ON

VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

WE E have just enough religion to make

us hate, but not enough to make

us love one-another.

Reflect on things paft, as wars, negociations, factions, etc. we enter fo little into those interests, that we wonder how men could poffibly be fo bufy and concerned for things fo tranfitory; look on the present times, we find the fame humour, yet wonder not at all.

A wife man endeavours, by confidering all circumstances, to make conjectures, and form conclufions; but the smallest accident intervening (and in the course of affairs it is impoffible to forefee all) does often produce fuch turns and changes, that at laft he is just as much in doubt of events as the most ignorant and unexperienced perfon.

Pofitiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that would obtrude his thoughts and reafons upon a Dd3 multitude,

multitude, will convince others the more, as he appears convinced himself.

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

I forget whether advice be among the loft things, which Arifto fays are to be found in the moon; that and time ought to have been there.

No preacher is liftened to but time, which gives us the same train and turn of thought, that elder people have tried in vain to put into our heads before.

When we defire or follicit any thing, our minds run wholly on the good fide or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones,

In a glass-house the workmen often Aling in a fmall quantity of fresh coals, which feems to disturb the fire, but very much enlivens it. This feems to allude to a gentle ftirring of the paffions, that the mind may not languish.

Religion feems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.

All

All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like fpending this year part of the next year's revenue.

The latter part of a wife man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and falfe opinions he had contracted in the former.

Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to pofterity, let him confider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omiffions he most laments.

Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but themfelves: it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles or Æneas. With hiftorians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, perfons, and events we read, and we little regard the authors.

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this fign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

Men who poffefs all the advantages of life, are in a state where there are many

Dd4

accidents

accidents to diforder and difcompose, but few to please them.

It is unwife to punish cowards with ignominy; for if they had regarded that, they would not have been cowards : death is their proper punishment, because they fear it moft.

The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance; as the use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing ; and by the dulleft nation, as the Germans.

One argument to prove that the common relations of ghofts and Spectres are generally falfe, may be drawn from the opinion held, that fpirits are never seen by more than one perfon at a time; that is to say, it feldom happens to above one perfon in a company to be poffeffed with any high degree of spleen or melancholy.

I am apt to think, that in the day of judgment there will be fmall allowance given to the wife for their want of morals, and to the ignorant for their want of faith, because both are without excufe. This renders the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But fome fcruples in the wife, and fome vices in the igno

rant,

rant, will perhaps be forgiven upon the ftrength of temptation to each.

The value of feveral circumftances in ftory leffens very much by distance of time, though fome minute circumftances are very valuable; and it requires great judgment in a writer to diftinguish. It is grown a word of courfe for writers to fay, This critical age, as divines fay, This finful age.

It is pleasant to obferve how free the prefent age is in laying taxes on the next: Future ages fhall talk of this; this fall be famous to all pofterity: whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.

The camelion, who is faid to feed upon nothing but air, hath of all animals the nimbleft tongue.

When a man is made a fpiritual peer he lofes his fir-name; when a temporal, his chriftian-name.

It is in difputes as in armies, where the weaker fide fets up falfe lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and ftrong than they really are.

Some