MXLV.

The Stage-a subject fair and free,
'Tis yours-'tis mine-'tis public property.
All common exhibitions open lie

For praise or censure to the common eye.
Hence are a thousand hackney writers fed;
Hence monthly critics earn their daily bread.
This is a gen'ral tax which all must pay,

From those who scribble down to those who play. Churchill.

MXLVI.

We term Sleep a death, and yet 'tis waking that kills us, and destroys those spirits that are the house of life. 'Tis indeed a part of life that best expresseth death; for every man truly lives as long as he acts his nature, or some way makes good the faculties of himself: Themistocles, therefore, that slew his soldier in his sleep, was a merciful executioner; 'tis a kind of punishment the mildness of no laws hath invented. Sir T. Brown.

MXLVII.

Oh! mortals, short of sight, who think the past
O'erblown Misfortune still shall prove the last :
Alas! misfortunes travel in a train,
And oft in life form one perpetual chain;
Fear buries fear, and ills on ills attend,
"Till life and sorrow meet one common end.

MXLVIII.

Young.

Men are not altered by their circumstances, but as they give them opportunities of exerting what they are in themselves; and a powerful clown is a tyrant in the most ugly form he can possibly appear.- Steele.

MXLIX.

I am too conscious of mine own imperfections, to rake into and dilate upon the failings of other men; and

though I carry always some ill-nature about me, yet it is, I hope, no more than is in this world necessary for a preservative. - Marvell.

ML.

You talk to me in parables;

You may have known that I'm no wordy man;
Fine speeches are the instruments of knaves

Or fools, that use them, when they want good sense;
But honesty

Needs no disguise nor ornament; be plain.

MLI.

Otway.

I deny not, but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how Books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them to be as active as that soul was, whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragons' teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life.-Milton's Speech on unlicensed Printing.

MLII.

It most behoves the honourable race
Of mighty Peers, true Wisdom to sustain,

And with their noble countenance to grace,
The learned foreheads, without gift or gain :
Or rather learn'd themselves behoves to be
That is the girlond of Nobility.

But they do only strive themselves to raise
Through pompous pride, and foolish vanity;
In th' eyes of people they put all their praise,
And only boast of arms and ancestry :

But virtuous deeds, which did those arms first give To their grandsires, they care not to atchieve.

MLIII.

Spenser.

A Peevish Fellow is one who has some reason in himself for being out of humour, or has a natural incapacity for delight, and therefore disturbs all who are happier than himself with pishes and pshaws, or other well-bred interjections, at every thing that is said or done in his presence. There should be physic mixed in all the food of which these fellows eat in good company. - Steele.

MLIV.

Great are his perils in this stormy time
Who rashly ventures on a sea of Rhyme.
Around vast surges roll, winds envious blow,
And jealous rocks and quicksands lurk below,
Greatly his foes he dreads, but more his friends.
He hurts me most who lavishly commends.

MLV.

Churchill.

If men within themselves would be governed by reason, and not generally give up their understanding to a double tyranny, of Custom from without, and blind affections, within, they would discern better what it is to favour and uphold the tyrant of a nation. But being slaves within doors, no wonder that they strive so much

to have the public state conformably governed to the inward vitious rule, by which they govern themselves.— Milton.

MLVI.

Most miserable creature under sky,

Man without Understanding doth appear;
For all this world's affliction he thereby,
And fortune's freaks is wisely taught to bear:
Of wretched life the only joy she is,
And th' only comfort in calamities.

MLVII.

Spenser.

Why should my son be a scholar, when it is not intended, that he should live by his learning? By this rule, if what is commonly said be true, that money answereth all things, why should my son be honest, temperate, just, and charitable, since he hath no intention to depend upon any of these qualities for a maintenance? -Essay on Modern Education — Swift. ̧

MLVIII.

No man needs letters of mart against one that is an open pirate of other men's credit. — Marvell.

MLIX.

Pride brake the angels in heaven, and spoils all heads we find cracked here; for such as observe those in Bedlam, shall perceive their fancies to beat most upon mistakes in honour or love. - Osborn.

MLX.

As when the trumpet sounds, th' o'erloaded state
Discharges all her poor and profligate;
Crimes of all kinds dishonour'd weapons wield,
And prisons pour their filth into the field;
Thus nature's refuse, and the dregs of men,
Compose the black militia of the pen.

Young.

MLXI.

To buy Public Offices is infamous and abominable, the most sordid, the most villanous way of trading in the world for it is plain, he that buys in the piece, must make himself whole by selling out again in parcels ; which was a good reason for the Emperor Severus, when he was declaring against a fault of this nature, to say, That it was very hard to condemn a man for making money of that which he had given money for before. Charron.

MLXII.

A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reasons, though because his belief be true; yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.-Milton.

MLXIII.

-All Man's age me seems a Tragedy,
Full of sad Sights, and sore Catastrophies;
First coming to the World with weeping Eye,
Where all his Days, like dolorous Trophies,
Are heap'd with spoils of Fortune and of Tear,
And he at last laid forth on baleful bier.

Tears of the Muses-Spenser.
MLXIV.

There is surely a physiognomy which master Mendicants observe; whereby they instantly dicover a merciful aspect, and will single out a face wherein they spy the signatures and marks of mercy; for there are mystically in our faces certain characters, which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that can read A B C may read our natures. - Sir T. Brown.

MLXV.

A Critic was of old a glorious name,

Whose sanction handed merit up to fame;