reverend, and right honourable poor finners: thefe diftinctions are fuited only to our state here, and have no place in heaven: we see they are omitted in the liturgy, and fure the clergy should take that for their pattern in their own forms of devotion.

373. The minority of kings is the mifery of kingdoms, being commonly attended with emulations and factions of great men.

374. Aim at purity of language, fublimity of stile, propriety of phrase, neatness of fimile, exactness of argument, choice of words, juftness of examples, and every thing that conftitutes the beauty and harmony of a piece.

375. Sir Richard Steele bids us ufe a mathematical fieve, to fift impertinences and fuperfluities out of our discourse and writing, and to avoid excrefcences.

376. Love and ambition are commonly the raging fevers of great minds.

377. Reading too many books does rather burden the memory, than improve the understanding.

378. Unity is the life of chriftianity, because it keeps up that love which is the fulfilling of the law.

379. It is uncivil and unfit for a man to oblige another to keep a promise disadvantageous to him, or one made in mirth, paffion, hafte, unadvisedly, in civility, &c. as also not to admit of a reasonable excufe in cafe of failure.

380. He that doubts not, knows either all things or nothing; and he that imagines never to commit an error, his next pretence may be to divinity; for perfection is not the attribute of a man.

382. Vic

381. Victory does more often fall by the error of the vanquished, than by the valour of the victorious.

382. A low condition expofes the wifeft men to contempt: while we can keep our poverty a fecret, we can never feel the weight of it; there is nothing in a mean eftate fo intolerable, as the ridiculoufnefs of it; for patience is not fo much wounded by pain and lofs, as by derifion and contumely.

383. Nothing maintains itself so long as a moderate fortune, and nothing fo foon dwindles away as a great one.

384. There are two forts of avarice, a true, and a baftard: true covetousness is a restless and insatiable defire of riches, not for any further end or ufe, but only to hoard and preserve, and perpetually increase them. This is the greatest evidence of a bafe, ungenerous mind, and, at the fame time, the highest injustice in the world. For what can be more unreasonable, than for a man to ingrofs to himself all that which is the common fupport and conveniency of mankind, and to propagate his crime, by locking up his beloved treasures, and thereby robbing continually the publick of what he has once gotten?

385. There is one kind of affliction which never leaves us, I mean that which proceeds from the lofs of our fortunes. Time, which foftens and allays all other griefs, does but exafperate and increase this; for the fense of it renews, even as often as we feel the pinch of preffing neceffities.

386. A dying man will give any thing to fave his life, a living man as much to fave his money: A man shall readily proffer his sword, but hesitates if you would borrow

fifty pounds; fo much easier it is to be brave than kind.

387. A meer courtier, a meer foldier, a meer scholar, a meer any thing, is equally ridiculous.

388. Few of Adam's children are so happy as not to be born without fome biafs in their natural temper, which it is the bufinefs of education, either to take off, or counterbalance.

389. All our other paffions are to fome end; love, to enjoy; anger, to revenge; fear, to avoid, and the like: But the paffion of grief ferves to no end or purpose in the world; it cannot be its own end, because it is in no réfpect good; it is therefore utterly abfurd and unreafonable.

390. Ambition is a weed (if it may properly be called fo) that is apt to grow in the best foils.

391. All popular difcontents have fomething of the nature of torrents; give them a little room to run, and they quickly draw off themselves; but if you offer prefently to obftruct their course, they fwell and fpread the

more.

392. Never let the irregularities of your own life be the fubject of your difcourfe, for men deteft in others thofe vices which they cherish in themselves.

393. Plots, when difcovered, ftrengthen the government they were defigned to ruine.

394. Political jealoufies, like the conjugal, when once raised, are hard to be fuppreffed.

395. All truft is dangerous that is not entire; it is best to speak all, or conceal all.

396. The

396. The fcriptures, no doubt, were indited by the holy ghoft; for good men would not impofe fuch things on the world, and there is too much against the bad, to believe them to be the authors of it.

397. Our troubles of mind must either proceed from the spirit of God, or the fuggestions of the devil: if from God, it is an argunient of fonship and adoption; if from the devil, it is an argument your cafe is yet the better; for he disturbs none that he is fure of, but is always most bufy with those he is in greatest danger of lofing.

398. A man remarkably obliging is almost proof against the most malicious detractors, they will be afraid of one fo fortified in publick efteem; the charms of kindness and affability are irrefiftible; they conquer, captivate, and return in triumph over the affections of all men.

399. There are those that perform all the arts of life and good breeding with fo much ease, that the virtue of their conduct looks more like instinct than choice.

400. It is more glorious to overcome my paffions than my enemies for if they are bad, I would not be friends to them; and if they are good, they will not long be enemies to me.

401. It is with our lives as with our estates, a good husband makes a little go a great way: Whereas let the revenue of a prince fall into the hands of a prodigal, it is vanished in a moment. So that the time allotted us, if it were well employed, were abundantly enough to answer all the ends and purposes of mankind.

402. The generality of mankind fink in virtue as they rife in fortune: how many hopeful young men, by the

fud

fudden acceffion of a good eftate, have deviated into debauchery, nay, turned abfolute rakes!

403. It is hard to determine which is more troublesome to undergo to a man of sense, either the extreme reserve and fhynefs of fome women before they yield, or their fondness after they have yielded.

404. What women call inconftancy in us, is not an argument of levity, but of their infufficiency to please.

405. Nothing is fo unaccountable as the caprices of women: For it frequently happens, that the first applications of a new face gain more upon them, than the long fervices of a conftant old one.

406. He that marries for riches, is agreeably disappointed, if he meets with a good wife; but that unexpected happiness is seldom his lot.

407. A man breaks out into a paffion against an unfaithful mistress, and then forgets her; a woman, on the contrary, makes but little noife at the infidelity of her lover, but keeps a long while her refentment.

408. Whispering in company has ever been looked on as an excess of ill manners; for we have naturally a curiosity to divine what others fay, and feel a secret indignation to be shut out of the intelligence.

409. He must be a very wife man that knows the true bounds and measures of fooling, with refpect to time, place, matters, perfons, &c. But religion, bufinefs, and cafes of confequence must be excepted out of that fort of liberty.

410. The stronger the oppofition, the more noble the combat. Where there is no combat, there is no victory. How

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