: of money. Little is faid or thought of the lives loft, or devoted to be loft, except as matters of pecuniary value. Humanity, indeed, weeps in filence and folitude, in the fequestered shade of private life; but is a fingle tear fhed in courts, or camps, or cabinets? When men high in command, men of fortune and family, fall, their deeds are blazoned, and they figure in history but who, fave the poor widow and the orphan, enquire after the very names of the rank and file? There they lie, a mafs of human flesh, not fo much regretted by the defpots as the horses they rode, or the arms they bore. While fhips often go down to the bottom, ftruck by the iron thunderbolts of war, and not a life is faved; the national lofs is estimated by the defpot, according to the weight of metal wafted, and the magnitude and expence of the wooden castle. -Idem. DESPOTISM! I would laugh at all thy extravagancies, thy folemn mummery, thy baby baubles, thy airs of infolence, thy finery and frippery, thy impotent infults over virtue, genius, and all perfonal merit, thy ftrutting, felf-pleafing mien and language! I would confider them all with the eye of a Democritus, as affording a conftant farce, an inexhauftiole fund of merriment, did they not lead to the malevolent paffions, which, in their effects, forge chains for men born free, plunder the poor of their property, and fhed the blood of innocence.Idem. WHERE God caufed the fun to fhine gaily, and fcattered plenty over the land, defpots diffufed famine and folitude, The valley which laughed with fcorn, they watered with the tear of artificial hunger and diflrefs; the plain that was bright with verdure, and gay with flowrets, they dyed red with gore. They operated on the world as the blast of an caft wind, as a peftilence, as a deluge, as a conflagration. And have they yet ceafed from the earth? Caft your eyes over the plains of Ruffia, Poland, a great part of Europe, the wilds of Africa, and the gardens of Afia; European defpotifm has united with oriental, to unparadife the provinces of India.-Idem. DESPOTISM is the grand fource of human misfortune, the Pandora's box out of which every curfe has iffied, and fcarcely left even hope behind. Defpotifm, in its extreme, is fatal to human happiness, and, in all its degrees and modifications, injurious. The fpirit of it ought therefore to be fuppreffed on the firft and flighteft appearance. It should be the endeavor of every good man, as far as his beft abilities Dulness.-Dog-Duty-Duty and Happiness. 93 will extend, to extirpate all arbitrary government from the globe. It fhould be swept from the earth, or trampled under foot, from China to Peru.-Idem. DULNESS. DULNESS or deformity are not culpable in themselves, but may be very juftly reproached when they pretend to the honour of wit or the influence of beauty.-Life of Pope. DOG. OF all the beafts that graze the lawn, or hunt the forest, a dog is the only animal, that, leaving his fellows, attempts to cultivate the friendship of man. To man he looks, in all his neceffities, with a speaking eye, for affiftance; exerts for him all the little service in his power, with chearfulness and pleasure; for him bears famine and fatigue with patience and refignation. No injuries can abate his fidelity; no diftress induce him to forfake his benefactor. Studious to pleafe and fearing to offend, he is ftill an humble, Redfaft dependant; and in him alone fawning is not flattery. How unkind, then, to torture this faithful creature, who has left the foreft to claim, the protection of man! How ungrateful a return to the trusty animal for all its fervices !-Goldsmith. DUTY. WHEN we act according to our duty, we commit the event to him by whose laws our actions are governed, and who will fuffer none to be finally punished for obedience. But when, in profpect of fome good, whether natural or moral, we break the rules prefcribed to us, we withdraw from the direction of fuperior wifdom, and take all the confequences upon ourselves. -Prince of Abyffinia. DUTY and HAPPINESS. IT is an undoubted truth, that our duty is infeparably connected with our happiness. And why fhould we defpair of convincing every member of fociety of a truth fo important for him to know? Should any person object, by saying, that nothing like this, has ever yet been done; I answer, that nothing like this has ever yet been tried. Society has hitherto been curft with governments, whofe exiftence depended on the extinction of truth. Every-moral light has been fmothered under the bufhel of perpetual impofition; from whence it emits but faint and glimmering rays, always infufficient to form any luminous fyftem on any of the civil concerns of men. But thefe covers are crumbling to the duft, with the governments which they fupport and the probability becomes more apparent, the more it is confidered, that fociety is capable of curing all the evils to which it has given birth.-Barlow. DELAY. THE folly of allowing ourfelves to delay what we know cannot be finally escaped, is one of the general weakneffes, which, in fpite of the inftruction of moralifts, and the remonftrances of reafon, prevail to a greater or lefs degree in every mind: even they who moft fteadily withstand it, find it, if not the most violent, the moft pertinacious of their pons, always renewing its attacks, and, though often vanquished, never deftroyed.-Rambler. DRUNKENNESS. NOTHING is more erroneous than the common obfervation, that men, who are ill-natured and quarrelfome when they are drunk, are very worthy perfons when they are sober; for drink in reality doth not reverfe nature, or create paflions in men which did not exist in them before.-Fielding. THERE is not perhaps a more excellent inflitution than that of Pittacus, mentioned by Ariftotle in his politics, by which a blow given by a drunken man was more feverely punished, than if it had been given by one that was fober; for Pittacus (fays Ariftotle) confidered the utility of the public, (as drunken men are more apt to ftrike) and not the excufe which might otherwise be allowed to their drunkenness.--Idem. DECEPTION. DECEIT and falfehood, whatever conveniencies they may for a time promife or produce, are, in the fum of life, obstacles to happiness. Thofe who profit by the cheat diftruft the deceiver; and the act by which kindness was fought, puts an end to confidence.—Rambler. DESPAIR. CONSIDERING the unforeseen events of this world, we fhould be taught that no human condition should infpire men with abfolute defpair.-Fielding. UNHAPPY man! with ftorms of paffion toft, When first he learnt his vagrant child was loft, Defpair.-Difbonefly.-Diftrefs. On the cold floor his trembling limbs he flung, DISHONESTY. DISHONEST minds, juft like the jaundic'd fight, And think each virtue, like their own, fincere.-Beller, DISTRESS. HAS pity loft its mighty power to move, 95 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS. DOMESTIC happiness, thou only blifs For thou art meek and conftant, hating change, THE great end of prudence is to give chearfulness to thofe hours which fplendor cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilirate. Those foft intervals of unbended amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural dimenfions, and throws afide the ornaments of disguises, which he feels, in privacy, to be useless incumbrances, and to lofe all effect when they become familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition; the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every defire prompts the profecution. It is indeed at home that every man must be known, by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for fmiles and embroidery are alike occafional; and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.-Rambler. 96 THE highest panegyric that domestic virtue can receive, is the praise of fervants; for however vanity or infolence may look down with contempt on the fuffrage of men undignified with wealth, and unenlightened by education, it very feldom happens that they commend or blame without juftice.-Idem. DISSENTIONS. IN all difputes between the people and their rulers, the prefumption is at least upon a par in favor of the people. Experience may perhaps juftify me in going farther. Where |