that they would not add any thing to the Dean's character.-The same. The rule laid down in the beginning of the Essay on Man, of reasoning only from what we know, is certainly a right one, and will go a great way towards destroying all the school metaphysics; and as the church writers have introduced so much of these metaphysics into their systems it will destroy a great part of what is advanced by them too. The same. in man. At present we can only reason of the divine justice from what we know of justice When we are in other scenes, we may have truer and nobler ideas of it; but while we are in this life, we can only speak from the volume that is laid open before us.-The same. The theological writers quite from Clarke down to Jacob Behmen have all, almost equally, platonized and corrupted the truth. That is to be learnt only from the Bible, as it appears nakedly there; without the wresting of commentators, or the additions of schoolmen.-The same. There is hardly laying down particular rules for writing our language, or whether such a particular use of it is proper: one has nothing but authority for it. Is it in Sir William Temple, or Locke, or Tillotson? If it be, we may conclude that it is right, or at least won't be looked upon as wrong. The same. -- The great matter to write well is, "to know thoroughly what one writes about," and "not to be affected."-The same. [Or as he expressed the same thing afterwards in other words, "to write naturally and from one's knowledge."] On Lord Hyde's return from his travels, his brother-in-law, the Lord Essex, told him, with a great deal of pleasure, that he had got a pension for him. It was a very handsome one, and quite equal to his rank. All Lord Hyde's answer was, "How could you tell, my lord, that I was to be sold; or, at least, how could you know my price so exactly*?”—The same. I should not choose to employ some that * It was on this account that Mr. Pope compliments him with that passage could do it to translate some of my poems into Latin; because, if they did it as they ought, it would make them good for nothing else. The same. 1744. I shall be very glad to see Dr. Hales, and always love to see him, he is so good and worthy a man. Yes, he is a very good man; only-I'm sorry-he has his hands so much imbrued in blood. What, he cuts up rats? Ay, and dogs too!-The same. [And with what emphasis and concern he spoke it.] Indeed, he commits most of these barbarities with the thought of its being of use to man; but how do we know that we have a right to kill creatures that we are so little above as dogs, for our curiosity, or even for some use to us?—The same. "I used to carry it too far: I thought they had reason as well as we."-" So they have, to be sure. All our disputes about that are only a dispute about words. Man has reason enough only to know what it is ne cessary for him to know, and dogs have just that too."-The same. "But then they must have souls, too, as unperishable in their nature as ours."" And what harm would that be to us ?"-The same. I had 12007. for my translation of the Iliad, and 600l. for the Odyssey, and all my books for my subscribers, and presents into the bargain.-The same. I must make a perfect edition of my works, and then I shall have nothing to do but to die.-The same. It was that stanza in Spenser* that I at first designed for my motto to the Dunciad. -The same. [I remember this was writ down in his first manuscript copy of the * As gentle shepherd in sweet eventide, When ruddy Phoebus 'gins to walk in west, That from their noyance he no where can rest, Dunciad. It hits the little impertinent poets, that were brushed away by that poem, very well, but fails in other points; as ("with his clownish hands," in particular); and therefore, I suppose, was omitted by him.] When I had a fever one winter in town, that confined me to my room for some days, Lord Bolingbroke came to see me, happened to take up a Horace that lay on the table, and, in turning it over, dipped on the first satire* of the second book. He observed how well that would hit my case, if I were to imitate it in English. After he was gone, I read it over, translated it in a morning or two, and sent it to the press in a week or fortnight after; and this was the occasion of my imitating some other of the satires and epistles afterwards. -The same. [To how casual a beginning are we obliged for some of the most delightful things in our language! When I was saying to him that he had already * Which begins thus: Sunt quibus in satyra videar nimis acer, &c. |