least with truths so corrupt that it is no easy matter to distinguish one from the other, we ought to remember that by the glittering pomp of his expression he chiefly designs to surprise our reason, and by the harmony of his cadence to please our ears; in order to make us admire his subject, and give us a great idea of himself. Such considerations as these, would serve us instead of an antidote, when we read their compositions which perhaps, may be of some profit to those who think rightly and justly, but are only fit to seduce others whose reason is not strong enough to pass a true judgment upon what pleases them too much.-Le Clerc's Parrhasiana.

893. The World.

O, world, thy slippery turns! Friends now fast sworn,
Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,

Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise,
Are still together: who twin, as 'twere, in love,
Unseparable, shall within this hour,

On a dissention of a doit, break out
To bitterest enmity: So, fellest foes,

Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep,
To take the one the other, by some chance,

Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends,
And interjoin their issues.-Shakspeare.

894. Canting.-There is in the religious world a species of canting totally different from all others, and which consists in a man's letting the public know, from his own confession what a worthless character he is. Thus, for instance, an Arminian Methodist, who persuades himself that he has been born again," or a Calvinist who has the presumption to believe that he is one of the "elect," makes no scruple to tell the world that he is " the vilest of sinners," and that "the thoughts of his heart are evil, and that continually;" but if a bystander should take him at his word, and say, "Aye, this is exactly the opinion I had formed of you in my own mind, notwithstanding your outward appearance of sanctity," it would quickly be found that this great sinner would shelter himself under the general corruption of human nature, and feel himself much offended at the application being made to him as an individual. The profession referred to is a direct cant, through which the devotee who loads himself with the most opprobrious epithets, expects to have the highest compliments paid to his piety and humility.---Anon.

895. Superfluities.-What man in his right senses, that has wherewithal to live free, would make himself a slave for superfluities? What does that man want, who has enough? Or what is he the better for abundance, that can never be satisfied?---L'Estrange.

896. Good Sense.-That good sense which nature affords us, is preferable to most of the knowledge that we can acquire.—Comines.

897. Character.-I have often observed, in the course of my experience of human life, that every man, even the worst, has something good about him; though very often nothing else than a happy temperament of constitution, inclining him to this or that virtue. For this reason, no man can say in what degree any other person besides himself can be, with strict justice, called wicked. Let any one of the strictest character for regularity of conduct amongst us, examine impartially how many vices he has never been guilty of, not from any care or vigilance, but for want of opportunity, or some accidental circumstance intervening; how many of the weaknesses of mankind he has escaped, because he was out of the line of such temptation; and, what often, if not always, weighs more than all the rest, how much he is indebted to the world's good opinion, because the world does not know all I say, any man who can thus think, will scan the failings, nay, the faults and crimes, of mankind around him with a brother's eye.Robert Burns.

898. Slander.

No, 'tis slander;

Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile: whose breath

Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie

All corners of the world; kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave,
This viperous slander enters.-Shakspeare.

899. War and Peace.-The English boast of victories, after the expenditure of much blood and treasure: yet, when the peace comes, they are generally obliged to make compensation for the ravages they have been guilty of. We are something like a drunken man gloriously smashing his neighbour's windows, for which he is made to pay when sober.-Anon.

900. Qualities for a Wife.-The man who can be contented to live with a pretty useful companion, without a mind, has lost in voluptuous gratifications a taste for more refined enjoyments. He has never felt the calm satisfaction that refreshes the parched heart like the silent dew of heaven,—of being beloved by one who can understand him. In the society of his wife he is still alone; unless when the man is sunk in the brute. The charm of life, says a grave philosophical reasoner, is sympathy-nothing pleases us more than to observe in others a fellow-feeling with all the emotions of our own breasts.

Mary Wolstoncraft.

901. Tithes, said the Archbishop of Aix, in a whining tone, that voluntary offering of the devout faithful. Tithes, interrupted the Duke de la Rochefoucault, in his quiet and modest way, which rendered the trait more piquant, that voluntary offering of the devout faithful, concerning which there are 48,000 law-suits in the kingdom.---Anon.

902. An angry man, who suppresses his passions, thinks worse than he speaks; and an angry man that will chide, speaks worse than he thinks.--Bacon.

903. Character of the present Mechanics of England.---Their intelligence, their principles, their growing moral power, are indications of approaching change, not merely in political forms, but in the structure of society which it is high time to study, and on which a philosophical and courageous statesman, if such an one the country were but blessed withal, would already begin to act, and that on no petty scale. Happily this growing power, is not one of brute force; it is a development of intelligence. To us, therefore, there is in it nothing fearful. The only evil which we apprehend is in the kind of resistance which may be opposed to it. It may be guided, but it cannot be coerced; and the attempt to mislead it, for the private benefit of other classes, will not fail less signally, nor recoil less destructively, than even coercion itself. We have long been impressed by the conviction that the intellect of poverty must be self-instructed, that it will not feed on the crumbs which fall from the rich man's table; that the real teachers of the poorer class must themselves be men of that class, imbued with its peculiar feelings, alive to its peculiar interests, influenced even by its peculiar prejudices; but, by their native power of mind, strongly conscious of its peculiar wants, and of capacity to minister to the supply of those wants. Such are the teachers who will be attended to without suspicion; whose words will have many echoes from the multitudes of their brethren, while the voice of condescending instruction dies without response on the empty air.---Fox's Monthly Repository.

904. Usual Artifice of the Enemies of Freedom.---With the enemies of freedom it is a usual artifice to represent the sovereignty of the people as a licence to anarchy and disorder. But the training up civil power to that source will not diminish our obligation to obey; it only explains its reasons, and settles it on clear determinate principles. It turns blind submission into rational obedience, tempers the passion for liberty with the love of order, and places mankind in a happy medium, between the extremes of anarchy on the one side, and oppression on the other. It is the popular star that will conduct us safe over the ocean of political debate and speculation, the law of laws, the legislator of legislators.---Robert Hall.

905. The Student.-He that is well employed in his study, though he may seem to do nothing, does the greatest things yet of all others: he lays down precepts for the governing of our lives, and the moderating of our passions; and obliges human nature, not only in the present, but in all succeeding generations.-Seneca.

906. Combination for Raising Wages.-The labouring classes form the great majority of every community, and, as has been already observed, a country must be considered as happy or miserable, in proportion as those classes are abundantly or scantily supplied with the necessaries and comforts of life. From this principle it necessarily follows, that combinations for lowering wages, could they be effectual, must be regarded as conspiracies for increasing human misery; and that combinations for raising wages, could they be effectual, must be approved as associations for the promotion of human happiness. In the whole compass of economical science, the most important practical question is this, namely, can combinations, amongst the labouring classes, exact a permanent increase of wages?-Colonel Torrens.

907. Few acquire Wisdom.-Some men are exceedingly diligent in acquiring a vast compass of learning; some in aspiring to honours and preferments; some in heaping up riches; others are intent upon pleasures and diversions; hunting, or play, vain contrivances, to pass away their time: others are taken up in useless speculations; others set up for men of business, and spend all their days in hurry and noise: but amid this variety, few apply themselves to the wisdom, which should direct their lives.-Charron.

908. Friends.-Though we ought not to love our friends only for the good they do us: yet it is plain they love not us, if they do not assist us when it is in their power.-Anon.

909. Death, a Cure for all Evils.-There are a great many miseries, which nothing but death can give relief to. This puts an end to the sorrows of the afflicted and oppressed: it sets the prisoners at liberty ; it dries up the tears of the widows and fatherless; it eases the complaints of the hungry and naked; it tames the proudest tyrants, and puts an end to all our labours. And the contemplation on it supports men under their present adversities, especially when they have a prospect of a better life after this.--Sherlock.

910. Value of History.-Not to know what has been transacted in former times, is to continue always a child. If no use is made of the labours of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.-Cicero.

911. Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible. Vice is infamous, though in a prince, and virtue honourable, though in a peasant.---Addison.

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912. Pathetic Preaching.—It is a mighty change that is made by the death of every person, and it is visible to us who are alive. Reckon but from the sprightliness of youth, and the fair cheeks and full eyes of childhood---from the vigorousness and strong flexures of the joints of five and twenty, to the hollowness and dead paleness--to the loathsomeness and horror of a three days burial, and we shall perceive the distance to very great and very strange. But so have I seen a rose newly spring. ing from the clefts of its hood, and at first it was fresh as the morning, and full of the dews of heaven as a lamb's fleece---but when a ruder breath had forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to decline to softness, and the symptoms of a sickly age---it bowed the head and broke the stalk, and at night, having lost some of its leaves. and all its beauty fell into the portion of weeds and worn-out faces.-Jeremy Taylor.

913. The French.-What could I say of a people that stormed and blustered about liberty and equality till they set the world in an uproar, and then fell prostrate at the feet of a daring usurper? I have no patience with the French. They excited our hopes, and plunged us in despair. They have disappointed the philanthropist, brought disgrace on the cause of humanity, and established for ages the government of kings.-The Savage.

914. Error of Representing Virtue as a Painful Struggle.—If I were to fix on the one great error which has been the root of more numerous scions than any other, I should say that it is the dogma by which virtue is represented as a painful struggle, and the duties of men are opposed to their natural inclinations. It has been the main engine in the hands of those who, distrusting the coarser means of power, have rooted their authority in the minds of their vassals. The argument is plain and unanswerable, that if men are instinctively prone to evil, guidance, if not restraint, is necessary to their welfare. But once show to the bulk of men that goodness is far easier and lovlier than wickedness, and that evil derives its whole support from the barriers intended to be raised against it, and the walls of our prison-house will vanish like the curtains of a tent when drawn aside, and man will find himself the free and happy inhabitant of the magnificent inheritance from which he has been so long shut out.-Arthur Coningsby.

915. Insignificance for lack of argument generally has recourse to abuse.-Anon.