66 might do any thing, and yet was never to blame." Every body excused whom every body loved for the tenderness of his nature.-Royal and Noble Authors, p. 96. 19. On Lord Dorset's promotion, King Charles, having seen Lord Craven (a proverb for officious whisperers to men in power) pay his usual tribute to him, asked the former, what the latter had been saying? The Earl gravely replied, "Sir, my Lord "Craven did me the honour to whisper, but I did "not think it good manners to listen."-This was exactly in the spirit of Charles's own witticisms. Ibid. p. 97. 20. When the same Lord Dorset was dying, Congreve, who had been to visit him, being asked how he left him, replied, "Faith, he slabbers more wit "than other people have in their best health.” Ibid. p. 97. 21. Shaftesbury (author of the Characteristics) attempting to speak on the bill for granting counsel to prisoners in cases of high treason, was confounded, and for some time could not proceed; but recovering himself, he said, "What now hap"pened to him, would serve to fortify the argu"ments for the bill-If he, innocent, and pleading "for others, was daunted at the augustness of such "an assembly, what must a man be, who should plead before them for his life?" Ibid. p. 106. 22. When the Lieutenant of the Tower offered Strafford a coach, lest he should be torn to pieces by the mob, in passing to execution; he replied, "I die to please the people, and I will die in their "own way."-Royal and Noble Authors, p. 163. 23. Henry Lord Falkland being brought early into the House of Commons, and a grave senator objecting to his youth, and "to his not looking as "if he had sown his wild oats;" he replied with great quickness, "Then I am come to the proper"est place, where are so many geese to pick them up." Ibid. p. 221. 24. "My dear Pouilly," says Bolingbroke, "of "all the men I ever knew in my life, there are but "three fit to take upon them the task of governing "nations-you and I and Pope."-Pope had resigned his understanding to Bolingbroke; who was so pleased with the sacrifice, that he thought Pope of all the men in the world, qualified to be a prime minister. This was most undoubtedly Pope's title; and it is natural for us to suppose, that M. Pouilly de Champeaux held his estate by the same kind of tenure. The letter containing this very curious passage was lately published in the preface to an edition of the works of Champeaux. On the same principle of vanity, Bolingbroke palmed upon his friends a silly mistress of his for a wit, because she repeated good things which he had said, and pretended to have forgotten. Ah, la pauvre humunité! 25. Repentance and renovation consist not in the wish, or purpose, but in the actual operations of a good life. As Dryden observes, that speculative painting, without the assistance of manual opera tion, can never attain to perfection, but slothfully languishes; for it was not with his tongue that Apelles performed his noble works. 26. The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of its own power; but the possession of a throne could never yet afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind. This melancholy truth was felt and acknowledged by Severus. Fortune and merit had, from an humble station, elevated him to the first place among mankind. "He had been all things," as he said of himself, “ and all was of little value." Omnia fuit et nihil expedit. Distracted with the care, not of acquiring, but of preserving an empire, oppressed with age and imfirmities, careless of fame, and satiated with empire, all his prospects of life were closed.-Gibbon, i. 130. 27." Though I suffer," said Augustine when sick, " yet I am well, because I am as God would "have me to be; for when we will not what he "wills, it is we that are in the fault, and not he, "who can neither do nor permit any thing but "what is just." Letter xxxviii. edit. Benedict. 28." It is incomparably better," says he in the same Letter," to shut the door of our heart against just anger, when it offers to come in, than to give it entrance; being uncertain, whether it may "not grow too powerful for us to turn it out "again." 29. "Non est episcopatus artificium transigendæ vitæ fallacis.-Episcopacy ought not to "be looked upon as an establishment, or a means "to procure the deceitful pleasures of life." Letter lviii. 30. Nectarius, an heathen, interceding with Augustine for some of his fellow-citizens, who had committed some crime, urges this reason to prevail with him : "That it is the duty of a bishop to do "nothing but good to mankind: not to meddle with their affairs; unless it be to make them "better, and to intercede with God to pardon "their faults." Letter xc. SERPENTS. THE effects of their poison are wonderful; as of that called the Copper-head in South America. A man stung by one became like a serpent: spots of various colours alternately appeared and vanished on different parts of his body: rage filled his eyes, which darted the most menacing looks on all present; he thrust out his tongue as the snakes do, and hissed through his teeth with inconceivable force. A striking picture of our great adversary, and the manner in which by his suggestions he acts on the human mind, and fills it with his own temper and disposition. These effects from the bite of a serpent are not more extraordinary, than the foamings and barkings, and disposition to bite, which have been observed in cases of canine madness.-See Letters from an American Farmer, by J. Hector St. John, letter x. Crit. Rev. April 1782, p. 267. See in the same place the account of a battle between two snakes, a black snake and a water snake, each six feet long, till they both fell |