tertain his friends with expectations, which all but himself know to be vain; to the economist, who tells of bargains and settlements; to the politician, who predicts the fate of battles and breach of alliances; to the usurer, who compares the different funds; and to the talker, who talks only because he loves to be talking.

Charity.

Idler, vol. 1

To do the best can seldom be the lot of man; it is sufficient if, when opportunities are presented, he is ready to do good. How little virtue could be practised if beneficence were to wait always for the most proper objects, and the noblest occasions ;occasions that may never happen, and objects that may never be found?

Introduction to the Proceedings of the Committee for clothing French Prisoners.

Censure.

Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority. Men please themselves with imagining that they have made a deeper search or wider survey than others, and detected faults and follies which escape vulgar observation. Rambler, vol

Custom.

To advise a man unaccustomed to the eyes of the multitude to mount a tribunal without perturbation; to tell him, whose life has passed in the shades of contemplation, that he must not be disconcerted or perplexed in receiving and returning the compliments of a splendid assembly, is to advise an inhabitant of Brazil or Sumatra not to shiver at an English winter, or him who has always lived upon a plain, to look from a precipice without emotion. It is to suppose custom instantaneously controllable by reason, and to endeavour to communicate by precept that which only time and habit can bestow. Rambler, vol. 3.

Characters.

The opinions of every man must be learned from himself. Concerning his practice it is safest to trust the evidence of others. Where those testimonies concur, no higher degree of certainty can be obtained of his character.

Life of Sir T. Browne.

To get a name can happen but to few. A name, even in the most commercial nation, is one of the few things which cannot

be bought; it is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed. Idler, vol 1

Complaint.

To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship: and though it must be allowed, that he suffers most like a hero who hides his grief in silence, yet it cannot be denied, that he who complains acts like a man-like a social being, who looks for help from his fellow-creatures.

Calamity.

Rambler, vol. 2.

Notwithstanding the warnings of philosophers, and the daily examples of losses and misfortunes which life forces upon our observation, such is the absorption of our thoughts in the business of the present day, such the resignation of our reason to empty hopes of future felicity, or such our unwillingness to foresee what we dread, that every calamity comes suddenly upon us, and not only presses us as a burden, but crushes as a blow. Idler, vol. 1.

Care.

Care will sometimes betray to the appearance of negligence. He that is catching opportunities which seldom occur, will suffer those to pass by unregarded which he expects hourly to return; and he that is searching for remote things will neglect those that are obvious.

Preface to Dictionary.

Choice.

The causes of good and evil are so various and uncertain, so often entangled with each other, so diversified by various relations, and so much subject to accidents which cannot be foreseen, that he who would fix his condition upon incontestable reasons of preference, must live and die inquiring and deliberating.

Prince of Abyssinia.

Captivity.

The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has put him in the power of his enemy, may, without any violation of his integrity, regain his liberty, or preserve his life, by a promise of neutrality; for the stipulation gives the enemy nothing which he had not before. The neutrality of a

captive may be always secured by his imprisonment or death. He that is at the disposal of another, may not promise to aid him in any injurious act, because no power can compel active obedience. He may engage to do nothing, but not to do ill. Life of Cowley.

Competency.

A competency ought to secure a man from poverty; or, if he wastes it, make him ashamed of publishing his necessities. Life of Dryden.

Content.

The foundation of content must spring up in a man's own mind; and he who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing any thing but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove.

Rambler, vol. 1.

The necessity of erecting ourselves to some degree of intellectual dignity, and of preserving resources of pleasure which may not be wholly at the mercy of accident, is never more apparent than when we turn our eyes upon those whom fortune has let