SINCERITY. IF the show of anything be good for anything, I am sure sincerity is better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he pretends to? For to counterfeit and dissemble is to put on the appearance of some real excellency. Now the best way in the world to seem to be anything, is really to be what we would seem to be. Besides that it is many times as troublesome to make good the pretence of a good quality as to have it, and if a man have it not it is ten to one but he is discovered to want it, and then all his pains and labour to seem to have it is lost. TILLOTSON. SINCERITY is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be. Ibid. AN inward sincerity will of course influence the outward deportment, but where the one is wanting, there is great reason to suspect the absence of the other. STERNE. Sermons. FAIRIES. IN days of old, when Arthur fill'd the throne, Gamboll'd on heaths, and danced on every green: rose, Of Phoebe served to guide their steps aright, ** And with their tripping pleased, prolong'd the night. From thence with airy flight to distant parts convey'd. * By every rill in every glen To aërial minstrelsy; Emerald rings in brown heath tracing, Trip it deft and merrily. Scorr. Lay of the Last Minstrel. Above the rest our Britain held they dear, And made more spacious rings, and revell'd half the year. To skim the bowls, and after pay the feast. OR faery elves, Whose midnight revels, by a forest-side Or fountain, some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees, while over head the moon Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth DRYDEN. Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance Intent, with jocund music charm his ear; At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. PRETENCE. Paradise Lost, Book I. How is the world deceived by noise and show! AARON HILL. ALL smatterers are more brisk and pert BUTLER. Miscellaneous Thoughts. THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions I have been laughing, I have been carousing, * Ghostlike I paced round the haunts of my childhood, Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, How some they have died, and some they have left me, C. LAMB. AN OBSTINATE MAN. HE is resolved to understand no man's reason but his own, because he finds no man can understand his but himself. His wits are like a sack, which the French proverb says is tied faster before it is full than when it is; and his opinions are like plants that grow upon rocks, that stick fast though they have no rooting. His understanding is hardened like Pharaoh's heart, and is proof against all sorts of judgments whatsoever, AND obstinacy's ne'er so stiff BUTLER. Hudibras, Part III., Canto 2. OBSTINACY, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues, constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness, are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an abhorrence; and in their excess, all these virtues very easily fall into it. BURKE. A MAN should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. SONG. Ан, Chloris! that I could sit As unconcern'd, as when POPE. Your infant beauty could beget When I the dawn used to admire, Your charms in harmless childhood lay Age from no face takes more away, Than youth conceal'd in thine. My passion with your beauty grew, Threw a new flaming dart: SIR C. SEDLEY. LANGUAGES. No sooner are the organs of the brain And therefore those imported from the East, And not worth half the drudgery they cost, As men that wink with one eye, see more true, Do, like their letters, set men's reason back; No sense at all in several languages, Will pass for learneder, than he that's known BUTLER. Upon the Abuse of Human Learning. T' ADORN their English with French scraps, And while they idly think t' enrich, Of pedants counted, and vain-glorious, In liberal arts and sciences, Must all they'd learned before in vain Forget quite, and begin again. BUTLER. On our ridiculous Imitation of the French. PATRONAGE. 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? JOHNSON. Letter to Lord Chesterfield. THE learned are not wanted to princes, but princes to the learned. ROLLIN. |