Superftition is the fpleen of the foul,

19

He who tells a lie, is not fenfible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to main tain that one.

Some people will never learn any thing; for this reason, because they understand every thing too foon.

Whilft an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by the worlt performance. When he is dead, we rate them by his belt. Men are grateful in the fame degree that they are resentful. Young men are futtle arguers; the cloak of honor covers all their faults, as that of paffion all their follies.

Economy is no difgrace; it is better living on a little, than out-living a great deal.

Next to the fatisfaction I receive in the profperity of an honeft man, I am best pleased with the confufion of a rascal. What is often termed fhynefs, is nothing more than refined fenfe, and an indifference to common obfervations.

To endeavor all one's days to fortify our minds with learning and philosophy, is to spend fo much in armor, that one has nothing left to defend.

Deference often fhrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy, as the fenfitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.

Modefty makes large amends for the pain it gives the perfons who labour under it; by the prejudice it affords every worthy perfon in their favour,

The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty leems to be chiefly in the motive, The honeft man does that from duty, which the man of honor does for the fake of character.

A liar begins with making falfehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth appear itself like falfehood.

Virtue should be confidered as a part of tafte; and we should as much avoid deceit, or finifter meaning in difcourfe, as we fhould puns, bad language or falfe grammar,

The higher character a perfon fupports, the more he should regard his minutest actions.

DEF

CHAP. VII.

EFERENCE is the most complicated, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.

To be at once a rake, and to glory in the character, difcov ers at the fame time a bad difpofition and a bad tafte,

How is it poffible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they will not so much as take warning?

Altho men are accufed for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own ftrength. It is in men as in foils, where fometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.

Fine fenfe and exalted fenfe are not half fo valuable as common fenfe. There are forty men of wit for one man of fense: and he that will carry nothing about with him but gold, will be every day at a lofs for want of ready change.

Learning is like mercury, one of the moft powerful and excel lent things in the world in skilful hands; in unfkilful, the most mifchievous.

A man fhould never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong; which is but faying in other words, that he is wifer today than he was yesterday.

Wherever I find a great deal of gratitude in a poor man I take it for granted there would be as much generofity if he was a rich man.

It often happens that thefe are the best people, whose characters have been most injured by flanderers; as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit which the birds have been picking at.

The eye of a critic is often like a microscope, made fo very fine and nice, that it discovers the atoms, grains and minutest particles, without ever comprehending the whole, comparing the parts, or feeing all at once the harmony.

Honor is but a fictitious kind of honefty: a mean but a neceffary fubftitute for it, in focieties which have none; it is a fort of paper credit, with which men are obliged to trade, who are deficient in the sterling cash of true morality and religion.

Perfons of great delicacy fhould know the certainty of the following truth: There are abundance of cafes which occafion fufpenfe, in which whatever they determine they will repent of their determination, and this thro a propenfity of human nature to fancy happiness in thofe fchemes which it does not pursue.

WHAT

CHAP. VIII.

HAT a piece of work is man! how noble in reafon! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehenfion how like a god!

If to do, were as eafy as to know what were good to do, chappels had been churches, and poor men's cottages, princes'

palaces. He is a good divine that follows his own inftructions; I can eafier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow my own teaching.

Men's evil manners live in brafs there virtues we write in water.

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill tes gether; our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.

The fenfe of death is moft in apprehenfion;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
la corporal fufferance feels a pang as great,
As when a giant dies.

How far the little candle throws his beams
So fhines a good deed in a naughty world.
Love all, truft a few,

Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy,
Rather in power than in use: keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key be check'd for filence,
But never task'd for fpeech.

Our indifcretion fometimes ferves us well,

When our deep plots do fail: and that should teach us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough how them how we will.

What ftronger breaft plate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just
And he but naked (the lock'd up in fteel)
Whofe confcience with injuftice is corrupted.
The cloud capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The folemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherits, fhall diffolve;
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind! We are fuch stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a fleep.

So it falls out,

That what we have we prize not to the worl
While we enjoy it : but being lack'd and loft,
Why then we wreak the value; then we find
The virtue that poffeffion would not shew us
Whilft it was ours.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once,

There is fome foul of goodness in things evil,
Would men obfervingly diftil it out,

For our bad neighbor makes us early stirrers:
Which is both healthful and good husbandry,
Befides they are our outward confciences,
And preaches to us all; admonishing
That we should drefs us fairly for our end.
O momentary grace of mortal men,
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
Who builds his hope in the air of men's fair looks,
Lives like a drunken failor on a mast,
Ready with every nod to tumble down
Into the fatal bowels of the deep.

Who fhall go about

To cozen fortune and be honorable

Without the ftamp of merit let none prefumé
To wear an undeserved dignity.

O that eftates, degrees and offices

Were not derived corruptly, that clear honor
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
How many then should cover, that stand bare !
How many be commanded, that command !
-'Tis flander!

Whofe edge is harper than a fword; whofe tongue.
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whofe breath
Rides on the pofting winds, and doth belie
All cornets of the world. Kings, queens and ftates,
Maids, matrons, nay, the fecrets of the grave,
This viperous flander enters.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune!
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows, and in miferies.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this pretty space from day to day,
To the last fyllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusky death. Out, out, brief candle
Life's but a walking fhadow, a poor player,
That ftruts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more! It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of found and fury,
Signifying nothing.

He that would pafs the latter part of his life with honor and decency, muft when he is young confider that he shall one day be old, and remember when he is old, that he had once been young, Avarice is always poor, but poor by her own fault.

The maxim which Periander of Corinth, one of the seven fages of Greece, left as a memorial of his knowledge and bene. volence was, "Be master of your anger." He confidered anger as the great disturber of human life; the chief enemy both of public happiness and private tranquility, and thought he could not lay on pofterity a ftronger obligation to reverence his memory, that by leaving them a falutary caution against this out, rageous paffion.

The univerfal axiom, in which all complaifance is included, and from which flow all the formalities which cuflom has esta blifhed in civilized nations is," That no man should give any preference to himself," a rule fo comprehenfive and certain that perhaps it is not eafy for the mind to imagine an incivility without fuppofing it to be broken,

The foundation of content muft fpring up in a man's own mind; and he who has fo little knowledge of human nature, as to feek happiness by changing any thing but his own difpofi tion, will wafte his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply griefs. which he purposes to remove.

No rank in life precludes the efficacy of a well timed com. pliment. When Queen Elizabeth asked an ambaffador how he liked her ladies, he replied, "it was hard to judge of ftars in prefence of the fun."

The crime which has once been committed, is committed a, gain with lefs reluctance,

The great difturbers of our happiness in this world, are our defires, our griefs, and our fears; and to all thefe the confidera tion of mortality is a certain and adequate remedy." Think (faya Epictetus) frequently on poverty, banishment and death, and thou wilt never indulge violent defires or give up thy heart to mean fentences."

The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken every man to the active prosecution of whatever he is defirous to per form. It is true that no diligence can afcertain fuccefs; death may intercept the fwifteft career; but he who is cut off in the execution of an honeft undertaking, has at least the honor of falling in his rank, and has fought the battle, though he miffed the victory.