on the taste and choice of the writer. In the former case the mind does eagerly what little it has to do. Where no intricacies are to be unravelled, and no comparisons to be investigated, it is impatient of being detained for a moment in the contemplation of ornament, and presses forwards straightly and impetuously to the main design. Hence the plainness of expression that is frequently to be found in proverbs; though occasions will sometimes arise in which it is proper to bestow upon them a qualified and temperate decoration. But the process, even in this latter case, is short and plain. We must not be called upon to strain our powers by sudden struggles, or to weary them by intense application, but to employ them with such a degree of exertion as, by its alacrity, by its facility, and its sufficiency to the end proposed, excites a pleasing sensation, and throws a more vivid and lasting lustre over all our perceptions.

Thus Solomon, in the nine first chapters,* has admitted into his diction many of the ornaments

paramia a Basilio definitur, λόγος ὠφέλιμος μετ' ἐπικρύψεως μετρίας ἐκδεδόμενος.

It is unnecessary for me to enter with critical nicety into the disagreement and similitude between apophthegms, adagies, and moral гvwμaì. These points are learnedly discussed by Erasmus, in his Prolegomena to the Adagies; by Lycosthenes, in his Preface to his Collection of 'Arop0éyμara; by Schottus, in his Preface to the Παροιμίαι Ελλήνικαι; and by Michael Apostolius, in the Letter prefixed to his Collection of Proverbs.

* Hujusce operis duæ sunt partes: prima quæ est Proœmii cujusdam loco, novem priora capita continet; estque varia, elegans, sublimis, vereque poetica. Lowth, Prælec, 24.

which poetry furnishes, in splendour of metaphor, and in luminousness of description. But in the subsequent part of the work he descends to an humbler style, preserving, however, at the same time, that acuteness of sentiment, and that neatness of phraseology, which are characteristic of proverbial composition.

Of the esteem in which that composition was holden in antient times we shall not think lightly, when we recollect that proverbs were pronounced by the priest at the oracle, and by the legislator in the forum ;* that they were ambitiously seized by the Lyric and by the Epic muse in their most rapid career and in their sublimest soarings; and that the title of wisdom was eminently appropriated to that kind of instruction, which, in brief and detached sentences, pointed out what the duty of man required him to perform, and his interest to pursue. Hence the Greek writers have carefully preserved to us those moral aphorisms that immortalized the seven sages of Greece; and hence, too, from the same habits of thinking, and in the same form of

* I use this word for the Greek ȧyópa; as the place in which deliberations were holden upon subjects of law and government. See the Menexenus of Plato, p. 234, tom. ii. edit. Serran. Schol. in Eurip. Hec. 1. 288. in V. арnyóρησov. παρηγόρησον. † Ζηλωτὸς δὲ καὶ Πίνδαρος καὶ σεμνότητος εἵνεκα καὶ γνωμο λογίας. Dionys. Halicar. τῶν ̓Αρχαι: κρισις. p. 173. vol. ii.

See the learned Preface of Duport in Homeri Gnomologiam. Nec inutile solum, sed et jucundum fuerit observare, quam amicè inter se conspirent, atque consentiant Solomon puta, et Homerus, sacrorum ille, hic rv ëwer scriptorum (si doctis credimus) sapientissimus.

expression, Solomon is emphatically described "as the wise man."

He had certainly looked abroad with a piercing and comprehensive eye on the great chain of external causes which determine the happiness or misery of mankind. He had deeply explored the most secret recesses of the human heart. He had surveyed attentively the complicated springs of our actions, and that strange mixture of good and evil, of wisdom and folly, which produces an endless diversity in the human character. With the sagacity, therefore, which marks exalted genius, and with that simplicity which arises from a distinct conception of subjects in themselves both dark and intricate, he lays down many useful regulations for our behaviour; and while his precepts are delivered to us in familiar language, while they lie level to common apprehensions, and seem to arise out of the ordinary occurences of life, they are known by more discerning and more exact enquirers, not only to rest upon the solid basis of experience, but to proceed from those habits of patient and profound observation, without which the most ingenious theory is but a shining trifle.

Over writings in the learned languages both prosaic and poetical, many proverbial passages are scattered, which amuse and interest every judicious reader by the brightness of the expression and the justness of the sentiment. We have indeed no collection made by any Roman writer, * of moral say

* Schottus, in the Preface before quoted, enumerates the Paromiographi per saturam; both those which are lost and

ings, at once venerable for their antiquity and celebrated for their popularity. But as to the Greeks,* some collections of this kind have escaped the ravages of time; and whatever imperfections we, who are enlightened by religion and philosophy, may spy out in these rude efforts of antient morality, we may yet find in them many vestiges of good sense, and even of good writing, many remarks which demand the praise of penetration,

-many admonitions which denote an honest and amiable concern for the improvement and welfare of the species. Yet in number, in variety, in profoundness of thought, and in purity of principle, the most excellent of these old moralists is far exceeded by the writer from whom my text is taken.

I lately saw with very high satisfaction a criticism, which, indeed, had often occurred to my

those which are come down to us. After mentioning the Greek writers, he proceeds: Latini vero, serius tamen, id argumentum tentârunt verius, quam tractârunt. Lucii Appuleii enim Madaurensis, philosophi Platonici, librum de Proverbiis secundum citat Carisius Sosipater.-Lib. ii. Gramm.

* We now have the Works of Zenobius, Diogenianus, the Collectanea from Suidas, made by modern scholars, and another Collection of Michael Apostolius. I must not wholly omit the Apophthegms of Plutarch, a work which he justly styles κοίνας ἀπαρχὰς ἀπὸ φιλοσοφίας.

† I will quote the passage at large: Atque hoc loco non possimus silentio præterire qui nos error diu tenuerit: si forte nostrum exemplum aliis prodesse queat. Ex Ciceronianis libris, omnium primi a nobis lecti sunt illi, qui sunt de Officiis: consuetudine tam perversâ, quam pervulgatâ. Eramus tum pueri; id est, eâ ætate, qua horum librorum vim, ac præstantiam minimè perciperemus, verba verbis redderemus; nec hoc

own mind, and which is now supported by an authority under which I am happy to fortify my opinion against rash contradiction and petulant derision. The writer of that criticism tells us, that having read the Offices of Tully when he was a boy, he had not till it was late in life resumed and examined them: but this neglect he ingenuously condemns, not only for want of curiosity, but for want of judgment. In the composition, which from its supposed plainness was not very attractive to a juvenile mind, he now discovered many graces which had passed before unnoticed. In the thought, which to a superficial and hasty reader once appeared obvious and trite, he perceived marks of a most cultivated and most vigorous understanding. In passages which related to common life, and

quidem sine summo tædio quod res ipsas non intelligebamus. Itaque factum est postea, ut quo plus suavitatis caperemus legendis Poetis et Historicis, qui sine dubio magis accommodati sunt puerili ingenio, eo minus jucunda nobis accideret recordatio librorum de Officiis.-P. 15. Dutch Review.

Cum Cicerone in gratiam rediimus. At quàm diversus, et longe alius atque antea, tum nobis videbatur. Omnia non tantum suaviter, sed castè, accuratè, et utiliter eum scripsisse intelligebamus. Sed tamen illa præjudicata de officiorum libris opinio ut tenerrimâ ætate suscepta erat, ita difficillimè deponebatur. Nam cùm, post excussos alios adolescentiæ errores, hos libros aliquoties legissemus, semper adhuc aliquid ex veteri errore remanebat; ut non dubitaverimus alicubi concedere reprehensoribus istis, qui dicerent, doctrinam de officiis non accuratè et verè a Cicerone traditam esse. A quâ nunc sententiâ tantum absumus, ut nobis hi libri, cognito eorum consilio atque instituto, omnium maximè diligenter conscripti videantur.-P. 18.