the besieged in a fally, for a terror to those who survived, he erected a wall of their bones, which is fo well cemented; and the bones fo entire, that they bring pieces of the wall to fhew.

1196. Ditching a Peninsula near Smyrna, is faid to have been the only enterprize that Alexander the great attempted without accomplishing.

1197. The Papifts can't agree among themselves what is the Catholick Church, to which every man is bound to submit; whether it be the virtual Church, the Pope, or the Pope jointly with his conclave of Cardinals, or the Pope with a provincial Council, or the Pope with a general Council, or a general Council without the Pope, or, lastly, the effential Church difperfed over the face of the world.

1198. The greatest misfortune in fome affronts is, that we cannot revenge them.

1199. As we love more and more those we still oblige, so we hate most violently those we have injured.

1200. The impreffion of any notable misfortune will commonly stick by a man as long as he lives: for, things that we have once fet our heart upon, will hardly be ever got out of our head, but every hint and occafion will be putting us in mind of them again: fo that, upon the whole, the only way to be happy and quiet, is to make all contingencies indifferent to us.

1201. Happiness lies not in the things themselves, but in our own palate, and the relish we have of them; we are happy by the enjoyment of what we fancy and defire, and not what other people think lovely and defirable.

1202. If

1202. If a man cannot find ease within himself, it is prepofterous for him to feek it any where else.

1203. Jealousy lives upon doubts and fufpicions, but as foon as these become certainties, then the paffion either ceafes, or turns abfolute madness.

1204. The bare name and pretence of virtue, is more ferviceable to a man's intereft than vice.

1205. Never any man laid open the vanity and ridiculoufnefs of Paganifm, the pride and ignorance of philofophers, together with the frailty and inconftancy of human things, more than Lucian. He reprefents the Epicureans, as luxurious and voluptuous; the Peripateticks, punctilious and covetous; the Platonicks, vain and proud; the Pythagoreans, fuperftitious and ridiculously fcrupulous; the Cynicks, nafty and impudent; the Stoicks, opinionative and felf-conceited, &c. He flourished in Trajan's reign, was remarkable for his great wit, and pure Greek, though he ridiculed all religions, nay, christianity itself did not escape him.

1206. Irene is with much difficulty conveyed to the temple of Efculapius, to confult the God about all her ills. She complains at firft, that she is weary and fatigued; the God pronounces that it is occafioned by the length of her journey. She fays fhe has no ftomach to her fupper; the oracle bids her eat the lefs at dinner. She adds, fhe is troubled at night with broken flumbers; he bids her never lie a-bed by day. She asks how her groffness may be prevented; the oracle replies, fhe ought to rife before noon, and now and then make ufe of her legs a little. She declares, that wine difagrees with her; the oracle

bids her drink water. That fhe has a bad digeftion; he tells her that he must go into a diet. My fight, fays fhe, fails; use spectacles, fays Efculapius. I grow weak, I am not half fo ftrong and healthy as I have been; you grow old, fays the God. But how, fays fhe, fhall I cure this languishing? Why you must die like your grandfathers and grandmothers, if you will get rid of it presently. What advice doft thou give me, thou fon of Apollo, cries Irene! Is this the mighty fkill men praife and worship thee for? What haft thou told me rare or myfterious? Did not I know thus much before? The God answers, Why then did you not put it in practice, without coming fo far out of your way, and fhortening your days by a tedious voyage, to no purpose?

1207. He must have ftudied children long, that is capable of teaching them well; every good scholar is not a good master; he must be a man of invincible patience, and fingular observation; diligent and fober; not too familiar, nor referved; neither amorous, nor fantastick; juft, without fiercenefs; and merciful, without fondness: he must commend, without flattery; chide, without contumely; and correct, without paffion; be chearful, without levity; affable, without fawning; grave, without moroseness; merry, without folly: he should be patient, humble, and meek, to pafs by, diffemble, and bear with many impertinencies, dulneffes, and forgetfulneffes; he muft endure many contempts, paffions, and evil words. Befides these qualifications, he should have experience of foreign parts, understand learning and fciences, be well born, of a good prefence and addrefs, and wear his cloaths

hand

handfomely, which will procure him refpect from his? charge, and facilitate the performance of his duty.

1208. Epictetus, though but a poor flave, had fuch a veneration paid to his memory, that his earthen lamp, by which he was wont to ftudy, was after his death fold for three thousand drachms.

1209. Shakespear, born with all the feeds of poetry, may be compared to the ftone of Pyrrhus's ring, which had the figure of Apollo and the Muses in the veins of it, produced by the fpontaneous hand of nature, without. any help from art, as Pliny tells us.

1210. Bishop Hall was admired for the depth of his judgment, the elevation of his fancy, and the uncommonness of his notions. He was natural in his characters, and lively in his descriptions; his ftile eafy, elegant, and concife. His gravity was fo well tempered with good hu mour, that his virtue was troublesome to no man.

1211. The famous archbishop Tillotson is all over natural and easy, in the most unconstrained and freeft elegance of thought and words; his difcourfe, both in his reasoning and stile, is like a gentle, even current, clear and deep, calm and ftrong; the language fo pure, as no water can be more fo. It flows with fo free and fo uninterrupted a stream, that it never ftops the reader or itself: every word poffeffes its proper place; no hard, unusual, mean, far-fetched, or over-ftrained expreffion; his diction, not in the naked terms of the things he speaks, but rather metaphorical, yet fo eafily are his metaphors tranfferred, that you would not fay they intrude into another's place, but that they ftep into their own; fo delicately

he

he writes, with fuch an elegant fimplicity, fuch an ornamental plainness of speech, fuch an easy majesty of stile, fuch brightness of thought, and beauty of expreffion, as are inimitable, and never enough to be admired.

1212. The late learned and venerable Dr Beveridge, bishop of St Asaph, delivered himself with those ornaments alone, which his fubject fuggefted to him; he has written with that plainnefs and folemnity of stile, that gravity and fimplicity, which give authority to the facred truths he teaches, and is an unanswerable evidence to the doctrine he defends. There is fomething fo great, primitive, and apoftolical in his writings, that it creates an awe and veneration in our minds. The importance of his subject is above the decoration of words, and what is great and majestick, looks most like itself, the lefs it is adorned the true fublime in the greatest articles of our faith is lodged in the plaineft words.

;

1213. The lord Clarendon was one of the most noble and impartial historians our nation has produced; the compaffion and refentment of his thoughts, the noble opennefs and freedom of his reflections, that peculiar felicity in designing characters, in which he has fucceeded beyond example, the glorious debt he pays to friendship, and the veil he kindly draws over the forrows and reproach of his country, are so admirably expreffed, in fuch lively colours, that we are struck by fympathy, and feel by reading, that he wrote from his heart, under the deepest fenfe, and the most perfect impreffion of the evils he bewails. Few can compare with him in the weight and folemnity of his ftile, in the strength and clearness of his diction, in the beauty

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