תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

tred; which is but reasonable, since he has neither friend nor enemy; without joy or grief; in short, without all passions but fear, to which of all others he has least temptation, having nothing to get or to lose no posterity, relation, or friend to be solicitous about; and placed by his station above the reach of fortune or envy. He has found out the secret of preferring men without deserving their thanks; and where he dispenses his favours to persons of merit, they are less obliged to him than to fortune. He is the first of human race, that with great advantages of learning, piety, and station, ever escaped being a great man.

That which relishes best with him, is mixed liquor and mixed company; and he is seldom unprovided with very bad of both. He is so wise as to value his own health more than other men's noses, so that the most honourable place at his table is much the worst, especially in summer. It has been affirmed that originally he was not altogether devoid of wit, till it was extruded from his head to make room for other men's thoughts. He will admit a governor, provided it be one who is very officious and diligent, outwardly pious, and one that knows how to manage and make the most of his fear. No man will be either glad or sorry at his death, except his successor.

[ocr errors]

THOUGHTS

ON

VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

LAWS penned with the utmost care and exactness, and in the vulgar language, are often perverted to wrong meanings; then why should we wonder that the Bible is so?

Although men are accused for not knowing their weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength.

A man seeing a wasp creeping into a vial filled with honey, that was hung on a fruit tree, said thus: Why, thou sottish animal, art thou mad to go into the vial, where you see many hundred of your kind dying before you? The reproach is just, answered the wasp, but not from you men, who are so far from taking example by other people's follies, that you will not take warning by your own. If after falling several times into this vial, and escaping by chance, I should fall in again, I should then but resemble you.

An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that used to steal pieces of money, and hide them in a hole, which the cat observing, asked, Why he would hoard up those round shining things that he could make no use of? Why, said the jackdaw, my master has a whole chest full, and makes no more use of them than I. · VOL. X.

R

Men

Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.

If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of criticks and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had

any.

After all the maxims and systems of trade and commerce, a stander by would think the affairs of the world were most ridiculously contrived.

There are few countries, which, if well cultivated, would not support double the number of their inhabitants, and yet fewer where one third part of the people are not extremely stinted even in the necessaries of life. I send out twenty barrels of corn, which would maintain a family in bread for a year, and I bring back in return a vessel of wine, which half a dozen good fellows would drink in less than a month, at the expense of their health and reason.

A motto for the jesuits:

Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris ?

A man would have but few spectators, if he offered to show for threepence how he could thrust a redhot iron into a barrel of gunpowder, and it should not take fire.

Query, Whether churches are not dormitories of the living as well as of the dead?

Harry Killegrew said to lord Wharton, “You "would not swear at that rate, if you thought you were doing God honour."

A copy of verses kept in the cabinet, and only shown to a few friends, is like a virgin much sought after and admired; but when printed and published, is like a common whore, whom any body may purchase for half a crown.

Lewis the XIVth of France spent his life in turning a good name into a great.

Since the union of divinity and humanity is the great article of our religion, it is odd to see some clergymen in their writings of divinity, wholly devoid of humanity.

The Epicureans began to spread at Rome in the empire of Augustus, as the Socinians, and even the Epicureans too did in England toward the end of king Charles the Second's reign: which is reckoned, though very absurdly, our Augustan age. They both seem to be corruptions occasioned by luxury and peace, and by politeness beginning to decline.

Sometimes I read a book with pleasure, and detest the author.

At a bookseller's shop some time ago I saw a book with this title; "Poems by the author of the Choice." Not enduring to read a dozen lines, I asked the company with me, whether they had ever seen the book, or heard of the poem whence the author denominated himself; they were all as ignorant as I. But I find it common with these small dealers in wit and learning, to give themselves a title from their first adventure, as don Quixote usually did from his last. This arises from that great importance which every man supposes himself to be of.

One Dennis, commonly called the critick, who had writ a threepenny pamphlet against the power of France, being in the country, and hearing of a French privateer hovering about the coast, although he were twenty miles from the sea, fled to town, and told his friends, they need not wonder at his haste; for the king of France, having got intelligence where he was, had sent a privateer on purpose to catch him.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

Dr. Gee, prebendary of Westminster, who had writ a small paper against popery, being obliged to travel for his health, affected to disguise his person, and change his name, as he passed through Portugal, Spain, and Italy; telling all the English he met, that he was afraid of being murdered, or put into the inquisition. He was acting the same farce at Paris, till Mr. Prior (who was then secretary to the embassy) quite disconcerted the doctor, by maliciously discovering the secret; and offering to engage body for body, that not a creature would hurt him, or had ever heard of him or his pamphlet.

A chambermaid to a lady of my acquaintance, thirty miles from London, had the very same turn of thought, when talking with one of her fellow servants, she said; "I hear it is all over London already that "I am going to leave my lady:" and so had a footman, who being newly married, desired his comrade to tell him freely what the town said of it.

When somebody was telling a certain great minister that people were discontented; " Poh, said he, "half a dozen fools are prating in a coffeehouse, "and presently think their own noise about their ears "is made by the world."

The death of a private man is generally of so little importance to the world, that it cannot be a thing of great importance in itself; and yet I do not observe from the practice of mankind, that either philosophy or nature have sufficiently armed us against the fears which attend it. Neither do I find any thing able to reconcile us to it, but extreme pain, shame, or despair; for poverty, imprisonment, ill fortune, grief, sickness, and old age, do generally fail.

Whence comes the custom of bidding a woman

look

« הקודםהמשך »