let their hearts and their heads go free. To cure them all of their folly and principles, is impracticable.

345. Too tender a sense of what other people fay ill of us, does but entertain the malice of the world, which defires no more but that it may disturb us.

346. The abfolute want of such a sense, so as to be moved at nothing they fay, is a contrary extreme, that produces the fame effect. This is such a fort of contempt, as the world is concerned to revenge itfelf upon.

347. There are some whose speeches are witty, but their courage weak; whofe deeds are incongruities, while their words are apophthegms; it is not worth the name of Wisdom, which can be heard only, and not seen. Good difcourfe is but the reflection or fhadow of wisdom, the pure and folid fubftance is good actions.

348. Secrefy and celerity are the two poles upon which all great actions move; and the noblest designs are like a mine, which having any vent, is wholly fruftrate, and of no effect.

349. Content will give a relish to all my pleasure, and make me epicurize upon my little fortune, and enjoy to the full height all that I have; whilft Covetoufness would let me starve in the midst of plenty, and make a beggar of me, though I wallowed in gold. Temperance and sobriety will give me life and health, a calm and free exercife of my reafon; whilft glutony and drunkenness will enervate my body, and ftupify my foul, make me live like a beast, and die like a fool. For pleasure has a bewitching faculty, the more we tafte it, the more we hanker after it; and therefore the best way to avoid being

captivated by that Syren, is to stop our ears to her charms; when we have often balked our appetites, by denying them what they crave, they will in a while grow fo quiet, that they will crave no more.

350. Dr South in an extafy cries out, "Oh! how vaftly difproportionate are the pleasures of the eating and the thinking man! as different, fays he, as an Archimedes in the study of a problem, and the stilness of a sow at her wash." The pleasure of speculation has fometimes been fo great, so intense, so ingroffing of all the powers of the foul, there has been no room left for other pleasures. Contemplation feels no hunger, nor is fenfible of any thirst but that after knowledge.

351. Though Christ blesses the poor, and pronounces woes to the rich, as having received their confolation, yet Abraham, Ifaac, Jacob, Job, David and Solomon were fo. Neither riches nor poverty blefs or curfe any man, and none that are poor are bleffed if they be proud and high-minded, nor any rich man curfed but he that places his portion and confolation in riches.

352. Dull despair is the foul's lethargy; roufe to the combat, and thou art fure to conquer.

353. They must be mighty evils, that can vanquish a Spartan courage, or a Chriftian faith.

354. There is no forcing nature against her biass, or inverting the methods of providence. Irregular defires, and unreasonable undertakings, muft expect to meet with disappointments : There is a proper time for all things, and nothing fucceeds well but what is done in season. 355. All the extravagances of the lewdeft life, are nothing

I

thing else but the more confummated follies and disorders of either a mif-taught or a neglected youth; nay, all the publick outrages of a deftroying tyranny and oppreffion are but childish appetites, let alone till they are ungovernable. Wherefore children fhould be moulded while their tempers are yet pliant and ductile; for it is infinitely eafier to prevent ill habits, than to mafter them; as the choaking of the fountain is the fureft way to cut off the course of the river. It should be confidered too that we have the feeds of virtue in us, as well as of vice; and whenever we take a wrong biafs, it is not out of a moral incapacity to do better, but for want of a careful management and discipline to set us right at first.

356. Men in great places are thrice fervants; fervants of the fovereign or state; fervants of fame; and fervants of business. So as they have no freedom either in their perfons, in their actions, or in their times,

357. The wife and active conquer difficulties by daring to attempt them; floth and folly fhiver and fink at the toil and hazard, and make the impoffibility they fear.

358. It is obferved that the most delicate and voluptuous princes have ever been the heaviest oppreffors of the people; riot being a far more lavish spender of the common treasure, than war or magnificence.

359. To fuperiors give refpect, deference, and fubmiffion; to equals, affection and confidence; to every body, fincerity, and all the fervice in our power.

360. I would be civil to all, ferviceable to many, familiar with few, a friend to one, and an enemy to none.

361. Let not thy table exceed the fourth part of thy

income; fee thy provifion be folid, and not far fetch'd, fuller of fubftance than art; be wifely frugal in thy preparation, and freely chearful in thy entertainments.

362. Let not the croaking of a raven, the crying of a cricket, or the croffing of a hare, trouble thy repose; he is ill acquainted with himself, who does not know his fortune better than those creatures. If evil follows, it is the punishment of thy superstition, not the fulfilling of their portent.

very

363. A man must make but few reflections upon life, if he defires to pafs it happily: It is but a lasting fucceffion of expectations and difappointments.

364. It is ftupidity to fet up our reft in a life that may terminate every moment; meer curiofity will make us inquifitive to know what shall become of us hereafter.

365. Great and fudden paffions have caused strange extafies, and death itself fometimes; the fpirits in grief flowing too fast to the heart to fortify it, and in joy leaving the heart as faft to meet the object that causes it.

366. Convey thy benefit to a friend, as an arrow to the mark, to stick there; not as a ball to rebound back to thee; that friendship will not continue to the end, that is begun for interest.

367. Praise has always fomething grofs in it, if it lie too open, and go on in a direct line. Voiture, one of the most delicate wits of the age, fcarce ever commended any body but in drollery; and of a long time none has done it with more fuccefs. The ftandards for praise are Homer and Virgil: Homer praifes not Achilles, but by a fimple and bare relation of his actions; and never was any

man praised so delicately as Augustus by Virgil; by covert paths he conducts him to glory. Certainly never man knew better the art of praifing, for he faves all the modefty of the perfon he praises, even while he overwhelms him with it. The true art of praife is to fay laudable things fimply, but delicately; for praife is not to be endured unless fine, and hidden; it is so very hard a thing to praise as one ought, that it is a rock which they that are wife will shun.

368. Great men hide themselves from publick view, like beasts of prey; yet are sometimes worried by a pack of political hounds, called a parliament.

369. He will be much out in his account, who numbers his friends by the vifits that are made him, and confounds the decencies of ceremony and commerce with the offices of united affections.

370. There is no living in this world without an exchange of civil offices, and the need we have one of another goes a great way towards the making us love one another: Now this amity and communication is to be entertained by the commerce of giving and receiving; and without good nature and gratitude, men had as well live in a wilderness, as in a civil fociety.

371. Women are pleased with courtship, and the most difdainful cannot but be complaifant to thofe that tell them they are handfome.

372. Several expreffions of the clergy in their prayers before sermon give offence, particularly the titles and epithets to great men; which are indeed due to them in their feveral ranks and ftations, but not properly used in our prayers. It is a contradiction to fay illuftrious, right