Puslapio vaizdai
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But just as toothdraw'rs find, among the rout,
Their own teeth work in pulling others out,
So they, decrying all of all that write,
Think to erect a trade of judging by 't.
Small poetry, like other heresies,
By being persecuted multiplies;

But here they're like to fail of all pretence;
For he that writ this play is dead long since,
And not within their power; for bears are said
To spare those that lie still and seem but dead.
Prologue by Butler.

LXIII.

There ought, no doubt, to be heroes in society as well as butchers; and who knows but the necessity of butchers (inflaming and stimulating the passions with animal food) might at first occasion the necessity of heroes. Butchers, I believe, were prior.-Shenstone.

LXIV.

A plain country fellow is one that manures his ground well, but lets himself lie fallow and untilled. He has reason enough to do his business, and not enough to be idle or melancholy. His hand guides the plough and the plough his thoughts, and his ditch and landmark is the very mound of his meditations. He expostulates with his oxen very understandingly, and speaks gee, and ree, better than English. His mind is not much distracted with objects, but if a good fat cow come in his way, he stands dumb and astonished, and though his haste be never so great, will fix here half an hour's contemplation. His habitation is some poor thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loop-holes that let out smoke, which the rain had long since washed through, but for the double ceiling of bacon on the inside, which has hung there from his grandsire's time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. His dinner is his other work, for he sweats at it as much as at his labour; he is a terrible fastner on a piece of beef, and you may hope to stave the guard off sooner. His religion is a part of his copyhold which he takes from his landlord, and refers it wholly to

his discretion: yet if he give him leave he is a good Christian to his power, (that is,) comes to church in his best clothes, and sits there with his neighbours, where he is capable only of two prayers, for rain and fair weather. He apprehends God's blessings only in a good year, or a fat pasture, and never praises him but on good ground. Sunday he esteems a day to make merry in, and thinks a bagpipe as essential to it as evening-prayer, where he walks very solemnly after service with his hands coupled behind him, and censures the dancing of his parish. His compliment with his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse. He thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and ill husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk with a good conscience. He is sensible of no calamity but the burning a stack of corn, or the overflowing of a meadow, and thinks Noah's flood the greatest plague that ever was, not because it drowned the world, but spoiled the grass. For death he is never troubled, and if he get in but his harvest before, let it come when it will, he cares not.-Bishop Earle.

LXV.

He who in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.

A merchant who always tells truth, and a genius who never lies, are synonymous to a saint.-Lavater.

LXVI.

Surely men, contrary to iron, are worse to be wrought upon when they are hot, and are farre more tractable in cold blood. It is an observation of seamen, that if a single meteor or fire-ball falls on their mast, it portends ill luck; but if two come together, (which they count Castor and Pollux) they presage good success. sure in a family it bodeth most bad, when two fire-balls

But

(husband and wife's anger) come both together.-Fuller.

LXVII.

Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy, as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.-Shenstone.

LXVIII.

The soul, considered with its Creator, is like one of those mathematical lines that may draw nearer to another for all eternity without a possibility of touching it:* and can there be a thought so transporting, as to consider ourselves in these perpetual approaches to him, who is not only the standard of perfection but of happiness!— Addison.

LXIX.

Our meats and our sports (much of them) have relation to church-works. The coffin of our Christmas pies, in shape long, is in imitation of the cratch; our choosing kings and queens on twelfth night, hath reference to the three kings. So likewise our eating of fritters, whipping of tops, roasting of herrings, jack of lents, &c., they were all in imitation of church-works, emblems of martyrdom. Our tansies at Easter have reference to the bitter herbs; though at the same time t'was always the fashion for a man to have a gammon of bacon, to show himself to be no Jew.-Selden.

LXX.

In all the world there is no vice

Less prone t'excess than avarice;

It neither cares for food nor clothing:

Nature's content with little, that with nothing.

LXXI.

Butler.

Dissipation is absolutely a labour when the round of Vanity Fair has been once made; but fashion makes us think light of the toil, and we describe the circle as mechanically as a horse in a mill.-Zimmerman.

*Those lines are what the geometricians call the asymptotes of the hyperbola.

LXXII.

To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others, is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.-Pope.

LXXIII.

Freeman. Pray inform me what can be worse than what I beheld yesterday? Can any thing be more provoking, than for a man to insult his wife after that merciless rate; or more odious, than for a woman to expose her husband's infirmities?

Bellair. Yes, I tell you, blows are more provoking and odious. What signify a few foolish angry words? they don't break bones, nor give black eyes. Besides, this sort of language is now become so habitual to the worthy couple, that it makes no manner of impression on them. Mithridates, you know, by accustoming himself to poison, brought his body to such a pitch at last, that he could regale himself with opium, and feast upon rats-bane.The Militant Couple.-Buckingham.

LXXIV.

Style in painting is the same as in writing; a power over materials, whether words or colours, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed.-Sir J. Reynolds.

LXXV.

Where jealousie is the jailour, many break the prison, it opening more wayes to wickednesse than it stoppeth; so that where it findeth one, it maketh ten dishonest.Fuller.

LXXVI.

The most usual way among young men who have no resolution of their own, is first to ask one friend's advice, and follow it for some time: then to ask advice of another, and turn to that; so of a third; still unsteady, always changing. However, be assured that every change of this nature is for the worse; people may tell you of your being unfit for some peculiar occupations in life; but heed them not; whatever employment you follow with

In

perseverance and assiduity will be found fit for you; it will be your support in youth, and comfort in age. learning the useful part of every profession, very moderate abilities will suffice; even if the mind be a little balanced with stupidity, it may in this case be useful. Great abilities have always been less serviceable to the possessors than moderate ones. Life has been compared to a race, but the allusion still improves, by observing, that the most swift are ever the least manageable.

To know one profession only is enough for one man; and this (whatever the professors may tell you to the contrary) is soon learned. Be contented, therefore, with one good employment; for if you understand two at a time, people will give you business in neither.-Goldsmith.

LXXVII.

He that is a good man, is three quarters of his way towards the being a good Christian, wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is called.-South.

LXXVIII.

Raillery is no longer agreeable only while the whole company is pleased with it. I would least of all be understood to except the person rallied.—Steele.

LXXIX.

The condition of human nature resembles a table chequered with compartments of black and white: potentates and people have their rise and fall; cities and families their trines and sextiles, their quartiles and oppositions.-Burton.

LXXX.

Judgment is but a curious pair of scales,

That turns with th' hundredth part of true or false,
And still the more 't is us'd is wont t' abate

The subtlety and niceness of its weight,
Until 'tis false, and will not rise, nor fall,

Like those that are less artificial,

And therefore students, in their ways of judging,
Are fain to swallow many a senseless gudgeon,

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