But, knowing heaven his home, to shun delay,
He leap'd o'er age, and took the shortest way.
On young Mr. Rogers-Dryden.

MCCLXXI.

Natural history is no work for one that loves his chair or his bed. Speculation may be pursued on a soft couch, but Nature must be observed in the open air. I have collected materials with indefatigable pertinacy. I have gathered glow-worms in the evening, and snails in the morning; I have seen the daisy close and open; I have heard the owl shriek at midnight, and hunted insects in the heat of noon.-Johnson.

MCCLXXII.

Seek not to know to morrow's doom;
That is not ours, which is to come.
The present moment's all our store:
The next, should heav'n allow,
Then this will be no more:

So all our life is but one instant now.
Look on each day you've past

To be a mighty treasure won:

And lay each moment out in haste;
We're sure to live too fast,

And cannot live too soon.

Youth doth a thousand pleasures bring,
Which from decrepid age will fly;
The flow'rs that flourish in the spring,
In Winter's cold embraces lie.

MCCLXXIII.

Congreve.

Time travels in divers paces with divers persons: I'll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal. -Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized: if the interim be but a se'ennight, time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven years. He ambles withal with a priest that lacks latin, and a rich man that hath not the gout: for the one that sleeps, easily, because he

cannot study; and the other lives merrily, because he feels no pain; the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning; the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious penury: these time ambles withal.--He gallops withal with a thief to the gallows: for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. He stays still withal, with lawyers in the vacation: for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves.—Shakspeare.

MCCLXXIV.

Ceremony

Was but devised at first, to set a gloss
On faint deeds, hollow welcomes,

Recanting goodness, sorry ere 'tis shewn;

But where there is true friendship, there needs none. Shakspeare.

MCCLXXV.

If we were to form an image of dignity in a man, we should give him wisdom and valour, as being essential to the character of manhood. In like manner, if you describe a right woman in a laudable sense, she should have gentle softness, tender fear, and all those parts of life which distinguish her from the other sex; with some subordination to it, but such an inferiority that makes her still more lovely.-Steele.

MCCLXXVI.

When hath Diana, like an envious wretch,
That glitters only to his soothed self,
Denying to the world the precious use
Of hoarded wealth, withheld her friendly aid?
Monthly we spend our still-repaired shine,
And not forbid our virgin-waxen torch
To burn and blaze, while nutriment doth last:
Yet once consumed, out of Jove's treasury,
Anew we take, and stick it to our sphere,
To give the mutinous kind of wanting men
Their look'd-for light.

VOL. II.

Cynthia's Revels-Ben Jonson.

Ee

MCCLXXVII.

When men that can learn the hardest trade in a few years, have not learned a catechism, nor how to understand the creed, under twenty or thirty years' preaching, nor cannot abide to be questioned about such things, doth not this show that they have slighted them in their hearts?-Baxter.

MCCLXXVIII.

It is a strange thing, that, in sea voyages, where there is nothing to be seen but sky and sea, men should make diaries; but in land-travel, wherein so much is to be observed, for the most part they omit it, as if chance were fitter to be registered than observation: let diaries, therefore, be brought in use.-Lord Bacon.

MCCLXXIX.

Ben. Lawyer, I believe there's many a cranny and leak unstopped in your conscience. If so be that one had a pump to your bosom, I believe we should discover a foul hold. They say a witch will sail in a sieve; but I believe the devil would not venture aboard your conscience.-Love for Love-Congreve.

MCCLXXX.

What wise man,

That, with judicious eyes, looks on a soldier,
But must confess that fortune's swing is more
O'er that profession than all kinds else
Of life pursued by man? They, in a state,
Are but as surgeons to wounded men,
E'en desperate in their hopes.

MCCLXXXI.

Massinger.

Whosoever shall look heedfully upon those who are eminent for their riches, will not think their condi tion such as that he should hazard his quiet, and much less his virtue, to obtain it: for all that great wealth generally gives above a moderate fortune, is more room for the freaks of caprice, and more privilege for ignorance and vice, a quicker succession of flatteries, and a larger circle of voluptuousness.--Johnson.

MCCLXXXII.

We who life bestow, ourselves must live; Kings cannot reign unless their subjects give; And they, who pay the taxes, bear the rule: Thus thou, sometimes, art forced to draw a fool: But so his follies in thy posture sink,

The senseless idiot seems at last to think.

Good heaven! that sots and knaves should be so vain To wish their vile resemblance may remain,

And stand recorded, at their own request,

To future days, a libel or a jest.

Dryden-to Sir Godfrey Kneller.

MCCLXXXIII.

Were I in England now (as once I was,) and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man: any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.-Tempest-Shakspeare.

MCCLXXXIV.

A mind too vigorous and active serves only to consume the body to which it is joined, as the richest jewels are soonest found to wear their settings.-Goldsmith.

MCCLXXXV.

The coldness of a losing gamester lessens the pleasure of the winner. I'd no more play with a man that slighted his ill fortune than I'd make love to a woman who undervalued the loss of her reputation.-Congreve.

MCCLXXXVI.

There are some tempers-how shall I describe them? formed either of such impenetrable matter, or wrought up by habitual selfishness to such an utter insensibility of what becomes of the fortunes of their fellow-creatures, as if they were not partakers of the same nature, or had no lot or connexion at all with the species.-Sterne.

MCCLXXXVII.

How happy 's the prisoner that conquers his fate

With silence, and ne'er on bad fortune complains,

But carelessly plays with his keys on the grate,

And makes a sweet concert with them and his chains. He drowns care with sack, while his thoughts are opprest,

And makes his heart float like a cork in his breast.
Then since we 're all slaves who islanders be,

And the world's a large prison enclos'd with the sea,
We'll drink up the ocean, and set ourselves free,
For man is the world's epitome.

'Tis sack makes our faces like comets to shine.
And gives beauty beyond a complexion mask;
Diogenes fell so in love with his wine

That when 'twas all out he still liv'd in the cask;
And he so lov'd the scent of his wainscoted room,
That, dying, he desired a tub for his tomb.
Then since we 're all slaves, &c.

Song in a Tragi-comedy, 1660.

MCCLXXXVIII.

Foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb, and always a coxcomb.-Johnson.

MCCLXXXIX.

'Tis strange, dear Temple, how it comes to pass,
That no one man is pleas'd with what he has.
So Horace sings-and sure, as strange is this,
That no one man's displeased with what he is.
The foolish, ugly, dull, impertinent,

Are with their persons and their parts content.
Nor is that all; so odd a thing is man,

He most would be what least he should or can.
Hence, homely faces still are foremost seen,
And cross-shap'd fops affect the nicest mien;
Cowards extol true courage to the skies,
And fools are still most forward to advise;
The untrusted wretch to secrecy pretends,
Whispering his nothing round to all his friends.
Dull rogues affect the politician's part,

And learn to nod and smile, and shrug with art;