Harmony of period and melody of style have greater weight than is generally imagined in the judgment we pass upon writing and writers. As a proof of this, let us reflect what texts of scripture, what lines in poetry, or what periods we most remember and quote, either in verse or prose, and we shall find them to be only musical ones.

The lines of poetry, the period of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be preeminently musical.

My banks they are furnish'd with bees, Whose murmur invites one to sleep.

Some men use no other means to acquire respect than by insisting on it; and it sometimes answers their purpose, as it does a highwayman's in regard to money.

I hate a style, as I do a garden, that is wholly flat and regular; that slides along like an eel, and never rises to what one can call an inequality.

It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures.

The difference there is betwixt honor and honesty seems to be chiefly the motive; the mere honest man does that from duty which the man of honor does for the sake of character.