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Aristotle (apud Maxim. et Anton. p. 878) says:

"It is best to rise from life as from a banquet, neither thirsty nor drunken."

And an anonymous writer (apud. Stob.):—

"As I depart from the banquet in no ways dissatisfied, so also from life when the hour comes."

Sir Walter Scott ("Anne of Geierstein," ch. xvi.) used this

metaphor:

"Death is dreadful, but, in the first spring-tide of youth, to be snatched forcibly from the banquet to which the individual has but just sat down, is peculiarly appalling."

And Pope ("Essay on Man," Ep. iii. 1, 69) has the same metaphor:

"The creature had his feast of life before;

Thou, too, must perish when thy feast is o'er!"

MOTE IN OUR OWN EYE.

While thou lookest on thine own faults as if through a distempered medium, why art thou as sharp-sighted to the defects of thy friends as an eagle or Epidaurian serpent. But be assured that the result of this conduct is that thy own faults, too, are closely scanned.

Homer (Il. xvii. 674) speaks of the sharp sight of the eagle:"The eagle, which they say is quickest in sight of birds that fly."

Sosicrates (apud. Stob. T. 23, 2):—

"We are quick to see the evil in another; whem we ourselves commit the same, we do not recognize it."

So Shakespeare (“Coriolanus," act ii. sc. 1) says:"Oh, that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves!

"The best ground untilled soonest runs out into rank weeds. A man of knowledge that is either negligent or uncorrected, cannot but grow wild and godless."

Blackmore on the Creation, says:

"The glebe untill'd might plenteous crops have borne; Rich fruits and flowers, without the gard'ner's pains,

Lord Herbert says:

He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven."

And Shakespeare ("Measure for Measure," act ii. sc. 2):"Alas! alas!

Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once;
And he that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made."

SOCIAL GOOD.

The general sense of mankind, and the established customs of nations and social good, which may, as it were, be called the parent of justice and equity, rise up in opposition.

THE POETASTER.

Too lazy to submit to the labor of writing, I mean of writing well; for as to quantity, I care not for that.

THE SATIRIST SPARES NOT HIS FRIEND.

He has hay on his horns, avoid him as a furious bull; if he can raise a laugh, he will not spare his best friend, and whatever he has once scribbled on his paper, he will never rest till all, young and old, even the rabble, returning from the oven or well, should be able to repeat it.

Pope, in his Imitations of Horace (ii. sat. i. 1. 69), says:"Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet To run a muck, and tilt at all I meet."

THE POET.

Nor if any one should be able, as we are, to scribble verses closely resembling prose, must thou regard him as a poet. The man who is fired

WE MISREPRESENT THE VIRTUES OF OUR

FRIENDS.

'It is this which joins together and keeps friends attached. But instead of following such maxims, we are only too apt to take virtues even for vices, and rejoice to begrime the untainted vessel. Seneca (de Provid. vi.) says:

"This is not a solid and unmixed happiness; it is mere outward crust."

himself in noble language, on such an one thou mayest bestow the sacred honors of a poet's name. Shakespeare ("Midsummer's Night's Dream," act v. sc. 1)

says:

"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name."

POWER OF RIDICULE.

Hooker (E. P. V. ii. 1) says:-

Cicero also (De Or. ii. 58) says:-

"The orator often cuts by force of ridicule matters of a vexatious character, which it is not easy to answer by regular argument."

Churchill says of Ben Jonson:

"His comic humor kept the world in awe,

And Laughter frightened Folly more than Law."

THE LABORS OF CORRECTION.

Correct with care, if thou expect to write anything which shall be worthy of a second perusal.

AM I TO BE EXCITED BY THE ATTACKS OF FOOLS ?

Shall that bug Pantilius move my spleen? Shall I be tortured when Demetrius abuses me in my absence? or because the silly Fannius, the friend of Hermogenes Tigellius, finds fault with my verses ?

Antiphanes calls grammarians (Anthol. Palat. xi. 322, 5):"The plague of poets. . . the malicious biting-bugs of the sweet-voiced."

The Emperor Adrian (Philistr. V. Sophist. 2, 10) says of the

attacks of a malicious slanderer:

"We bore all his attacks, calling the abuse of such the stings of bugs.'

A BRIBED JUDGE.

A STOMACH SELDOM HUNGRY.

A stomach that is seldom empty despises common food.

Antiphanes (Fr. Com. Gr. p. 569, M.) says:“Hunger makes everything sweet except itself, for want is the teacher of habits."

PLAIN DIET.

Now mark, what and how great blessings flow from a frugal diet. In the first place, thou enjoyest good health.

THE RESULTS OF INTEMPERANCE.

Seest thou how pale the sated guest rises from supper, when the appetite is puzzled by varieties? The body, too, burdened with yesterday's excess, weighs down the soul, and fixes to the earth this particle of divine essence.

Plato (Phæd. c. 33) has an idea somewhat to the same effect:

"Every pleasure and pain, being as it were a nail, nails and fastens the soul to the body, making it to resemble the body, as the soul regards those things to be true, which the body asserts to be so."

And Seneca (De Brevit. Vit. 2) says:

"Vices are every moment assailing us, so that we cannot recover ourselves, nor raise our eyes to examine the truth, but are fastened to the earth by our passions."

And again Seneca (Ep. 120) speaks of the mir d:"The mind of God, a part of which has passed into the breast of man."

ADVANTAGES OF TEMPERANCE.

And yet this abstemious man may on certain occasions have recourse to better cheer, when the returning year brings back some festive day, or the wasted body requires more genial fare, or when years increase and the feebleness of age may claim some kinder treatment. If thou in the prime of life and vigor of health enjoyest the luxuries of the world, what wilt thou be able to add when age and sickness comes?

Milton ("Paradise Lost," xi. 1. 633) says:—

"If thou well observe
The rule of Not too much, by temperance taught,
In what thou eat'st and drink'st; seeking from thence
Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight,
Till many years over thy head return;

So mayst thou live; till, like ripe fruit, thou drop
Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease
Gather'd, not harshly pluck'd, for death mature."

FAME.

Dost thou pay regard to fame as that which charms the ear of man more sweetly than music?

Milton ("Lycidas," 1. 70) says:—

"Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble minds)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,

And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

Comes the blind Fury, with the abhorr'd shears,

And slits the thin-spun life."

Sheridan ("Pizarro," act iii. sc. 3) says:

"My ears (were framed) to own no music but the thrilling records of his praise."

THE USE THAT MIGHT BE MADE OF THE MISER'S MONEY.

Why does any man, who deserves not to be poor, live in deep distress, whilst thou art wallowing in riches? Why are the ancient temples of the gods falling to ruins? Why, thou wretch, dost thou not spare something of that treasure for thy dear country? Thinkest thou that thou alone shalt always bask in the sunshine of prosperity? Thou future laughing-stock to thy deadly foe!

NOTHING CERTAIN.

For nature has assigned the land as a perpetual inheritance neither to him nor me, nor any one. He turned me out, but his own follies, or the knaveries of the law, or a long-lived heir, shall turn out him at last. The farm now belonging to Umbrenus, lately to Ofellus, will be the lasting property of no one, but the usufruct will pass now to me, now to another: wherefore live with an unyielding spirit, and present a firm breast to the frowns of fortune.

We find the same idea (Anthol. Palat. II. p. 27):"I was once the field of Achæmenides, but now of Menippus: and again I shall go from one to another. For the former once thought that he possessed me, and now the latter thinks so, yet I am wholly belonging to none but to Fortune." Lucian (De Nigrino, c. 26) says:

"Who being in possession of a field not far from the city, did not imagine that he would saunter over it for many years, so little so that he did not enter into any legal agreement that he should have authority over it, believing, I suppose, that we are lords of none of these things by nature, but by law and inheritance enjoying the use of them for an uncertain period, are regarded their masters for a short period, and when the fixed time is passed, then some one else receiving it enjoys the title."

So 1 Corinthians xvi. 13:

Watch . . . . quit you like men, be strong."

INDOLENCE.

POWER OF GOLD.

For everything, virtue, glory, honor, things human and divine, all are slaves to riches.

EXPLAINING ONE DIFFICULTY BY ANOTHER.

An illustration which solves one difficulty by raising another, settles nothing.

TWIN BROTHERS.

A noble pair of brothers, twins, in truth.

WHITE OR BLACK DAY.

Days to be marked with chalk or coal.

THE ANNOYANCES OF LOVE.

In love these are the miseries, now a state of war and then of peace; if any one were to try to give steadiness to such a life which is almost more changeable than the weather and floats about in blind disorder, he would succeed no better than if he should attempt to play the madman in accordance with right reason and rule.

TO ADD FUEL TO THE FLAME.

To the folly of love add the bloodshed which it often occasions, and stir, as they say, the fire with the sword.

A LIKENESS.

This image is not very unsuited to thy own condition.

HIGH BIRTH NOTHING WITHOUT WEALTH.

High descent and meritorious deeds, unless united to wealth, are more vile than very sea-weed. Euripides (Fr. Alm. 8) says:

"But high birth is nothing compared to riches; for riches place even the basest among the highest."

TO LIVE WITH THE GREAT.

For thou oughtest to know, seeing thou livest near to the gods.

THE PLEASURES OF A COUNTRY LIFE.

O country, when shall I behold thee, and be al

Chaucer says:

Ydelness, that is the gate of all harmes,

An ydil man is like an hous that heth noone walles; The devils may enter on every side."

BUSY-BODIES.

life, musing on the works of ancient sages, or in gentle sleep and hours of peaceful abstraction from the world's busy scenes! Oh when shall I have served up to me my frugal supper of beans, related as is said to Pythagoras, and pot-herbs soaked in rich lard! Oh joyous nights and banquets, which the gods themselves might envy! at which my friends and I regale ourselves by my own fireside, while my petulant slaves enjoy what their

ALL WANDER FROM THE RIGHT PATH.

cretion, unshackled by absurd laws, the strongheaded draining to the dregs the brimming bumper, while the weak grow mellow on a moderate glass.

Antiphanes (Ecc. Grot. p. 637) says: