When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them; when I consider rival wits placed side by side; or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be cotemporaries and make our appearance together.

Spectator.

Plato hearing it was asserted by some persons that he was a very bad man," I shall take care,' said he, "to live so that nobody will believe them." Guardian.

IGNORANCE.-Ages of ignorance and simplicity, are thought to be ages of purity; the direct contrary I believe to be the case; rude periods have that grossness of manners which is not less friendly to virtue than luxury itself. Men are less ashamed as they are less polished.-Warton.

The talent of turning men into ridicule, and exposing to laughter those one converses with, is the qualification of little ungenerous tempers. A young man with this cast of mind cuts himself off from all manner of improvement.-Spectator.

C

Justice and generosity rightly blended constitute a dignified character; but certainly so far as a person is more just than generous, or more generous than just, that character is defective.-Dillwyn.

Men and statues that are admired in an elevated situation, have a very different effect upon us when we approach them; the first appear less than we imagined them, the last larger.-Rochefoucault.

SIN. If you would be free from sin fly temptation; he that does not endeavour to avoid the one cannot expect Providence to protect him from the other. If the first sparks of ill were quenched there would be no flame, for how can he kill who dares not be angry; or be an adulterer in act who does not transgress in thought; how can he be perjured that fears an oath; who defraud that does not allow himself to covet?-Palmer's Aphorisms.

HAPPINESS. I see only one happiness beyond standing in need of nobody; which is that of doing good to every body.-School of Man.

HOSPITALITY.

No-long as life this mortal shall inspire
Or as my children imitate their sire,

Here shall the wand'ring stranger find his home,

And hospitable rights adorn the throne.

Alike he thwarts the hospitable end,

Pope's Odyssey.

Who drives the free, or stays the hasty friend,
True friendship's laws are by this rule exprest,
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.-Ibid.

MALICE.-Seneca has very elegantly said, that "malice drinks one half of its own poison."

Credit is like a looking glass, which when only sullied by an unwholesome breath, may be wiped clean again, but if once it is cracked it is never to be repaired.-Scott.

Credit once lost is never to be retriev'd,

How few will trust the man who once deceived.

PROSPERITY.

More in prosperity is reason tost

Pope.

Than ships in storms, their helms and anchors lost;
Before fair gales not all our sails we bear,

But with side winds into safe harbours steer,
More ships in calms on a deceitful coast

Or unseen rocks, than in high seas are lost.-Denham.

RALEIGH. It was said by Sir Walter Raleigh, when some of his friends lamented his confinement under a sentence of death, which he knew not how soon he might suffer,- "that the world itself was only a larger prison, out of which some were every day selected for execution."-The Adventurer.

QUICKSILVER.-It appears from accurate observations, that a little globule of quicksilver, not exceeding a coriander seed in magnitude, may by only pressing it between the finger and thumb, be divided into twenty-seven millions of small particles, all retaining their argentine lustre and globular form, as may be seen through a microscope.

Keysler's Travels.

In our endeavours to correct each others faults, we should not forget that they are like sores of the body, which no one can well bear being roughly handled. In either case, hard friction irritates and often makes bad worse.-Dillwyn.

When a man is afraid of looking into the state of his own concerns, they generally stand most in need of inspection.-Dillwyn's Reflections.

The bee and the butterfly are both busy bodies, but they are differently employed.-Ibid.

One watch set right, will do to try many by; and on the other hand, one that goes wrong, may be the means of misleading a whole neighbourhood. And the same may be said of the example we individually set to those around us. Ibid.

LAW AND PHYSIC.-It is a maxim that law and physic should only be made use of for necessity. Rule of Life.

MANNERS.-Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse; whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred man in company.-Swift.

WISDOM.-Many people make a proper use of the light, yet can any say but little more of the sun from which it proceeds than that they know the times of its rising and setting. Such diligently employing themselves in the proper business of the day, sooner rise into affluence than many who calculate eclipses and explain the solar and planetary system. Dillwyn's Reflections.

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ATTENTION.-A kind attention to strangers is very grateful to them, and generally recommended, yet few who have not been in that situation themselves, are sufficiently sensible of its importance;

and of those who have been, too many, when at home, are negligent in that duty.-Dillwyn.

EXECUTIONS.-Governments which punish one man with death for killing another, seem in some degree to justify the act; the difference is, that his act is aggressive and theirs retaliatory.-Ibid.

HONESTY. No man is wise or safe but he that is honest.-Sir Walter Raleigh.

REVENGE.-By taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over he is superior.-Lord Bacon.

To be able to bear provocation is an argument of great reason, and to forgive it of a great mind. Archbishop Tillotson.

TREATY. The noblest treaty of peace ever mentioned in history, is, in my opinion, that which Gelon made with the Carthaginians. He insisted upon their abolishing the custom of sacrificing their children! After having defeated three hundred thousand Carthaginians, he required a condition that was advantageous only to themselves, or rather he stipulated in favour of human nature.—Montesquieu.

SCRIPTURE. The names of the countries of Boulan, Hadramant, Sheba, Disklam, Uzal, Iarac, of the Sabeans, and Dedan called by corruption Adan, still subsist in Arabia the Happy, to confirm the testimony of Moses, above 4000 years ago; and yielding an authentic proof of the truth of the rest of the settlements recorded by Moses in his book of Genesis, upon which some commentators do not