to that gospel which opens the vision of an endless life!-and thanks, above all, to that Saviourfriend, who has promised to conduct all the faithful through the sacred trance of death, into scenes of paradise and everlasting delight! Forster.

Victorious men of earth, no more
Proclaim how wide your empires are;
Though you bind in every shore,
And your triumphs reach as far
As night or day,

Yet you, proud monarchs, must obey,
And mingle with forgotten ashes, when
Death calls ye to the crowd of common men.

Shirley.

"Tis to lay these clogs our bodies by,
And be removed to blest eternity.
By death relief from all our griefs we gain,
And by one put an end to years of pain;
By that we in one minute find out more,
Than all the busy gownmen study for;
Who, after in dull search they've ages spent,
Learn nothing but to know they're ignorant.
Otway.

Death is not dreadful to a mind resolved,
It seems as natural as to be born.

Groans, and convulsions, and discolour'd faces,
Friends weeping round us, blacks, and obsequies,
Make death a dreadful thing. The pomp of
death

Is far more terrible than death itself.

Lee.

DISSIMULATION.

It is difficult to act a part long; for when truth is not at the bottom, nature will always be endeavouring to return; and will peep out and betray itself one time or other.

Mark you this, Bassanio,

Dr. South.

The devil can cite scripture for his purpose,
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;
A goodly apple rotten at the heart!
Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

Shakespeare.

Oh, with what authority and show of truth
Can cunning sin cover itself withal;

Comes not that blood, as modest evidence,
To witness simple virtue? Would you not

All

swear,

you that see her, that she was a maid, By these exterior shows? But she is none: Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

Shakespeare.

But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture, Tell them that God bids us do good for evil: And thus I clothe my naked villainy

With odd, odd ends, stolen forth of Holy Writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. Shakespeare.

DOUBT.

Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt.

Shakespeare.

Your if is the only peace-maker; much virtue

in if.

Shakespeare.

"Tis good to doubt the worst,

We may in our belief be too secure.

Webster and Rowley.

Doubt is the effect of fear or jealousy,
Two passions which to reason give the lie;
For fear torments, and never doth assist;
And jealousy is love lost in a mist:

Both hoodwink truth, and go to blind-man'sbuff,

Cry here, then there, seem to direct enough,
But all the while shift place; making the mind,
As it goes out of breath, despair to find;
And if at last something it stumbles on,
Perhaps it calls it false, and then 'tis gone.
If true, what's gain'd ? only just time to see
A breathless play, a game at liberty;
That has no other end than this, that men
Run to be tired, just to sit down again.
Fatal Jealousy.

To doubt

Is worse than to have lost: And to despair,
Is but to antedate those miseries

That must fall on us.

Massinger.

Known mischiefs have their cure, but doubts

have none;

And better is despair than fruitless hope

Mix'd with a killing fear.

DULL DAYS.

May.

This night, methinks, is but the daylight sick, It looks a little paler; 'tis a day.

Such as the day is when the sun is hid.

Shakespeare.

DECISION.

I'll have my bond; I will not hear thee speak : I'll have my bond; and therefore speak no more. I'll not be made a soft and dull-eyed fool,

To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield To Christian intercessors.

Shakespeare.

If you gently stroke a nettle,
Mark! it stings you for your pains;
But seize it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.

'Tis the same with common natures,
Use them kindly-they rebel;
But be rough as nutmeg-graters,
And the rogues obey you well.

Aaron Hill.

It

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of obscure men, who have only remained obscure because their timidity has prevented them making a first effort; and who, if they could only have been induced to begin, would, in all probability, have gone great lengths in the career of fame. The fact is, that in order to do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank, and thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can. will not do to be perpetually calculating risks, and adjusting nice chances: it did all very well before the flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an intended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and then live to see its success for six or seven centuries afterwards; but at present a man waits, and doubts and hesitates, and consults his brother, and his uncle, and his first cousins, and his particular friends, till one fine day he finds that he is sixty-five years of age-that he has lost so much time in consulting first cousins and particular friends, that he has no more time left to follow their advice. There is such little time for oversqueamishness at present, the opportunity so easily slips away, the very period of life at which a man chooses to venture, if ever, is so confined,