survivors. Grave-stones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks. To be read by bare inscriptions like many in Gruter, to hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets or first letters of our names, to be studied by antiquaries, who we were, and have new names given us like many of the mummies, are cold consolations unto the sudents of perpetuity, even by everlasting languages.

To be content that times to come should only know there was such a man, not caring whether they knew more of him, was a frigid ambition in Cardan, disparaging his horoscopical inclination and judgment of himself. Who cares to subsist like Hippocrates' patients, or Achilles' horses in Homer, under naked nominations, without deserts and noble acts, which are the balsam of our memories, the entelechia and soul of our subsistences? To be nameless in worthy deeds, exceeds an infamous history. The Canaanitish woman lives more happily without a name than Herodias with one. And who had not rather have been the good thief, than Pilate?

But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of perpetuity. Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared the epitaph of Adrian's horse, confounded that of himself. In vain we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since bad have equal durations, and Thersites is like to live as long as Agamemnon. Who knows whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time? Without the favour of the everlasting register, the first man had been as unknown as the last, and Methuselah's long life had been his only chronicle. . . .

There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality. Whatever hath no beginning, may be confident of no end;-which is the peculiar of that necessary essence that cannot destroy itself;— and the highest strain of omnipotency, to be so powerfully constituted as not to suffer even from the power of itself: all others have a dependent being and within the reach of destruction. But the sufficiency of Christian immortality frustrates all earthly glory, and the quality of either state after death makes a folly of posthumous memory. God who can only destroy our souls,

and hath assured our resurrection, either of our bodies or names hath directly promised no duration. Wherein there is so much of chance, that the boldest expectants have found unhappy frustration; and to hold long subsistence seems but a scape in oblivion. But man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature. ...

Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the irregularities of vainglory, and wild enormities of ancient inagnanimity. But the most magnanimous resolution rests in the Christian religion, which trampleth upon pride, and sits on the neck of ambition, humbly pursuing that infallible perpetuity unto which all others must diminish their diameters, and be poorly seen in angles of contingency.

Pious spirits who passed their days in raptures of futurity, made little more of this world than the world that was before it, while they lay obscure in the chaos of pre-ordination, and night of their forebeings. And if any have been so happy as truly to understand Christian annihilation, ecstacies, exolution, liquefaction, transformation, the kiss of the spouse, gustation of God, and ingression into the divine shadow, they have already had an handsome anticipation of heaven; the glory of the world is surely over, and the earth in ashes unto them. Urn Burial, chap. v.

Man-the great Mystery.

The whole creation is a mystery, and particularly that of man. At the blast of his mouth were the rest of the creatures made; and at his bare word they were started out of nothing: but in the frame of man (as the text describes it) he played the sensible operator, and seemed not so much to create as to make him. When he had separated the materials of other creatures, there consequently resulted a form and soul; but having raised the walls of man, he was driven to a second and harder creationof a substance like himself, an incorruptible and immortal spirit. In our study of anatomy there is a mass of mysterious philosophy, and such as reduced the very heathens to divinity; yet amongst all those rare discoveries and curious pieces I find in the fabrick of man, I do not so much content myself, as in that I find not—that is, no organ or instrument for the rational soul:

for in the brain, which we term the seat of reason, there is not anything of moment more than I can discover in the crany of a beast; and this is a sensible and no inconsiderable argument of the inorganity of the soul, at least in that sense we usually receive it. Thus we are men, and we know not how; there is something in us that can be without us, and will be after us, though it is strange that it hath no history what it was before us, nor cannot tell how it entered in us. Religio Medici, sec. xxxvi.

If thou must needs have thy revenge of thine enemy, with a soft tongue break his bones, heap coals of fire on his head, forgive him and enjoy it.

Christian Morals. Camb., 1716. Part iii., sec. 12. Let not Fortune, which hath no name in Scripture, have any in thy Divinity. Let Providence, not chance, have the honour of thy acknowledgements, and be thy Edipus in contingencies. Ib. Part i.. sec. 25.

98. Thomas Fuller, 1608-1661. (Handbook, pars. 94, 362, 382.) One of the most popular preachers of his own, and one of the wittiest writers of any, age. His works abound in good sense and natural feeling. Of Books.

Solomon saith truly, 'Of making many books there is no end,' so insatiable is the thirst of men therein: as also endless is the desire of many in reading them. But we come to our rules.

1. It is a vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning by getting a great library.—As soon shall I believe every one is valiant that hath a well-furnished armoury. I guess good housekeeping by the smoking, not the number of the tunnels, as knowing that many of them, built merely for uniformity, are without chimneys, and more without fires. Once a dunce, void of learning, but full of books, flouted a library less scholar with these words, Hail, doctor without books!' But the next day, the scholar coming into the jeerer's study crowded with books, ‘Hail books,' said he, without a doctor!'

2. Few books, well selected, are best.-Yet as a certain fool bought all the pictures that came out, because he might have his choice, such is the vain humour of many men in gathering of books. Yet, when they have done all, they miss their end; it

In his very best manner.'-COLERIDGE

being in the editions of authors as in the fashions of clothes,— when a man thinks he has gotten the latest and newest, presently another newer comes out.

3. Some books are only cursorily to be tasted of.-Namely, first, voluminous books, the task of a man's life to read them over; secondly, auxiliary books, only to be repaired to on occasions; thirdly, such as are mere pieces of formality, so that if you look on them, you look through them; and he that peeps through the casement of the index, sees as much as if he were in the house. But the laziness of those cannot be excused who perfunctorily pass over authors of consequence, and only trade in their tables and contents. These, like city-cheaters, having gotten the names of all country gentlemen, make silly people believe they have long lived in those places where they never were, and flourish with skill in those authors they never seriously studied.

4. The genius of the author is commonly discovered in the dedicatory epistle.-Many place the purest grain in the mouth of the sack, for chapmen to handle or buy; and from the dedication one may probably guess at the work, saving some rare and peculiar exceptions. Thus, when once a gentleman admired how so pithy, learned, and witty a dedication was matched to a flat, dull, foolish book: 'in truth,' said another, they may be well matched together, for I profess they be nothing akin.'

5. Proportion an hour's meditation to an hour's reading of a staple author.-This makes a man master of his learning, and dispirits the book into the scholar.

Holy and Profane State, book iii., chap. 18. A good memory is the best monument. Others are subject to casualty or time; and we know that the pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders.

Essay on Tombs.

If thy fancy be but a little too rank, age will correct it: in process of time, the overplus will shrink to be but even meaOn Fancy.

sure.

In 'Holy Fraud' I like the Christian but not the surname thereof, and wonder how any can marry these two together in the same action, seeing surely the parties were never agreed.

Holy and Profane State, p. 366.

• Transfuses the spirit of the book.

As a little alloy makes gold the better, so perchance some dulness in a man makes him fitter to manage secular affairs: those who have climbed up Parnassus but half-way better behold worldly business as lying low and nearer to their sight than such as have climbed up to the top of the Mount.

Holy and Profane State. Envy is that dark shadow ever waiting upon a shining merit.

The Faithful Minister.

Ib.

We suppose him not brought up by hand only in his own country studies, but that he hath sucked of his mother university, and thoroughly learnt the arts: not as St. Rumball, who is said to have spoken as soon as he was born, doth he preach as soon as he is matriculated. Conceive him now a graduate in arts, and entered into orders, according to the solemn form of the Church of England, and presented by some patron to a pastoral charge, or place equivalent; and then let us see how well he dischargeth his office.

I. He endeavours to get the general love and good-will of his parish. This he doth, not so much to make a benefit of them. as a benefit for them, that his ministry may be more effectual; otherwise he may preach his own heart out, before he preacheth anything into theirs. The good conceit of the physician is half a cure; and his practice will scarce be happy where his person is hated. Yet he humours them not in his doctrine, to get their love; for such a spaniel is worse than a dumb dog. He shall sooner get their good will by walking uprightly than by crouching and creeping. If pious living and painful labouring in his calling will not win their affections, he counts it gain to lose them. As for those who causelessly hate him, he pities and prays for them: and such there will be. I should suspect his preaching had no salt in it, if no galled horse did wince.

II. He is strict in ordering his conversation.-As for those who cleanse blurs with blotted fingers they make it the worse. It was said of one who preached very well and lived very ill, 'that when he was out of the pulpit, it was pity he should ever go into it; and when he was in the pulpit, it was pity he should ever come out of it.' But our minister lives sermons. And yet I deny not, but dissolute men, like unskilful horsemen, who open