Their word's sufficient; and to ask a reason,
In such a state as theirs, is downright treason.

MCCCCLXI.

Churchill.

Worldly wealth, is the devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches, recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase; as the moon when she is fullest of light is farthest from the sun.-Burton.

MCCCCLXII.

Good counsels observed are chains to grace, which neglected, prove halters to strange undutiful children. -Fuller.

MCCCCLXIII.

As when a greedy raven sees

A sheep entangled by the fleece,
With hasty cruelty he flies

To attack him, and pick out his eyes;
So do those vultures use, that keep
Poor pris'ners fast like silly sheep,
As greedily to prey on all

That in their rav'nous clutches fall:
For thorns and brambles, that came in
To wait upon the curse for sin,

And were no part o' th' first creation,
But, for revenge, a new plantation,
Are yet the fitt'st materials

T'enclose the earth with living walls.
So jailors that are most accurst,
Are found most fit in being worst.

MCCCCLXIV.

Butler.

He who is always in want of something cannot be very rich. "Tis a poor wit who lives by borrowing the words, decisions, mien, inventions, and actions, of others.Lavater.

MCCCCLXV.

When empire in its childhood first appears,
A watchful fate o'ersees its tender years;

Till, grown more strong, it thrusts and stretches out,
And elbows all the kingdoms round about:

The place thus made for its first breathing free,
It moves again for ease and luxury;

Till, swelling by degrees, it has possest,

The greater space, and now crowds up the rest.
When from behind there starts some petty state,
And pushes on its now unwieldy fate;
Then down the precipice of time it goes,
And sinks in minutes, which in ages rose.

MCCCCLXVI.

Dryden.

In story-telling, besides the marking distinct characters, and selecting pertinent circumstances, it is likewise necessary to leave off in time, and end smartly. So that there is a kind of drama in the forming of a story, and the manner of conducting and pointing it, is the same as in an epigram. It is a miserable thing, after one hath raised the expectation of the company by humorous characters, and a pretty conceit, to pursue the matter too far. There is no retreating, and how poor is it for a storyteller to end his relation by saying, "that's all!”—Steele.

MCCCCLXVII.

"Set a beggar on horseback, and he'll ride," is a common proverb, and a real truth. The "novus homo" is an "inexpurtus homo," and consequently must purchase finery, before he knows the emptiness of it experimentally. The established gentleman disregards it through habit and familiarity.-Shenstone.

MCCCCLXVIII.

Excess of love can work such miracles!
Upon this ivory forehead are entrench'd
Ten thousand rivals, and these sons command
Supplies from all the world; on pain to forfeit
Their comfortable beams: these ruby lips,
A rich exchequer to assure their pay;

This hand, Sybilla's golden bough to guard them
Through hell and horror to th' Elysian springs;
Which who'll not venture for? and should I name

Such of the virtues as your mind invite,
Their numbers would be infinite.

MCCCCLXIX.

Massinger.

If the choice had been left to me, I would rather have trusted the refinement of our language, as far as it relates to sound, to the judgment of the women, than of illiterate court fops, half-witted poets, and university boys.Swift.

MCCCCLXX.

Commonly, physicians, like beer, are best when they are old; and lawyers, like bread, when they are young and new.-Fuller.

MCCCCLXXI.

London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is intellectual, London is the place. And there is no place where economy can be so well practised as in London: more can be had here for the money, even by ladies, than every where else. You cannot play tricks with your fortune in a small place; you must make a uniform appearance. Here a lady may have well-furnished apartments, and elegant dress, without any meat in her kitchen.-Johnson.

MCCCCLXXII.

When blockheads rattle the dicebox, when fellows of vulgar and base minds sit up whole nights contemplating the turn of a card, then stupid occupation is in character; but whenever a cultivated understanding stoops to the tyranny of so vile a passion, the friend to mankind sees the injury to society with that sort of aggravation as would attend the taking of his purse on the highway, if, upon the seizure of the felon, he was unexpectedly to discover the person of a judge.—Cumberland.

MCCCCLXXIII.

Those get the least that take the greatest pains,
But most of all i' th' drudgery of brains;

A natʼral sign of weakness, as an ant
Is more laborious than an elephant;、

And children are more busy at their play
Than those that wisely'st pass their time away.

MCCCCLXXIV.

Butler.

We are but too apt to consider things in the state in which we find them, without sufficiently adverting to the causes by which they have been produced, and possibly may be upheld. Nothing is more certain than that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are connected with civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages, upon two principles; and were indeed the result of both combined; I mean the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion. The nobility and the clergy, the one by profession, the other by patronage, kept learning in existence even in the midst of arms and confusion, and whilst government were rather in their causes than formed. Learning paid back what it received to nobility and priesthood, and paid it with usury, by enlarging their ideas and by furnishing their minds. -Burke.

MCCCCLXXV.

Like buds appearing ere the frosts are past,
To become man he made such fatal haste,
And to perfection labour'd so to climb,
Preventing slow experience and time,
That 'tis no wonder death our hopes beguil'd,
He's seldom old that will not be a child:

Waller.-Epitaph on a young nobleman.

MCCCCLXXVI.

Those who are taken with the outward show of things, think that there is more beauty in persons who are trimmed, curled, and painted, than uncorrupt nature can give; as if beauty were merely the corruption of manners.-Quintilian.

MCCCCLXXVII.

He alone is an acute observer, who can observe minutely without being observed.—Lavater.

MCCCCLXXVIII.

To poore people the good physician prescribes cheap but wholesome medicines: not removing the consumption out of their bodies into their purses: nor sending them to the East Indies for drugs, when they can reach better out of their gardens.-Fuller.

MCCCCLXXIX.

As the choosing of pertinent circumstances is the life of a story, and that wherein humour principally consists; so the collectors of impertinent particulars are the very bane and opiates of conversation.-Steele.

MCCCCLXXX.

Princes can never more make known their wisdom
Than when they cherish goodness where they find it,
They being men, and not gods,-

They can give wealth and titles, but no virtue;
That is without their power. When they advance,
Not out of judgment, but deceiving fancy.
An undeserving man, howe'er set off

With all the trim of greatness, state, and pow'r,
And of a creature even grown terrible
To him from whom he took his giant form,
The thing is still a comet, no true star:
And when the bounties feeding his false fire
Begin to fail, will of itself go out,

And what was dreadful proves ridiculous.

MCCCCLXXXI.

Massinger.

Nature has left every man a capacity of being agrecable, though not of shining in company: and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified for both, who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.—Swift.

MCCCCLXXXII.

Death may be said with almost equal propriety to confer as well as to level all distinctions. In consequence of that event, a kind of chemical operation takes place; for those characters which were mixed with the gross