neither be advantageous to the monarch, nor creditable to themselves. Not advantageous to the monarch, because however pure may be the principles of their admiration, the world will give them no such credit, but will mix up the praises of the most disinterested, with the flatteries of the most designing, wherever a living king be the theme; neither will such praises be creditable to those who bestow them, for they will be sure to incur the obloquy of flattery, without the wages of adulation, and will share in the punishment, without participating in the spoil, or concurring in the criminality. None, therefore, but those who have established the highest character for magnanimity and independence, may safely venture to praise living merit, when in the person of a king, it gives far more lustre to a crown, than it receives.

DXLVI.

IF we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if, from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition. But, in this respect, every author is a Spartan, being more ashamed of the discovery, than of the depredation. Yet, the offence itself may not be so heinous as the manner of committing it; for some, as Voltaire †, not only steal, but, like the harpies, befoul and bespatter those whom they have plundered. Others, again, give us the mere carcase of another man's thoughts, but deprived of all their life and spirit, and this is to add murder to robbery. I have somewhere seen it observed, that we should make the same use of a book, that the bee does of a flower; she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it; and those sweets she

What has been said of happiness, with regard to men, may be said of praise with respect to monarchs, with a slight alteration; Dicique celebris,

"Ante obitum, nemo, supremaque funera debet."

+ He robbed Shakespeare, and then abused him, comparing him, amongst other things, to a dunghill. It was in allusion to these plagiarisms, that Mrs. Montague retorted on Voltaire, that if Shakespeare was a dunghill, he had enriched a very ungrateful soil.

herself improves and concocts into honey. But most pla giarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, nor industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared from the hive.

DXLVII.

CUSTOM is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash; for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present, but both of them are somewhat purblind as to things that are to come; but, of the two, fashion imposes the heaviest burthen; for she cheats her votaries of their time, their fortune, and their comforts, and she repays them only with the celebrity of being ridiculed and despised; a very paradoxical mode of remuneration, yet always most thankfully received! Fashion is the veriest goddess of semblance, and of shade; to be happy, is of far less consequence to her worshippers, than to appear so; and even pleasure itself they sacrifice to parade, and enjoyment to ostentation. She requires the most passive and implicit obedience, at the same time that she imposes a most grievous load of ceremonies, and the slightest murmurings would only cause the recusant to be laughed at by all other classes, and excommunicated by his own. Fashion builds her temple in the capitol of some mighty empire, and having selected four or five hundred of the silliest people it contains, she dubs them with the magnificent and imposing title of THE WORLD! But the marvel and the misfortune is, that this arrogant title is as universally accredited by the many who abjure, as by the few who adore her; and this creed of fashion requires not only the weakest folly, but the strongest faith, since it would maintain that the minority are the whole, and the majority nothing! Her smile has given wit to dulness, and grace to deformity, and has brought every thing into vogue, by turns, but virtue. Yet ahe is most capricious in her favours, often running from

those that pursue her, and coming round to those that stand still. It were mad to follow her, and rash to oppose her, but neither rash nor mad to despise her.

DXLVIII.

LOGIC and metaphysics make use of more tools than all the rest of the sciences put together, and do the least work. A modern metaphysician had been declaiming before a large party, on the excellence of his favourite pursuit; an old gentleman who had been listening to him with the most voracious attention, at length ventured humbly to enquire of him, whether it was his opinion that the metaphysics would ever be reduced to the same certainty and demonstration as the mathematics? "Oh! most assuredly," replied our oracle, "there cannot be the slightest doubt of that!!" The author of this notable discovery must have known more of metaphysics than any other man, or less of mathematics; and I leave my readers to decide whether his confidence was built on a profound knowledge of the one, or a profound ignorance of the other.

DXLIX.

THAT which we acquire with the most difficulty, we retain the longest, as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited It is recorded of Professor Porson*, that he talked his Greek fluently, when he could no longer articulate in English.

The professor was remarkable for a strong memory, which was not so puzzling as the great perfection of his other faculties; for, to the utter confusion of all craniologists, on examination after death, it turned out that this great scholar was gifted with the thickest skull that ever was dissected. How his vast erudition could get into such a receptacle, was the only difficulty to be explained; but, when once in, it seems there were very solid and substantial reasons to prevent its getting out again.

DL

FALSHOOD is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle, and discards her nurse.

DLI.

THE straits of Thermopyla were defended by only three hundred men, but they were all Spartans; and, in advocating our own cause, we ought to trust rather to the force, than to the number of our arguments, and to care not how few they be, should that few be incontrovertible; when we hear one argument refuted, we are apt to suspect that the others are weak; and a cause that is well supported, may be compared to an arch that is well built-nothing can be taken away without endangering the whole.

DLII.

LITERATURE has her quacks no less than medi cine, and they are divided into two classes; those who have erudition without genius, and those who have volubility, without depth; we shall get second-hand sense from the one, and original nonsense from the other.

DLIII.

IT is common to say, that a liar will not be believed, although he should speak the truth; but the converse of this proposition is equally true, but more unfortunate; that a man who has gained a reputation for veracity, will not be discredited, although he should utter that which is false; but he that would make use of a reputation for veracity to establish a lie, would set fire to the temple of truth, with a faggot stolen from her altar.

DLIV.

SOME read to think-these are rare; some to write,

these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority. The first page of an author not unfrequently suffices all the purposes of this latter class, of whom it has been said, that they treat books as some do lords; they inform themselves of their titles, and then boast of an intimate acquaintance.

DLV.

THE two most precious things on this side the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be more anxious to deserve a fair name than to possess it, and this will teach him so to live, as not to be afraid to die.

DLVI.

HE that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do, exercises the truest humility; and few things are more disgusting, than that arrogant affability of the great, which only serves to show others the sense they entertain of their inferiority, since they consider it necessary to stoop so low to meet it. A certain prelate, now no more, happened to meet, at a large party, his old collegiate acquaintance, the celebrated Dr. G., of coursing and classical notoriety. Having oppressed the doctor with a plentiful dose of distressing condescension, his lordship, with a familiarity evidently affected, enquired of the doctor, how long it might be since they had last the pleasure of seeing one another; "the last time I had the honour of seeing your lordship," said the doctor," happened to be when you was walking to serve your curacy at Trumpington, and I was riding to serve my church at Chesterford; and as the rain happened to be particularly heavy, your lordship most graciously condescended to mount my servant's horse, The animal not having been used to carry double, was a little unruly, and when your lordship dismounted, it was at the expence of no small num