Thy gaudy shelves with crimson bindings glow, How fit for thee bound up in crimson too. Is Codrus' erudite ambition shown. To pay a sage, who says that he can read, Of pompous books who shuns the proud expense, CCCCXLV. Young. A newsmonger is a retailer of rumour, that takes up upon trust, and sells as cheap as he buys. He deals in a commodity that will not keep: for if it be not fresh it lies upon his hands, and will yield nothing. True or false it is all one to him; for novelty being the grace of both, a truth grows stale as soon as a lie: and as a slight suit will last as well as a better while the fashion holds, a lie serves as well as truth till new ones come up. He is little concerned whether it be good or bad, for that does not make it more or less news; and if there be any dif ference, he loves the bad best, because it is said to come soonest; for he would willingly bear his share in any public calamity to have the pleasure of hearing and telling it. He tells news, as men do money, with his fingers; for he assures them it comes from very good hands. The whole business of his life is like that of a spaniel, to fetch and carry news; and when he does it well he is clapt on the back, and fed for it: for he does not take to it altogether like a gentleman, for his pleasure; but when he lights on a considerable parcel of news, he knows where to put it off for a dinner, and quarter himself upon it, until he has eaten it out; and by this means he drives a trade, by retrieving the first news to truck it for the first meat in season; and, like the old Roman luxury, ransacks all seas and lands to please his palate.-Butler. CCCCXLVI. It is curious to observe how the nature of truth may be changed by the garb it wears; softened to the admonition of friendship, or soured into the severity of reproof; yet this severity may be useful to some tempers; it somewhat resembles a file, disagreeable in its operations, but hard metal may be the brighter for it.-Mackenzie. CCCCXLVII. -Spite of all the fools that pride has made, 'Tis not on man a useless burthen laid; Pride has ennobled some, and some disgraced; It hurts not in itself, but as 'tis placed; When right, its view knows none but virtue's bound; When wrong, it scarcely looks one inch around. Stilling fleet. CCCCXLVIII. In civilized society, external advantages make us more respected. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one. You may analyse this, and say, what is there in it? But that will avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system. Pound St. Paul's church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is, to be sure, good for nothing: but put all these atoms together, and you have St. Paul's church. So it is with human felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shown to be very insignificant.-Johnson. CCCCXLIX. Epicurus says 'gratitude is a virtue that has commonly profit annexed to it.' And where is the virtue, say I, that has not? But still the virtue is to be valued for itself, and not for the profit that attends it.-Seneca. CCCCL. Fools with bookish knowledge, are children with edged weapons; they hurt themselves, and put others in pain.-Un demi sçavant est plus sot qu'un ignorant.— Zimmerman. CCCCLI. A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday.-Pope. CCCCLII. By the unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.-Burke. CCCCLIII. As a man when he is once imprisoned for debt, finds that every creditor immediately brings his action against him, and joins to keep him in ruinous captivity; so when any discontent seriously seizes on the human mind, all other perturbations instantly set upon it; and then like a lame dog, or a broken-winged goose, the unhappy patient droops and pines away, and is brought at last to the ill habit or malady of melancholy itself.-Burton. CCCCLIV. 'Tis the trial of a man to see if he will change his side; and if he be so weak as to change once, he will change again. Your country fellows have a way to try a man if he be weak in the hams, by coming behind him and giving him a blow unawares: if he bend once, he will bend again.-Selden. CCCCLV. When a man of sense happens to be in that disagreeble situation, in which he is obliged to ask himself more than once, What shall I do? he will answer, Nothing. When his reason points out to him no good way, or at least no one less bad than the other, he will stop short, and wait for light. A little busy mind runs on at all events, must be doing, and, like a blind horse, fears no dangers, because he sees none.-Chesterfield. CCCCLVI. A newspaper is the history of the world for one day. It is the history of that world in which we now live, and with it we are consequently more concerned than with those which have passed away, and exist only in remembrance: though, to check us in our too fond love of it, we may consider, that the present, likewise, will soon be past, and take its place in the repositories of the dead.— Bishop Horne. CCCCLVII. -Subtile wights (so blind are mortal men, To put off nonsense with the better grace; What's the bent brow, or neck in thought reclin'd? As men of wealth may venture to go plain; I find the fool when I behold the screen; CCCCLVIII. As an enemy is made more fierce by our flight, so pain grows proud to see us truckle under it. She will surrender upon much better terms to those who make head against her. In retiring and giving ground, we invite and pull upon ourselves the ruin that threatens us.— Montaigne. CCCCLIX. You may have hot enemies without having a warm friend; but not a fervid friend without a bitter enemy. The qualities of your friends will be those of your ene mies: cold friends, cold enemies; half friends, half enemies; fervid enemies, warm friends.-Lavater. CCCCLX. The arts and sciences, like some plants, require a fresh soil; and however rich the land may be, and however you may recruit it by art or care, it will never, when once exhausted, produce any thing that is perfect or finished in the kind.-Hume. CCCCLXI. They who are great talkers in company, have never been any talkers by themselves, nor used to private discussions of our home regimen. For which reason their froth abounds. Nor can they discharge any thing without some mixture of it. But when they carry their attempts beyond ordinary discourse, and would rise to the capacity of authors, the case grows worse with them. Their page can carry none of the advantages of their person. They can no way bring into paper those airs they give themselves in discourse.-Shaftesbury. CCCCLXII. The delusive itch for slander, too common in all ranks of people, whether to gratify a little ungenerous resentment: whether oftener out of a principle of levelling, from a narrowness and poverty of soul, ever impatient of merit and superiority in others; whether a mean ambition, or the insatiate lust of being witty, (a talent in which ill-nature and malice are no ingredients;)—or, lastly, whether from a natural cruelty of disposition, abstracted from all views and considerations of self: to which one, or whether to all jointly, we are indebted for this contagious malady; thus much is certain, from whatever seeds it springs, the growth and progress of it are as destructive to, as they are unbecoming, a civilized people.-Sterne. CCCCLXIII. -In love, scorn is bought with groans; coy looks, With heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's irirth, With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights: |