or deepest reason: For wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy; judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully from one another ideas wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another. This is a way of proceeding quite contrary to metaphor and allusion, wherein, for the most part, lies that entertainment and pleasantry of wit which strikes so lively on the fancy, and is therefore so acceptable to all people.

LOCKE.

GENUINE AND INNOCENT WIT.

Where wit is combined with sense and information, when it is refined by benevolence, and restrained by strong principle; when it is in the hands of a man who can use and despise it

who can be witty and something much better than witty, who loves honour, justice, decency, good-nature, morality, and religion ten thousand times better than wit-wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of our nature. There is no more interesting spectacle than to see the effects of wit upon the different characters of men;—than to observe it expanding caution, relaxing dignity,-unfreezing coldness, teaching age, and care, and pain, to smile,extorting reluctant beams of pleasure from melancholy, and charming even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it penetrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually bringing men much nearer together, and like the combined force of wine and oil, giving each man a glad heart and shining countenance. Genuine and innocent wit like this is surely the flavour of the mind. Man could not direct his way by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavour, and brightness, and laughter and perfumes, to enliven the days

of man's pilgrimage, and to charm his pained steps over the burning marl.

SYDNEY SMITH.

LAUGHTER.

How much lies in laughter: the cipher-key, wherewith we decipher the whole man! Some men wear an everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies a cold glitter as of ice: the fewest are able to laugh what can be called laughing, but only sniff and titter from the throat outwards; or at best, produce some whiffling husky cachinnation, as if they were laughing through wool: of none such comes good. The man who cannot laugh is not only fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; but his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem.

CARLYLE.

TEMPERANCE.

Temperance is reason's girdle and passion's

bridle.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

F

SOBRIETY.

Modesty and humility are the sobriety of the mind temperance and chastity are the sobriety of the body.

WHICHCOTE.

CONTENTMENT.

There is much variety even in creatures of the same kind. See, there are two snails: one hath a house; the other wants it. Yet, both are snails and it is a question whether case is the better; that which hath a house hath more shelter, but that which wants it hath more freedom. The privilege of that cover is but a burden; you see if it has but a stone to climb over, with what stress it draws up that beneficial load; and if the passage proves strait finds no entrance: whereas the empty snail finds no difference of way. Surely it is always an ease and sometimes a happiness, to have nothing: no man is so worthy of envy as he that is cheerful in want.

BISHOP HALL.

SERVICES TO OTHERS.

One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down to his account as a favour conferred. Another is not ready to do this, but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows what he has done. A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has once produced itsproper fruit. As a horse when he has run, a dog when he has tracked the game, a bee when it has made the honey, so such a man when he has done a good act does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season. Must a man then be one of these, who in a manner act thus without observing it ?—Yes.

M. ANTONINUS.*

*The passages from M. Antoninus are taken from Mr. George Long's translation of the Emperor's Thoughts.