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And by their over-understanding lose
Its active faculty with too much use;
For reason, when too curiously 't is spun,
Is but the next of all remov'd from none.

LXXXI.

Butler

It is possible that a wise and good man may be prevailed on to game; but it is impossible that a professed gamester should be a wise and good man.-Lavater.

LXXXII.

Jarres concealed are half reconciled; which if generally known, 'tis a double task, to stop the breach at home, and men's mouths abroad. To this end, a good husband never publicly reproves his wife. An open reproof puts her to do penance before all that are present; after which, many study rather revenge than reformation. --Fuller.

LXXXIII.

'Tis urged

That we corrupt youth, and traduce superiors.
When do we bring a vice upon the stage,
That does go off unpunish'd? Do we teach,
By the success of wicked undertakings,
Others to tread in their forbidden footsteps?
We show no arts of Lydian panderism,
Corinthian poisons, Persian flatteries,
But mulcted so in the conclusion, that
Even those spectators that were so inclined,
Go home chang❜d men. And for traducing such
That are above us, publishing to the world
Their secret crimes, we are as innocent
As such as are born dumb. When we present
An heir, that does conspire against the life
Of his dear parent, numbering every hour
He lives, as tedious to him; if there be

Among the auditors, one whose conscience tells him
He is of the same mould, WE CANNOT HELP IT.

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Or when a covetous man's express'd, whose wealth
Arithmetic cannot number, and whose lordships
A falcon in one day cannot fly over;
Yet he so sordid in his mind, so griping,
As not to afford himself the necessaries
To maintain life; if a patrician

(Though honour'd with a consulship) find himself Touch'd to the quick in this,

-WE CANNOT HELP IT.

Or when we show a judge that is corrupt,
And will give up his sentence, as he favours
The person, not the cause; saving the guilty,
If of his faction, and as oft condemning
The innocent, out of particular spleen;
If any in this reverend assembly,

Nay, even yourself, my lord, that are the image
Of absent Cæsar, feel something in your bosom
That puts you in remembrance of things past,
Or things intended, 'TIS NOT IN US TO HELP IT.
I have said, my lord: and now, as you find cause,
Or censure us, or free us with applause.

The Roman Actor.-Massinger.

LXXXIV.

A good inclination is but the first rude draught of virtue; but the finishing strokes are from the will; which, if well disposed, will by degrees perfect; if ill disposed, will by the superinduction of ill habits quickly deface it.-South.

LXXXV.

There is not a man in the world, but desires to be, or to be thought to be, a wise man; and yet if he considered how little he contributes himself thereunto, he might wonder to find himself in any tolerable degree of understanding.- Clarendon.

LXXXVI.

I would, if possible, represent the errors of life, especially those arising from what we call gallantry, in such a manner as the people of pleasure may read me. In this case I must not be rough to gentlemen and ladies, but speak of sin as a gentleman.-Steele.

LXXXVII.

The wisdom of the ignorant somewhat resembles the instinct of animals; it is diffused but in a very narrow sphere, but within the circle it acts with vigour, uniformity and success.- -Goldsmith.

LXXXVIII.

He that impoverisheth his children to enrich his widow, destroys a quick hedge to make a dead one.-Fuller.

LXXXIX.

Many men knowing that merry company is the only medicine against melancholy, spend all their days among good fellows in a tavern or alehouse, drinking venenum pro vino, like so many malt-worms, men-fishes, watersnakes, or frogs in a puddle, and become mere funguses and casks.-Burton.

XC.

Man, with raging drink inflam'd,
Is far more savage and untam'd;
Supplies his loss of wit and sense
With barb'rousness and insolence;
Believes himself, the less he's able,
The more heroic, and formidable;
Lays by his reason in his bowls,
As Turks are said to do their souls,
Until it has so often been
Shut out of its lodging, and let in,
At length it never can attain
To find the right way back again;
Drinks all his time away, and prunes
The end of's life as vignerons
Cut short the branches of a vine,
To make it bear more plenty o' wine;
And that which nature did intend

T' enlarge his life, perverts t' its end.

XCI

Butler.

A drunkard is one that will be a man to-morrow morning, but is now what you will make him, for he is in the

power of the next man, and if a friend the better. One that hath let go himself from the hold and stay of reason, and lies open to the mercies of all temptations. No lust but finds him disarmed and fenceless, and with the least assault enters. If any mischief escape him, it was not his fault, for he was laid as fair for it as he could. Every man sees him, as Cham saw his father the first of this sin, an uncovered man, and though his garment be on, uncovered; the secretest parts of his soul lying in the nakedest manner visible: all his passions come out now, all his vanities, and those shamefuller humours which discretion clothes. His body becomes at last like a miry way, where the spirits are beclogged and cannot pass: all his members are out of office, and his heels do but trip up one another. He is a blind man with eyes, and a cripple with legs on. All the use he has of this vessel himself, is to hold thus much; for his drinking is but a scooping in of so many quarts. Tobacco serves to air him after a washing, and is his only breath and breathing while. He is the greatest enemy to himself, and the next to his friend, and then most in the act of his kindness, for his kindness is but trying a mastery, who shall sink down first: and men come from him as a battle, wounded and bound up. Nothing takes a man off more from his credit, and business, and makes him more retchlessly careless what becomes of all. Indeed, he dares not enter on a serious thought, or if he do, it is but such melancholy that it sends him to be drunk again.-Bishop Earle. XCII.

In all ages, and in every nation where poetry has been in fashion, the tribe of sonnetteers hath been very numerous. Every pert young fellow that has a moving fancy, and the least jingle of verse in his head, sets up for a writer of songs, and resolves to immortalize his bottle. or his mistress. What a world of insipid productions in this kind have we been pestered with since the revolution, to go no higher.-Steele.

XCIII.

Fade, flow'rs! fade, nature will have it so "Tis what we must in our autumn do!

And as your leaves lie quiet on the ground,
The loss alone by those that lov'd them found;
So in the grave shall we as quiet lie,

Miss'd by some few that lov'd our company;
But some so like to thorns and nettles live,

That none for them can, when they perish, grieve.
Waller.-From the French.

XCIV.

It is indisputably evident that a great part of every man's life must be employed in collecting materials for the exercise of genius. Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory: nothing can be made of nothing: he who has laid up no materials, can produce no combination.-Sir J. Reynolds.

XCV.

An ordinary song or ballad that is the delight of the common people, cannot fail to please all such readers as are not unqualified for the entertainment by their affec tation or ignorance; and the reason is plain, because the same paintings of nature, which recommend it to the most ordinary reader, will appear beautiful to the most re

fined.

to

The old song of Chevy-Chase is the favourite ballad of the common people of England; and Ben Jonson used say, he had rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney, in his discourse of poetry, speaks of it in the following words: "I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung by some blind crowder with no rougher voice than rude style, which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?"--- Addison.

XCVI.

Custom, tho' but usher of the school
Where nature breeds the body and the soul,

VOL. II.

C

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