some more knowing, not one so innocent.'-Soliloquy on the Death of a Friend.-Steele. MXV. "The great and tedious debates," says a sensible French writer of the old political school, "about the best form of society, are only proper for the exercise of wit; and have their being only in agitation and controversy. A new form of government might be of some value in a new world: but ours is a world ready made to our hands, and in which each distinct form is blended by custom. We do not, like Pyrrho and Cadmus, make the world; and by whatever authority it is we assert the privilege of setting it to rights, and giving it a new form of government, it is impossible to twist it from its wonted bent, without breaking all its parts. In truth and reality, the best and most excellent government for every nation, is that under which it is maintained; and its form and essential convenience depends upon custom. We are apt to be displeased at the present condition; but I do nevertheless maintain, that, to desire any other form of government than that which is already established, is both Vice and Folly. When any thing is out of its proper place, it may be propped; and the alterations and corruptions natural to all things, obviated so as to prevent their being carried too far from their origin and principles; but to undertake to cast anew so great a mass, and to change the foundation of so vast a building as every government is, is reforming particular defects by a universal confusion, and like curing a disorder by death."-Notes to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. MXVI. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else, to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king, and your lean beggar, is but variable service; two dishes, but to one table, that's the end. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king; and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.-Shakspeare. MXVII. There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion; it is this indeed which gives a value to all the rest, which sets them at work in their proper times and places, and turns them to the advantage of the person who is possessed of them. Without it, learning is pedantry, and wit impertinence; virtue itself looks like weakness; the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice.-Addison. MXVIII. He is a parricide to his mother's name, And with an impious hand murthers her fame, The milk they lent us. MXIX. Randolph. Dishonour to the gentlemen and bankruptcy to the trader, are the portion of either, whose chief purpose of life is delight.—Steele. MXX. Expect to hear of the whisperer without business, the laugher without wit; the complainer without receiving injuries, and a very large crowd, which I shall not forestall, who are common (though not commonly observed) impertinents, whose tongues are too voluble for their brains, and are the general despisers of us women, though we have their superiors, the men of sense, for our servants.-Tatler. MXXI. To choose time is to save time; and an unseasonable motion is but beating the air. There be three parts of business: the preparation; the debate, or examination; and the perfection; whereof, if you look for despatch, let the middle only be the work of many, and the first and last the work of few.-Lord Bacon. MXXII. As notions stand now in the world with respect to morals, honesty is like to gain little by philosophy, or deep speculations of any kind. In the main, 'tis best to stick to common sense, and go no farther. Men's first thoughts, in this matter, are generally better than their second: their natural notions better than those refined by study, or consultation with casuists. According to common speech, as well as common sense, honesty is the best policy. But according to refined sense, the only well-advised persons, as to this world, are arrant knaves; and they alone are thought to serve themselves, who serve their passions, and indulge their loosest ap petites and desires. Such, it seems, are the wise, and such the wisdom of this world! An ordinary man talking of a vile action, in a way of common sense, says naturally and heartily, "He would not be guilty of such a thing for the whole world." But speculative men find great modifications in the case: many ways of evasion: many remedies; many alleviations. A good gift, rightly applied; a right method of suing out a pardon; good almshouses, and charitable foundations erected for right worshippers; and a good zeal shown for the right belief, may sufficiently atone for one wrong practice; especially when it is such as raises a man to a considerable power (as they say) of doing good, and serving the true cause.-Shaftesbury. MXXIII. Every one has his peculiar humours and fancies; and if we will honestly speak the truth, every one has his faults more or less, which, in the matrimonial state especially, we ought to connive at and not to hate.Erasmus. MXXIV. It is the wisdom of government to permit plays, as it is the prudence of a carter to put bells upon his horses, to make them carry their burthens cheerfully.-Sir W. D'Avenant. MXXV. Trust not the world, for it never payeth that it promiseth.-Augustin. MXXVI. Philosophy hath given us several plausible rules for attaining peace and tranquillity of mind, but they fall very much short of bringing men to it.-Tillotson. MXXVII. A man may play the fool with every thing else, but not with poetry: -Neither men, nor gods, nor pillars meant Poets should ever be indifferent. I would to heaven this sentence was writ over the door of all our printers, to forbid the entrance of so many rhymers.-Montaigne. MXXVIII. On a serious consideration of the matter, it will be found that the art of painting has a wonderful affinity with that of poetry, and that there is betwixt them a certain common imagination. For, as the poets introduce the gods and heroes, and all those things which are either majestical, honest, or delightful, in like manner the painters, by the virtue of their outlines, colours, lights, and shadows, represent the same things and persons in their pictures.-Dryden. MXXIX. The head truly enlightened will presently have a wonderful influence in purifying the heart; and the heart really affected with goodness, will much conduce to the directing of the head.-Sprat. MXXX. Envy sets the stronger seal on desert: if he have no enemies, I should esteem his fortune most wretched.Ben Jonson. MXXXI. Let your reason with your choler question Shakspeare, MXXXII. Pleasure and pain, beauty and deformity, good and ill, seemed to me every where interwoven; and one with another made, I thought a pretty mixture, agreeable enough in the main. "Twas the same, I fancied, as in some of those rich stuffs, where the flowers and ground were oddly put together with such irregular work and contrary colours as looked ill in the pattern, but mighty natural and well in the piece.-Shaftesbury. MXXXIII. So fair, so young, so innocent, so sweet, Epitaph on Mrs. Paston.-Dryden. MXXXIV. It is a common phrenzy of the ignorant multitude, to be always engaging heaven on their side: and indeed it is a successful stratagem of any general to gain authority among his soldiers, if he can persuade them he is the man by fate appointed for such or such an action, though most impracticable.—Casaubon. MXXXV. What are riches, empire, pow'r, But larger means to gratify the will? The steps on which we tread, to rise and reach Our wish; and that obtain'd, down with the scaffolding Of sceptres, crowns, and thrones; they have served their end, And are, like lumber, to be left and scorn'd. Congreve |