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VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

WE

E have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

Reflect on things paft, as wars, negociations, factions, &c. we enter fo little into those interests, that we wonder how men could poffibly be fo bufy and concerned for things fo tranfitory; look on the present times, we find the fame humour, yet wonder not at all.

A wife man endeavours, by confidering all circumstances, to make conjectures, and form conclufions; but the fmalleft accident intervening (and, in the course of affairs, it is impoffible to forefee all) does often produce fuch turns and changes, that at last he is just as much in doubt of events as the most ignorant and unexperienced person.

Pofitivenefs is a good quality for preachers and orators, becaufe he that would obtrude his thoughts and reafons upon a multitude, will convince others the more, as he appears convinced himself.

How is it poffible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they will not fo much as take warning?

I forget whether advice be among the loft things, which Arifto fays are to be found in

the

the moon; that and time ought to have been there.

No preacher is liftened to but time, which gives us the fame train and turn of thought, that elder people have tried in vain to put into our heads before.

When we defire or follicit any thing, our minds run wholly on the good fide or circumftances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.

In a glass-boufe the workmen often fling in a fmall quantity of fresh coals, which feems to disturb the fire, but very much enlivens it. This feems to allude to a gentle ftirring of the paffions, that the mind may not languish.

Religion feems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to nurse it, as it had in its infancy.

All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like fpending this year part of the next year's re

venue.

The latter part of a wife man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and falfe opinions he had contracted in the former.

Would a writer know how to behave himfelf with relation to pofterity, let him confder in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omiffions he moft la

ments.

Whatever the poets pretend, it it plain they give immortality to none but themselves: it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and ad

mire, not Achilles or Æneas.

With hiftori

ans it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are taken up with the actions, perfons, and events we read, and we little regard the au

thors.

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this fign, that the dunces are in confederacy against him.

Men who poffefs all advantages of life, are in a state where there are many accidents to diforder and discompose, but few to please

them.

It is unwife to punish cowards with ignominy; for, if they had regarded that, they would not have been cowards; death is their proper punishment, because they fear it most.

The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance; as the ufe of the compass, gunpowder, and printing; and by the dulleft nation, as the Germans.

One argument to prove that the common relations of ghofts and spectres are generally false, may be drawn from the opinion held, that spirits are never feen by more than one parfon at a time; that is to fay, it seldom happens to above one perfon in a company to be poffeffed with any high degree of spleen or melancholy.

I am apt to think, that in the day of judgment there will be fmall allowance given to the wife for their want of morals, and to the ignorant for their want of faith, because both are without excufe. This renders the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But

fome

fome fcruples in the wife, and fome vices in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon the ftrength of temptation to each.

The value of feveral circumftances in story teffens very much by distance of time, though fame minute circumftances are very valuable; and it requires great judgment in a writer to diftinguish.

It is grown a word of courfe for writers to fay, This critical age, as divines fay, This finful age.

It is pleasant to obferve how free the prefent age is in laying taxes on the next: Fu ture ages fhall talk of this; this shall be famous to all pofterity: whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about prefent things, as ours

are now.

The camelion, who is faid to feed upon nothing but air, hath of all animals the nimblest tongue.

When a man is made a spiritual peer, he lofes his firname; when à temporal, his chriftian name.

It is in difputes as in armies, where the weaker fide fets up falfe lights, and makes a great noife, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and ftrong than they really

are.

Some men, under the notions of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue, honesty, and religion.

In all well-inftituted commonwealths, care has been taken to limit mens poffeffions; which is done for many reafons, and, among

the

the reft, for one which perhaps is not often confidered, that, when bounds are fet to mens defires, after they have acquired as much as the laws permit them, their private interest is at an end, and they have nothing to do but to take care of the public.

There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the cenfure of the world; to defpife it, to return the like, or to endeavour to live fo as to avoid it: the firft of thefe is ufually pretended, the laft is almoft impoffible, the univerfal practice is for the fecond.

Herodotus tells us, that in cold countries beafts very feldom have horns, but in hot they have very large ones. This might bear a pleafant application.

I never heard a finer piece of fatire against lawyers, than that of aftrologers, when they pretend by rules of art to tell when a fuit will end, and whether to the advantage of the plaintiff or defendant; thus making the matter depend intirely upon the influence of the stars, without the leaft regard to the merits of the cause.

The expreffion in Apocrypha about Tobit and his dog following him I have often heard ridiculed, yet Homer has the fame words of Telemachus more than once; and Virgil fays fomething like it of Evander. And I take the book of Tobit to be partly poetical.

I have known fome men poffeffed of good qualities, which were very ferviceable to others, but ufelefs to themfelves; like a fun-dial on the front of a house, to inform

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