Rank. — Goldsmith.

QUALITY and Title have such allurements, that hundreds are ready to give up all their own importance, to cringe, to flatter, to look little, and to pall every pleasure in constraint, merely to be among the Great, though without the least hopes of improving their Understanding or sharing their Generosity: they might be happy among their equals, but those are despised for company where they are despised in turn.

WHEN that the General is not like the hive,
To whom the foragers shall all repair,

What Honey is expected? Degree being vizarded
Th' unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.

The Heavens themselves, the Planets, and this Centre
Observe Degree, Priority, and Place,

Insisture, Course, Proportion, Season, Form,
Office and Custom, in all line of Order:
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the rest, whose med'cinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of Planets evil,
And posts like the commandment of a King,

Sans check, to good and bad. But when the Planets
In evil mixture to Disorder wander,

What plagues, and what portents, what mutiny?

What raging of the Sea? shaking of Earth?

Commotion in the Winds? frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend, and deracinate

The unity and married calm of States

Quite from their fixure? Oh, when Degree is shaken,
(Which is the ladder to all high designs)

The enterprise is sick. How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and Brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogeniture, and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
(But by Degree) stand in authentic place?
Take but Degree away, untune that string,
And hark what Discord follows; each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy. The bounded waters
Would lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid Globe:
Strength would be lord of Imbecility,

And the rude son would strike his father dead:

Force would be Right; or rather, Right and Wrong
(Between whose endless jar Justice resides)
Would lose their names, and so would Justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into Will, Will into Appetite;
And Appetite, an universal Wolf,

So doubly seconded with Will and Power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And, last, eat up himself.-

This chaos, when Degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.

And this neglection of Degree it is,

That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The General's disdain'd
By him one step below; he, by the next;
That next, by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace, that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless Emulation.

Rationality. Greville.

MAN is said to be a Rational Creature; but should it not rather be said, that Man is a Creature capable of being Rational, as we say a Parrot is a Creature capable of Speech ?

Rashness. Shakspeare.

THAT'S a valiant Flea, that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a Lion.

Reading. Pliny.

He picked something out of every thing he read.

Reading. Johnson.

WHAT we read with inclination makes a stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the Attention, so there is but half to be employed on what we read. If a man begins to read in the middle of a Book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.

Reading. Bacon.

READ not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find Talk and Discourse, but to weigh and consider.

Reason.

Sir Philip Sidney.
reasonable, than to leave rea-

REASON cannot show itself more soning on things above Reason.

Reason. — Burke.

WE are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of Reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general Bank and Capital of Nations and of Ages.

Reason. Sir W. Drummond. HE that will not Reason is a Bigot, he that cannot Reason is a Fool, and he that dares not Reason is a Slave.

Reason.- La Rochefoucauld.

HE is not a reasonable Man who by chance stumbles upon Reason, but he who derives it from Knowledge, from Discernment, and from Taste.

Reason. — Anon.

ONE can never repeat too often, that Reason, as it exists in man, is only our intellectual eye, and that, like the eye, to see, it needs Light, to see clearly and far, it needs the Light of Heaven.

Rebellion.-Shakspeare.

WHAT rein can hold licentious Wickedness,

When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command,
Upon th' enraged Soldiers in their spoil,
Or send precepts to th' Leviathan.

WHAT though the mast be now blown overboard,
The cable broke, the holding Anchor lost,

And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood?
Yet lives our Pilot still: Is't meet, that he
Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,
With tearful eyes add water to the Sea,

And give more strength to that which hath too much,
Whiles, in his moan, the Ship splits on the rock,
Which Industry and Courage might have saved?
Ah, what a shame! ah, what a fault were this!

IN all Reprehensions, observe to express rather thy Love than thy Anger; and strive rather to convince than exasperate: but if the Matter do require any special Indignation, let it appear to be the zeal of a displeased Friend, rather than the passion of a provoked Enemy.

Recreation. Saville.

DIVERSIONS are the most properly applied, to ease and relieve those who are oppressed, by being too much employed. Those that are idle have no need of them, and yet they, above all others, give themselves up to them. To unbend our Thoughts, when they are too much stretched by our Cares, is not more natural than it is necessary; but to turn our whole Life into a holyday, is not only ridiculous, but destroyeth Pleasure instead of promoting it.

Refinement. — Greville.

TRUE Delicacy, as true Generosity, is more wounded by an of fence from itself, if I may be allowed the expression, than to

itself.

Refinement. La Bruyere.

THE most delicate, the most sensible of all Pleasures, consists in promoting the Pleasures of others.

Refinement. Greville.

THERE seems to be something satisfactory resulting from every defect in Human Nature! and it is in that satisfaction, methinks, that all the endearing refinements of Society consist; there are a thousand little and undefinable Delicacies in our conversation, our looks, and even Gestures, arising from these defects, which mutually require to be understood and returned; nay, there are little indulgences due to these Defects, which the well-disposed and well-conceiving Mind feels a want to bestow as well as to receive, and will be uneasy and dissatisfied till an opportunity offers to do it; and hence that first of Concerts, the play and harmony of according Minds!

Refinement. — Hume.

IF refined sense, and exalted sense, be not so useful as Common Sense, their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects, make some compensation, and render them the admiration of Mankind.

Reform. - Lavater.

HE who reforms himself, has done more toward reforming the Public, than a crowd of noisy, impotent Patriots.

Reforms. — Colton.

CHARLES FOX said that Restorations were the most bloody of all Revolutions; and, he might have added, that Reforma tions are the best mode of preventing the necessity of either.

Regret.

Shakspeare.

WHAT! old Acquaintance! could not all this flesh
Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!

I could have better spared a better man.

Religion.— Burke.

We know, and what is better, we feel inwardly, that Religion is the basis of civil Society, and the source of all good and of all comfort. In England we are so convinced of this, that there is no rust of Superstition with which the accumulated absurdity of the human mind might have crusted it over in the course of ages, that ninety-nine in a hundred of the People of England would not prefer to Impiety.

Religion. Hare. WORDSWORTH has told us the law of his own mind, the

fulfilment of which has enabled him to reveal a new world of poetry: "Wisdom is oft-times nearer when we stoop than when we soar. That it is so likewise in Religion, we are assured by those most comfortable words, "Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.'

Religion. Colton.

CHARLES the Fourth, after his abdication, amused himself in hist retirement at St. Juste, by attempting to make a number of watches go exactly together. Being constantly foiled in this attempt, he exclaimed, "What a fool have I been to neglect my own concerns, and to waste my whole Life in a vain attempt to make all men think alike on matters of Religion, when I cannot even make a few Watches keep time together."

Religion.-S. T. Coleridge.

UNLESS Christianity be viewed and felt in a high and comprehensive way, how large a portion of our intellectual and moral Nature does it leave without Object and Action!

Religion. South.

TRUTH, like a stately dame, will not be seen, nor show herself at the first visit, nor match with the Understanding upon an ordinary Courtship or address. Long and tedious attendances must be given, and the hardest fatigues endured and digested: nor did ever the most pregnant Wit in the world bring forth any thing great, lasting, and considerable, without some Pain and Travail, some pangs and Throes before the delivery. Now all this that Í have said is to show the force of diligence in the investigation of Truth, and particularly of the noblest of all Truths, which is that of Religion.