CXIL

Reason is a very light rider, and easily shook off. Swift.

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.

CXIV.

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 inconveniences and illeffects which the world feels, from the licentiousness of this practice, are not sufficiently counterbalanced by 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 tracks 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 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 vorld, 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.-Brugere.

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 Bentley, 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.

CXXX.

Planters of trees ought to encourage themselves, by considering all future time as present; indeed, such con sideration would be a useful principle to all men in their conduct of life, as it respects both this world and th next.-Bishop Watson.

CXXXI

Death, of all estimated evils, is the only one whose presence never incommoded any body, and which only causes concern during its abserce-Arcesilaus.

CXXXII.

It might, methinks, somewhat abate the insolence of numan pride, to consider, that it is but increasing or diminishing the velocity of certain fluids in the animal machine, to elate the soul with the gayest hopes, or sink her into the deepest despair; to depress the hero into a coward, or advance the coward into a hero.-Fitzosborne

CXXXIII.

People seek for what they call wit, on all subjects, and in all places; not considering that nature loves truth so well, that it hardly ever admits of flourishing. Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but impairs what it would improve.-Pope.

CXXXIV.

A man who has been brought up among books, and is able to talk of nothing else, is a very indifferent companion, and what we call a pedant. But we should enlarge the title, and give it to every one that does not know how to think out of his profession and particular way of life. What is a greater pedant than a mere man of the town? Bar him the play-houses, a catalogue of the reigning beauties, and you strike him dumb. The military pedant always talks in a camp, and in storming towns, making lodgements, and fighting battles from one

end of the year to the other. Every thing he speaks smells of gunpowder; if you take away his artillery from him, he has not a word to say for himself. The law pedant is perpetually putting cases, repeating the transactions of Westminster-hall, wrangling with you upon the most indifferent circumstances of life, and not to be convinced of the distance of a place, or of the most trivial point in conversation, but by dint of argument. The state pedant is wrapt up in news, and lost in politics. If you mention either of the sovereigns of Europe, he talks very notably; but if you go out of the gazette, you drop him. In short, a mere courtier, a mere soldier, a mere scholar, a mere any thing, is an insipid, pedantic character, and qually ridiculous.-Spectator.

CXXXV.

High spirit in man, is like a sword, which, though worn to annoy his enemies, yet is often troublesome in a less degree to his friends: he can hardly wear it so inoffensively, but it is apt to incommode one or other of the company! it is more properly a loaded pistol, which accident alone may fire and kill one.—Shenstone.

CXXXVI.

As there are but few notoriously wicked men, in com parison with a shoal of fools and fops, so it is harder to make a man wise, than to make him honest: for the will is only to be reclaimed in one, but the understanding is to be informed in the other.-Dryden.

CXXXVII.

Inviolable fidelity, good humour, and complacency of temper, outlive all the charms of a fine face, and make the decays of it invisible.-Tatler.

CXXXVIII.

I do not approve of the running of horses, there being much cheating in that kind of exercise; neither do I see why a brave man should delight in a creature, whose chief use is to help him run away.-Lord Herbert.