5. No blessing of life is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend; it eases and unloads tbe mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thought and knowledge, animates virtue and geod resolutions, soothes and allays the passions, and finds employment for most of the Vacant hours of life.Spectator. 6. The brightness of the sky, the lengthening of the days, the increasing verdure of the spring, the arrival of any little piece of good news, or whatever carries with It the most distant glimpse of joy, is frequently the parent of a social and happy conversation.World. 7- In fair weather, when my heart is cheered, and I feel that exultation of spirits, which results from light and warmth, joined with a beauiful prosperl of nature, I regard myself as one placed by the hand of God, in the midst of an ample theatre, in which the sun, moon and stars, the fruits also, and vegetables of the earth, perpetually changing their positions or their aspects, exhibit an elegant entertainment to the understanding as well a9 to the eye. Thunder and lightning, rain and hail, the painted kow and the glaring comets, are decorations of this mighty theatre; and the sable hemisphere, studded with spangles, the blue vault at noon, the glorious gildings and rich colorings in the horizon, I look on as so many successive scenes. Spectator. 8. Complaisance renders a superior amiable, an equal agreea ble, and an inferior acceptable. It smooths distinction, sweetens conversation, and makes every one in the company pleased with himself. It produces good nature and mutual benevolencer encourages the timorous, soothes the turbulent, humanizes the fierce, and distinguishes a society of civilized persons from a confusion of savages. In a word, complaisance is a virtue that blends all orders of men together, in a friendly intercourse of words and actions, and is suited to that equality in human nature, which every man ought to consider, so far as is consistent with the order and economy of the world.. -Guardian. 9. It is owing to our having early imbibed false notions of virtue, that the word Christian does not carry with it at first view, all that is great, worthy, friendly, generous and heroic. The man who suspends his hopes of the rewards of worthy *ctions till after death ; who can bestow, unseen; who can overlook hatred; do good to his slanderer; who can never be angry at his friend; never revengeful to his enemy—is certainly formed for the benefit of society. Spectator. . . 10. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life, in gen eral, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be of age—then to be a man of business—then to make up an estate—then to arrive at honors then to retire. The usurer would be very well satisfied, to have all the time annihi lated that lies between the present moment and the next quarter day—the politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in, after such a revolution of time—and the lover would be glad to strike out of his existence, all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. 11. Should the greater part of people sit down and draw up a particular account of their time, what a shameful bill would it be! So much in eating, drinking and sleeping, beyond what na ture requires; «o much in revelling and wantonness; so much for the recovery of last night's intemperance; so much in gaming, plays and masquerades; so much in paying and receiving formal and impertinent visits; so much in idle and foolish prating, in censuring and reviling our neighbors; so much for dressing out our bodies, and in talking of fashions ; and so much wasted and lost in doing nothing at all.- Sherlock. 12. If we would have the kindness of others, we must endure their follies. He who cannot persuade himself to withdraw from society, must be content to pay a tribute of his time to a multitude of tyrants; to the loiterer who makes appointments he never keeps to the coksulter, who asks advice which he never takes to the boaster, who blusters only to be praised—to the complainer who whines only to be pitied to the projector, whose happiness is to entertain his friends with expectations, which all but himself know to be vain—to the economist, who tells of bargains and settlements—to the politician, who predicts the consequences of deaths, battles and alliances—to the usurer, who compares the state of the different funds—and to the talker, who talks only because he loves to be talking. Johnson. 13. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.St. Paul. 14. Delightful task to rear the tender thought, To breath th' enliv'ning spirit, and to fix The gen'rous purpose in the glowing breast. Tiomton. 15. Dread o'er the scene the Ghost of Hamlet stalks Othello rages—poor Monimia mourns→→ And Belvidera pours her soul in love. Terror alarms the breast—the comely tear Steals o'er the cheek. Or else the comic mase Holds to the world a picture of itself, And raises, sly, the fair impartial laugh. Sometimes she lifts ber strain, and paints the scene: -Thomtv.. 16. Then Commerce brought into the public walk The boat, light skimming, stretch'd its oary wings; From bank to bank, increas'd; whence ribb'd with oak, The roaring vessel rush'd into the main.Thomson. 17. 'Tis from high life high characters are drawn ; A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn. A judge is just; a chancellor juster still; A gownman learn'd; a bishop—what you will: More wise, more learn'd, more just, more every thing 18. "Fis education forms the common mind; A smart freethinker? All things in an hour.Pepe- Where every god did seem to set his seal, -Pope. -Shakespeare: 20. The cloud capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, III-Examples of Suspension; or a delaying of the Sense. 1. AS beauty of person, with an agreeable carriage, pleases the eye, and that pleasure consists in observing that all the parts have a certain elegance, and are proportioned to each other; so does decency of behavior obtain the approbation of all with whom we converse, from the order, consistency and moderation of our words and actions.—Spectator. 2. If Pericles, as historians report, could shake the firmest resolutions of his hearers, and set the passions of all Greece in a ferment, when the public welfare of his Country, or the fear of hostile invasions, was the subject; What may we not expect from that orator, who with a becoming energy, warns his audience against those evils which have no remedy, when once undergone, either from prudence or time Spectator. 3. Though there is a great deal of pleasure in contemplating tne material world, by which I mean that system of bodies into which nature has so curiously wrought the mass of dead matter, with the several relations which those bodies bear to one another; there is still something more wonderful and surprising in contemplating the world of life, or those various animals with which every part of the universe is furnished.. -Spectator. 4. Since it is certain that our hearts cannot deceive us in the love of the world, and that we cannot command ourselves enough to resign it, though we every day wish ourselves disengaged from its allurements; let us not stand upon a formal taking of leave, but wean ourselves from them, while we are in the midst of them.Spectator. 5. When a man has got such a great and exalted Soul, as that he can look upon life and death, riches and poverty, with indifference, and closely adheres to honesty, in whatever shape she presents herself; then it is that virtue appears with such a brightness, as that all the world must admire her beauties. -Cicero. 6. To hear a judicious and elegant discburse from the pulpit, which would in print make a noble figure, murdered by him who had learning and taste to compose it, but having been neglected as to one important part of his education, knows not how to deliver it, otherwise than with a tone between singing and 6aying, or with a nod of his head, to enforce, as with a hammer, every emphatical word, or with the same unanimated monotony in which he was used to repeat Que genus at Westminster school; What can be imagined more lamentable? Yet what more common \—]3urgh. 7. Having already shown how the fancy is affected by the works of nature, and afterwards considered, in general, both the works of nature and art, how they mutually assist and com K K plete each other, in forming such scenes and prospects, as are most apt to delight the mind of the beholder; I shall, in this paper, throw together some reflections on that particular art, which has a more immediate tendency than any other, to produce those primary pleasures of the imagination, which have hitherto been the subject of this discourse. Spectator. 8. The causes of good and evil are so various and uncertain, so often entangled with each other, so diversified by various «elations, and so much subject to accidents which cannot be foreseen; that he, who would fix his condition upon incontestible reasons of preference, must live and die inquiring and deliberating.Johnson. 9. He, who through the vast immensity can pierce, -Pope. May tell, why heaven has made us as we are.. 10. In that soft season, when descending showers 11. Nor fame I slight, nor for her favors call And if the muse must flatter lawless sway, But the fatl'n ruins of another's fame; Then teach me, heav'n, to scorn the guilty bays; Pope 12. As one, who long in populous city pent, |