come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity; like the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the eye. Politic man: politician, or statesman. Come to the exe cution: come to a state of readiness for execution. Bacon in his Antitheta tersely says:-' Celeritas, Orci galea;' i. e. 'Celerity is the helmet of Orcus,' (another name for Pluto.) for swiftly. As: that. Swift: 1. Furnish an Analysis of the Essay. Divide the Essay into Paragraphs. Present the exact thoughts of the Author in a more easy, flowing, and popular style. 2. The reference to Sir Roger de Coverley [one of the most famous characters in Addison's Spectator]? What, besides rules, is necessary to aid us in determining whether to act or to delay ? 3. The story of the Sibyl? 4. Whence often arises the error of taking a premature step? Does this Essay contain any obsolete words or phrases, or any that have undergone a change of signification since Bacon wrote? 5. Describe Argus and Briareus; also, Pluto ESSAY X. CUNNING. WE take cunning for a sinister, or crooked [1] wisdom; and certainly there is a great difference between a cunning man and a wise man, not only in [1.] Cunning: from the Anglo-Saxon word Kunnan, to know, to be able, is one of those words which have gradually lost their good meaning, and have acquired, or been confined to, a bad one. Formerly this word implied superior skill, proficiency in any thing. Now this use of the word has nearly ceased, and it commonly denotes artifice, deceit, dissimulation, the faculty or the act of using fraud or deception in accomplishing a purpose. 'Send me now a man cunning to work in gold or silver.’— 2 Chronicles. 'Let my right hand forget her cunning.'—Psalm 137: 5. "An altar carved with cunning imagery."-Spenser. "Schoolmasters will I keep within my house, Fit to instruct her youth. To cunning men I will be very kind."-Shakespeare. The above are examples of the ancient use of the word; of the later use are the following: 'Discourage cunning in a child; cunning is the ape of wisdom.'-Locke. "Such fate to suffering worth is given, Who long with wants and woes has striven, By human pride or cunning driven To misery's brink."-Burns. It is very common to use softened expressions of any thing odious. Most of the words, accordingly, which now denote something offensive, were originally euphemisms, and gradually became appropriated to a bad sense. Thus wicked' must have originally meant 'lively,' being formed from 'quick,' or 'wick,' i. e. alive. This latter is the word now in use in Cum [2] point of honesty, but in point of ability. There be that can pack the cards, and yet cannot play well; so there are some that are good in canvasses and fac berland for alive.' And hence the live-i. e. burning-part of a lamp or candle, is called the wick.—Whately. Sinister: crooked. Give the synonymes. [2.] There be, &c.: Those whom Bacon here so well describes are men of a clear and quick sight, but short-sighted. They are ingenious in particulars, but cannot take a comprehensive view of the whole. One who is clever, but not wise-skillful in the details of any transaction, but erroneous in his whole system of conduct-resembles a clock whose minute-hand is in good order, but the hour-hand loose: so that while it measures accurately small portions of time, it is, on the whole, perhaps several hours wrong. It is indeed an unfortunate thing for the public that the cunning pass for wise-that those whom Bacon compares [in the last paragraph of the Essay] to a house with convenient stairs and entry, but never a fair room,' should be the men who (accordingly) are the most likely to rise to high office. The art of gaining power, and that of using it well, are too often found in different persons.-Whately, Pack the cards: put them together and arrange them so as to gain the game unfairly. Thus inferior plaers are able to succeed. "And mighty dukes pack cards for half a crown."-Pope. "Enos has Packed cards with Cæsar, and played false."-Shakespeare. Canvasses: close inspection of votes to ascertain their number. Canvass primarily meant a coarse cloth used for sifting, and so came, metaphorically, to denote a process or act of sifting, or examining; an examination by means of discussion, as a thorough canvass of a subject;' also a solicitation of votes, or office, or some other favor, as, for example, this crime of canvassing, or soliciting, for church preferment, is, by the canon law, called simony.' [3] tions, that are otherwise weak men. Again, it is one thing to understand persons, and another thing to understand matters; for many are perfect in men's humours, that are not greatly capable of the real part of business, which is the constitution of one that hath studied men more than books. Such men are fitter [4] To what is allusion here made? State the idea in other words. so that. Mitte, &c.: Send both naked among To set forth, &c.: to So as: strangers, and thou shalt know.' display the contents of their shop. word is used in its primitive sense of "retail dealers." It is said to be derived from a custom of the Flemings, who first settled in England in the fourteenth century, stopping the passengers and saying to them, "Haber das herr?"—"Will you take this, sir?" The word is now used as synonymous with linen-draper.-D. The aristocracy still [in Bacon's time] looked down upon traffickers with disdain, and elbowed them from the wall; and a fashionable comedy was not thought racy enough unless some vulgar flat-cap was introduced, to be robbed of his "daughter and his ducats" by some needy and profligate adventurer. But, in spite of the ridicule of court and of theatre, the merchants and shopkeepers went on and prospered. The London shops of the seventeenth century were still little booths or cellars, generally without doors or windows; and in lieu of gilded sign, or tempting show-glass, the master took short turns before his door, crying: "What d'ye lack, sir?" "What d'ye lack, madam?" "What d'ye please to lack?" and then he rehearsed a list of the commodities in which he dealt. This task, when he became weary, was assumed by his 'prentice; and thus a London street was a Babel of strange sounds by which the wayfarer was dinned at every step. The articles of a dealer were often of a very heterogeneous description; these were huddled in bales and heaps within the little shop; and in for practice than for counsel, and they are good but in their own alley; turn them to new men, and they have lost their aim; so as the old rule to know a fool from a wise man, "Mitte ambos nudos ad ignotos, et videbis," doth scarce hold for them; and because these cunning men are like haberdashers of small wares, it is not amiss to set forth their shop. the midst of them might sometimes be seen the wife and daughters of the master, plying the needle or knitting-wires, and eyeing the passing crowd. But, although the shops and warehouses of the London traffickers were of such a small description, the houses were very different; so that even so early as the reign of James the dwellings of a chief merchant rivalled the palace of a nobleman in the splendor of its furniture. The mark of mercantile ambition was the mayoralty; the Lord Mayor's show was more than a Roman triumph in the eyes of a young civic aspirant; and Gog and Magog that towered over the scene became the gods of his idolatry.—Craik's His. Eng., Vol. III, 633, 634. For a most amusing, graphic, life-like description of the shopkeepers and apprentices of London, at this period, do not fail to read the first chapter of Sir Walter Scott's 'Fortunes of Nigel.' He represents the shops thus :-'The goods were exposed to sale in cases, only defended from the weather by a covering of canvass, and the whole resembled the stalls and booths now erected for the temporary accommodation of dealers at a country fair, rather than the established emporium of a respectable citizen. But most of the shopkeepers of note had their booth connected with a small apartment which opened backward from it, and bore the same resemblance to the front shop that Robinson Crusoe's cabin did to the tent which he erected before it.' He adds that 'the verbal proclaimers of the excellence of their commodities, had this advantage over those who, in the present day, use the public papers for the same purpose, that they could in many cases adapt their address to the peculiar appearance and apparent taste of the passengers.' He then illustrates this point, in his own inimitable way, in several instances. |