contracted upon their organs, or else are unwilling to be restrained and confined to a bad lodging or a loathsome dungeon.

116. THE SOUL-ITS HIGH FACULTIES. The soul of man therefore being capable of a more divine perfection, hath, besides the faculties of growing unto sensible knowledge, which is common unto us with beasts, a farther ability, whereof in them there is no shew at all, the ability of reaching higher than unto sensible things. Concerning perfections in this kind; that by proceeding in the knowledge of truth and by growing in the exercise of virtue, man amongst the creatures of this inferior world aspireth to the greatest conformity with God; this is not only known unto us, whom He himself hath so instructed, but even they do acknowledge, who amongst men are not judged the nearest unto Him. With Plato what one thing more usual, than to excite men unto love of wisdom, by shewing how much wise men are thereby exalted above men; how knowledge doth raise them up into heaven; how it maketh them, though not gods, yet as gods, high, admirable and divine.

R. HOOKER

117. PARTISANS OF PEACE WITH FRANCE. Of those who wish for peace, there are two classes. There are some, and of those a very numerous body, who are desirous for peace, as soon as peace can be obtained on safe and honourable terms. To such it must be clear that the object of their wishes cannot be secured by laying aside the means of action. But there are others, who are of opinion that, for the attainment of peace, there are no terms which we ought not to accept, no law to which we ought not to submit. Even those who entertain these humiliating ideas would be guilty of insanity, were they to add to the degradation, by laying aside one of the weapons to which they trust for the acquisition of their darling object. Such conduct would betray a desire not only to take any terms which the enemy might be pleased to dictate, but to take every means to render these terms as bad as possible. It is evident, then, that the measure in agitation affects the question of peace, both as it depends upon the period of its restoration and the terms on which it may be concluded. Did the reasonings upon

this subject leave any doubt as to the fact, the conduct of the enemy through the whole course of the war would put the matter beyond all question.

I

118. PREFACE TO THE HISTORY OF THE REBELLION. have the more willingly induced myself to this unequal task, out of the hope of contributing somewhat to that end and though a piece of this nature (wherein the infirmities of some and the malice of others must be boldly looked upon and mentioned) is not likely to be published in the age in which it is writ, yet it may serve to inform myself and some others what we are to do, as well as to comfort us in what we have done. For which work, as I may not be thought altogether an incompetent person, having been present in those councils before and till the breaking out of the rebellion, and having since had the honour to be near two great kings in some trust, so I shall perform the same with all faithfulness and ingenuity; with an equal observation of the faults and infirmities of both sides, with their defects and oversights in pursuing their own ends; and shall no otherwise mention small and light occurrences, than as they have been introductions to matters of the greatest moment: nor speak of persons otherwise, than as the mention of their virtues or vices is essential to the work in hand. In which I shall in truth preserve myself from the least sharpness, that may proceed from private provocation, and in the whole observe the rules that a man should, who deserves to be believed.

LORD CLARENDON

119. SUCCESS—NO CRITERION OF MERIT. Those who believe in a future state of rewards and punishments act very absurdly if they form their opinions of a man's merit from his successes. But certainly if I thought the whole circle of our being was concluded between our births and deaths, I should think a man's good fortune the measure and standard of his real merit, since Providence would have no opportunity of rewarding his virtue and perfection, but in this present life. A virtuous unbeliever, who lies under the pressure of misfortunes, has reason to cry out, as they say Brutus did a little before his death, 'Oh, virtue! I have worshipped thee as a substantial good, but I find thou art an empty name.' But to return to our first point-Though

prudence does, in a great measure, produce our good or ill fortune in the world, it is certain there are many unforeseen accidents and occurrences, which very often pervert the finest schemes that can be laid by human wisdom. Nay, it often happens that prudence, which has always in it a great mixture of caution, hinders a man from being so fortunate as he might possibly have been without it. A person who only aims at what is likely to succeed, and follows closely the dictates of human prudence, never meets with those great unforeseen successes, which are often the effect of a sanguine temper, or a more happy rashness; and this perhaps may be the reason that, according to the common observation, Fortune, like other females, delights rather in favouring the young than the old.

I20. FRANCISCO PIZARRO ON THE ISLAND OF GORGONA.

By this time Pizarro and his companions had remained five months in an island infamous for the most unhealthy climate in that region of America. During all this period, their eyes were turned towards Panama, in hopes of succour from their countrymen; but worn out at length with fruitless expectations, and dispirited with suffering hardships of which they saw no end, they in despair, came to a resolution of committing themselves to the ocean on a float, rather than continue in that detestable abode. But, on the arrival of the vessel from Panama, they were transported with such joy, that all their sufferings were forgotten. Their hopes revived, and, with a rapid transition, not unnatural among men accustomed by their mode of life to sudden vicissitudes of fortune, high confidence succeeding to extreme dejection, Pizarro easily induced not only his own followers, but the crew of the vessel from Panama, to resume his former scheme with fresh ardour.

121.

W. ROBERTSON

OBJECTS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. It is evident to any one who takes the survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways. By sight I have the ideas of light

and colours, with their several degrees and variations. By touch I perceive, for example, hard and soft, heat and cold, motion and resistance, and of all these more and less either as to quantity or degree. Smelling furnishes me with odours, the palate with tastes, and hearing conveys sounds to the mind in all their variety of tone and composition. And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name and so to be reputed as one thing. Thus, for example, a certain colour, taste, smell, figure, and consistence having been observed to go together are accounted one distinct thing signified by the name 'apple. Other collections of ideas constitute a stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things; which as they are pleasing or disagreeable excite the passions of love, hatred, joy, grief, and so forth.

G. BERKELEY

122. CHARACTER OF C. FLAMINIUS.

Flaminius was

through life the enemy of the aristocratical party; and our accounts of those times come from writers whose feelings were highly aristocratical. Besides his defeat and death at Thrasymenus made the Romans in general unfriendly to his memory; as natural pride is always ready to ascribe disasters in war to the incapacity either of the general or the government. But Flaminius was a brave and honest man, over confident it is true and over vehement, but neither a demagogue nor a mere blind partizan. Like many others of the noblest of the plebeians, he was impatient of that craft of augury which he well knew was no genuine and simplehearted superstition, but an engine of aristocratical policy, used by the nobility against those whom they hated or feared, yet the time was not come when the people at large saw this equally; and therefore Flaminius shared the fate, and incurred the blame, of those premature reformers, who putting the sickle to the corn before it is ripe, reap only mischief to themselves and obtain no fruit for the world.

T. ARNOLD

123. WAR WITH FRANCE. Shall we be deterred by our wealth from resisting these outrages? What! shall we live in a temporary state of timid ease, fattening ourselves like swine to be killed to-morrow, and to become the easier prey to our enemies? No; God forbid! If we have the spirit

that has ever distinguished Britons, that very wealth will be our strength; with it we shall be more than a match for their blind fury. No man, I will venture to say, has a more lively sense of the severe inflictions of war than myself; I always held it as one of the last of evils, and wish to adopt it now only from the conviction that at no distant period we shall be obliged to encounter it at a much greater disadvantage. A war with France under such circumstances as now govern her conduct must be terrible, but peace will be much more so.

124. DESCRIPTION OF AN EARTHQUAKE. As I was busy in the inside of it behind my tent, just in the entrance into my cave, I was terribly frighted with a most dreadful surprising thing indeed; for on a sudden I found the earth come crumbling down from the roof of my cave, and from the edge of the hill, over my head, and two of the posts I had set up in the cave cracked in a frightful manner: I was heartily scared, but thought nothing of what was really the cause, only thinking that the top of my cave was falling in, as some of it had done before; and for fear I should be buried in it, I ran forward to my ladder, and not thinking myself safe there neither, I got over my wall for fear of the pieces of the hill, which I expected might roll down upon me. I was no sooner stept down upon the firm ground, but I plainly saw it was a terrible earthquake, for the ground I stood on shook three times, with three such shocks as would have overturned the strongest building that could be supposed to have stood on the earth; and a great piece of the top of a rock, which stood about half a mile from me, next the sea, fell down with such a terrible noise as I never heard in all my life: I perceived also the very sea was put into violent motion by it; and I believe the shocks were stronger under the water than on the island.

D. DE FOE

125.

STORY OF CANUTE. I must not omit one remarkable action done by him, as Huntingdon reports it, with great scene of circumstance and emphatical expression, to shew the small power of kings in respect of God, which, unless to court-parasites, needed no such laborious demonstration. He caused his royal seat to be set on the shore,