count the weaker, that this was never done in England, but by queen Elizabeth.

501. The authority which princes communicate to their fubjects, is chiefly in respect of wisdom or valour; yet it generally happens, that they account them the wisest and bravest men, that can beft accommodate themselves to their humour.

502. The wounding of a friend for the fake of a jest, is an intemperance and immorality not to be endured. 503. To give the women their due, few of them are false till their husbands provoke them to it.

504. The pleasure of fociety among friends is cultivated by a likeness of imagination as to manners, and a difference in opinion as to sciences; the one confirms and humours us in our fentiments, the other exercises and inftructs us by difputation.

505. It is fo common for men not to be happy, and fo effential to all good to be acquired by trouble, that what is come at eafily, is fufpected.

506. A great merit, joined to a great modefty, may be a long time before it is difcovered.

507. The noft barbarous nations have ftill paid a fort of divinity to the dead, death being always looked upon as a full discharge from all the errors of life.

508. There is in the best counsel fomething that displeases; it is not our own thoughts, and therefore prefumption and caprice furnish pretences enough to reject it at first fight, and reflection only forces its reception.

509. Wife conduct turns upon two centers, the past and the future; he that has a faithful memory, and a vast fore

M

forefight, is our of danger of cenfuring in others those faults he may have been guilty of himfelf, or condemning an action which, in a parallel cafe, and in like circumstances, it will be impoffible for him to avoid.

510. There is a thing in the world, if it is poffible, incomprehenfible: A perfon that appears dull, fottish, and ftupid, knows neither how to speak, nor relate what he has feen, but if he fets to write, no man does it better; he makes animals, trees, and ftones, talk, and his works are full of elegance, natural fenfe, and delicacy.

511. Avoid obfcene ambiguities, be they never fo carefully wrapped up; they have always a bad effect in the mind of the hearer, and denote the corrupt moral of the fpeaker.

512. Every outward beauty proceeds from an inward order and harmony, and both the inward and outward beauties are advanced by a proper method.

513. Hefiod being afk'd when he was lending money, why all these niceties and forms of law among intimate friends? He anfwer'd, By all means, that we may be fure to continue fo.

514. I am tired with whatfoever I have yet enjoyed in this world, and I expect no greater fatisfaction should I live a thousand years; every pleasure appears but the fame in different forms, and they all agree in leaving us afflicted in the fame, or greater, pains, than they found us. It is beft therefore to lay afide all fruitlefs care and sadness, and be as merry as will confift with the wisdom of a man.

515. There are few women that would not rather

choose

choose to be divorced from their hufbands, than to lofe their gallants.

516. If divorce was to be come by without the trouble of suing for an act of parliament, it would raise the pleafures of a married life, and fink the delights of intriguing. 517. A woman's chastity is not to be endured, where she expects an uncontrollable authority for it.

518. Nothing better fhews what little value God fets upon riches, preferments, and other worldly advantages, than his indifferent difpenfation of them, and the unworthiness of those who generally poffefs them.

draw

519. From the features of a man's face we may fome probable conjectures of his temper and inclinations; but his looks and countenance plainly display the advantage of fortune, and we may read in them, in fair characters, how many thousands a man is worth a year.

520. There is not a greater argument of a narrow, wretched foul, than to doat upon money; nothing more reasonable than to despise it, when we have it not, and nothing more honourable than to employ it generously, and do good with it, when we have it.

521. To be proud of knowledge, is to be blind with light; to be proud of virtue, is to poison yourself with the antidote.

522. Nothing is fo glorious in the eyes of mankind, and ornamental to human nature (fetting afide the infinite advantages that arise from it) as a strong, steady, and mafculine piety. But enthusiasm and fuperftition are the weaknesses of human reason, that expofe us to the fcorn

and derifion of infidels, and fink us even beneath the beafts that perish.

523. To-morrow is still the fatal time when all is to be rectified; to-morrow comes, it goes, and ftill I please myself with the fhadow, whilft I lofe the reality, unmindful that the present time alone is ours, the future is yet unborn, and the past is dead, and can only live (as parents in their children) in the actions it has produced.

524. Bold refolution is the favourite of fortune: Neceffity deadens the apprehenfion of danger. A good cause makes a ftout heart, and a strong arm.

525. He that is fo foolishly modeft as to be ashamed to own his defects of knowledge, fhall in time be fo fulfomely impudent as to juftify his ignorance, which is the greatest of all infirmities, and, when justified, the chiefeft of follies.

526. Idleness is certainly the cause, and business the never-failing cure of melancholy.

527. Artificial modefty difparages a woman's real virtue, as much as the use of paint does the natural complexion.

528. A fally of paffion or extravagance is frequently forgiven, but raillery in cool blood, which is a fign of difesteem, is never pardoned.

529. Men ought to employ the first years of life to become fo qualified, that the commonwealth may have occafion for their knowledge or induftry; they ought to resemble those materials in a building, which are of absolute neceffity, and being fet there to advantage, give a grace to the whole fabrick.

530. If

530. If any one ought to have been exempt from error, doubt and inconftancy, it was Solomon. Notwithstanding we see in the inequality of his conduct, that he was weary of his wisdom, that he was weary of his folly; and his virtues and vices, by turns, gave him new difgufts. Sometimes he enjoys his life, as if chance governed all: fometimes he afcribes all to providence, and never delivers his thoughts with a pofitive air, but when eternal wisdom makes him speak,

531. A nice obfervation of rules is a confinement which a great genius cannot bear, it naturally covets liberty.

532. The art of managing humors, and of gaining our ends upon men, is to find out their weak fide. There is no man that has not his predominant paffions, and these paffions are different, according to the diversity of tempers. All men are idolaters, fome of honour, others of intereft, and most of their pleasures. The skill is firft to know the character of the perfon, next to feel his pulfe, and then to attack him by his strongest paffion, which is his weaker fide.

533. Great fouls are not diftinguished by having lefs paffion, and more virtue, but by having nobler and greater defigns than the vulgar.

534. All paffions and refentments of the foul have their tone of voice, their gestures of the body, and their forms and air peculiar to them; and the mutual relation of them, either good or bad, makes accordingly perfons either pleafant or unpleasant.

535. Every wife prince ought to govern his fubjects and fervants, in fuch manner, that by his affability and

virtue,