Page:Letters, sentences and maxims.djvu/142

 speech in Parliament, relative to a tax of twopence in the pound, upon some commodity or other, quote those two heroes as examples of what we ought to do and suffer for our country. [Same date.]

—I have known these absurdities carried so far by people of injudicious learning, that I should not be surprised if some of them were to propose, while we were at war with the Gauls, that a number of geese should be kept in the Tower, upon account of the infinite advantage which Rome received, in a parallel case, from a certain number of geese in the Capitol. This way of reasoning and this way of speaking will always form a poor politician and a puerile declaimer. [Same date.]

—Wear your learning like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it, but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman. [Same date.]

—A thousand little things, not separately to be defined, conspire to form these graces, this je ne sais quoi that always pleases. A pretty person, genteel motions, a proper degree of dress,