The Hours We Pass With Happy Prospects

If Frugality Were Established In The State, And If Our Expenses Were Laid Out To Meet Needs Rather Than Superfluities Of Life, There Might Be Fewer Wants, And Even Fewer Pleasures, But Infinitely More Happiness.

Sweet Was The Sound, When Oft, At Evening's Close, Up Yonder Hill The Village Murmur Rose; There As I Passed, With Careless Steps And Slow, The Mingling Notes Came Soften'd From Below; The Swain Responsive As The Milkmaid Sung, The Sober Herd That Low'd To Meet Their Young; The Noisy Geese That Gabbled O'er The Pool, The Playful Children Just Let Loose From School; The Watch-dog's Voice That Bay'd The Whispering Wind, And The Loud Laugh That Spoke The Vacant Mind; These All In Sweet Confusion Sought The Shade, And Fill'd Each Pause The Nightingale Had Made.

Whatever The Skill Of Any Country May Be In The Sciences, It Is From Its Excellence In Polite Learning Alone That It Must Expect A Character From Posterity.

Of Praise A Mere Glutton, He Swallow'd What Came, And The Puff A Dunce, He Mistook It For Fame; Till His Relish Grown Callous, Almost To Displease, Who Pepper'd The Highest Was Surest To Please.

Man Little Knows What Calamities Are Beyond His Patience To Bear Till He Tries Them; As In Ascending The Heights Of Ambition, Which Look Bright From Below, Every Step We Rise Shows Us Some New And Gloomy Prospect Of Hidden Disappointment; So In Our Descent From The Summits Of Pleasure, Though The Vale Of Misery Below May Appear, At First, Dark And Gloomy, Yet The Busy Mind, Still Attentive To Its Own Amusement, Finds, As We Descend, Something To Flatter And To Please. Still As We Approach, The Darkest Objects Appear To Brighten, And The Mortal Eye Becomes Adapted To Its Gloomy Situation.