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"And whar the Old Harry,' said he, did money. And I'm pretty heavy loaded myself. you get it?'

"Well, I made good tairms with the old devil for a hundred years, and he found me in the money.'

"It must hev been so,' said he. 'You waur not the man to git capital in any other way.' "Then he goes on: But what becomes of your pertended affection for my da'ter?'

"Twan't pertended; but you throwed yourself betwixt us with all your force, and broke the gal's hairt, and broke mine, so far as you could; and as I couldn't live without company, I hed to look for myself and find a wife as I could. I tell you, as I'm to be married to-night, and as I've swore a most etarnal oath to hev this fairm, you'll hev to raise the wind to-day, and square off with me, or the lawyers will be at you with the four closures to-morrow, bright and airly.'

"Dod dern you!' he cries out. want to drive me mad?'

'Does you

"By no manner of means,' says I, jest about as cool and quiet as a cowcumber.

"The poor old squaire fairly sweated, but he couldn't say much. He'd come up to me and say:

"Ef you only did love Merry Ann!'

"Oh,' says I, what's the use of your talking that? Ef you only hed ha' loved your own da'ter!'

Then the old chap begun to cry, and as I seed that I jest kicked over my saddle-bags lying at my feet, and the silver Mexicans rolled out a bushel on 'em, I reckon-and, oh, Lawd! how the old fellow jumped, staring with all his eyes at me and the dollars.

"It's money,' says he.

"Yes,' says I, jest a few hundreds of thousands of my 'capital.' I didn't stop at the figgers, you see.

"Then he turns to me, and says, 'Sam Snaffles, you're a most wonderful man. You're a mystery to me. Whar, in the name of Heaven, hey you been? and what hev you been doing? and whar did you git all this power of capital?'

"I jest laughed, and went to the door and called Merry Ann. She come mighty quick. I reckon she was watching and waiting.

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I must lighten, with your leave, squaire.'

"And I pulled out a leetle doeskin bag of gould half-eagles from my right-hand pocket and poured them out upon the table; then I emptied my left-hand pocket, then the sidepockets of the coat, then the skairt-pockets, and jist spread the shiners out upon the table. 'Merry Ann was fairly frightened, and run out of the room; then the old woman she come in, and as the old squaire seed her, he tuk her by the shoulder and said:

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There in yon house that holds the parish poor,
Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door;
There, where the putrid vapours flagging play,
And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;—
There children dwell who know no parent's care;
Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there;
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed,
Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed;
Dejected widows with unheeded tears,
And crippled age with more than childhood fears;
The lame, the blind, and, far the happiest they!
The moping idiot, and the madman gay.

Here too the sick their final doom receive,
Here brought, amid the scenes of grief, to grieve,
Where the loud groans from some sad chamber flow,
Mixed with the clamours of the crowd below;
Here sorrowing, they each kindred sorrow scan,
And the cold charities of man to man:
Whose laws indeed for ruined age provide,
And strong compulsion plucks the scrap from pride;
But still that scrap is bought with many a sigh,
And pride embitters what it can't deny.

Say ye, oppress'd by some fantastic woes,
Some jarring nerve that baffles your repose;
Who press the downy couch, while slaves advance
With timid eye, to read the distant glance;
Who with sad prayers the weary doctor tease
To name the nameless ever-new disease;
Who with mock-patience dire complaints endure,
Which real pain, and that alone, can cure;

How would

ye

bear in real pain to lie,

Despised, neglected, left alone to die?

How would ye bear to draw your latest breath,
Where all that's wretched paves the way for death?
Such is that room which one rude beam divides,
And naked rafters form the sloping sides;
Where the vile bands that bind the thatch are seen,
And lath and mud are all that lie between ;
Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patched, gives way
To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day:
Here, on a matted flock, with dust o'erspread,
The drooping wretch reclines his languid head;
For him no hand the cordial cup applies,

Nor wipes the tear that stagnates in his eyes;
No friends with soft discourse his pain beguile,
Nor promise hope till sickness wears a smile.

GEORGE CRABBE.

THOUGHTS AND APHORISMS.

FROM SWIFT.

An old miser kept a tame jackdaw, that ased to steal pieces of money, and hide them in a hole, which the cat observing, asked, "Why he would hoard up those round shining things that he could make no use of?" "Why," said the jackdaw, "my master has a whole chestful, and makes no more use of them than I."

If the men of wit and genius would resolve never to complain in their works of critics and detractors, the next age would not know that they ever had any.

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

Imaginary evils soon become real ones, by indulging our reflections on them; as he, who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot, can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fan

cied.

Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. This I once said to my Lord Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe, that the clerks in his office used a sort of ivory knife with a blunt edge to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only requiring a steady hand; whereas if they should make use of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it often go out of the crease, and disfigure the paper. "He who does not provide for his own house," St. Paul says, "is worse than an infidel."

And I think he who provides only for his own house, is just equal with an infidel.

When I am reading a book, whether wise or silly, it seems to me to be alive, and talking to me.

I never yet knew a wag (as the term is) who was not a dunce.

A person reading to me a dull poem of his own making, I prevailed on him to scratch out six lines together; in turning over the leaf, the ink being wet, it marked as many lines on the other side; whereof the poet complaining, I bid him be easy, for it would be better if those were out too.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.

When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the bad ones.

The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.

Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to posterity, let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.

It is grown a word of course for writers to say, "this critical age," as divines say, "this sinful age."

It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next: "Future ages shall talk of this: this shall be famous to all posterity;" whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours

are now.

I never heard a finer piece of satire against lawyers, than that of astrologers, when they pretend by rules of art to tell when a suit will end, and whether to the advantage of the plaintiff or defendant; thus making the matter depend entirely upon the influence of the stars, without the least regard to the merits of the

cause.

I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the owner within.

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, &c., beginning from his youth, and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last! ·

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

The reason why so few marriages are happy, is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.

Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, | where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.

maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man, ought to conceal his vanity.

I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs and councils governed by foolish servants.

I have known great ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who preferred none but dunces.

I have known men of great valour cowards to their wives.

I have known men of the greatest cunning perpetually cheated.

Dignity, high station, or great riches, are in some sort necessary to old men, in order to An idle reason lessens the weight of the good keep the younger at a distance, who are other ones you gave before. wise too apt to insult them upon the score of their age.

Arbitrary power is the natural object of temptation to a prince; as wine or women to a young fellow, or a bribe to a judge, or avarice to old age, or vanity to a woman.

The humour of exploding many things under the name of trifles, fopperies, and only imaginary goods, is a very false proof either of wisdom or magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions. For instance, with regard to fame; there is in most people a reluctance and unwillingness to be forgotten. We observe, even among the vulgar, how fond they are to have an inscription over their grave. It requires but little philosophy to discover and observe that there is no intrinsic value in all this; however, if it be founded in our nature, as an incitement to virtue, it ought not to be ridiculed.

Complaint is the largest tribute Heaven receives, and the sincerest part of our devotion.

The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for whoever is a master of language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt in speaking to hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in; and these are always ready at the mouth; so people come faster out of church when it is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door.

To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess that these honours were more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe if they had not been told: whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honours below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver it as a

Every man desires to live long, but no man would be old.

Love of flattery, in most men, proceeds from the mean opinion they have of themselves; in women, from the contrary.

Kings are commonly said to have long hands; I wish they had as long ears.

Princes, in their infancy, childhood, and youth, are said to discover prodigious parts and wit, to speak things that surprise and astonish: strange, so many hopeful princes, so many shameful kings! If they happen to die young, they would have been prodigies of wisdom and virtue: if they live, they are often prodigies, indeed, but of another sort.

Apollo was held the god of physic and sender of diseases. Both were originally the same trade, and still continue.

"That was excellently observed," said I, when I read a passage in an author where his opinion agrees with mine: when we differ, there I pronounce him to be mistaken.

Very few men, properly speaking, live at present; but are providing to live another time.

As universal a practice as lying is, and as easy a one as it seems, I do not remember to have heard three good lies in all my conversation, even from those who were most celebrated in that faculty.

FROM POPE.

It is not so much the being exempt from faults, as the having overcome them, that is an advantage to us: it being with the follies of the mind, as with the weeds of a field, which, if destroyed and consumed upon the place of their birth, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung there.

To pardon those absurdities in ourselves, which we cannot suffer in others, is neither

better nor worse than to be more willing to be is only hearing the same things said in a little fools ourselves, than to have others so. room or in a large saloon, at small tables or at great tables, before two candles or twenty

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us weaker ever after.

A brave man thinks no one his superior, who does him an injury; for he has it then in his power to make himself superior to the other, by forgiving it.

To relieve the oppressed, is the most glorious act a man is capable of; it is in some measure doing the business of God and Providence. What Tully says of war, may be applied to disputing; it should be always so managed as to remember, that the only end of it is peace: but, generally, true disputants are like true sportsmen, their whole delight is in the pursuit: and a disputant no more cares for the truth, than the sportsman for the hare.

Such as are still observing upon others, are like those who are always abroad at other men's houses, reforming everything there, while their own run to ruin.

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they only make a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.

The greatest advantage I know of being thought a wit by the world, is, that it gives one the greater freedom of playing the fool.

We ought, in humanity, no more to despise a man for the misfortunes of the mind, than for those of the body, when they are such as he cannot help. Were this thoroughly considered, we should no more laugh at one for having his brains cracked, than for having his head broke.

A man of wit is not incapable of business, but above it. A sprightly generous horse is able to carry a pack-saddle as well as an ass, but he is too good to be put to the drudgery.

Giving advice is, many times, only the privilege of saying a foolish thing one's self, under pretence of hindering another from doing one. A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labour of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

It is a certain truth, that a man is never so easy, or so little imposed upon, as among people of the best sense; it costs far more trouble to be admitted or continued in ill company than in good; as the former have less understanding to be employed, so they have more vanity to be pleased; and to keep a fool constantly in good humour with himself, and with others, is no very easy task.

sconces.

It is with narrowed-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

The most positive men are the most credulous; since they most believe themselves, and advise most with their falsest flatterer, and worst enemy, their own self-love.

There is nothing wanting, to make all rational and disinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they should talk together every day.

We are sometimes apt to wonder to see those people proud, who have done the meanest things, whereas a consciousness of having done poor things, and a shame of hearing them, often make the composition we call pride.

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie: for an excuse is a lie guarded.

Praise is like ambergris; a little whiff of it, and by snatches, is very agreeable: but when a man holds a whole lump of it to your nose, it is a stink, and strikes you down.

The general cry is against ingratitude; be sure the complaint is misplaced, it should be against vanity. None but direct villains are capable of wilful ingratitude; but almost everybody is capable of thinking he has done more than another deserves, while the other thinks he has received less than he deserves.

I never knew a man in my life, who could not bear another's misfortunes perfectly like a Christian.

The character of covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardliness, or ill grace, in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence. A very few pounds a year would ease that man of the scandal of avarice.1

The people all running to the capital city, is like a confluence of all the animal spirits to the heart; a symptom that the constitution is in danger.

The greatest things and the most praiseworthy, that can be done for the public good, are not what require great parts, but great honesty: therefore for a king to make an ami

1 It is said of Frederick the Great that an additional

The difference between what is commonly guinea was only wanting to render his fêtes and entercalled ordinary company and good company,

tainments magnificent.

able character, he needs only to be a man of common honesty, well advised.

There is nothing meritorious but virtue and friendship; and indeed friendship itself is but a part of virtue.

FROM LAVATER.

He who is open, without levity; generous, without waste; secret, without craft; humble, without meanness; cautious, without anxiety; regular, yet not formal; mild, yet not timid; firm, yet not tyrannical: is made to pass the ordeal of honour, friendship, virtue.

He who begins with severity in judging of another, ends commonly with falsehood.

A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity.

There is a manner of forgiving so divine, that you are ready to embrace the offender for having called it forth.

He who is master of the fittest moment to crush his enemy, and magnanimously neglects it, is born to be a conqueror.

Everything may be mimicked by hypocrisy, but humility and love united. The humblest star twinkles most in the darkest night. The more rare humility and love unite, the more radiant when they meet.

The wrath that on conviction subsides into mildness, is the wrath of a generous mind.

If you ask me which is the real hereditary sin of human nature, do you imagine I shall answer pride, or luxury, or ambition, or egotism? No; I shall say indolence: who conquers indolence will conquer all the rest.

Avoid the eye that discovers with rapidity the bad, and is slow to see the good.

Sagacity in selecting the good, and courage to honour it, according to its degree, determines your own degree of goodness.

Who cuts is easily wounded. The readier you are to offend, the sooner you are offended.

He who is respectable when thinking himself alone and free from observation, will be so before the eye of all the world.

The manner of giving shows the character of the giver more than the gift itself: there is a princely manner of giving and a royal manner of accepting.

He who affects useless singularity, has a little mind.

The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint: the affectation of sanctity is a blotch on the face of piety.

The wrangler, the puzzler, the word-hunter, are incapable of great actions.

Who, at the relation of some unmerited misfortune smiles, is either a fool, a fiend, or a villain.

Know, that the great art to love your enemy consists in never losing sight of man in him: humanity has power over all that is human; the most inhuman man still remains man, and never can throw off all taste for what belongs to man-but you must learn to wait.

The most abhorred thing in nature is the face that smiles abroad, and flashes fury when it returns to the lap of a tender, helpless family. Between passion and lie there is not a finger's breadth.

Then talk of patience, when you have borne him who has none, without repining.

Trust not him with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.

It is possible that a wise and good man may be prevailed on to game: but it is impossible that a professed gamester should be a wise and great man.

He who believes not in virtue, must be vicious; all faith is only the reminiscence ef the good that once arose and the omen of the good that may arise within us.

If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these aphorisms as affected you, and set a mark to such as left a sense of uneasiness with you, and then show your copy to whom you please.

PLEASURES OF PROMISE.

Things may be well to seem that are not well to be, And thus bath fancy's dream been realized to me.

we deem the distant tide a blue and solid ground; We seek the green hill's side, and thorns are only found Is hope then ever so?-or is it as a tree,

Whereon fresh blossoms grow, for those that faded be!

Oh, who may think to sail from peril and from stare,

When rocks beneath us fail, and bolts are in the air?

Yet hope the storm can quell with a soft and happy tune,

Or hang December's cell with figures caught from June:
And even unto me there cometh, less forlorn,
An impulse from the sea, a promise from the morn.

When summer shadows break, and gentle winds rejoice,
On mountain or on lake ascends a constant voice
With a hope and with a pride, its music woke of eld,
And every pulse replied in tales as fondly told.

Though illusion aids no more the poetry of youth,
Its fabled sweetness o'er, it leaves a pensive truth:-
That tears the sight obscure, that sounds the ear betray,
That nothing can allure the heart to go astray.

S. LAMAN BLANCHARD.

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