1830.] Aphorisms on Man. 577 



XXXI. 



L said of some monkeys at a fair, that we were ashamed of their 



resemblance to ourselves on the same principle that we avoided poor 

 relations. 



XXXII. 



Servants and others who consult only their ease and convenience, 

 give a great deal of trouble by their carelessness and profligacy those 

 who take a pride in their work often carry it to excess, and plague you 

 with constant advice and interference. Their duty gets so much a-head 

 in their imagination, that it becomes their master, and your's too. 



XXXIII. 



There are persons who are never easy unless they are putting your 

 books or papers in order, that is, according to their notions of the mat- 

 ter ; and hide things lest they should be lost, where neither the owner 

 nor any body else can find them. This is a sort of magpie faculty. If 

 any thing is left where you want it, it is called making a litter. There is 

 a pedantry in housewifery as in the gravest concerns. Abraham Tucker 

 complained that whenever his maid-servant had been in his library, he 

 could not set comfortably to work again for several days. 



XXXIV. 



True misanthropy consists not in pointing out the faults and follies 

 of men, but in encouraging them in the pursuit. They who wish well 

 to their fellow- creatures are angry at their vices and sore at their mis- 

 haps ; he who flatters their errors and smiles at their ruin is their worst 

 enemy. But men like the sycophant better than the plain-dealer, 

 because they prefer their passions to their reason, and even to their 

 interest. 



XXXV. 



I am not very patriotic in my notions, nor prejudiced in favour of my 

 own countrymen ; and one reason is, I wish to have as good an opinion 

 as I can of human nature in general. If we are the paragons that some 

 people would make us out, what must the rest of the world be ? If we 

 monopolize all the sense and virtue on the face of the globe, we " leave 

 others poor indeed," without having a very great superabundance falling 

 to our own share. Let them have a few advantages that we have not- 

 grapes and the sun ! 



XXXVI. 



When the Persian ambassador was at Edinburgh, an old Presbyterian 

 lady, more full of zeal than discretion, fell upon him for his idolatrous 

 belief, and said, " I hear you worship the sun !" " In faith, Madam," 

 he replied, " and so would you too if you had ever seen him !" 



M.M. New &?n>j VOL. X. No. 59. 4 



