to disturb themselves by contriving how they shall live without light and water. For the days of universal thirst and perpetual darkness are at a great distance. The ocean and the sun will last our time, and we may leave posterity to shift for themselves.-Johnson. DXCVI. Come sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace, DXCVII. Compliments, which we think are deserved, we accept only as debts, with indifference; but those which conscience informs us we do not merit, we receive with the same gratitude that we do favours given away.Goldsmith. DXCVIII. It is not the painting, gilding, or carving, that makes a good ship; but if she be a nimble sailer, tight and strong, to endure the seas, that is her excellency. It is the edge and temper of the blade that makes a good sword, not the richness of the scabbard; and so it is not money or possessions that make man considerable, but his virtue.-Seneca. DXCIX. In poetry, the use of the grand style on little subjects, is not only ludicrous but a sort of transgression against the rules of proportion and mechanics: it is using a vast force to lift a feather.-Pope. DC. I am no herald to inquire of men's pedigrees; it sufficeth me, if I know their virtues.-Sir P. Sidney. DCI. The hardest trial of the heart is, whether it can bear a rival's failure without triumph.-Aikin. DCII. Ah, worthless wit! to train me to this woe: I'll shrive the folly that bewitch'd me so! From Pierce Penniless.-Nash. DCIII. Politeness, in monarchies, is naturalized at court. One man excessively great renders every body else very little. Hence that regard which is paid to our fellowsubjects: hence that politeness equally pleasing to those by whom, as to those towards whom it is practised: because it gives people to understand that a person actually belongs, or at least, deserves to belong, to a court. -Montesquieu. DCIV. Not to return one good office for another is inhuman; but to return evil for good is diabolical. There are too many even of this sort, who, the more they owe, the more they hate. There is nothing more dangerous than to oblige those people; for when they are conscious of not paying the debt, they wish the creditor out of the way.-Seneca. DCV. Make-bates, distant relations, poor kinsmen, and indigent followers, are the fry which support the economy of a humoursome rich man. He is eternally whispered with intelligence of who are true or false to him in matters of no consequence, and he maintains twenty friends to defend him against the insinuations of one who would perhaps cheat him of an old coat.-Steele. DCVI. To endeavour all one's days to fortify our minds with learning and philosophy, is to spend so much in armour that one has nothing left to defend.-Shenstone. DCVII. The malignant deity Criticism dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in Nova Zembla: Momus found her extended in her den upon the spoils of numberless volumes half devoured. At her right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left, Pride, her mother; dressing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. There was Opinion, her sister, light of foot, hood-winked, and headstrong, yet giddy, and perpetually turning. About her played her chil dren, Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Positiveness, Pedantry, and Ill Manners.-Swift. DCVIII. It has long been the complaint of those who frequent the theatres, that all the dramatic art has been long ex hausted, and that the vicissitudes of fortune, and accidents of life, have been shown in every possible combi nation, till the first scene informs us of the last, and the play no sooner opens, than every auditor knows how it will conclude. When a conspiracy is formed in a tragedy we guess by whom it will be detected; when a letter is dropt in a comedy we can tell by whom it will be found. Nothing is now left for the poet but character and sentiment, which are to make their way as they can, without the soft anxiety of suspense, or the enlivening agitation of surprise.—Johnson. DCIX. We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.-Seneca. DCX. There is a real beauty in an easy, pure, perspicuous description of a low action. There are numerous instances of this both in Homer and Virgil; and perhaps those natural passages are not the least pleasing of their works. The question is how far the poet, in pursuing the description or image of an action, can attach himself to little circumstances without vulgarity or trifling? Pope. DCXI. A face that should content me wond'rous well, With gladsome cheer, all grief for to expel: DCXII. A young fellow, at his first entrance into the beau monde, must not offend the king, de facto there. It is very often more necessary to conceal contempt than resentment, the former being never forgiven, but the latter sometimes forgot.-Chesterfield. DCXIII. Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery: it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. The great source of calamity lies in regret or anticipation: he therefore is most wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future. This is impossible to a man of pleasure; it is difficult to the man of business; and is in some degree attainable by the philosopher. Happy were we all born philosophers, all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind.-Goldsmith. DCXIV. A genius and great abilities are often wanting, sometimes only opportunities. Some deserve praise for what they have done, and others for what they would have done.-Bruyere. DCXV. Did ever Proteus, Merlin, any witch, Transform themselves so strangely as the rich? Discharge their garrets, move their beds, and rna They hire their sculler, and when once aboard, DCXVI. In monarchies, the principal branch of education is not taught in colleges or academies. It commences, in some measure, at our setting out in the would; for this is the school of what we call honour, that universal preceptor which ought every where to be our guide.— Montesquieu. DCXVII. Almost all the parts of our bodies require some expense. The feet demand shoes; the legs, stockings; the rest of the body, clothing; and the belly, a good Ideal of victuals. Our eyes, though exceedingly useful, ask, when reasonable, only the cheap assistance of spectacles, which could not much impair our finances. But the eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should want neither fine clothes, fine houses, nor fine furniture.-Franklin. DCXVIII. Scarce observ'd, the knowing and the bold Fall in the gen'ral massacre of gold; Wide-wasting pest that rages unconfin'd, DCXIX. Johnson. Whatever we owe, it is our part to find where to pay it, and to do it without asking, too: for whether the creditor be good or bad, the debt is still the same.-Seneca. DCXX. It is a note Of upstart greatness to observe and watch Ben Jonson. |
