Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

Love of Truth.

[graphic]

HE enquiry after TRUTH, which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of Truth, the preference of it; and the belief of Truth, the enjoying of it, is the fovereign good of human nature.-LORD BACON.

Mammon.

OD of the world and worldlings Great MAMMON! greateft god below the sky.

[graphic]

SPENSER.

Mafters and Servants.

M

[graphic]

ASTERS muft correct their fervants with gentleness, prudence and mercy; not with upbraiding and difgraceful language, but with fuch only as may exprefs and reprove the fault and amend the perfon.-JEREMY TAY

LOR.

Mathematics.

ATHEMATICS is a way to settle in the mind a habit of reasoning closely and in train. Not that I think it neceffary that all men fhould be deep mathematicians; but that having got the way of reafoning, which that ftudy neceffarily brings the mind to, they might be able to transfer it to other parts of knowledge as they have occafion.-LOCKE.

Matter of Prayer.

UR firft enquiry muft be, the matter of our Prayers; for our defires are not to be the rule of our prayers, unless Reafon and Religion be the rule of our defires. The old Heathens prayed to their gods for fuch things which they were afhamed to name publicly before men; and these were their private*

*See Addifon's apologue of Menippus in Olympus; Spectator, No. 391.-Ed.

[graphic]

prayers, which they durst not, for their indecency or iniquity make public.—JEREMY TAYLOR.

2. THY pray'rs the test of heaven will
bear;

Nor need'st thou take the gods aside to hear :
While other e'en the mighty men of Rome,
Big fwell'd with mischief to the temples

come;

And in low murmurs and with costly smoke, Heav'n's help, to profper their black vows, invoke.

So boldly to the gods mankind reveal

What from each other they, for shame, con

ceal.

Give me good fame, ye pow'rs, and make me juft.

Thus much the rogue to public ears will

truft,

In private, then-when wilt thou, mighty

Jove,

My wealthy uncle from this world remove? Or-O thou thunderer's fon, great Hercules, That once thy bounteous deity would please To guide my rake upon the chinking found

Of fome vaft treasure hidden under ground! O were my pupil fairly knock'd o' th' head, I fhould poffefs th' eftate if he were dead.

PERSIUS, Sat. ii. v. 3. DRYDEN's tranf. 3. THE vanity of men's wishes, which are the natural prayers of the mind, as well as many of thofe fecret devotions which they offer to the Supreme Being are well expofed by Socrates and Plato, not to mention Juvenal and Perfius, who have made the finest fatires in their works upon this fubject. Among other reasons for fet forms of Prayers, I have often thought it a very good one, that by this means the folly and extravagance of men's defires may be kept within due bounds, and not break out in abfurd and ridiculous petitions on fo great and folemn an occafion.-ADDISON.

Meditation.

EDITATION is the tongue of the Soul and the language of our Spirit; and our wandering thoughts in prayer are but the neglects of

[graphic]

meditation and receffions from that duty; and according as we neglect meditation, fo are our prayers imperfect; meditation being the foul of prayer and the intention of our Spirit.-JEREMY TAYLOR.

Men of Knowledge and men of Tafte. OUTH, in his oration at the opening of the Sheldonian theatre at Oxford, paffed this bitter farcafm on the naturalifts,-" mirantur nihil nifi pulices; pediculos-et fe ipfos;" they admire nothing except lice; fleas -and themselves. The illuftrious SLOANE endured a long perfecution from the bantering humour of DR. KING. One of the moft amufing declaimers against what he calls les fciences des faux Sçavans is Father Malebranche; he is far more fevere than Cornelius Agrippa, and he long preceded Rouffeau, fo famous for his invectives againft the sciences. The feventh chapter of his

[graphic]

*See ELMES's Life of Wren, p. 271.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »