one depends not one upon the other, but is quite of another kind; and that the soul set at liberty from the body, is not only exempted from death, but, in some sense, then begins to live and then first sees the light? Had we not this hope to support us, what ground should we have to lament our first nativity, which placed us in a life so short, so destitute of good, so crowded with miseries—a life, which we pass entirely in grasping phantoms of felicity, and suffering real calamities! So that, if there were not, beyond this, a life and happiness that more truly deserve their names, who can help seeing that, of all creatures, man would be the most miserable, and, of all men, the best would be the most unhappy?

R. LEIGHTON

106. PARLIAMENT-COMMENDATION OF THEIR PROCEEDINGS. Nevertheless there being three principal things, without which all praising is but courtship and flattery, first, when that only is praised which is solidly worth praise; next, when the greatest likelihoods are brought, that such things are truly and really in those persons, to whom they are ascribed; the other, when he who praises, by shewing that such his actual persuasion is of whom he writes, can demonstrate that he flatters not; the former two of these I have heretofore endeavoured, rescuing the employment from him who went about to impair your `merits with a trivial and malignant encomium; the latter, as belonging chiefly to mine own acquittal, 'that whom I so extolled I did not flatter,' hath been reserved opportunely to this occasion. For he who freely magnifies what hath been nobly done, and fears not to declare as freely what might be done better, gives ye the best covenant of his fidelity; and that his loyalest affection and his hope waits on your proceedings. His highest praising is not flattery and his plainest advice is a kind of praising; for, though I should affirm and hold by argument, that it would fare better with truth and with learning and the commonwealth, if one of your published orders, which I should name, were called in; yet at the same time it could not but much redound to the lustre of your mild and equal government, whenas private persons are hereby animated to think ye better pleased with public advice, than other statists have been delighted heretofore with public flattery. J. MILTON

107. OBJECTS OF HISTORY. In every thing that is offered to the eyes or ears, the design should always he, to convey either some utility or some pleasure. All history especially should be directed constantly to these two ends. ▾ But an exaggerated description of astonishing accidents is certainly neither useful nor pleasing. It cannot be useful, since no one would wish to imitate what is contrary to reason: nor pleasing, because none can be delighted either with the sight or the relation of such events as are repugnant both to nature and to the common apprehensions of men. We may desire indeed once, and for the first time only, to see or to hear of such disasters; for the sake of being assured that some things may happen which we conceived to be impossible. But when we have this assurance, any lengthened repetition, forced upon us, only fills us with disgust. An historian therefore should be contented barely to relate, what may serve for imitation, or may be heard with pleasure. An enlarged description of calamity, which exceeds those bounds, may be proper indeed for tragedy, but not for history. Some indulgence however may be allowed perhaps to those historians, who, because they neither have considered the works of nature nor are acquainted with the general course of things in the world, are ready to regard the events which themselves have seen, or which they have greedily received from others, as the greatest and most wonderful that have happened in any age. Misled by this persuasion, and not sensible of the mistake into which they have fallen, they set themselves to relate with large exaggeration transactions, which have not even the praise of novelty since they have before been recounted by others, and from which their readers also never can derive either advantage or delight.

108. DIVISIONS AMONG THE COUNCILS AT OXFORD, A.D. 1643. The discomposures, jealousies and disgusts, which reigned at Oxford, produced great inconveniences; and as many times men in a scuffle lose their weapons, and light upon those which belonged to their adversaries, who again arm themselves with those which belonged to the others, such, one would have thought, had been the fortune of the king's armies in the encounters with the enemy: for those under the king's commanders grew insensibly into all the license, disorder and impiety, with which they had re

proached the rebels; and they, into great discipline, diligence and sobriety; which begat courage and resolution in them and notable dexterity in achievements and enterprises. Insomuch as one side seemed to fight for monarchy, with the weapons of confusion, and the other to destroy the king and government, with all the principles and regularity of monarchy.

LORD CLARENDON

109. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE WILL AND APPETITE. But of one thing we must have special care, as being a matter of no small moment, and that is, how the Will, properly and strictly taken, as it is of things which are referred unto the end that man desireth, differeth greatly from that inferior natural desire which we call Appetite. The object of appetite is whatsoever sensible good may be wished for; the object of will is that good which reason doth lead us to seek. Affections, as joy and grief and fear and anger with such like, being as it were the sundry fashions and forms of appetite, can neither rise at the conceit of a thing indifferent, nor yet choose but rise at the sight of some things. Wherefore it is not altogether in our power, whether we will be stirred with affections or no. Whereas actions which issue from the disposition of the will are in the power thereof to be performed or stayed.

R. HOOKER

IIO.

EXTREME REMEDIES. We are contrariwise of opinion, that he which will perfectly recover a sick, and restore a diseased body unto health, must not endeavour so much to bring it to a state of simple contrariety, as of fit proportion in contrariety unto those evils which are to be cured. He that will take away extreme heat by setting the body in extremity of cold, shall undoubtedly remove the disease, but together with it the diseased too. The first thing therefore in skilful cures, is the knowledge of the part affected; the next is of the evil which doth affect it; the last is not only of the kind but also of the measure of contrary things whereby to remove it.

III.

R. HOOKER

CHARACTER OF JOHN HAMPDEN. Mr Hampden was a man of much greater cunning, and it may be of the most

discerning spirit, and of the greatest address and insinuation to bring any thing to pass which he desired, of any man of that time, and who laid the design deepest. He was not a man of many words, and rarely began the discourse, or made the first entrance upon any business that was assumed ; but a very weighty speaker, and after he had heard a full debate, and observed how the house was like to be inclined, took up the argument, and shortly, and clearly, and craftily, so stated it, that he commonly conducted it to the conclusion he desired; and if he found he could not do that, he never was without the dexterity to divert the debate to another time, and to prevent the determining any thing in the negative, which might prove inconvenient in the future.

LORD CLARENDON

I12. ROME THE OCCASION OF HER GREATNESS. Many have been of opinion, among whom is Plutarch, a great writer, that the people of Rome were more favoured by fortune, than assisted by their virtues, in gaining their empire. And among other reasons which he alleges to that purpose, he says, it appears by the confession of the same people, that they acknowledged all their victories from fortune, having consecrated more temples to her, than to any other god. And Livy seems to side with this opinion: because it is very seldom, that he brings in any Roman speaking where he makes mention of virtue, but he that joins fortune therewith. Whereunto I will not yield in any terms, nor think I it can be maintained: for if never any republic made the same progress that Rome made, it is because never hath any republic been so ordered to make its advantage, as Rome was: for the valour of their armies gained them their empire, and their order of proceeding, and their own manner, with that which their first founder likewise devised for them, made them keep what they had gotten, as hereafter in several discourses shall be declared. N. MACHIAVELLI

113.

FORCE-USE OF IT, TEMPORARY, UNCERTAIN AND HURTFUL TO THE OBJECT IT IS DESIGNED TO PRESERVE. First, permit me to observe, that the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is

not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered. My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force; and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence. A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very endeavours to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will content me than whole America. I do not choose to consume its strength along with our own; because in all parts it is the British strength which I consume.

E. BURKE

114. ADVICE ON PUBLIC SPEAKING. First, excogitate matter, then words; and examine the weight of each, and be better at the end than in the beginning, and in the beginning than in the middle. Express fully, but not profusely; and yet there are places in which we should let out all our sail, and others in which we should contract, and take it in. Understand those to whom you are to speak; consider what they will hear with most attention, what is most longed for, what will leave the sweetest memorial of the past, and allusions to things known and pleasing.

B. JONSON

115. THE BODY CONSIDERED AS THE SOUL'S INSTRUMENT. The soul in respect of the body may be compared to an excellent workman, who cannot labour in his occupation without some necessary instruments, and those well wrought and prepared to his hand. The most skilful musician cannot raise any harmony from an instrument of music out of tune. We are therefore to be very careful of these external parts, since the spirit which moves in them can naturally produce no actions of worth, if this instrumental frame be out of order. Hence it is that those men, who abuse their bodies by the violence of intemperate sins, are sometimes overtaken either with a sleepy dulness or a wild distraction. Their souls are not able to produce any worthy act after a defect