MADNESS.

It is very common for madmen to catch an accidental hint and strain it to the purpose predominant in their minds; hence Shakspeare makes Lear pick up a flock, who from this immediately thinks to surprize his enemies by a troop of horse shod with flocks, or felt.

Notes upon Shakspeare, vol. 9, P. 527.

MEANNESS.

An infallible characteristic of meanness is

cruelty.

False Alarm, p. 49.

MERCHANT.

No mercantile man or mercantile nation has any friendship but for money; and alliance between them will last no longer than their common safety or common profit is endangered; no longer than they have an enemy who threatens to take from each more than either can steal from the other,

Political State of Great-Britain, p. 50.

A merchant's desire is not of glory, but of gain; not of public wealth, but of private emolumént; he is therefore rarely to be consulted about war and peace, or any designs of wide extent and distant consequences.

Taxation no Tyranny, P. 9.

MEMORY,

It may be observed, that we are apt to premise to ourselves a more lasting memory than the changing state of human things admits; late events obliterate the former; the civil wars have

left

1

left in this nation scarcely any tradition of more ancient history.

Notes upon Shakspeare, vol. 6, p. 124.

We suffer equal pain from the pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanescence of those which are pleasing and useful; and it may be doubted, whether we should be more benefited by the art of memory or the art of forgetfulness.

Idler, vol. 2, p. 119.

Forgetfulness is necessary to remembrance.

Ibid.

To forget or to remember at pleasure are equally beyond the power of man, Yet, as memory may be assisted by method, and the decays of knowledge repaired by stated times of recollection, so the power of forgetting is capable of improvement. Reason will, by a resolute contest, prevail over imagination; and the power may be obtained of transferring the attention as judg ment shall direct,

Ibid. p. 112.

Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive or by what he can desire. He therefore that, after the perusal of a book, finds few ideas remaining in his mind, is not to consider the disappointment as peculiar to himself, or to resign all hopes of improvement, because he does not retain what even the author has, perhaps, forgotten. Ibid. p. 120.

The true art of memory is the art of attention. No man will read with much advantage, who is

not

not able, at pleasure, to evacuate his mind, and who brings not to his author an intellect defecat-ed and pure; neither turbid with care, nor agitated with pleasure. If the repositories of thought are already full, what can they receive? If the mind is employed on the past or future, the book will be held before the eyes in vain.

Ibid. p. 123.

Memory is the purveyor of reason, the power which places those images before the mind, upon which the judgment is to be exercised, and which.. treasures up the determinations that are once passed, as the rules of future action, or grounds of subsequent conclusion.

Rambler, vol. 1, p. 248.

The two offices of memory are collection anddistribution. By one, images are accumulated, and by the other, produced for use. Collection is always the employment of our first years, and dis-tribution commonly that of our advanced age. Idler, vol. 1, p. 246.

MIND..

An envious and unsocial mind, too proud to give pleasure and too sullen to receive it, always endeavours to hide its malignity from the world: and from itself, under the plainness of simple ho-.. nesty, or the dignity of haughty independence.

Notes upon Shakspeare, vol. 2, p. 270.

Of the powers of the mind, it is difficult to form an estimate. Many have excelled Milton in their first essays, who never rose to works like. "Paradise Lost."

Life of Milton,

Those

Those who look upon the mind to depend on the seasons, and suppose the intellect to be subject to periodical ebbs and flows, may justly be derided as intoxicated by the fumes of a vain ima gination. Sapiens dominabitur astris. The author. that thinks himself weather-bound, will find, with a little help from hellebore, that he is only idle or exhausted. But while this notion has possession. of the head, it produces the inability which it supposes.

Ibid.

Another opinion (equally ridiculous) wanders about the world, and sometimes finds reception among wise men; an opinion that restrains the operation of the mind to particular regions, and supposes that a luckless mortal may be born in a degree of latitude too high or too low for wisdom or for wit..

Ibid.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope. Rambler, vol. 1, p. 8.

There seem to be some minds suited to great and others to little employments; some formed to soar sloft, and others to grovel on the ground, and confine their regard to a narrow sphere. Of these, the one is always in danger of becoming: useless by a daring negligence; the other, by a. scrupulous solicitude. The one collects many ideas, but confused and indistinct; the other is busied in minute accuracy, but without compass and without dignity..

Ibid. p. 26c.

There are some minds so fertile and comprehensive, that they can always feed reflection with new supplies,

supplies, and suffer nothing from the preclusion of adventitious amusements; as some cities have, within their own walls, enclosed ground enough to feed their inhabitants in a siege.

Ibid. vol. 3, p. 179.

Such is the delight of mental superiority, that one on whom nature or study have conferred would purchase the gifts of fortune by its loss.

Ibid. p. 267.

Nothing produces more singularity of manners, and inconstancy of life, than the conflict of opposite vices in the same mind. He that uniformly pursues any purpose, whether good or bad, has a settled principle of action; and, as he may always find associates who are travelling the same way, is countenanced by example, and sheltered in the multitude; but a man actuated at once by different desires, must move in a direction peculiar to himself, and suffer that reproach which we are naturally inclined to bestow on those who deviate from the rest of the world, even without enquiring whether they are worse or better. Ibid. vol. 4, p. 248.

To find the nearest way from truth to truth, or from purpose to effect; not to use more instruments where fewer will be sufficient; not to move by wheels and levers, what will give way to the naked hand, is the great proof of a healthful and vigorous mind, neither feeble with helpless ignorance, nor over-burdened with unwieldly knowLedge.

Idler, vol. 1, p. 202.

PROGRESS