To study all its tricks and fashions
With epidemic affectations.

And dare to wear no mode of dress
But what they in their wisdom please;
As monkies are by being taught

To put on gloves and stockings, caught;
Submit to all that they devise,
As if it were their liveries;

Make ready and dress the imagination,
Not with the clothes, but with the fashion;
And change it to fulfil the curse

Of Adam's fall, for new, though worse.

Butler-On our Imitation of the French.

CXXXI.

The proportion of genius to the vulgar, is like one to a million; but genius without tyranny, without pretension, that judges the weak with equity, the superior with humanity, and equals with justice, is like one to ten millions.-Lavater.

CXXXII.

The greatest of fools is he who imposes on himself, and in his greatest concern thinks certainly he knows that which he hath least studied, and of which he is most profoundly ignorant.-Shaftesbury.

CXXXIII.

-The difference is as great between

The optics seeing, as the objects seen.
All manners take a tincture from our own,
Or come discolour'd thro' our passions shown;
Or fancy's beam enlarges, multiplies,

Contracts, invests, and gives ten thousand dyes.

CXXXIV.

Pope.

False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the wall it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports.-Burton.

CXXXV.

There are several persons who in some certain periods

of their lives are inexpressibly agreeable, and in others as odious and detestable. Martial has given us a very pretty picture of one of this species, in the following epigram:

Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem,
Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te.

Epig. xii. 47.
In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow,
Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow;
Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee,
There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
Spectator.

CXXXVI.

To say a person writes a good style, is originally as pedantic an expression, as to say he plays a good fiddle. -Shenstone.

CXXXVII.

I fear the word bear is hardly to be understood among the polite people; but I take the meaning to be, that one who ensures a real value upon an imaginary thing, is said to sell a bear, and is the same thing as a promise among courtiers, or a vow between lovers.-Tatler.

CXXXVIII.

The good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in a variety of suits every day new; as if a good gown, like a stratagem in warre, were to be used but But our good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband's estate; and if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets what she is by match.-Fuller.

once.

CXXXIX.

I take an impudent fellow to be a sort of outlaw in good breeding, and therefore what is said of him no nation or person can be concerned for. For this reason one may be free upon him. I have put myself to great pains in considering this prevailing quality, which we call impudence, and have taken notice that it exerts itself in a different manner, according to the different soils

wherein such subjects of these dominions as are masters of it were born. Impudence in an Englishman is sullen and insolent; in a Scotchman it is untractable and rapacious; in an Irishman absurd and fawning: as the course of the world now runs, the impudent Englishman behaves like a surly landlord, the Scot like an ill-received guest, and the Irishman like a stranger, who knows he is not welcome. There is seldom any thing entertaining either in the impudence of a South or North Briton; but that of an Irishman is always comic. A true and genuine impudence is ever the effect of ignorance without the least sense of it.-Steele.

CXL.

Not actions always show the man: we find
Who does a kindness is not therefore kind.
Perhaps prosperity becalm'd his breast;
Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east;
Not therefore humble he who seeks retreat,
Pride guides his steps, and bids him shun the great,
Who combats bravely is not therefore brave;
He dreads a death-bed like the meanest slave.
Who reasons wisely, is not therefore wise;
His pride in reas'ning, not in acting, lies.

CXLI.

Pope.

The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint; the affectation of sanctity is a blotch on the face of piety.—Lavater.

CXLII.

What fool would trouble fortune more,

When she has been too kind before?

Or tempt her to take back again
What she had thrown away in vain,
By idly vent'ring her good graces
To be dispos'd of by ames-aces;
Or settling it in trust in uses
Out of his pow'r, on trays and deuces;
To put it to the chance, and try,
I' th' ballot of a box and dye,

Whether his money be his own,
And lose it if he be o'erthrown;
As if he were betray'd, and set
By his own stars to ev'ry cheat,
Or wretchedly condemn'd by fate
To throw dice for his own estate;
As mutineers, by fatal doom,
Do for their lives upon a drum?
For what less influence can produce
So great a monster as a chouse,
Or any two-legg'd thing possess
With such a brutish sottishness?
Unless those tutelary stars
Intrusted by astrologers

To have the charge of man, combin'd
To use him in the self-same kind;

As those that help'd them to the trust.

CXLIII.

Butler-on Gaming.

A fool can neither eat, nor drink, nor stand, nor walk, nor, in short, laugh, nor cry, nor take snuff, like a man of sense. How obvious the distinction!-Shenstone.

CXLIV.

He is treated like a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised, because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the audience into raptures.-Goldsmith.

CXLV.

Sweetness of temper is not an acquired, but a natural excellence; and, therefore, to recommend it to those who have it not, may be deemed rather an insult than advice.-Adventurer.

CXLVI.

Philosophy, a name of meek degree,
Embrac'd in token of humility,

By the proud sage, who, whilst he strove to hide,
In that vain artifice reveal'd his pride;

Philosophy, whom nature had design'd
To purge all errors from the human mind,
Herself misled by the philosopher,

At once her priest and master, made us err:
Pride, pride like leaven in a mass of flower,
Tainted her laws, and made e'en virtue sour.
Churchill.

CXLVII.

Penance is the only punishment inflicted; not penitence, which is the right word: a man comes not to do penance, because he repents him of his sin, but because he is compelled to it; curses him, and would kill him that sends him thither. The old canons wisely enjoin three years' penance, sometimes more, because in that time a man got a habit of virtue, and so committed that sin no more, for which he did penance.-Selden.

CXLVIII.

There is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary, which is so slightly performed, as that of a schoolmaster. The reasons whereof I conceive to be these. First, young scholars make this calling their refuge; yea, perchance before they have taken any degree in the university, commence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else were required to set up this profession, but onely, a rod and a ferula. Secondly, others who are able, use it onely as a passage to better preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. Thirdly, they are disheartened from doing their best with the miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to the children, and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, being grown rich, they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the proxie of an usher.-Fuller.

CXLIX.

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, wheVOL. II.

D