CCXVIII. A wise man is never less alone, than when he is alone: Nunquam minus solus, quam cùm solus.—Swift. CCXIX. The precept," Know yourself," was not solely intended to obviate the pride of mankind; but likewise that we might understand our own worth.-Cicero. CCXX. The character of the scholars of the present age, will not be much injured or misrepresented by saying that they seem to be superficially acquainted with a multitude of subjects, but to go to the bottom of very few. This appears in criticism and polite learning, as well as in the abstruser sciences: by the diffusion of knowledge its depth is abated.-Adventurer. CCXXI. A man of quick and active wit Than running-nags to draw in carts. CCXXII. Butler. If thou art powerful in interest, and standest deified by a servile tribe of dependants,-why shouldest thou be proud, because they are hungry?-Scourge me such sycophants; they have turned the heads of thousands as well as thine.-Sterne. CCXXIII. The army of the sciences hath been of late, with a world of martial discipline, drawn into its close order, so hat a view or a muster may be taken of it with abundance of expedition. For this great blessing we are wholly indebted to systems and abstracts, in which the modern fathers of learning, like prudent usurers, spent their sweat for the ease of us their children.--Swift. CCXXIV. In answering of a book, 'tis but to be short, otherwise he that I write against will suspect that I intend to weary him, not to satisfy him. Besides, in being long, I shall give my adversary a huge advantage; somewhere or other he will pick a hole.-Selden. CCXXV. What is the world? a term which men have got A term which with no more precision passes CCXXVI. Churchili. Wit loses its respect with the good, when seen in company with malice; and to smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another's breast, is to become a principal in the mischief.-Sheridan. CCXXVII. There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good nature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word goodDreeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimickry of good nature, or in other terms, affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper reduced into an art.-Addison. CCXXVIII. The soul that has no established limit to circumscribe it, loses itself, as the epigrammatist says, "He that lives every where, does no where live." Montaigne. CCXXIX. In benevolent natures the impulse to pity is so sudden, that like instruments of music which obey the touch-the objects which are fitted to excite such impressions work so instantaneous an effect, that you would think the will was scarce concerned, and that the mind was altogether passive in the sympathy which her own goodness has excited. The truth is-the soul is generally in such cases so busily taken up and wholly engrossed by the object of pity, that she does not attend to her own operations, or take leisure to examine the principles upon which she acts.-Sterne. CCXXX. In the youth of a state, arms do flourish; in the middle age of a state, learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise. Learning hath its infancy, when it is but beginning, and almost childish; then its youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then its strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and, lastly, its old age, hen it waxeth dry and exhaust; but it is not good to look too long upon these turning wheels of vicissitude, lest we become giddy: as for the philology of them, that is but a circle of tales.-Lord Bacon. CCXXXI. Modesty is silent when it would not be improper to speak; the humble, without being called upon, never recollects to say any thing of himself.-Lavater. CCXXXII. It may happen that good is produced by vice, but not as vice; for instance, a robber may take money from its owner, and give it to one who will make a better use of it. Here is good produced; but not by the robbery as rob bery, but as a translation of property.--Johnson. CCXXXIII. As a certain insensibility in the countenance recommends a sentence of humour and jest, so must be a very lively consciousness that gives grace to great sentiments. The jest is to be a thing unexpected; therefore your undesigning manner is a beauty in expressions of mirth; and when you are to talk on a set subject, the more you are moved yourself, the more you will move others.—Svift. CCXXXIV. Common understandings, like cits in gardening, allow no shades to their picture.—Shenstone. CCXXXV. There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of punning. It is indeed impossible to kill a weed, which the soil has a natural disposition to produce. The seeds of punning are in the minds of all men, and though they may be subdued by reason, reflection, and good sense, they will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest genius that is not broken and cultivated by the rules of art.--Addison. CCXXXVI. If falsehood had, like truth, but one face only, we should be upon better terms; for we should then take the contrary to what the liar says for certain truth; but the reverse of truth hath a hundred figures, and a field indefinite without bound or limit.-Montaigne. CCXXXVII. There is what is called the high-way to posts and honours, and there is a cross and by-way, which is much the shortest.-Bruyere. CCXXXVIII. How easy is it to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! but how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave! To spare the grossness of the names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full face, and make the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing. * : A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's wife said of her servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging but to make a malefactor die sweetly, was only belonging to her husband.-Dryden. CCXXXIX. Conversation is a traffic; and if you enter into it without some stock of knowledge, to balance the account perpetually betwixt you the trade drops at once, and this is the reason, however it may be boasted to the contrary, why travellers have so little (especially good) conversation with natives-owing to their suspicion, or perhaps conviction, that there is nothing to be extracted from the conversation of young itinerants worth the trouble of their bad language, or the interruption of their visits.-Sterne. CCXL. All the while you live, you purloin from life, and live at the expense of life itself; the perpetual work of our whole life is but to lay the foundation of death; you are in death whilst you live, because you still are after death when you are no more alive. Or, if you had rather have it so, you are dead after life, but dying all the while you live; and death handles the dying more rudely than the dead. If you have made your profit of life, you have had enough of it, and go your way satisfied. If you have not known how to make the best use of it, and if it was unprofitable to you, what need you care to lose it; to what end would you desire to keep it? Life in itself is neither good nor evil, but is the scene of good or evil, as you make it; and if you have lived a day, you have seen all. Come the worst that can come, the distribution and variety of all the acts of the comedy is performed in a year. If you have seen the revolution of the four seasons, they comprehend the infancy, youth, virility, and old age, of the world. The year has played his part, and knows no other way, has no new force, but must begin and repeat the |