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the wrong; which is but faying in other words, that he is wifer to day than he was yesterday.

WHEREVER I find a great deal of gratitude in a povr man, I take it for granted there would be as much generofity if he were a rich man.

FLOWERS of rhetoric in fermons or ferious difcourfes are like the blue and red flowers in corn, pleafing to those who come only for amufement, but prejudicial to him who would reap the profit.

Ir often happens that thofe are the beft people, whose characters have been most injured by flanderers: as we ufually find that to be the sweetest fruit, which the birds have been picking at.

THE eye of the critic is often like a microfcope; made fo very fine and nice, that it discovers the atoms, grains, and minuteft particles, without ever comprehending the whole, comparing the parts, or feeing all at once the harmony.

MEN's zeal for religion is much of the fame kind as that ' which they show for a foot-ball: whenever it is contested for, every one is ready to venture their lives and limbs in the difpute; but when that is once at an end, it is no more thought on, but fleeps in oblivion, buried in rubbish, which no one thinks it worth his pains to rake into, much less to

-remove.

HONOUR is but a fictitious kind of honefty; a mean but a neceffary fubftitute for it, in societies who have none; it is a fort of paper credit, with which men are obliged to trade, who are deficient in the fterling cash of true morality and religion.

PERSONS of great delicacy fhould know the certainty of the following truth: there are abundance of cafes which Occafion fufpenfe, in which whatever they determine they will repent of the determination; and this through a propenfity of human nature to fancy happiness in those fchemes which it does not purfue. R 6:

THE

THE chief advantage, that ancient writers can boast over modern ones, feems owing to fimplicity. Every noble truth and fentiment was expreffed by the former in a natural manner; in word and phrafe fimple, perfpicuous, and inca pable of improvement. What then remained for later writers, but affectation, witticism, and conceit ?

CHAP. VIII.

WHAT a piece of work is man! how noble in reafon!

how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how exprefs and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehen fion how like a god!

IF to do, were as. eafy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages. princes' palaces. He is a good divine who follows his own. instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to. be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow my own teaching.

MEN's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.

THE web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together; our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would defpair, if they were not: cherished by our virtues.

THE fenfe of death is most in apprehenfion;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal fufferance feels a pang as great
As when a giant dies.

How far the little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Love all, truft a few,

Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than in ufe: keep thy friend
Under thy own life's key; be check'd for filence,
But never task'd for speech.

THE cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The folemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit fhall diffolve;
And, like the bafeless fabric of a vifion,

Leave not a wreck behind! We are fuch stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a fleep.

OUR indifcretion fometimes ferves us well,
When our deep plots do fail; and that should teach us,
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough hew them how we will.

THE Poet's eyes, in a fine phrenzy rolling,

Doth glance from Heaven to earth, from earth to Heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth

The form of things unknown, the Poet's pen
Turns them to fhape, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

HEAVEN doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd,
But to fine iffues: nor nature never lends
The smalleft fcruple of her excellence,
But, like a thrifty goddefs, the determines
Herfelf the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and ufe.

WHAT

WHAT ftronger breast-plate than a heart untainted?. Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel juft; And he but naked (though lock'd up in steel) Whofe confcience with injustice is corrupted.

CHAP. IX.

OH, World! thy flippery turns: Friends now fast fworn,

Whofe double bofoms feem to wear one heart,
Whofe hours, whofe bed, whofe meal and exercise
Are ftill together; who twine (as 'twere) in love
Infeparable; fhall within this hour,

On a diffenfion of a doit, break out

To bittereft enmity. So felleft foes,

Whofe paffions and whose plots have broke their sleep,
To take the one the other, by fome chance,

Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends,
And interjoin their iffues.

So it falls out,

That what we have we prize not to the worth
While we enjoy it; but being lack'd and loft,
Why then we wreak the value; then we find
The virtue that poffeffion would not show us
Whilft it was ours.

COWARDS die many times before their deaths; The valiant never tafte of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me moft ftrange that men fhould fear;
Seeing that death, a neceffary end,

Will come, when it will come.

THERE is fome foul of goodness in things evil, Would men obfervingly diftil it out,

For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers:

Which is both healthful and good husbandry;
Befides, they are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all; admonishing.
That we should dress us fairly for our end.

O MOMENTARY grace of mortal men,
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
Who builds his hope in th' air of men's fair looks,
Lives like a drunken failor on a maft,

Ready with every nod to tumble down

Into the fatal bowels of the deep.

WHO fhall go about

To cozen fortune, and be honourable
Without the stamp of merit? Let none préfume
To wear an undeserved dignity.

O that estates, degrees, and offices,

Were not derived corruptly, that clear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
How
many then should cover that ftand bare!
How many be commanded, that command !

Он who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frofty Caucafus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feaft?
Or wallow naked in December fnow
By thinking on fantaftic fummer's heat?
Oh, no! the apprehenfion of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse;
Fell forrow's tooth doth never rankle more,
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the fore.

'Tis flander,

Whofe edge is fharper than the sword; whofe tongue

Outvenogns

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