her peers. Therefore, if once a woman breaks through the parriers of decency, her case is desperate; and if she goes greater lengths than the men, and leaves the pale of propriety farther behind her, it is because she is aware that al. return is prohibited, and by none so strongly as by her own sex. We may alsc add, that as modesty is the richest ornament of a woman, the want of it is her greatest deformity, for the better the thing, the worse will ever be its perversion; and if an angel falls, the transition must be to a dæmon.

CCLXXIX.

OF the professions it may be said, that soldiers are becoming too popular, parsons too lazy, physicians too mercenary, and lawyers too powerful.

CCLXXX.

MOST men abuse courtiers, and affect to despise courts; yet most men are proud of the acquaintance of the one, and would be glad to live in the other.

CCLXXXI.

EVILS are more to be dreaded from the suddenness of their attack, than from their magnitude, or their duration. In the storms of life, those that are foreseen are half overcome, but the tiffoon is a just cause of alarm to the helmsman, pouncing on the vessel, as an eagle on the prey.

CCLXXXII.

HOMER, not contented with making his hero invulnerable everywhere, but in the heel, and so swift of foot, that if he did run, nobody could catch him, completes the whole, by making a god his blacksmith, and covering him, like a rhinoceros, with a coat of mail, from a superhuman manufactory. With all those advantages, since his object

was to surprise his readers, he should have made his bully a coward, rather than a hero.

CCLXXXIII.

OF method, this may be said, if we make it our slave, it is well, but it is bad if we are slaves to method. A gentleman once told me, that he made it a regular rule to read fifty pages every day of some author or other, and on no account to fall short of that number, nor to exceed it. I silently set him down for a man who might have taste to read something worth writing, but who never could have genius himself to write any thing worth reading.

CCLXXXIV.

DELIBERATE with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

CCLXXXV.

THERE are many good natured fellows, who have paid the forfeit of their lives to their love of bantering and raillery. No doubt they have had much diversion, but they have purchased it too dear. Although their wit and their brilliancy may have been often extolled, yet it has at last been extinguished for ever; and by a foe perhaps who had neither the one nor the other, but who found it casier to point a sword than a repartee. I have heard of a man, in the province of Bengal, who had been a long time very suc cessful in hunting the tiger; his skill gained him great eclat, and had insured him much diversion, at length he narrowly escaped with his life; he then relinquished the sport, with this observation: "Tiger hunting is very fine amusement, so long as we hunt the tiger, but it is rather awkward when the tiger takes it into his head to hunt us." Again, this skill in small wit, like skill in small arms, is very apt to beget a confidence which may prove fatal in the end. We may either mistake the proper moment, for even cowards have

A

their fighting days, or we may mistake the proper man. certain Savoyard got his livelihood by exhibiting a monkey and a bear; he gained so much applause from his tricks with the monkey, that he was encouraged to practise some of them upon the bear; he was dreadfully lacerated, and on being rescued, with great difficulty, from the gripe of bruin, he exclaimed: "What a fool was I not to distinguish between a monkey and a bear: a bear, my friends, is a very grave kind of a personage, and, as you plainly see, does not understand a joke."

CCLXXXVI.

IT is always safe to learn, even from our enemies-seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.

CCLXXXVII.

IF men have been termed pilgrims, and life a journey, then we may add, that the Christian pilgrimage far surpasses all others, in the following important particulars: in the goodness of the road-in the beauty of the prospectsin the excellence of the company-and in the vast superiority of the accommodation provided for the Christian traveller, when he has finished his course.

CCLXXXVIII.

ALL who have been great and good without Christianity, would have been much greater and better with it. If there be, amongst the sons of men, a single exception to this maxim, the divine Socrates may be allowed to put in the strongest claim. It was his high ambition to deserve, by deeds, not by creeds, an unrevealed Heaven, and by works, not by faith, to enter an unpromised land.

CCLXXXIX.

THOUGH the Godhead were to reward and to ex

alt, without limit, and without end, yet the object of his highest favours could never offend the brightness of his eternal majesty, by too near an approximation to it; for the dif ference between the Creator and the created must ever be infinite, and the barrier that divides them insurmountable.

CCXC.

OF all the marvellous works of the Deity, perhaps there is nothing that angels behold with such supreme astonishment as a proud man.

CCXCI.

VANITY finds in self-love so powerful an ally, that it storms as it were by a coup de main, the citadel of our heads, where, having blinded the two watchmen, it readily descends into the heart. A coxcomb begins by determining that his own profession is the first; and he finishes, by deciding that he is the first of his profession.

CCXCII.

A POOR nation that relaxes not from her attitude of defence, is less likely to be attacked, though surrounded by powerful neighbours, than another nation which possesses wealth, commerce, population, and all the sinews of war, in far greater abundance, but unprepared. For the more sleek the prey, the greater is the temptation; and no wolf will leave a sheep, to dine upon a porcupine.

CCXCIII.

MEMORY is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention; and there are many books that owe their success to two things, the good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them.

CCXCIV.

SUICIDE sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but

not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.

CCXCV.

WE submit to the society of those that can inform us, but we seek the society of those whom we can inform. And men of genius ought not to be chagrined if they see blockheads favoured with a heartier welcome than themselves. For, when we communicate knowledge, we are raised in our own estimation, but when we receive it, we are lowered. That, therefore, which has been observed of treason, may be said also of talent, we love instruction, but hate the instructor, and use the light, but abuse the lanthorn.

consoles

CCXCVI.

VICE stings us, even in our pleasures, but virtue us, even in our pains.

CCXCVII.

THERE are four classes of men in the world; first, those whom every one would wish to talk to, and whom every one does talk of ;-these are that small minority that constitute the great. Secondly, those whom no one wishes to talk to, and whom no one does talk of ;-these are that vast majority that constitute the little. The third class is made up of those whom every body talks of, but nobody talks to;-these constitute the knaves; and the fourth is composed of those whom every body talks to, but whom nobody talks of; and these constitute the fools.

CCXCVIII.

HE that, like the wife of Cæsar, is above suspicion,