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LEARNING.

than himself, and the boast of his window at midnight. He walks much alone in the posture of meditation, and has a book before his face in the fields. His pocket is seldom without a Greek testament or Hebrew bible, which he opens only in the church, and that when some stander-by looks over. He has sentences for company, some scatterings of Seneca and Tacitus, which are good upon all occasions. If he reads anything in the morning, it comes out all at dinner; and as long as that lasts, the discourse is his. He is a great plagiary of tavern wit, and comes to sermons only that he may talk of Austin. His parcels are the mere scrapings from company, yet he complains at parting what time he has lost. He is wondrously capricious in giving judgment, and listens with a sour attention to what he understands not. He talks much of Scaliger, and Casaubon, and the Jesuits, and prefers some unheard-of Dutch name before them all. He has verses to bring in upon these and these hints, and it shall go hard but he will wind in his opportunity. He is critical in a language he cannot construe, and speaks seldom under Arminius in divinity. His business and retirement, and caller away is his study, and he protests no delight to it comparable. He is a great nomenclator of authors, which he has read in general in the catalogue, and in particular in the title, and goes seldom so far as the dedication. He never talks of anything but learning, and learns all from talking. Three encounters with the same men pump him, and then he only puts in or gravely says nothing. He has taken pains to be an ass, though not to be a scholar, and is at length discovered and laughed at. Bishop Earle.

LEARNING-Right Use of.

Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skilful hands; in unskilful, the most misPope.

chievous.

LEARNING-Use of.

Learning, like money, may be of so base a coin, as to be utterly void of use; or, if sterling, may require good management to make it serve the purposes of sense or happiness. Shenstone. LEARNING (Sacred)-Use of. The pride of learning, and the abuse of learning, are fatal evils, and, without the possession of it, no doubt the man of devoted piety, with merely the vernacular Scriptures in his hand, may be even eminently useful; but there are higher and more extensive spheres of service which he is clearly not qualified to occupy. Learning, when employed

LEAVES.

not for ostentation, but for use; not to set up human wisdom in opposition to divine revelation; but humbly, patiently, and laboriously to trace out, to exhibit, to assert, and to defend the revealed truth of God, and to apply it to all the varied purposes for which it was made known; is of the highest value. And let every younger student remember that he knows not to what scene of service he is destined: let it be his humble aim, depending upon, and seeking constantly the divine blessing, to become as well qualified as possible for that station, be it what it may, to which it shall please God to call him. And, in this view, let him duly consider the indefatigable labour, the diligent study, and the patient zeal, of these great and good men (the Swiss Reformers) who, devoted to learning as they ever were, yet did not pursue it for its own sake (or for the earthly distinctions it might gain for them), or lose themselves in a contemplative life, but denied themselves, and studied, and prayed without ceasing, in order that they might act with wisdom and success to the glory of God, and the highest good of their fellow-men. Therefore is their memory blessed. Thomas Scott.

LEARNING AND WISDOM.

The learned man is only useful to the learned; the wise man is equally useful to the wise and the simple. The merely learned man has not elevated his mind above that of

others; his judgments are not more penetrating, his remarks not more delicate, nor his actions more beautiful than those of others; he merely uses other instruments than his own; his hands are employed in business of which the head sometimes takes little note. It is

wholly different with the wise man : he moves far above the common level,-he observes everything from a different point of view; in his employments there is always an aim, in his views always freedom, and all with him is above the common level. Richter.

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then; there is yet enough-there is more
than enough-in these old letters, to plead an
excuse for so sacredly preserving them.
Albert Smith.

LETTERS-Treatment of.

Letters which are warmly sealed are often
Richter.

Though each dull plodding thing, to ape the but coldly opened.

wise,

Ridiculously grave for leisure sighs

(His boasted wish from busy scenes to run),
Grant him that leisure, and the fool's undone;
The gods to curse poor Demea, heard his vow,
And business now no more contracts his brow:
No real cares, 'tis true, perplex his breast,
But thousand fancied ills his peace molest;
The slightest trifles solid sorrows prove,
And the long-ling'ring wheel of life scarce
seems to move,

Useless in business, yet unfit for ease,

Nor skill'd to serve mankind, nor form'd to
please;

Such spurious animals of worthless race
Live but the public burthen and disgrace:
Like mean attendants on life's stage are seen,
Drawn forth to fill, but not conduct the scene.
Melmoth.

LEISURE AND SOLITUDE.

Leisure and solitude are the best effect of
riches, because mother of thought. Both are
avuided by most rich men, who seek company
and business; which are signs of being weary
of themselves.
Sir W. Temple.

LETHE-River.
Flowing, without coil,
Softly, like a stream of oil.

LETTERS-Old.

LETTERS-Use of.

Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,

Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid:
They live, they speak, they breathe what love
inspires,

Warm from the soul, and faithful to its fires.
The virgin's wish, without her fears, impart ;
Excuse the blush, and pour out all the heart;
Speed the soft intercourse from soul to soul,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.

Pope.

LEVITY AND CHEERFULNESS
Distinction between.

Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity, is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness. It has been remarked, that transports of intemperate mirth are often no more than flashes from the dark cloud; ard that in proportion to the violence of the effulgence, is the succeeding gloom. Levity may be the forced production of folly or vice; cheerfulness is the natural offspring of wisdom and virtue only. The one is an occasional agitation; the other a permanent habit. The one degrades the character; the other is perBrown. fectly consistent with the dignity of reason, and the steady and manly spirit of religion. To aim at a constant succession of high and vivid sensations of pleasure, is an idea of happiness altogether chimerical. Calm and temperate enjoyment is the utmost that is allotted to man. Beyond this we struggle in vain to raise our state; and in fact, depress our joys, by endeavouring to heighten them. Instead of those fallacious hopes of perpetual festivity, with which the world would allure us, religion confers upon us a cheerful tranquillity. Instead of dazzling us with meteors of joy which sparkle and expire, it sheds around us a calm and steady light, more solid, more equal, and more lasting.

It is difficult to tell to what end we keep these old memorials, for their perusal affords, in most cases, but little pleasure. Many, indeed, are never looked at again, and yet we could not destroy them without a struggle; others only bring forward evidences of words broken, and hopes chilled, and friendships gradually dissolved; of old attachments turned away, and stubborn contradiction of all the trusting in futurity, whose promise we once clung to. One class alone of them can call ap our best feelings. If the almost forgotten memorials of the once dearly loved and long departed can carry our sympathies away from the cold, hard present, over intervening years of struggling and vexatious toil, to that almost holy period of the gone and past, once more, if but for a moment, calling up old thoughts and old affections; or soothing, by one lonely, unsuspected burst of tears, overcharged hearts, which have long required easing of their bur

LIAR-a Coward.

Blair.

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LIBERTY.

in which state of universal independence and self-direction, I should meet with so many checks and obstacles to my own will, from the opposition and interference of other men's, that not only my happiness but my liberty would be less than whilst the whole community were subject to the domination of equal laws.

The boasted liberty of a state of nature exists only in a state of solitude. In every kind and degree of union and intercourse with his species, it is possible that the liberty of the individual may be augmented by the very laws which restrain it; because he may gain more from the limitation of other men's free

dom, than he suffers from the diminution of
his own. Natural liberty is the right of com-
mon upon a waste; civil liberty is the safe,
exclusive, unmolested enjoyment of a culti-
vated enclosure.
Paleg
LIBERTY-False.

The wish, which ages have not yet subdued
In man, to have no master save his mood.
LIBERTY-Genius of.

Вутов.

When I see the spirit of liberty in action, IO liberty, Heaven's choice prerogative! see a strong principle at work; and this for a True bond of law, thou social soul of poverty, while is all I can possibly know of it. The Thou breath of reason, life of life itself! wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose: For thee the valiant bleed. O sacred liberty! but we ought to suspend our judgment, until Wing'd from the fowler's snare, from flattering | the first effervescence is a little subsided, till ruin, the liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation of a troubled and frothy substance. I must be tolerably sure, before I congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have really received one. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and giver, and adulation is not of more service to the people, than to kings. Burke.

LIBERTY-False Application of.

The word liberty has been falsely used by persons who, being degenerately profligate in private life and mischievous in public, had no hope left but in fomenting discord. Tacitus.

LIBERTY-Aspirations of.

Give me the liberty to know, to think, to believe, and to utter freely, according to conscience, above all other liberties. Milton.

LIBERTY-Civil.

To do what we will is natural liberty, to do what we will consistently with the interests of the community to which we belong, is civil liberty; that is to say, the only liberty to be desired in a state of civil society.

I should wish to act, no doubt, in every instance as I pleased; bnt I reflect, that the rest also of mankind would then do the same;

Like the bold stork you seek the wintry shore,
Leave courts, and pomps, and palaces to slaves,
Cleave to the cold, and rest upon the storm.
Upborne by thee, my soul disdain'd the terms
Of empire offer'd at the hands of tyrants.
With thee I sought this fav'rite soil; with thee
These fav'rite sons I fought, thy sons, O Liberty '
For ev'n among the wilds of life you lead them,
Lift their low-rafted cottage to the skies,
Smile o'er their heaths, and from the mountain
tops

Beam glory to the nations.

Brooke.

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No!-the wild wave contemns your scepter'd Through glooms which never woodman trod. hand!

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How oft, pursuing fancies holy,

My moonlight way o'er flowering weed I wound Inspired, beyond the guess of folly,

By each rude shape and wild unconquering

sound!

O ye loud waves! and O ye forests high!
And O ye clouds that far above me soar'd!
Thou rising sun! thou blue rejoicing sky!
Yea, every thing that is and will be free!
Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be,
With what deep worship I have still adored
The spirit of divinest liberty! Coleridge.

LIBERTY AND SLAVERY.

None can love freedom heartily but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license, which never hath more scope or more indulgence than under tyrants. Hence it is that tyrants are not oft offended by, nor stand much in doubt of, bad men, as being all naturally servile; but in whom virtue and true worth most is eminent, them they fear in earnest, as by right their masters; against them lies all their hatred and corruption. LIBRARY-Meditations on a.

Milton.

What a world of wit is here packed up together! I know not whether this sight doth more dismay or comfort me: it dismays me to think that here is so much I cannot know; it comforts me to think that this variety yields so good helps to know what I should. There is no truer word than that of Solomon: There is no end of making many books. This sight verifies it. There is no end; indeed, it were pity there should. God hath given to man a busy soul; the agitation whereof cannot but, through time and experience, work out many hidden truths: to suppress these would be no other than injurious to mankind, whose minds, like unto so many candles, should be kindled

Liberty consists in the power of doing that by each other. The thoughts of our deliwhich is permitted by the law.

LIBERTY-Worship of.

Cicero.

Ye clouds! that far above me float and pause, Whose pathless march no mortal may control !

Ye ocean waves! that whereso'er ye roll, Yield homage only to eternal laws! Ye woods! that listen to the night-birds' singing,

Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined,

Save when your own imperious branches swinging

Have made a solemn music of the wind! Where, like a man beloved of God,

beration are most accurate; these we vent

into our papers. What a happiness is it, that without all offence of necromancy, I may here call up any of the ancient Worthies of Learning, whether human or divine, and confer with them of all my doubts! that I can, at pleasure, summon whole synods of reverend Fathers and acute Doctors from all the coasts of the earth, to give their wellstudied judgments in all points of question which I propose! Neither can I cast my eye casually upon any of these silent masters but I must learn somewhat. It is wantonness to complain of choice. No law binds us to read all; but the more we can take in and digest, the better-liking must the mind needs be. Blessed be God, that hath set up so many

LIBRARY.

clear lamps in His Church! Now, none but the wilfully blind can plead darkness. And blessed be the memory of those His faithful servants that have left their blood, their spirits, their lives, in these precious books; and have willingly wasted themselves into these during monuments, to give light unto others. Bishop Hall.

LIBRARIES-Treasures of.

My days among the dead are pass'd;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,

The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.

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LIFE.

LIE-Begets others.

He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one. Pope. LIE-Definition of a.

A lie has no legs, and cannot stand; but it has wings, and can fly far and wide. Warburton.

LIFE-Advance of.

As we advance from youth to middle age, a new field of action opens, and a different character is required. The flow of gay impetuous spirits begins to subside; life gradually assumes a graver cast; the mind a more sedate and thoughtful turn. The attention is now transferred from pleasure to interest; that is, to pleasure diffused over a wider extent, and measured by a larger scale. Formerly, the enjoyment of the present moment occupied the whole attention; now no action terminates ultimately in itself, but refers to some more distant aim. Wealth and power, the instruments of lasting gratification, are now coveted more than any single pleasure; prudence and foresight lay their plan; industry carries on its patient efforts; activity pushes forward; address winds around; here, an enemy is to be overcome; there, a rival to be displaced; competition warms; and the strife of the world thickens on every side. Blair.

LIFE-Affections of.

Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort. Sir Humphrey Dary.

LIFE-Different Ages of.

At twenty years of age, the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment. Gratian LIFE-Aims of.

The lives of most are misspent for want of a certain end of their actions: wherein they do, as unwise archers, shoot away their arrows they know not at what mark. They live only out of the present, not directing themselves and their proceedings to one universal scope: whence they alter upon every change of occssions, and never reach any perfection; neither can do other but continue in uncertainty and end in discomfort. Others aim at one certain mark, but a wrong one. Some, though fewer, level at a right end, but amiss. To live without one main and common end, is idleness and folly. To live at a false end, is deceit and loss. True Christian wisdom both shows the end and finds the way; and as cunning politics have

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