when the temptation to transgress it is upon him, is almost sure to reason himself into an error. If we are in so great a degree passive under our Habits, where, it is asked, is the exercise of virtue, the guilt of vice, or any use of moral or religious knowledge? I answer in the forming and contracting of these Habits.* PALEY. Moral Philosophy, Book I., Chap. 7. We must choose betimes such virtuous objects as are proportioned to the means we have of pursuing them, and belong particularly to the stations we are in, and the duties of those stations. We must determine and fix our minds in such manner upon them, that the pursuit of them may become the business and the attainment of them the end of our whole lives. Thus we shall imitate the great operations of Nature, not the feeble, slow, and imperfect operations of Art. We must not proceed in forming the moral character, as a statuary proceeds in forming a statue, who works sometimes on the face, sometimes on one part, and sometimes on another; but we must proceed as Nature does in forming a flower, or any other of her productions; she throws out altogether and at once the whole system of every being and the rudiments of all the parts. 66 BACON. THE Scythian philosopher was asked by the Athenian, How he could go naked in frost and snow? "How," said the Scythian, can you endure your face exposed to the sharp wintry My face is used to it," said the Athenian. "Think me all face," replied the Scythian. air ?" 66 We are so wonderfully formed, that, whilst we are creatures vehemently desirous of novelty, we are as strongly attached to habit and custom. But it is the nature of things which hold us by custom, to affect us very little whilst we are in possession of them, but strongly when they are absent. BURKE. THERE is great value in the removal of many indifferent matters out of the region of discussion into that of precedent. Essays and Reviews. *Since the generality of persons act from impulse rather than from principle, men are neither so good nor so bad as we are apt to think them. HARE. Guesses at Truth. IT is a custom More honour'd in the breach than the observance. THAT monster, Custom, who all sense doth eat Of habit's devil, is angel yet in this; To the next abstinence; the next more easy; Hamlet. Hamlet. ADDRESS TO THE WOODLARK. O STAY, Sweet warbling woodlark, stay, A hapless lover courts thy lay, Thy soothing fond complaining. Again, again, that tender part, Say, was thy little mate unkind, Thou tells o' never-ending care, BURNS. ENGLAND. HAIL, noble Albion! where no golden mines, Rich queen of mists and vapours! these thy sons With their cool arms compress, and brace their nerves For deeds of excellence and high renown. JOHN DYER. The Fleece. I LOVE thee, O my native Isle ! When glancing o'er thy beauteous land O ALBION! O my mother Isle ! J. MONTGOMERY. (Those grassy hills, those glittering dells And Ocean, 'mid his uproar wild COLERIDGE. Ode to the Departing Year. Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed spot, this earth, this realm, this England. TOGETHER with that pale, that white-faced shore, Even till that utmost corner of the west HAPPY is England! I could be content King John, Act II. To see no other verdure than its own; For skies Italian, and an inward groan And half forget what world or worlding meant. KEATS. Sonnets. I TRAVELL'D among unknown men In lands beyond the sea; Nor, England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee. WORDSWORTH. SCOTLAND. THEIR groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom. SHE thought the isle that gave her birth, BURNS. HOGG. Queen's Wake. HERRICK. FAME. THE breath of popular applause. ALAS! what boots it with incessant care To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade, Were it not better done, as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair? Fame is the spire that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble minds) To scorn delights, and live laborious days: Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, Set off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies: Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." I COURTED fame, but as a spur to brave MALLETT. POSTHUMOUS FAME. Tickler. I HARDLY understand the nature of the desire of posthumous fame.* Shepherd. Nor me neither. But the truth is I understand naething. That I love to gaze on a rose or a rainbow, on a wall-flow'r, on a castle and a wreath of snaw, and a laverock in the lift, and a dewy starnie, and a bit bonnie wee pink shell, and an insect dancin' like a diamond, and a glimmer o' the moon on water, be it a great wide Highland loch, or only a sma' fountain or well in the wilderness-and on a restless wave, and on a steadfast cloud, and on the face of a lisping child that means amaist naething, and on the face o' a mute maiden that means amaist everything-that I love to gaze on a' these, and a thousan' things beside in heaven and on earth that are dreamt of in my philosophy, my beatin' heart tells me every day, but the why and the wherefore are generally hidden frae me, and *Whether it is that Fame, being a fruit grafted on the body, can hardly grow and much less ripen till the stock is in the earth; or whether she be a bird of prey, and is lured among the rest to pursue after the scent of a carcass; or whether she conceives her trumpet sounds best and farthest when she stands on a tomb by the advantage of a rising ground and the echo of a hollow vault. SWIFT. Tale of a Tub. G |