Bad Company.

AD company is like a nail driven into a poft, which, after the first and fecond blow may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the deftruction of the wood.-ST. AUGUSTINE.

Bad Soil.

E that fows his grain upon marble, will have many a hungry belly before his harveft.-ARBUTHNOT.

Biblical Writers.

T doth not appear that it ever came into the mind of these writers, how this or the other action would ap

pear to mankind, or what objections might be raised against them. But without at all attending to this, they lay the facts before you, at no pains to think whe

ther they would appear credible or not. If the reader will not believe their teftimony, there is no help for it; they tell the truth and attend to nothing elfe. Surely this looks like fincerity, and that they published nothing to the world, but what they believed themfelves.-DUCHAL.

Biography.

IOGRAPHY fets before us the whole character of a person who has made himself eminent either by his virtues or his vices; fhows us how he came firft to take a right or a wrong turn, the profpects which invited him to afpire to higher degrees of glory, or the delufions which misled him from his virtues and his peace; the circumftances which raised him to true greatness, or the rocks on which he split and funk to infamy. And how can we more effectually, or in a more entertaining manner, learn the important leffon, what we ought to pursue and what to avoid. DR. BURGH.

2. A LIFE which is worth reading, ought never to have been written. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.

3. OUR Grub-street Biographers, watch for the death of a great man, like fo many undertakers, on purpose to make a penny of him.-ADDISON.

Blank Verfe.

E who reads Milton's Paradife Loft, with a true relifh for its beauties, will never embrace the opinion of the critic who afferted that "blank verfe is verfe only to the eye." Blank verfe is the glory of the English Poetry, which the French language, from its want of energy and vigour, cannot fupport. It gives great freedom to the poet, and allows him to take the moft lofty flights, unfhackled by the chains of rhyme. It requires, however, great elevation of thought, splendour of imagery and elegance of diction to prevent him from finking into profe. And as the poet is under no neceffity to close the sense

with the couplet, he muft " bridle in his ftruggling mufe" left fhe be too excurfive, and range beyond the proper bounds of description. It gives greater scope of expreffion and greater variety of pause, than rhyme, and is well adapted to the ftrains of the Tragic and the Paftoral as well as to the Epic Mufe: as is evident from Shakspeare's Tragedies and Thomfon's Seafon's.-HENRY KETT.

M

Bluntnefs.

ANAGE difputes with civility; whence fome readers will be affifted to discern a difference betwixt bluntness of speech and ftrength

of reafon.-HON. ROBERT BOYLE.

Bluftering.

IRGIL has the majefty of a lawful Prince, and Statius only the bluftering of a tyrant.-DRYDEN.

2. A COWARD makes a great deal more bluftering than a man of honour. L'ESTRANGE.

Body and Mind.

THOUGHT ftrongly encouraged by justice and duty, well warmed by fhame and honour, rage and

revenge, makes the fpirits rufh into the nerves with unusual vigour. This fudden effort of the mind, raises the whole of the powers of nature, ftrains the muscles and makes every atom, as it were, fally out with

it. This I take to be an evidence that the mind has a great command over the body and can roufe or lay it afleep at pleasure; and is a good argument to prove the independent liberty of the will and the distinction between matter and fpirit. - JEREMY COL

LIER.

Bolingbroke's Ignorance.

ORD BOLINGBROKE feemeth to take a particular pleasure in railing at pedants, at the fame time that he is himself one of the moft

pedantic of writers, if it be pedantry to make