tirewoman, with great care and diligence, I employed no less in examining the box which contained them.

Since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted or connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is often undone, and the knave gets the advantage.

Though energetic brevity is not adapted alike to every subject, we ought to avoid its contrary, on every occasion, a languid redundancy of words. It is proper to be copious sometimes, but never to be verbose.

A monarchy, limited like ours, may be placed, for aught I know, as it has been often represented, just in the middle point, from whence a deviation leads, on the one hand, to tyranny, and, on the other, to anarchy.

Having already shown how the fancy is affected by the works of nature, and afterwards considered, in general, both the works of nature and of art, how they mutually assist and complete each other, in forming such scenes and prospects as are most apt to delight the mind of the beholders; I shall in this paper throw together some reflections, &c.

Let but one great, brave, disinterested, active man arise, and he will be received, venerated, and followed.

Ambition creates seditions, wars, discords, hatred, and shiness.

The scribes made it their profession to teach and to study the law of Moses.

Sloth pours upon us a deluge of crimes and evils, and saps the foundation of every virtue.

The ancient laws of Rome were so far from suffering a Roman citizen to be put to death, that they would not allow him to be bound, or even to be whipped.

His labours to acquire knowledge have been productive of great satisfaction and success.

He was a man of the greatest prudence, virtue, justice and modesty.

His favour or disapprobation was governed by the failure or success of an enterprise.

He did every thing in his power to serve his benefactor; and had a grateful sense of the benefits received.

Many persons give evident proof, that either they do not feel the power of the principles of religion, or that they do not believe them.

As the guilt of an officer will be greater than that of a common servant, if he prove negligent; so the reward of his fidelity will proportionably be greater.

The comfort annexed to goodness is the pious man's strength. It inspires his zeal. It attaches his heart to religion. It accelerates his progress; and supports his constancy.

SECT. III.

In the disposition of the relative pronouns who, which, what, whose, and of all those particles, which express the connexion of the parts of speech with one another.

Grammar, p. 291. Key, p. 124.

THESE are the master's rules, who must be obeyed. They attacked Northumberland's house, whom they put to death.

He laboured to involve his minister in ruin, who had been the author of it.

It is true what he says, but it is not applicable to the point.

The French marched precipitately as to an assured victory; whereas the English advanced very slowly and discharged such flights of arrows, as did great execution: When they drew near the archers, perceiving that they were out of breath, they charged them with great vigour.

He was taking a view, from a window, of the cathedral in Lichfield, where a party of the royalists had fortified themselves.

We no where meet with a more splendid or pleasing show in nature, than what appears in the heavens at the rising and setting of the sun, which is wholly made up of those different strains of light, that show themselves in clouds of a different situation.

There will be found a round million of creatures in human figure, throughout this kingdom, whose whole subsistence, &c.

It is the custom of the Mahometans, if they see any printed or written paper upon the ground, to take it up, and lay it aside carefully, as not knowing but it may contain some piece of their Alcoran.

The laws of nature are, truly, what lord Bacon styles his aphorisms, laws of laws. Civil laws are always imperfect, and often false deductions from them, or applications of them; nay, they stand, in many instances, in direct opposition to them.

It has not a word, says Pope, but what the author religiously thinks in it.

Many act so directly contrary to this method, that, from a habit of saving time and paper, which they acquired at the university, they write in so diminutive a manner, that they can hardly read what they have written.

Thus I have fairly given you my own opinion, as well as that of a great majority of both houses here, relating to this weighty affair; upon which I am confident you may surely reckon.

If we trace a youth from the earliest period of life, who has been well educated, we shall perceive the wisdom of the maxims here recommended.

CHAP. II.

Containing sentences in which the rules of Unity are violated.

Grammar, p. 295. Key, p. 126.

SECT. I.

During the course of the sentence, the scene should be changed as little as possible.

A SHORT time after this injury, he came to himself; and the next day, they put him on board a ship, which conveyed him first to Corinth, and thence to the island of Egina.

The Britons, daily harassed by cruel inroads from the Picts, were forced to call in the Saxons for their defence; who consequently reduced the greater part of the island to their own power; drove the Britons into the most remote and mountainous parts; and the rest of the country, in customs, religion, and language, became wholly Saxons.

By eagerness of temper, and precipitancy of indulgence, men forfeit all the advantages which patience would have procured; and, by this means, the opposite evils are incurred to their full extent.

This prostitution of praise does not only affect the gross of mankind, who take their notion of characters from the learned; but also the better sort must, by this means, lose some part at least of their desire of fame, when they find it promiscuously bestowed on the meritorious and undeserving.

All the precautions of prudence, moderation, and condescension, which Eumenes employed, were incapable of mollifying the hearts of those barbarians, and of extinguishing their jealousy: and he must have renounced his merit and virtue which occasioned it, to have been capable of appeasing them.

He who performs every employment in its due place and season, suffers no part of time to escape without profit; and thus his days become multiplied; and much of life is enjoyed in little space.

Desires of pleasure usher in temptation, and the growth of disorderly passions is forwarded.

SECT. II.

We should never crowd into one sentence, things which have so little connection, that they could bear to be divided into two or three sentences.

Grammar, p. 294. Key, p. 127.

THE notions of lord Sunderland were always good; but he was a man of great expense.

In this uneasy state, both of his public and private life, Cicero was oppressed by a new and deep affliction, the death of his beloved daughter Tullia; which happened soon after her divorce from Dolabella; whose manners and humours were entirely disagreeable to her.

The sun approaching melts the snow, and breaks the icy fetters of the main, where vast sea-monsters pierce through floating islands, with arms which can withstand the crystal rock; whilst others, that of themselves seem great as islands, are, by their bulk alone, armed against all but man, whose superiority over creatures of such stupendous size and force, should make him mindful of his privilege of reason! and force him humbly to adore the great Composer of these wondrous frames, and the Author of his own superior wisdom.

I single Strada out among the moderns, because he had the foolish presumption to censure Tacitus, and to write history himself; and my friend will forgive this short excursion in honour of a favourite writer.

Boast not thyself of to-morrow; thou knowest

P