But if her mind be like the wind, CVII. N. Hook. There is a time when men will not suffer bad things because their ancestors have suffered worse. There is a time, when the hoary head of inveterate abuse will neither draw reverence nor obtain protection.-Burke. CVIII. We naturally love to cheat; 'tis interwoven with our constitution: By the same token, we often boast that we have palm'd false dice upon others, when we ourselves are the bubbles.-Tom Brown. CIX. Cheerful looks make every dish a feast, And 'tis that crowns a welcome. CX. Massinger. Study has something cloudy and melancholy in it, which spoils that natural cheerfulness, and deprives a man of that readiness of wit, and freedom of fancy, which are required towards a polite conversation. Meditation has still worse effects in civil society; wherefore let me advise you to take care, that you lose not by it with your friends what you think to gain with yourself.-St. Evremond's Letters. CXI. When ministry rests upon public opinion, it is not, indeed, built upon a rock of adamant; it has, however, some stability. But when it stands upon private humour, its structure is of stubble, and its foundation is on quicksand.-Burke. CXII. The miser's gold, the painted cloud Got by a soldier in the war; Can hold no weight with his brave mind, CXIII. Sir Wm. Davenant. A pedant treads in a rule; while one hand scans verses, and the other holds his sceptre: He dares not think a thought, that the nominative case governs not the verb; and he never had meaning in his life, for he travelled only forwards. His ambition is criticism, and his example Tully. He values phrases, and elects them by the sound, and the eight parts of speech are his servants. To be brief, he is a heteroclite, for he wants the plural number, having only the single quality of words.-Sir T. Overbury. CXIV. Some authors are so long a correcting and mending their works, that, like Paul's, they may be said to be old before they are finished. Tom. Brown. CXV. Some are unwisely liberal, and more delight to give presents than to pay debts.-Sir P. Sidney. CXVI. If a man be allowed to call a mistress ungrateful and cruel, whom he has courted without success; those who think themselves ill-used by fortune, may, with more reason, claim the privilege to forsake her; and, at a distance from her, to seek repose that may balance the advantages she has denied them. What injury do we do her to pay her in the same coin, and return contempt for contempt? Therefore I won't think it strange, for a man of honour to despise the court; but 1 think it ridiculous in himself to pride in the despising it.-St. Evremond. CXVII. Alas! what are we kings? Why do you Gods place us above the rest, Believe we hold within our hands your thunder; Beaumont and Fletcher. CXVIII. For a king to engage his people in war, to carry off every little ill humour of state, is like a physician's ordering his patient a flux for every pimple.-T. Brown. CXIX. Without the sovereign influence of God's extraordinary and immediate grace, men do very rarely put off all the trappings of their pride, till they who are about them put on their winding-sheet.-Clarendon. CXX. A wise man's heart is like a broad hearth that keeps the coals (his passions) from burning the house. Good deeds in this life are coals raked up in embers, to make a fire next day.-Sir T. Overbury. CXXI. -With short plummets heav'n's deep well we sound, That vast abyss where human wit is drown'd. In our small skiff we must not launch too far; We here but coasters, not discoverers, are. CXXII. Dryden. War suspends the rules of moral obligation, and what is long suspended is in danger of being totally abrogated Civil wars strike deepest of all into the manners of the people. They vitiate their politics; they corrupt their morals; they pervert even the natural taste and relish of equity and justice. By teaching us to consider our fellow-creatures in a hostile light, the whole body of our nation becomes gradually less dear to us. The very names of affection and kindred, which were the bond of charity whilst we agreed, become new incentives to hatred and rage, when the communion of our country is dissolved! We may flatter ourselves that we may not fall into this misfortune. But we have no charter of exemption, that I know of, from the ordinary frailties of our nature.-Burke. CXXIII. Our comedians think there is no delight without laughter, which is very wrong; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight should be the cause of laughter; but well may one thing breed two together.-Sir P. Sidney. CXXIV. When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with, and humoured a little to keep it quiet, till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.-Sir W. Temple. CXXV. Jesting, when not used upon improper matter, in an unfit manner, with excessive measure, at undue season, or to evil purpose, may be allowed. When jesting is so handsomely and innocently used, as not to defile or discompose the mind of the speaker, not to wrong or harm the hearer, not to derogate from any worthy subject of discourse, not to infringe decency, late disturb peace, to violate any of the grand duties incuthoset on us (viz. piety, charity, justice and sobriety,) cannot be condemned.-Barrow. CXXVI. Let none seek needless causes to approve 美し The faith they owe; when earnestly they seek Such proof, conclude they then begin to fall. CXXVII. Milton. A man that knows how to mix pleasures with business, is never entirely possessed by them; he either quits or resumes them at his will; and in the use he makes of them, he rather finds a relaxation of mind, than a dangerous charm that might corrupt him.-St. Evremond CXXVIII. Give tribute, but not oblation, to human wisdom.Sir P. Sidney. CXXIX. Probably a philosopher would rejoice in that liberty which Englishmen give their domestics: and for my own part. I cannot avoid being pleased at the happiness of those poor creatures, who in some measure contribute to mine. The Athenians, the politest and bestnatured people upon earth, were the kindest to their slaves: and if a person may judge, who has seen the world, our English servants are the best treated, because the generality of our English gentlemen are the politest under the sun.— -Goldsmith. CXXX. I courted fame but as a spur to brave CXXXI. Mallett. Wickedness may well be compared to a bottomless pit, into which it is easier to keep one's self from falling, than, being fallen, to give one's self any stay from falling infinitely.-Sir P. Sidney. CXXXII. The disposition and humour of friends should be dispersed withal; but when they impose upon us it is a very hard case, and an unreasonable condition of friendship. Those friends are weak and worthless, that will not use the privilege of friendship, in admonishing their friends with freedom and confidence, as well of their errors as of their danger.-Bacon. CXXXIII. I hate this Fame, false avarice of fancy, Hill. |