him, and erect a mansion for him, where time has power neither over him nor it?

It is a sad thing for a man so often to miss his way to his best, as well as most lasting home.

OF AMBITION.

They that soar too high, often fall hard; which makes a low and level dwelling preferable.

The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds; and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.

They are most seen and observed, and most envied; least quiet, but most talked of, and not often to their advantage.

Those buildings had need of a good foundation, that lie so much exposed to weather.

Good works are a rock that will support their credit: but ill ones, a sandy foundation, that yields to calamities.

And truly they ought to expect no pity in their fall, who, when in power, had no bowels for the unhappy.

The worst of distempers; always craving and thirsty, restless and hated; a perfect delirium in the mind; insufferable in success, and in disappointments most revengeful.

OF CONDUCT IN SPEECH.

Inquire often, but judge rarely, and thou wilt not often be mistaken.

It is safer to learn than to teach; and he who conceals his opinion has nothing to answer for.

Vanity or resentment often engages us, and it is two to one but we come off losers; for one shows a want of judgment and humility, as the other does of temper and discretion.

Not that I admire the reserved; for they are next to unnatural that are not communicable. But if reservedness be at any time a virtue, it is in throngs, or ill company.

Beware also of affectation in speech: it often wrongs matter, and ever shows a blind side.

Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.

They that affect words more than matter will dry up that little they have.

Sense never fails to give them that have it, words enough to make themselves understood.

But it too often happens in some conversations, as in apothecaries shops, that those pots that are empty, or have things of small value in them, are as gaudily dressed and flourished as those that are full of precious drugs.

This laboring of slight matter with flourished turns of expression is fulsome; and worse than the modern imitation of tapestry, and East-India goods, in stuffs and linens. In short, it is but taudry talk, and next to very trash.

UNION OF FRIENDS.

They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it.

Death cannot kill what never dies.

Nor can spirits ever be divided, that love and live in the same divine principle, the root and record of their friendship.

If absence be not death, neither is theirs. Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.

For they must needs be present that love and live in that which is omnipresent.

In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free as well as pure.

This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.

ON BEING BASY IN LIVING.

It is a happiness to be delivered from a curious mind, as well as from a dainty palate.

For it is not only a troublesome, but slavish thing to be nice.

They narrow their own freedom and comforts, that make so much requisite to enjoy them.

To be easy in living is much of the pleasure of life; but difficult tempers will always want it.

A careless and homely breeding, is therefore preferable to one nice and delicate.

And he that is taught to live upon little, owes more to his father's wisdom, than he that has a great deal left him, does to his father's care.

Children cannot well be too hardily bred ; for besides that it fits them to bear the roughest providences, it is more active and healthy.

Nay, it is certain, that the liberty of the mind is mightily preserved by it: for so it is served, instead of being a servant, indeed a slave, to sensual delicacies.

As nature is soon answered, so are such satisfied.