1 thofe who command, and dangerous and op preffive by those who fupport it. Life of Savage. To charge thofe favourable reprefentations which every man gives of himself, with the guilt of hypocritical falfehood, would fhew more feverity than knowledge. The writer commonly believes himself. Almost every man's thoughts, whilft they are general, are right; and moft hearts are pure, whilft temptation is away. It is eafy to awaken generous fentiments in privacy,—to despise death where there is no danger,-to glow with benevolence. where there is nothing to be given. Whilft fuch ideas are formed, they are felt, and felflove does not fufpect the gleam of virtue to be the meteor of fancy. Life of Pope. LANGUAGE. WHEN the matter is low and scanty, a dead language, in which nothing is mean, because nothing is familiar, affords great convenience. Life of Addifon. Language Language is only the inftrument of fcience, and words are but the figns of ideas. Pref. to Dict. fol. p. 2. However academies have been inftituted to guard the avenues of their languages; to retain fugitives and repulfe intruders; their vigilance and activity have hitherto been vain. Sounds are too volatile and fubtle for legal reftraints; to enchain fyllables, and lafh the wind are equally the undertakings of pride, unwilling to meafure its defires by its ftrength. Among a people polifhed by art, and claffed by fubordination, thofe who have much leifure to think, will always be enlarging the tock of ideas; and every increase of knowledge, whether real, or fancied, will produce new words, or combinations of words. When the mind is unchained from neceffity, it will range after convenience; when it is left at large in the fields of fpeculation, it will shift opinions. As any cuftom is difufed, the words that expreffed it muft perish with it; as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the fame proportion as it alters practice. Ditto, p. 9. It is incident to words, as to their authors, to degenerate from their ancestors, and to L3 chan 1 change their manners when they change their country. Ditto, p. 3. To our language may be, with great justnefs, applied the obfervation of Quintilian, "that speech was not formed by an analogy fent from heaven." It did not defcend to us in a ftate of uniformity and perfection, but was produced by neceffity, and enlarged by accident, and is therefore compofed of diffimilar parts, thrown together by negligence, by affectation, by learning, or by ignorance. Plan of an English Di&. p. 41. No nation can trace their language beyond the fecond period; and even of that it does not often happen that many monuments remain. Idler, v. 2, p. 62.. ENGLISH LANGUAGE. THERE is not, perhaps, one of the libe ral arts which may not be completely learned in the English language. LAW S. Ditto, ditto, p. 2-19. IT is, perhaps, impoffible to review the s of any country, without difcovering many many defects, and many fuperfluities. Laws often continue when their reafons have ceased. Laws made for the firft ftate of the fociety, continue unabolished when the general form of life is changed. Parts of the judicial procedure, which were at firft only accidental, become, in time, effential; and formalities are accumulated on each other, till the art of litigation requires more ftudy than the difcovery of right. 1 Memoirs of the K. of Pruffia, p. 112. To embarrass juftice by multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, feem to be the oppofite rocks on which all civil inftitutions have been wrecked, and between which, legislative wifdom has never yet found an open paffage. Ditto, ditto. It is obferved, that a corrupt fociety has many laws. Idler, v. 2, p. 186. LIBERTY. A ZEAL, which is often thought, and called liberty, fometimes difguifes from the world, and not rarely from the mind which it poffeffes, an envious defire of plundering wealth, or degrading greatnefs; and of which the immedi ate ate tendency is innovation and anarchy, or imperious eagerness to fubvert and confound, with very little care what fhall be established. LOYALTY. Life of Akenfide. AS a man inebriated only by vapours, foon recovers in the open air, a nation difcontented. to madness, without any adequate caufe, will return to its wits and allegiance, when a little paufe has cooled it to reflection. Falle Alarm, P. 53: M. MARRIAGE. MARRIAGE has many pains, but celi bacy has no pleasures. Prince of Abyffinia, p. 158. The infelicities of marriage are not to be urged against its inftitution, as the miferies of life would prove equally, that life cannot be the gift of heaven. Ditto, p. 169. Marriage is not commonly unhappy, but as life is unhappy, and most of those who complain of connubial miseries, have as much isfaction as their natures would have ad mitted, |