THE

HERE is nothing which must end, to be valued for its continuance. If hours, days, months, and years pass away, it is no matter what hour, what day, what month, or what year we die. The applause of a good Actor is due to him at whatever scene of the play he makes his exit. It is thus in the Life of a man of sense; a short life is sufficient to manifest himself a man of Honour and Virtue; when he ceases to be such, he has lived too long; and while he is such, it is of no consequence to him how long he shall be so, provided he is so to his life's end.

Life. Beattie.

H! who can tell how hard it is to climb

A The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar;

Ah! who can tell how many a Soul sublime
Has felt the influence of malignant star,
And waged with Fortune an eternal War;
Check'd by the scoff of Pride, by Envy's frown,
And Poverty's unconquerable bar,

In Life's low vale remote has pin'd alone,

Then dropt into the grave, unpitied and unknown!

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies: and hear poor rogues
Talk of Court-news, and we'll talk with them too;
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon us the Mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: And we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sets of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the Moon.

Life. Sir William Temple.

HEN all is done, Human Life is, at the greatest and

W best, but like a' froward child, that must be played

with, and humoured a little to keep it quiet, till it falls asleep, and then the Care is over.

L

Life. - Byron.

OVE'S the first net which spreads its deadly mesh;
Ambition, Avarice, Vengeance, Glory, glue

The glittering lime-twigs of our latter days,
Where still we flutter on for pence or Praise.

ETWEEN two worlds Life hovers like a star, "Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge. How little do we know that which we are! How less what we may be! The eternal surge Of Time and Tide rolls on, and bears afar

Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, Lash'd from the foam of ages; while the Graves Of Empires heave but like some passing waves. Life. Steele.

is not perhaps much thought of, but it is certainly a

Life, and to be able to relish your being without the transport of some Passion, or gratification of some Appetite. For want of this capacity, the world is filled with whetters, tipplers, cutters, sippers, and all the numerous train of those who, for want of thinking, are forced to be ever exercising their feeling or tasting.

L

IFE is the jailor of the soul in this filthy prison, and its only deliverer is Death; what we call Life is a journey to Death, and what we call Death is a passport to Life. True wisdom thanks Death for what he takes, and still more for what he brings. Let us then, like sentinels, be ready because we are uncertain, and calm because we are prepared. There is nothing formidable about Death but the consequences of it, and these we ourselves can regulate and control. The shortest Life is long enough if it lead to a better, and the longest Life is too short if it do not. - Byron.

Life.

ALAS! such is our Nature! all but aim

At the same end by pathways not the same;
Our means, our Birth, our nation, and our name,
Our fortune, temper, even our outward frame,
Are far more potent o'er our yielding clay

Than aught we know beyond our little day.

Life. -Sir W. Temple.

bring into the world with us a poor, needy, un

W certain Life, short at the longest, and unquiet at the

best: all the imaginations of the witty and the wise have been perpetually busied to find out the ways how to revive

it with Pleasures, or relieve it with Diversions; how to compose it with Ease, and settle it with Safety. To some of these ends have been employed the institutions of Lawgivers, the reasonings of Philosophers, the inventions of Poets, the pains of labouring, and the extravagances of voluptuous men. All the world is perpetually at work about nothing else, but only that our poor mortal Lives should pass the easier and happier for that little time we possess them, or else end the better when we lose them. Sir Philip Sidney.

YOUTH will

Life.

never live to Age, without they keep themselves in breath with exercise, and in heart with joyfulness. Too much thinking doth consume the spirits: and oft' it falls out, that while one thinks too much of doing, he leaves to do the effect of his thinking.

Life. - Dryden.

SINCE every man who

Olives is born to die,

And none can boast sincere Felicity,

With equal mind what happens let us bear,

Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
Like pilgrims to the appointed place we tend;

The World's an inn, and Death the journey's end.
Life. Prior.

W Yet the pursuit, and yet the flight is vain:

E Happiness pursue: we fly from pain;

And, while poor Nature labours to be blest,
By day with Pleasure, and by night with rest.
Some stronger power eludes our sickly will,
Dashing our rising Hopes with certain ill;
And makes us, with reflective trouble, see
That all is destin'd, which we fancy free.
Life. Dryden.

UT ah! how insincere are all our joys!

Which, sent from Heaven, like lightning make no stay;

Their palling taste the Journey's length destroys,

Or Grief sent post o'ertakes them on the way.

LIKE some fair hum'rists, Life is most enjoy'd,

When courted least; most worth, when disesteem'd.

Life. Spenser.

BUT what on earth can long abide in state?

Or who can him assure of happy day?
Sith morning fair may bring foul evening late,
And least mishap the most bliss alter may?
For thousand perils lie in close await
About us daily, to work our decay,

That none except a god, or God him guide,
May them avoid, or Remedy provide.

Life. Colton.

SOCIETY is a sphere that demands all our Energies,

and deserves all that it demands. He therefore that retires to cells and to caverns, to Stripes and to Famine, to court a more arduous conflict, and to win a richer Crown, is doubly deceived; the conflict is less, the reward is nothing. He may indeed win a race, if he can be admitted to have done so who had no Competitors, because he chose to run alone; but he will be entitled to no Prize, because he ran out of the course.

Life. Spenser.

WHEN I beheld this fickle trustless state

Of vain world's glory, flitting to and fro,
And mortal men tossed by troublous Fate,
In restless seas of Wretchedness and Woe,
I wish I might this weary Life forego,
And shortly turn unto my happy rest,
Where my free Spirit might not any more
Be vext with sights that do her peace molest.
Life. Steele.

THE date of human Life is too short to recipe there cares which attend the most private condition: therefore it is, that our Souls are made, as it were, too big for it; and extend themselves in the prospect of a longer Existence.

LOVE, Hope, and Joy, fair Pleasure's smiling train;

Hate, Fear, and Grief, the family of Pain;

These, mixt with Art, and to due bounds confin'd,
Make and maintain the balance of the Mind;
The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our Life.

0

Life. — Byron.

LOVE! O Glory! what are ye? who fly
Around us ever, rarely to alight:

There's not a Meteor in the polar Sky

Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight.
Chill, and chain'd to cold earth, we lift on high
Our eyes in search of either lovely light;
A thousand and a thousand colours they
Assume, then leave us on our freezing way.

Life.

Shakespeare.

YOUR worm is your only Emperor for diet; we fat all

creatures else, to fat us; and we fat ourselves for Maggots: your fat King, and your lean Beggar, is but variable service; two dishes but to one table; that's the end. A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a King; and eat of the fish that hath fed of that Worm. Life. Byron.

WE wither from our youth, we gasp away

Sick-sick; unfound the boon-unslak'd the thirst, Though to the last, in verge of our decay,

Some Phantom lures, such as we thought at first-
But all too late,-so we are doubly curst.

Love, Fame, Ambition, Avarice-'tis the same,
Each idle-and all ill-and none the worst-

For all are meteors with a different name,

And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the Flame.

WELL-well, the world must turn upon its axis,

And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The King commands us, and the Doctor quacks us,
The Priest instructs, and so our life exhales :
A little Breath, Love, Wine, Ambition, Fame,
Fighting, Devotion, Dust,-perhaps a Name.

THE time of Life is short:

To spend that shortness basely, were too long,
If Life did ride upon a dial's point,

Still ending at the arrival of an hour.