LEVITIES.
Literary men, and the advantages of learning, being the subject of conversation when Johnson was present, he enforced and closed the observations in the following celebrated sentence of Lactantius---“Eruditio inter prospera ornamentum, inter adversa refugium.”
Professor Richardson’s observation, that men judge of objects according to their peculiar habits, and that a beautiful lawn, which excites pastoral ideas in the poet’s mind, suggests the value of the land to the miser, is exemplified by the following:
An old Epicure, walking one fine morning, in the meadows on the banks of a river, exclaimed with rapture at the sight of a lamb that was frisking about “pretty innocent creature, how deliciously thou wouldst eat with carrots or cauliflowers.”
Sir John Salter, who died in 1605, and was a generous benefactor to the worshipful company of Salters, ordered, in his last will and testament, the beadles and servants of the company, to go to the church of St. Magnus, the first week of every October, and knock upon his grave stone, with sticks and staves three times each person, and say, “How do you do brother Salter? I hope you are well.”
NEW-YORK.