is not a word better than a gift? but both are with a gra

cious man.

BLAME not, before thou haft examined the truth; underftand first, and then rebuke.

Ir thou wouldest get a friend, prove him first, and be not hafty to credit him; for fome men are friends for their own occafions, and will not abide in the day of thy trouble.

FORSAKE not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleafure.

A FRIEND cannot be known in prosperity; and an enemy cannot be hidden in adversity.

ADMONISH thy friend; it may be he hath not done it ; and if he have, that he do it no more. Admonish thy friend; it may be he hath not faid it; or if he have, that he speak it not again. Admonish a friend; der; and believe not every tale.

for many times it is a slanThere is one that flippeth

in his speech, but not from his heart; and who is he that hath not offended with his tongue?

WHOSO difcovereth fecrets lofeth his credit, and fhall never find a friend to his mind.

HONOUR thy father with thy whole heart, and forget not the forrows of thy mother; how canft thou recompenfe them the things they have done for thee?

THERE is nothing fo much worth as a mind well inftructed.

THE lips of talkers will be telling fuch things as pertain not unto them; but the words of fuch as have understanding are weighed in the balance. The heart of fools is in their mouth, but the tongue of the wife is in their heart.

To labour, and to be content with that a man hath, is a fweet life.

RE

BE in peace with many; nevertheless, have but one counfellor of a thousand.

Be not confident in a plain way.

LET reafon go before every enterprize, and counfel before every action..

TH

С НА Р. VI.

HE latter part of a wife man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and falfe opinions he had contracted in the former.

CENSURE is the tax a man pays to the public for being. eminent.

VERY few men, properly speaking, live at prefent, but are providing to live another time.

PARTY is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.

To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine fenfe, is like attempting to hew blocks of marble with a razor..

SUPERSTITION is the spleen of the soul.

He who tells a lie is not fenfible how great a task he undertakes: for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one..

SOME people will never learn any thing, for this reason, because they understand every thing too foon.

THERE is nothing wanting to make all rational and difinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they should talk together every day.

MEN are grateful in the fame degree that they are refentful..

YOUNG men are fubtle arguers; the cloak of honour covers all their faults, as that of paffion, all their follies.

ECONOMY is no difgrace; it is better living on a little, than out-living a great deal.

NEXT to the fatisfaction I receive in the profperity of an honest man, I am best pleased with the confusion of a rascal. WHAT is often termed fhynefs, is nothing more than refined fenfe, and an indifference to common obfervations.

THE higher character a perfon fupports, the more he should regard his minutest actions.

EVERY perfon infenfibly fixes upon some degree of refinement in his discourse, fome measure of thought which he thinks worth exhibiting. It is wife to fix this pretty high, although it occafions one to talk the lefs.

To endeavour all one's days to fortify our minds with learning and philofophy, is to spend so much in armour, that one has nothing left to defend.

DEFERENCE often fhrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy, as the fenfitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.

MEN are fometimes accufed of pride, merely because their accufers would be proud themselves if they were in their places.

PEOPLE frequently use this expreffion, I am inclined to think fo and fo, not confidering that they are then speaking the most literal of all truths.

MODESTY makes large amends for the pain it gives the perfons who labour under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy perfon in their favour..

THE difference there is betwixt honour and honesty seems to be chiefly in the motive. The honeft man does that from duty, which the man of honour does for the fake of character.

A LIAR begins with making falfhood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falfhood.

VIRTUE fhould be confidered as a part of tafte; and we fhould as much avoid deceit, or finifter meanings in discourse, as we would puns, bad language, or false grammar.

DE

CHA P. VII.

EFERENCE is the most complicate, the moft in direct, and the moft elegant of all compliments.

He that lies in bed all a fummer's morning, lofes the chief pleasure of the day: he that gives up his youth to indolence, undergoes a lofs of the fame kind.

SHINING characters are not always the most agreeable ones. The mild radiance of an emerald, is by no means lefs pleafing than the glare of the ruby.

To be at once a rake, and to glory in the character, dis covers at the same time a bad disposition, and a bad taste. How is it poffible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they will not so much as take warning?

ALTHOUGH men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own ftrength. It is in men as in foils, where fometimes there is a vein of gold. which the author knows not of.

FINE fenfe and exalted fenfe are not half so valuable as common fenfe. There are forty men of wit for one man of sense; and he that will carry nothing about him but gold, will be every day at a lofs for want of ready change.

LEARNING is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skilful hands; in unfkilful,. moft mifchievous.

A MAN fhould never be afhamed to own he has been in

the wrong; which is but saying in other words, that he is wifer to-day than he was yesterday.

WHEREVER I find a great deal of gratitude in a poor man, I take it for granted there would be as much generosity if he were a rich man.

FLOWERS of rhetoric in fermons or ferious difcourfes, are like the blue and red flowers in corn, pleafing to thofe who come only for amusement, but prejudicial to him who would reap the profit.

Ir often happens that thofe are the best people, whose characters have been moft injured by flanderers: as we usually find that to be the sweetest fruit, which the birds have been: pecking at.

THE eye of the critic is often like a microscope, made fo very fine and nice, that it difcovers the atoms, grains, and. minuteft articles, without ever comprehending the whole, comparing the parts, or feeing all at once the harmony.

MEN's zeal for religion is much of the fame kind as that which they fhew for a foot-ball: whenever it is contested for, every one is ready to venture their lives and limbs in the difpute; but when that is once at an end, it is no more thought on, but fleeps in oblivion, buried in rubbish, which no one thinks it worth his pains to rake into, much less to

remove.

HONOUR is but a fictitious kind of honefty; a mean, but a neceffary fubftitute for it, in focieties, who have none : it is a fort of paper-credit, with which men are obliged to trade, who are deficient in the fterling cash of true morality and religion.

PERSONS 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 the determination; and this through a pro

I

penfity