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Materials for Thinking,

EXTRACTED FROM THE WORKS OF

ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORS.

"WHATEVER CHARITY WE OWE TO MEN'S PERSONS, WE OWE NONE TO

THEIR ERRORS."-Bishop Burnet.

No. XXIII.

Published Weekly.

[Price One Penny.

578.

Gin Drinking. In the gray of the Sunday morning, at the sound of the matin-bell the gin temples open wide their portals to all comers. Time was when gin was to be fouud only in by-lanes and blind alleys-in dirty obscure holes, yclep'd dram-shops; but now, thanks to the enlightened and paternal government of 'the first captain of the age,' gin is become a giant demigod—a mighty spirit, dwelling in gaudy gold beplastered temples, erected to his honour in every street, and worshipped by countless thousands, who daily sacrifice at his shrine their health, their strength, their money, their minds, their bodies, wives, children, sacred home, and liberty. Jaggernaut is but a fool to him!-for the devotees of Jaggernaut do put themselves in the way of being crushed to death beneath his chariot-wheels, and are put out of their misery at once; but the devotees of the great spirit, gin, devote themselves to lingering misery; for his sake they are contented to drag on a degraded nasty existence-to see their children pine, dwindle, and famish; to steep themselves in poverty to the very lips, and die at last poor, sneaking, beadle-kicked, gruel-swollen paupers! Sunday is especially devoted to the worship of this great spirit; and when the early Sabbath bells announce the arrival of that day, then do the 'lower orders' begin to shake off the beery slumbers of the midnight pay-table, and wander forth in maudlin unwashed multitudes to the temples of the great spirit, gin; and there, you may see them, the ancient and the infant of a span long, old men and maidens, grandsires, and grandams, fathers and mothers, husbands, wives and children, crowding and jostling, like so many maggots in a grease-pot,' and sucking in the portions of the spirit which the flaunting priestesses of the temple dole out to them in return for their copper offerings.-Sunday in London.

579. Affection is the rich gratitude of admiration.--Zimmerman,

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580. Miseries of Wealth. It is to have a subscription-paper handed you every hour, and to be called a niggard if you once refuse your name. It is to have every college, infirmary, and asylum, make a run upon the bank of your benevolence, and then rail at the smallness of the dividend. It is to pay the tailor for all his bad customers, and compensate the tradesman for what he loses by knavery or extravagance. It is either to be married for money, or to have a wife always casting up the sum total of the fortune she brought.—It is to be invited to drink poor wine, that you may give better in return.--It is to have greater temptations than others in this world; and to find the entrance to a better more difficult than to the rest of mankind.-The Mother's Story-book.

581. Employment of Time.-When monopolies became frequent in the Court of France, the king's jester begged to have one for himself: viz. a louis-d'or of every one who carried a watch about him, and yet cared not how he employed his time.—Anon.

582. Alchymy. The pursuit of Alchymy is at an end. Yet surely to Alchymy this right is due, that it may truly be compared to the husbandman whereof Æsop makes the fable, that when he died, told his sons he had left unto them a great mass of gold buried under ground in his vineyard, but did not remember the particular place where it was hidden; who when they had with spades turned up all the vineyard, gold indeed they found none; but by reason of their stirring and digging the mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the year following: so the painful search and stir of Alchymists to make gold, hath brought to light a great number of good and fruitful experiments, as well for the disclosing of nature, as the use of man's life.

Bacon.

583. Invitation to a Fever.-He that tempts me to drink beyond my measure, civilly invites me to a fever.-Jeremy Taylor.

584. The demoralizing influence of War.-A wise minister would rather preserve peace, than gain a victory; because he knows that, even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them. These are real evils that cannot be brought into a list of indemnities, and the demoralizing influence of war is not the least of them. The triumphs of truth are the most glorious, chiefly because they are the most bloodless of all victories, deriving their highest lustre from the number of the saved, not of the slain. Lacon.

585. Ingratitude.-You seldom find people ungrateful so long as you are in a condition to serve them.-Rochefoucault.

586. The depravity of human nature is a favourite topic with the priests, but they will not brook that the laity should descant upon it; in this respect they may be compared to those husbands who freely abuse their own wives, but are ready to cut the throat of any other man

who does so.-C. C. Colton.

587. Art of Memory.-The best way to remember a thing is thoroughly to understand it, and often to recal it to mind.

By reading continually with great attention, and never passing a passage without understanding and considering it well, the memory will be stored with knowledge; and things will occur at times when we want them, though we can never recollect the passages, or from whence we draw our ideas.

I heard a gentleman remarkable for a strong memory, complain, that when he sat down to compose, he experienced great difficulty from being encumbered with the thoughts, sentiments and language of other authors. I have experienced something of this myself.-Dr. Trusler.

588. Formation of Character.--Experience has proved that man has always been the creature of the circumstances in which he has been placed; and that it is the character of those circumstances which inevitably makes him ignorant or intelligent, vicious or virtuous, wretched or happy.-The New Moral World.

589. Shopkeeper.-He lives by the labour of his own tongue and other men's hands, and gains more by his flat downright lying than the artificer does by all his industry.

His tongue is a kind of tailor's goose or hot press, with which he sets the last gloss upon his coarse decayed wares.

He walks in his shop with the yard-wand always in his hand instead of a staff, that it may wear shorter and save his conscience harmless, if he should have occasion to swear it was never cut since he had it.

The more trust men repose in him, the more certain he is to cheat them, as tailors always make the clothes of those the scantiest who allow them the largest measure.

He sets a value on his commodities, not according to their true worth, but the ignorance of the buyer: and always sells cheapest to those whom he finds to understand most of his trade; but he that leaves it to him is sure to be cheated; for he that lives by lying will never be scrupulous in making money by his reputation.-Butler.

590. Byron.-To let a person see that you have discovered his faults, is to make him an enemy for life (says Byron,) and yet this he does continually: he says, 'that the only truths a friend will tell you are your faults, and the only thing he will give you, is, advice.'---Lady B's Journal.

891. The Desire of Excelling.-But it will probably be asked, would I then extinguish every spark of vanity in the world, all thirst of fame, of splendour, of magnificence, of show, all desire of excelling or distinguishing one's self from the common herd? What must become of the public service, of sciences, arts, commerce, manufactures? The business of life must stagnate. Nobody would spend his youth in fatigues and dangers to qualify himself for becoming a general or admiral. Nobody would study, and toil, and struggle, and roar for liberty to be a minister. The merchant would not drudge on through the infirmities of age to fill his own coffers, and supply his country with foreign commodities. The artificer, having acquired an independence, would leave his business to be practised by novices and bunglers. The man of learning would not waste his time and spirits to enrich the public with knowledge, to combat error, or defend his favourite truths against all opposers. Poetry, painting, music, elegance, wit and humour, would be lost from among us; affability, politeness, gallantry, and the pleasures of refined conversation be things unknown. How would you

keep your children from rolling in the dirt without some motive of shame to influence them, or bring the schoolboy to ply close to his task? How prevent your sons from consorting with blackguards, or your daughters from romping with the grooms?

While we remain indolent and selfish, it may be necessary for us to have vanity to counteract those mischievous qualities, as one poison serves as an antidote to another. But I could wish that there were no necessity for the poison, which must always have a tendency to impair the constitution.

If masters can find no other way of making their lads apply to their learning willingly, but by exciting an emulation among them, I would not deprive them of the use of this instrument. But there may be a commendation which has no personal comparison in it, and the pleasure, the advantages, the credit of a proficiency in learning may be displayed in sufficient alluring colours, without suggesting a thought of superiority over others, or of being the foremost. I acknowledge that it is a very nice point to distinguish between the desire of excellence and the desire of excelling, and the one is very apt to degenerate insensibly into the other: yet I think it may be effected by an attentive and skilful tutor, and the first will answer all the good purposes of the latter, without running the hazard of its inconveniences

We may fairly conclude that the world would go on infinitely better if men would learn to do without it; and we may rank it among those evils permitted by Providence to bring forth some unknown good, but which we should neither encourage in ourselves or others.

Tucker's Light of Nature.

592. Fortune is like a market where oftentimes, if you can stay

awhile, the price will fall.-Lady Gethin.

593. Bodily and Mental Exercise.-It is certain that as in the body, when no labour or natural exercise is used, the spirits, which want their due employment, turn against the constitution, and find work for themselves in a destructive way; so in a soul, or mind unexercised and which languishes for want of action and employment, the thoughts and affections, being obstructed in their due course, and deprived of their natural energy, raise disquiet, and foment a rancorous eagerness and tormenting irritation. The temper from hence becomes more impotent in passion, more incapable of real moderation, and, like prepared fuel, readily takes fire by the least spark.-Shaftesbury.

594. Mother Wit.-By this homely appellation we wish to designate that natural superiority of intellect which some men possess over others. It is the gift of nature, and cannot be infused by education or acquired by the persevering exertions of industry. It is often discoverable in men the most uninformed and illiterate; and its absence may be perceived in others who have received the most finished education and whose minds are stored with the greatest variety of scientifical information. It is generally termed good natural sense; but is altogether different from that quickness of intellect usually denominated wit. It appears to have no connexion with cunning and duplicity, but is mostly accompanied by sincerity and candour. It always preserves its possessor from making a ridiculous display of his literary acquirements, and never fails to observe the first appearance of pedantry in others.

There are whom Heaven has blessed with store of wit,
Who want as much again to govern it.

Whatever may be meant by the wit mentioned in the first line of this couplet, the thing said to be wanting is the subject of our present remarks. The Savage.

595. Bereavement.-What news is it that a bird with wings should fly? Riches have such, and it is a thousand to one but some other did lose them before. I found them when another lost them, and now it is likely some other will find them from me; and though perhaps I may have lost a benefit, yet thereby likewise I may be eased of an encumbrance. In most things of this nature, it is the opinion of the loss, more than the loss, that vexes. If yet the only prop of my life were gone, I might rather wonder that in so many storms I rid so long with that one single anchor, that now, at last, should break and fail me. Feltham.

596. Despair.-Considering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair.---Fielding.

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