can find, is, that the gross slaughter is made when one side takes to flight.

A PERSON that is disposed to throw off all reserve before an inferior, should reflect, that he has also his inferiors, to whom he may be equally communicative.

It is impossible for a man of sense to guard against the mortification that may be given him by fools, or heteroclite characters; because he cannot foresee them. A wit-would cannot afford to discard a frivolous conceit, though it tends to affront you: an old maid, a country put, or a college pedant, will ignorantly or wilfully blunder upon such hints as must discompose you.

A MAN that is solicitous about his health, or apprehensive of some acute disorder, should write a journal of his constitution, for the better instruction of his physician.

GHOSTS have no more connexion with darkness, than the mystery of a barber with that of a surgeon;

yet

S

yet we find they go together. Perhaps Nox and Chaos were their mythological parents.

HE makes a lady but a poor recompense who marries her, because he has kept her company long after his affection is estranged. Does he not rather increase the injury?

SECOND thoughts oftentimes are the very worst of all thoughts. First and third very often coincide. Indeed second thoughts are too frequently formed by the love of novelty, of showing penetration, of distinguishing ourselves from the mob, and have consequently less of simplicity, and more of affectation. This, however, regards principally objects of taste and fancy. Third thoughts, at least, are here very proper mediators.

"SET a beggar on horse-back, and he'll ride,” is a common proverb and a real truth. The " novus homo" is an "inexpertus homo," and consequently must purchase finery, before he knows the emptiness of it experimentally. The established gentleman disregards it, through habit and familiarity.

THE

THE foppery of love-verses, when a person is ill and indisposed, is perfect ipecacuanha.

:

ANTIQUITY of family, and distinctions of gentry, have, perhaps, less weight in this age, than they had ever heretofore the bend dexter or sinister; the chief, the canton, or the chevron, are greatly out of date. The heralds are at length discovered to have no legal authority. Spain, indeed, continues to preserve the distinction, and is poor. France (by their dispute about trading nobility) seems inclined to shake it off. Who now looks with veneration on the antediluvian pedigree of a Welchman? Property either is, or is sure to purchase distinction, let the king at arms, or the old maiden aunt, preach as long as either pleases. It is so; perhaps it ought to be so. All honours should lie open, all encouragement be allowed to the members of trade in a trading nation: And as the nobility find it very expedient to partake of their profits, so that they, in return, should obtain a share in the other honors. One would, however, wish the acquisition of learning was as sure a road to dignity, as that of riches.

ΟΝ

ON BOOKS AND WRITERS.

T is often asserted, by pretenders to singular penetration, that the assistance fancy is supposed to draw from wine, is merely imaginary and chimerical: that all which the poets have urged on this head is absolute rant and enthusiasm; and has no foundation in truth or nature. I am inclined to think otherwise. Judgment, I readily allow, derives no benefit from the noblest cordial. But persons of a phlegmatic constitution have those excellencies often suppressed, of which their imagination is truly capable, by reason of a lentor, which wine may naturally remove. It raises low spirits to a pitch necessary for the exertion of fancy. It confutes the "Non est tanti," so frequently a maxim with speculative persons. It quickens that ambition, or that social bias, which makes a person wish to shine, or to please. Ask what tradition says of Mr. Addison's conversation. But instances in point of conversation come within every one's observance. Why then may

it not be allowed to produce the same effects in writing?

THE affected phrases I hate most, are those on which your half-wits found their reputation. Such as "Pretty trifler, Fair plaintiff, Lovely architect," &c.

DOCTOR YOUNG has a surprising knack of bringing thoughts from a distance, from their lurking places, in a moment's time.

THERE is nothing so disagreeable in works of humour as an insipid, unsupported, vivacity; the very husks of drollery; bottled small-beer; a man outriding his horse; lewdness and impotence; a fiery actor in a phlegmatic scene; an illiterate and stupid preacher discoursing upon Urim and Thummim, and beating the pulpit cushion in such a manner, though he would make the dust and the truth fly out of it at once.

as

AN editor, or a translator, collects the merits of different writers; and, forming all into a wreath, bestows it on his author's tomb. The thunder of

Demos