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CLOTHES. History and Worth of

Good clothes are the embroidered trappings of pride, and good cheer the very root of gluttony. Did man, think you, come wrangling into the world about no better matters, than all his lifetime to make privy searches in Birchin Lane for whalebone doublets, or for pies of nightingales' tongues in Heliogabalus his kitchen? No, no; the first suit of apparel that ever mortal man put on, came neither from the mercer's shop nor the merchant's warehouse: Adam's bill would have been taken then, sooner than a knight's bond now; yet was he great in nobody's books for satin and velvets. The silk-worms had something else to do in those days than to set up looms, and be free of the weavers. His breeches were not so much worth as King Stephen's, that cost but a poor noble; for Adam's holiday hose and doublet were of no better stuff than plain fig-leaves, and Eve's best gown of the same piece; there went but a pair of shears between them.

The Gull's Hornbook.-THOMAS DEKKER.

COMET. The

Stranger of heaven! I bid thee hail!
Shred from the pall of glory riven,

That flashest in celestial gale,

Broad pennon of the King of Heaven!

O! on thy rapid prow to glide!

To sail the boundless skies with thee,

And plough the twinkling stars aside,
Like foam bells on a tranquil sea.

COMET.

The Comet of 1811.-JAMES HOGG.

Travels of a

Hast thou ne'er seen the comet's flaming flight?
The illustrious stranger passing, terror sheds
On gazing nations from his fiery train.

Of length enormous, takes his ample round
Through depths of ether; coasts unnumbered worlds,
Of more than solar glory: doubles wide
Heaven's mighty cape; and then revisits earth,
From the long travel of a thousand years.

Night Thoughts, IV. Line 708.-EDWARD YOUNG.

COMMON SENSE.

Common sense has given to words their ordinary signification, and common sense is the genius of mankind. The ordinary signification of a word is formed step by step in connection with facts; as a fact occurs, which appears to come within the sense of a known term, it is received as such, so to speak, naturally; the sense of the term becomes enlarged and extended, and by degrees the different facts, and different ideas which in virtue of the nature of the things themselves, men ought to class under this word, become in fact so classed.

Histoire Générale de la Civilisation en Europe.
GUIZOT.

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"I am in fine company," said the baron.

"In the very best of company," said the friar; "in the high court of Nature, and in the midst of her own nobility. Is it not so? This goodly grove is our palace; the oak and the beech are its colonnade and its canopy; the sun, and the moon, and the stars, are its everlasting lamps; the grass, and the daisy, and the primrose, and the violet, are its many-coloured floor of green, white, yellow, and blue; the mayflower, and the woodbine, and the eglantine, and the ivy, are its decorations, its curtains, and its tapestry; the lark, and the thrush, and the linnet, and the nightingale, are its unhired minstrels and musicians.

Maid Marian.-J. L. PEACOCK.

COMPETENCY and CONTENT.

A competence is vital to content.
Much wealth is corpulence, if not disease:
Sick, or encumber'd is our happiness.

A competence is all we can enjoy.

Night Thoughts, VI. Line 506.-EDWARD YOUNG.

CONCEITS. Dangerous

Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons,
Which, at the first, are scarce found to distaste;
But, with a little act upon the blood,

Burn like the mines of sulphur.

Othello, Act III. Scene III.-SHAKSPERE.

D

CONFESSION and SHRIFT.

Be plain, good son, and homely in thy drift;
Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.

Romeo and Juliet, Act II. Scene III.-SHAKSPERE.,

CONGREGATIONS.

Afternoon

Afternoon congregations may usually be divided into two classes; those who are asleep, and those who are going to sleep.

Conversational Remarks of Rev. ROBERT HALL.

CONSCIENCE.

Recording power of

Men conceive they can manage their sins with secrecy; but they carry about them a letter, or book rather, written by God's finger, their conscience bearing witness to all their actions. But sinners being often detected and accused, hereby grow wary at last, and to prevent this speaking paper from telling any tales, do smother, stifle, and suppress it when they go about the committing of any wickedness. Yet conscience (though buried for a time in silence), hath a resurrection, and discovers all to their greater shame and heavier punishment. Historical Applications, XIII.-THOMAS FULLER.

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To fear a wounded conscience is in part to feel it antedating one's misery, and tormenting himself before the time, seeking for that he would loathe to find; like

the wicked in the gospel, of whom it is said, “Men's hearts failing them for fear, and looking for those things which are coming."

Cause and Cure of a wounded Conscience.
Dialogue II.-THOMAS FULLER.

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I'll not meddle with it (it is a dangerous thing), it makes a man a coward; a man cannot steal but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear but it checks him: 'Tis a blushing shame-faced spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of obstacles; it made me once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found; it beggars any man that keeps it: it is turned out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing; and every man that means to live well endeavours to trust to himself, and live without it.

King Richard III. Act I. Scene IV.-SHAKSPERE.

CONSCIENCE. A Sore

A wounded conscience is able to unparadise para

dise itself.

Cause and Cure of a wounded Conscience.
Dialogue IV.-THOMAS FULLER,

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