Chapter 470

They that marry ancient people merely in expectation to bury them, hang themselves in hope that one will come and cut the halter.

Andronicus. Ad. fin. 1.

Often the cockloft is empty, in those which Nature hath built many stories high.

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ANDREW FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. 1653-1716.

_From a Letter to the Marquis of Montrose, the Earl of Rothes, &c_.

I knew a very wise man that believed that, if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation.

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HENRY ST. JOHN, VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE. 1672-1751.

_On the Study and Use of History_. Letter 2.

I have read somewhere or other, in Dionysius Halicarnassus, I think, that History is Philosophy teaching by examples.

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 1706-1790.

_Poor Richard_.

God helps them that help themselves.

* * * * *

Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

* * * * *

Early to bed, and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

* * * * *

Three removes are as bad as a fire.

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Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore.

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You pay too much for your whistle.

* * * * *

_From a Letter to Miss Georgiana Shipley, on the Loss of her American Squirrel_.

Here Skugg Lies snug, As a bug In a rug.

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LAURENCE STERNE. 1713-1768.

_Tristam Shandy_.

Vol. ii. Chapter xii.

Go, poor devil, get thee gone; why should hurt thee? This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.

Vol. iii. Chapter ix.

Great wits jump.[27]

[Note 27: "Good witts will jumpe."--_Dr. Couqham, Camden Soc. Pub._, p.20]

Vol. iii. Chapter xi.

Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby--but nothing to this.

Vol. vi. Chapter viii.

And the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out for ever.

* * * * *

SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.

Page 1.

"They order" said I, "this matter better in France."

* * * * *

_In the Street_. _Calais_.

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, 'Tis all barren.

_The Passport_. _The Hotel at Paris_.

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, said I, still thou art a bitter draught.

* * * * *

_Maria_.

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.[28]

[Note 28: "Dieu mesure le vent a la brebis tondue."--_Henri Estienne_. _Premices_. etc., p. 47, a collection of proverbs, published in 1594.]

* * * * *

THOMAS PAINE. 1737-1809.

_Letter to the Addressers_.

And the final event to himself (Mr. Burke) has been that, as he rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.

* * * * *

_The Crisis_. No. 1.

These are the times that try men's souls.

* * * * *

_Age of Reason_. Part ii. ad fin. (note).

The sublime and the ridiculous are so often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.[29]

[Note 29: Probably the original of Napoleon's celebrated mot, "Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas."]

* * * * *

DON JOSEPH PALAFOX. 1780-1843.

_At the Siege of Saragossa_.

War to the knife.

* * * * *

THOMAS B. MACAULAY.

_Edinburgh Review, Oct., 1840, on Ranke's History of the Popes_.

She (the Roman Catholic Church) may still exist in undiminished vigor, when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.

* * * * *

JOHN RANDOLPH. 1773-1833.

_Speeches_, 1828.

A wise and masterly inactivity.

* * * * *

WASHINGTON IRVING.

_The Creole Village_.

The Almighty Dollar.

* * * * *

FRANCIS DUC DE ROCHEFOUCAULD. 1613-1680.

_Maxim ccxvii_.

Hypocrisy is a sort of homage that vice pays to virtue.

* * * * *

JOSEPH FOUCHE. 1763-1820.

It was worse than a crime, it was a blunder.

* * * * *

MISCELLANEOUS.

"_The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church_."

"Plures efficimur, quoties metimur a vobis; semen est sanguis Christianorum." _Tertullian_ _Apologet_., c. 50.

* * * * *

"_Corporations have no souls_."

"They (Corporations) cannot commit trespass nor be outlawed nor excommunicate, for they have no souls."--_Lord Coke's Reports_