Daily Dose

From The British Essayists, with Prefaces Biographical, Historical, and Critical, by Robert Lynam

SHOULD

"Should he be introduced into the society of nobles and legislators, he will still find dogs and horses, with all their concomitant sports and amusements, the favourite topics of discourse. Literature would be voted dulness; morality, preaching; philosophy, nonsense; and religion, hypocrisy."

From Volume 23, Knox's Essays, # 102, On the Present State of Conversation

Daily Dose

From  The British Essayists; with Prefaces Biographical, Historical, and Critical, Volume 24, by Robert Lynam

ORNAMENTAL ADVERT.

"In the ornamental department of science, has there been any thing, since the days of Medea, that could so effectually give beauty to homeliness, or restore youth to age as the Circassian Wash, or the Venetian Flower-water? or has the cunning of art ever rivalled the productions of nature more successfully than in the Elastic Cushion and Spring Curls, 'which,' says the advertisement, 'are as natural and becoming, nay, by many thought more so, than the natural hair itself?'"

From The Mirror, #80. Saturday, February 12, 1780, by Henry Mackenzie.

Daily Dose

From  The British Essayists; with Prefaces Biographical, Historical, and Critical, Volume 1, by Robert Lynman

CERTAIN PERSONS

"... certain persons may turn what we mean for panegyric into scandal, let it be answered once for all, that if our praises are really designed as raillery, such malevolent persons owe their safety from it, only to their being too inconsiderable for history."

From The Tatler, #50. Thursday, August 4, 1709, by Richard Steele

Daily Dose

From  The British Essayists; with Prefaces Biographical, Historical, and Critical, Volume 12, by Robert Lynman

MANY

"Many impose upon the world, and many upon themselves, by an appearance of severe and exemplary diligence, when they, in reality, give themselves up to the luxury of fancy, please their minds with regulating the past, or planning out the future; place themselves at the will in varied situations of happiness, and slumber away their days in voluntary visions."

From The Rambler, #89. Tuesday, January 22, 1751., by Samuel Johnson

Daily Dose

From The British Essayists, Volume 19, with Prefaces, Biographical, Historical, and Critical, by Robert Lynam

FOR

"'For my own part, I cannot see the difference between having a house that is always dirty, and a house that is always to be cleaned.'"

From the Connoisseur, #103. Thursday, January 15, 1756.

Daily Dose

From The British Essayists; with Prefaces Biographical, Historical, and Critical, Volume 28, by the Rev. Robert Lynam

BUT YOU

"But you must know, Sir, that the chief delight of my life is -- good eating; nor am I ashamed to own myself a GLUTTON; since I can at the same time boast that I am a moralizing one."

From Microcosm, #36. Monday, July 16, 1787.

Daily Dose

From The British Essayists; with Prefaces Biographical, Historical, and Critical, Volume 17, by the Rev. Robert Lynam

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP

"Love and friendship necessarily produce, and justly authorize, familiarity: but then good-breeding must mark out its bounds and say, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther; for I have known many a passion and many a friendship degraded, weakened, and at last (if I may use the expression) wholly slatterned away, by an unguarded and illiberal familiarity."

From #148. Thursday, October 30, 1755, byPhilip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield.

Daily Dose

From The British Essayists; with Prefaces Biographical, Historical, and Critical, Volume 17, by the Rev. Robert Lynam

NOTION

"It is a vulgar notion, and worthy of the vulgar, for it is both false and absurd, that passionate people are the best-natured people in the world."

From The World, #196. Thursday, September 30, 1756, by Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

Daily Dose

From The British Essayists, Volume 10, edited by Rev. Robert Lynam

HEREBY

"I hereby therefore give the genteel part of the learned world to understand, that every thought which is agreeable to nature, and expressed in language suitable to it, is written with ease."

From Guardian #12, Wednesday, March 25, 1713, by Richard Steele.