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tinues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter; of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation; and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment; and Pope with perpetual delight.

9. I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of the mind.. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are subject to the greatest depressions of melancholy; on the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

10. Never before were there so many opposing interests, passions, and principles committed to such a decision. On one side, a fixed attachment to the ancient order of things; on the other, a passionate desire of change; a wish in some to perpetuate, in others to destroy every thing; every abuse sacred in the eyes of the former, every foundation attempted to be demolished by the latter; jealousy of power shrinking from the slightest innovation, pretensions to freedom pushed to madness and anarchy; superstition in all its dotage, impiety in all its fury.

11. At the same time that I think discretion the most useful talent a man can be master of, I look upon cunning to be the accomplishment of little, mean, ungenerous minds. Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the most proper and laudable methods of attaining them; cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed: discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of short-sightedness, that discovers

the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.

12. It was the boast of Augustus, that he found Rome of brick, and left it of marble. But how much nobler will be our Sovereign's boast when he shall have to say, that he found law dear, and left it cheap; found it a sealed book, left it an open letter; found it the patrimony of the rich, left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression, left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence.

13. Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing more contemptible than the false; the one guards virtue, the other betrays it. True modesty is ashamed to do any thing that is repugnant to the rules of right reason; false modesty is ashamed to do any thing that is opposite to the humour of the company. True modesty avoids every thing that is criminal; false modesty, every thing that is unfashionable. The latter is only a general undetermined instinct; the former is that instinct, limited and circumscribed by the rules of prudence and religion.

14. The peasant complains aloud; the courtier repines in secret. In want, what distress! in affluence, what satiety! The great are under as much difficulty to expend with pleasure as the mean to labour with success. The ignorant, through ill-grounded hope, are disappointed; the knowing, through knowledge, despond. Ignorance occasions mistake, mistake, disappointment, and disappointment misery. Knowledge, on the other hand, gives true judgment of human things, and true judgment of human things gives a demonstration of their insufficiency to our peace.

15. How different is the view of past life, in the man who is grown old in knowledge and wisdom, from that of him who is grown old in ignorance and folly! The latter is like the owner of a barren country, that fills his eye with the prospect of naked hills and plains, which produce nothing very profitable or ornamental: the former beholds a beautiful and

spacious landscape, divided into delightful gardens, green meadows, fruitful fields; and can scarce cast his eye on a single spot of his possessions that is not covered with some beautiful plant or flower.

16. When Darius offered Alexander ten thousand talents to divide Asia equally with him, he answered, "The earth cannot bear two suns, nor Asia two kings." Parmenio, a friend of Alexander, hearing the great offers Darius had made, said, "Were I Alexander I would accept them." “So would I,” replied Alexander, “were I Parmenio.”

17. As there is a worldly happiness, which God perceives to be no other than disguised misery; as there are worldly honours, which, in his estimation, are reproach; so there is a worldly wisdom, which, in his sight, is foolishness. Of this worldly wisdom the characters are given in the Scriptures, and placed in contrast with those of the wisdom which is from above. The one is the wisdom of the crafty, the other that of the upright; the one terminates in selfishness, the other in charity; the one is full of strife and bitter envying, the other of mercy and good fruits.

18. A rich man beginning to fall is held up by his friends; but a poor man, being down, is thrust away by his friends. When a rich man is fallen he hath many helpers; he speaketh things not to be spoken, and yet men justify him. The poor man slipped, and they rebuked him; he spoke wisely, and could have no place. When a rich man speaketh, every man holdeth his tongue, and look, what he saith, they extol it to the clouds; but if a poor man speak they say, What fellow is this?

19. Where is the man that possesses, or indeed can be required to possess, greater abilities in war than Pompey? One who has fought more pitched battles than others have maintained personal disputes! carried on more wars than others have acquired knowledge of by reading! reduced more provinces than others have aspired to even in thought! whose youth was trained to the profession of arms, not by precepts

derived from others, but by the highest offices of command; not by personal mistakes in war, but by a train of important victories; not by a series of campaigns, but by a succession of triumphs!

20. The high and the low, the rich and the poor, approach, in point of real enjoyment, much nearer to each other than is commonly imagined. Providence never intended that any state here should be either completely happy, or completely miserable. If the feelings of pleasure are more numerous and more lively in the higher departments of life, such also are those of pain. If greatness flatters our vanity, it multiplies our dangers. If opulence increases our gratifications, it increases in the same proportion our desires and demands. If the poor are confined to a more narrow circle, yet within that circle lie most of those natural satisfactions which, after all the refinements of art, are found to be the most genuine and true.

21. My brave associates-partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame! Can Rolla's words add vigour to the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts? No; you have judged, as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and ours. They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and extended rule; we, for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow an adventurer whom they fear, and obey a power which they hate; we serve a monarch whom we love, a God whom we adore.

22. What is the blooming tincture of the skin
To peace of mind, and harmony within?
What the bright sparkling of the finest eye,
To the soft soothing of a calm reply?
Can comeliness of form, or shape, or air,
With comeliness of words, or deeds compare?
No: those at first th' unwary heart may gain,
But these these only can the heart retain.

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23. In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellowHast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about you,

There is no living with thee, nor without thee.

24. Oh, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream My great example, as it is my theme:

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing, full.1
25. 'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing, or in judging ill;
But of the two, less dangerous is th' offence
To tire our patience than mislead our sense;
Some few in that, but numbers err in this,
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;
A fool might once himself alone expose,
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In poets as true genius is but rare,

True taste as seldom is the critic's share.

26. All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul:
That chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth as in th' ethereal frame,

Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent ;
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,

As full as perfect in a hair as heart;

Pope's inimitable parody on those beautiful lines deserves to be quoted in connexion with them. Welsted was one of the heroes of the Dunciad.

"Flow, Welsted, flow! like thine inspirer, beer,

Though stale, not ripe; though thin, yet never clear;

So sweetly mawkish, and so smoothly dull;

Heady, not strong; o'erflowing, though not full."

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