Maxims in prose and verse : addressed to the affluent and benevolent public / By an unfortunate prisoner, of long durance in his Majesty's Goal [sic] of Newgate, for a debt.

Date:
Printed in the year 1788
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Maxims in prose and verse : addressed to the affluent and benevolent public / By an unfortunate prisoner, of long durance in his Majesty's Goal [sic] of Newgate, for a debt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tlie affairs of the world will fpread over the various incidents of your life,_Confidcr all others as w^andering ftars, which make a great fliow, but fall all at once. —-If beauty we expofc To vulgar eyes, too cheap it grows ; The force is loff, and free from awe, We fpy, and cenfure ev’ry flaw : But well preferv'd from public view, It always breaks forth frefli and new; Fierce as the fun in all his pride It fhines, and not a fpot*s defcry d. 55- - The heart, which can queftion the virtue of a friend, until it argues upon abfolute convidions, is a traitor to the caufe of amity. The mofl alarming appearances fliould never fliake the confidence of our friendfliip j and though in every thing elfe, a nice combina- tion of circumftances may juftify a doubt, yet here we ought never to hefitate nor leflen our regards, until conjedure is evidently lofl: in certainty. * = ^ • Sincerity has fuch refifllefs charms. She oft the fiercefl: of our foes difarms ; No art fhe knows, in native whitehefs drefl, ; Her thoughts all pure, and therefore all exprefl. ■ We fliould be cautious how we'condemn, as .follies, the adions of others, merely becaufe our own judgments would have prevent-.