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 cor rupt 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

robbed of the integrity in which it was created, and will not have purity enough to carry men to heaven, or to choose the way thither.-Clarendon.

CCLIX.

Children play

With fiery flames, and covet what is bright;
But feeling the effects, abbor the light.

Birth of Merlin-by Rowley and Shakspeare.

CCLX.

A prisoner is an impatient patient, lingring vnder the rough hands of a cruell phisitian: his creditor hauing cast his water, knowes his disease, and hath power to cure him, but takes more pleasure to kill him. He is like Tantalus, who hath freedome running by his doore, yet cannot enjoy the least benefit thereof His greatest griefe is that his credit was so good and now no better. His land is drawne within the compasse of a sheepe's skin, and his owne hand the fortification that barres him of entrance: hee is fortunes tossing-bal, an obiect that would make mirth melancholy: to his friends an abiect, and a subiect of nine dayes' wonder in euery barber's shop, and a mouthfull of pitty (that he had no better fortune) to midwiues and talkatiue gossips; and all the content that this transitory life can giue him seems but to flout him, in respect the restraint of liberty barres the true vse. To his familiars hee is like a plague, whom they dare scarce come nigh for feare of infection; he is a monument ruined by those which raysed him, he spends the day with a hei mihi! ve miserum! and the night with a nullis est medicabilis herbis.-Essayes and Characters, 1638.

CCLXI.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies;
But in battalions!

CCLXII.

Shakspeare.

There cannot live a more unhappy creature than an ill-natured old man, who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, nor sensible of doing them to others. --Sir W. Temple.

CCLXIII.

On what strange grounds we build our hopes and fears Man's life is all a mist, and in the dark

Our fortunes meet us.

If fate be not, then what can we foresee?
And how can we avoid it if it be?

If by free-will in our own paths we move,
How are we bounded by decrees above?
Whether we drive, or whether we are driven,
If ill, 'tis ours; if good, the act of heav'n.

CCLXIV.

Dryden

Those colours which seem most appropriated to beauty, are the milder of every sort; light greens, soft blues, weak whites, pink reds, and violets. If the colours be strong and vivid, they are always diversified, and the object is never of one strong colour; there are almost always such a number of them (as in variegated flowers,) that the strength and glare of each is considerably abated. In a fine complexion, there is not only some variety in the colouring, but the colours; neither the red nor the white are strong and glaring: besides, they are mixed in such a manner, and with such gradations, that it is impossible to fix the bounds. On the same principle it is, that the dubious colour in the necks and tails of peacocks, and about the heads of drakes, is se ve agreeable. In reality, the beauty both of shape and couring are as nearly related, as we can well suppose it possible for things of such different natures to be.-Burke.

CCLXV.

Sincerity's my chief delight,

The darling pleasure of my mind;
O that I could to her invite,

All the whole race of human kind;
Take her, mortals, she's worth more,
Than all your glory, all your fame,
Than all your glitt'ring boasted store,

Than all the things that you can name

She'll with her bring a joy divine,

All that's good, and and all that's fine.
Lady Chudleigh.

CCLXVI.

Misers have been described as madmen, who in the midst of abundance banish every pleasure, and make, from imaginary wants, real necessities. But few, very few, correspond to this exaggerated picture; and perhaps, there is not one in whom all these circumstances are found united. Instead of this, we find the sober and the industrious branded by the vain and the idle, with this odious appellation. Men who, by frugality and labour, raise themselves above their equals, and contribute their share of industry to the common stock.Whatever the vain or the ignorant may say, well were it for society had we more of this character amongst us. In general, these close men are found at last the true benefactors of society. With an avaricious man we seldom lose in our dealings, but too frequently in our commerce with prodigality.-Goldsmith.

CCLXVII.

What is a man,

If his chief good, and market of his time,
Be but to sleep, and feed a beast, no more.
Sure, he, that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before, and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason,

To fust in us unused.

CCLXVIII.

Shakspeare.

It is not the quantity of the meat, but the cheerfulness of the guests, which makes the feast; it was only at the feast of the Centaurs, where they ate with one hand, and had their drawn swords in the other; where there is no peace, there can be no feast.-Clarendon.

CCLXIX.

The Fan shall flutter in all female hands,
And various fashions learn from various lands.