In a coun

please a country audience, than a London one. try theatre, there is nothing to bribe our decisions; the principal actor is badly supported, and must depend solely on himself. In a London Theatre, the blaze of light and beauty, the splendour of the scenery, the skill of the orchestra, are all adscititious attractions, acting as avant couriers for the performer, and predisposing us to be pleased. Add to this, that the extended magnificence of a metropolitan stage defends the actor from that microscopic scrutiny to which he must submit in the country. We should also remember, that at times it requires more courage to praise than to censure, and the metropolitan actor will always have this advantage over the provincial, if we are pleased, our taste is flattered in the one instance, but suspected in the other.

CCCX.

ENVY, if surrounded on all sides by the brightness of another's prosperity, like the scorpion, confined within a circle of fire, will sting itself to death.

CCCXI.

WE should not be too niggardly in our praise, for men will do more to support a character, than to raise one.

CCCXII.

THERE are no two things so much talked of, and

so seldom seen as virtue, and the funds.

CCCXIII.

THE depravity of human nature is a favourite topic with the priests, but they will not brook that the laity should descant upon it; in this respect they may be compared to those husbands who freely abuse their own wives, but are ready to cut the throat of any other man who does so.

CCCXIV.

IF you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it, rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney sweeper, who has no objection to dirty work, because it is his trade.

CCCXV.

IT is easier to pretend to be what you are not, than to hide what you really are; but he that can accomplish both, has little to learn in hypocrisy.

CCCXVI.

IN any public scheme or project, it is advisable that the proposer or projector should not at first present himself to the public as the sole mover in the affair. His neighbours will not like his egotism if it be at all ambitious, nor will they willingly co-operate in any thing that may place an equal a single step above their own heads. Dr. Franklin was the first projector of many useful institutions in the infant state of America. He attained his object, and avoided envy, for he himself informs us, that his secret was to propose the measure at first, not as originating in himself alone, but as the joint recommendation of a few friends. The doctor was no stranger to the workings of the human heart; for if his measures had failed, their failure would not be attributed to him alone, and if they succeeded, some one else would be forward enough to claim the merit of being the first planner of them. But whenever this happens, the original projector will be sure to gain from the envy of mankind, that justice which he must not expect from their gratitude; for all the rest of the members will not patiently see another run away with the merit of that plan which originated in the first projector alone, who will, therefore, be sure to reap his full due of praise in the end, and with that interest which mankind will always cheerfully pay, not so

much for the justice of rewarding the diffident, as for the pleasure of lowering the vain.

CCCXVII.

SOME well meaning Christians tremble for their salvation, because they have never gone through that valley of tears and of sorrow, which they have been taught to consider as an ordeal that must be passed through, before they can arrive at regeneration; to satisfy such minds, it may be observed, that the slightest sorrow for sin is sufficient, if it produce amendment, and that the greatest is insufficient, if it do not. Therefore, by their own fruits let them prove themselves; for some soils will take the good seed, without being watered with tears, or harrowed up by affliction.

CCCXVIII.

SHAKESPEARE, Butler, and Bacon, have rendered it extremely difficult for all who come after them, to be sublime, witty, or profound.

CCCXIX.

IF you have cause to suspect the integrity of one with whom you must have dealings, take care to have no communication with him, if he has his friend, and you have not; you are playing a dangerous game, in which the odds are two to one against you.

CCCXX.

WHEN the Methodists first decide on the doctrine they approve, and then chuse such pastors as they know before hand, will preach no other; they act as wisely as a patient, who should send for a physician, and then prescribe to him what medicines he ought to advise.

CCCXXI.

A NECESSITOUS man who gives costly dinners, pays large sums to be laughed at.

CCCXXII.

EXAMINATIONS are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the

wisest man can answer.

CCCXXIII.

IT is better to have recourse to a quack, if he can cure our disorder, although he cannot explain it, than to a physician, if he can explain our disease, but cannot cure it. In a certain consultation of physicians in this kingdom, they all differed about the nature of an intermittent, and all of them were ready to define the disorder. The patient was a king; at length an empiric, who had been called in, thus interposed: Gentlemen, you all seem to differ about the nature of an intermittent, permit me to explain it; an intermittent, gentlemen, is a disorder which I can cure, and which you cannot.

CCCXXIV.

IT is a serious doubt whether a wise man ought to accept of a thousand years of life, even provided that those three important advantages of health, youth, and riches, could be securely guaranteed unto him. But this is an offer

than can never be refused, for it will never be made. Taking things as they really are, it must be confessed that life, after forty, is an anticlimax, gradual indeed, and progressive, with some, but steep and rapid with others. It would be well if old age diminished our perceptibilities to pain, in the same proportion that it does our sensibilities to pleasure; and if life has been termed a feast, those favoured few are the most fortunate guests, who are not compelled to sit at the table, when they can no longer partake of the banquet.

But the misfortune is, that body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together. It is bad when the mind survives the body; and worse still when the body survives the mind; but, when both these survive our spirits, our hopes, and our health, this is worst of all.

CCCXXV.

AS some consolation for the fears of the brave, and the follies of the wise, let us reflect on the magnanimity that has been displayed by the weak, and the disinterestedness that has been evinced by the mistaken; by those who have indeed grossly erred, but have nobly acted. And this reflection will increase our veneration for virtue, when even its shadow has produced substantial good and unconquerable heroism; since a phantom, when mistaken for her, has been pursued with an ardor that gathered force from opposition, constancy from persecution, and victory from death.

CCCXXVI.

THERE is this difference between happiness and wisdom; he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.

CCCXXVII.

ARISTOTLE has said that man is by nature, wor Koo, a social animal, and he might have added, a selfish one too. Heroism, self-denial, and magnanimity, in all instances, where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another. I think it is Adam Smith who has observed, that if a man in Europe were to go to bed with the conviction that the hour of twelve, on the following morning, the whole empire of China would be swallowed up by an earthquake, it would not disturb his night's rest so much