of every thing else, the hope is more than the enjoy ment; while we consider them as the means to be used at some future time for the attainment of felicity, ardour after them secures us from weariness of ourselves, but no sooner do we sit down to enjoy our acquisitions than we find them insufficient to fill up the vacuities of life. Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities. It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthy without physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art. Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, particularly being free from flatteries. Prosperity is too apt to prevent us from examining our conduct, but as adversity leads us to think properly of our state, it is most beneficial to us.-John son. CV. The regard one shows economy, is like that we show an old aunt, who is to leave us something at last.—Shenstone. CVI. When a man's fancy gets astride on his reason, when his imagination is at cuff with the senses, and common understanding, as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed, the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others; a strong delusion always operating from without, as vigorously as from within. For cant and vision are to the ear and eye, the same that tickling is to the touch.-Swift. CVII. Shakspeare was the man who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily; when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation; he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there.Dryden. CVIII. Pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; That flit ere you can point their place; Nae man can tether time or tide. CIX. Burns. There is only one quarter of an hour in human life passed ill, and that is between the calling for the reckoning and paying it.-Rabelais. CX. "Tis certain some grains of folly are of course annexed, as part in the composition of human nature, only the choice is left us whether we choose to wear them inlaid or embossed; and we need not go very far to seek how that is usually determined, when we remember it is with human faculties as with liquors, the lightest will be ever at the top.-Swift. CXI. As lamps burn silent, with unconscious light, CXII. A. Hill. Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off.→ CXIII. After all, the most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth. For all beauty is truth. True features make the beauty of a face; and true proportions the beauty of architecture; as true measures that of harmony and music. In poetry, which is all fable, truth still is the perfection.-Shaftesbury. CXV. Whatever is done without ostentation, and without the people being witnesses of it, is, in my opinion, most praiseworthy; not that the public eye should be entirely avoided, for good actions desire to be placed in the light; but notwithstanding this, the greatest theatre for virtue is conscience.-Cicero. CXV. One would think that all mankind had bound themselves by an oath to do all the wickedness they can; that they had all (as the scripture speaks) "sold themselves to sin:" the difference only is, that some are a little more crafty (and but a little, God knows) in making of the bargain.-Cowley. CXVI. Wit, like every other power, has its boundaries. Its success depends on the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are minds upon which the rays of fancy may be pointed without effect, and which no fire of sentiment can agitate, or exalt.-Johnson. CXVII. We hope to grow old, and yet we fear old age; that is, we are willing to live, and afraid to die.—Bruyere. CXVIII. It may be asked,-whether the inconveniencies and ill-effects which the world feels, from the licentiousness of this practice, are not sufficiently counterbalanced by VOL. I. C the real influence it has upon men's lives and conduct? -that if there was no evil-speaking in the world, thousands would be encouraged to do ills, and would rush into many indecorums, like a horse into the battle, were they sure to escape the tongues of men.-Sterne. CXIX. To be happy, the passion must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy. A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, real poverty.— Hume. CXX. Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many tracts of light in a discourse, that make every thing about them clear and beautiful.-Addison. CXXI. Wisdom is a fox who, after long hunting, will at last cost you the pains to dig it out: 'tis a cheese, which by how much the richer, has the thicker, the homelier, and the coarser coat; and whereof to a judicious palate, the maggots are best. "Tis a sack posset, wherein the deeper you go, you'll find it the sweeter. Wisdom is a hen, whose cackling we must value and consider, because it is attended with an egg. But lastly, 'tis a nut, which unless you choose with judgment, may cost you a tooth, and pay you with nothing but a worm.-Swift. CXXII. If a man has a right to be proud of any thing-it is of a good action done as it ought to be, without any base interest lurking at the bottom of it.-Sterne. CXXIII. Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world, by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practised perfidy, grow faithless to each other.-Johnson. CXXIV. If you suppress the exorbitant love of pleasure and money, idle curiosity, iniquitous pursuits and wanton mirth, what a stillness would there be in the greatest cities! the necessaries of life do not occasion, at most, a third part of the hurry.-Bruyere. CXXV. He who maliciously takes advantage of the unguarded moments of friendship, is no farther from knavery, than the latest moment of evening from the first of night.Lavater. CXXVI. The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse; always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.—Chesterfield. CXXVII. Every true critic is a hero born, descending in a direct line from a celestial stem, by Momus and Hybris, who begat Zoilus, who begat Tygellius, who begat Etcætera the elder, who begat Bently, and Rymer, and Wootton, and Perrault, and Dennis, who begat Etcætera the younger.-Swift. CXXVIII. When I see a young profligate squandering his fortune in bagnios, or at the gaming table, I cannot help looking on him as hastening his own death, and in a manner digging his own grave.-Connoisseur. CXXIX. Translation is a kind of drawing after the life; where every one will acknowledge there is a double sort of a likeness, a good one and a bad.-Dryden. Planters of trees ought to encourage themselves by |
