CCCCLXXVI. When the nightingales singes, the woods waxen green; Leaf, grass, and blossom, springs in air I ween; And love is to my heart gone with one spear so keen, Night and day my blood it drinks-my heart doth me Old Love Song. teen. CCCCLXXVII. We know, and what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort. In England we are so convinced of this, that there is no rust of superstition with which the accumulated absurdity of the human mind might have crusted it over in the course of ages, that ninetynine in a hundred of the people of England would not prefer to impiety.-Burke. CCCCLXXVIII. Liberty is a fine thing; it's a great help in conversation, to have leave to say what one will. I have seen a woman of quality, who has not had one grain of wit, entertain a whole company the most agreeably in the world, only with her malice.-The Confederacy-Vanbrugh. CCCCLXXIX. The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the brow of him who plucks them, and they are the only roses which do not retain their sweetness after they have lost their beauty.-Blair. CCCCLXXX. All things have their end and period, so as that, when they come to the superlative point of their greatest height, they are in a trice tumbled down again, as not being able to abide long in that state. This is the conclusion and end of those, who cannot by reason and temperance moderate their fortunes and prosperities,→→ Rabelais. CCCCLXXXI. The merry part of the world are very amiable, while they diffuse a cheerfulness through conversation at pro per seasons and on proper occasions, but on the contrary, a great grievance to society, when they infect every discourse with insipid mirth, and turn into ridicule such subjects as are not suited to it. For though laughter is looked upon by the philosophers as the property of reason, the excess of it has been always considered as the mark of folly.-Addison. CCCCLXXXII. With applause, in honour to his age, Dismiss your veteran soldier off the stage; Crown his last exit with distinguished praise, And kindly hide his baldness with the bays. Broome.-Conclusion of an Epilogue. CCCCLXXXIII. Credulousness is the concomitant of the first stages of life; and is indeed the principle on which all instruction must be founded: but it lays the mind open to impressions of error, as well as of truth; and, when suffered to combine itself with that passion for the marvellous, which all children discover, it fosters the rankest weeds of chimera and superstition; rooting firmly in the mind, all that the nurse and all that the priest have taught. Hence, the awful solemnity of "darkness visible," and of what the poet has denominated "a dim religious light;" together with the terrors of evil omens, of haunted places, and of ghastly spectres.-Percival. CCCCLXXXIV. A long life may be passed without finding a friend in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and sincerity. A weak man, however honest, is not qualified to judge. A man of the world, however penetrating, is not fit to counsel. Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and therefore each palliates the other's failings, because they are his own. Friends are tender, and unwilling to give pain, or they are interested and fearful to offend.--Johnson, CCCCLXXXV. The character of covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness or illgrace, in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence; a very few pounds a year would ease that man of the scandal of avarice.-Pope. CCCCLXXXVI. Dependents on great men, as well from the homage that is accepted from them, as the hopes which are given to them, are become a sort of creditors: and these debts, being debts of honour, ought, according to the accustomed maxim, to be discharged first.-Steele. CCCCLXXXVII. Flattery-Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to nature! how strongly are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous passages to the heart!-Sterne. CCCCLXXXVIII. I asked a poor man how he did? He said he was like a washball, always in decay.-Swift. CCCCLXXXIX. ha Tragedies, as they are now made, are good, instructive, noral sermons enough; and it would be a fault not to be eased with good things. There I learn several great Truths; as that it is impossible to see into the ways of futurity; that punishment always attends the villain; that love is the fond soother of the human breast; that we should not resist heaven's will, for in resisting heaven's will, heaven's will is resisted; with several other sentiments equally new, delicate, and striking. Every new tragedy, therefore, I shall go to see; for reflections of this nature make a tolerable harmony, when mixed up with a proper quantity of drum, trumpet, thunder, lightning, or the scene-shifter's whistle.-Goldsmith. CCCCXC. Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practise; since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be confident of the advantages of a voyage or a journey, without having courage or industry, to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others, those attempts which he neglects himself.-Johnson. CCCCXCI. A convert's but a fly that turn's about CCCCXCII. Butler. Amongst such as out of cunning hear all and talk little, be sure to talk less; or if you must talk, say little. -Bruyere. CCCCXCIII. I look upon the great as a set of good-natured misguided people, who are indebted to us, and not to themselves, for all the happiness they enjoy. For our pleasure, and not their own, they sweat under a cumbrous heap of finery; for our pleasure the lackeyed train, the slow parading pageant, with all the gravity of grandeur, moves in review; a single coat, or a single footman, answers all the purposes of the most indolent refinement as well; and those who have twenty, may be said to keep one for their own pleasure, and the other nineteen merely for ours. So true is the observation of Confucius, that we take greater pains to persuade others that we are happy than in endeavouring to think so ourselves. Goldsmith. CCCCXCIV. It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their time, to be employed in its service; but idleness taxes many of us much more, if we reckon all that is spent in absolute sloth, or doing of nothing, with that which is spent in idle emVOL. II. L ployments, or amusements that amount to nothing. Sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears, while the key often used is always bright.-Franklin. CCCCXCV. As the rose tree is composed of the sweetest flowers, and the sharpest thorns; as the heavens are sometimes fair and sometimes overcast, alternately tempestuous and serene; so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, with pleasures and with pains.-Burton. CCCCXCVI. We should manage our thoughts in composing a poem, as shepherds do their flowers in making a garland; first select the choicest, and then dispose them in the most proper places, where they give a lustre to each other: like the feathers in Indian crowns, which are so managed that every one reflects a part of its colour and gloss on the next.-Pope. CCCCXCVII. I had rather never receive a kindness, than never bestow one: not to return a benefit is the greater sin, but not to confer it is the earlier.-Seneca. CCCCXCVIII. Pride, ill-nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill-manners; without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience, or what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world.-Swift. CCCCXCIX. 'Tis not juggling that is to be blam'd, but much juggling, for the world cannot be governed without it. -Selden. D. Great Cowley, then, (a mighty genius!) wrote, |
