O wherefore should I busk my head? And says he'll never love me mair. Now Arthur Seat sall be my bed: The sheets shall ne'er be prest by me: ΑΝΟΝ. HAPPINESS. PHILOSOPHICAL happiness is to want little; civil or vulgar happiness is to want much, and to enjoy much.* BURKE. To be happy, the passion must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy. A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, real poverty. HUME. TRUE happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self; and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions. Spectator, No. 15. HAPPINESS is the fruit of a man's own care and industry, as it consists in the goodness of his dispositions, his inclinations, and his actions. ANTONINUS. THE human mind, in proportion as it is deprived of external resources, sedulously labours to find within itself the means of *This gives a different turn to the reflections of the wise man and the fool. The first endeavours to shine in himself, and the last to outshine others. The first is humbled by the sense of his own infirmities, the last is lifted up by the discovery of those which he observes in other men. The wise man considers what he wants, and the fool what he abounds in. The wise man is happy when he gains his own approbation, and the fool when he recommends himself to the applause of those about him. Spectator. happiness, learns to rely with confidence on its own exertions, and gains with greater certainty the power of being happy. ZIMMERMAN. THAT all who are happy are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher. This question was very happily illustrated by the Rev. Mr. Robert Brown, at Utrecht: “A small drinking-glass and a large one," said he, "may be equally full, but a large one holds more than the small." JOHNSON. THE haunts of happiness are varied and rather unaccountable, but I have more often* seen her among little children, and home firesides, and in country houses, than any where else,—at least I think so. SYDNEY SMITH. How distant oft the thing we dote on most, YOUNG. Night Thoughts. ** THE FALLACY OF RELYING UPON GENERAL OPINION. HE that rests upon established consent, as the judgment approved by time, trusts to a very fallacious and weak foundation for we have but an imperfect knowledge of the discoveries in arts and sciences made public in different ages and countries. * Nor is consent, or the continuance thereof, a thing of any great account: for however governments may vary, there is but one state of the sciences: and that will for ever be democratic or popular. But the doctrines of greatest vogue among the people, are either the contentious and quarrelsome, or the showy and empty; that is, such as may either entrap the assent or lull the mind to rest: whence of course the greatest * If solid happiness we prize, Within our breast this jewel lies, And they are fools who roam : The world has nothing to bestow; From our own selves our joys must flow, And that dear hut, our home. COTTON. The Fireside. geniuses in all ages have suffered violence, whilst, out of regard to their own character, they submitted to the judgment of the times and the populace. And thus, when any more sublime speculations happened to appear, they were commonly tossed and extinguished by the breath of popular opinion. Whence time, like a river, has brought down to us what is light and tumid, but sunk what was ponderous and solid. And the night shall be fill'd with music, CARE, mad to see a man sae happy, LONGFELLOW. E'en drown'd himsel' amang the nappy;* Cares have commonly very little jurisdiction over the time that is spent in eating and drinking. Don Quixote, U As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, BURNS. Tam O'Shanter. ROME. HE that hath seen a great oak dry and dead, All that which Egypt whilom did devise, Or Corinth skill'd in curious works to grave; Was wont this ancient city to adorn, And heaven itself with her wide wonders fill; THE COLISEUM. ARCHES on arches! as it were that Rome, As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here to illume Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. But when the rising moon begins to climb When the stars twinkle through the loops of time, Heroes have trod this spot-'tis on their dust ye tread. Childe Harold, Canto IV. ATHENS. WESTWARD, much nearer by south-west, behold! Where on the Ægean shore a city stands, Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil; City or suburban, studious walks and shades. Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; Of bees' industrious murmur oft invites To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls His whispering stream: within the walls then view The school of ancient sages; his who bred |