

Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived; for 'tis manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over truth; and the reason is at our elbow, because imagination can build nobler scenes and produce more wonderful revolutions than fortune or nature will be at the expense to furnish.-Swift.

CCCCXXV.

He that hath a scrupulous conscience is like a horse that is not well weighed; he starts at every bird that flies out of the hedge.-Selden.

CCCCXXVI.

Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment, that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust, and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage, may be applied to every other course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last.-Johnson.

CCCCXXVII.

The honour of a maid is her name; and no legacy is so rich as honesty.-Shakspeare.

CCCCXXVIII.

I would go fifty miles on foot to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his author's hands-be pleased he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.-Sterne.

CCCCXXIX.

The prodigal robs his heir, the miser robs himself. The middle way is, justice to ourselves and others.Bruyere.

CCCCXXX.

There is no game so small, wherein from my own bosom naturally, and without study or endeavour, I have not an extreme aversion for deceit. I shuffle and cut, and make as much clatter with the cards, and keep as strict an account for farthings, as if it were for double pistoles; when winning or losing against my wife and daughter is indifferent to me, as when I play in good earnest with others for the roundest sums.-Montaigne.

CCCCXXXI.

There is not so poor a book in the world, that would not be a prodigious effort, were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators. -Johnson.

ССССХХХІІ.

Purblind to poverty the worldling goes,

And scarce sees rags an inch beyond his nose,
But from a crowd can single out his grace,

And cringe and creep to fools who strut in lace.
Churchill.

ССССХХХІІІ.

Who is there that must not be convinced, he is but a useless person, though he has never so many good qualities, and never such an extraordinary merit; when he considers that at his death he leaves a world which will VOL. I.

H

not miss him, and where such numbers are ready to supply his place?-Bruyere.

CCCCXXXIV.

Every great genius seems to ride upon mankind, like Pyrrhus on his elephant; and the way to have the absolute ascendant of your resty nag, and to keep your seat, is, at your first mounting, to afford him the whip and spurs plentifully; after which you may travel the rest of the day with great alacrity. Önce kick the world, and the world and you live together at a reasonable good understanding.-Swift.

CCCCXXXV.

I see some who are mightily given to study, pore, and comment upon their almanacs, and produce them for authority when any thing has fallen out pat: though it is hardly possible, but that these well-wishers to the mathematics, in saying so much, must sometimes stumble upon some truth amongst an infinite number of lies. Montaigne.

CCCCXXXVI.

-What so foolish as the chase of fame?
How vain the prize! how impotent our aim!
For what are men who grasp at praise sublime,
But bubbles on the rapid stream of time,
That rise and fall, that swell, and are no more,
Born, and forgot, ten thousand in an hour.
Young.

CCCCXXXVII.

If envy, like anger, did not burn itself in its own fire, and consume and destroy those persons it possesses, before it can destroy those it wishes worst to, it would set the whole world on fire, and leave the most excellent persons the most miserable.-Lord Clarendon.

CCCCXXXVIII.

The ordinary method of making a tragic hero, is to clap a huge plume of feathers upon his head, which rises so very high, that there is often a greater length from his chin to the top of his head, than to the sole of his foot.

For my part, when I see a man uttering his complaints under such a mountain of feathers, I am apt to look upon him rather as an unfortunate lunatic than a distressed hero.-Addison.

CCCCXXXIX.

Who thinks that fortune cannot change her mind,
Prepares a dreadful jest for all mankind.
And who stands safest? tell me is it he

That spreads, and swells, in puff'd prosperity?
Or, blest with little, whose preventing care
In peace provides fit arms against a war.

CCCCXL.

Pope.

A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones. -Chesterfield.

CCCCXLI.

I shall set down at length the genealogical table of False Humour, and at the same time, place beside it the genealogy of True Humour, that the reader may at one view behold their different pedigrees and relation:

Falsehood.
Nonsense.

Frenzy.Laughter.

False Humour.

Truth.
Good Sense.

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CCCCXLII.

As the most fermenting in a vessel works up to the top whatever it has in the bottom, so wine in those who have drank beyond the measure, vents the most inward secrets.-Montaigne.

CCCCXLIII.

A fop, who admires his person in a glass, soon enters into a resolution of making his fortune by it, not questioning but every woman that falls in his way will do him as much justice as himself.-Hughes.

CCCCXLIV.

With what, O Codrus! is thy fancy smit?
The flower of learning and the bloom of wit.

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