-Smiles from reason flow, to brutes, deniedAnd are of love the food.

It may be remarked in general under this head, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a faint constrained kind of half laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them: but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world.— Steele.

XLVIII.

He who wants justice, and has wit, judgment, or valour, will, for the having wit, judgment, or valour, be the more abhorred, because the more wit, judgment, or valour he has, if he wants justice, the more he will certainly become a wicked man; and he who wants justice, and has power, will, for the having power, be the more abhorred, because the more power he has, if he wants justice, the more he will certainly become a wicked man. -Buckingham.

XLIX.

Trust him with little who, without proofs, trusts you with every thing; or, when he has proved you, with nothing.-Lavater.

L.

A man in much business must either make himself a knave, or else the world will make him a fool; and if the injury went no farther than being laughed at, a wise man would content himself with the revenge of retaliation: but the case is much worse; for these civil cannibals too, as well as the wild ones, not only dance about such a taken stranger, but at last devour him. A sober man cannot get too soon out of drunken company, though they be never so kind and merry among themselves; it is not unpleasant only, but dangerous to him.-Cowley.

LI.

Secretaries of state, presidents of the council, and generals of an army, have crowds of visitants in a morning, all soliciting of past promises; which are but a civiller sort of duns, that lay claim to voluntary debts.--Congreve.

LII.

He makes a lady but a poor recompense, who marries her, because he has kept her company long after his affection is estranged. Does he not rather increase the injury?-Shenstone.

LIII.

Those servants who found their obedience on some external thing, with engines, will go no longer than they are wound or weighed up.-Fuller.

LIV.

Praise is not to be the entertainment of every moment. He that hopes for it, must be able to suspend the possession of it till proper periods of life, or death itself. If you would not rather be commended than be praiseworthy, contemn little merits; and allow no man to be so free with you, as to praise you to your face. vanity by this means will want its food. At the same time your passion for esteem will be more fully gratified; men will praise you in their actions: where you now receive one compliment, you will then receive twenty civilities.-Steele.

LV.

Your

Let women paint their eyes with tints of chastity, insert into their ears the word of God, tie the yoke of Christ around their necks, and adorn their whole persons with the silk of sanctity, and the damask of devotion; let them adopt that chaste and simple, that neat and elegant style of dress, which so advantageously displays the charms of real beauty, instead of those preposterous fashions, and fantastical draperies, of dress, which, while they conceal some few defects of person, expose so many defects of mind, and sacrifice to ostentatious finery, all those mild, amiable, and modest virtues, by which the female character is so pleasingly adorned.-Tertullian.

LVI.

Petitions not sweetened

With gold, are but unsavoury oft refused;
Or if received, are pocketed, not read.

A suitor's swelling tears by the glowing beams

Of choleric authority are dried up

Before they fall, or if seen, never pitied.

LVII.

Massinger.

Friendship is the only thing in the world, concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.—Cicero.

LVIII.

The historian may make himself wise, by living as many ages as have past since the beginning of the world. His books enable him to maintain discourse, who, besides the stock of his own experience, may spend on the common purse of his reading. This directs him in his life, so that he makes the shipwrecks of others seamarks to himself; yea, accidents which others start from their strangnesse, he welcomes as his wonted acquaintance, having found precedents for them formerly. Without history a man's soul is published, seeing onely the things which almost touch his eyes.-Fuller.

LIX.

There is a manner of forgiving so divine, that you are ready to embrace the offender for having called it forth. Lavater.

LX.

He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man had need to be forgiven.-Lord Herbert.

LXI.

The good husband keeps his wife in the wholesome ignorance of unnecessary secrets. They will not be starved with the ignorance, who perchance may surfeit with the knowledge of weighty counsels, too heavy for the weaker sex to bear. He knows little who will tell his wife all he knows.-Tatler.

LXII.

For still the wickeder some authors write,
Others to write worse are encourag'd by 't;
And tho' those fierce inquisitors of wit,
The critics, spare no flesh that ever writ,

But just as toothdraw'rs find, among the rout,
Their own teeth work in pulling others out,
So they, decrying all of all that write,
Think to erect a trade of judging by 't.
Small poetry, like other heresies,
By being persecuted multiplies;

But here they're like to fail of all pretence;
For he that writ this play is dead long since,
And not within their power; for bears are said
To spare those that lie still and seem but dead.
Prologue by Butler.

LXIII.

There ought, no doubt, to be heroes in society as well as butchers; and who knows but the necessity of butchers (inflaming and stimulating the passions with animal food) might at first occasion the necessity of heroes. Butchers, I believe, were prior.-Shenstone.

LXIV.

A plain country fellow is one that manures his ground well, but lets himself lie fallow and untilled. He has reason enough to do his business, and not enough to be idle or melancholy. His hand guides the plough and the plough his thoughts, and his ditch and landmark is the very mound of his meditations. He expostulates with his oxen very understandingly, and speaks gee, and ree, better than English. His mind is not much distracted with objects, but if a good fat cow come in his way, he stands dumb and astonished, and though his haste be never so great, will fix here half an hour's contemplation. His habitation is some poor thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loop-holes that let out smoke, which the rain had long since washed through, but for the double ceiling of bacon on the inside, which has hung there from his grandsire's time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. His dinner is his other work, for he sweats at it as much as at his labour; he is a terrible fastner on a piece of beef, and you may hope to stave the guard off sooner. His religion is a part of his copyhold which he takes from his landlord, and refers it wholly to

his discretion: yet if he give him leave he is a good Christian to his power, (that is,) comes to church in his best clothes, and sits there with his neighbours, where he is capable only of two prayers, for rain and fair weather. He apprehends God's blessings only in a good year, or a fat pasture, and never praises him but on good ground. Sunday he esteems a day to make merry in, and thinks a bagpipe as essential to it as evening-prayer, where he walks very solemnly after service with his hands coupled behind him, and censures the dancing of his parish. His compliment with his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse. He thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and ill husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk with a good conscience. He is sensible of no calamity but the burning a stack of corn, or the overflowing of a meadow, and thinks Noah's flood the greatest plague that ever was, not because it drowned the world, but spoiled the grass. For death he is never troubled, and if he get in but his harvest before, let it come when it will, he cares not.-Bishop Earle.

LXV.

He who in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.

A merchant who always tells truth, and a genius who never lies, are synonymous to a saint.-Lavater.

LXVI.

Surely men, contrary to iron, are worse to be wrought upon when they are hot; and are farre more tractable in cold blood. It is an observation of seamen, that if a single meteor or fire-ball falls on their mast, it portends ill luck; but if two come together, (which they count Castor and Pollux) they presage good success. sure in a family it bodeth most bad, when two fire-balls

But