It is wonderful that the frequent exercise of reading the Common Prayer should not make the per formers of that duty more expert in it. This inability, as I conceive, proceeds from the little care that is taken of their reading while boys, and at school, where, when they have got into Latin, they are looked upon as above English, the reading of which is wholly neglected, or at least read to very

little purpose, without any due observations made to them of the proper accent and manner of reading. Steele.

Temper your heat,

And lose not, by too sudden rashness, that
Which, be but patient, will be offer'd to you,
Of an enemy three-parts vanquished, with desire
And greediness of spoil, have often wrested
A certain victory from the conqueror's gripe.
Discretion is the victor of the war,

Valour the pupil; and, when we command
With lenity, and our directions follow'd
With cheerfulness, a prosperous end must crown
Our works well undertaken.
Massinger.

Let any one who knows what it is to have passed much time in a series of jollity, mirth, wit, or humorous entertainments, look back at what he was all that while a doing, and he will find that he has been at one instant sharp to some man he is sorry to have offended, impertinent to some one it was eruelty to treat with such freedom, ungratefully noisy at such a time, unskilfully open at such a time, unmercifully calumnious at such a time; and from the whole course of his applauded satisfactions, unable in the end to recollect any circumstance which can add to the enjoyment of his mind alone, or which he would put his character upon, with other men.

Steele.

Such is the present state of our literature, that the ancient sage, who thought a great book a great evil, would now think the multitude of books a multitude of evils. He would consider a bulky writer who engrossed a year, and a swarm of pampheteers who stole each an hour, as equal wasters of human life, and would make no other difference between them, than between a beast of prey and a flight of locusts.-Johnson.

Health is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured; but thousands and millions are of small avail to alleviate the protracted tortures of the gout, to repair the broken organs of sense, or resuscitate the powers of digestion. Poverty is, indeed, an evil from which we naturally fly; but let us not run from one enemy to another, nor take shelter in the arms of sickness. Johnson.

None has more frequent conversations with disa greeable self than the man of pleasure; his enthusiasms are but few and transient; his appetites, like angry creditors, continually making fruitless demands for what he is unable to pay; and the greater his former pleasures, the more strong his regret, the more impatient his expectations. A life of pleasure is, therefore, the most unpleasing life.

Goldsmith.

Longevity ought to be highly valued by men of piety and parts, as it will enable them to be much more useful to mankind, and especially to their own country. As to others, it is of no great matter, since they are a disgrace to mankind, and their death. is rather a service.-Cornara.

It is one thing to take God and heaven for your portion, as believers do, and another thing to be desirous of it, as a reserve when you can keep the world no longer. It is one thing to submit to heaven, as a lesser evil than hell; and another thing to desire it as a greater good than earth. It is one thing to lay up treasures and hopes in heaven, and seek it first; and another thing to be contented with it in our necessity, and to seek the world before it, and give God that the flesh can spare. Thus differeth the religion of serious christians, and of carnal worldly hypocrites.-Baxter.

To gain the favour, and hear the applauses of our contemporaries, is, indeed, equally desirable with any other prerogative of superiority, because fame may be of use to smooth the paths of life, to terrify opposition, and fortify tranquillity; but to what end shall we be the darlings of mankind, when we can no longer receive any benefits from their favour? It is more reasonable to wish for reputation, while it may yet be enjoyed, as Anacreon calls upon his companions to give him for present use the wine and garlands which they purpose to bestow upon his tomb. Johnson.

When I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innumerable distempers, lying in ambuscade among the dishes. Nature delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal, but man, keeps to one dish. Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and flesh of a third. Man falls upon every thing that comes in his way; not the smallest fruit or excrescence of the earth, scarce a berry or a mushroom can escape him.Addison.

Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well formed eye, commands a whole horizon: cunning is a kind of short-sightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance. Discretion, the more it is discovered, gives a greater authority to the person who possesses it: cunning, when it is once detected, loses its force, and makes a man incapable of bringing about even those events which he might have done, had he passed only for a plain man. Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life: cunning is a kind of instinct, that only looks out after our immediate interest, and welfare. Discretion is only found in men of strong sense and good understandings: cunning is often to be met with in brutes themselves, and in persons who are but the fewest removes from them. In short, cunning is only the mimic of discretion, and may pass upon weak men, in the same manner as vivacity is often mistaken for wit, and gravity for wisdom.-Addison.

There is no benefit so large but malignity will still lessen it: none so narrow which a good interpretation will not enlarge. No man can ever be grateful that views a benefit on the wrong side; or takes a good office by the wrong handle. The avaricious man is naturally ungrateful, for he never thinks he has enough; but without considering what he has, only minds what he covets. Some pretend want of power to make a competent return, and you shall find in others a kind of graceless modesty, that makes a man ashamed of requiting an obligation, because it is a confession that he has received one.

Seneca.

Sleep is a god too proud to wait in palaces,,
And yet so humble too, as not to scorn
The meanest country cottages:

"His poppy grows among the corn."
The halcyon sleep will never build his nest
In any stormy breast.

'Tis not enough that he does find
Clouds and darkness in the mind;
Darkness but half his work will do:

*Tis not enough; he must find quiet too.

Cowley-imit. Horace.

When I myself had twice or thrice made a resolute resistance unto anger, the like befel me that did the Thebans; who having once foiled the Lacedemonians (who before that time had held themselves invincible) never after lost so much as one battle which they fought against them.

Plutarch.

It is said by modern philosophers, that not only the great globes of matter are thinly scattered through the universe, but the hardest bodies are so porous, that if all matter were compressed to perfect solidity, it might be contained in a cube of a few feet. In like manner, if all the employment of life were crowded into the time which it really occupied, perhaps a few weeks, days, or hours, would be sufficient for its accomplishment, so far as the mind was engaged in the performance. For such is the inequality of our corporeal to our intellectual faculties, that we contrive in minutes what we execute in years, and the soul often stands an idle spectator of the labour of the hands and expedition of the feet.-Johnson.

Reason cannot show itself more reasonable, than to leave reasoning on things above reason. Sir P. Sidney.