plants a thorn in another's breast, is to become a principal in the mischief.-Sheridan.

CCXXVII.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good nature, or something which must bear its appearance, and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word good-breeding. For if we examine thoroughly the idea of what we call so, we shall find it to be nothing else but an imitation and mimicry of good nature, or in other terms, affability, complaisance, and easiness of temper reduced into an art.-Addison.

CCXXVIII.

The soul that has no established limit to circumscribe it, loses itself, as the epigrammatist says,—

"He that lives every where, does no where live.”

CCXXIX.

Montaigne.

In benevolent natures the impulse to pity is so sudden, that like instruments of music which obey the touchthe objects which are fitted to excite such impressions work so instantaneous an effect, that you would think the will was scarce concerned, and that the mind was altogether passive in the sympathy which her own goodness has excited. The truth is the soul is generally in such cases so busily taken up and wholly engrossed by the object of pity, that she does not attend to her own operations, or take leisure to examine the principles upon which she acts.-Sterne.

CCXXX.

In the youth of a state, arms do flourish; in the middle age of a state, learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise. Learning hath its infan

cy, when it is but beginning, and almost childish; then its youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then its strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and, lastly, its old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust; but it is not good to look too long upon these turning wheels of vicissitude, lest we become giddy: as for the philology of them, that is but a circle of tales.-Lord Bacon.

CCXXXI.

Modesty is silent when it would not be improper to speak; the humble, without being called upon, never recollects to say any thing of himself.-Lavater.

ССХХХІІ.

It may happen that good is produced by vice, but not as vice; for instance, a robber may take money from its owner, and give it to one who will make a better use of it. Here is good produced; but not by the robbery as robbery, but as a translation of property.-Johnson.

CCXXXIII.

As a certain insensibility in the countenance recommends a sentence of humour and jest, so it must be a very lively consciousness that gives grace to great sentiments. The jest is to be a thing unexpected; therefore your undesigning manner is a beauty in expressions of mirth; and when you are to talk on a set subject, the more you are moved yourself, the more you will move others.-Swift.

CCXXXIV.

Common understandings, like cits in gardening, allow no shades to their picture.-Shenstone.

CCXXXV.

There is no kind of false wit which has been so recommended by the practice of all ages, as that which consists in a jingle of words, and is comprehended under the general name of punning. It is indeed impossible to kill a weed, which the soil has a natural disposition to produce. The seeds of punning are in the minds

of all men, and though they may be subdued by reason, reflection, and good sense, they will be very apt to shoot up in the greatest genius that is not broken and cultivated by the rules of art.-Addison.

CCXXXVI.

If falsehood had, like truth, but one face only, we should be upon better terms; for we should then take the contrary to what the liar says for certain truth; but the reverse of truth hath a hundred figures, and a field indefinite without bound or limit.—Montaigne.

CCXXXVII.

There is what is called the high-way to posts and honours, and there is a cross and by-way, which is much the shortest.-Bruyere.

CCXXXVIII.

How easy is it to call rogue and villain, and that wittily! but how hard to make a man appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave! To spare the grossness of the names, and to do the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full face, and make the nose and cheeks stand out, and yet not to employ any depth of shadowing.

*

A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's wife said of her servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging: but to make a malefactor die sweetly, was only belonging to her husband.-Dryden.

CCXXXIX.

Conversation is a traffic; and if you enter into it without some stock of knowledge, to balance the account perpetually betwixt you—the trade drops at once, and this is the reason, however it may be boasted to the contrary, why travellers have so little (especially good) conversation with natives-owing to their suspicion, or perhaps conviction, that there is nothing to be extracted from the conversation of young itinerants worth the trouble of their bad language, or the interruption of their visits. Sterne.

CCX.

All the while you live, you purloin from life, and live at the expense of life itself; the perpetual work of our whole life is but to lay the foundation of death; you are in death whilst you live, because you still are after death when you are no more alive. Or, if you had rather have it so, you are dead after life, but dying all the while you live; and death handles the dying more rudely than the dead. If you have made your profit of life, you have had enough of it, and go your way satisfied. If you have not known how to make the best use of it, and if it was unprofitable to you, what need you care to lose it; to what end would you desire to keep it? Life in itself is neither good nor evil, but is the scene of good or evil, as you make it; and if you have lived a day, you have seen all. Come the worst that can come, the distribution and variety of all the acts of the comedy is performed in a year. If you have seen the revolution of the four seasons, they comprehend the infancy, youth, virility, and old age, of the world. The year has played his part, and knows no other way, has no new farce, but must begin and repeat the same again; it will always be the same thing.—Montaigne.

CCXLI.

If by the liberty of the press, we understand merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please; but, if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating, and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it whenever our legislators shall please to alter the law; and shall cheerfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others, for the privilege of not being abused myself.-Franklin.

CCXLII.

Superfluity creates necessity; and necessity superfluity. Take care to be an economist in prosperity: there is no fear of your being one in adversity.--Zimmerman.

CCXLIII.

Plutarch, discoursing on the effects of the air on the minds of men, observes, that the inhabitants of the Pi ræum possessed very different tempers from those of the higher town in Athens, which was distant about four miles from the former: but I believe no one attributes the difference of manners in Wapping and St. James's to a difference of air or climate.-Hume.

CCXLIV.

A critic who sits up to read only for an occasion of censure and reproof, is a creature as barbarous as a judge who should take up a resolution to hang all men that come before him upon a trial.-Swift.

CCXLV.

Ceremony keeps up things: 'tis like a penny glass to a rich spirit, or some excellent water; without it the water were spilt, and the spirit lost.-Selden.

CCXLVI.

Every thing may be mimicked by hypocrisy, but humility and love united. The humblest star twinkles most in the darkest night. The more rare humility and love united, the more radiant when they meet.-Lavater.

CCXLVII.

Of all the enemies of idleness, want is the most for midable. Fame is soon found to be a sound, and love a dream. Avarice and ambition may be justly suspected of being privy confederacies with idleness; for when they have, for a while, protected their votaries, they often deliver them up, to end their lives under her dominion. Want always struggles against idleness; but want herself is often overcome, and every hour shows the careful observer those who had rather live in ease than in plenty.-Johnson.

CCXLVIII.

Even Joe Miller, in his jests, has an eye to poetical justice; he generally gives the victory, or turns the