Peace-Perfecution. 197 as well as to operations of the field. A negociator must seem willing to hazard all, if he wishes to fecure any material point. -Burke. OH (tretch thy reign, fair peace! from fhore to shore, PERSECUTION. TO fubdue th' unconquerable mind, A FURY crawl'd from out her horrid cell No limbs diftinct in th' odious fiend appear. Of flaughter'd faints, and conflant martyrs' blood. Horror, till now the ugliest fhape esteem'd, IT is injuftice, and not a mistaken confcience that has been the principle of perfecution, at least as far as it has fallen under my obfervation.-Burke. PITY. IT is the mark of a dishonest mind Not to commiferate even the most guilty. Is fuch a wretch, as may deferve our pity.-Charles Johnfo. IN benevolent natures the impulfe to pity is fo sudden, that, like inftruments of music, which obey the touch-the objects which are fitted to excite fuch impreffions, work fo instantaneous an effect, that you would think the will was fcarce concerned, and that the mind was altogether paffive in the fympathy which her own goodness has excited. The truth is the foul is generally in fuch cafes fo bufily taken up and wholly engroffed by the object of pity, that she does not attend to her own operations, or take leifure to examine the principles upon which the acts.-Sterne. PITY is to many of the unhappy, a fource of comfort in hopeless diftreffes, as it contributes to recommend them to themselves, by proving that they have not loft the regard of others; and heaven feems to indicate the duty even of barren compaffion, by inclining us to weep for evils which we cannot remedy.-Rambler. POVERTY. POVERTY has, in large cities, very different appearances. It is often concealed in fplendor, and often in extravagance. It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the reft. They fupport themfelves by temporary expedients; and every day is loft in contriving for to morrow. -Johnson. IT is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without phyfic, and fecure without a guard; to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy Poverty.-Pride.--Paffion. 199 are compelled to procure by the help of artists, and the attendance of flatterers and fpies.-Rambler. THERE are natural reasons why poverty does not eafily conciliate. He that has been confined from his infancy to the converfation of the lowest claffes of mankind, muft neceffarily want thofe accomplishments which are the usual means of attracting favor; and though truth, fortitude, and probity, give an indifputable right to reverence and kindness, they will not be diftinguifhed by common eyes, unless they are brightened by elegance of manners; but are caft afide, like unpolished gems, of which none but the artist knows the intrinfic value, till their afperities are fmoothed, and their incrustations rubbed away.-Idem. NATURE makes us poor only when we want neceffaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of fuperfluities-Idler. THE poor are infenfible of many little vexations which fometimes embitter the poffeffions and pollute the enjoyments of the rich. They are not pained by cafual incivility, or mortified by the mutilation of a compliment: but this happiness is like that of a malefactor, who ceafes to feel the cords that bind him when the pincers are tearing his flesh.-Johnson. TO be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches; and therefore every man endeavours, with his utmost care, to hide his poverty from others, and his idlenefs from himself. -Idler. PRIDE. Of all the causes which confpire to blind What wants in blood and fpirits, fwell'd with wind: PASSION. IT is a very common expreffion, that fuch a one is very good natured, but very paffionate. The expreffion indeed is very good-natured to allow paffionate people fo much quarter : but I thnk a paflionate man deferves the leaft indulgence imaginable. It is faid, "it is foon over :" that is, all the mischief he does is quickly dispatched, which, I think, is no great recommendation to favor. I have known one of thofe good natured paffionate men fay, in a mixed company, even to his own wife or child, fuch things as the moft inveterate enemy of his family would not have fpcken, even in imagination.-Spectator. PROVIDENCE. HAPPY the man who fees a God employed PHILOSOPHY. ONE of the chief advantages derived by the prefent generation from the improvement and diffufion of philofophy, is deliverance from unneceflary terrors, and exemption from falfe alarms. The unufual appearances, whether regular or accidental, which once fpread confternation over ages of ignorance, are now the recreations of inquifitive fecurity. The fun is no more lamented when it is eclipfed, than when it fets, and meteors play their corrufcations without prognoftic or prediction.Jobafon. MANY men in cur times, who wish to extend and aggrandize that power, from whofe arbitrary bounty they derive all the honor they are capable of acquiring, endeavor to throw contempt on philofophy. It may indeed be doubted, whether they all know the meaning of the word; but they know it implies a merit not derived from princes, and therefore they wish to d grade it. Their fountain of honor, they conceive, has no icfemblance, in its nature or efficacy, to the famed fountains of Parnaffus; it conveys no infpiration, except that which difplays itfelf in the tumor of pride. Philofophy. 201 The prefent age has heard upftart noblemen give to philofophers (whofe genius and difcoveries entitle them to rank, in reafon's table of precedency, above every nobleman in the red book) the opprobrious appellation of wretches and mifcreants. Philofophy and philofophers have been mentioned by men, whofe attainments would only qualify them for diftinction in a ball-room, with expreffions of hatred and contempt due only to thieves, murderers, the very outcafts and refufe of human nature.-Spirit of Defpotifm. PHILOSOPHY, fo far from deferving contempt, is the glory of human nature. Man approaches by contemplation to what we conceive of celeftial purity and excellence. Without the aid of philofophy, the mafs of mankind, all over the terraqueous globe, would have funk in flavery and fuperftition, the natural confequences of grofs ignorance. Men at the very bottom of fociety, have been enabled by the natural talents they poffeffed, feconded by favorable opportunities, to reach the highest improvements in philofophy; and have thus lifted up a torch in the valley, which has expofed the weakness and deformity of the caftle on the mountain, from which the oppreffors fallied, in the night of darkness, and spread defolation with impunity. Defpots, the meaneft, the basest, the moft brutal and ignorant of the human race, would have trampled on the rights and the happiness of men unresisted, if philofophy had not opened the eyes of the fufferers, fhewn them their own power and dignity, and taught them to despise thofe giants of power, as they appeared through the mifts of ignorance, who ruled a vaffal world with a mace of iron. Liberty is the daughter of philofophy; and they who detest the offspring, do all that they can to vilify and discountenance the mother. But let us calmly confider what is the object of this philofophy, fo formidable in the eyes of those who are bigotted to ancient abuses, who hate every improvement, and who wish to fubject the many to the control of an arbitrary few. Philofophy is ever employed in finding out whatever is good, and whatever is true. She darts her eagle eye over all the bufy world, detects error and mischief, and points out modes of improvement. In the multiform ftate of human affairs, ever obnoxious to decay and abufe, it is her's to meditate on the means of melioration. She wishes to demolish nothing but what is a nuifance. To build, to repair, to frengthen, and to polish, thefe are the works which the |