of greatnefs, where the national character is obfcured, or obliterated by travel, or inftruction, by philosophy, or vanity; nor is public happiness to be estimated by the affemblies of the gay, or the banquets of the rich. The great mass of nations is neither rich nor gay. They whofe aggregate conftitutes the people, are found in the streets and the villages; in the shops and farms; and from them, collectively confidered, must the measure of general profperity be taken. As they approach to delicacy, a nation is refined; as their conveniencies are multiplied, a nation, at least a commercial nation, must be denominated wealthy.

Western Islands, p. 45.

Such manners as depend upon standing relations and general paffions are co-extended with the race of man; but thofe modifications of life, and peculiarities of practice, which are the progeny of error and perverfenefs, or at best of fome accidental influence, or tranfient perfuafion, muft perifh with their parents.

Life of Butler.

MEAN NESS.

AN infallible characteristic of meanness is

cruelty,

Falfe alarm, p. 49.

MER

MERCHANT.

· NO mercantile man, or mercantile nation, has any friendship but for money; and alliance between them will laft no longer than their common fafety, or common profit is endangered; no longer than they have an enemy who threatens to take from each more than either can fteal from the other., Political state of Great Britain, p. 50.

A merchant's defire is not of glory, but of gain; not of public wealth, but of private emolument; he is therefore rarely to be confulted about war and peace, or any defigns of wide extent and diftant confequence.

Taxation no Tyranny, p. 9.

MIRT H.

MERRIMENT is always the effect of a fudden impreffion; the jeft which is expected is already destroyed.

Idler, vol 2. p. 32.

Any paffion, too ftrongly agitated, puts an -end to that tranquillity which is neceffary to mirth. Whatever we ardently wish to gain, we must, in the same degree, be afraid to lofe; and fear and pleasure cannot dwell together.

MINUTENESS.

THE parts of the greateft things are little; what is little can be but pretty, and by claiming dignity, becomes ridiculous.

Life of Cowley.

MISERY.

IF mifery be the effect of virtue, it ought to be reverenced; if of ill fortune, it ought to be pitied; and if of vice, not to be infulted; because it is, perhaps, itself a punishment adequate to the crime by which it was produced; and the humanity of that man can deserve no panegyric, who is capable of reproaching a criminal in the hands of the executioner.

Ditto of Savage:

The mifery of man proceeds not from any fingle crush of overwhelming evill but from fmall vexations continually repeated.

Ditto of Pope.

That mifery does not make all virtuous, experience too certainly informs us; but it is no lefs certain, that of what virtue there is, misery produces far the greater part. Phyfical evil may be therefore endured with patience, fince it

is

is the cause of moral good; and patience itself is one virtue by which we are prepared for that ftate in which evil fhall be no more.

Idler, vol. 2, p. 218.

MEMORY.

WE fuffer equal pain from the pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanefcence of those which are pleafing and useful; and it may be doubted, whether we should be more benefited by the art of memory, or the art of forgetfulness.

Ditto, ditto, p. 110.

Forgetfulness is neceffary to remembrance.

Ditto, ditto.

To forget, or to remember at pleasure, are equally beyond the power of man. Yet, as. memory may be affifted by method, and the decays, of knowledge repaired by ftated times of recollection, fo the power of forgetting is capable of improvement. Reafon will, by a refolute conteft, prevail over imagination; and the power may be obtained of transferring the attention as judgment fhall direct.

Ditto, ditto, p. 112.

Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be fatisfied who measures

them

them by what he can conceive, or by what he can defire. He, therefore, that after the perufal of a book, finds few ideas remaining in his mind, is not to confider the difappointment as peculiar to himself, or to refign all hopes of improvement, because he does not retain what even the author has, perhaps, forgtten.

Ditto, ditte, p. 120.

The true art of memory is the art of attention. No man will read with much advantage, who is not able, at pleafure, to evacuate his mind, and who brings not to his author an intellect defecated and pure; neither turbid with care, nor agitated with pleasure. If the repofitories of thought are already full, what can they receive? If the mind is employed on the past, or future, the book will be held before the eyes in vain.

Ditto, ditto, p. 123.

N.

NATURE.

NOTHING can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature.

Preface to Shakespeare, p. 8.

The