Page images
PDF
EPUB

We are born to trouble; and we may depend upon it whilst we live in this world we shall have it, though with intermissions-that is, in whatever state we are, we shall find a mixture of good and evil; and therefore the true way to contentment is to know how to receive these certain vicissitudes of life, the returns of good and evil, so as neither to be exalted by the one, or overthrown by the other, but to bear ourselves towards every thing which happens with such ease and indifference of mind, as to hazard as little as may be. This is the true temperate climate fitted us by nature, and in which every wise man would wish to live.-Sterne.

Short-sighted people, I mean such as have but narrow conceptions, never extended beyond their own little sphere, cannot comprehend the universality of talents which is sometimes observable in one person. They allow no solidity in whatever is agreeable; or when they see in any other the graces of the body, activity, suppleness, and dexterity, they conclude he wants the endowments of the mind, judgment, prudence, and perspicacity. Let history say what it will, they will not believe that Socrates ever danced.-Bruyere.

They who think too well of their own performances, are apt to boast in their preface how little time their works have cost them, and what other business of more importance interfered; but the reader will be apt to ask the question, why they allowed not a longer time to make their works more perfect? and why they had so despicable an opinion of their judges, as to thrust their undigested stuff upon them, as if they deserved no better.

P

Dryden.

Cheerfulness is always to be supported if a man is out of pain, but mirth to a prudent man should always be accidental. It should naturally arise out of the occasion, and the occasion seldom be laid for it; for those tempers who want mirth to be pleased, are like the constitutions which flag without the use of brandy. Therefore, I say, let your precept be, "be easy." That mind is dissolute and ungoverned, which must be hurried out of itself by loud laughter or sensual pleasure, or else be wholly inactive.

Steele.

In reading histories, which is every body's subject, I used to consider what kind of men are the authors; which, if persons that profess nothing but mere learning, I in and from them principally observe and learn the style and language; if physicians, I upon that account the rather incline to credit what they report of the temperature of the air, of the health and complexion of princes, of wounds and diseases; if lawyers, we are from them to take notice of the controversies of right and title, the establishment of laws and civil government, and the like; if divines, the affairs of the church, ecclesiastical censures, marriages, and dispensations; if courtiers, manners and ceremonies; if soldiers, the things that properly belong to their trade, and principally the accounts of such actions and enterprises, wherein they were personally engaged; and if ambassadors, we are to observe their negotiations, intelligences, and practices, and the manner how they are to be earried on. Montaigne.

There is a mean in all things; even virtue itself hath its stated limits; which not being strictly observed, it ceases to be virtue.-Horace.

"The great and tedious debates," says a sensible French writer of the old political school," about the best form of society, are only proper for the exercise of wit; and have their being only in agitation and controversy. A new form of government might be of some value in a new world; but ours is a world ready made to our hands, and in which each distinct form is blended by custom. We do not, like Pyrrho and Cadmus, make the world; and by whatever authority it is we assert the privilege of setting it to rights, and giving it a new form of government, it is impossible to twist it from its wonted bent, without breaking all its parts. In truth and reality, the best and most excellent government for every nation, is that under which it is maintained; and its form and essential convenience depends upon custom. We are apt to be displeased at the present condition; but I do nevertheless maintain, that, to desire any other form of government than that which is already established, is both Vice and Folly. When any thing is out of its proper place, it may be propped; and the alterations and corruptions natural to all things, obviated so as to prevent their being carried too far from their origin and principles; but to undertake to cast anew so great a mass, and to change the foundation of so vast a building as every government is, is reforming particular defects oy an universal confusion, and like curing a disorder by death."

Notes to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.

What if a body might have all the pleasure in the world for the asking? Who would so unman himself, as by accepting of them to desert his soul, and become a perpetual slave to his senses?

Seneca.

It was said of the learned bishop Sanderson, that, when he was preparing his lectures, he hesitated so much, and rejected so often, that, at the time of reading, he was often forced to produce, not what was best, but what happened to be at hand. This will be the state of every man, who, in the choice of his employment, balances all the arguments on every side; the complication is so intricate, the motives and objections so numerous, there is so much play for the imagination, and so much remains in the power of others, that reason is forced at last to rest in neutrality, the decision devolves into the hands of chance, and after a great part of life spent in inquiries which can never be resolved, the rest must often pass in repenting the unnecessary delay, and can be useful to few other purposes than to warn others against the same folly, and to show, that of two states of life equally consistent with religion and virtue, he who chooses earliest chooses best. Johnson.

It would be thought a bad government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their time, to be employed in their service; but idleness taxes many of us much more, if we reckon all that is spent in absolute sloth, or doing of nothing, with that which is spent in idle employments, or amusements that amount to nothing. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears, while the key often used is always bright.-Franklin.

Among many other evils that attend gaming, are these, loss of time, loss of reputation, loss of health, loss of fortune, loss of temper, ruin of families, defrauding of creditors, and, what is often the effect of it, the loss of life itself.

What a wonderful creature is man, endowed as he is with faculties by which he can comprehend and explain the material system to which he belongs; show the relation of the planets to the central sun, and to each other; and prove to the meanest capacity the correctness of his knowledge, by ascertaining with precision, and long before they occur, the eclipses of the sun and planets. Hence he can form a probable idea of the mystic dance which myriads of such systems are performing, with invariable order and harmony, in illimitable space; and thence infer the existence of an infinitely wise, good, and all-powerful First Cause, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the stupendous whole! But notwithstanding this evidence of man's mental powers, -when he shuts his eyes to the outward view of things, and closely considers how transient is his own existence, he is at a stand! He finds it difficult to conceive, how such a diminutive creature can be more an object of divine notice and care, than the insects, which he himself is heedlessly and continually crushing under his feet, are of his,-nor is there any effectual relief from the doubt and anxiety into which such a humiliating reflection casts the mind, but the immediate sense excited in it by Omniscience itself. This, animating, raising, and uniting the soul to its first Principle, gives it a perception and comprehension, of which, in the independent exercise of the rational faculty and bodily senses, it is utterly incapable; for its knowledge then, is not the result of laborious inquiry, but intuitive; the medium of its perceptions being light itself, all doubt and uncertainty are necessarily excluded;--it sees, and feels assured.

Dillwyn's Reflections.

« PreviousContinue »