Do not we see how easily we pardon our own actions and passions, and the very infirmities of our bodies; why should it be wonderful to find us pardon our own dulness?

There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage, as vanity; nor any which, by ill management, makes so contemptible a figure.

Observation is an old man's memory.

Eloquence, smooth and cutting, is like a razor whetted with oil.

Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them; as he, who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot, can, by two or three touches with a - lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. This I once said to my Lord Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe, that the clerks in his office used a sort of ivory knife with a blunt edge to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only requiring a steady hand : whereas if they should make use of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease and disfigure the paper.

"He who does not provide for his own house," St. Paul says, "is worse than an infidel." And I think, he who provides only for his own house, is just equal with an infidel.

Jealousy, like fire, may shrivel up horns, but it

makes them stink.

A footman's hat should fly off to everybody and therefore Mercury, who was Jupiter's footman, had wings fastened to his cap.

When a man pretends love, but courts for money, he is like a juggler, who conjures away your shilling, and conveys something very indecent under

the hat.

All panegyrics are mingled with an infusion of poppy.

I have known men happy enough at ridicule, who upon grave subjects were perfectly stupid; of which Dr. Echard of Cambridge, who writ "The Contempt of the Clergy," was a great instance.

One top of Parnassus was sacred to Bacchus, the other to Apollo.

Matrimony has many children; Repentance, Discord, Poverty, Jealousy, Sickness, Spleen, Loathing, &c.

Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.

I asked a poor man how he did? He said, he was like a washball, always in decay.

Hippocrates, Aph. 32, Sect. 6, observes, that stuttering people are always subject to a looseness. I wish physicians had power to remove the profusion of words in many people to the inferior parts.

A man dreamed he was a cuckold; a friend told him it was a bad sign, because, when a dream is true, Virgil says it passes through the horned gate.

Love is a flame, and therefore we say beauty is attractive; because physicians observe that fire is a great drawer.

Civis, the most honourable name among the Romans; a citizen, a word of contempt among us.

A lady who had gallantries and several children, told her husband he was like the austere man, who reaped where he did not sow.

We read that an ass's head was sold for eighty

pieces of silver; they have lately been sold ten thousand times dearer, and yet they were never more plentiful.

I must complain the cards are ill shuffled, till I have a good hand.

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive and talking to me.

Whoever live at a different end of the town from me, I look upon as persons out of the world, and only myself and the scene about me to be in it.

When I was young, I thought all the world, as well as myself, was wholly taken up in discoursing upon the last new play.

My Lord Cromarty, after fourscore, went to his country house in Scotland, with a resolution to stay six years there and live thriftily, in order to save up money that he might spend in London.

It is said of the horses in the vision, that "their power was in their mouths and in their tails." What is said of horses in the vision, in reality may be said of women.

Elephants are always drawn smaller than life, but a flea always larger.

When old folks tell us of many passages in their youth between them and their company, we are apt to think how much happier those times were than the present.

Why does the elder sister dance barefoot, when the younger is married before her? Is it not that she may appear shorter, and consequently be thought younger than the bride?

No man will take counsel, but every man will take money: therefore money is better than counsel. I never yet knew a wag, (as the term is,) who was not a dunce.

A person reading to me a dull poem of his own making, I prevailed on him to scratch out six lines

together; in turning over the leaf, the ink being wet, it marked as many lines on the other side; whereof the poet complaining, I bid him be easy, "for it would be better if those were out too."

At Windsor I was observing to my Lord Bolingbroke, "that the tower where the maids of honour lodged (who at that time were very handsome) was much frequented with crows." My lord said, “it was because they smelt carrion."

A TREATISE

ON

GOOD MANNERS AND GOOD BREEDING.*

OOD manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse.

Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company. As the best law is founded upon reason, so are the best manners. And as some lawyers have introduced unreasonable things into common law, so likewise many teachers have introduced absurd things into common good manners.

One principal point of this art is, to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men; our superiors, our equals, and those below us.

For instance, to press either of the two former to eat or drink is a breach of manners; but a tradesman or a farmer must be thus treated, or else it will be difficult to persuade them that they are welcome.

* Which Lord Chesterfield thus defines, "the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them."