Seneca observes well, that it is the constant fault and inseparable ill quality of ambition never to look behind it.

Let not the grandeur of any man's station render him proud and wilful; but let him remember, when he is surrounded by a crowd of suppliants, death shall level him with the meanest of mankind.

A poor spirit is poorer than a poor purse. A very few pounds a-year would ease a man of the scandal of avarice.

'Tis as disagreeable to a prodigal to keep an account of his expenses, as it is for a sinner to examine his conscience: the deeper they search, the worse they find themselves.

Interest speaks all manner of languages, and acts all sorts of parts: virtues are lost in interest, as rivers in the sea.

Tantalus, it is said, was ready to perish with thirst, though up to the chin in water. Change but the name, and every rich miser is the Tantalus in the fable. He sits gaping over his money, and dares no more touch it than he dares commit sacrilege.

Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness. But, alas! when we are

at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of real misery. We are placed where time cannot improve, but must impair us; where chance and change cannot befriend, but may betray us. In short, by attaining all we wish, and gaining all we want, we have only reached a pinnacle where we have nothing to hope, but everything to fear.-Colton.

I charge thee fling away ambition;

By that sin fell the angels, how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?

Shakespeare.

ATHER suffer wrong than enter into a lawsuit: the first loss is generally the least.

As it is a part of justice never to do violence, so it is a mark of modesty never to commit offence.

Justice is the foundation of an everlasting fame, and there can be nothing commendable without it. Justice seems most agreeable to the nature of the Deity, and mercy to that of man. A being who has nothing to pardon in himself may reward every man according to his works; but he whose very best actions must be seen with grains of allowance, cannot be too mild, moderate, and forgiving; for this reason, among all the monstrous characters in human nature, there is none so odious, nor indeed so exquisitely ridiculous, as that of a rigid, severe temper in a worthless man.

Nature bids me love myself, and hate all that hurt me; reason bids me love my friend, and hate those that envy me; religion bids me love all, and hate none, and overcome evil with good.

There is no man so contemptible but in distress. requires pity. It is inhuman to be altogether insensible of another's misery.

Archidemus being asked who was the master of Sparta? "The laws," said he, "and next them, the magistrates.”

Solon being asked—“Why, amongst his personal laws, there was not one against personal affronts ? ” answered "He could not believe the world so fantastical as to regard them."

Justice without mercy is extreme injury, and it is as great tyranny not to mitigate laws, as iniquity to break them. The extremity of right is extremity of wrong.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday.

Justice is the ground of charity.-Geo. Herbert.

Say, what is honour? 'Tis the finest sense
Of justice which the human mind can frame.
Wordsworth.

NVY is fixed only on merit; and, like a sore eye, is offended with everything that is bright.

The great law of mutual benevolence is, perhaps, oftener violated by envy than by interest. Selfinterest can diffuse itself but to a narrow compass. Interest requires some qualities not universally bestowed. Interest is seldom pursued but at some hazard; but to spread suspicion, to invent calumnies, to propagate scandal, requires neither talents, nor labour, nor courage.

Other passions have objects to flatter them, and seemingly to content and satisfy them for awhile. There is power in ambition, and pleasure in luxury, and pelf in covetousness; but envy can give nothing but vexation.