Lexicographers

"By Numbers here from Shame or Censure free, All Crimes are safe, but hated Poverty. This, only this, the rigid Law persues, This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse."

"Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest"

"This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confessed — Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed."

"Unmoved though Witlings sneer and Rivals rail, Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail. He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain. With merit needless, and without it vain. In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust: Ye Fops, be silent: and ye Wits, be just."

"A thousand horrid Prodigies foretold it. A feeble government, eluded Laws, A factious Populace, luxurious Nobles, And all the maladies of stinking states."

"To-morrow's action! Can that hoary wisdom, Borne down with years, still doat upon tomorrow! That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy, The coward, and the fool, condemn'd to lose A useless life in waiting for to-morrow, To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow, Till interposing death destroys the prospect Strange! that this general fraud from day to day Should fill the world with wretches undetected. The soldier, labouring through a winter's march, Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph; Still to the lover's long-expecting arms To-morrow brings the visionary bride. But thou, too old to hear another cheat, Learn, that the present hour alone is man's."

"There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice, And wake from ignorance the Western World."

"To neglect at any time preparation for death, is to sleep on our post at a siege, but to omit it in old age, is to sleep at an attack."

"[S]uch is the delight of mental superiority, that none on whom nature or study have conferred it, would purchase the gifts of fortune by its loss."

"It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say."

"The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life."

"Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving."

"[T]hey who complain, in peace, of the insolence of the populace, must remember, that their insolence in peace is bravery in war."

"Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little."

"Resolve to spend a certain number of hours every day amongst your books."

"I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right."

"The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it."

"Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings."

"That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."

"There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good."

"There is one writer, and, perhaps, many who do not write, to whom the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous, and who startle at the thoughts of England free, and America in chains. Children fly from their own shadow, and rhetoricians are frighted by their own voices. Chains is, undoubtedly, a dreadful word; but, perhaps, the masters of civil wisdom may discover some gradations between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will be restrained without them. This contest may end in the softer phrase of English superiority and American obedience. We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"

"There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved."

"I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke."

"O Lord, my Maker and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world, to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands and consider the course of thy providence, give me Grace always to remember that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while it shall please Thee to continue me in this world where much is to be done and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which thou hast imparted, let me serve thee with active zeal, and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest, shall be satisfied with knowledge."

"Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment."

"Here closed in death th' attentive eyes That saw the manners in the face."

"Catch then, O! catch the transient hour, Improve each moment as it flies; Life's a short Summer — man a flower, He dies — alas! how soon he dies!"

"He who praises everybody praises nobody."

"Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all."

"Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other."

"Round numbers are always false."

"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

"Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult."

"Ignorance in other men may be censured as idleness, in an academick it must be abhorred as treachery."

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

"From Thee, great God: we spring, to Thee we tend, Path, motive, guide, original, and end."

"Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted; let me serve Thee with active zeal, humbled confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge."

"A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge."

"It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world."

"The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature."

"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."

"The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove."

"When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes First reared the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose; Each change of many-colored life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new: Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toiled after him in vain."

"Cold approbation gave the ling'ring bays, For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise."

"Declamation roared, while Passion slept."

"Ah! let not Censure term our fate our choice, The stage but echoes back the public's voice; The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, For we that live to please must please to live."

"Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind, from China to Peru."

"But, scarce observ'd, the knowing and the bold Fall in the gen'ral massacre of gold."

"Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail — Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail."

"A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, No dangers fright him, and no labors tire."

"He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale."

""Enlarge my life with multitude of days!" In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays: Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe."

"An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away."

"Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage."

"Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires, a driv'ler and a show."

"Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?"

"For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill."

"With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind, And makes the happiness she does not find."

"Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed."

"A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke."

"All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance: it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of the pick-axe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are levelled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings. It is therefore of the utmost importance that those, who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason, and their spirit, the power of persisting in their purposes; acquire the art of sapping what they cannot batter, and the habit of vanquishing obstinate resistance by obstinate attacks."

"The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and proceed by just degrees to the pinnacles of truth, is directed by the great philosopher of France to begin by doubting of his own existence. In like manner, whoever would complete any arduous and intricate enterprise, should, as soon as his imagination can cool after the first blaze of hope, place before his own eyes every possible embarrassment that may retard or defeat him. He should first question the probability of success, and then endeavour to remove the objections that he has raised."

"He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young."

"Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance and the parent of Liberty."

"Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, of sickness, or captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable; nor does it appear that the happiest lot of terrestrial existence can set us above the want of this general blessing; or that life, when the gifts of nature and of fortune are accumulated upon it, would not still be wretched, were it not elevated and delighted by the expectation of some new possession, of some enjoyment yet behind, by which the wish shall at last be satisfied, and the heart filled up to its utmost extent."

"To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution."

"As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."

"There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed."

"To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities."

"In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it."

"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect."

"No man is much pleased with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness for himself."

"No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library."

"Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble."

"No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority."

"That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?"

"The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight."

"Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition."

"But the truth is, that no man is much regarded by the rest of the world, except where the interest of others is involved in his fortune. The common employments or pleasures of life, love or opposition, loss or gain, keep almost every mind in perpetual agitation. If any man would consider how little he dwells upon the condition of others, he would learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself."

"Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony."

"But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in few words."

"I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote."

"Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language."

"It is the fate of those, who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward. Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries, whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil, but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths through which Learning and Genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few."

"CLUB — An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions."

"ESSAY — A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition."

"EXCISE — A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid."

"GRUBSTREET — The name of a street near Moorsfield, London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems."

"LEXICOGRAPHER — A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge."

"NETWORK — Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections."

"OATS — A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."

"PATRON — One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery."

"PENSION — An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country."

"It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm."

"Slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty."

"Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."

"I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lies."

"The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence."

"Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is, therefore, become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetick. Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement."

"He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty."

"Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance. Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment."

"Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed."

"It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them. ... Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction."

"He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of larger meaning; he that thinks with more subtilty will seek for terms of more nice discrimination; and where is the wonder, since words are but the images of things, that he who never knew the original should not know the copies? Yet vanity inclines us to find faults any where rather than in ourselves. He that reads and grows no wiser, seldom suspects his own deficiency; but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood?"

"The act of writing itself distracts the thoughts, and what is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed."

"We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us."

"Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia."

"This singularity of his humour made him much observed."

"I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others."

"Nothing ... will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome."

"To a poet nothing can be useless."

"The poet must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time and place."

"Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed."

"A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected."

"Few things are impossible to diligence and skill."

"Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength."

"In the assembly, where you passed the last night, there appeared such spriteliness of air, and volatility of fancy, as might have suited beings of an higher order, formed to inhabit serener regions inaccessible to care or sorrow. Yet, believe me, there was not one who did not dread the moment when solitude should deliver him to the tyranny of reflection."

"The causes of good and evil are so various and uncertain, so often entangled with each other, so diversified by various relations, and so much subject to accidents which cannot be foreseen, that he who would fix his condition upon incontestable reasons of preference must live and die inquiring and deliberating."

"Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight and with which he did not always willingly cooperate."

"Their mirth was without images, their laughter without motive; their pleasures were gross and sensual, in which the mind had no part; their conduct was at once wild and mean; they laughed at order and at law, but the frown of power dejected, and the eye of wisdom abashed them. The prince soon concluded, that he should never be happy in a course of life of which he was ashamed. He thought it unsuitable to a reasonable being to act without a plan, and to be sad or chearful only by chance. “Happiness, said he, must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.”"

"Perpetual levity must end in ignorance; and intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for an hour, will make life short or miserable. Let us consider that youth is of no long duration, and that in maturer age, when the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and phantoms of delight dance no more about us, we shall have no comforts but the esteem of wise men, and the means of doing good. Let us, therefore, stop, while to stop is in our power: let us live as men who are sometime to grow old, and to whom it will be the most dreadful of all evils not to count their past years but by follies, and to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health only by the maladies which riot has produced."

"The Prince soon found that this was one of the sages whom he should understand less as he heard him longer. He therefore bowed and was silent; and the philosopher, supposing him satisfied and the rest vanquished, rose up and departed with the air of a man that had co-operated with the present system."

"I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself."

"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."

"Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance."

"The first years of man must make provision for the last."

"But it is evident, that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt; thousands and ten thousands flourish in youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexa­tions, whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat before them."

"Example is always more efficacious than precept."

"Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty."

""That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, "I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth: those that never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence, and some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears."

"Yet I do not mean to add new terrors to those which have already seized upon Pekuah. There can be no reason why spectres should haunt the Pyramid more than other places, or why they should have power or will to hurt innocence and purity. Our entrance is no violation of their privileges: we can take nothing from them; how, then, can we offend them?"

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."

"The endearing elegance of female friendship."

"The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something to-morrow which I never saw before."

""Some," answered Imlac, "have indeed said that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it, who knew how to think; for all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science, concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter."

"It was never supposed that cogitation is inherent in matter, or that every particle is a thinking being. Yet, if any part of matter be devoid of thought, what part can we suppose to think? Matter can differ from matter only in form, density, bulk, motion, and direction of motion: to which of these, however varied or combined, can consciousness be annexed? To be round or square, to be solid or fluid, to be great or little, to be moved slowly or swiftly one way or another, are modes of material existence, all equally alien from the nature of cogitation. If matter be once without thought, it can only be made to think by some new modification, but all the modifications which it can admit are equally unconnected with cogitative powers."

"It ought to be deeply impressed on the minds of all who have voices in this national deliberation, that no man can deserve a seat in parliament, who is not a patriot. No other man will protect our rights: no other man can merit our confidence. A patriot is he whose publick conduct is regulated by one single motive, 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."

"Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight."

"Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the court. This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country."

"The greater, far the greater number of those who rave and rail, and inquire and accuse, neither suspect nor fear, nor care for the publick; but hope to force their way to riches, by virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous, only that they may be sooner hired to be silent."

"A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion. The fallaciousness of this note of patriotism is particularly apparent, when the clamour continues after the evil is past."

"The change of religion in Scotland, eager and vehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthusiasm, compounded of sullen scrupulousness and warlike ferocity, which, in a people whom idleness resigned to their own thoughts, and who conversing only with each other, suffered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was long transmitted in its full strength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourse with England, is now visibly abating, and giving way too fast to their laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men, not sufficiently instructed to find the middle point, too easily shelter themselves from rigour and constraint."

"Power and wealth supply the place of each other. Power confers the ability of gratifying our desire without the consent of others. Wealth enables us to obtain the consent of others to our gratification. Power, simply considered, whatever it confers on one, must take from another. Wealth enables its owner to give to others, by taking only from himself. Power pleases the violent and proud: wealth delights the placid and the timorous. Youth therefore flies at power, and age grovels after riches."

"Of the proportion, which the product of any region bears to the people, an estimate is commonly made according to the pecuniary price of the necessities of life; which is never certain, because it supposes what is far from truth, that the value of money is always the same, and so measures an unknown quantity by an uncertain standard. It is competent enough when the markets of the same country, at different times, and those times not too distant, are to be compared; but of very little use for the purpose of making one nation acquainted with the state of another."

"The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction."

"Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation."

"Language is the dress of thought."

"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings."

"In this work are exhibited, in a very high degree, the two most engaging powers of an author. New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new."

"Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison."

"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason."

"'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is."

"He that thinks himself capable of astonishing may write blank verse: but those that hope only to please must condescend to rhyme."

"It is not by comparing line with line, that the merit of great works is to be estimated, but by their general effects and ultimate result. It is easy to note a weak line, and write one more vigorous in its place; to find a happiness of expression in the original, and transplant it by force into the version: but what is given to the parts may be subducted from the whole, and the reader may be weary, though the critick may commend. Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain, which the reader throws away. He only is the master, who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day."

"He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning."

"The Churchyard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo."

"His [David Garrick's] death has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure."

"Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend."

"In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to die."

"And sure th' Eternal Master found His single talent well employ'd."

"Then with no throbs of fiery pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way."

"A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge. Consider, sir; what is the purpose of courts of justice? It is, that every man may have his cause fairly tried, by men appointed to try causes. A lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie: he is not to produce what he knows to be a false deed; but he is not to usurp the province of the jury and of the judge, and determine what shall be the effect of evidence — what shall be the result of legal argument."

"If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim."

"I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made."

"A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly."

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned ... A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company."

"I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good."

"Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything."

"Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people."

"A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."

"Come, let me know what it is that makes a Scotchman happy!"

"If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis a proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father."

"He was a very good hater."

"The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public."

"It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them."

"I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark."

"There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation."

"Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?"

"Sir, what is Poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is: but it is not easy to tell what it is."

"The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are."

"Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true."

"A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity."

"Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties."

"I'll come no more behind your scenes, David [Garrick]; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities."

"Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it."

"[Of Lord Chesterfield] This man, I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!"

"A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still."

"A lady once asked him how he came to define 'pastern', the knee of a horse: instead of making an elaborate defence, as might be expected, he at once answered, "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.""

"If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair."

"Towering is the confidence of twenty-one."

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned."

"Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts are like cannon, of loud noise but little danger."

"Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment. If it be asked, what is the improper expectation which it is dangerous to indulge, experience will quickly answer, that it is such expectation as is dictated not by reason, but by desire; expectation raised, not by the common occurrences of life, but by the wants of the expectant; an expectation that requires the common course of things to be changed, and the general rules of action to be broken."

"Nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility."

"A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself."

"Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any high degree; only about as much as is used in the lower kinds of poetry."

"Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!"

"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good."

"But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons."

"I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.""

"Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull. If I could have allowed myself to gratify my vanity at the expence of truth, what fame might I have acquired."

"Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature."

"Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

"I [Boswell] happened to say, it would be terrible if he should not find a speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be confined in so dull a place. JOHNSON: "Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. It would not be terrible, though I were to be detained some time here.""

"I refute it thus."

"Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them."

"So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other."

"Shakspeare never has six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven: but this does not refute my general assertion."

"It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time."

"That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one."

"Johnson observed, that "he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney.""

"A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience."

"A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization."

"A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden."

"Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out."

"Attack is the reaction; I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds."

"The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book."

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

"Hell is paved with good intentions."

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."

"There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other."

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."

"This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts."

"A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him. A man when he gets into a higher sphere, into other habits of life, cannot keep up all his former connections. Then, Sir, those who knew him formerly upon a level with themselves, may think that they ought still to be treated as on a level, which cannot be; and an acquaintance in a former situation may bring out things which it would be very disagreeable to have mentioned before higher company, though, perhaps, everybody knows of them."

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."

"While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it."

"Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment."

"Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both."

"Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased."

"I [Boswell] was somewhat disappointed in finding that the edition of The English Poets, for which he was to write Prefaces and Lives, was not an undertaking directed by him: but that he was to furnish a Preface and Life to any poet the booksellers pleased. I asked him if he would do this to any dunce's works, if they should ask him. JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir, and say he was a dunce.""

"Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

"Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies."

"It must be agreed that in most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children."

"All argument is against it; but all belief is for it."

"It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age."

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."

"Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get."

"A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone."

"I am willing to love all mankind, except an American."

"Pleasure of itself is not a vice."

"All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it."

"As the Spanish proverb says, "He, who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him." So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge."

"It is better to live rich, than to die rich."

"The insolence of wealth will creep out."

"All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to shew how much he can spare."

"Wine makes a man more pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others."

"Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess."

"I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works."

"Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy."

"A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk."

"Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see."

"If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle."

"A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing, when he has nothing to say."

"Greek, sir, is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can."

"No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had."

"The applause of a single human being is of great consequence."

"Mrs. Montagu has dropt me. Now, Sir, there are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by."

"Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world."

"My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character [as an author], he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed."

"A jest breaks no bones."

"I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers; — one, that I have lost all the names, — the other, that I have spent all the money."

"Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you."

"To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage."

"Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult."

"A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing."

"There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not remember where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, "His memory is going.""

"A man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it."

"Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea."

"I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me."

"It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them."

"As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly."

"It might as well be said, "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.""

"It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest."

"Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones."

"Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice."

"Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding."

"Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance."

"I will be conquered; I will not capitulate."

"God bless you, my dear!"

"Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love! Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more; Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!"

"A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn."

"How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy."

"Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay."

"Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things."

"To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example."

"The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth."

"A fellow that makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar-cruet."

"The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience."

"Gloomy calm of idle vacancy."

"Wretched un-idea'd girls."

"Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death."

"I am glad that he thanks God for anything."

"Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious."

"Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves."

"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else."

"This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to."

"A very unclubable man."

"I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject."

"I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice."

"Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young."

"Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known."

"Was ever poet so trusted before?"

"I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me."

"In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath."

"Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen."

"Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking."

"All this [wealth] excludes but one evil,—poverty."

"Employment, sir, and hardships prevent melancholy."

"He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it."

"Goldsmith, however, was a man who whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do."

"Johnson said that he could repeat a complete chapter of "The Natural History of Iceland" from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly thus: "There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island." 62 [Chap. lxxii.]"

"The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small."

"I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."... There was another fine passage too which he struck out: "When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for I found that generally what was new was false.""

"The potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice."

"He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others."

"You see they'd have fitted him to a T."

"Blown about with every wind of criticism."

"As with my hat upon my head I walk'd along the Strand, I there did meet another man With his hat in his hand."

"The limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone."

"Hawkesworth said of Johnson, "You have a memory that would convict any author of plagiarism in any court of literature in the world.""

"His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly."

"Hunting was the labour of the savages of North America, but the amusement of the gentlemen of England."

"I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence."

"Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good."

"The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things — the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit."

"Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first."

"Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it."

"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."

"I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am."

"Mrs. Digby told me that when she lived in London with her sister, Mrs. Brooke, they were every now and then honoured by the visits of Dr. Johnson. He called on them one day soon after the publication of his immortal dictionary. The two ladies paid him due compliments on the occasion. Amongst other topics of praise they very much commended the omission of all naughty words. 'What! my dears! then you have been looking for them?' said the moralist. The ladies, confused at being thus caught, dropped the subject of the dictionary."

"I read Dr. Samuel Johnson all the time because he is my great hero as a literary critic and I have tried to model myself upon him all my life."

"I never knew any man who relished good eating more than he did. When at table, he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks seemed riveted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite; which was so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that while in the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible. To those whose sensations were delicate, this could not but be disgusting; and it was doubtless not very suitable to the character of a philosopher, who should be distinguished by self-command."

"Indeed, the freedom with which Dr. Johnson condemns whatever he disapproves of is astonishing."

"Johnson...was not merely a learned classicist among other classicists; he was the last great English man of letters able to write Latin verse to a high standard of technical and literary excellence, the last whose cultural inheritance was more a classical than a vernacular literature. His stature as a writer and a scholar of the Latin language had profound implications for his writings in English and for their social purpose."

"These are the gentry who are today wrapped up in the American flag, who shout their claim from the housetops that they are the only patriots, and who have their magnifying glasses in hand, scanning the country for evidence of disloyalty, eager to apply the brand of treason to the men who dare to even whisper their opposition to Junker rule in the United States. No wonder Sam Johnson declared that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." He must have had this Wall Street gentry in mind, or at least their prototypes, for in every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people."

"When, by the kindness of Sir R. Chambers, I lived in the house belonging to him as Principal at New Inn Hall at Oxford, and was his deputy reading his Vinerian lectures, he, Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and, as well as I can remember, one or two other persons came from London to Oxford. Walking in the garden at New Inn Hall, Sir R. Chambers threw some snails over his garden wall. "Sir," said Johnson, "what you are doing is very unmannerly to your neighbour." Sir Robert said, jocosely, "Why, Dr., he is not a Churchman," or "he is a Dissenter"—I cannot at this distance of time be quite positive as to the words. "Oh," says the Doctor, laughing, "why then, throw away as hard as you can.""

""Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," said Dr. Samuel Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our time, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment in the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the honest workingman."

"He was distinguished by vigorous understanding and inflexible integrity... He was conscientious, sincere, determined; and his pride was no more than a steady consciousness of superiority in the most valuable qualities of human nature; his friendships were not only firm, but generous, and tender beneath a rugged exterior; he wounded none of those feelings which the habits of his life enabled him to estimate; but he had become too hardened by serious distress not to contract some disregard for those minor delicacies, which become so keenly susceptible in a calm and prosperous fortune. He was a Tory, not without some propensities towards Jacobitism, and a high Churchman, with more attachment to ecclesiastical authority and a splendid worship than is quite consistent with the spirit of Protestantism."

"As a man, then, Johnson had a masculine understanding, clouded on important subjects by prejudice, a conscience pure beyond the ordinary measure of human virtue, a heart full of rugged benevolence, and a disregard only for those feelings in controversy or in conversation, of which he had not learnt the force, or which he thought himself obliged to wound. As a writer, he is memorable as one of those who effect a change in the general style of a nation, and have vigour enough to leave the stamp of their own peculiarities upon their language."

"Dr Johnson is the only conversationalist who triumphs over time."

"He [James Boswell] says that he differed with Dr. Johnson on the right of the British Parliament to tax the colonies. The affirmative was argued with vehemence by the Doctor in some pamphlets. Dr. Johnson said if he was a country gentleman he would punish any tenant of his who voted for any but the candidate of his master's choice. Johnson hated the name of a Whig. He complained that our Government was too weak; that the King had too little power!"

"Johnson I admire and I pity. I love him one moment, and almost hate him the next. He must indeed have been a great man, as his minutest actions and expressions are very well worth the relation. His mind was powerfully strong. His intellectual view was most acute and distinct. Yet his mind was clouded with many prejudices. He was intolerant of any opposition to his own orthodox opinions in [sic] Church and State. I do not assent that his opinions were strictly conformable to the doctrines of the Church of England. On the contrary, he fostered notions received by the Church of Rome, such as praying for the dead."

"Most of the great critics of English poetry have also been poets: Sir Philip Sidney, Samuel Johnson, Coleridge, Shelley, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound, to name a few."

"Severity towards the poor was, in Dr. Johnson's opinion (as is visible in his Life of Addison particularly), an undoubted and constant attendant or consequence upon whiggism; and he was not contented with giving them relief, he wished to added also indulgence. He loved the poor as I never yet saw any one else do, with an earnest desire to make them happy.—What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence to common beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco. "And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence (says Johnson)? it is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths." In consequence of these principles he nursed whole nests of people in his house, where the lame, the blind, the sick, and the sorrowful found a sure retreat from all the evils whence his little income could secure them."

"Dr. Johnson was observed by a musical friend of his to be extremely inattentive at a concert, whilst a celebrated solo player was running up and down the divisions and subdivisions of notes upon his violin. His friend, to induce him to take greater notice of what was going on, told him how extremely difficult it was. 'Difficult, do you call it, Sir?' replied the Doctor; 'I wish it were impossible.'"

"I called on Dr. Johnson one morning, when Mrs. Williams, the blind lady, was conversing with him. She was telling him where she had dined the day before. "There were several gentlemen there," said she, "and when some of them came to the tea-table, I found that there had been a good deal of hard drinking." She closed this observation with a common and trite moral reflection; which, indeed, is very ill-founded, and does great injustice to animals—"I wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves." "I wonder, Madam," replied the Doctor, "that you have not penetration to see the strong inducement to this excess; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.""

"Johnson's high tory principles in church and state were well known... Johnson...was one of the few Nonjurors that were left, and it was supposed he would never bow the knee to the Baal of Whiggism."

"It used to be the fashion to decry Johnson's powers as a writer and claim that he was important solely as a character. In fact, by any objective standard he was one of the best writers of the eighteenth century; whether or not he was what people now understand by the word "poet", he could write movingly and memorably in verse; if "The Vanity of Human Wishes" is not a poem, it is hard to know what else to call it. And Johnson's prose, grave, sonorous, heavily charged with meaning, gives the lie to the slander of "Johnsonese", by which the Victorians meant an emptily inflated style. This prose is heavy because it is densely packed."

"As writer and critic, then, he is still interesting. Nevertheless, it is true that Johnson's chief hold over our minds is as a moral hero, a great personal example. With all his faults and foibles, he lived a brave and unselfish life. Starting with every handicap—bad sight, poor health, no money, an uncouth appearance and uncontrollable nervous habits—he fought his way up to recognition as one of the great men of his time. Once there, he made no effort to turn his reputation to worldly advantage in pursuit of money or power; he gave away most of what he earned, keeping back only enough to supply his basic needs, and filled his house with a crowd of peevish old creatures who could not look after themselves. All this was visible to the world. But the real heroism of Johnson's life lay in his unceasing struggle against the darkness within his own mind. Physically he never knew fear, but on another level he was haunted by neurotic guilt and the dread of eternal punishment."

"Conviviality, even "buffoonery", were one side of Johnson; neurotic dread and melancholia were another; the strong, rapid play of a masterly intelligence was a third. But none of these quite explains the reverence in which he was held. As Johnson lay dying, Fanny Burney sat for hours in tears on the stairs leading up to his room, hoping that she might be called in to receive his blessing. No mere John Bull, intellectual or otherwise, inspires that kind of devotion. Johnson had a greatness of mind, a tragic and heroic stature, that we can feel across two hundred and fifty years."

"The American states have gone far in assisting the progress of truth; but they have stopped short of perfection. They ought to have given every honest citizen an equal right to enjoy his religion and an equal title to all civil emoluments, without obliging him to tell his religion. Every interference of the civil power in regulating opinion, is an impious attempt to take the business of the Deity out of his own hands; and every preference given to any religious denomination, is so far slavery and bigotry."

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive."

"There iz no alternativ. Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors."

"I like to think of criticism as the highest intellectual effort that mankind is capable of, and above all, I like to think of self-criticism as the most difficult attainment of an educated man."

"I am here to speak on freedom of speech. It is a great topic, and I am going to make my speech as free as possible. But you know that this cannot be done, for when anyone announces that he is going to speak his mind freely, everyone is frightened. This shows that there is no such thing as true freedom of speech. No one can afford to let his neighbors know what he is thinking about them. Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks."

"All women's dresses, in every age and country, are merely variations on the eternal struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress."

"Human history is not the product of the wise direction of human reason, but is shaped by the forces of emotion—our dreams, our pride, our greed, our fears, and our desire for revenge."

"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow."

"The Chinese believe that when there are too many policemen, there can be no individual liberty, when there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice, and when there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace."

"If compelled to indicate my religion on an immigration blank, I might be tempted to put down the word "Taoist," to the amazement of the customs officer who probably never heard of it."

"Our task is not so much discovery as re-discovery. What one needs is not so much thinking as remembering. Sometimes it suffices to sit quietly and listen well, when venerable men have thought before us. Constant forgettings of truths once perceived are the very charm of the human mind; the history of human thought is nothing more than the story of these forgettings and rememberings and forgettings again."

"If life is all subjective, why not be subjectively happy rather than subjectively sad?"

"There are two kinds of animals on earth. One kind minds his own business, the other minds other people's business. The former are vegetarians, like cows, sheep and thinking men. The latter are carnivorous, like hawks, tigers and men of action."

"The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach."

"These influences of my young childhood were greatest: 1, the mountain landscape, 2, my father the impossible idealist, and 3, the upringing of a closely-knit Christian home."

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials."

"The creative imagination of the Hindus has conceived no loftier and holier character than Sita; the literature of the world has not produced a higher ideal of womanly love, womanly truth, and womanly devotion."

"I strongly suspect that the average reader does not suspect India has as rich a culture, as creative an imagination and wit and humor as any China has to offer, and that India was China’s teacher in religion and imaginative literature, and the world’s teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian Nights, animal fables, chess, as well as in philosophy, and that she inspired Boccaccio, Goethe, Herder, Schopenhauer, Emerson, and probably also old Aesop."

"A mellow understanding of life and of human nature is, and always has been, the Chinese ideal of character, and from that understanding other qualities are derived, such as pacifism, contentment, calm and strength of endurance which distinguish the Chinese character."

"To the West, it seems hardly imaginable that the relationship between man and man (which is morality) could be maintained without reference to a Supreme Being, while to the Chinese it is equally amazing that men should not, or could not, behave toward one another as decent beings without thinking of their indirect relationship through a third party."

"I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death."

"This is a personal testimony, a testimony of my own experience of thought and life. It is not intended to be objective and makes no claim to establish eternal truths. In fact I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing. I should have liked to call it "A Lyrical Philosophy," using the word "lyrical" in the sense of being a highly personal and individual outlook..."

"It is not when he is working in the office but when he is lying idly on the sand that his soul utters, "Life is beautiful.""

"While in the West, the insane are so many that they are put in an asylum, in China the insane are so unusual that we worship them, as anybody who has a knowledge of Chinese literature will testify."

"A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals."

"It is important that man dreams, but it is perhaps equally important that he can laugh at his own dreams."

"I distrust all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs and human personalities. Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of the sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom."

"It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action."

"My faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier."

"I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from being lost in serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him."

"I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life's tragedy and then life's comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening, and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot."

"The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious, is it has need of a wise and merry philosophy."

"To me personally, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gayly than the average businessman does, for no businessman who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my eyes a philosopher."

"All men and women have passions, natural desires and noble ambitions, and also a conscience; they have sex, hunger, fear, anger, and are subject to sickness, pain, suffering and death. Culture consists in bringing about the expression of these passions and desires in harmony."

"A reasonable naturalist then settles down to this life with a sort of animal satisfaction. As Chinese illiterate women put it, "Others gave birth to us and we give birth to others. What else are we to do?".... Life becomes a biological procession and the very question of immortality is sidetracked. For that is the exact feeling of a Chinese grandfather holding his grandchild by the hand and going to the shops to buy some candy, with the thought that in five or ten years he will be returning to his grave or to his ancestors. The best that we can hope for in this life is that we shall not have sons and grandsons of whom we need to be ashamed."

"One can learn such a lot and enjoy such a lot in seventy years, and three generations is a long, long time to see human follies and acquire human wisdom. Anyone who is wise and has lived long enough to witness the changes of fashion and morals and politics through the rise and fall of three generations should be perfectly satisfied to rise from his seat and go away saying, "It was a good show," when the curtain falls."

"Human life can be lived like a poem."

"Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey."

"A man may own a thousand acres of land, and yet he still sleeps upon a bed of five feet."

"He who perceives death perceives a sense of the human comedy, and quickly becomes a poet."

"What is patriotism but love of the good things we ate in our childhood? I have said elsewhere that the loyalty to Uncle Sam is the loyalty to doughnuts and ham and sweet potatoes and the loyalty to the German Vaterland is the loyalty to Pfannkuchen and Christmas Stollen. As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini... in food, as in death, we feel the essential brotherhood of mankind."

"How many of us are able to distinguish between the odors of noon and midnight, or of winter and summer, or of a windy spell and a still one? If man is so generally less happy in the cities than in the country, it is because all these variations and nuances of sight and smell and sound are less clearly marked and lost in the general monotony of gray walls and cement pavements."

"Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise."

"On the whole, the enjoyment of leisure is something which decidedly costs less than the enjoyment of luxury. All it requires is an artistic temperament which is bent on seeking a perfectly useless afternoon spent in a perfectly useless manner."

"No, the enjoyment of an idle life doesn't cost any money. The capacity for true enjoyment of idleness is lost in the moneyed class and can be found only among people who have a supreme contempt for wealth. It must come from an inner richness of the soul in a man who loves the simple ways of life and who is somewhat impatient with the business of making money."

"True peace of mind comes from accepting the worst."

"The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous."

"A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon from one to five ruined for him already."

"If the early Chinese people had any chivalry, it was manifested not toward women and children, but toward old people. That feeling of chivalry found clear expression in Mencius in some such saying as, "The people with gray hair should not be seen carrying burdens on the street," which was expressed as the final goal of good government."

"Life after all is made up of eating and sleeping, of meeting and saying good-by to friends, of reunions and farewell parties, of tears and laughter, of having a haircut once in two weeks, of watering a potted flower and watching one’s neighbor fall off his roof."

"There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life."

"The greatest ideal that man can aspire to is not to be a show-case of virtue, but just to be a genial, likable and reasonable human being."

"The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine."

"By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also. There is a way of looking upon a landscape as a moving picture and being satisfied with nothing less big as a moving picture, a way of looking upon tropic clouds over the horizon as the backdrop of a stage and being satisfied with nothing less big as a backdrop, a way of looking upon the mountain forests as a private garden and being satisfied with nothing less as a private garden, a way of listening to the roaring waves as a concert and being satisfied with nothing less as a concert, and a way of looking upon the mountain breeze as an air-cooling system and being satisfied with nothing less as an air-cooling system. So do we become big, even as the earth and firmaments are big. Like the "Big Man" described by Yuan Tsi (A.D. 210-263), one of China's first romanticists, we "live in heaven and earth as our house.""

"When the mirror meets with an ugly woman, when a rare ink-stone finds a vulgar owner, and when a good sword is in the hands of a common general, there is utterly nothing to be done about it."

"A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from."

"The wise man reads both books and life itself."

"Such religion as there can be in modern life, every individual will have to salvage from the churches for himself."

"I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it. All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth."

"When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set."

"[My Country and My People] is, I think, the truest, the most profound, the most complete, the most important book yet written about China. And, best of all, it is written by a Chinese, a modern, whose roots are firmly in the past, but whose rich flowering is in the present."

"[Thanatopsis] was written in 1817, when Bryant was 23. Had he died then, the world would have thought it had lost a great poet. But he lived on."

"Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt."

"We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us."

"The progress of the world moves from the consolidation of the three powers of government in one person to the co-ordination of those powers in separate departments; from the constitutional forms in which one type prevails (as that of the family prevails in the patriarchal government of China) to the form in which the family, civil society, the State, and the Church are independent and complete in their functions without usurping the functions of one another. This will destroy the illusion of socialism, which wishes the State to absorb civil society, as well as the illusion of the “Nihilist,” who wishes civil society to absorb the State."

"Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual."

"The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places.... It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world."

"In future editions many of those who may die in the meantime will, of course, be added. All the same, it is hoped that this announcement will not start an immediate wave of suicide among singers and players."

"Blues. An American dance stemming from the Foxtrot, the speed of which it reduced and into which it brought a deliberately contrived dismal atmosphere. When Blues are sung their words seem to aim at attaining to the utmost depths of gloom and inanity."

"Crooning. A reprehensible form of singing that established itself in light entertainment music in about the 1930s. It recommended itself at first to would-be singers without voices who were unable to acquire an adequate technique and later to a large public because anything, however inartistic, is likely to become popular if only it is done often enough by a large enough number of people."

"The concept of ideographic writing is a most seductive notion. There is great appeal in the concept of written symbols conveying their message directly to our minds, thus bypassing the restrictive intermediary of speech. And it seems so plausible. Surely ideas immediately pop into our minds when we see a road sign, a death's head label on a bottle of medicine, a number on a clock. Aren't Chinese characters a sophisticated system of symbols that similarly convey meaning without regard to sound? Aren't they an ideographic system of writing? The answer to these questions is no. Chinese characters are a phonetic, not an ideographic, system of writing… Here I would go further: There never has been, and never can be, such a thing as an ideographic system of writing."

"In human history it seems that the idea of using a pictograph in the new function of representing sound may have occurred only three times: once in Mesopotamia, perhaps by the Sumerians, once in China, apparently by the Chinese themselves, and once in Central America, by the Mayas. (Conceivably it was invented only once, but there is no evidence that the Chinese or the Mayas acquired the idea from elsewhere.) The idea that was independently conceived by these three peoples was taken over, as were at times even the symbols themselves, though often in a highly modified form, by others who made adaptations to fit a host of totally different languages. One of the major adaptations, generally attributed to the Greeks, was the narrowing of sound representation from syllabic representation to phonemic representation (Gelb 1963; Trager 1974), after an earlier stage of mixed pictographic and syllabic writing (Chadwick 1967)."

"With regard to the principle [of using symbols to represent sounds], it matters little whether the symbol is an elaborately detailed picture, a slightly stylized drawing, or a drastically abbreviated symbol of essentially abstract form. What is crucial is to recognize that the diverse forms perform the same function in representing sound. To see that writing has the form of pictures and to conclude that it is pictographic is correct in only one sense -- that of the form, but not the function, of the symbols. We can put it this way:"

"The term "ideographic" has been used not only by those who espouse its basic meaning but also by others who do not necessarily accept the concept but use the term out of mere force of habit as an established popular designation for Chinese characters. I find, to my chagrin, that in my previous publications I have been guilty of precisely this concession to popular usage without being aware of the damage it can cause. As a repentant sinner I pledge to swear off this hallucinogen. I hope others will join in consigning the term to the Museum of Mythological Memorabilia along with unicorn horns and phoenix feathers."

"The Chinese system must be classified as a syllabic system of writing. More specifically, it belongs to the subcategory that I have labeled meaning-plus-sound syllabic systems or morphosyllabic systems. I use the term morphosyllabic in two senses. The first applies to the Chinese characters taken as individual units. Individual characters are morphosyllabic in the sense that they represent at once a single syllable and a single morpheme (except for the 11 percent or so of meaningless characters that represent sound only). In this usage the term is intended to replace the more widely used expressions logographic, word-syllabic, and morphemic, all of which are applied to individual characters taken as a unit. The second sense of the term refers to the structure of Chinese characters and is intended to draw attention to the fact that, in most cases, a character is composed of two elements, a phonetic grapheme which suggests the syllabic pronunciation of the full character, and a semantic element which hints at its meaning."

"[R]eformers seeking to speed China's modernization by modernizing the writing system through a policy of digraphia have to contend not only with the natural attachment of Chinese to their familiar script but also with chauvinistic and mindless claims for its superiority."

"I think there are three possible scenarios for the future of Chinese writing, in all of which the government plays a major role. In the first, and at present apparently the least likely scenario, the government abandons its hostility to an expanded role for Pinyin and instead fosters a climate of digraphia and biliteracy in which those who can do so become literate in both characters and Pinyin, and those who cannot are at least literate in Pinyin. This is essentially a reversion to the Latinization movement of the 1930s and 1940s, when Mao Zedong and other high Communist Party officials like Xu Teli, the commissioner of education in Yan'an, lent their prestigious support to the New Writing. Such a change within the governing bureaucracy would in all likelihood result in an explosion of activity that might end in Pinyin ascendancy in use over characters in less than a generation."

"[I]nfatuation with characters still pervades American classrooms and holds back essential improvement in instruction."

"Christianity is more than history; it is also a system of truths. Every event which its history records, either is a truth, or suggests a truth, or expresses a truth which man needs to assent to or to put into practice."

"Spencer "was incapable", our critic haughtily remarks, "of discerning the difference between a homogeneity in matter, necessarily and blindly tending toward a heterogeneity, , and such a law of organism [sic], progress, and growth as requires a spiritual intelligence to originate and maintain it." Perheps he was a poor man! or perhaps he thought he had better discern and formulate progress where he could do it to the best advantage, and leave the postulating of spiritual intelligences to those who had a greater talent than he for building in the region of the unverifiable."

"I am sorry to hear of the indisposition of Cumyng, who seemed a very intelligent and respectable man. It is, however, some consolation to you, on the approaching loss of a good friend, that you will get his library."

"You will have perceived, I suppose, by your Magazine, that Herbert Croft has been obliged to relinquish the publication of his grand dictionary for want of subscribers. He is chiefly indebted, I believe, to the absurdity of his plan, which, by retaining all the blunders of Johnson and adding his own refutations, &c. doubled the bulk and price of the work. Besides, his printed specimen afforded no very promising idea of his etymological abilities ; and in fact some of his late letters in the newspapers seem to imply a derangement of intellect."

"I am astonished that your friend Brand should be so absurd as to fancy that Gateshead means "the end of the road," instead of "the head of the goat;"and that Bede has confounded "gate, via, with goat, capra.""

"I am assured by Citoyenne Eaton that the preface to The rights of man was not written by doctor Parkinson (an apothecary at Hoxton); though I certainly believe (at present) that Paine knew nothing at all of the matter. This conviction, no doubt, gives me a very indifferent opinion of Daniel Isaac; but whether he deserves the gallows is another matter."

"The library of Herbert Croft (author of "Love and Madness," &c.) is just now selling off by auction: but it seems to contain little or nothing in your way; nor, in fact, of much rarity or value, in any other."

"I am sorry to say that I have looked over (for it is impossible that any one should read) your publication of" Scotish Poems of the sixteenth century" with astonishment and disgust. To rake up the false, scandalous, and despicable libels against the most beautiful, amiable, and accomplished princess that ever existed, whose injurious treatment,misfortunes, persecution, imprisonment, and barbarous murder, will be a lasting blot on the national character to the end of time, and which were, as they deserved, apparently devoted to everlasting oblivion and contempt, to stuff almost an entire volume with the uninteresting lives of such scoundrels as regent Murray and the laird of Grange, to publish in short such vile, stupid,and infamous stuff, which few can read, and none can approve, is a lamentable proof of a total want of taste or judgement, a disgrace to Scotish literature, degrades the reputation of the editor, and discredits your own. I must be free to tell you that I will not suffer such an infamous and detestable heap of trash to pollute and infect my shelves: it is therefore under sentence of immediate transportation, though much more fit for some other situation than a gentlemans library, or even a booksellers shop. I confess, at the same time, that the libel against the Tulchan bishop, though excessively scurrilous, has much merit, and would have been admissible in any collection of a different description."

"I have great reason to doubt the truth of the anecdote you give (Appendix, p. 85, of your Memoirs) of Cunningham the poet (without an e). I knew him personally toward the latter part of his life, when those moderate sacrifices you speak of, had totally disqualified him from writing pastorals. His first and best pieces were produced before he had acquired that pernicious habit which impaired his faculties and shortened his days. Whiskey may inspire, but I will never believe that gin does."

"Your narrative of the dying moments and last advice of poor Cumyng is really so ludicrous and so lamentable, that one does not know whether to laugh or cry. I hope you will take care that a piece of eloquence so interesting and important to society does not perish with its author. Suppose you were to draw it up as a communication for the next volume of "Transactions of the Antiquaries of Scotland," under the title of "Cumyngs Legacy, or a Dissertation upon." If you should happen to be at a loss from want of an acquaintance with the subject, Master Smellie will doubtless be ready to lend you any assistance in order to do honour to the memory of his departed friend. Or, perhaps, as you have it in contemplation to favour the public with some biographical anecdotes of the author, which I dare say will be much more entertaining, and just as important, as Boswells Life of Johnson, you might with great propriety enhance the value of the work by so curious an appendix. I am, however, really sorry to lose so worthy and respectable an acquaintance, whom I hoped to render a valuable correspondent. Apropos. Are my ancient spurs, &c. deposited in the archives of the Society? I have no great expectation from his library; though, I suppose, the heraldical books may make it an object."

"Mr. Gibbon is said to be now employed (at Lausanne) in writing the History of England. For my own part I think he has already written too much, and that his merit would have been more generally acknowledged had he never completed his Decline of the Empire."

"Your observations on Godwins inaccuracies are well founded. I apprised him of all or most of them long ago; and can only attribute their retention to his obstinacy, or ignorance, I am, however, preparing another list for him. They say he is about another novel."

"You must cease to consider Lord Hailes as a most faithful publisher; as I who have collated many of his articles with the Bannatyne MS. know the contrary to my cost. I do not, indeed, mean to say that he is so intentionally faithless as Ramsay; but I do say that his transcripts have been very inaccurate, that he has in numerous instances wilfully altered the original orthography, and not unfrequently misinterpreted the text of the MS. which I suspect he was occasionally unable to read."

"I shall be glad if you will inform me who was the editor of Montrose's memoirs, published in 1756. I had understood him to be the late lord Hailes, which I now fancy a mistake, as his lordships character seems to savour too much of the virulency of whiggism for an admirer of Montrose."

"I have been able to meet with no further intelligence about Sir Alexander Halket. He is said to be the author of Gilderoy, and I strongly suspect him to have had a principal hand in the forgery of Hardyknute, which is all that I know of him."

"I suppose you will find citizen Hodgsons translation of the Systime executed in a very slovenly and inaccurate manner. The poor fellow is starving in Newgate, and I do not understand he is likely to receive much benefit by the sale of his work."

"You appear to have seen Holcrofts pamphlet; which certainly displays much ability and goodwriting, but most of all the extreme vanity and self-importance of the author, which is equally ridiculous and disgusting. He thinks it impossible that any court or jury in the world could have resisted the force of his combined eloquence and philosophy; and actually told me that hewould gladly have given one of his hands for the opportunity of making his defence, which by the way would certainly have hanged him, however favourable his judges might have been beforehand."

"Your friend Hutchinson has finished his history in a most slovenly, disgraceful, and even swindling manner. To compel his subscribers to take what they had on a formal application uniformly rejected, I mean the account of Allerton, Howdenshires and the North-Bishopric, was certainly a rascally and sharking trick, which one would not easily have suspected in a gentleman-author. You have occasionally observed, no doubt, what a confoundedly ignorant fellow he is: in looking over his Excursion to the lakes, and View of Northumberland, lately, I was perfectly astonished at the monstrous blunders I met with...Now do not you instantly perceive how abominably this blockhead has corrupted a parcel of names which every one but such an ass must have been perfectly acquainted with..."

"Apropos, what is your expectation from Herbert Crofts dictionary? I wish he may have sense and spirit to investigate the principles of orthography, of which Dr. Johnson was totally ignorant. We want a system prodigiously to prevent the fluctuation of the language."

"There is certainly the strangest mixture of ignorance and idleness throughout Johnsons Dictionary that was ever exhibited in such a work."

"Talking of historys, i suppose we are to have nothing further from that fellow Hutchinson: We shall therefore lose the most interesting part of his subject. An ATTORNEY, who HAS BUT ONE OBJECT AND THAT IS THE LUCRE OF GAIN, should never be encourageed in attempts of this nature."

"Have you seen our friend Langdales History of North Allerton? You will hear, perhaps, or suspect that I gave him some little assistance; but he seems to have been beholden to a much cleverer fellow. I dare say you will not think me capable of saying that a structure was pulled down by "illiterate hands.""

"This is believed to be the completest list of this voluminous, prosiack, and driveling monk, that can be formed...in truth, and fact, these stupid and fatigueing productions, which by no means deserve the name of poetry, and their stil more stupid and disgusting author, who disgraces the name and patronage of his master Chaucer, are neither worth collecting (unless it be as typographical curiositys, or on account of the beautyful illuminations in some of his presentation copys), not even worthy of preservation: being only suitablely adapted "ad ficum & piperem," and other more bare and servile uses. How little he profited by the correction, or instructions of his great patron is manifest in almost every part of his elaborate drawlings, in which there are scarcely three lines together of pure and acurate metre."

"You will have heard, I presume, that Wintons Chronicle, by a Mr. Macpherson, is in great forwardness. It is to surpass, in point of correctness and typography, any thing that has hitherto appeared. But, I confess, the specimen I have seen betrayed symptoms of licentiousness and affectation which I can neither approve of nor account for."

"Now Mr. Malone will take this exceedingly ill; for Mr. Malone has a very high opinion of himself, and a very mean one of every body else. But I confess I do not seek to please Mr. Malone: I wish to rescue the language and sense of an admirable author from the barbarism and corruption they have acquired in passing through the hands of this incompetent and unworthy editor. In a word, I mean to convict and not to convince him."

"But it is not the want of ear and judgement only of which I have to accuse Mr. Malone: he stands charged with divers other high crimes and misdemeanors against the divine majesty of our sovereign lord of the drama; with deforming his text, and degrading his margin, by intentional corruption, flagrant misrepresentation, malignant hypercriticism, and unexampled scurrility. These charges shall be proved--not, as Mr. Malone proves things, by groundless opinion and confident assertion, but--by fact, argument, and demonstration. How sayest thou, culprit? Guilty or not guilty?"

"Mr. Malone can not read, and is totally ignorant of the consequences of his own absurd ideas; he could never else have thought such a line as the following consistent with the laws of metre: '"What wheels? Racks? fi-ers? What flaying? boiling?' Thus, however, he insists that Shakespeare intended us to read--swor-en, char-rums, instead of sworn, charms; su-ar, for sure, &c. &c. converting one syllable into two, two into three or four and so on."

"Every reader of this incomparable edition will have frequent occasion to observe that the editor "draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument." The present instance, indeed, is nothing in comparison to pages of inanity with which the work abounds, and which, on account of their "true no-meaning," are actually incapable of refutation or discussion."

"I have just dipped far enough into Mr. Malones edition of Shakspeare to find he has not been sparing of his epithets whenever he has occasion to introduce me to the notice of his readers. In fact, I believe I originally gave him some little provocation. But I thought your countrymen had been remarkable rather for the suddenness of their anger than the duration of their malignity. Have the morals of this worthy editor been corrupted by his long residence amongst us?"

"I have still some intention of printing an edition of Shakspeare, in which I shall carefully attend to what you say. I send you a pamphlet in which I flatter myself I have totally demolished the great Mr. Malone. He has attempted to answer it by the most contemptible thing in nature."

"You will do Mr. Malone great injustice if you suppose him to be in all respects what I may have endeavoured to represent him in some. In order that he may recover your more favourable opinion, let me recommend to your perusal, the discussion, in his prolegomena, intitled "Shakspeare, Ford and Jonson ;." and his "Dissertation on the three parts of King Henry the Sixth" (to which I am more indebted for an acquaintance with the manner of our great dramatic poet than to any thing I ever read)."

"Dr. Percy has confounded the vesper bell with the curfew. The reason of this temporary cessation of bloodshed, proceeded from respect to the Virgin Mary; for, at this hour, the angelical salutation was sung; whence it was sometimes called the Ave Maria bell. It is still customary, upon the Spanish stage, for the actors, in the midst of the grossest and most indecent buffoonery, to fall down on their knees, and pull out their beads, at the sound of this bell."

"Mr. Pinkerton is neither the first, nor likely to be the last, fabricator of Old Scotish Ballads."

"I am sorry to say that Dr. Farmer has not been able to find the volume of tracts containing "Sir D. Lindsays Satire." He supposes it to have been lent to Mr. Malone, to whom Mr. Steevens has promised to make immediate application. But perhaps you have already learned that Pinkerton has lately published these satires from a (very incorrect) copy of the Hyndford MS. together with the various readings of the printed edition: published under the name of J. Nichols, for C. Dilly in the Poultry, 3 vols, crown 8vo. price 9s. He has had the impudence and dishonesty to insert in this collection a curious old MS. poem in my possession, of which a friend of his had some years since surreptitiously obtained a copy, and which on that friends application from him, I positively refused my leave to print."

"Pinkerton seems busy in his intended history of Scotland; whether it is to be the same with that advertised under the name of Robert Heron, I cannot learn. His treatment of the " Celtic savages" is to be speedily resented in print by the Reverend John Lane Buchanan, nominal author of "Travels in the Western Hebrides," who seems in fact, to be as very a Celt as his antagonist could possibly wish for. I am sorry to find so good a cause in the hands of such an incompetent advocate."

"Our friend Pinkerton, I am told, to complete the infamy of his character, has turned critical reviewer, a situation, of course, which admits neither truth nor honesty. He will therefore have the pleasure of thundering his own damnation upon the heads of others, among whom, I suppose, he will take care not to forget...J. Ritson"

"From the falsehood, impudence and scurrility of The Critical Review, I conclude that Pinkerton is one of its principal authors, and particularly the gentleman to whom I and my little publication are so much obliged. You will think me too revengeful when I wish he were compelled to subscribe his name to his criticisms. The Shakspeare papers, of which you have heard so much, and which I have carefully examined, are, I can assure you, a parcel of forgeries, studiously and ably calculated to deceive the public: the imposition being, in point of art and foresight, beyond any thing of the kind that has been witnessed since the days of Annius Viterbiensis..."

"I observe with pleasure, what Mr. Herd has remarked upon the confusion made by Pinkerton of the two Pennecuiks. He has, with equal ignorance, confounded the two Hamiltons (of Bangour and Gilbertfield). But, indeed, his blunders are venial when compared with the more criminal parts of his literary and moral character."

"You will before this I suppose, have heard of the dismission of those miscreant blockheads who formed the late infamous administration, some of whom it is to be hoped will yet hop headless. You'll see more in time. The national ship is now without either pilot or officers, there not being a minister in place. A mutiny among the crew is every moment expected. However I think you may begin to prepare yourself for a trip to the Netherlands. Peace! Peace! will be the undoubted blessing of the new government...We may now begin to hope for the representation of a New Comedy called, "The Blessings of the Constitution restored.""

"I am sorry to learn the death of poor Smellie, whose name reminds me of a whimsical anecdote. In the course of a conversation one evening at the Tripe-club (when I was last in Edinburgh,) upon the aversion which the people of Scotland had formerly borne to the family at present on the throne, Smellie remarked, as an equally strong and singular instance, that they had given the royal name, Geordie, to a sir-reverence [human feces]. Now, on looking casually over "The works of Captain Alex. Ratcliffe," printed in 1696, but apparently written some years before, I find that this illustrious name had been thus lamentably degraded before the present family was heard of; from which, of course, as a loyal subject, I am anxious to remove so dirty an imputation. The actual origin of this curious appellation it is now, perhaps, impossible to ascertain."

"I inclose you a pamphlet lately published by Stewart (he does not deserve the name of citizen) which he represented to me as the first political production of the age. I mean of course to have no further acquaintance with him..."

"I called some days since at the White Bear, but was informed that citizen Bruin was out of town. Taking a walk however on Sunday evening to Bagnigge Wells I saw him entering one of the rooms, disguised, like a gentleman, in a new white coat and an umbrella in his hand, which made me the less forward to accost him, as I presume he is no longer "the individual John" than he wears a blue coat with a red cape. Indeed, I am so disgusted with his bigotted prejudices and absurd opinions, that the continuation of our acquaintance will be owing rather to ceremony than to esteem..."

"Stewart is just arrived from America, and as mad as ever. He now proposes a course of lectures upon mental capacity, or, in other words, to teach people to think; which he seems to flatter himself will be attended with success: I am of a different opinion."

"Mr. Fraser Tytler, who promised me to look after it, is probably dissatisfied with the manner in which I have thought myself obliged to differ from his father; but which is no other, I believe, than he himself differed from Hume and Robertson. Magis amica Veritas was his motto, and is mine."

"For my own part, I often think that if I were some years younger and perfectly independent, I would venture myself among the inhospitable savages of Connaught or Munster, of whom Twiss was so much afraid, in order to acquire their language in its original purity...I can make nothing, however, of his "Vindication of the Ancient History of Ireland." He seems to be somewhat in the condition in which Festus (I think it was) supposed Paul; as, if much learning have not made him mad, it has made him, at least, completely ridiculous and absurd."

"This faucon brode you most sagaciously interpret to be a bird ...Though such unparalleled ignorance, such matchless effrontery, is not, Mr. Warton, in my humble opinion, worthy of any thing but castigation or contempt, yet, should there be a single person, beside yourself, who can mistake the meaning of so plain, so obvious a passage (which I much suspect to have been corrupted in coming through your hands) I shall beg leave to inform him, that a faucon brode is nothing more or less than a broad fauchion."

"You must either, Mr. Warton, deal in very strange histories, or else you are very unmindful of what you read, or careless of what you say. And, indeed, I cannot but think, if that good and wholesome discipline, which the name of MILTON may probably call to your remembrance, were still in use at Trinity College, the more than childish ignorance of a certain near friend of yours would hardly escape without experiencing its salutary effects."

"Your blunders are beyond computation, "out of all cess;" and I have neither the leisure nor the patience to detect you in every one. But your ignorance is so amazing and unaccountable, in many of them, that I cannot choose but bestow more attention upon them than I otherwise would do. For instance, how could you contrive to misinterpret, and corrupt the above simple phrase hedde ferly..."

"Such a shuffleing, nonsensical paragraph was, I firmly believe, never put together since the invention of letters. That which I do not, and which, I think, no one can, understand. I shall not meddle with."

"It is, in my opinion, a most extraordinary, and, I hope and believe, unparalleled circumstance, that a man of eminence in the literary world should, in order to enhance the bulk and price of his writings, hazard his reputation upon, and descend to, or rather be guilty of, such low, such paltry, such dishonourable, and even dishonest artifices, as almost to deserve the name and punishment of a--SWINDLER."

"I have lost my old friend Tom Warton —Well!" I war not with the dead," and shall treat his ashes with the reverence I ought possibly to have bestowed on his person. Unfortunately he is introduced, not always in the most serious or respectful manner, in a work which has been long printed, but which I think my bookseller does not choose to publish till both the editor and all his friends and enemies are buried in oblivion."

"It will be difficult, however, if not impracticable to form a complete collection of David Williamses publications...You probably overrate the merit of the above… Godwin says he is never without an eye to self; and, in fact, a man of talents, who can puff Velnos vegetable sirop, and fawn upon the Prince of Wales, cannot be a very virtuous character. I have a notion, indeed, that he is a plausible parasite, and that it was as much by well-managed flattery as by profound politics he insinuated himself into the good graces of the citizeness Roland."

"For my part, I abominate mendicancy of every description, and think it much more honourable in a distressed man to hang than to beg. Besides, citizen Yorke well knows, though you may not, that the London Corresponding Society is chiefly composed of poor mechanics who find it a sufficiently hard matter to support themselves and their families, setting aside several of their members who are languishing in penury, sickness and confinement, and whose wives and children are literally perishing for want. I would therefore recommend it to you to make no more applications of this sort. Citizen Yorke is said to be a man of some property, which he has been long enough in prison to derive assistance from; but he is also said to be a lover of money, and refused to join the Scotish Convention as a delegate from one of these societies because it either would not or could not advance him beforehand as much as he insisted on. To confess the truth, the more I see of these modern patriots and philosophers the less I like them. All of them disapproved of Geralds having recourse to the Scotish advocates, though it was but to argue what we call a point of law; and yet, when their own precious existence was supposed to be in danger, they were ready enough to court the means of defence which they had before so uniformly reprobated. Their constant cant is, the force and energy of mind, to which all opposition is to be ineffectual; but none of them, I say, has ever chosen to rely upon that irresistible power in his own case. I really think that Thelwall is the best of them, and yet I find myself pretty singular in my good opinion of him. His vindication, however, let his morals be what they may, is certainly a most able and argumentative performance; perfectly adapted to the occasion; and would, I think, if actually delivered, have been well received and had its due effect: which is a great deal more than I can say in favour of citizen Holcrofts, though it has much merit, no doubt, as a composition, and may be read with more advantage than it would have been heard. Let citizen Yorke, therefore, exert himself in his own defence; he can do that surely without a fee; or if he must have a solicitor and counsel, let him openly tell the court that he has not a shilling to hire them with. But by no means let him beg..."

"Mister Yorke (for a culprit in a black silk coat does not appear to deserve the title of citizen) is certainly a very extraordinary young man: I had no idea of his being but three and twenty. All the papers that I have seen give a very imperfect account of his trial, which I shall be glad to peruse at large. . . . The sentence, however, will be a mere flea-bite, some three or four years imprisonment with a trifling fine, and so far as one is capable of judging from present appearances, will never be executed."

"Dr. Fuller to Ritson: "But Who made him[Robin Hood] a judge? or gave him a commission to take where it might be best spared, and give where it was most wanted?""

"Ritson: "That same power, one may answer, which authorises kings to take where it can be worst spared, and give it where it is least wanted. Our hero, in this respect, was a knight-errant; and wanted no other commission than that of justice, whose cause he militated.""

"The general election, which I suppose is entirely over on your side of the gutter, is here in the very zenith of confusion. It affords nothing remarkable however; the usual charges of feasting, drunkenness, bribery, perjury, &c. are every where rung, and fully justify an observation made by somebody or other, that the English, who are only free once in seven years, make such an ill use of their liberty as to be altogether unworthy even of so small a particle of it."

"Always prefer Tory or Jacobite writers; the Whigs are the greatest liars in the world. You consult history for facts, not principles. The Whigs, I allow, have the advantage in the latter, and this advantage they are constantly labouring to support by a misrepresentation of the former. A glaring instance of this habitual perversion is their uniform position that the King, Lords and Commons, are the three estates of the realm; than which nothing can be more false. Now, it so happens, that the bad principles of the Tories are corroborated by the facts and records of history, which makes it their interest to investigate and expose the truth: and I can readily believe that all the alterations which Hume professes to have made in his history in favour of that party were strictly just. The revolution itself was so iniquitous a transaction, and we have had such a succession of scoundrels since it took place, that you must not wonder if corruption or pusillanimity have prevented historians from speaking of both as they deserve."

"You will perceive by to-days paper that lord Malmsbury is about to return as wise as he went. Whatever the ministers object was in this ridiculous embassy, he has been apparently disappointed. It is a notorious fact that the embarrassments of government are beyond anything ever known. The treasury is unable to pay the smallest bill, though perpetually besieged by clamorous duns: and it turns out that even the miserable pittance collected from the police-offices (being the weekly amount of fees, fines, &c.) has, most rapaciously and dishonestly, been applied to the exigencies of the state, while the tradesmen, constables and other persons, who should be paid out of the money, are in the greatest distress and have actually advertised a general meeting to consider how they can obtain relief. Not a soul seems to have the remotest conception how Mr. Pitt will be able to weather the impending storm."

"I shall only request the favour to add that it would be most absurd nay inexpressibly impertinent and foolish in me to dispute the right you have in common with every other person of controverting my opinions or correcting my errors: a liberty of which no one perhaps has made a greater use than myself. I think I need call no ghost from the grave to explain the difference between information and attack. Far from being offended, you say, with any person who should acquaint you that you had a hole in your stocking or some dirt on your face, you would think yourself much obliged to him; and so should I, but not if he accompanied the information with a kick on the shin or a box on the ear. I have nothing to object to your inserting the notes of Mr. Tyrwhitt and Mr. Malone. They had received some provocation, and if they have advanced any thing I dislike I can find a speedier method of being even with them than that you are so obliging as to point out. And do you seriously think that after being gibbeted for eight or ten years in the margin of your edition it is a sufficient compensation that I stand a chance of obtaining a reversal of my sentence from your successor? No, no, e'en let me hang on."

"I am much obliged by the pains you have taken in detecting the blunders of the English Anthology. Some of them, however, are those of the author himself, or of the authority, at least, whence the piece is taken, and for these, of course, neither editor nor printer seems responsible: as to the rest one or other of us must plead guilty."

"You complain, I see, that I have too much acidity in my composition; and, I think, you have too much puritanism. St. Matthew, vii. 5."

"It has been frequently said that fools make knaves; it is equally true, I believe, that credulity is the parent of falsehood."

"As writing seems to be attended with some difficulty if not uneasiness, you have only to put down a figure of 4 or 5 before a cypher to satisfy me of the verity of the matter: a nod, you know, is as good as a wink to a blind horse."

"It may be impossible to prolong life, but it is frequently in our power to smooth the approaches of death; and they who die happily are certainly more to be envied than those who live otherwise."

"Of every species of pride or expence I abominate and detest that most which is lavished on the dead."

"I inclose the catalogue of your friend Jackson the quakeers library. Perhaps you have already heard that the owner cut his throat in the wine-cellar, where he was accustomed to retire after the family had gone to bed: and there, as one of his servants observeed, was his "dear head found lyeing among the hogsheads." You see the various ways there are of creeping out of the world."

"I want to put my little affairs in order that I may live, if I am to live, or at least die, in comfort...and do, my good friend, let me then have a final account with you; for I am strongly inclined to suspect that we shall never meet again."

"Does the expression Jugulatio, orjugulatus est, in the Ulster annals, imply strictly the cutting of a mans throat, or merely the putting him to death?"

"I can easily conceive that you see no reason for so much punctiliousness, but people act from their own conviction and their own feelings, and for my part I shall very readily confess that I had much rather both be and have a declared enemy, than an insincere friend."

"I should have expected to hear of an attack being made upon me at Constantinople as soon as at Dublin. They, I am aware, who play at bowls must expect rubbers; but I shall never be sorry to have my enemy at a distance."

"People who like him make it a ruling principle to sacrifice on all occasions friendship to interest, are seldom prepared for the consequences of their scoundrel behaviour. If he wanted a reconciliation, he knew upon what terms it was to be obtained...I beg leave to differ from you in the opinion that I "have carried resentment far enough,"—I seldom relinquish it while I remember the offence, and would not have you be surprised if I carry it to my grave."

"The modern practice of authors is rather to rival than assist one another; and indeed a mysterious jealousy on one side seems naturally enough to generate a secret hostility on the other."

"My desire to reside for a few weeks at or near Paris has been increasing ever since the Revolution, and is in reality very strong; which you will easily conceive when I give it as a decided opinion that no people ancient or modern was ever so deserving of admiration."

"I purpose setting off in the course of a few days for Paris where I mean to reside till the beginning of October. I shall not fail of paying my respects to the Irish monarch at Versailles, and will use my endeavours to procure a correct drawing of his august person."

"Well, and so, i got to Paris at last; and was highly gratifyed with the whole of my excursion. I admire the French more than ever. They deserveed to be free, and they really are so. You have read their new constitution: can any thing be more admirable? We, who pretend to be free, you know, have no constitution at all. Paris abounds with antiquities, and public monuments, which you would be delighted to see. There are three magnificent libraries; two of which at least, are infinitely beyond either Bodleys or the Museum, both for printed books and manuscripts. When uniteed, as they probablely will be in a little time, they will form the first collection in the world. All three are open to every one who choosees to go, without previous application or any exceptions. The French read a great deal, and even the common people (such, i mean, as cannot be expected from their poverty to have had a favorable education, for there is now no other distinction of rank,) are better acquainted with their ancient history than the English nobility are with ours. They talk familiarly of Charlechauve, and at St. Denis i observeed that all the company, mostly peasants or mechanics, recognizeed with pleasure the portrait of La Pucelle. Then, as to modern politics, and the principles of the constitution, one would think that half the people in Paris had no other employment than to study and talk about them. I have seen a fishwoman reading the journal of the National assembly to her neighbour who appeared to listen with all the avidity of Shakspeares blacksmith. You may now consider their government as completely settleed, and a counter-revolution as utterly impossible: They are more than a match for all the slaves in Europe. I could have got German books now in Paris; but they are by no means cheap, and i am too ignorant of the language to be sure that either the subject or the composition would be worth your notice. The incloseed, which looks like a play, i picked up merely to shew that i did not forget you. The French booksellers publish no catalogues, which seems rather extraordinary, as they are very numerous, and many of them have considerable stocks."

"One should have some sort of a mental thermometer to ascertain the boiling and freezing points of a mans friendship. At least (to change my metaphor) it would be very important to know "the sticking place" of the machine, lest by screwing too high you break it in pieces, or render it of no further use."

"Copies honestly come by are a thousand times more eligible than swindled originals."

"I do not think that man honest who would avail himself of a quirk of law to obtain what in reason and justice he can possibly have no right to."

"Though I rather think he went a little too far, in putting his friend Mrs. Wisemans cat to death for killing a mouse, which, perhaps nature, certainly education, had taught her to look upon as a duty...."

"You talk of sending me the pebbles of the brook in exchange for the gold of Ophir: you return me the pearls of the Ocean for the mud of the Thames."

"To establish yourself at Stockton you have nothing to do but, by dint of evidence, &c. to gain a desperate cause or two, ruin two or three honest, and hang two or three innocent men, and your fortune is made."

"One story's good, they say, till another's told. Your clients, I will do you the justice to believe, can lye no faster than you can swear. But you seem to forget that the judge and jury generally have the curiosity to hear both sides. You will find it no difficult matter perhaps to black-ball Sam S. but if you can white-wash Mr. H. you'll be a clever fellow indeed."

"Your reflections are still worse founded, and could only arise from your considering me in the light of a pettyfogging attorney."

"I confess it is a case I know not how to handle, since the actor can bear raillery no worse than the action will applause."

"...as to the people, I don't care a single farthing what they say, indeed I am too well acquainted with their natural propensity to lying and scandal, to expect either thanks or good words for my endeavours to serve them."

"With respect to charity jobs, I am no more fond of them than yourself, and beg that this may be the last I receive from you, as I plainly perceive, if you can get an agent to do your business for nothing, it will in a very little time consist of nothing else but charity jobs."

"...but if you succeed in persuading this poor devil to part with every penny of his own profits, in stripping him to the skin, in picking him to the bone, Jonathan Wild was a fool to you, that's all. You have my full and free consent to do whatever you please with the fellow, and god send him a good deliverance. But you won't forget to lend me the cash!"

"By heaven, I verily believe if he were only to employ you to draw him up a lease for a year, he would never be able to get out of your clutches as long as he lived. ...Old Slangy was a fool to you."

"You cannot say that I have ever been backward in doing justice to your ingenious contrivances and unremitting assiduity in pursuit of money. I foresaw the success of your design upon the poor Count, too well concerted, indeed, to give him a chance of eluding it. But I am not yet sufficiently hardened to congratulate you upon an event which affords the immediate prospect of a jail for your client, and the not very distant one of a gallows—or at least a pillory—for yourself. Jonathan Wild was a great man, to be sure; but I would not have you forget that he was hanged at last."

"Wolleys reflection on your proposal of drawing under the bar is certainly just...if it had not been for that little dirty place in the Savoy, I should most probably at this moment have been either in a jail, an attorneys office, or stationers shop; and it would be hard to say which of those situations is the worst."

"You would be a slave to the attorneys, Whom I Have Found NOT ONLY THE MOST IGNORANT AND CAPRICIOUS, BUT THE MOST INSINCERE, UNPRINCIPLED, AND IN EVERY RESPECT, WORTHLESS OF MEN. In a word you had much better hang yourself at once than begin to draw under the bar. If you do not immediately accept Wolleys offer you may resign yourself to everlasting damnation, as there will not be a chance left of your doing well."

"I thank you for the perusal of citizen Stanhopes letter, which does him great credit, no doubt, in several respects...it being perfectly clear...there is no law or dictum whatever which can render it criminal to supply a traitor, felon or other malefactor with the means of defending himself on his trial. But I say again, it is infinitely more commendable for a man of talents, accused of virtuous acts or intentions, by the name of treason or sedition, to depend entirely upon his own powers, than to be beholden to the prostituted eloquence of professional hirelings, let their abilities be what they may, procured too by means of a beggarly subscription: though no one has had energy enough to do so in this country. If Horne Tooke had defended himself, without assistance, he might, indeed, have been hanged, but, I believe, as he told the court, he would have been the last that suffered under such laws."

"It suits your purpose, no doubt, to delude the unwary by false colors; as the devil, when he commences innkeeper, hangs out an angel for his sign. The real meaning, however, is that you '--set down ALL in malice.' Shakspears morality, in the hands of a Reviewer, is to be read backward, like a witch's prayer."

"You would see my name in the last Gentlemans Magazine. The scoundrel of an editor had the impertinence to omit the best part of my letter."

"Damn the king and all his adherents. Fox and Liberty for ever!"

"You may give Citizen Equality a hint that I find it prudent to say as little as possible upon political subjects, in order to keep myself out of Newgate."

"With respect to a revolution, though I think it at no great distance, it seems to defy all calculation for the present. If the increase of taxes, the decline of manufactures, the high price of provisions, and the like, have no effect upon the apathy of the sans culottes here, one can expect little from the reasoning of philosophers or politicians. When the pot boils violently, however, it is not always in the cooks power to prevent the fat from falling into the fire. But suppose a revolution do happen, how is it to provide for you? People will have to work for their bread, I presume, pretty much as they do at present; for a long series of years at least; and he who has nothing will be in equal danger of starving. In fact the idea of an approaching change should influence you the rather to fix yourself in a business or situation which would enable you to take advantage of it when it did come: and I do not see but an attorney is as likely to make his way in case of a revolution as any other member of the profession."

"I hope your patriotic exertions, of which this is by no means the first, will be productive in time of the success they merit; but am afraid that the vices of government, which "infect to the north star," are inimical, at present, to every species of reformation."

"The attorney general has prepared no less than three indictments against Eaton for his "Hogs wash," and a fourth against poor Spence for his "Pigs meat:" so that these two worthy swineherds seem to have brought their hogs to a fine market. I have not yet seen the latter, but Eatons daughter informs me that he has long made up his mind for another imprisonment, and has accordingly taken a shop in Newgate-street, that he may have his family near him, and that the great cause, which he appears to have much at heart, may not be neglected in his confinement. We have not been hitherto able to do any thing for our friend Rickman, who sent me the other day one of citizen Paines pens, with some pretty occasional verses, which you may probably like to see."

"Whatever change may take place you must have better pretensions, I presume, to intitle yourself to its advantages than a set of political and religious opinions; unless you think it sufficient to emulate the bons citoyens who make it their business, in rags and tatters, to discuss questions in the Jardin de la revolution, for the good of their country."

"But what danger either can be in from any event that I, at least, have in contemplation I really do not comprehend. No reformer, Painite, or whatever you please to call us, proposes to put himself in a worse condition than he is in at present: and every one has something of his own, such as it is —I myself have a little. You may therefore be assured that the most violent revolutionist is as little anxious as yourself for any change that would put in jeopardy the well earned fruits of your honest industry. If, indeed, you were a sinecure placeman or pimping pensioner of ten or twenty thousand a year you might I confess have some little reason to fear. But as it is, I can perceive that you have a good deal to gain and nothing at all to lose. For my part, though I do not clearly see what I shall get by a revolution, I possess a place which brings me in from fifty to one hundred a year, and that I shall be certain to lose. The most prominent feature in the new system is the abolition of taxes; and, since you are an expert arithmetician, and able calculator, I shall be glad to learn the specific injury you will sustain by that. No, no; depend upon it, my friend, that your ideas on this subject are a little erroneous: and, if you think truth preferable to falsehood and right to wrong, I would recommend you to enlighten your mind by an attentive erusal of the "Rights of man," and Godwins "Enquiry concerning Political Justice," both which, I presume, you may procure if you have an inclination. At any rate, when the row begins, I should think it a point of prudence to remain a temperate spectator, till, at least, the contest is fairly decided..."

""Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes," I dread a Scotchman bringing ancient verse."

"You are sufficiently acquainted with the wild and unfounded notions published by Mr. Tytler and others, upon the subject of Scotish Music. The character given of Scotish men by old surly Johnson was, generally speaking, far from unjust. They prefer any thing to truth, when the latter is at all injurious to the national honour: nor are they, as far as I can perceive, very solicitous about it on any occasion."

"I am now satisfied that no one can tell me from good authority what was the vulgar language of the South of Scotland in the Xllth century; I, however, entirely concur with you in opinion, that it was the English Saxon."

"Shoals of Scotchmen are arriving here every day; the difficulty, I should imagine, would be to find one going back. Edinburgh, at the same time, is so very small a place, that you may be easily acquainted with the motions of every individual from your shop-door. Formerly, I have been told, when a Scotchman intended a journey to the South, he used to ring the cryers bell for a quarter of a year beforehand, in order to indemnify himself against the enormous expences of the Newcastle waggon, by the packets and parcels he got the charge of from his neighbours; but at present, I suppose, the neighbours go too— not in the Newcastle waggon, I mean, but the mail-coach—Tempora mutantur!"

"Wintons chronicle, I understand, is to be published early this winter. The editor is Mr. Macpherson, (not the Highland impostor); and I am assured that the utmost accuracy and integrity is to be manifested on the occasion: either of which, you know, is pretty extraordinary in a Scotchman. Indeed, I am apt to suspect the publishers abilities rather than his honesty: but he has got a very masterly assistant."

"A Scotchman in a passion must necessarily be a very ferocious and dangerous animal: it is therefore, very well for me to have been at so great a distance when the fit came on; otherwise, perhaps, instead of an angry letter, I should have received your dirk in my wem. Egertons advice, no doubt, was meant to be confined to English Booksellers, as he must be thoroughly sensible, if it were only from his dealings with you, of the immaculacy of his Scotish brethren...You seem to forget that three shillings sterling is near two pounds Scots, and that there has been a time when the mighty and puissant Monarch of all Scotland had not such a sum in his Treasury. The case is altered, I perceive, at present; but whom have you to thank for it?"

"Like a skilful husbandman you must force the soil which nature has left sterile; and depend upon it the produce will be answerable to the cultivation."

"You cannot do better, I think, than commit yourself to the care of one of the Stockton captains who are for the most part very honest people, except, indeed, where it is their interest to be otherwise, which is as much as one can say of any body. If you can get nothing better on board of ship than biscuit and water, you may certainly make a shift to subsist upon that food for a week or two, and though there may be neither bed nor hammock for you, when a person is fatigued he will sleep very comfortably on a cabin floor or a coil of rope. Besides, a little temporary hardship at the outset of your expedition into the world may teach you to bear those greater misfortunes to which all are liable, with more philosophy...."

"But I am sure you will agree with me that truth should be preferred to all things and sacrificed to nothing; and that a single fact is worth a hundred conjectures."

"I am quite sick of the modern writers of ancient history, who think to make amends by their fine language for the total want of industry, truth and candour."

"I am glad to find you persist so heroically in a mode of living, which you will one day or other find to have been of essential service both to your body and mind, by preserving health and a good conscience, neither of which you could possibly have, if you addicted yourself to the unnatural and diabolical practice of devouring your fellow creatures, as pigs and geese undoubtedly are … I am to signify to you that eggs are henceforward to be considered as animal food, and, consequently prohibited to be eaten."

"As human sacrifices were a natural effect of that superstitious cruelty which first produced the slaughter of animals, so is it equally natural that those accustomed to eat the brute, should not long abstain from the man: more especially as; when toasted or broiled on the altar, the appearance, savour, and taste of both would be nearly, if not entirely, the same."

"You will certainly find yourself healthier, and if you have either conscience or humanity, happier, in abstaining from animal food than you could possibly be in depriving, by the indulgence of an unnatural appetite and the adherence to a barbarous custom, hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent creatures of their lives, to the enjoyment of which they have as good a right as yourself."

"The consciousness of a mind disposed to contribute to the happiness of the minutest being … shall afford you a much greater and more heartfelt satisfaction than to be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day."

"Joseph Ritson is a minor figure in the literary history of the latter half of the eighteenth century...Ritson's method of criticism was so invidiously personal and his beliefs and habits were so eccentric that attention was attracted primarily to his peculiarities, while his stable qualities were overlooked by the majority."

"The growing scarcity of Mr. Ritson's publications is the best proof of their utility in illustrating the progress of the language and the manners of our ancestors; but the temper of the man is every day coming forth in a more unamiable light, since, with all his savage ravings about the inaccuracy of others, deeper research than his, is constantly proving him to have been as inaccurate as the best of them. This ought to be a lesson to all black-letter men; and should teach them to be cautious how they set themselves above the old adage, humanum est errare."

"Out of bounds in many things, doubtless, was Joseph Ritson; he was, however, born in the regular way..."

"As a mediator of pure texts, and as a castigator of editorial morals, [Ritson] is the eminent figure of the century...As between Percy and Ritson, the suffrage must fall to Ritson...The "elegant" bishop Percy and the "curious" Mr. Ritson naturally could not bed together. "Curiosity" seems to us the better endowment for a ballad editor; as to the rest, each may wear his own laurels in the other's despite."

"The potential conflict inherent in every word, and finding expression in the fact that the use of every word is an individual embodiment of a general concept, is the focal point of semantics understood as a part of linguistics — that is as a science of the meanings of words and the history of such meanings"

"In a certain sense may be considered a superior discipline to lexicology, for results are more important than intentions and the value of theoretical principles must be estimated according to results."

"[ Semantics can be defined as] the science of the meanings of words, [the central issue of which is] the problem of the relationship between words and designata."

"Not only the tools of manual labour, but also the tools of human thought — words — are subject to the laws of historical development. The history of the meanings of words is outside the area of interest of formal logic, and could not be fruitfully studied by the methods of that discipline."

"For Witold Doroszewski, at the root of semantic analysis lies the philosophical issue of the relationship between the general and the particular, the starting point being the analysis of the function of the copula "is". Doroszewski analyses the problem of meaning as closely linked with denotation. It is in that question that he sees the focal point of semantics."

"Professor Witold Doroszewski (1899–1976) was an exceptional personality, a man of great talent and great labour, which ensured him a glittering and rapid career resulting i.a. in the linguistic school that formed around him in the Warsaw academia. The basis of his academic achievements was an original philosophical concept originating from Aristotelian monism, the centre of which was the notion of homo loquens (a talking man). With respect to linguistics, Witold Doroszewski’s outstanding accomplishments are concerned with word formation; lexicography, lexicology and semantics; culture of language; dialectology; general linguistics. Professor Witold Doroszewski’s achievements correspond with various streams of contemporary linguistics and are an object of a continuing academic discourse."

"Doroszewski [was] the author of the most important dictionary of the 20th-century Polish language (at least in the category of general-purpose dictionaries)."

"Witold Doroszewski treated the culture of language as a significant part of linguistics. He believed that popularising correct Polish and knowledge of language is more important than pointing out and analysing linguistic errors since promoting positive models is the basis of work on language. He defined language as one of the forms of the human activity in the society. Apart from numerous specific solutions, radio advice, collected in 3 volumes of O kulturę słowa (About the culture of the word), he also formulated several general principles of the culture of language. He presented the first set of criteria for linguistic correctness, developed theoretical assumptions of the dictionary of correct Polish, defined the notion of linguistic norm and linguistic error. Many findings and observations contained in his studies have been valid to date, his way of treating prescriptive linguistics has been continued by his students."

"The Master said, [...] "Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles." [...] "Have no friends not equal to yourself." [...] "When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them.""

"To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage."

"When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves."

"When I walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers. I will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid them."

"The Master standing by a stream, said, "It passes on just like this, not ceasing day or night!""

"The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar."

"The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions."

"I cannot help dancing with joy to hear that the doctrines of our sages have now become available to [people of] the Western Sea. [...] James Legge has proven himself a man of culture and courage [...] by studying the way of our sages through the commentaries [...] so as to transform the [Western] barbarians."

"James Legge had a rare largeness and simplicity of nature, and was distinguished by the dignity which never fails to adorn the single-minded man. He was, though so upright, as gentle as a child, and while severely conscientious he was saved by his delightful humour from being either fierce or fanatical. [...] He was a man of fine presence, pure purpose, and courageous speech [...]. He was sent Eastwards, to the oldest of living civilisations, and he studied it with an eye made luminous by love. [...] He gained the affection and confidence of the Chinese as but few foreigners have ever done, for he loved them truly, and they knew the simple integrity of his love. [...] Did he not judge with charity as well as knowledge? He had the insight which comes of the heart even more than of the head into their literature and religion; and he saw that the primary condition of making the “'est influential in the East was to make the East intelligible to the West. [...] Out of this understanding came his magnificent edition of the Chinese Classics. Of its learning it does not become me to speak; the invincible patience, the heroic industry that went to its production, we can all admire. But only those who knew the man can appreciate the idea, the splendid dream of humanity and religion that gave it birth."

"Dr. Legge, from his raw literary training when he began his work, and the utter want of critical insight and literary perception he showed to the end, was really nothing more than a great sinologue, that is to say, a pundit with a very learned but dead knowledge of Chinese books."

"One habit he maintained almost to his death, a habit which was the cause of no little astonishment among his friends. He habitually rose about 3 A.M., and worked at his desk for five hours, while the rest of the household slept. Soon after his arrival, the lighted study attracted the night-policeman to the house, 'fearful lest, at so suspicious an hour, mischief in some dishonest form or other was afoot.'"

"Legge made a fetish of literalness, as if a certain air of foreign remoteness, rather than clarity, were the mark of fidelity. What Mencius said was this, in exactly twelve words in Chinese, that when armies were lined up with spears and shields to attack a city, "the weather is less important than the terrain, and the terrain less important than the army morale." Or, more literally, if one preferred: "Sky-times not so good as ground-situation; ground-situation not so good as human harmony." To any Chinese child "sky-times" simply means the weather and can mean nothing else; "ground-situation" means the terrain, and "human harmony" means the army morale. But, according to Legge, Mencius said, "Opportunities of time (vouchsafed by) Heaven are not equal to advantages of situation (afforded by) the Earth, and advantages of situation (afforded by) the Earth are not equal to (the union arising from) the accord of Men.""

"The calculations and conjectures of Professor Muller cannot be looked upon as having in any essential manner contributed to the final settlement of the question. Doubtless he would himself make no such pretensions in their favor; but he is in danger of being misunderstood as doing so; we have already more than once seen it stated that " Muller has ascertained the date of the Vedas to be 1200-1000 B. C.," or to that effect."

"Whitney ([1874] 1987) had made a point of mentioning that Muller himself had made no pretensions that his dates had "in any essential manner contributed to the final settlement of the question." But his concern is that Muller "is in danger of being misunderstood as doing so; we have already more than once seen it stated that 'Muller has ascertained the date of the Vedas to be 1200-1000 B.C.'" (78)."

"Whitney, not one to ignore Müller’s flights of poetic fancy, mocked Müller when he seemed to depict the Aryans as “perched for a couple of thousand years upon some exalted post of observation, watching thence the successive departure from their ancient home of the various European tribes” (Whitney 1987 1.95–96):"

"Whitney's association with Darwin and his rivalry with Müller, both international celebrities of the Victorian age, made him a towering public presence and brought him a transatlantic fame unattainable by most Americans of his time."

"We came down on them like a flood, We went out among their cities, We tore down the idol-temples, We shat on the Buddha's head!"

"England is the paradise of women, the purgatory of men, and the hell of horses."

"Since honour from the honourer proceeds, How well do they deserve that memorize And leave in Books, for all posterities The names of worthies and their virtuous deeds."

"How poor remembrances are statues, tombs, And other monuments that men erect To princes, which remain in closèd rooms Where but a few behold them, in respect Of Books, that to the universal eye Show how they lived; the other where they lie!"

"Quoi qu’en dise Aristote et sa docte cabale, Le tabac est divin, il n’est rien qui n’égale."

"Quand on n'a pas ce que l'on aime, Il faut aimer ce que l'on a."

"Word of the day is ‘recrudescence’ (17th century): the return of something terrible after a time of reprieve"

"I feel that in many respects I and my assistants are simply pioneers, pushing our way experimentally through an untrodden forest, where no white man's axe has been before us."

"The circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference."

"Quotations will tell the full measure of meaning — if you have enough of them."

"V.M. Apte strikes a neutral note: "Whether fetishism is to be read into a reference to an image of Indra and whether the worship of idols or images of gods was known to the Rigveda, are points on which no certain conclusions can be reached. ""

"The three-fold nature of Agni is a favourite topic with RV poets: his heads, bodies, stations, splendours and births are each three-fold. He is the earliest representative of the famous Indian trinity... ""

"Clothes were generally woven of sheepís wool ... The dress in this period seems to have consisted of three garments ñ an under-garment (nivi), a garment proper (Vasas) and an over-garment (Adhi-vasas), like a mantle or cloak. The Satapatha Brahmana describes the set of sacrificial garments as consisting of silk under-garment (Tarpya), a garment of undyed wool, an over-garment and a turban (Ushnisa). A royal head-gear or turban is worn at the Rajasuya and Vajapeya ceremonies by the king. The turban of the Vratya is referred to. The sandal or shoe was made of boar-skin ... Skins were used as clothing."

"The milch-cow (Dhenu) is contrasted with the bull, and there are special terms for cows, oxens and calves of different ages, for cows barren or otherwise and in various stages of growth and motherhood, as well as for a cow with a calf substituted for one of her own which had died (Apte in Majumdar 1951: 460)"

"I never cared a bit for philology; my chief aim has been throughout to illustrate the social condition of the English people in the past."

"Anglia cui mater fuerat, cui Gallia nutrix, Matri nutricem praefero mente meam. Six utriusque tamen meritis praeconia justis Attribuo, niteant ut probitate pares."