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RESTRAINT and laborious effort are radical faults which destroy vitality. Extreme care to avoid censure and satisfy all, never answers its purpose. There is no escape from cavil.

EGERTON BRYDGES.

To exult

Ev'n o'er an enemy oppressed, and heap
Affliction on the afflicted, is the mark
And the mean triumph of a dastard soul.

SMOLLET.

A NOBLE nature may commit a great fault; but what is that to the ceaseless pride, envy, malice, and conceit of a little mind?

THE cankering rust corrodes the brightest steel;
The moth frets out your garment, and the worm
Eats its slow way into the solid oak:
But Envy, of all evil things the worst,

The same to-day, to-morrow, and for ever,
Saps, and consumes the heart in which it lurks.

AMBITION is the dropsy of the soul,

Whose thirst we must not yield to, but controul.

SEDLEY.

How dreadfully delightful 'tis to lose
The dazzled eye in yonder wide expanse,

Where round ten thousand radiant fonts of light,
Myriads of worlds roll ceaseless ;-all obeying,
And all declaring, in their measured orbs,
That universal Spirit which informs,

Pervades, and actuates the wondrous whole.

-Stupendous view, vast boundless theatre! Thro' whose extended scenes numberless hosts Of beings rise successively to life;

Form'd all for happiness by the good-giving hand Of its omnipotent artificer.

BELLER.

WE seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers it is the labour and reward of vanity to extend the term of this ideal longevity. Our imagination is always active to enlarge the narrow circle in which nature has confined us. Fifty or an hundred years may be allotted to an individual; but we step forward beyond death with such hopes as religion and philosophy will suggest, and we fill up the silent vacancy that precedes our birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our existence. Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate than to suppress the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist may laugh, the philosopher may preach, but reason herself will respect the prejudice and habits which have been consecrated by the experience of mankind.

GIBBON.

M

O SLEEP! thou sweetest gift of Heaven to man,
Still in thy downy arms embrace my friend,
Nor loose him from his inexistent frame

To sense of yesterday, and pain of being:
In thee, oppressors soothe their angry brow;
In thee the oppress'd forget tyrannic power;

In thee, the wretch condemn'd is equal to his judge;
And the sad lover to his cruel fair;

Nay, all the shining glories men pursue

When thou art wanted, are but empty noise;
Who then would court the pomp of guilty power,
When the mind sickens at the weary show,
And flies to temporary death for ease?

STEELE.

HE that has delivered his country from oppression, or freed the world from ignorance and error, can excite the emulation of a very small number: but he that has repelled the temptations of poverty, and disdained to free himself from distress at the expense of his virtue, may animate multitudes by his example to the same firmness of heart and steadiness of resolution.

JOHNSON.

"Tis the fate of princes, that no knowledge
Comes pure to them, but passing through the eyes
And ears of other men, it takes a tincture

From every channel; and still bears a relish
Of flattery, or private ends.

DENHAM.

THERE comes a voice that awakes my soul. It is the voice of years that are gone: they roll before me with all their deeds.

OSSIAN.

Is life so sweet,

With all its pains, that Death's great writ of ease
Should be so dreadful to us, which is but
Kind nature's alms to fortune's wretched beggars ?
Sure he who thro' his life, like us, hath scorn'd
When tempted to shake off the human nature,
The awe of virtue, and the love of Heaven,
Can never tremble when his honour calls,
And bids him quit this vale of flesh and misery?
All we should fear is, while we act the part
Of men, we sink not from the glorious character;
Or by some vile or vicious act disgrace

The noble human being-If we've fear'd that,
Then,unappall'd, our hearts may face Death's terrors.

MADDEN.

I APPLAUD

In thee the virtuous hope that dares look onward, And keeps the life-spark warm of future action : Beneath the cloak of patient sufferance,

Act and appear, as time and prudence prompt thee.

COLERIDGE.

To forgive substantial injury is sometimes less a test of right temper than to turn an eye of Christian compassion upon the dwarfish distortion of a mind crippled in all its nobler parts.

MARY BRUNTON.

PASS but a moment, and this busy globe,
Its thrones, its empires, and its bustling millions,
Will seem a speck in the great void of space.

MURPHY.

THEY only are justifiable in seclusion who, like the Greek philosopher, make that very seclusion the means of serving and enlightening their race: who from their retreats send forth their oracles of wisdom, and make the desert which surrounds them eloquent with the voice of truth.

JUST Heaven instructs us with an awful voice
That Conscience rules us e'en against our choice,
Our inward monitress to guide or warn
If listened to; but if repell'd with scorn,
At length as dire Remorse, she re-appears,
Works in our guilty hopes, and selfish fears!
Still bids, Remember! and still cries, Too late❜
And, while she scares us, goads us to our fate.

COLERIDGE.

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