"Then 'tis a match: I feize the fair.”
But foft, my friend, still have a care!
Forfake not the unerring plan;
While the's the wife, be you the man;
For fhould you swerve from nature's rule,
To act the tyrant, brute, or fool,

V

She vows he'll comb you with the three legg'd ftool *. The SWORD and the PRESS.

HE needs a

Sword, who for his country fights; The Prefs he needs, who guards his Country's Rights. The Sword abus'd, our laws condemn the Man;' This from the Prefs diftinguish then who can ? Or fay, if Murderers are sent to jail, Why for a Libel you'd the Prefs affail? Let Wicked Men the Law's examples be, But leave our Weapons for our Country free Since that Establishment we're bound to blefs, Lefs to the Sword, we owe, than to the prefs.

EPIGRAM.

I TELL you, Mifs Doll, and believe me 'tis true,
I never beheld fuch a creature as you.

Such wit! and fuch beauty! fuch ftate and fuch pride!
Thou ne'er hadst an equal fince Jezebel dy'd;
Fine fhape, and fine face, with a fimper fo thievish!
Yet artful, deceitful, ill-natur'd, and peevish.
God moulded thy face, but the devil thy heart;
What pity the devil should spoil the belt part!

MAXIM.

GENTLE manners, virtuous lives,
Make eafy husbands, happy wives.
These are the only means wẹ know
To make a little heav'n below.

ANOTHER.

ANGRY manners, vicious lives.

Make wretched husbands, hateful wives.
And hence fuch evils take their birth,
As make a little hell on earth.

* The fentiment and expreffion are the lady's own.

They fat them down to weep, nor only tears
Rain'd at their eyes, but high winds, worfe within,
Began to rife: high paffions, anger, hate,
Mitruft, fufpicion, difcord, and thook fore
Their inward ftate of mind; calm region once,
And full of peace, now toft and turbulent;
For underftanding rul'd not, and the will
Heard not her lore, both in fubjection now
To fenfual appetite, who from beneath
Ufurping over fovereign reafon, claim d
Superior fway.

NOTHI

MILTON.

JOTHING can be more unfortunate, nor tend more powerfully to render its poffeffor completely unhappy, than habitual anger, or a difpofition to be peevish, and view all objects as they prefent themselves, on the dark fide. Evęry man's paffions will tell him, if he will be filly enough to believe them, that he has frequent caufe for anger; but let him confult his reafon. and he will find that even were the information true, it is not his intereft to listen to it. Of all the virtues whofe practice makes men happy,` none are fo effectual for that purpose, none fo delightfully amiable, fo univerfally beneficial as patience and refignation. We are feldom difpleafed but when we are inclined to be fo. How many wives, how many children, how many fer vants tremble when they hear the tread of their domeftic tyrant instead of running towards him VOL. IV.

H

with delight, and looking up to him as their protector, as one who will repay their smiles with fmiles, and receive with gratitude and pleafure thofe endeavours which are meant for his fervice or fatisfaction, they dread his frowns, they avoid his curfes, they run from his unprovoked chaftifement, and hide from the fiend instead of flying to the friend. The man who thus refigns himfelf to the first impulse of paffion, and acts as that directs, knows but little of his own intereft; for however unhappy he may render thofe on whom he vents his anger, he is, perhaps, more miferable than them. The bitterness of his gall abforbs every comfort of his life; none who know his infirmity, will affociate with him; he is pointed at, and fpoken of as a monfter fcarce fit to live, and his very crimes are painted with fo many exaggerated circumftances, and enlarged even fo much beyond the truth, that the picture is horrible. Did he hear his character from those who speak with the greatest degree of moderation of his actions, he would fhudder at the relation, Such a perfon as I have been describing is Morofé. It is next to impoffible to approach him with a smile. His domeftics are always in a difordered fright in his prefence, and his frowns and his curfes occafion them to commit thofe very blunders which, he thinks, juftify his anger. His manner of bidding them be careful drives all order out of their minds, and he receives the poker on his toes, and the fcalding drops of water from the tea-kettle on his legs, as an unpremeditated punishment for his needlefs wrath. He bel lows for a napkin, and they bring him his boots,

he fumes and flings them at the aggreffor, and perhaps demolishes a fet of china, or a lookingglafs. He bids the hair-dreffer brush his cloaths, and the terrified wretch heats the irons, and inftead of a curl lays hold of his ear. Morofe bawls, ftamps, ftorms, blafphemes, and chases every one from his fight, imprecating all the fiends to judge if he has not reafon for his rage, then rends his hair, batters his forehead, and at laft violently dashes his head against the wall, and falls down fpeechlefs, foaming with pain and fury, or perhaps drives his hand through the windows, and tears his flesh to prove the reality of this tragi-comic farce, and how fincerely he believes himfelf injured by the accidental blunder of a fervant beyond all reparation. Who but must pity the hard condition of those who are confined to fuffer under fuch a difcontented, unjuft, dangerous, and capricious master?

I know every man will disclaim the picture, and fay, perhaps, with a deal of felf-complancy,*Though I muft acknowledge my features are at times a little difcompofed by paffion, they never fuffer fuch horrid diftortions as are here delineated." Have a care of felf-love; it is a fmiling, fly, infidious enemy, and ftabs while it ftroaks; but, above all, beware of evil habit, which, like a deformed face, will fhock your feelings at its first appearance, but will feem more familiar and lefs difagreeable every hour you are in its company. We cannot become either virtuous or vi cious, refractory or refigned; that is, I mean ha bitually fo, in a day, it is the work of time, and no man need be difcouraged, however wrong a

path he may have ftrayed into, if he has courage and refolution enough to tread back, ftep by step, the false ftrides he hath taken they will re-conduct him into the high road of happiness, and once brought back again, he will feel with pleafure how nearly it concerns him to remain in it; like free livers, who are often the most abftemious of all men when regimen and the gout have convinced them of their former errors.

Hiftory abounds with examples of cruelty, which, however we may endeavour to amuse ourfelves with flight obfervations, were not fo much the effects of ferocity as habit. Angry men would do more mischief if they durft. Theodofius the Elder, notwithstanding the eulogiums given him by that particular fect which he favoured, would not have destroyed feven thousand people at Theffalonica in his paffion, if he had been under the influence of good habits; nor would Cælius the orator have quarrelled with a man in open court, because he would not contradict him, and that way deprived him of any reasonable opportunity of venting his fpleen, had he not been fubject to bad ones. Who could forbear laughing to fee a grave philofopher (Pyrrho), inftructor of mankind, run after a cook that had put him in a pet, with a spit and a hot joint of meat into the market place to beat him; Or at another (Philagrius), who in a fit of the spleen could not forbear giving one of his scholars a flap in the face while he was afleep? And who but muft pity him that heard him acknowledge he was never pleased, not even with himself? His was a ftrange, retrograde philofophy, whose business it is, as I understand it,