world, that to be born may have been a more painful thing than to die, and to live may prove a more troublesome thing than either.

CCCCXX.

MORE have been ruined by their servants, than by their masters.

CCCCXXI.

LOVE, like the cold bath, is never negative, it seldom leaves us where it finds us; if once we plunge into it, it will either heighten our virtues, or inflame our vices.

CCCCXXII.

IF there be a pleasure on earth which angels cannot enjoy, and which they might almost envy man the possession of, it is the power of relieving distress. If there be a pain which devils might pity man for enduring, it is the deathbed reflection that we have possessed the power of doing good, but that we have abused and perverted it to purposes of ill.

CCCCXXIII.

PUBLIC charities and benevolent associations for the gratuitous relief of every species of distress, are peculiar to Christianity; no other system of civil or religious policy has originated them; they form its highest praise and characteristic feature; an order of benevolence so disinterested, and so exalted, looking before and after, could no more have preceded revelation, than light the sun.

CCCCXXIV.

APPLAUSE is the spur of noble minds, the end

and aim of weak ones.

CCCCXXV.

IN most quarrels there is a fault on both sides. A quarrel may be compared to a spark, which cannot be produced without a flint, as well as a steel, either of them may hammer on wood for ever, no fire will follow

CCCCXXVI.

OUR wealth is often a snare to ourselves, and always

a temptation to others.

CCCCXXVII.

TO know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it; the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.

CCCCXXVIII.

THOSE who are embarked in that greatest of all undertakings, the propagation of the gospel, and who do so from a thorough conviction of its superior utility and excellence, may indeed fail in saving others, but they are engaged in that labour of love, by which they are most likely to save themselves, particularly if they pray that through God's assistance both ends may be obtained.

CCCCXXIX.

TWO things, well considered, would prevent many quarrels; first, to have it well ascertained whether we are not disputing about terms, rather than things; and, secondly, to examine whether that on which we differ, is worth contending about.

CCCCXXX.

FAITH and works are as necessary to our spiritual

life as Christians, as soul and body are to our natural life as men; for faith is the soul of religion, and works the body.

CCCCXXXI.

SOLOMON has said "there is nothing new under the sun;" and perhaps destruction has caused as much novelty as invention; for that is often only a revival which we think a discovery.

CCCCXXXII.

IT is an unfortunate thing for fools, that their pretensions should rise in an inverse ratio with their abilities, and their presumption with their weakness; and for the wise, that diffidence should be the companion of talent, and doubt the fruit of investigation.

CCCCXXXIII.

THERE are three kinds of praise, that which we yield, that which we lend, and that which we pay. We yield it to the powerful from fear, we lend it to the weak from interest, and we pay it to the deserving from gratitude.

CCCCXXXIV.

WE generally most covet that particular trust which we are least likely to keep. He that thoroughly knows his friends, might, perhaps, with safety, confide his wife to the care of one, his purse to another, and his secrets to a third, when to permit them to make their own choice would be his ruin.

CCCCXXXV.

ELOQUENCE is the language of nature, and cannot be learnt in the schools; the passions are powerful pleaders, and their very silence, like that of Garrick, goes

directly to the soul; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least, will most excel in; it is the quackery of eloquence, and deals in nostrums, not in cures.

CCCCXXXVI.

WHEN honours come to us, rather than we to them; when they meet us, as it were, in the vestibule of life, it is well if our enemies can say no more against us, than that we are too young for our dignities; it would be much worse for us, if they could say that we are too old for them; time will destroy the first objection, but confirm the second.

CCCCXXXVII.

PICKPOCKETS and beggars are the best practical physiognomists, without having read a line of Lavater, who, it is notorious, mistook a highwayman for a philosopher, and a philosopher for a highwayman.

CCCCXXXVIII.

FAULTS of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.

CCCCXXXIX.

WE are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is a civil war, and in all such contentions, triumphs are defeats.

CCCCXL.

ATTEMPTS at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism; as he that struggles, tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.

CCCCXLI.

A REVENGEFUL knave will do more than he will say; a grateful one will say more than he will do

CCCCXLII.

IN naval architecture, the rudder is first fitted in, and then the ballast is put on board, and, last of all, the cargo and the sails. It is far otherwise in the fitting up and forming of man; he is launched into life with the cargo of his faculties aboard, and all the sails of his passions set; but it is the long and painful work of his life, to acquire the ballast of experience, and to form the rudder of reason; hence, it too often happens that his frail vessel is shipwrecked before he has laid in the necessary quantity of ballast, or that he has been so long in completing the rudder, that the vessel is become too crazy to benefit by its application.

CCCCXLIII.

IT is with nations as with individuals, those who know the least of others think the highest of themselves; for the whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other. The Chinese affect to despise European ingenuity, but they cannot mend a common watch; when it is out of order, they say it is dead, and barter it away for a living one. The Persians think that all foreign merchants come to them from a small island in the northern waters, barren and desolate, which produces nothing good or beautiful; for why else, say they, do the Europeans fetch such things from us, if they are to be had at home. The Turk will not permit the sacred cities of Mecca or Medina to be polluted by the residence or even footstep of a single Christian; and as to the grand Dairo of Japan, he is so holy, that the sun is not permitted to have the honour of shining on his illustrious head. As to the king of Malacca, he styles himself lord of the winds, and the Mogul, to be