and falsehood in the most recent actions. But the matter never comes to any issue, if trusted to the common method of altercation, and debate, and flying rumours: especially when men's passions have taken party on either side,

In the infancy of new religions, the wise and learned commonly esteem the matter too inconsiderable to deserve their attention and regard: and when afterwards they would willingly detect the cheat, in order to undeceive the deluded multitude, the season is now past, and the records and witnesses, which might clear up the matter, have perished beyond recovery. No means of detection remain but those which must be drawn from the very testimony itself of the reporters: and these, though always sufficient with the judicious and knowing, are commonly too fine to fall under the comprehension of the vulgar.-Ano n

429. What men desire should be true they are most inclined to believe.— The understanding, therefore, rejects things difficult as being impatient of enquiry: things just and solid because they limit hope and the deeper mysteries of nature through superstition: it rejects the light of experience through pride and haughtiness, as disdaining the mind should be meanly and waverly employed: it excludes paradoxes for fear of the vulgar: and thus the affections tinge and infect the understanding numberless ways and sometimes imperceptibly.—Bacon.

430. Poverty the cause of Crime.-It is these laws of inequality which engender poverty, and poverty is the natural parent of all the corruptions which exist. When the immortal Bard introduces Romeo, in a state of desperation, seeking out an instrument of his own destruction he properly applies to a wretched victim of penury and want, from whom he requires certain poisonous drugs, not labouring to conceal the design of his application; the poor apothecary replies, that such drugs he has, but the laws of his country are death to any person detected in the sale of them. Romeo then attacks him with the invincible argument of reason and of nature; he appeals to that poverty which stings and goads him. He tells the son of misery, "that the world is not his friend, nor the world's Law; that the world affords no law to make him happy, then why should he consent to be longer wretched, when the means are offered of removing his wretchedness."

On the above principle, the apothecary is corrupted, and sells the poison, telling him, "my poverty, but not my will consents." Thus it will ever be, nature must prevail.

Naturam expellas furca licet, usque recurret.—Manners of the Age, 1792.

431. Bounty. He that spends to his proportion, is as brave as a prince; and a prince exceeding that, is a prodigal: there is no gallantry beyond what is fit and decent. A comely beauty is better than a painted Unseemly bounty is waste both of wealth and wit.-Feltham.

one.

432. A Professional Objection.-A clergyman in Scotland desired his hearers never to call one another liars, but when any one said "the thing that was not," they ought to whistle. One Sunday he preached a sermon on the parable of the loaves and fishes; and being at a loss how to explain it, he said the loaves were not like those now-a-days-they were as big as some of the hills in Scotland. He had scarcely pronounced these words when he heard a loud whistle. Wha's that" said he, ca's me a liar?”—“It is I, Willy M'Donald, the baker."—"Well, Willy, what objection have ye to what I ha' told ye?"-None Mess John-only I want to know what sort of ovens they had to bake these loaves in." Anon.

433. On Organic Life.-Such is the condition of organic nature, that its first law is "eat and be eaten," and which would seem to be one great slaughter-house; one universal scene of rapacity and injustice! All organized nature is either stationary or loco-motive: the former are called vegetables, and the latter, animals.—The nutritious part of vegetables consists of aliment secreted from vegetable blood, as honey, oil and mucilage, and laid up in reservoirs for the future sustenance of their embryon or infant progeny; which reservoirs are plundered by locomotive animals, and devoured along with the progeny they were designed to support. Add to this, that the stronger loco-motive animals devour the weaker ones without mercy.-Darwin,

434. An inconstant woman is one who is no longer in love: a false woman, is one who is already in love with another person: a fickle woman is she who neither knows whom she loves, nor whether she loves or no: and the indifferent woman, one who does not love at all. Bruyere.

435. Daughters.---When a young woman behaves to her parents in a manner particularly tender and respectful, I mean from principle as well as nature, there is nothing good and gentle that may not be expected from her, in whatever condition she is placed. Of this I am so thoroughly persuaded, that, were I to advise any friend of mine as to his choice of a wife, I know not whether my very first counsel would not be, "Look out for one distinguished by her attention and sweetness to her parents." The fund of worth and affection, indicated by such a behaviour, joined to the habits of duty and consideration thereby contracted, being transferred to the married state, will not fail to render her a mild and obliging companion.---Fordyce.

436. Good Qualities,---I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very servicable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.---Swift.

437. That "the King can do no wrong."-A very superficial acquaintance with our history, suffices to prove that the fundamental maxim in our Constitution, "THE KING CAN DO NO WRONG," that he is infallible in his actions, as the Pope in his judgments, has been frequently violated. We read in Rapin, how Edward the Second, when conquered, and made prisoner by his wife, was tried by the Parliament, which decreed, "that he had done all possible wrongs, and thereby forfeited his right to the Crown." The parliament tried and convicted Richard the Second; thirty-one articles of impeachment were alledged against him, two of which were very remarkable; but not very uncommon ones, "that he had borrowed money without paying it;" the other, that he had declared before witnesses, that he was master of the lives and property of his subjects." The parliament deposed Henry the Sixth,-declared Edward the Fourth a traitor, confiscated his effects, and afterwards restored him in his prosperity. In regard to Richard the Third-he certainly had committed more wrongs than all his predecessors. He was another Nero, but a politic, courageous Nero; and hence, the prudent parliament did not declare the wrongs which he had done, till after his death.

In later times, the representatives of the English nation brought to trial and condemned Charles the First, to lose his head on the block,declared James the Second to have done the greatest wrongs, and in consequence dethroned him.

These few historical traits plainly announce, in cases of urgency, how easy it is to dispense with this article of our Constitution. Manners of the Age, 1792,

438. Old Age. This is the age in which we ought calmly to take the fitting estimate of the opinions of the world. In youth we are too apt to despise, in maturity too inclined to over-rate, the sentiments of others, and the silent influences of the public. It is right to fix the medium. Among the happiest and proudest possessions of a man is his character-it is a wealth-it is a rank of itself. It usually procures him the honours and rarely the jealousies of Fame. Like most treasures that are attained less by circumstances than ourselves, character is a more felicitous reputation than glory. The wise man therefore despises not the opinion of the world.-Bulwer.

439. Intellectual decay, doubtless is not uncommon; but it is not universal. Newton was in his eighty-fifth year improving his chronology, and Waller at eighty-two, is thought to have lost none of his poetic powers.---Dr. Johnson.

440. The badness of the times (as the vulgar phrase expresses a scene of distress) frequently depends more on those who govern the ship than on the weather.---Zimmerman.

441. Destiny.-The world subsists either by its own nature, by its physical laws, or a Supreme Being has formed it by his primitive laws. In either case these laws are immutable; in either case every thing is necessary. Heavy bodies gravitate towards the centre of the earth, and cannot tend to remain in the air; pear-trees can never bear pineapples; the instinct of a spaniel can never be the instinct of an ostrich: every thing is arranged, set in motion and limited.-Man can have but a certain number of teeth, hair, and ideas; and a time comes when he necessarily loses them. It is a contradiction that what was yesterday has not been, and what is to day should not be: no less a contradiction is it that a thing which is to be should not come to pass.--If thou couldst give a turn to the destiny of a fly, I see no reason why thou mightest not as well determine the destiny of all other flies, of all other animals, of all men, and of all nature; so that at last thou wouldst be more powerful than God himself.-It is common for weak people to say, such a physician has cured a person of a dangerous illness; he has added to his life ten years. Others as weak, but in their own opinion very wise, say, the prudent man owes his fortune to himself. But the prudent man oftentimes is crushed by his destiny, instead of making it: it is their destiny that renders men prudent.—The physician has saved a person; allowed: but herein he certainly did not reverse the order of nature; he conformed to it. It is evident that the person could not hinder his being born in such a town, and having a certain illness at such a time; that the physician could be no where but in the town where he was; that the person was to send for him: and that he was to prescribe those medicines which effected the cure.—A peasant imagines that the hail which has fallen in his ground is purely matter of chance, but the philosopher knows that there is no such thing as chance; and that by the constitution of the world, it must necessarily have hailed that day in that very place.

Some, alarmed at this truth, say there are necessary events, and others which are not so: but it would be odd indeed that one part of this world were fixed and not the other; that some things which happen were to happen, and that others which happen were not necessarily to happen. On a close examination, the doctrine which opposes that of destiny must appear loaded with absurdities, and contrary to the idea of an eternal Providence. But many are destined to reason wrongly; others not to reason at all; and others to persecute those who do reason.

Voltaire.

442. Servility.-There is nothing to me, more irksome, than to hear weak and servile people repeat with admiration every silly speech that falls from a person of mere rank and fortune. The nonsense grows more nauseous through the medium of their admiration, and shews the venality of vulgar tempers, which can consider fortune as the goddess of wit.-Shenstone.

443. Simplicity is the great friend to nature; and if I would be proud of anything in this silly world, it should be of this honest alliance. Sterne's Sermons.

492.

Dissimulation.-Dissimulation in vice, is like the brain in man. All the senses have recourse to that, yet is it much controverted whether that be at all sensitive or no: so all vices fall into dissimulation, yet is it in dispute, whether that in itself be a vice or no.

Surely men would never act vice so freely, if they thought not they could escape the shame of it by dissembling. Vice hath such a loathed look with her, that she desires to be ever masked. Deceit is a dress that she continually wears; and howsoever the world's corrupted course may make us sometimes use it, even this will condemn it, that it is not of use but either when we do ill ourselves, or meet with ill from others. Men are divided about the question; some disclaim all, some admit too much, and some have hit the mean: and as the world is, it is not all condemnable. There is an honest policy. The heart is not so far from the tongue but that there may be a reservation, though not a contradiction between them. All policy is but circumstantial dissembling: pretending one thing, intending another.-Feltham.

444. Temperance in pleasure is essentially necessary to be observed, particularly by youth, that they may beware of that rock, on which thousands, from race to race, continually split. The love of pleasure, natural to man in every period of his life, glows at this age with excessive ardour.---Novelty adds fresh charms, as yet, to every gratification. The world appears to spread a continual feast; and health, vigour, and high spirits invite them to partake of it without restraint. In vain are they warned of the latent danger.---The old, when they offer their admonitions, are upbraided with having forgot that they once were young. And yet, to what do the counsels of age, with respect to pleasure amount? They may all be comprised in few words, not to hurt ourselves, and not to hurt others by our pursuit of pleasure, and those will be fully affected by temperance. Within these bounds pleasure is lawful, beyond them it becomes criminal, because it is ruinous.---Dr. Blair.

445. Distress.---Nothing so powerful calls home the mind as distress: the tense fibre then relaxes,---the soul retires to itself, sits pensive and susceptible of right impressions: If we have a friend, 'tis then we think of him; if a benefactor, at that moment all his kindness press upon our mind.---Sterne's Sermons

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