world, our English servants are the best treated, because the generality of our English gentlemen are the politest under the sun. — Goldsmith. CXXX. I courted fame but as a spur to brave CXXXI. Mallett. ; Wickedness may well be compared to a bottomless pit, into which it is easier to keep one's self from falling, than, being fallen, to give one's self any stay from falling infinitely. - Sir P. Sidney. CXXXII. The disposition and humour of friends should be dispensed withal; but when they impose upon us it is a very hard case, and an unreasonable condition of friendship. Those friends are weak and worthless, that will not use the privilege of friendship, in admonishing their friends with freedom and confidence, as well of their errors as of their danger.- Bacon. CXXXIII. I hate this Fame, false avarice of fancy, CXXXIV. Hill. Controuled depravity is not innocence; and it is not the labour of delinquency in chains that will correct abuses. Never did a serious plan of amending any old tyrannical establishment propose the authors and abettors of the abuses as the reformers, of them.-Burke. CXXXV. The man who pauses on his honesty CXXXVI. Martyn. Handsome people usually are so fantastically pleased with themselves, that if they do not kill atfirst sight (as the phrase is), a second interview disarms them of all their power.- Steele. CXXXVII. Drunkenness is a flattering devil, a sweet poison, a pleasant sin, which whosoever hath, hath not himself, which whosoever doth commit, doth not commit sin, but he himself is wholly sin. - St. Augustine. CXXXVIII. The passion of love is no more to be understood by some tempers, than a problem in a science by an ignorant man.-Tatler. CXXXIX. Forasmuch as to understand and to be mighty, are great qualities; the higher that they be, they are so much the less to be esteemed, if goodness also abound not in the possessor.-Sir P. Sidney. CXL. Some when they die, die all: their mould'ring clay, The space quite closes up thro' which they pass'd. Shall pluck the shining age from vulgar time, My name is writ in mighty characters, Whose splendour heightens our Egyptian day, Old earth itself shall fail. In after age, Who war or build, shall build or war from me, Grow great in each, as my example fires; "Tis I of art the future wonders raise, I fight the future battles of the world. CXLI. Young's Busiris. A man's wisdom is his best friend; folly his worst enemy.—Sir W. Temple. CXLII. Avoid the politic, the factious fool, The busy, buzzing, talking, harden'd knave; The quaint smooth rogue, that sins 'gainst his reason, Calls saucy loud sedition public zeal : And mutiny the dictates of his spirit. CXLIII. Otway. If the trade of war, glittering a figure as it makes, merited only our regard, I don't see one of the ancients who can reasonably be preferred to Hannibal: but it does not follow that he who knows it best is necessarily the greatest man. Justice, magnanimity, greatness of soul, a disinterested integrity, and an universal capacity, make up the better part of those great men.-St. Evrem. CXLIV. The just, though they hate evil, yet give men a patient hearing; hoping that they will shew proofs that they are not evil. —Sir P. Sidney. CXLV. We all take too much after the wife of Zebedee; every one would have something, such perhaps as we are ashamed to utter. The proud man would have a certain thing, honour; the covetous man would have a certain thing too, wealth and abundance; the malicious would have a certain thing, revenge on his enemies; the epicure would have pleasure and long life; the barren, children; the wanton, beauty; each would be humoured in his own desire, though in opposition both to God's will, and his own good.— Bishop Hall. CXLVI. When I first devoted myself to the public service, 1 considered how I should render myself fit for it; and this I did by endeavouring to discover what it was that gave the country the rank it holds in the world. I found that our prosperity and dignity arose principally, if not solely, from two sources:- our constitution and commerce. Both these I have spared no study to understand, and no endeavour to support. - Burke-to the Electors of Bristol. CXLVII. "Tis a mortification to a prince to see an old minister torn from him; but self-preservation is the first law of nature; and any man, in his senses, would sooner submit to part with his crutch, than his leg.-T. Brown. CXLVIII. To those persons who have vomited out of their souls all remnants of goodness, there rests a certain pride in evil; and having else no shadow of glory left them they glory to be constant in iniquity.—Sir P. Sidney. CXLIX. Time's minutes, whilst they're told, Do make us old; And every sand of his fleet glass, Increasing age as it doth pass, Insensibly sows wrinkles there, Where flowers and roses do appear. CL. Mayne. The powers of music are felt or known by all men, and are allowed to work strangely upon the mind and the body, the passions and the blood; to raise joy and grief; to give pleasure and pain; to cure diseases, and the mortal sting of the tarantula; to give motions to the feet as well as the heart; to compose disturbed thoughts; to assist and heighten devotion itself.-Sir W. Temple. CLI. -Kings, by grasping more than they could hold, First made their subjects by oppression bold; And popular sway, by forcing kings to give More than was fit for subjects to receive, Ran to the same extremes; and one excess Made both, by striving to be greater, less. CLII. Denham No man, because he hath done well before, shall have his present evils spared; but rather so much the more punished, as having shewed he knew how to be good, yet would, against his knowledge, be naught; reward is proper to well-doing; punishment to evil-doing; which must not be confounded, no more than good ana evil are to be mingled. SirP. Sidney. CLIII. Heav'n is a great way off, and I shall be Though my poor soul get thither upon crutches. VOL. III. Shirley. |