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 halberts, 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.

CCXLII.

"Tis better to be lowly born,

And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.

CCXLIII.

Shakspeare.

Sharpness cuts slight things best; solid, nothing cuts through but weight and strength; the same, in the use of intellectuals.-Sir. W. Temple.

CCXLIV.

The philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him; that is to say, he teacheth them that are already taught. But the poet is the food for the tender stomachs; the poet is, indeed, the right popular philosopher. Whereof Æsop's tales give us good proof, whose pretty allegories, stealing under the formal tales of beasts, make many more beastly than beasts, begin to hear the sound of virtue from those dumb speakers.-Sir P. Sidney's Defence of Poesy.

CCXLV.

To speak and act as in common life, is not playing, nor is it what people come to people to see: natural speaking, like sweet wine, runs glibly over the palate, and scarce leaves any taste behind it; but being high. in a part resembles vinegar, which grates upon the taste, and one feels it while he is drinking To please in town or country, the way is, to cry, wring, cringe into attitudes, mark the emphasis, slap the pockets, and labour like one in the falling sickness: that is the way to work for applause; that is the way to gain it.Goldsmith-on Actors.

CCXLVI.

Heav'n has to all allotted, soon or late,
Some lucky revolution of their fate:

Whose motions if we watch and guide with skill
(For human good depends on human will)

Our fortune rolls as from a smooth descent,

And from the first impression takes its bent;
But if unseiz'd, she glides away like wind,
And leaves repenting folly far behind,
Now, now she meets you with a glorious prize,
And spreads her locks before her as she flies.
Dryden.

CCXLVII.

Peace is a public blessing, without which no man is safe in his fortunes, his liberty, or his life; neither innocence nor laws are a guard of defence; no possessions are enjoyed but in danger or fear, which equally lose the pleasure and ease of all that fortune can give us. Health is the soul that animates all enjoyments of life, which fade, and are tasteless, if not dead, without it; a man starves at the best and the greatest tables, makes faces at the noblest and most delicate wines, is old and impotent in seraglios of the most sparkling beauties, poor and wretched in the midst of the greatest treasures and fortunes: with common diseases strength grows decrepit, youth loses all vigour, and beauty all charms: music grows harsh, and conversation disagreeable; palaces are prisons, or of equal confinement; riches are useless, honour and attendance are cumbersome, and crowns themselves are a burden but if deseases are painful and violent, they equal all conditions of life, make no difference between a prince and a beggar; and a fit of the stone or the colic puts a king to the rack, and makes him as miserable as he can do the meanest; the worst, and most criminal of his subjects.-Sir W. Temple.

The sparklings of thy locks, and call them rays,
Takes wing-

Leaving behind him, as he flies,

An unperceived dimness in thine eyes.

Mayne.

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. For less occasions, they form no resolutions, but leave their minds unprepared.-Tatler.

CCLIII.

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,