industry can make, if his own genius be not carried into it: and therefore is an old proverb, orator fit, voeta nascitur.-Sir P. Sidney's Defence of Poesy.

CCXL.

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent,
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
I fondly ask; but patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

Milton-on his Blindness,

CCXLI.

A constable is a vice-roy in the street, and no man stands more upon't that he is the king's officer. His jurisdiction extends to the next stocks, where he has commission for the heels only, and sets the rest of the body at liberty. He is a scare-crow to that ale-house, where he drinks not his morning draught, and apprehends a drunkard for not standing in the king's name. Beggars fear him more than the justice, and as much as the whip-stock, whom he delivers over to his subordinate magistrates, the bridewell-man, and the beadle. He is a great stickler in the tumults of double jugs, and ventures his head by his place, which is broke many times to keep whole the peace. He is never so much in his majesty as in his night-watch, where he sits in his chair of state, a shop-stall, and invironed with a guard of haiberts, examines all passengers. He is a very careful man in his office, but if he stay up after midnight you shall take him napping.-Bishop Earle,

CCXLIX.

Covetous ambition thinking all too little which at present it hath, supposeth itself to stand in need of all which it hath not. Wherefore, if two bordering princes have their meeting in an open campaign, the more mighty will continually seek occasion to extend his limits to the further border thereof. If they be divided by mountains, they will fight for the mastery of the passage of the tops, and finally for the towns that stand upon the roots. If rivers run between them, they contend for the bridges; and think themselves not well assured until they have fortified the further bank. Yea, the sea itself must be very broad, barren of fish, and void of little islands interjacent; else it will yield plentiful arguments of quarrel to the kingdoms which it severeth: all this proceeds from desire of having, and such desire from fear of want.-Sir W. Raleigh-on War.

CCL.

An vnworthie counceller is the hurt of a king, and the danger of a state, when the weaknes of judgement may commit an error, or the lacke of care may give way to vnhappinesse; he is a wicked charme in the king's eare, a sword of terror in the aduice of tyranny: his power is perillous in the partiality of will, and his heart full of hollownesse in the protestation of loue: hypocrisie in the couer of his counterfaite religion, and traiterous inuention is the agent of his ambition: he is the cloud of darknesse, that threatneth foule weather, and if it growe to a storme, it is fearful where it falls: hee is an enemy to God in the hate of grace, and worthie of death in disloyalty to his soueraigne. In summe, he is an vnfit person for the place of a counceller, and an vnworthy subject to looke a king in the faceN. Breton-1616.

CCLI.

The gods are just:

But how can finite measure infinite?
Whatever is, is in its causes just,

Since all things are by fate; but purblind man

Sees but a part o'th' chain, the nearest link,
His eyes not carrying to that equal beam
That poises all above.

CCLII.

Dryden.

When two persons have so good an opinion of each other as to come together for life, they will not differ in matters of importance, because they think of each other with respect; and in regard to all things of consideration that may affect them, they are prepared for mutual assistance and relief in such occurrences. less occasions, they form no resolutions, but leave their minds unprepared.—Tatler.

CCLIII.

For

Envy is a weed that grows in all soils and climates, and is no less luxuriant in the country than in the court; is not confined to any rank of men or extent of fortune, but rages in the breasts of all degrees. Alexander was not prouder than Diogenes; and it may be if we would endeavour to surprise it in its most gaudy dress and attire, and in the exercise of its full empire and tyranny, we should find it in schoolmasters and scholars, or in some country lady, or the knight her husband; all which ranks of people more despise their neighbours, than all the degrees of honour in which courts abound: and it rages as much in a sordid affected dress, as in all the silks and embroideries which the excess of the age and the folly of youth delight to be adorned with. Since then it keeps all sorts of company, and wriggles itself into the liking of the most contrary natures and dispositions, and yet carries so much poison and venom with it, that it alienates the affections from heaven, and raises rebellion against God himself, it is worth our utmost care to watch it in all its disguises and approaches, that we may discover it in its first entrance, and dislodge it before it procures a shelter or retiring place to lodge and conceal itself. Clarendon

CCLIV.

Friendship is constant in all other things,

Save in the office and affairs of love:

Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues.
Let every eye negotiate for itself,

And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch,

Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.

CCLV.

Shakspeare.

Jest not openly at those that are simple, but remember how much thou art bound to God, who hath made thee wiser. Defame not any woman publicly, though thou know her to be evil; for those that are faulty, cannot endure to be taxed, but will seek to be avenged of thee; and those that are guilty, cannot endure unjust reproach. As there is nothing more shameful and dishonest, than to do wrong, so truth itself cutteth his throat that carrieth her publicly in every place. Remember the divine saying, he that keepeth his mouth, keepeth his life.-Sir W. Raleigh to his son.

CCLVI.

Give your children such names as are proper and significant, at least not ridiculous. Choose none for sureties that are wicked or young, or have not received the Lord's supper; for such as are scarce christians themselves, are not fit to undertake for the religious education of a child. God's public ordinances can never be well performed in private houses; but it was either pride or prophaneness, or schism, that first taught the people to despise the church of God.Creech.

CCLVII.

Who could depend upon the popular air,
Or voice of men, that have to day beheld,
(That, which if all the Gods had fore-declar'd,
Would not have been believ'd) Sejanus fall?
He, that this morn, rose proudly, as the sun,
And breaking through a mist of clients' breath,
Came on as gaz'd at, and admir'd, as he,

When superstitious Moors salute his light!
That had our servile nobles waiting him
As common grooms; and hanging on his look,
No less than human life on destiny!

That had men's knees as frequent as the gods;
And sacrifices more than Rome had altars:
And this man fall! fall! ay, without a look,
That durst appear his friend, or lend so much
Of vain relief, to his chang'd state, as pity!
They that before like gnats play'd in his beams,
And throng'd to circumscribe him, now not seen,
Nor deign to hold a common seat with him!
Others that waited him unto the senate,
Now, inhumanly, ravish him to prison!
Whom, but this morn, they follow'd as their lord,
Guard through the streets, bound like a fugitive!
Instead of wreaths give fetters, strokes for stoops;
Blind shame for honours, and black taunts for titles!
B. Jonson's Sejanus.

CCLVIII.

Conscience implies goodness and piety, as much as if you call it good and pious. The luxuriant wit of the school-men and the confident fancy of ignorant preachers has so disguised it, that all the extravagancies of a light or a sick brain, and the results of the most corrupt heart, are called the effects of conscience: and to make it the better understood, the conscience shall be called erroneous, or corrupt, or tender, as they have a mind to support or condemn those effects. So that, in truth, they have made conscience a disease fit to be entrusted to the care of the physician every spring and fall and he is most like to reform and regulate the operation of it. And if the madness and folly of men be not in a short time reformed, it will be fitter to be confined as a term in physic and in law, than to be used or applied to religion or salvation. Let apothecaries be guided by it in their bills, and merchants in their bargains, and lawyers in managing their causes; in all which cases it may be waited upon by the epithets they think fit to annex to it; it is in great danger to be