CCCCLXXXV.

It would not be amiss, if an old bachelor, who lives in contempt of matrimony, were obliged to give a portion to an old maid who is willing to enter into it.—Tatler

CCCCLXXXVI.

Let wits, like spiders, from the tortur'd brain
Fine-draw the critic web with curious pain;
The gods-a kindness I with thanks must pay,
Have formed me of a coarser kind of clay ;
Nor stung with envy, nor with spleen diseas'd,
A poor dull creature still with nature pleas'd :
Hence to thy praises, Garrick, I agree,

And pleas'd with nature must be pleas'd with thee.

Churchill's Rosciad.

CCCCLXXXVII.

If words be a lie without reservation, they are so with it for this does not alter the words themselves. nor the meaning of the words; nor the purpose of him who delivers them.-Bishop Taylor.

CCCCLXXXVIII.

How hard soe'er it be to bridle wit,
Yet memory oft no less requires the bit .
How many hurried by its force away,
For ever in the land of gossips stray!
Usurp the province of the nurse to lull,
Without her privilege of being dull!
Tales upon tales they raise ten stories high,
Without regard to use or symmetry.

CCCCLXXXIX.

Stilling fleet

All the virtues that have been ever in mankind are to be counted upon a few fingers, but his follies and vices are innumerable, and time adds hourly to the heap. The utmost a poor poet can do, is to get by heart a list of the cardinal virtues, and deal them with his utmost liberality to his hero or his patron: he may ring the changes as far

as it will go, and vary his phrases till he has talked round; but the reader quickly finds it is all pork with a little variety of sauce: for there is no inventing terms of art beyond our ideas; and when ideas are exhausted, terms of art must be so too.-Swift.

CCCCXC.

The nature of wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden, and that of judgment to have it more deliberate and more slow but he who remains totally silent for want of leisure to prepare himself to speak well, and he also whom leisure does no ways benefit to better speaking, are equally unhappy.-Montaigne.

CCCCXCI.

Conceit and confidence are both of them cheats; the first always imposes on itself, the second frequently deceives others too.-Zimmerman.

CCCCXCII.

When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose but we ought to suspend our judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one.

-Burke.

CCCCXCIII.

What if a man delight to pass his time

In spinning reason into harmless rhyme,
Or sometimes boldly venture to the play?-
Say, where's the crime-great man of prudence, say
No two on earth in all things can agree ;

All have some darling singularity:

Women and men, as well as girls and boys,
In gewgaws take delight, and sigh for toys.

Your sceptres and your crowns, and such like things,
Are but a better kind of toys for kings.

In things indiff'rent, reason bids us choose,
Whether the whim's a monkey, or a muse.

CCCCXCIV.

Churchill.

There are a set of malicious, prating, prudent gossips, both male and female, who murder characters to kill time; and will rob a young fellow of his good name before he has years to know the value of it.-Sheridan.

CCCCXCV.

From the bear-garden of the pedagogue, a raw unprincipled boy is turned loose upon the world to travel, without any ideas but those of improving his dress at Paris, or starting into taste by gazing on some paintings at Rome. Ask him of the manners of the people, and he will tell you that the skirt is worn much shorter in France, and that every body eats macaroni in Italy. When he returns home, he buys a seat in parliament, and studies the constitution.-Mackenzie.

CCCCXCVI.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour bless'd,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeather'd two-legged thing, a son.

CCCCXCVII.

Dryden.

The world is so full of ill-nature, that I have lampoons sent me by people who cannot spell, and satires composed by those who scarce know how to write.-Spectator.

CCCCXCVIII.

He that is respectless in his courses,

Oft sells his reputation at cheap market.

Ben Jonson.

CCCCXCIX.

I am not concern'd to know
What to-morrow fate will do:
'Tis enough that I can say,
I've possessed myself to-day:
Then, if haply midnight death
Seize my flesh and stop my breath,
Yet to-morrow I shall be

Heir to the best part of me.

D.

Watts.

To buy books, as some do who make no use of them, only because they were published by an eminent printer, is much as if a man should buy clothes that did not fit him, only because they were made by some famous taylor. -Pope.

DI.

Let high birth triumph! What can be more great?
Nothing-but merit in a low estate.

To virtue's humblest son let none prefer
Vice, though descended from the Conqueror.
Shall men, like figures, pass for high, or base,
Slight, or important, only by their place?
Titles are marks of honest men, and wise;
The fool, or knave that wears a title, lies.

DII.

Young.

Cannot he that wisely declines walking upon the ice for fear of falling, though possibly it might carry him sooner to his journey's end, as wisely forbear drinking more wine than is necessary, for fear of being drunk and the ill-consequences thereof ?-Lord Clarendon,

DIII.

If we must lash one another, let it be with the manly strokes of wit and satire; for I am of the old philosopher's

opinion, that if I must suffer from one or the other, I would rather it should be from the paw of a lion, than from the hoof of an ass.-Addison.

DIV.

It is well known what strange work there has been in the world, under the name and pretence of reformation; how often it has turned out to be, in reality, deformation; or, at best, a tinkering sort of business, where, while one hole has been mended, two have been made.-Bishop DV.

Horne.

Too large a credit has made many a bankrupt, but taking even less than a man can answer with ease, is a sure fund for extending it whenever bis occasions require. -Preface to the Guardian.

DVI.

None ever was a great poet that applied himself much to any thing else.-Sir W. Temple.

DVII.

The proverbs of several nations were much studied by Bishop Andrews, and the reason he gave was, because by them he knew the minds of several nations, which is a brave thing. Selden.

DVIII.

Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance; which was probably the reason, that in the heathen mythology, Momus is said to be the son of Nox, and Somnus of Darkness and Sleep.-Addison.

DIX.

It is more from carelessness about truth, than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.-Johnson.

DX.

Look thro' the world-in ev'ry other trade

The same employment's cause of kindness made,