depart four'd and provok'd against thofe that have thus kept them in amusement.

225. Discourses of ourselves and our own actions ought to be very feldom, and very well chofen, except it be to intimate friends.

226. Reservedness is the fource, and flowness of belief the finew, of prudence. It is wisdom fometimes to feem a fool, at least ignorant, by that means to lie out of the reach of obfervation and jealoufy.

227. Never affent meerly to please, for that betrays a fervile mind; nor contradict to vex, for that argues an ill temper and ill-breeding.

228. Old age is the haven of evils, therefore all things haften to it.

229. Ariftotle obferves that old men are more incredulous than others, because the use and experience they have had of the uncertainty of things awakens their circumfpection, and holds them upon their guard.

230. To retract, or mend a fault, at the admonition of a friend, hurts your credit or liberty no more, than if you had grown wifer upon your own thought. For it is still your own judgment and temper, which makes you fee your mistake, and willing to retrieve it.

231. Nothing in the world is fo unfincere, as the asking and receiving of advice. He that asks it, seems to yield a respectful deference to the opinion of his friend, and all the while only designs to have his own approved, and fhelter his own actions under the authority of another. On the other fide, he that gives it, returns, as one would think, the confidence of others with an ardent and im

partial

partial zeal, and yet has generally no other aim but his own honour or interest.

232. Some people are not to be dealt withal, but by a train of mystery and circumlocution; a downright admonition looks more like the reproach of an enemy, than the advice of a friend; or, at best, it is but the good of fice of a man that has an ill opinion of us; and we do not naturally love to be told of our faults by the witneffes of our failings.

233. Young men that come first upon the stage of the world, ought to be either very modeft, or very brifk; for a fober, grave, and compofed temper, commonly turns to impertinence.

234. Since our defires increase with our riches, is not a man by fo much the more miferable, the more he pof feffes?

235. Reason is the most raised faculty of human nature: No perfons better deserve the name of men, than fuch who allow their reafon a full employment; no guft fo exquisite as that of the mind. They are little better than brutes, who can patiently fuffer the imprisonment of their intellects in a dungeon of ignorance..

236. Religion is the beft armour, but the worst cloak. 237. Wine is fuch an odd whetstone for wit, that if it be often fet thereon, it will quickly grind all the steel out, and scarce leave a back where it found an edge.

238. Women will bring forrow, and your bottle madnefs; therefore go to neither.

239. Probably the reason why many men, who are sufficiently dull in other matters, yet can talk profanely, and

fpeak.

speak against religion, with fome kind of falt and smartnefs, is, because religion is the thing that frets them; their confciences are galled by it, and that makes them winch and fling as if they had fome mettle in them.

240. It proceeds from a weak judgment, to credit all you hear, and imitate all you fee.

241. The fault which you fuffer in your friend, you ftand guilty of yourself.

242. Large encomiums the fcripture has given to feveral learned men. Mofes was famous for being versed in all the learning of the Egyptians: and Solomon for his general knowledge, particularly in plants, from the cedar to the hyffop. Daniel was chief of the magicians; Abraham was a great aftronomer; David and Job were eminent philofophers, &c. Learning, if rightly apply'd, makes a young man thinking, attentive, and industrious, confident and wary; an old man chearful and reserved. It is an ornament in profperity, a refuge in adverfity, an entertainment at all times, it chears in folitude, and moderates upon a throne.

243. Depravation of one fenfe, doubles the vigour of

another.

244. None fo ftrict exactors of modefty from others, as those who are most prodigal of their own.

245. Power is weakened by the full use of it, but extended by moderation. I choose rather to win by kindnefs into a voluntary compliance, than to awe by severity into a forced fubjection.

246. If men could but reflect on and confider the great, the generous feeds planted in them, that might (if right

ly

ly cultivated) ennoble their lives, and make their virtue venerable to futurity, how could they, without pain, perceive the univerfal degeneracy from that publick spirit, which ought to be the first and principal motive of all their actions? The Greeks and Romans were wife enough to keep up this great incentive; with them 'twas impoffible to be in the fashion without being a patriot. All galantry had its first fource from hence; and to want a warmth for the publick welfare was a defect so scandalous, that he who was guilty of it, had no pretence to honour or manhood. When the universal bent of a people feems diverted from the fenfe of their common good and glory, it looks like a fatality, and crisis of impending ruine.

247. It proceeds from the height of incivility, and a fordid education, to ridicule any one for their natural infirmities or imperfections; no reproaches vex people more: They who have the true taste of conversation enjoy themfelves in a communion of each other's excellencies, and not in a triumph over their imperfections. There are fome tempers so sweet and obliging, that they take pleasure in obferving the virtues and perfections of others; fo that whatever faults they have of their own, are overlooked, concealed, or winked at, out of common gratitude, by all their acquaintance.

248. Prudence requires all wife men to weigh their actions in the balance of reason, and to judge whether there be any due proportion, between the hazard run, and the end propofed.

249. There are but two means in the world of gaining by other men, men, that is, by being either agreeable or useful.. 250. Storms

250. Storms and tempefts give reputation to pilots. Our moderation has much less to apprehend from the miseries of adversity, than the fnares of plenty; but then it is infinitely more glorious to furmount the former, than to escape the latter.

251. If a merchant miscarry, courtiers will fay of him, he is a pitiful cit, a fneaking trader, a coxcomb; if he profper, they will court him for his daughter.

252. If fome of our fleeping ancestors fhould come to life again, and see their great names and titles, their splendid palaces, and vaft eftates, enjoyed by those whofe fathers, perhaps, were their farmers, I wonder what opinion they would have of the present age.

253. The duties of interment are juftly called the laft duties, for beyond the funeral, all that is given to the dead is taken away from the living. Lamentations that are too long, not only prejudice nature, but fociety likewife; they render us incapable of the duties of a civil life, and one may say, that, out of complaisance to those friends we have loft, they make us wanting to those we ftill enjoy.

254. The pleasure of fociety and converfation betwixt friends is entertained by a fimilitude of manners, and a little difference of opinions in the fciences. By this it is that a man either confirms and pleafes himself in his own. fentiments, or exercifes and inftructs himself by the dif pute.

255. The wife man adapts himself to the feveral humours and inclinations of thofe he converfes with.

256. The following confideration may abundantly ferve

to