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XCII.

How is this! Alsippus saluted me to day, and with a smile threw himself almost out of the coach to take notice of me? I am not rich, and what's worse was a-foot; according to the present modes of life, he should not have Oh! now I have hit on it, it was that I might see him in the same coach with the duke of

seen me.

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Wit lies most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy; judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully one from another, ideas wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another.-Locke.

XCIV.

In the bottle, discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence.-Johnson.

XCV.

A true critic is a sort of a mechanic set up with a stock and tools for his trade, at as little expense as a tailor and indeed there is much analogy between the utensils and abilities of both: thus the tailor's hell is the type of a critic's common place book, and his wit and learning held forth by the goose: and it requires at least as many of the one to the making up of one scholar, as of the other to the composition of a man: also the valour of both is equal, and their weapons near of a size. Some account says, that the writings of critics are the mirrors of learning; by which we are to understand literally, that a writer should inspect into the books of the critics, and correct his invention there as in a mirror. Now, whoever considers that the mirrors of the ancients were made of brass and fine mercurio, may presently apply the two principal qualifications of a true modern critic, and con

sequently always conclude that these have been and must be for ever the same. For brass is an emblem of

duration; and when it is skilfully burnished, will cast reflections from its own superficies, without any assistance of a mercury from behind. The true critics may be known by their talents of swarming about the noblest writers, to which they are carried merely by instinct, as a rat to the best cheese, or a wasp to the fairest flower. Lastly, I define a true critic to be, in the perusal of a book, like a dog at a feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there are the fewest bones.-Swift.

XCVI.

There is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is, that people can commend it without envy. Shenstone.

XCVII.

The saying, do as you would be done to, is often misunderstood, for 'tis not thus meant, that I, a private man, should do to you a private man, as I would have you do to me but do as we have agreed to do one to another by public agreement. If the prisoner should ask the judge whether he would be contented to be hanged, were he in his case, he would answer no. Then, says the prisoner, do as you would be done to: neither of them must do as private men, but the judge must do by him as they have publicly agreed; that is, both judge and prisoner have consented to a law, that if either of them steal, they shall be hanged.-Selden.

XCVIII.

Our remedies oft' in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven; the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull
Our slow designs where we ourselves are dull.

Shakspeare.

XCIX.

Every one is a virtuoso, of a higher or lower degree : every one pursues a Grace, and courts a Venus of one kind or another. The venestums, the honestums, the decorum of things, will force its way.-Shaftesbury.

C.

There is nothing so bad which will not admit of something to be said in its defence.--Sterne.

CI.

Custom, curiosity, or wantonness, supplies every art with patrons, and finds purchasers for every manufacture; the world is so adjusted, that not only bread, but riches may be obtained without great abilities, or arduous performances: the most unskilful hand and unenlightened mind have sufficient incitements to industry; for he that is resolutely busy, can scarcely be in want. There is, indeed, no employment, however despicable, from which a man may not promise himself more than competence, when he sees thousands and myriads raised to dignity, by no other merit than that of contributing to supply their neighbours with the means of sucking smoke through a tube of clay; and others raising contributions upon those, whose elegance disdains the grossness of smoky luxury, by grinding the same materials into a powder that may a once gratify and impair the smell.-Adventurer.

CII.

Riches like insects, while concealed they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly;
To whom can riches give repute and trust,
Content or pleasure, but the good and just?
Judges and senates have been bought for gold,
Esteem and love were never to be sold.

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If some men died, and others did not, death would in

deed be a most mortifying evil.-Bruyere.

CIV.

Every man is rich or poor, according to the proportion between his desires and enjoyments. Of riches as of every thing else, the hope is more than the enjoyment; 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 flatterers. 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.-Johnson.

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 cuffs 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 the 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 comprehen

sive 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;
Or like the snow-falls in the river,
A moment white-then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,

That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm-

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,
So modest ease in beauty shines most bright;
Unaiming charms with edge resistless fall,
And she who means no mischief does it all.

4. Hill,

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