long, it may be reasonably presumed to have been infused by nature or dictated by reason.

OPPORTUNITY.

Idler, vol. 1, p. 290.

To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life. Many wants are suffered which might have once been supplied, and much time is lost in regretting the time which had been lost before.

Patriot, p. 1.

He that waits for an opportunity to do much at once, may breathe out his life in idle wishes; and regret, in the last hour, his useless intentions and barren zeal.

Idler, vol. 1, p. 22.

OATHS.

Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently produce guilt.

Notes upon Shakspeare, vol. 2, p. 402.

OBLIGATION.

To be obliged, is to be in some respect inferior to another, and few willingly indulge the memory of an action which raises one whom they have always been accustomed to think below them, but satisfy themselves with faint praise and pe nurious payment, and then drive it from their own minds, and endeavour to conceal it from the knowledge of others.

OBSERVATION.

An observer, deeply impressed by any remarkable spectacle, does not suppose that the traces will soon vanish from his mind, and having commonly no great convenience for writing, defers the description to a time of more leisure and better accommodation. But he who has made the experiment, or who is not accustomed to require rigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge and distinctness of imagery; how the succession of objects will be broken, how separate parts will be confused, and how many particular features and discriminations will be compressed into one gross and general idea. Western Islands, p. 343.

P.

PARENTS.

IN general, those parents have most reverence, who most deserve it; for he that lives well cannot be despised.

Prince of Abyffinia, p. 153.

PATRIOT.

A patriot is he, whose public conduct is regulated by one single motive, viz. the love of his country; who, as an agent, in parliament, has for himself neither hope nor fear; neither kindness nor resentment; but refers every thing to the common interest.

Patriot, p. 3.

The

The frowns of a prince and the loss of a pension have been found of wonderful efficacy to abstract mens' thoughts from the present time, and fill them with zeal for the liberty and welfare of ages to come.

Marmor Norfolcienfe, p. 21.

PASSION.

The adventitious peculiarities of personal habits are only superficial dies, bright and pleasing for a while, yet soon fading to a dim tint, without any remains of former lustre. But the discrimination of true passion are the colours of nature; they pervade the whole mass, and can only perish with the body that exhibits them. Preface to Shakspeare, p. 18.

Passion, in its first violence, controls interest, as the eddy, for a while, runs against the stream.

Taxation no Tyranny, p. 3.

Real passion runs not after remote illusions and obscure opinions. Where there is leisure for fiction there is little grief.

Life of Milton

Of any passion innate and irresistible, the existence may reasonably be doubted. Human characters are by no means constant; men change by change of place, of fortune, of acquaintance;. he who is at one time a lover of pleasure, is at another a lover of money. Life of Pope.

It is the fate of almost every passion, when it has passed the bounds which nature prescribes, to counteract its own purpose.. Too much rage hinders

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hinders the warrior from circumspection; too much eagerness of profit hurts the credit of the trader; and too much ardour takes away from the lover that easiness of address with which ladies are delighted.

Rambler, vol. 1, p. 320.

PROGRESS OF THE PASSIONS.

The passions usurp the separate command of the successive periods of life. To the happiness of our first years, nothing more seems necessary than freedom from restraint. Every man may remember, that if he was left to himself, and indulged in the disposal of his own time, he was once content without the superaddition of any actual pleasure.

The new world is in itself a banquet, and till we have exhausted the freshness of life, we have always about us sufficient gratification. The sunshine quickens us to play, and the shade invites us to sleep.

But we soon become unsatisfied with negative felicity, and are solicited by our senses and appetites to more powerful delights, as the taste of him who has satisfied his hunger must be excited by artificial stimulations. The simplicity of natural amusements is now passed, and art and contrivance must improve our pleasures; but, in time, art, like nature, is exhausted, and the senses can no longer supply the cravings of the intellect.

The attention is then transferred from pleasure to interest, in which pleasure is perhaps included, though diffused to a wider extent, and protracted through new gradations. Nothing now dances before the eyes but wealth and power, nor rings in the ear but the voice of fame: wealth, to which, however variously denominated, every man at

some

some time or other aspires; power, which all wish to obtain within their circle of action; and fame, which no man, however high or mean, however wise or ignorant, was yet able to despise. Now prudence and foresight exert their influence. No hour is devoted wholly to any present enjoyment, no act or purpose terminates in itself, but every motion is referred to some distant end; the accomplishment of one design begins another, and the ultimate wish is always pushed off to its former distance.

At length fame is observed to be uncertain, and power to be dangerous. The man whose vigour and alacrity begin to forsake him, by degrees contracts his designs, remits his former multiplicity of pursuits, and extends no longer his regard to any other honour than the reputation of wealth, or any other influence than his power.. Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives, of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second in ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulis his age with the milder business of saving it. Rambler, vol. 3, p. 273 & 274,

PAIN.

Pain is less subject than pleasure to caprices of expression. Idler, vol. I, P. 282.

Our sense is so much stronger of what we suffer, than of what we enjoy, that the ideas of pain predominate in almost every mind. What is recollection, but a revival of vexation? or history, but a record of wars, treasons, and calamities? Death, which is considered as the greatest

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evil,