CXII. //2

There is a sort of masonry in poetry, wherein the pause yepresents the joints of building, which ought in every line and course to have their disposition varied.-Shenstone.

CXIII. //3

As thrashing separates the corn from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue.-Burton.

CXIV. 1/4

There is always, and every where, some restraint upon a great man. He is guarded with crowds, and shackled with formalities. The half hat, the whole hat, the half smile, the whole smile, the nod, the embrace, the positive parting with a little bow, the comparative at the middle of the room, the superlative at the door; and, if the person be pan huper sebastus, there is a hyper-superlative cere mony then of conducting him to the bottom of the stairs, or to the very gate: as if there were such rules set to these leviathans, as are to the sea, "Hitherto shalt thou go: and no further."-Cowley.

CXV. 115

The jealous is possessed by a "fine mad devil” and a dull spirit at once.-Lavater.

CXVI. //6

A table without music is little better than a manger; for music at meals is like a carbuncle set in gold, or the signet of an emerald highly burnished. Epictetus.

CXVII. //7

As 't is a greater mystery in the art

Of painting to foreshorten any part

Than draw it out, so 't is in books the chief

Of all perfections to be plain and brief.

CXVIII. //

Butler.

Great efforts of anger to little purpose, serve for plea santry and farce. Exceeding fierceness, with perfect

nability and impotence, makes the highest ridicule.--Shaftesbury.

CXIX. 114

The aged man, that coffers up his gold,

Is plagu'd with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits;
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold:
But still like pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless bans the harvest of his wits,
Having no other pleasure of his gain,
But torment, that it cannot cure his pain.

So then he hath it, when he cannot use it,
And leaves it to be master'd by his young,
Who in their pride do presently abuse it:
Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
To hold their cursed blessed fortune long.
The sweets we wish for, turn to loathed sours,
E'en in the moment that we call them ours.

CXX. / 2.

Shakspeare.

'Tis a great imperfection, and what I have observed in several of my intimate friends, who as their memories supply them with a present and entire review of things, derive their narratives from so remote a fountain, and crowd them with so many impertinent circumstances, that though the story be good in itself, they make a shift to spoil it; and if otherwise, you are either to curse the strength of their memory, or the weakness of their judg ment and it is a hard thing to close up a discourse, and to cut it short, when you are once in, and have a good deal more to say. Neither is there any thing in which the force and readiness of a horse is so much seen, as in a round, graceful, and sudden stop; and I see even those who are pertinent enough, who would but cannot stop short in their career; for whilst they are seeking out a handsome period to conclude the sense, they talk at random, and are so perplexed and entangled in their own eloquence, that they know not what they say.-Montaigne.

CXXI. /2/

Poetry is musick in words: and musick is poetry in sound both excellent sauce, but they have lived and died poore, that made them their meat.-Fuller.

CXXII. / 22

There are numbers in the world, who do not want sense, to make a figure, so much as an opinion of their own abilities, to put them upon recording their observations, and allowing them the same importance which they do to those which others print.-Shenstone.

CXXIII. / 23

A man that is temperate, generous, valiant, chaste, faithful, and honest, may, at the same time, have wit, humour, mirth, good breeding, and gallantry. While he exerts these latter qualities, twenty occasions might be invented to show he is master of the other noble virtues. Such characters would smite and reprove the heart of a man of sense, when he is given up to his pleasures. Steele.

CXXIV./2

When princes idly lead about,
Those of their party follow suit,
Till others trump upon their play,
And turn the cards another way.

CXXV.

125

Butler.

Employment, which Galen calls "nature's physician," is so essential to human happiness, that indolence is justly considered as the mother of misery.—Burton.

CXXVI/26

She neglects her heart who studies her glass.-Lavater.

CXXVII. /27

The best born, and the first born, are oftimes the worst, and the last to be borne.-Zimmerman.

CXXVIII. 126

When a doubt is propounded, you must learn to distinguish, and show wherein a thing holds, and wherein it doth not hold ay or no never answered any question. The not distinguishing where things should be distinguished, and the not confounding, where things should be confounded, is the cause of all the mistakes in the world.-Selden.

CXXIX. /29

It would be as difficult a task to reckon up the different kinds of love's idols, as Milton's was to number those that were known in Canaan, and the lands adjoining. Most of them are worshipped like Moloch, in fires and flames. Some of them, like Baal, love to see their votaries cut and slashed, and shedding their blood for them. Some of them, like the idol in the Apocrypha, must have treats and collations prepared for them every night. It has indeed been known, that some of them have been used by their incensed worshippers like the Chinese idols, who are whipped and scourged when they refuse to comply with the prayers that are offered to them.-Addison.

CXXX. 130

Who wou'd not rather get him gone
Beyond th' intolerablest zone,

Or steer his passage thro' those seas
That burn in flames, or those that freeze,
Than see one nation go to school,
And learn of another like a fool?
To study all its tricks and fashions
With epidemick 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, tho' worse.

Butler-On our Imitation of the French.

CXXXI. 13/

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 mil lions.-Lavater.

CXXXII. 132

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

CXXXIII. /33

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. 134

Pope.

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

CXXXV. /35

There are severa. 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.