The sire of gods and men, with hard decrees, 30. Civet-cats must be fretted and vexed, before the civet is taken out of the bag; for the more the animal is enraged, the musk is the better. The only case, I think, wherein fretfulness and rage turn to account, and improve things. 31. Wit under the influence of passion degenerates into malignity, as salt exposed to violent heats will turn sour and bitter. 32. Some particulars in natural history, though confessedly fabulous, are universally retained and employed as allusions; for which purpose they serve as well as if they were true: e. g. the phoenix, as a rarity, and as a beautiful symbol of the resurrection; and the notion of a swan becoming vocal and melodious just before its death. Thus Socrates, as cited by Cicero-"Itaque commemorat, ut cygni, qui non sine causâ Apollini dicati sunt, sed quod ab eo divinationem habere videantur, quâ providentes quid in morte boni sit, cum cantu et voluptate moriantur; sic omnibus bonis et doctis esse faciundum." Tuscul. Disputat. i. 30.-As swans, inspired by Apollo with a foresight of the joys of death, die with satisfaction and song; such should be the conduct of the wise and good. 33. "The sun," said Mr. Charron, " is my visible God, as God is my invisible sun." at first waking in the morning as all the day long."-Essay on Nursing Children, p. 46. 35. Riches, honors, and pleasures, are the sweets which destroy the mind's appetite for its heavenly food; poverty, disgrace, and pain, are the bitters which restore it. 36. Young trees in a thick forest are found to incline themselves towards that part through which the light penetrates; as plants are observed to do in a darkened chamber towards a stream of light let in through an orifice, and as the ears of corn do towards the south. The roots of plants are known to turn away, with a kind of abhorrence, from whatever they meet with, which is hurtful to them; and, deserting their ordinary direction, to tend, with a kind of natural and irresistible impulse, towards collections of water placed within their reach. The plants called Heliotrope turn daily round with the sun, and, by constantly presenting their sur faces to that luminary, seem desirous of absorbing a nutriment from its rays.-Surely all these afford a lesson to man. 37. Mr. Temple, at More-park, kept an eagle, into whose cage, among other provision, a living magpie was one day cast. The servants, next morning, were surprised to find the magpie still alive, who lived a great while very comfortably in that state. The eagle seemed much pleased with him, and was often seen to listen very attentively, and not without some degree of admiration, to his chattering. So kings formerly reckoned it a piece of state to keep a fool. 38. The injunctions given to the Jews, not to eat any creature which died of itself, seem to have a strict regard to health; and ought, on that account, to be observed by Christians as well as Jews. Buchan's Domestic Medicine.-The blood, in these cases, is mixed with the flesh, and soon becomes putrid. 39. To an angry controvertist, endeavoring to puzzle a cause, and to avoid conviction, apply Virgil's description of CacusEN. viii. 252. Faucibus ingentem fumum (mirabile dictu!) Evomit, involvitque domum caligine cæcâ, He from his nostrils, and huge mouth, expires DRYDEN, 335. 34. To the conversation of a Christian may be applied what Dr. Cadogan says of a child's breath-"It is not enough that it be not of- 40. To the metaphysics of Hume, Le Clerc, fensive; it should be sweet and fragrant, like and Bolingbrokea nosegay of fresh flowers, or a pail of milk from a young cow that feeds upon the sweetest grass of the spring: and this as well new Ibant obscuri solâ sub nocte per umbras, Perque domos Ditis vacuas, et inania regna. EN. vi. 264. Obscure they went, through dreary shades that led 41. To the Arian heresy- Sharp-tasted citrons Median climes produce, DRYDEN, 175. 46. The old school maxim, that "the corruption of one thing is the generation of another," is true in spirituals, as well as in physics. The death of the old man is the life of the new; and from affections carnal and secular, when mortified by the power of religion, spring up holy and heavenly ones, EN. vii. 511. vigorous and active in proportion. And now the goddess, exercis'd in ill, 42. The eyes of swine are turned down towards the earth, so that they never behold the heavens, till laid upon their backs; a method sometimes taken by their keepers, to still their crying. Apply this to the effects produced by afflictions on worldly-minded men. 43. "April 5, 1772, at midnight, two violent shocks of an earthquake were felt at Lisbon. This earthquake was preceded by the howling of dogs, and the melancholy crowing of cocks. Immediately was heard a subterranean noise, with howlings and whistlings, as in a great storm: this was followed by an horizontal shock," &c.-With what unspeakable horror do these circumstances strike the imagination! 44. In the moral, as in the natural world, many trees, after all possible pains have been taken about them, fail in fruit-time. Happy the Christian husbandman, to whom may be applied what Virgil says of his old Corycian gardener: Quotque in flore novo pomis se fertilis arbos Salt earth and bitter are not fit to sow, From their first flav'rous taste, renounce their kind. 48. A genius forward, and early ripe, GEORG. IV. 142. seldom, in the end, answers expectation. Virgil has observed the same thing of land, which throws forth corn too strong at first. For ev'ry bloom his trees in spring afford, DRYDEN, 211. 45. Apply to repentance, a medicine sharp, but salutary, Virgil's account of the citron Media fert tristes succos, tardumque saporem Ah! nimium ne sit mihi fertilis illa, Let not my land so large a promise boast, 49. The character of a universal scholar is apt to dazzle the sight, and to attract am To larger vineyards praise and wonder yield; But cultivate a small and manageable field. WARTON, 495. 50. Inventors and projectors, however wild and visionary, often afford matter, which a wise man will know how to qualify and turn to use, though they did not.-See Account of Settlements in America, i. 65. 51. When a hogshead of sugar is in the highest state of fermentation over the fire, a piece of butter, no bigger than a nut, will allay and quiet it in a moment. A teaspoonful of oil quieted the ruffled surface of near half an acre of water in a windy day, and rendered it smooth as a looking-glass.See Dr. Franklin's account, Phil. Trans. Ixiv. part ii. Like the Divine Spirit, oil acts as a bond of peace to the whole mass which is under its influence. 52. The note of the cockoo, though uniform, always gives pleasure, because it reminds us that summer is coming. But that pleasure is mixed with melancholy, because we reflect, that what is coming will soon be going again. This is the consideration which embitters every sublunary enjoyment!-Let the delight of my heart then be in thee, O Lord and Creator of all things, with whom alone is no variableness, neither shadow of changing? 53. The world twines itself about the soul, as a serpent doth about an eagle, to hinder its flight upward, and sting it to death. 54. "The affected gaiety of a wicked man is like the flowery surface of Mount Ætna, beneath which materials are gathering for an eruption, that will one day reduce all its beauties to ruin and desolation."Irene. 55. The Christian traveller, in his journey through the desert, like Hassan, must be always awake, and upon the watch. At that dead hour the silent asp shall creep, 56. So manifold are the diseases to which the body of man is become subject, that, in a treatise of a Dr. Richard Banister, 113 diseases are mentioned as incident to the eyes the mind's eye be liable to fewer, may be questioned. 57. The death and resurrection of Christ represent and produce in man a death to sin, and a resurrection to righteousness.When the sun recedes from the autumnal equinox, he brings on the fall of the leaf, with a general withering and seeming extinction of the vegetable life during the dead of winter; and, when in his annual motion he rises again towards our hemisphere, nature feels a kind of resurrection.-Heylyn's Lectures, ii. 429. Sicilian vines." An old proprietor," says 58. It is with a Christian, as with the Swinburne, "informed me, that the strength of the liquor depended on the close pruning of the vine."-Travels in the Sicilies, ii. 240, sect. 33. 59. Dr. Johnson thus speaks of his situation at Rausay: "Such a seat of hospitality amidst the winds and waters fills the imagination with a delightful contrariety of images: without is the rough ocean and the rocky land, the beating billows and the howling storm: within is plenty and elegance, beauty and gaiety, the song and the dancing!" Apply this to the state of a good man's mind amidst the troubles of the world," rejoicing So sings a poet of con at tribulation." science: and eyelids only. See Biog. Brit.-Whether vert is employed to make more from among his old friends and connections; somewhat in a white lily will remain after the strongest the manner in which wild gazelles are caught, decoction. by sending into the herd one already taken and tamed, with a noose so fastened to his horns, as to entangle the animal that first approaches to oppose him. Goldsmith, iii. 86. 2. One is apt sometimes to wonder, why the characters, sayings, and writings of some men stand so high in the opinion and esteem of others. The phenomenon may, perhaps, be partly accounted for by the following observation of Dr. Goldsmith :-" It is probable," says he, "there is not in the creation an animal of more importance to a goose than a gander." PATIENCE. 1. A surgeon is never more calm and free from passion than when he is about to lance a swelling, or to perform an amputation. If he were not so, he would be likely to miscarry in the operation, and to kill, instead of curing, his patients Let this be applied to the case of a clergyman reproving, or inflicting ecclesiastical censures.-Ut ad urendum et secandum, sic et ad hoc genus castigandi rarò invitique veniamus. Ira procul absit, cum quâ nihil rectè fieri, nihil consideratè potest. Cic. Off. i. sect. 38. Like the incision knife, and the caustic, let this species of chastisement be rarely and unwillingly resorted to: in all events let it be inflicted without anger, which in all, things is absolutely inconsistent with propriety and deliberation. See Arnold on Ecclus, xx. 1. 2. The portraits of a man of wealth, a man of pleasure, and a man of power, do not excite our envy. Why then should the originals, which are made of as corruptible materials, which pass away like shadows, and last not so long as their pictures? 3. Afflictions, when accompanied with grace, alter their nature, as wormwood, eaten with bread, will lose its bitterness. See Arbuthnot on Aliment, p. 15. 6. An Italian bishop, who had endured much persecution with a calm unruffled temper, was asked by a friend how he attained to such a mastery of himself. "By making a right use of my eyes," said he. "I first look up to heaven, as the place whither I am going to live for ever: 1 next look down upon the earth, and consider how small a space of it will soon be all that I can occupy or want. I then look round me, and think how many are far more wretched than I am.” 7. Regner Lodbrog, imprisoned in a loathsome dungeon, and condemned to be destroyed by venomous serpents, solaced his desperate situation by recollecting and reciting the glorious exploits of his past life. The soul confined in its prison, the body, and infested by destructive passions, should support and comfort itself, by recollecting and celebrating the triumphs of its Redeemer, set forth in the Psalms: so Paul and Silas.-See Taylor's Holy Dying, on Patience-the case of the Gladiators. 8. The cross which is laid upon us must be borne: if we are impatient, we lose the fruit of it; but if we accept it willingly, and bear it with patience and meek resignation, it is regarded as equivalent to a punishment of our own infliction. PIETY. As drawn by Fenelon in a letter to his pupil, the Duke of Burgundy-of whose devotion people had said it was 66 sombre, scrupuleue, est qui n'est pas assez proportionnée à son place." Melancholy, full of scruples, not sufficiently adapted to his situation.-Si vous voulez faire honneur à votre pieto, vous ne sauriez trop la rendre douce, simple, commode sociale."-If you wish to do honor to your piety, you cannot be too careful to render it sweet and simple, affable and social. See Maury, 443. PLEASURE. 4. The bark of a tree contains an oily juice, which, when it is in greater plenty 1. Surrounded with all the gaities and than can be exhaled by the sun, renders the glories of the court of France, Maintenon plant evergreen. Such is the state of the and Pompadour both experienced the depreman whose virtue is proof against the scorch-dations of melancholy; and declared they ing heats of temptation and persecution: he is "like a green olive-tree," in the courts of the temple; "his leaf shall not wither." 5. Women are generally supposed to be in mind, as well as body, of a more delicate frame than men; yet, in the primitive times, they went unhurt through the hottest flames of persecution as the utmost force of boiling water is not able to destroy the structure of the tenderest plant, and the lineaments of were not the happy persons they seemed to be, and that "in all states of life there was a frightful void." The retreats of St. Cyr and Bellevue were the places in which (if ever) they tasted happiness. Ann. Register, 1766. Memoirs of Mad. Pompadour. See a letter of lady M. W. Montague, in which she extols the superior felicity of a milkmaid. These testimonies are curious, and worth noting. 2. A child is eager to have any toy he sees; but throws it away at the sight of another, and is equally "eager to have that. We are most of us children, through life; and only change one toy for another, from the cradle to the grave. 3. They, who would enjoy health and strength, should follow the rule prescribed by Constantine, in the education of his sons: Consult in your nourishment only the wants of nature, and seek only in the toils of the body the relaxation of the mind. But most of our amusements now are of the sedentary kind, cards, &c. and journeys are performed in the easiest vehicles. 4. People wish for great estates, generally, that they may be enabled by them to live a life of indulgence, and follow their diversions; which was the very idea formed of this matter by the boy, who said, that if he had the 'squire's estate, he would eat fat bacon and swing all day on farmer Hobson's gate.-For the different ideas of people of pleasure, Selden tells of the boy, who said, if he were a lord, he would have a great whip as cried slash. 5. The colliers, in the north of England, pass most of their time underground. When they emerge into day-light, the only thing they take any pleasure in is cock-fighting as if the sun and air had been made for no other purpose. 6. Let us think of the most exquisite spiritual pleasures we ever felt on earth, and reflect, that those pleasures will be eternal in heaven! The gentle spring, that but salutes us here, Inhabits there, and courts them all the year. Boileau against pluralities-"Is it possible," says the ecclesiastic, "that the people you named, who have the reputation of being very learned men, and are such in reality, should be mistaken in their opinion? Unless these would absolutely oppose the doctrine laid down by the apostles, and the directions of councils, must they not be obliged to confess, that the holding several livings at the same time is sinful? I myself am in holy orders, and, be it said without vanity, of one of the best families in Touraine. It becomes a man of high birth to make a figure suitable to it, and yet, I protest to you, that if I can get an abbey, the yearly income of which is only 1000 crowns, my ambition will be satisfied; and be assured, that nothing shall tempt me to alter my resolution."-Some time after, an abbey of 7000 crowns a year being vacant, his brother desired it for him, and was gratified in his request. The winter following he got another of still greater value; and, a third being vacant, he solicited very strongly for this also, and obtained it. Boileau, hearing of these preferments, went and paid his friend a visit. "Mr. Abbé," says he, "where is now that season of innocence and candor, in which you declared that pluralists hazarded their souls greatly?" "Ah! good Boileau," replied the abbe, "did you but know how much pluralities contribute towards living well """I am in no doubt of that," replied Boileau; "but of what service are they, good abbé, towards dying well?" POISONOUS PLANTS. Plants have their atmospheres formed of particles emitted from them on all sides. 7. We are so made as to be always These atmospheres have various effects on pleased with somewhat in prospect, however those who stay in them: some refresh the distant, or however trivial. Hence the spirits, and enliven a man; others bring on a pleasures of planting, sowing, building, fit of the vapors; and a third sort lay him raising a family, educating children, &c. The advancement of our minds, in this world, towards that perfection of which they are to be possessed in the next, should be the grand object of our attention. 8. The Spartans wished to their enemies, that they might be seized with a humor of building, and keep a race of horses: the Cretans, that they might be delighted with some evil custom.-See Wanley, 137. Because he, whom pleasure lays hold of, will soon be impotent and of no effect. PLURALITIES. An ingenious French author (Boursault) relates the following story.-An Abbé, who had no preferment, exclaiming one day to asleep. Thus it is exactly with men, and with books. It is reported, that in Brasil, there are trees, which kill those that sit under their shade in a few hours. Beware of pestilential authors and their works. POMFRET. An old woman, who showed the house and pictures at Towcester, expressed herself in these remarkable words: "That is Sir Robert Farmer: he lived in the country, took care of his estate, built this house, and paid for it; managed well, saved money, and died rich.. -That is his son; he was made a lord, took a place at court, spent his estate, and died a beggar!" A very concise, but full and striking account. |