CHAP. II. WITHOUT a friend the world is but a wilderness. A man may have a thousand intimate acquaintan ces, and not a friend amongst them all. If you have one friend, think yourself happy. When once you profess yourself a friend, endeavour to be always fuch. He can never have any true fiends who is always changing them. Profperity gams friends, and adverfity tries them. Nothing more engages the affections of men, than a handsome addrefs, and a graceful converfation. Complaifance renders a fuperior amiable, an equal agree able, and an inferior acceptable. Excess of ceremony fhews want of breeding. That civility is beft, which excludes all fuperfluous formality. Ingratitude is a crime fo fhaineful, that the man was never yet found, who would acknowledge himfelf guilty of it. Few things are impoffible to induftry and fkill. Diligence is never wholly lost. There cannot be a greater treachery, than first to raise a confidence and then deceive it. By otbers faults, wise men correct their own. No man hath a thorough taste of prosperity to whom adversity never happened. When our vices leave us, we flatter ourfelves that we leave them. It is as great a point of wisdom to bide ignorance as to discover knowledge. Pitch upon that courfe of life which is the most excellent, and habit will render it the noft delightful. CHAP. III. USTOM is the plague of wife men and the Idol of C fools. As to be perfectly juft, is an attribute of the divine nas ture; to be fo to the utmost of our abilities is the glory of man. No man was ever cast down with the injuries of fortune, uniefs he had before fuffered himself to be deceived by her favors, Anger may glance into the breaft of a wife man, but rests only in the bofom of fools. None more impatiently suffer injuries than thofe that are moft forward in doingthem. By taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior. To err, is human; to forgive, divine. A more glorious victory cannot be gained over another man, than this, that when the injury began on his part, the kindness fhould begin on ours. The prodigal robs his beir, the miser robs himself. We should take a prudent care for the future, but fo as to enjoy the present. It is no part of wifdom to be miferable to-day, because we may happen to be more fe to-morrow. To mourn without measure, is folly; not to mourn at all, insensibility. Some would be thought to do great things, who are but tools and inftruments: like the fool who fancied he played upon the organ, when he only blew the bellows. Though a man may become learned by another's learning, he can never be wise but by his own wifdom. He who wants good fenfe is unhappy in having learning; for he has thereby more ways of expofing himself. It is ungenerous to give a man occafion to blush at his ●wn ignorance in one thing, who perhaps may excel us in many. No object is more pleafing to the eye, than the fight of a man whom you have obliged; nor any mufic fo agreeable to the ear, as the voice of one that owns you for his benefactor. The coin that is most current among mankind, is Aatte ry: the only benefit of which is, that by hearing what we are not, we may be inftructed what we ought to be. The character of the perfon who commends you, is to be confidered before you fet a value on his efteem. The wife man applauds him whom he thinks most virtuous, the reft of the world, bim who is most wealthy. "The temperate man's pleasures are durable, because they are regular; and all his life is calm and serene, because it is innocent. A good man will love himself too well to lose, and his neighbor too well to win an eftate by gaming. The love of gaming will corrupt the best principles in the world. CHAP. IV. AN angry man who suppresses his paffions, thinks worle than he speaks; and an angry man that will chide, speaks worse than he thinks. A good word is an easy obligation; but not to speak ill, requires only our silence, which cofts us nothing. It is to affectation the world owes its whole race of coxcombs. Nature, in her whole drama, rever drew fuch a part; fhe has fometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is al ways of his own making. It is the infirmity of little minds that to be taken with every appearance, and dazzled with every thing that fparkles; but great minds have but little admiration, because few things appear new to them. up, It happens to men of learning as to ears of corn; they fhoot and raife their heads high, while they are empty; but when full and fwelled with grain, they begin to flag and droop. He that is truly polite, knows how to contradict with refepet, and to pleafe without adulation; and is equally remote from an infipid complaisance, and a low familiarity. The failings of good men are commonly more published in the world than their good deeds; and one fault of a deferving man will meet with more reproaches, than all his virtues, praise: Such is the force of ill will, and ill nature. It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause; for this may be done by one great or wife action in an age; but to escape censure, a man muft pafs his whole life without faying or doing one ill or foolish thing. When Darius offered Alexander ten thousand talents to divide Afia equally with him, he anfwered: The earth cannot bear two Suns, nor Afia two kings. Parmenio, a friend of Alexander's, hearing the great offers that Darius had made, faid, Were I Alexander, I would accept them. So would 1, replied Alexander, were I Parmenio. An old age unfupported with matter for difcourfe and meditation, is much to be dreaded, No ftate can be more $ Wherever I find a great deal of gratitude in a poor man, I take it for granted there would he as much generosity if he was a rich man. It often happens that those are the best people, whofe characters have been most injured by flanderers; as we unufually find that to be the sweetest fruit, which the birds have been picking at. The eye of a critic is often like a miscroscope, made fo very fine and nice, that it discovers the atoms, grains and minuteft particles, without ever comprehending the whole, comparing the parts, or feeing all at once the harmony. Honour is but a fictitious kind of honefty; a mean, but a neceffary fubftitute for it in focieties which have none. It is a fort of paper credit, with which men are are obliged to trade, who are deficient in the fterling cath of true morality and religion. Perfons of great delicacy fhould know the certainty of the following truth; there are abundance of cafes which occafion fufpenfe, in which, whatever they determine, they will repent of their determination; and this thro' a propenfity of human nature, to fancy happiness in thofe fchemes which it does not purfue. WHA CHAP. VIII. HAT a piece of work is man! how noble in reafon! how infinite in faculties! in form and motion, how exprefs and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehenfion, how like a God! If to do, were as wafy as to know what were good to do. chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages prince's palaces. He is a good divine that follows his own intuctions. I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow my own teaching. Men's Evil manners live in brafs; their virtues we write in water. The web of our life is of a mingled yarn good and ill tógether; our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not and our crimes would defpair; if they were not cherished by our virtues.. The fenfe of death is most in apprehenfion; In corporeal fufferance, feels a pang as great, How far the little candle throws his beam!. Love all, truft a few, Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy, Our indifcretion fometimes ferves us well, When our deep plots do fail: and that should teach us, There's a divinity that fhapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. What ftronger breaft plate than a heart untainted? The cloud-clapt towers, the gorgeous palaces, Leave not a wreck behind! We are fuch fuff So it falls out, That what we have we prize not to the worth Cowards die many times before their deaths | There is fome foul of goodness in things evil, |