Character.

Socrates

THE way to gain a good Reputation is to endeavour to be what you desire to appear.

Character. Shakespeare.

THIS is he

That kiss'd away his hand in courtesy ;
This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice,
That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice
In honourable terms; nay, he can sing

A mean most meanly; and in ushering,
Mend him who can; the ladies call him, sweet;
The stairs as he treads on them kiss his feet.

Tare two most on t

two most precious things on this side the grave But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be more anxious to deserve a fair name than to possess it, and this will teach him so to live, as not to be afraid to die.

THIS fellow's wise enough to play the fool;
And, to do that well, craves a kind of wit;
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons and the time;

And, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practice,
As full of labour as a wise man's art;

For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit;

But wise men, folly fallen, quite taint their wit.

GET

YET and preserve a good name, if it were but for the public service: for one of a deserved Reputation hath oftentimes an opportunity to do that good, which another cannot that wants it. And he may practise it with more security and success.

E will steal himself into a man's favour, and, for a

you find him out, you have him ever after.

THOU wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more,

or a hair less, in his beard, than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes; what eye, but such an eye, would spy out such a quarrel? Thy bead is as full of quarrels, as an egg is full of meat.

Character. Lavater,

A and have not

VOID connecting yourself with Characters whose good

together; they resemble vials of vinegar and oil; or paletts set with colours; they are either excellent at home and intolerable abroad, or insufferable within doors and excellent in public; they are unfit for friendship, merely because their stamina, their ingredients of character, are too single, too much apart; let them be finely ground up with each other, and they will be incomparable.

Free from gross passion, or of mirth, or anger;
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood;
Garnish'd and deck'd with modest compliment;
Not working with the eye, without the ear,
And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither.
Character. — Addison.

PEOPLE of gloomy, uncheerful imaginations, or of

envious, malignant tempers, whatever kind of life they are engaged in, will discover their natural tincture of mind in all their thoughts, words, and actions. As the finest wines have often the taste of the soil, so even the most religious thoughts often draw something that is particular from the constitution of the mind in which they arise. When folly or superstition strikes in with this natural depravity of temper, it is not in the power even of religion itself to preserve the Character of the person who is possessed with it from appearing highly absurd and ridiculous.

A

Character. — From the French.

MAN'S Character is like his Shadow, which some times follows, and sometimes precedes him, and which is occasionally longer, occasionally shorter than he is.

(OME men, like Pictures, are fitter for a corner than a

S full light.

THIS

Character. Shakespeare.

HIS man hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions; he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as a bear, slow as the elephant: a man, into whom nature hath so crowded humours, that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion: there is no man hath a virtue, that he hath not a glimpse of; nor any man an attaint, but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair: he hath the joints of every thing; but every thing so out of joint, that he is a gouty Briareus, many hands and no use; or purblind Argus, all eyes and no sight.

Character. Anon.

Mhands, not a few under their feet.

ANY persons carry about their Characters in their

B

EING not propp'd by ancestry (whose grace
Chalks successors their way), neither allied

To eminent assistants, but, spider-like,

Out of his self-drawing web, he gives us note,
The force of his own merit makes his way;
A gift that Heaven gives for him.

HERE can be no kernel in this light nut; the Soul of

HERE can be no kemel

THERE

HE has been bred i' the wars

Since he could draw a sword, and is ill-school'd
In boulted language; meal and bran together
He throws without distinction.

EVER get a Reputation for a small perfection, if you a aes area. The world can

NEV

only judge by generals, and it sees that those who pay considerable attention to minutiæ, seldom have their Minds occupied with great things. There are, it is true, exceptions; but to exceptions the world does not attend.

T

Character. . Hare.

THERE is a glare about worldly success, which is very apt to dazzle men's eyes. When we see a man rising in the world; thriving in business; successful in his speculations; if he be a man out of our own line, who does not come into competition with us, so as to make us jealous of him, we are too apt to form a foolishly high opinion of his merits. We are apt to say within ourselves, "What a wonderful man this must be, to rise so rapidly!' forgetting that dust and straw, and feathers, things with neither weight nor value in them, rise the soonest and the easiest. In like manner, it is not the truly great and good man, generally speaking, who rises the most rapidly into wealth and notice. A man may be sharp, active, quick, dexterous, cunning; he may be ever on the watch for opportunities to push his fortunes; a man of this kind can hardly fail of getting on in the world: yet with all this, he may not have a grain of real Greatness about him. He may be all I have described, and yet have no Greatness of Mind, no Greatness of Soul. He may be utterly without Sympathy and fellow feeling for others; he may be utterly devoid of all true Wisdom; he may be without Piety and without Charity; without Love, that is, either for God or Man.

THE purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is-spotless Reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.
Character. Franklin.

THE most trifling actions that affect a man's Credit are

to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer; but if he sees you at a Billiard table, or hears your voice at a Tavern, when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day.

Character.

Shakespeare.

LOOK, as I blow this feather from my face,

And as the air blows it to me again,
Obeying with my wind when I do blow,
And yielding to another when it blows,
Commanded always by the greater gust;
Such is the lightness of you Common Men.

DUKE

UKE Chartres used to boast that no man could have less real value for Character than himself, yet he would gladly give twenty thousand pounds for a good one, because he could immediately make double that sum by means of it.

Character. Colton.

THE most consistent men are not more unlike to others than they are at times to themselves; therefore, it is ridiculous to see Character-mongers drawing a full-length Likeness of some great men, and perplexing themselves and their readers by making every feature of his Conduct strictly Conform to those lines and lineaments which they have laid down; they generally find or make for him some Ruling Passion the rudder of his course; but with all this pother about Ruling Passions, the fact is, that all men and all women have but one apparent Good. Those, indeed, are the strongest Minds, and are capable of the greatest actions, who possess a telescopic power of intellectual vision, enabling them to ascertain the real magnitude and importance of distant goods, and to despise those which are indebted for all their grandeur solely to their contiguity.

IN war was never Lion raged more fierce,
In peace was never gentle Lamb more mild.

Where he should find you Lions, finds you Hares :
Where Foxes, Geese. You are no surer, no,
Than is the Coal of Fire upon the Ice,

Or Hailstone in the Sun.

Character.

Shakespeare.

To be generous, guiltless, and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts, that you deem cannon-bullets. There is no slander in an allowed Fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known Discreet Man, though he do nothing but reprove.

Character. - La Rochefoucauld.

WHATEVER Disgrace we have merited, it is almost

always in our power to re-establish our Reputation.