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CVII.

The head has the most beautiful appearance, as well as the highest station in a human figure. Nature has laid out all her art in beautifying the face; she has touched it with vermilion, planted in it a double row of ivory, made it the seat of smiles and blushes, lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes, hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light. In short, she seems to have designed the head as the cupola to the most glorious of her works; and when we load it with a pile of supernumerary ornaments, we destroy the symmetry of the human figure, and foolishly contrive to call off the eye from great and real beauties, to childish gewgaws, ribands, and bone-lace.-Addison.-on Ladies' Headdresses.

CVIII.

As misers their own laws enjoin
To wear no pockets in the mine,
For fear they should the ore purloin;
So he that toils and labours hard
To gain, and what he gets has spar'd,
Is from the use of all debarr'd.

And tho' he can produce more spankers
Than all the usurers and bankers,
Yet after more and more he hankers;
And after all his pains are done,

Has nothing he can call his own,
But a mere livelihood alone.

CIX.

Butler.

There are a set of dry, joyless, dull fellows, who want capacities and talents to make a figure amongst mankind upon benevolent and generous principles, that think to surmount their own natural meanness, by laying offences in the way of such as make it their endeavour to excel upon the received maxims and honest arts of life.Guardian.

CX.

Mathematics is a ballast for the soul, to fix it, not to stall it; nor to jostle out other arts. As for judiciall astrology, (which hath the least judgment in it,) this vagrant hath been whipped out of all learned corporations. If our artist lodgeth her in the out rooms of his soul for a night or two, it is rather to hear than believe her relations.-Fuller.

CXI.

It was perhaps ordained by Providence, to hinder us from tyrannizing over one another, that no individual should be of such importance as to cause by his retirement or death any chasm in the world.-Johnson.

CXII.

There is a sort of masonry in poetry, wherein the pause represents the joints of building, which ought in every line and course to have their disposition varied.-Shenstone.

CXIII.

As thrashing separates the corn from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue.-Burton.

CXIV.

There is always, and every where, some restraint upon a great man. He is guarded with crowds, and shackled with formalities. The half hat, the whole hat, the half smile, the whole smile, the nod, the embrace, the positive parting with a little bow, the comparative at the middle of the room, the superlative at the door; and, if the person be pan huper sebastus, there is a hyper-superlative ceremony then of conducting him to the bottom of the stairs, or to the very gate: as if there were such rules set to these leviathans, as are to the sea," Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further."-Cowley.

CXV.

The jealous is possessed by a "fine mad devil," and a dull spirit at once.-Lavater.

CXVI.

A table without music is little better than a manger, for music at meals is like a carbuncle set in gold, or the signet of an emerald highly burnished.-Epictetus.

CXVII.

As 't is a greater mystery in the art
Of painting to foreshorten any part
Than draw it out, so 't is in books the chief

Of all perfections to be plain and brief.

CXVIII.

Butler.

Great efforts of anger to little purpose, serve for pleasantry and farce. Exceeding fierceness, with perfect inability and impotence, makes the highest ridicule.Shaftesbury.

CXIX.

The aged man that coffers up his gold,

Is plagu'd with cramps, and gouts, and painful fits;
And scarce hath eyes his treasure to behold:
But still like pining Tantalus he sits,
And useless bans the harvest of his wits,
Having no other pleasure of his gain,
But torment, that it cannot cure his pain.

So then he hath it, when he cannot use it,
And leaves it to be master'd by his
young,
Who in their pride do presently abuse it:
Their father was too weak, and they too strong,
To hold their cursed blessed fortune long.
The sweets we wish for, turned to loathed sours,
E'en in the moment that we call them ours.

CXX.

Shakspeare.

'Tis a great imperfection, and what I have observed in several of my intimate friends, who as their memories supply them with a present and entire view of things, derive their narratives from so remote a fountain, and crowd them with so many impertinent circumstances, that though the story be good in itself, they make a shift

to spoil it; and if otherwise, you are either to curse the strength of their memory, or the weakness of their judgment: and it is a hard thing to close up a discourse, and to cut it short, when you are once in, and have a good deal more to say. Neither is there any thing in which the force and readiness of a horse is so much seen, as in a round, graceful, and sudden stop; and I see even those who are pertinent enough, who would but cannot stop short in their career; for whilst they are seeking out a handsome period to conclude the sense, they talk at random, and are so perplexed and entangled in their own eloquence, that they know not what they say.Montaigne.

CXXI.

Poetry is music in words: and music is poetry in sound: both excellent sauce, but they have lived and died poore, that made them their meat.-Fuller.

CXXII.

There are numbers in the world, who do not want sense, to make a figure, so much as an opinion of their own abilities, to put them upon recording their observations, and allowing them the same importance which they do to those which others print.-Shenstone.

СХХІІІ.

A man that is temperate, generous, valiant, chaste, faithful, and honest, may, at the same time, have wit, humour, mirth, good breeding, and gallantry. While he exerts these latter qualities, twenty occasions might be invented to show he is master of the other noble virtues. Such characters would smite and reprove the heart of a man of sense, when he is given up to his pleasures.-Steele.

CXXIV.

When princes idly lead about,
Those of their party follow suit,
Till others trump upon their play,
And turn the cards another way.

Butler.

CXXV.

Employment, which Galen calls "nature's physician," is so essential to human happiness, that indolence is justly considered as the mother of misery.-Burton.

ter.

CXXVI.

She neglects her heart who studies her glass.-Lava

CXXVII.

The best born, and the first born, are oftimes the worst, and the last to be borne.-Zimmerman.

CXXVIII.

When a doubt is propounded, you must learn to distinguish, and show wherein a thing holds, and wherein it doth not hold: ay or no never answered any question. The not distinguishing where things should be distinguished, and the not confounding where things should be confounded, is the cause of all the mistakes in the world.-Selden.

CXXIX.

It would be as difficult a task to reckon up the different kinds of love's idols, as Milton's was to number those that were known in Canaan, and the lands adjoining. Most of them are worshipped like Moloch, in fires and flames. Some of them, like Baal, love to see their votaries cut and slashed, and shedding their blood for them. Some of them, like the idol in the Apocrypha, must have treats and collations prepared for them every night. It has indeed been known, that some of them have been used by their incensed worshippers like the Chinese idols, who are whipped and scourged when they refuse to comply with the prayers that are offered to them.Addison.

CXXX.
Who would not rather get him gone
Beyond th' intolerable zone,

Or steer his passage thro' those seas
That burn in flames, or those that freeze,
Than see one nation go to school,
And learn of another like a fool?

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