fame time that we love foreign fafhions, wines, muficians, &c. merely because they are foreign? For my part, I think it is much more for an English gentleman to boaft, that the provifions of his table are the product of his own eftate, and the drefs he wears, the manufacture of his own country, than that the four quarters of the globe have been ranfacked to feed and clothe him.

If, while you are young, and bad habits are yet but weak in you, you have not ftrength of mind to conquer them, how will you be able to do it, when they have acquired ftrength by length of time and practice? If you do not find yourfelf now difpofed to look into the ftate of your mind, and to repent and reform, while there is lefs to fet right, how will you bring yourfelf hereafter to examine your own heart, when all is confufion within, and nothing fit to be looked into? Or how will you bring yourself to repent and reform, when there will be fo much to fet right, that you will not know where to begin?

It is easy to keep from gaming, drunkennefs, or any other fashionable vice. You have only to lay down a firm refolution, and fix in your mind a steady averfion against them. When once your humour is known, nobody will trouble you. They will perhaps fay of you, He is a queer fellow, and will not do as other people do. At laft, thofe who cannot live without the cardtable and the bottle, will drop you; and then you have only to feek out company where improvement is more pursued than amufement. I am miftaken if you will be a great lofer by the exchange.

Make a fure bargain beforehand with workmen; and by no means be put off with their telling you, they will refer the price to your difcretion.

A perfon, who fills a place of eminence, will do well to obferve the following rules, 1. Above all things to act a strictly just and upright part: for that will be fure to end well. 2. To make his advantage of the errors of his predeceffors. 3. To avoid all extremes in general violent measures are wholly inconfiftent with prudence. 4. To fufpect all; but take care not to feem fufpicious of any. 5. To be content with a moderate

I

income,

income, and moderate oftentation: great riches and grandeur infallibly draw envy and hatred. 6. To be eafy of access: ftiffness is univerfally hated; and affability tends to reconcile people to the private character of a perfon whose public conduct may be obnoxious. 7. To hear all opinions, and follow the beft. 8. To liften attentively to the remarks made by enemies. 9. To fhew to inferiors fomewhat perfonally great in his conduct and character: it exposes a man of rank to extreme contempt, to observe that what makes the difference between him and his inferiors, is chiefly dress, riches, or station. 10. To retire in time, if poffible, with a reputation unfullied.

Health; a good confcience; one hundred a year for a fingle perfon, or two for a family; the real neceffaries of life are foon reckoned up. If there happen to be in the neighbourhood a few converfable people, with whom you may walk, or ride out, hear a fong, crack a harmless joke, or have a game at bowls, you are poffeffed of the whole luxury of life. Where is the man whofe merit may challenge fuch happiness? Yet how many are there diffatisfied in affluence beyond this?

If you find yourself in a thriving way keep in it. Throw fordid felf out of your mind, if you think of being truly great in spirit.

A readiness at throwing any fudden thought which may occur, either in reading, or converfation, into easy language, may be of great ufe toward improvement in prudence for action, and furniture for converfation. One who accuftoms himself much to making remarks of all kinds in writing, muft in time have by him a collection containing fomewhat upon every thing.

I do not know a much greater unhappiness in life, than that of being connected, by blood or friendship, with unfortunate neceffitous people. A generous mind cannot bear to fee them fink, without endeavouring to help them out of their difficulties. The confequence of which is, being drawn into difficulties by their means. If you lend, and ask for your own, a quarrel follows. And if you give freely, they will depend on your fupporting them in idleness. And after all, what is moft vexatious is, that you can feldom do any good to imprudent

prudent and unthriving people. Such connections a prudent man will avoid, or give up as foon as poffible. Do not think of any great defign after forty years

of age.

The very deliberating upon business is half the bufinefs.

Your neighbour has more income than enough; you have just enough. Is your neighbour the better for having what he has no ufe for? Are you the worfe for being free from the trouble of what would be ufelefs to you?

Better confider for an hour, than repent for a year. Let fcandal alone, and it will die away of itself: oppofe it, and it will spread the faster.

Let fafety and innocence be two indifpenfable ingre dients in all your amufements: is there any pleasure in what leads to loss of health, fortune, or foul?

Take care of falling out of conceit with your wife, your flation, habitation, bufinefs, or any thing else, which you cannot change. Let no comparisons once enter into your mind: the confequence will be reftlefsnefs, envy, and unhappiness.

Be not defirous of scenes of grandeur, of heightened pleasures and diverfions: it is the fure way to take your heart off from your private station and way of life, and to make you uneafy and unhappy. It is a thousand to one but, if you were to get into a higher ftation, you would find it awkward and unfuitable to you, and that you would only want to return again to your former happy independence.

There is no time spent more ftupidly, than that which fome luxurious people pafs in a morning between fleeping and waking, after nature has been fully gratified.. He who is awake, may be doing fomewhat he who is alleep, is receiving the refreshment neceflary to fit him for action but the hours spent in dozing and flumbering, can hardly be called existence.

Confider, the most elegant beauty is only a fair skin drawn over a heap of the fame flesh, blood, bones, and impurities, which compofe the body of the ugliest dunghill-beggar.

If you have made an injudicious friendship, let it fink gently and gradually; if you blow it up at once, mifchief may be the confequence: never difoblige, if you can poflibly avoid it.

If you want to try experiments, take care at least, that they be not dangerous ones.

Better not make a prefent at all, than do it in a pitiful manner every thing of elegance, is better let alone than clumfily performed.,

If you want to keep the good opinion of a great perfon, whom you find to be a man of understanding; do not thruft yourself upon him, but let him fend for you, when he wants you. Do not pump for his fecrets, but flay till he tells you them; nor offer him your advice unafked; nor repeat any thing of what paffes between you, relating to family, or ftate-affairs; nor boast of your intimacy with him; nor fhew yourself ready to fneak and cringe, or to make the enemy of mankind a prefent of your foul to oblige your patron. If your fcheme be, to make your fortune at any rate, put on your boots, and plunge through thick and thin.

It will vex you to lofe a friend for a fmart stroke of raillery; or the opinion of the wife and good, for a piece of foolish behaviour at a merry-making.

The more you enlarge your concerns in life, the more chances you will have of embarraffments.

Mankind generally act not according to right; but more according to prefent intereft; and moft according to prefent paffion by this key you may generally get into their defigns, and foretel what courfe they will take.

In eftimating the worth of men, keep a guard upon your judgment, that it be not biaffed by wealth or fplendor. At the fame time, there is no neceffity for treating with a cynical infolence, every perfon whom Providence hath placed in an eminent ftation, merely because your experience teaches you, that very few of the great are deferving of the efteem of the wife and good. Confider the temptations which befiege people ofdistinction, and render it almoft impoffible for them to come at truth; and make all reafonable allowances. If you fee any thing like real goodness of heart in a perfon of high

rank,

rank, admire it as an uncommon inftance of excellence, which, in a more private ftation, would have rifen to an extraordinary pitch.

Never write letters about any affair that has occafioned, or may occafion, a difference: a difference looks bigger in a letter than in converfation.

Do not let one failure in a worthy and practicable fcheme baffle you: the more difficulty the more glory.

If you do not fet your whole thoughts upon a bufinefs, while you are about it, it is ten to one but you mismanage it if you fet your affections immoveably upon worldly things, you will become a fordid earth

worm.

Grief fmothered preys upon the vitals: give it vent into the bofom of a friend: but take care that your friend be a perfon of approved tenderness; elfe he will not adminifter the balm of fympathy: of tried prudence; elfe you will not profit by his advice or confolation and of experienced fecrefy; elfe you may chance to find yourself betrayed and undone.

In public places be cautious of your behaviour: you know not who may have an eye upon you, and afterwards expose your levity or affectation where you would leaft with it. Nothing can be imagined more naufeous than the public behaviour of many people, who make mighty pretenfions to the elegances of life. To go to church, to a tragedy, or an oratorio, only to disturb all who are within reach of your impertinence, shews a want, not only of common modefty and civility, but of common fenfe. If you do not come to improve, or to enjoy the entertainment, you can have no rational fcheme in view. If you want to play off your fooleries, you have only to go to a rout, where you are fure nothing of fenfe or reasonable entertainment will have any place, and where confequently you can fpoil nothing. As to indecencies in places of public worship, one would think the fear of being ftruck by the Power to whom fuch places are dedicated, would a little reftrain the public impiety of fome people.

Never difoblige fervants, if you can avoid it. Low people are often mifchievous; and having lived with