In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;
Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

To say a person writes a good style, is originally as pedantic an expression, as to say he plays a good fidd.e -Shenstone.

CXXXVII. /37

I fear the word bear is hardly to be understood among the polite people; but I take the meaning to be, that one who insures a real value upon an imaginary thing, is said to sell a bear, and is the same thing as a promise among courtiers, or a vow between lovers.-Tatler.

CXXXVIII. /3x

The good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in a variety of suits every day new; as if a good gown, like a stratagem in warre, were to be used but But our good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband's estate; and if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets what she is by match.-Fuller.

once.

CXXXIX.

I take an impudent fellow to be a sort of outlaw in good breeding, and therefore what is said of him no nation or person can be concerned for. For this reason one may be free upon him. I have put myself to great pains in considering this prevailing quality, which we call impudence, and have taken notice that it exerts itself in a different manner, according to the different soils wherein such subjects of these dominions as are masters of it were born. Impudence in an Englishman is sullen and insolent; in a Scotchman it is untractable and rapacious; in an Irishman absurd and fawning: as the course of the world now runs, the impudent Englishman behaves like a surly landlord, the Scot like an ill-received guest, and the

Irishman like a stranger, who knows he is not welcome. There is seldom any thing entertaining either in the impudence of a South or North Briton; but that of an Irishman is always comic. A true and genuine impudence is ever the effect of ignorance without the least sense of it.Steele.

CXL. +

Not actions always show the man: we find
Who does a kindness is not therefore kind

Perhaps prosperity becalm'd his breast;
Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east;
Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat,
Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the great.
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave;
He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave.
Who reasons wisely, is not therefore wise;
His pride in reas'ning, not in acting, lies.

CXLI. /4/

Pope.

The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint; the affectation of sauctity is a blotch on the face of piety.-Lavater.

CXLII.42.

What fool would trouble fortune more,
When she has been too kind before?
Or tempt her to take back again
What she had thrown away in vain,
By idly vent'ring her good graces
To be dispos'd of by ames-aces;
Or settling it in trust to uses
Out of his pow'r, on trays and deuses;
To put it to the chance, and try,
I' th' ballot of a box and dye,
Whether his money be his own,
And lose it, if he be o'erthrown;
As if he were betray'd, and set
By his own stars to ev'ry cheat,

Or wretchedly condemn'd by fate
To throw dice for his own estate;
As mutineers, by fatal doom,
Do for their lives upon a drum?
For what less influence can produce
So great a monster as a chouse,
Or any two-legg'd thing possess
With such a brutish sottishness?
Unless those tutelary stars,
Entrusted by astrologers

To have the charge of man, combin'd
To use him in the self-same kind;

As those that help'd them to the trust.

Butler-on Gaming.

CXLIII. 143

A fool can neither eat, nor drink, nor stand, nor walk, nor, in short, laugh, nor cry, nor take snuff, like a man of How obvious the distinction!-Shenstone.

sense.

CXLIV. /44

He is treated like a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the audience into raptures.-Goldsmith.

CXLV.

Sweetness of temper is not an acquired, but a natural excellence; and, therefore, to recommend it to those who have it not, may be deemed rather an insult than advice. —Adventurer.

CXLVI.

Philosophy, a name of meek degree,
Enbrac'd in token of humility,

By the proud sage, who, whilst he strove to hide,
In that vain artifice reveal'd his pride;
Philosophy, whom nature had design'd
To purge all errors from the human mind,
Herself misled by the philosopher,

At once her priest and master, made us err:

E

Pride, pride like leaven in a mass of flour,
Tainted her laws, and made e'en virtue sour.

CXLVII./4

Churchill.

Penance is only the punishment inflicted; not penitence, which is the right word: a man comes not to do penance, because he repents him of his sin, but because he is compelled to it; curses him, and would kill him that sends him thither. The old canons wisely enjoin three years' penance, sometimes more, because in that time a man got a habit of virtue, and so committed that sin no more, for which he did penance.-Selden.

CXLVIII./4

There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary, which is so slightly performed, as that of a schoolmaster. The reasons whereof I conceive to be these. First, young scholars make this calling their refuge; yea, perchance before they have taken any degree in the university, commence schoolmasters in the countrey, as if nothing else were required to set up this profession, but onely, a rod and a ferula. Secondly, others who are able, use it onely as a passage to better preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainfull calling. Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with the miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to the children, and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown rich, they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the proxie of an usher.-Fuller.

CXLIX.

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.-Steele.

CL/50

To smatter ends of Greek

Or Latin be the rhetorique

Of pedants counted, and vain-glorious,
To smatter French is meritorious;
And to forget their mother-tongue,
Or purposely to speak it wrong,
A hopeful sign of parts and wit,
And that they' improve and benefit:
As those that have been taught amiss
In lib'ral arts and sciences,

Must all they 'ad learnt before in vain
Forget quite, and begin again.

CLI./57

Butler.

He, who attempts to make others believe in means which he himself despises, is a puffer; he, who makes use of more means than he knows to be necessary, is a quack; and he, who ascribes to those means a greater efficacy than his own experience warrants, is an impostor.Lavater. CLII. / 52.

Appetite, which is elder brother to reason, being the lad of stronger growth, is sure, on every contest, to take the advantage of drawing all to his own side. And will, so highly boasted, is, at best, merely a top or football between these youngsters, who prove very unfortunately matched; till the youngest, instead of now and then a kick or lash bestowed to little purpose, forsakes the ball or top itself, and begins to lay about his elder brother! Tis then that the scene changes. For the elder like an arrant coward, upon this treatment, presently grows civil, and affords the younger as fair play afterwards as he can desire.-Shaftesbury.

CLIII. /53

They that cry down moral honesty, cry down that which is a great part of my religion, my duty towards God, and my duty towards man. What care I to see a man run after a sermon, if he cozens and cheats as soon