wonder, like him, who, having followed with his eye an eagle into the clouds, should lament that she ever descended to a perch. Life of Pope.

Travelling.

if the pas

All travel has its advantages; senger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own; and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

Western Islands.

It is by studying at home, that we must obtain the ability of travelling with intelligence and improvement. Life of Gray.

Truth.

Truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of increase can be so much what

it is, as truth is truth. There may be a strange thing, and a thing more strange. But if a proposition be true, there can be none more true.

Notes upon Shakspeare, vol. 2.

There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth: it is apparent, that men can be sociable beings no longer than they can believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of false

hood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave, and seek prey only for himself. Idler, vol. 1.

It were doubtless to be wished, that truth and reason were universally prevalent; that every thing were esteemed according to its real value, and that men would secure themselves from being disappointed in their endeavours after happiness, by placing it only in virtue, which is always to be obtained. But, if adventitious and foreign pleasures must be pursued, it would be, perhaps, of some benefit, since that pursuit must frequently be fruitless, if it could be taught, that folly might be an antidote to folly, and one fallacy be obviated by another. Life of Savage.

Truth finds an easy entrance into the mind, when she is introduced by desire, and attended by pleasure. But when she intrudes uncalled, and brings only fear and sorrow in her train, the passes of the intellect are barred against her by prejudice and passion; if she sometimes forces her way by the batteries of argument, she seldom long keeps possession of her conquests, but is ejested by some favoured enemy, or

at best obtains only a nominal sovereignty, without influence, and without authority. Rambler, vol. 4.

Thoughts.

Though we have many examples of people existing without thought, it is certainly a state not much to be desired. He that lives in torpid insensibility wants nothing of a carcass but putrefaction. It is the part of every inhabitant of the earth to partake the pains and pleasures of his fellow beings; and, as in a road through a country desert and uniform, the traveller languishes for want of amusement, so the passage of life will be tedious and irksome to him who does not beguile it by diversified ideas. Idler, vol. 1.

Things.

Things may be not only too little, but too much known, to be happily illustrated. To explain requires the use of terms less abstruse than that which is to be explained, and such terms cannot always be found; for, as nothing can be proved but by supposing something intuitively known, and evident without proof, so nothing can be defined but by the use of words too plain to admit a definition. Preface to Dictionary.

Timidity.

Timidity is a disease of the mind more obstinate and fatal than presumption; as every experiment will teach presumption caution, and miscarriages will hourly show that attempts are not always rewarded with But the timid man persuades himself that every impediment is insuperable; and, in consequence of thinking so, has given it, in respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had not before. Rambler, vol. 1.

success.

Tragedy.

The reflection that strikes the heart at a tragedy is, not that the evils before us are real evils, but that they are evils to which we ourselves may be exposed. If there be any fallacy, it is not that we fancy the players, but that we fancy ourselves, unhappy for a moment; but we rather lament the possibility than suppose the presence of misery; as a mother weeps over her babe, when she remembers that death may take it from her. In short, the delight of tragedy proceeds from our consciousness of fiction; if we thought murders and treasons real, they would please no more.

Preface to Shakspeare

Virtue.

He who desires no virtue in his companion has no virtue in himself. Hence, when the wealthy and the dissolute connect themselves with indigent companions, for their powers of entertainment, their friendship amounts to little more than paying the reckoning for them. They only desire to drink and laugh; their fondness is without benevolence, and their familiarity without friendship. Life of Otway.

He that would govern his actions by the laws of virtue must regulate his thoughts by the laws of reason; he must keep guilt from the recesses of his heart, and remember that the pleasures of fancy and the emotion of desire are more dangerous as they are more hidden, since they escape the awe of observation, and operate equally in every situation, without the concurrence of external opportunities.

Rambler, vol 1.

Intentional Virtue.

Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practise; since he may be