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Pointing to a pile of dust, that had collected, I foolishly begged to have as many anniversaries of my birth, as were represented by the dust. But I forgot to ask that the years should be accompanied by youth.

Plenty has made me poor.

Thus all things are but altered, nothing dies.

I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend

Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,

Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes

Beholds his own hereditary skies.

The mind, conscious of rectitude, laughed to scorn the falsehood of report.

There is a god within us.

It is when he stirs us that our bosom warms ; it is

his impulse that sows the seeds of inspiration.

My son, I caution you to keep

The middle way, for if your pinions dip

Too low the waters may impede your flight;

And if they soar too high the sun may scorch them.

Fly midway.

For those things which were done either by our fathers, or ancestors, and in which we ourselves had no share, we can scarcely call our own.

You will be safest in the middle.

Pursuits become habits.

O impious use! to Nature's laws oppos'd,

Where bowels are in other bowels clos'd:

Where fatten'd by their fellow's fat, they thrive;

Maintain'd by murder, and by death they live.

'Tis then for nought, that Mother Earth provides

The stores of all she shows, and all she hides,

If men with fleshy morsels must be fed,

And chaw with bloody teeth the breathing bread:

What else is this, but to devour our guests,

And barb'rously renew Cyclopean feasts!

We, by destroying life, our life sustain;

And gorge th' ungodly maw with meats obscene.