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WHERE TO HEAR THE TRUTH.

More home truths are to be learned from listening to a noisy debate in an alehouse than from attending to a formal one in the House of Commons. Hazlitt.

A SENSIBLE DUELLIST.

Sir Thirom Sankey, one of Oliver Cromwell's knights, challenged Sir William Petty to fight with him. Petty was extremely short-sighted, and being the challengee, it belonged to him to nominate place and weapon. He nominated accordingly a dark cellar and ́a carpenter's axe. This turned the knight's challenge into ridicule, and it came to nought.

A MUSICAL LIGHT.

Aubrey.

One who had fired a pipe of tobacco with a ballad, swore he heard the singing of it in his head thereafter for the space of two days.

THE BUSINESS OF THE IDLE.

Drummond.

Whereas the devil's greatest business is to tempt other men; the idle man's business is to tempt the devil.

Sanderson.

A CRITIC CHARACTERISED.

Of all mortals a critic is the silliest; for, by inuring himself to examine all things, whether they are of consequence or not, he never looks upon anything but with a design of passing sentence upon it; by which means he is never a companion, but always a censor. Steele.

THE ACME OF GRIEF.

He wrote poems and relieved himself very much. When a man's grief or passion is at this point, it may be loud, but it is not very severe. When a gentleman is cudgelling his brain to find any rhyme for sorrow, besides borrow or to-morrow, his woes are nearer at an end than he thinks. Thackeray.

GOLD A TOUCHSTONE.

Men have a touchstone whereby to try gold, but gold is the touchstone whereby to try men. Thomas Fuller.

FICKLE THINGS.

Royal favour, April weather, woman's love, rose leaves, dice and card luck, change every German Proverb.

minute.

A MAN'S MARRIAGE.

Of all actions of a man's life, his marriage does least concern other people, yet of all actions of our life 'tis most meddled with by other people. Selden.

INDUSTRY.

All exertion is in itself delightful, and active amusement seldom tires us. Helvetius owns that he could hardly listen to a concert for two hours, though he could play on an instrument all day long. In all pursuits, efforts, it must not be forgotten, are as indispensable as desires. The globe is not to be circumnavigated by one wind. We should never be idle. "It is better to wear out than to rust out," says Bishop Cumberland. "There will be time enough for repose in the grave," said Arnauld to Nicole. In truth, the proper rest for man is change of occupation. Sharpe.

TASTE.

A fastidious taste is like a squeamish appetite: the one has its origin in some disease of the mind, as the other has in some ailment of the stomach. Southey.

INTEGRITY OF MIND.

A mind that is conscious of its integrity, scorns to say more than it means to perform.

BASHFULNESS.

Burns.

There are two distinct sorts of what we call bashfulness this, the awkwardness of a booby, which a few steps into the world will convert into the pertness of a coxcomb; that, a consciousness which the most delicate feelings produce, and the most extensive knowledge cannot always remove. Mackenzie.

GOOD INTENTIONS.

Good intentions are at least the seed of good actions; and every man ought to sow them, and leave it to the soil and the seasons whether they come up or no, and whether he or any other gathers the fruit.. Temple.

THE WORST PUNISHMENT.

An ingenious artist of our own time has been heard to declare, that if ever the devil got him into his clutches, he would set him to copy his own pictures.

Hazlitt.

ARGUMENT IN LAW.

A lawyer, who has no more argument than would lie in a nut-shell, wire-draws it and hammers it, and hammers it and wire-draws it, and then wire-draws and hammers it again, like a lecturer who is exhibiting the infinite ductility of gold. Southey.

BUNYAN'S "PILGRIM'S PROGRESS."

That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. . . . In the wildest parts of Scotland the "Pilgrim's Progress" is the delight of the peasantry. In every nursery, the "Pilgrim's Progress" is a greater favourite than "Jack the Giant Killer." Every reader knows the straight and narrow path as well as he knows a road in which he has gone backward and forward a hundred times. This is the highest miracle of genius, that things which are not should be as though they were that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. And this miracle the tinker has wrought.

Macaulay.

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