caufe they are regular; and all his life is calm and ferene, because it is innocent.

1637. Those who make no other use of life than to gormandize, never employ their faculties: their Reasoning is idle, and their understanding lies fallow. Hence it is our great folks in those days surpass other people only in glutting their appetites, and are as poor in knowledge, as they are rich in estates.

1638. The Egyptians at their feasts, to prevent exceffes, fet a skeleton before their guests, with this motto, Rememye must be shortly fuch.

ber

1639. What is a man the worse for the last year's plain diet? Or what now the better for the laft great feast? What is a voluptuous dinner, and the frothy vanity of discourse that commonly attends these pompous entertainments? What is it but a mortification to a man of fenfe and virtue, to spend his time among fuch people?

1640. He that looks into the offices of the luxurious, and fees the troops of fervants fweating and hurrying up and down; the maffacre of beafts and fowls, and every thing afloat in the richeft wine, cannot but wonder at fo horrible a profufion for the guts of one family.

1641. The confideration of the dignity and excellence of our nature plainly informs us, how mean and unworthy it is, to diffolve in luxury, softness, and effeminacy; and how becoming it is, on the other hand, to lead a life of frugality, temperance, and fobriety.

1642. A good man will love himself too well to lofe, and his neighbour also to win, an estate by gaming. Love of gaming corrupts the best principles in the world.

1643. Gaming

1643. Gaming, like a quickfand, swallows up a man in a moment. Our follies and vices help one another, and blind the bubble, at the fame time that they make the Sharper quick-fighted.

1644. Among many other evils that attend gaming, are thefe; Lofs of time, loss of reputation, lofs of health, lofs of fortune, lofs of temper, ruin of families, defrauding of creditors, and, what is often the effect of it, the lofs of life itself.

1645. Richness of dress contributes nothing to a man of fenfe, but rather makes his fenfe enquired into. The more the body is fet off, the mind appears the less.

1646. It is feen, to the terror of wisdom, that from a large eftate are fetched all virtues: a man in such poffeffion, shall be honeft, wife, valiant, and learned: the strength. of his ability is not from his wit, but from his revenue; which is a confpiracy, between ignorance and adulation, to confound knowledge.

1647. Caft an eye into the gay world, what fee we? For the most part, but a fet of querulous, emaciated, fluttering, fantastical beings, worn out in the keen purfuit of pleasure; creatures that know, own, condemn, deplore, yet ftill pursue their own infelicity; the decayed monuments of error; the thin remains of what is called delight.

1648. He only is worthy of efteem, that knows what is just and honest, and dares do it; that is mafter of his own paffions, and fcorns to be a flave to another's: fuch an one, in the lowest poverty, is a far better man, and merits more refpect, than thofe gay things, who owe all

their greatnefs and reputation to their rentals and re

venues.

1649. Religion is fo far from barring men any innocent pleasure, or comfort of human life, that it purifies the pleafures of it, and renders them more grateful and generous; and, befides this, it brings mighty pleasures of its own, those of a glorious hope, a ferene mind, a calm and undisturbed confcience, which do far outrelish the most ftudied and artificial luxuries.

1650. There needs no train of fervants, no pomp or equipage, to make good our paffage to heaven; but the graces of an honest mind will serve us upon the make us happy at our journey's end.

way, and

1651. The utmost of a woman's character is contained in domestick life; first, her piety towards God; and, next, in the duties of a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a fifter. 1652. A prudent woman is in the fame clafs of honour as a wife man.

1653. Nothing can atone for the want of modefty and innocence; without which, beauty is ungraceful, and lity contemptible.

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1654. A good wife (fays Solomon) is a good portion, and there is nothing of fo much worth as a mind well inftructed.

1655. Many of the misfortunes in families arife from the trifling way the women have in spending their time, and gratifying only their eyes and ears, inftead of their reason and understanding.

1656. There is nothing that wears out a fine face like the vigils of the card table, and those cutting paffions

which naturally attend them. Haggard looks, and pale complexions, are the natural indications of a female gamester.

1657. The plainer the drefs, with greater luftre does Virtue is the greatest ornament, and good

beauty appear.

fense the best equipage.

1658. A woman had need be perfectly provided of virtue, to repair the ruins of her beauty.

1659. Howfoever a lewd woman may please a man for a time, he will hate her in the end, and she will study to destroy him.

1660. A woman of great spirit, and little understanding, exposes herself to derifion and reproach, and is despised wherever she appears.

1661. There are fuch perverfe creatures that fall to fome men's lots, with whom it requires more than common proficiency in philofophy to be able to live. What charming companions for life are fuch women!

1662. Alcibiades being aftonished at Socrates's patience, afked him, How he could endure the perpetual fcolding of his wife? Why, faid he, as thofe do who are accuflomed to the ordinary noife of wheels to draw water.

1663. There is an old farcastical faying concerning the Italian women, That they are magpies at the door, fyrens in the window, faints in the church, and devils in the house.

1664. The reputation of a statesman, the credit of a merchant, and the modefty of a woman, prevail more than their power, riches, or beauty.

1665. He who marries a woman he could never love, will, it is to be feared, love a woman he never married.

1666. In reading romances, women (who are mostly addicted this way) do not only learn the evil they should be ignorant of, but also the most delicate ways of committing it.

1667. As the poets reprefented the Graces under the figures of women, fo the Furies too. Let a woman be decked with all the embellishments of art, and care of nature, yet if boldnefs be to be read in her face, it blots all the lines of beauty.

1668. There scarce was ever any fuch thing under the fun, as an inconfolable widow: grief is no incurable dif eafe, but time, patience, and a little philofophy, with the help of human frailty and addrefs, will do the business.

1669. He who gets a good husband for his daughter, hath gained a fon; and he who meets with a bad one, hath loft a daughter.

1670. The Emperor Conrade, when he befieged Guelpho duke of Bavaria, would not accept of any other conditions than that the men fhould be prisoners; but that the women might go out of the town, without violation of their honour, on foot, and with fo much only as they could carry about them: which was no fooner known, but they contrived prefently to carry out upon their fhoulders their husbands and children, and even the duke himfelf. The emperor was fo affected with the generofity of the action, that he treated the duke and his people, cver after, with great humanity.

1671. Truth and falfhood, like the iron and clay in

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