and let no man's contrition be less than his crime. S. Cyprian. LXIII. It is manifest, that all government of action is to be gotten by knowledge, and knowledge, best, by gathering many knowledges, which is reading.–Sir P. Sidney. LXVI. Makes us frolic and gay, In the pride of the day; Only find a decay. And to drinking gives light; When by noon we're at height. When he's out of sight. Fill them up now he shines: The more he refines, Tom Brown. LXV. God Almighty, to show us that he made all of nothing, hath left a certain inclination in his creatures, whereby they tend naturally to nothing; that is to say, to change and corruption: unless they be upheld by his power, who having all in himself, abideth alone the unchangeable and free from all passions.—Sir P. Sidney. LXVI. As long as you are engaged in the world, you must comply with its maxims; because nothing is more unprofitable, than the wisdom of those persons who set up for reformers of the age. 'Tis a part a man cannot act long, without offending his friends and rendering himself ridiculous.—St. Evremond. - LXVII. It would be an unspeakable advantage, both to the public and private, if men' would consider that great truth, that no man is wise or safe, but he that is honest; all I have designed is peace to my country, and may England enjoy that blessing when I shall have no more proportion in it than what my ashes make.Sir W. Raleigh. LXVIII. Dryden. LXIX. If we do not weigh and consider to what end this life is given us, and thereupon order and dispose it right, pretend what we will to the arithmetic, we do not, we cannot so much as number our days in the narrowest and most limited signification –Clarendon. LXX. While thine unsuspected years From cold jealousy and fears, By young Love old Time beguild As the muse's with the child. Now then, love me; Time may take Thee before my time away; And learn love before we may. And if good to us she meant, . te; We that good shall antedate; Marvell. LXXI. If our wit and eloquence, our knowledge or inventions, would deserve to live longer than the ancient have done, yet our languages would not: there is no hope of their lasting long, nor of any thing in them; they change every hundred years, so as to be hardly known for the same or any thing of the former styles to be endured by the latter; so as they can no more last like the ancient, than excellent carvings in wood like those of marble or brass.—Sir. W. Temple. LXXII. Breathing all bliss and sweet'ning to the heart; O kiss! which souls, ev'n souls, together ties By links of Love, and only nature's art: How fain would I paint thee to all men's eyes, Or of thy gifts, at least, shade out some part. But she forbids, with blushing words, she says, She builds her fame on higher seated praise: But my heart burns, I cannot silent be. Tben since (dear life,) you fain would have me peace, And I mad with delight want wit to cease, Stop you my mouth, with still, still kissing me. Sir P. Sidney LXXIII. Ben. Johnson LXXIV. Who can tell whether learning may not even weaken invention, in a man that has great advantages from nature, and birth; whether the weight and number of so many men's thoughts and notions may not suppress his own, or hinder the motion and agitation of them, from which all invention arises; as heaping on wood, or too many sticks, or too close together, suppresses, and sometimes quite extinguishes a little spark, that would otherwise have grown up to a noble flame ---Sir W. Temple. LXXV. Otway's Orphan. LXXVI. Politics resemble religion; attempting to divest either of ceremony is the most certain method of bringing either into contempt. The weak must have their inducements to admiration as well as the wise; and it is the business of a sensible government to impress all ranks with a sense of subordination, whether this be effected by a diamond buckle, or a virtuous edict, a sumptuary law, or a glass necklace.--Goldsmith. LXXVII. Ridicule is the itch of our age and climate; and has over-run both the court and the stage; enters a House of Lords and Commons as boldly as a coffee-house; debates of council as well as private conversation: and I have known, in my life-time more than one or two ministers of state, that would rather have said a witty thing than have dne a wise one, and made the company laugh, rather than the kingdom rejoice.--Sir W. Temple. LXXVIII. Mayne. LXXIX. It is a very poor, though common, pretence to merit, to make it appear by the faults of other men: a mean wit or beauty may pass in a room, where the rest of the company are allowed to have none: it is something to sparkle among diamonds; but to shine among pebbles is neither credit nor value worth the pretending.-Sir W. Temple. LXXX. Those who live magnificently, for the most part, are the real poor: they endeavour to get money on all hands, with disquiet and trouble, to maintain the plea. sures of others; and whilst they lavish their plenty, which strangers enjoy more than themselves, they are at home, sensible of their wants, with their wives and children, both by the importunity of unmerciful duns, and by the miserable state of their affairs, which they see going to rack. St. Evremond. LXXXI. Ambition, like love can abide no lingering; and even urgeth on his own successes, hating nothing but what may stop them.-Sir P. Sidney. LXXXII. |