THE VICIOUS.-The hatred of the vicious will do you less harm than their conversation.-Bentley.

STATESMAN. The true genius that conducts a state is he, who doing nothing himself, causes every thing to be done; he contrives, he invents, he foresees the future, he reflects on what is past, he distributes and proportions things; he makes early preparations, he incessantly arms himself to struggle against fortune, as a swimmer against a rapid stream of water; he is attentive night and day, that he may leave nothing to chance.-Telemachus.

INNOCENCE. The sweetest ingredient in mirth is innocence; it heightens and refines the humour and doubles the relish of every enjoyment. I have seen many bad men brutally merry; but never one of them quite open, easy and unchecked in his mirth. That absolute serenity, that supreme ease, is solely the gift of virtue.-Letters concerning Mythology.

DEATH. A wise and due consideration of our latter end is neither to render us a sad, melancholy, disconsolate people, nor to render us unfit for the business and offices of our life, but to make us more watchful, vigilant, industrious, sober, cheerful and thankful to that God, that hath been pleased thus to make us serviceable to him, comfortable to ourselves, profitable to others; and after all this to take away the bitterness and sting of death, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Sir Matthew Hale's Contemplations.

That Christian loves God in the most eminent degree who keeps his commands, with the fewest deviations and exceptions.

Letters between Theophilus and Eugenio.

Books. Books are standing counsellors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors, that they are ready to repeat their lesson as often as we please. Chambers's Dictionary.

HUMAN LIFE.

From the "Pelican Island," by J. Montgomery. What is this mystery of human life?

In rude or civilized society,

Alike, a pilgrim's progress through this world
To that which is to come, by the same stages;
With infinite diversity of fortune

To each distinct adventurer by the way!
Life is the transmigration of the soul

Through various bodies, various states of being,
New manners, passions, tastes, pursuits in each;
In nothing, save in consciousness,
the same,
Infancy, adolescence, manhood, age,
Are always moving onward, always losing
Themselves in one another, lost at length,
Like undulations, on the strand of death.
The sage of three score years and ten looks back,
With many a pang of lingering tenderness,
And many a shuddering conscience fit, on what
He hath been, is not, and cannot be again:
Nor trembles less with fear and hope, to think
What he is now, but cannot long continue,
And what he must be through uncounted ages.
The Child; we know no more of happy childhood
Than happy childhood knows of wretched old;
And all our dreams of its felicity

Are incoherent as its own crude visions;

We but begin to live from that fine point

Which memory dwells on, with the morning star

The earliest note we heard the cuckoo sing,

Or the first daisy that we ever plucked,

When thoughts themselves were stars, and birds and flowers,

Pure brilliance, simplest music, wild perfume.
Thenceforward mark the metamorphoses!

The Boy, the Girl;-when all was joy, hope, promise;

Yet who would be a Boy, a Girl again,
To bear the yoke, to long for liberty,
And dream of what will never come to pass?
-The Youth, the Maiden-living but for love;
Yet learning soon that life has other cares,
And joys less rapturous, but more enduring,
The woman-in her offspring multiplied;
A tree of life, whose glory is her branches,
Beneath whose shadow, she (both root and stem)
Delights to dwell in meek obscurity,

That they may be the pleasure of beholders ;.
-The Man-as father of a progeny,

Whose birth requires his death to make them room,
Yef in whose lives he feels his resurrection,
And grows immortal in his children's children:
-Then the gray Elder-leaning on his staff,
And bow'd beneath the weight of years, that steal
Upon him with the secresy of sleep,

(No snow falls lighter than the snow of age,
None with such subtlety benumbs the frame;)
Till he forget sensation, and lies down
Dead in the lap of his primeval mother;

She throws a shroud of turf and flowers around him,
Then calls the worms, and bids them do their office;
-Man giveth up the ghost-and where is He?

All the wisdom in the world, will do little, while a man wants presence of mind. He cannot fence well that is not on his guard. Archimedes lost his life by being too busy to give an answer.

Most of the religious systems prevailing in the world at the appearance of the Saviour, may, with the exception of that of the Romans, be divided into two branches, viz: those which were founded on political views, and those which were formed for military purposes.-Mosheim.

Brave actions are the substance of life, and good sayings the ornament of it.-Art of Prudence.

A true and faithful friend is a living treasure, inestimable while we have him, and never enough to be lamented when he is gone. There is nothing more ordinary than to talk of a friend, nothing more difficult than to find one, no-where more wanted than where there seems to be the greatest store.

Human Prudence.

DRYDEN. Of Dryden's works it was said by Pope, that he could select from them better specimens of every mode of poetry than any other English writer could supply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer, that enriched her language with such a variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion of our metre, the refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our sentiments. By him we were taught "supere et fari," to think naturally and express forcibly. Though Davies has reasoned in rhyme before him, it may be perhaps maintained, that he was the first who joined argument with poetry. He showed us the true bounds of a translator's liberty. What was said of Rome adorned by Augustus, may be applied, by an easy metaphor, to English poetry embellished by Dryden; lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit. He found it bricks, and he left it marble.-Johnson's Lives.

CONVERSATION.-This rule should be observed in all conversation, that men should not talk to please themselves, but those that hear them. This would make them consider, whether what they speak be worth hearing? whether there be either wit or sense in what they are about to say? and whether it be adapted to the time when, the place where, the person to whom it is spoken..

REPUTATION. We must not take up a rash prejudice, or entertain a sinister apprehension of any upon slight grounds. Do not represent a man, his words or actions at a disadvantage, make the best of every thing, a man's good name is like a lookingglass, nothing is sooner cracked, and every breath can sully it. Handle every man's reputation with the same tenderness thou wouldst have every man use towards thine. Do not slander or defame any man, or rejoice to hear other men's miscarriages ript open. Birch's Life of Tillotson.

MILTON. The highest praise of genius is original invention. Milton cannot be said to have contrived the structure of an epic poem, and therefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind, to which all generations must be indebted for the art of poetical narration, for the texture of the fable, the variations of incidents, the interposition of dialogue, and all the stratagems that surprise and enchain attention. But of all the borrowers from Homer, Milton is perhaps the least indebted. He was naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and disdainful of help or hindrance; he did not refuse admission to the thoughts or images. of his predecessors, but he did not seek them. From his contemporaries he neither courted nor received support; there is in his writings nothing by which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or favour gained; no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of support. His great works were performed under discountenance, and in blindness; but difficulties vanished at his touch; he was born for whatever is arduous; and his work is not the greatest of heroic poems, only because it is not the first. Johnson's Lives.