one. yet could not avoid crying for the cake she had eaten. You should calculate your appearance for the place where you reside. One would rather be a very Knight in the country than his Honour Mr. Such-aThe most consummate selfishness would incline a person, at his death, to dispose of his effects agreeably to duty; that he may secure an interest in the world to which he is going. A justice and his clerk are now little more than a blind man and his dog, the profound ignorance of the former, together with the canine imprudence and rapacity of the latter, will but rarely be found wanting to vindicate the comparison. The principal part of the similitude will appear obvious to every onc; I mean that the justice is as much dependent on his clerk for su perior insight and implicit guidance, as the blind fellow on his cur that leads him in a string. Add to this, that the offer of a crust will seduce the conductors of either to drag their masters into a kennel. To remark the different figure made by different persons under the same circumstances of fortune! Two friends of mine, on a journey, had so contrived as to reduce their finances to a single sixpence each. The one, with the genteel and liberal air of abundance, gave his to a black shoe-boy, who wished his honour a thousand blessings; the other, having lodged a fortnight with a nobleman that was his patron, offered his to the butler, as an instance of his gratitude, who with difficulty forebore to curse him to his face, A glass or two of wine extraordinary only raises a valetudinarian to that warmth of social affection, which had naturally been his lot in a better state of health. Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all com ཡར ཡངབབ pliments. son as your superior, merely because he is your superior in point of assurance. This has often depressed the spirit of a person of desert and diffidence. A proper assurance, and competent fortune, are essential to liberty. Taste is pursued at a less expense than fashion. Our time in towns, Be cautious not to consider a per seems short to pass, and long to reflect on; in the country, the reverse. Deference, before com pany is the genteelest kind of flattery. The flattery of epistles affects one less, as they cannot be shewn without an appearance of vanity. Flattery of the verbal kind is gross. In short, applause is of too coarse a nature to be swallowed in the gross-tho' the extract or tincture be ever so agreeable. When a person, for a splendid servitude, foregoes a humble independency, it may be called an advancement, if you please: but it appears to me an advancement from the pit to the gallery. Liberty is a more invigorating cordial than tokay. Tho' punc tilos are trifling, they may be as important as the friendship of some persons that regard them.—Indeed it is almost an universal practice to rail at punctilio; and it seems, in some measure, a consequence of our attachment to French fashions. However, it is extremely obvious, that punctilio never caused half the quarrels, that have risen from the freedom of behaviour, which is it's opposite extreme. Were all men rational and civilized, the use of ceremony would be superfluous: but as the case is, it at least fixes some bounds to the encroachments of eccentric people, who, under the denomination of freedom, might demand the privilege of breaking your head. There seem nearly as inany people that want passion as want reason. of friendship. ........ The world would be more happy, if persons gave up more time to an intercourse But money engrosses all our deference; and we scarcely enjoy a social hour, because we think it unjustly stolen from the main business of our lives. The state of man is not unlike that of a fish hooked by an angler. Death allows us a little line. We flounce, and sport, and vary our situation but when we would extend our schemes, we discover our confinement, checked and limited by a superior hand, who drags us from our element whensoever he pleases. The vulgar trace your faults; those you have in common with themselves; but they have no idea of your excellencies, to which they have no pretensions. A person is something taller by holding up his head. A man of sense can be adequately esteemed by none other than a man of sense: a fool by none but a fool. We ought to act on this principle. How melan choly it is to travel, late and fatigued, on any ambitious project on a winter's night; and observe the lights of cottages, where all the unambitious people are warm and happy, or at rest in their beds. "Some of them," says W- as "wretched as princes, for aught we know to the contrary!" It is generally a principle of indolence that makes one so disgusted with an artful character. We hate the confinement of standing centinels, in our own defence. To behave with complaisance, where one foresees one must needs quarrel, is like eating before a vomit. Some persons may with justice boast, that they knew as much as others when they were but ten years old ; and that their present knowledge comprehends after the manner that a larger trunk contains the smaller ones it incloses. It is possible to discover in some faces the features nature intended, had she not been somehow thwarted in her operations. Is it not easy to remark the same distortion in some minds? There is a phrase pretty frequent amongst the vulgar, and which they apply to absolute fools-That they have had a rock too much in their cradles.With me, it is a most expressive idiom to describe a dislocated understanding: an understanding, for instance, which, like a watch, discovers a multitude of such parts, as appear obviously intended to belong to a system of the greatest perfection; yet which, by some unlucky jumble, falls infinitely short of it. Is it not the wound our pride sustains by being deceived, that makes us more averse to hypocrites, than to the most audacious and barefaced villain? Yet it seems as much a piece of justice to commend a man for talking more honestly than he acts, as it is to blame a man for acting more dishonestly than he talks. The sum of the whole, however, is, that the one adds to other crimes by his deceit, and the other by his impudence. A fool can neither eat, How nor drink, nor stand, nor walk; nor, in short, laugh, nor cry, nor take snuff, like a man of sense. obvious the distinction! There are Independency may be found in comparative, as well as absolute, abundance: I mean where a person contracts his desires within the limits of his fortune. very few persons who do not lose something of their esteem for you, on your approach to familiarity. The silly excuse that is often drawn from want of time to correspond, becomes no one besides a cobler with ten or a dozen children dependent on a tatching end. One, perhaps, ought to make funer པརད པ ར ས པའི མས als as sumptuous as possible, or as private; either by obscurity to elude, or by splendor to employ the attention, that it may not be engaged by the most shocking circumstance of our humanity. It happens, a little unluckily, that the persons who have the most intimate contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetites for the pleasures it procures. We are apt to look for those virtues in the characters of noblemen, that are but rarely to be found any where, except in the preambles to their patents. Some shining exceptions may be made to this rule: in general we may consider their appearance with us in public, as one does our wearing apparel. 'Which lord do you wear to-day? Why I did think to wear my lord ****; but, as there will be but little company in the Mall, I will e'en content myself to wear the same noble peer I wore yesterday.' The worst inconvenience, of a small fortune is that it will not admit of inadvertency. Inadvertency, however, ought to be placed at the head of most men's yearly accounts, and a sum as regularly allotted to it as to any other article. It is with our judgments, as with our eyes. Some can see objects at a greater distance more distinctly, at the same time less distinctly than others the objects that are near them. Notwithstanding the airs men give themselves, I believe no one sees family to more advantage, than the persons that have no share in it. How important is the eye to the appearance of a human face! the chief index of temper, understanding, health, and love? prodigious influence must the same misfortunes have on some persons beyond others! as the loss of an eye to a mere insolent beauty, without the least philoso What |