Why have we memory sufficient to retain the minutest circumstances that have happened to us; and yet not enough to remember how often we have related them to the same person?

Maxims, CCCI.-ROCHEFOUCAULT.

MEN. Honest

I was a gentleman before I turned conspirator; for honest men are the gentlemen of nature!

The Lady of Lyons, Act II. Scene I.-E. B. LYTTON.

MEN that are truly FREE.

Men who have long tossed upon the troubled ocean of life, and have learned by severe experience to entertain just notions of the world and its concerns, to examine every object with unclouded and impartial eyes, to walk erect in the strict and thorny paths of virtue, and to find their happiness in the reflection of an honest mind, alone are-free.

MEN. Neglected

Solitude, Cap. II.-J. G. ZIMMERMAN.

Men of great stature will quickly be made porters to a king, and those diminutively little, dwarfs to a queen, whilst such who are of a middle height may get themselves masters where they can. The moderate man eminent for no excess or extravagancy in his judg

ment, will have few patrons to protect, or persons to

adhere to him.

MEN.

Mixt Contemplations on these Times, XXXIII.
THOMAS FULLER.

Little Great

I have visited many countries, and have been in cities without number, yet never did I enter a town which could not produce ten or twelve of those little great men; all fancying them selves known to the rest of the world, and complimenting each other upon their extensive reputation.

Citizen of the World, Letter LXXIV.-OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

MEN of WIT.

Your men of wit are good-for-nothing, dull, lazy, restive snails; 'tis your undertaking, impudent, pushing fool, that commands his fortune.

The Cheats of Scapin, Act. III. Scene I.-T. OTWAY.

MEN and WOMEN. Difference between

'Tis not a year or two shows us a man: They are all but stomachs, and we all but food; They eat us hungerly, and when they are full They belch us.

Othello, Act III. Scene IV.-SHAKSPERE.

MEN and INSECTS.

Men are even as their fellow insects; they rise to life, exert their lineaments, and flutter abroad during the

summer of their little season, then droop, die away, and are succeeded, and succeeded in insignificant rotation. The Fool of Quality, Chap. IV.-H. BROOKE.

MERCHANTS, their influence.

The merchant, above all, is extensive, considerable, and respectable by his occupation. It is he who furnishes every comfort, convenience, and elegance of life, who carries off every redundance, who fills up every want; who ties country to country, and clime to clime, and brings the remotest regions to neighbourhood and converse; who makes man to be literally the lord of creation, and gives him an interest in whatever is done upon earth; who furnishes to each the products of all lands, and the labours of all nations; and thus knits into one family, and weaves into one web, the affinity and brotherhood of all mankind.

The Fool of Quality, Chap. iv.—H. BROOKE.

MERCY in HEAVEN.

Over her hung a canopy of state,

Not of rich tissue, nor of spangled gold,
But of a substance, though not animate,
Yet of a heavenly and spiritual mould,
That only eyes of spirits might behold:
Such light as from main rocks of diamond,
Shooting their sparks at Phoebus, would rebound,
And little angels, holding hands, danced all around.
The Temptation and Victory of Christ.

GILES FLETCHER.

MERCY brightens the Rainbow.

High in the airy element there hung
Another cloudy sea, that did disdain,

As though his purer waves from heaven sprung,
To crawl on earth, as doth the sluggish main;
But it the earth would water with his rain,

That ebb'd and flow'd as wind and season would;
And oft the sun would cleave the limber mould
To alabaster rocks, that in the liquid roll'd.

Beneath those sunny banks a darker cloud,
Dropping with thicker dew, did melt apace,
And bent itself into hollow shroud,
On which, if Mercy did but cast her face,
A thousand colours did the bow enchase,
That wonder was to see the silk distain'd
With the resplendence from her beauty gain'd,
And Iris paint her locks with beams so lively feign'd.
The Temptation and Victory of Christ.

MERCY for all.

GILES FLETCHER.

Are we gods,

Allied to no infirmities? are our natures

More than men's natures? When we slip a little Out of the way of virtue, are we lost?

Is there no medicine called sweet mercy?

MERCY and TRUTH.

Out of the west coast, a wench, as me thought,
Came walking in the way, to hell-ward she looked;
Mercy hight that maid, a meek thing withal,
A full benign burd, and buxom of speech;
Her sister, as it seemed, came soothly walking,
Even out of the east, and westward she looked,
A full comely creature, truth she hight,

For the virtue that her followed afeard was she never.
When these maidens mette, Mercy and Truth,
Either axed other of this great wonder,

Of the din and of the darkness.

Pierce Plowman.-ROBERT LONGLANDE.

MERCY is Unpurchasable.

Ignominy in ransom, and free pardon,

Are of two houses: lawful mercy is

Nothing akin to foul redemption.

Measure for Measure, Act II. Scene IV.-SHAKSPERE.

MERIT.

Merit not always-Fortune feeds the bard,
And as the whim inclines, bestows reward:
None without wit, nor with it numbers gain;
To please is hard, but none shall please in vain.

The Candidate.-G. CRABBE.