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The wishes you wrote that T. D. lately made, were almost as extravagant in civil matters, as the aforementioned were in natural; for if he were partaker of them, they would draw more inconveniences upon him than benefit, being nothing fortable either to his difpofition or breeding, and for other reafons befides, which I will referve till my coming up; and I pray let him know fo much from me, with my commendations. So I reft yours in the perfecteft degree of friendship.

Sir,

LETTER LX.
From the fame to Mr. T. W.

Westminster, 28th Feb. 1634.

JAM heartily glad you have prevailed fo far with my lady your mother, as to have leave to travel awhile; and now that you are bound for France and Italy, let me give you this caution, to take heed of a fpeedy friend in the firft, and of a Low enemy in the fecond. The courtefies of an Italian, if you make him jealous of you, are dangerous, and fo are his compliments: he will tell you that he kileth your hand a thousand times over, when he wifheth them both cut off.

The French are a free and debonaire accoftable people, both men and women. Among the one, at firft entrance, one may have acquaintance, and at the first acquaintance one may have entrance; for the other, whereas the old rule was, that there could be no true friendship without commeffation of a bufhel of falt, one may have enough there before he eat a spoonful with them. I like that friendship which by foft gentle paufes fteals upon the affection, and grows mellow with time, by reciprocal offices and trials of love: that friendship is like to last long, and never to fhrink in the wetting.

So hoping to enjoy you before you go, and to give you a friendly foy, I reft your moft affectionate fervitor.

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excellent cheer, choice wines, and jovial welcome: one thing intervened, which almoft fpoiled the relifh of the reft, that B. began to engross all the difcourfe, to vapour extremely of himfelf, and, by vilifying others, to magnify his own mufe. T. Ca. buzzed me in the ear, that though Ben. had barrelled up a great deal of knowledge, yet it feems he had not read the ethics, which, among other precepts of morality, forbid felf-commendation, declaring it to be an ill-favoured folecifm in good manners. It made me think upon the Lady (not very young) who having a good while given her guests neat entertainment, a capon being brought upon the table, inftead of a fpoon fhe took a mouthful of claret, and fpouted into the poop of the hollow bird; fuch an accident happened in this entertainment, you know - Proprio laus fordet in ore; be a man's breath ever fo fweet, yet it makes one's praise stink, if he makes his own mouth the conduit-pipe of it. But for my part, I am content to difpenfe with the Roman infirmity of B. now that time hath fnowed upon his pericranium. You know Ovid, and (your) Horace were fubject to this humour, the firft bursting out into

Jamq; opus exrgi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis, &C.

The other into

Exegi monumentum ære perennius, &c.

As alfo Cicero, while he forced himself into this hexameter: O fortunatam natam, me confule Romam! There is another reafon that excufeth B. which is, that if one be allowed to love the natural issue of his body, why not that of the brain, which is of a fpiritual and more noble extraction? I preferve your manufcripts fafe for you till you return to London; what news the times afford, this bearer will impart to you. So I am, Sir, your very humble and moft faithful fervitor.

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of arms, let me give you this caveat, that nothing must be more precious to you than your reputation. As i know you have a fpirit not to receive wrong, fo you mult be careful not to offer any, for the one is as bafe as the other; your pulfe will be quickly felt, and trial made what metal you are made of after your coming. If you get but once handfomely off, you are made ever after; for you will be free from all baffles and affronts. "He that hath once got the fame of an early rifer, may fleep till noon." Therefore be wonderous wary of your first comportments; get once a good name, and be very tender of it afterwards, for it is like the Venice-glafs, quickly cracked, never to be mended, patched it may be. To this purpele take along with you this fable: It happened that Fire, Water, and Fame went to travel together (as you are going now), they confulted, that if they loft one another how they might be retrieved and meet again: Fire faid, "Where you fee fmoke there you fhall "find me:" Water faid, Where you "fee marsh and moorith low ground, "there you fhall find me:" but Fame faid, "Take heed how you lofe me, for if y you do, you will run a great hazard never to meet me again, there is no retrieving of me."

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It imports you alfo to conform yourself to your commanders, and fo you may more confidently demand obedience, when you come to command yourfeif, as I doubt not but you may do in a fmall time. The Hogen Mogen are very exact in their polemical government, their pay is fure, though finall, four fhillings a-week being too little a hire," as one faid, "" to kill men." At your return I hope you will give a better account of your doings than he, who being afked what exploits he had done in the Low Countries, anfwered, that he had cut off a Spaniard's legs: reply being made, that that was no great matter, it had been fomething if he had cut off his head; "O," faid he, "you must con"fider his head was off before." Excufe me that I take my leave of you fo pleasantly, but I know you will take any thing in good part from him who is fo much your truly affectionate coufin.

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let me have

HAD from you lately two letters; the laft was well freighted with very good stuff, but the other, to deal plainly with you, was not fo: there was as much dif ference between them, as betwixt a Scotch pedlar's pack in Poland, and the magazine of an English merchant in Naples; the one being ufually full of taffaty, filks, and fattins; the other of calicoes, thread ribbons, and fuch poldavy ware. I perceive you have good commodities to vend, if you take the pains: your trifles and bagatelles are ill beftowed upon me, therefore hereafter I pray of your best fort of wares. I am glad to find that you have ftored up fo much already: you are in the beft mart in the world to improve them; which I hope you daily do, and I doubt not, when the time of your apprenticeship there is expired, but you will find a good market to expofe them, for your own and the public benefit abroad. I have fent you the philofophy-books you wrote to me for; any thing that you want of this kind for the advancement of your ftudies, do but write, and I fhall furnish you. When I was a student as you are, my practice was to borrow rather than buy fome fort of books, and to be always punctual in reftoring them upon the day affigned, and

in the interim to fwallow of them as

much as made for my turn. This obliged me to read them through with more hatt to keep my word, whereas I had not beet fo careful to perufe them, had they bee my own books, which I knew were al heartily for your last letter, in regard ways ready at my difpofe. I thank yo found it fmelt of the lamp; I pray your next do fo, and the oil and labo fhall not be loft which you expend up your affured loving uncle.

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ointment, which keeps the fmell long after the thing is fpent. Madam, with out vanity be it fpoken, fuch is my heart to you, and fuch are your favours to me; the frong aromatic odour they carried with them diffufed itself through all the veins of my heart, efpecially through the left ventricle where the moft illuftrious blood lies; fo that the perfume of them remains fill freth within me, and is like to do, while that triangle of flush dilates and thats infelf within my breat; nor doca this perfume fay there, but as all feels naturally tend upwards, it hath zicended to my brain, and facetened all the cells thereuf, especially the memory, may be faid to be a cabin als & projeve comedies; for though the kat be the box of love, the memory is the box of finged; the one may be tred the ice wince the motions of gradace fox, the ster the cliers that

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having nothing elfe to difpofe of but his body, he bequeathed all the parts thereof in legacies, as his fkin to the tanners, his bones to the dice-makers, his guts to the muficians, his fingers to the fcriveners, his tongue to his fellow-fophifters (which were the lawyers of thofe times), and fo forth. As he thus dillefted his body, fo I thought to divide my mind into l having, as you know, line of the outward pelf and gifts of fortune to difpole of; for never any was lefs bipolden to that bind baggage. To the bigues der gree of theorica contemplation, I made an entire fasrice of my bi to my Maker, who by infoí ng created 181, and by creating infllet ser to sixam 499 frall bulk of be, w Since of the retention. ch men in r/ bobur, ad un legwr y di walioviari de ge, ea re wiring if gen. My mosques van gekalut, vagy ben of my sons frests, with puro sien wat equa: 1 sea auch gemer. 1 songs seny

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by them to my coufins their children.
This little fackful of bones I thought to
bequeath to Westminster Abbey, to be
interred in the cloyiter within the fouth-
fide of the garden, clofe to the wall,
where I would have defired Sir H. F.
(my dear friend) to have inlaid a fall
piece of black marble, and caufe this
motto to have been infculped on it, Hac-
ufque peregrinus, bic domi; or this, which
I would have left to his choice, Hucufque
erraticus, hic fixus: and instead of frew-
ing my grave with flowers, I would have
defired him to have grafted thereon fome
little tree of what fort he pleafed, that
might have taken root downward to my
duft, because I have been always naturally
affected to woods and groves, and those
kind of vegetables; infomuch, that if
there were any fuch thing as a Pythago-
rean metempsychofis, I think my foul
would tranfmigrate into fome tree, when
fhe bids this body farewel.

By thefe extravagances and odd chimeras of my brain, you may well perceive that I was not well, but diftempered, efpecially in my intellectuals; according to the Spanish proverb, fiempre defvarios con la calentura; "Fevers have always "their fits of dotage." Among thofe to whom I had bequeathed my deareft love, you were one to whom I had intended a large proportion; and that love which I would have left you then in legacy, I fend you now in this letter; for it hath pleafed God to reprieve me for a longer time to creep upon this earth, and to fee better days, I hope, when this black difmal cloud is difpelled; but come foul or fair weather, I fhall be, as formerly, your moft conftant faithful fervitor.

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Counsellor : "Ay," faid he, "yet I am "but a porter fill." So I may fay, I am but a prifoner flill, notwithstanding the releafement of fo many. Mistake me not, as if I repined hereby at any one's liberty; for I could heartily with that I were the unique martyr in this kind, that I were the figure of one with never a cypher after it, as God wot there are too many: I could wish that as I am the leaft in value, I were the last in number. A day may come that a favourable wind may blow, that I may launch alfo out of this Fleet. In the mean time, and always after, I am your true and conflant fervitor.

LETTER LXVII.

From the fame to Mr. R. B. at Ifuick.

Gentle Sir,

Fleet, 15th Aug. 1646.

I VALUE at a high rate the fundry re

fpects you have been pleafed to fhew me; for as you obliged me before by

your vifits, fo you have much endeared the 11th current. Believe it, Sir, the yourfelf to me fince by your late letter of leaft fcruple of your love is not loft (becaufe I perceive it proceeds from the pure motions of virtue), but returned to you in the fame full proportion. But what you pleafe to afcribe to me in point of merit, I dare not own; you look profpective, or rather through a multiupon me through the wrong end of the plying glafs, which makes the object appear far bigger than it is in real dimenthe diffection of bodies, which can make fions; fuch glaffes as anatomists use in a flea look like a cow, or a fly as big as a vulture.

I prefume you are conftant in your defire to travel; if you intend it at all, you cannot do it in a better time, there being little comfort, God wot, to breathe Englith air, as matters are carried. I fhall be glad to lead you in any thing that you truly, I take much contentment in may tend to your advantage; for to tell this inchoation of friendship, to improve and perfect which I fhall lie centinel to apprehend all occafions.

If you meet Mafter R. Brownrig in the refpects to him; for I profefs myself to country, I pray prefent my very kind be both his and your most affectionate fervitor.

LETTER LXVIII.

with conftancy. I find you have a genius for the moft folid and feverest fort of ftudies; therefore when you have paffed

From the fame to the Right Honourable the through the briars of logic, I could with

Lord of Cherberry.

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GOD fend you joy of your new habitation, for I understand your Lordfhip is removed from the King's-street to the Queen's. It may be, with this enlargement of dwelling, your Lordship may need a recruit of fervants. The bearer hereof hath a defire to devote himself to your Lordship's fervice; and I find that he hath a concurrence of fuch parts that may make him capable of it: he is well ftudied in men and books, verfed in bufinefs of all forts, and writes a very fair hand; he is well extracted, and hath divers good friends that are dwellers in the town, who will be refponfible for him. Moreover, befides this letter of mine, your Lordship will find

you to go ftrongly on in the fair fields of philofophy and the mathematics, which are true academical ftudies, and they will afford rich matter of application for your inventive fpirit to work upon. By all means understand Ariftotle in his own language, for it is the language of learning. Touching poetry, history, and other human ftudies, they may ferve you for your recreation, but let them not by any means allure your affections from the first. I fhall delight fometimes to hear of your proceeding; for I profefs a great deal of good-will to you, which makes me reft your refpectful friend to ferve you.

Sir,

LETTER LXX.

Gray's-Inn.

Fleet, 3d Auguft.

that he carrieth one in his countenance; From the fame to Mr. E. O. Counsellor, át for an honest ingenuous look is a good letter of recommendation of itself. If your Lordship hath not prefent occafion to employ him, he may be about you awhile like a fpare watch, which your Lordship may wind up at pleasure. So my aim being to do your Lordship fervice, as much as him a pleasure, by this recommendation, I reft your Lordship's

THE fad tidings of my dear friend Dr.

moft humble fervant.

LETTER LXIX.

Fleet, 3d Dec.

From the jame to Mater J. H. at St.
John's Cage in Cambridge.
Mafter Hall,
YOURS of the 13th of this instant came
fafely, though lowly, to hand; for
I had it not till the 20th of the fame, and
the next day your eñlays were brought
me. I entertained both with much re-
fpect: for I found therein many choice
and ripe notions, which I hope proceed
from a pregnancy rather than precocity
of fpirit in you.

Prichard's death funk deep into me; and the more I ruminate upon it, the more I refent it: but when I con

template the order, and thofe adamantine laws which nature puts into fuch ftriét execution throughout this elementary world; when I confider that up and down this frail globe of earth we are but ftrangers and fojourners at beft, being de figned for an infinitely better country; When I think that our egrefs out of this life is as natural to us as our ingrefs (all which he knew as much as any), thele thoughts in a checking way turn my melancholy to a counter paffion; they beget another firit within me. You know that in the difpofiton of all fublunary things, "Nature is God's handwald, "fate his commiffioner, time his in Pra

ment, and death his executioner." by the frit we have generation; by the le cond fucceffes, good or bad; lat bring us to car end: time with bis vatt fevine mows down all thin

2

and

I perceive you have entered the fuburbs of Sparta already, and that you are in a fair way to get to the town lifef; I know you have wherewith to adors her, nay, you may in une gain Athens Lerfelf, with all the knowledge the was ever mitrels of, if you go in your career he fenced and quantif

death iweeps away to moving. Wees
he was a rare and a complete
koolar, as any that i have knows bor
Ander car meridia; he was both fond
and acute; nor do I remember to have

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