help it out. It is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack; and one trick needs a great many more to make it good. The pleasure which affects the human mind with the most lively and transporting touches, is the sense that we act in the eye of infinite wisdom, power and goodness, that will crown our virtuous endeavors here, with happiness hereafter, large as our desires, and lasting as our immortal souls; without this, the highest state of life is insipid, and with it, the lowest is a paradise. CHAP. V. HONORABLE age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor which is measured by number of years; but wisdom is the grey hair unto man, and an unspotted life is old age. Wickedness condemned by her own witness, is very timor ous, and being pressed with conscience, always forecasteth evil things; for fear is nothing else, but a betraying of the suc cors which reason offereth. A wise man will fear in every thing. He that contemneth small things, shall fall by little and little. A rich man, beginning to fall, is held up by his friends; but a poor man, being down, is thrust away by his friends. When a rich man is fallen, he hath many helpers; he speaketh things not to be spoken, and yet men justify him; the poor man slipt, and they rebuked him; he spoke wisely and could have no place. When a rich man speaketh, every man holdeth his tongue, and lo! what he sayeth they extol to the clouds; but if a poor man speak, they say, What fellow is this? Many have fallen by the edge of the sword, but not so many as have fallen by the tongue. Well is he that is defended from it, and hath not passed through the venom thereof; who hath not drawn the yoke thereof, nor been bound to her bonds; for the yoke thereof is a yoke of iron, and the bands thereof are bands of brass; the death thereof is an evil death. My son, blemish not thy good deeds, neither use uncomfortable words, when thou givest any thing, Shall not the dew assuage the heat? so is a word better than a gift. Lo, is not a word better than a gif, but both are with a gracious man. Blame not, Lefore thou hast examined the truth; understand first, and then rebuke. If thou wouldst get a friend, prove him first, and be not hasty to credit him; for some men are friends for their own occasions, and will not abide in the day of trouble. Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old thou shalt drink it with pleasure. A friend cannot be known in prosperity; and an enemy cannot be hidden in adversity. Admonish thy friend; it may be he hath not done it; and if he hath, that he do it no more. Admonish thy friend; it may be he bath not said it; or if he hath, that he speak it not again. Admonish a friend; for many times it is a slander; and believe not every tale. There is one that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart; and who is he that hath not offended with his tongue? Whoso discovereth secrets, loseth his credit, and shall never find a friend to his mind. Honor thy father with thy whole heart, and forget not the sorrows of thy mother. How canst thou recompence them the things which they have done for thee? There is nothing of so much worth as a mind well instructed. The lips of talkers will be telling such things as pertain not unto them; but the words of such as have understanding are weighed in the balance. The heart of fools is in their mouth, but the tongue of the wise is in their heart. To labor, and to be contented with what a man hath, is a sweet life. Be not confident, even in a plain way. Be in peace with many; nevertheless, have but one counsellor of a thousand. Let reason go before every enterprize, and counsel before every action. THE CHAP. VI. HE latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions he had contracted in the former. Censure is a tax a man pays to the public for being eminent. Very few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time. Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few. To endeavor to work upon the vulgar with fine sense, is lik attempting to hew blocks of marble with a razor. Superstition is the spleen of the soul. 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. Some people will never learn any thing; for this reason, because they understand every thing too soon. Whilst an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by the worst performance. When he is dead, we rate them by his best. Men are grateful in the same degree that they are resentful. Young men are subtle arguers; the cloak of honor covers all their faults, as that of passion all their follies. Economy is no disgrace; it is better living on a little, than out-living a great deal. Next to the satisfaction I receive in the prosperity of an honest man, I am best pleased with the confusion of a rascal. What is often termed shyness, is nothing more than refined sense, and an indifference to common observations. To endeavor all one's days to fortify our minds with learning and philosophy, is to spend so much in armor, that one has nothing left to defend. Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy, as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger. Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives the persons who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy person in their favor. ́ The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly in the motive. The honest man does that from duty, which the man of honor does for the sake of character. A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood. Virtue should be considered as a part of taste; and we should as much avoid deceit, or sinister meaning in discourse, as we should puns, bad language or false grammar. The higher character a person supports, the more he should regard his minutest actions. CHAP. VII. DEFERENCE is the most complicated, the most indirect, and most elegant of all compliments. To be at once a rake, and to glory in the character, discovers at the same time a bad disposition and a bad taste. How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they will not so much as take warning? Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of. Fine sense and exalted sense are not half so valuable as common sense. There are forty men of wit for one man of sense : and he that will carry nothing about with him but gold, will be every day at a loss for want of ready change. Learning is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skilful hands; in unskilful, the most mischievous. A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong; which is but saying in other words, that he is wiser to-day than he was yesterday. Wherever I find a great deal of gratitude in a poor man, I take it for granted there would be as much generosity if he was a rich man. It often happens that those are the best people, whose cha racters have been most injured by slanderers; as we usually find that to be the best fruit that the birds have been picking at. The eye of a critic is often like a microscope, made so very fine and nice, that it discovers the atoms, grains and minutest particles, without ever comprehending the whole, comparing the parts, or seeing all at once the harmony. Honor is but a fictitious kind of honesty: a mean but a necessary substitute for it, in societies which bave none. It is a sort of paper credit, with which men are obliged to trade, who are deficient in the sterling cash of true morality and religion. Persons of great delicacy should know the certainty of the following truth: There are abundance of cases which occasion suspense, in which, whatever they determine, they will repent of their determination; and this thro' a propensity of human nature to fancy happiness in schemes which it does not pursue. CHAP. VIII. WHAT a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express. and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! If to do, were as easy as to know what were good to do, spels had been churches, and poor men's cottages, princes' palaces. He is a good divine that follows his own instructions. I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow my own teaching. Men's evil manners live in brass: their virtues we write in water. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together; our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues. The sense of death is most in apprehension; How far the little candle throws his beam, Do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy, Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well, When our deep plots do fail: and that should teach us Rough hew them how we will. What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted? So it falls out, That what we have we prize not to the worth Cowards die many times before their deaths; |