himself in heaven, a petty prince, if he had but the least part of that fortune which thou so much repinest at, abhorrest, and accountest a most vile and wretched estate." How many thousands want that which thou hast? how many myriads of poor slaves, captives, of such as work day and night in coal-pits, tin-mines, with sore toil to maintain a poor living, of such as labour in body and mind, live in extreme anguish and pain, all which thou art free from. O fortunatos nimium | bona si sua norint: Thou art most happy if thou couldst be content, and acknowledge thy happiness; Rem carendo non fruendo cognoscimus, when thou shalt hereafter come to want that which thou now loathest, abhorrest, and art weary of, and tired with, when it is past thou wilt say thou wert most happy and after a little miss, wish with all thine heart thou hadst the same content again, mightest lead but such a life, a world for such a life: the remembrance of it is pleasant. Be silent then, rest satisfied, desine, intuensque in aliorum infortunia solare mentem, comfort thyself with other men's misfortunes, and as the moldiwarp in Æsop told the fox, complaining for want of a tail, and the rest of his companions, tacete, quando me oculis captum videtis, you complain of toys, but I am blind, be quiet. I say to thee, be thou satisfied. It is recorded of the hares, that with a general consent they went to drown themselves, out of a feeling of their misery; but when they saw a company of frogs more fearful than they were, they began to take courage and comfort again. Compare thine estate with others. Similes aliorum respice casus, mitius ista feres. Be content and rest satisfied, for thou art well in respect to others: be thankful for that thou hast, that God hath done for thee, He hath not made thee a monster, a beast, a base creature, as He might, but a man, a Christian, such a man; consider aright of it, thou art full well as thou art. Quicquid vult, habere nemo potest, no man can have what he will, Illud potest nolle quod non habet, he may choose whether he will desire that which he hath not. Thy lot is fallen, make the best of it. "If we should all sleep at all times (as Endymion is said to have done), who then were happier than his fellow?" Our life is but short, a very dream, and while we look about, immortalitas adest, eternity is at hand: " our life is a pilgrimage on earth, which wise men pass with great alacrity." If thou be in woe, sorrow, want, distress, in pain, or sickness, think of that of our apostle, "God chastiseth them whom He loveth: they that sow in tears shall reap in joy" (Ps. cxxvi. 5). "As the furnace proveth the potter's vessel, so doth temptation try men's thoughts" (Ecclus. xxv. 5), it is for thy good, Periisses nisi periisses: hadst thou not been so visited, thou hadst been utterly undone: "as gold in the fire," so men are tried in adversity. Tribulatio ditat: and which Camerarius hath well shadowed in an emblem of a thresher and corn. "Si tritura absit paleis sunt abdita grana. By crosses from the world's chaff are we born." "An It is the very same which Chrysostom comments, "Ite nunc fortes, ubi celsa magni Go on then merrily to heaven. If the way be troublesome, and you in misery, in many griev ances, on the other side you have many pleasant sports, objects, sweet smells, deligntsome tastes, music, meats, herbs, flowers, etc., to recreate your senses. Or put case thou art now forsaken of the world, dejected, contemned; yet comfort thyself, as it was said to Agar in the wilderness, "God sees thee: He takes notice of thee:" there is a God above that can vindicate thy cause, that can relieve thee. And surely, Seneca thinks, He takes delight in seeing thee. "The gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity," as we are to see men fight, or a man with a beast. But these are toys in respect: "Behold," saith he, "a spectacle worthy of God; a good man contented with his state." A tyrant is the best sacrifice to Jupiter, as the ancients held, and his best object "a contented mind." For thy part then, rest satisfied; "Cast all thy care on Him, thy burden on Him; rely on Him; trust on Him; and He shall nourish thee, care for thee, give thee thine heart's desire;" say with David, "God is our hope and strength, in troubles ready to be found" (Ps. xlvi. 1); "for they that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Sion, which cannot be removed" (Ps. cxxv. 1, 2); "as the mountains are about Jerusalem, so is the Lord about His people, from henceforth and for ever." THOMAS FULLER. BORN 1608; DIED 1661. (From "The Holy and Profane State.") THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER. THERE is scarce any profession in the commonwealth more necessary which is so slightly performed. The reasons whereof I conceive to be these: First, Young scholars make this calling their refuge; yea, perchance, before they have taken any degree in the university, commence schoolmasters in the country, as if nothing else were required to set up this profession but only a rod and a ferula. Secondly, Others, who are able, use it only as a passage to better preferment, to patch the rents in their present fortune, till they can provide a new one, and betake themselves to some more gainful calling. Thirdly, They are disheartened from doing their best with the miserable reward which in some places they receive, being masters to the children and slaves to their parents. Fourthly, Being grown rich, they grow negligent, and scorn to touch the school but by the proxy of an usher. But see how well our schoolmaster behaves himself. 1. His genius inclines him with delight to his profession. Some men had as lief be schoolboys as schoolmasters, to be tied to the school as Cooper's Dictionary and Scapula's Lexicon are chained to the desk therein; and though great scholars, and skilful in other arts, are bunglers in this. But God of His goodness hath fitted several men for several callings, that the necessity of Church and State, in all conditions, may be provided for. So that he who beholds the fabric thereof may say, God hewed out this stone, and appointed it to lie in this very place, for it would fit none other so well, and here it doth most excellent. And thus God mouldeth some for a schoolmaster's life, undertaking it. with desire and delight, and discharging it with dexterity and happy success. 2. He studies the scholars' natures as carefully as they their books; and ranks their dispositions into several forms. And though it may seem difficult for him in a great school to descend to all particulars, yet experienced schoolmasters may quickly make a grammar of boys' natures, and reduce them all, saving some few exceptions, to these general rules: (1.) Those that are ingenious and industrious. The conjunction of two such planets in a youth presage much good unto him. To such a lad a frown may be a whipping, and a whipping a death: yea, where their master whips them once, shame whips them all the week after. Such natures he useth with all gentleness. (2.) Those that are ingenious and idle. These think, with the hare in the fable, that running with snails (so they count the rest of their schoolfellows) they shall come soon enough to the post, though sleeping a good while before their starting. Oh, a good rod would finely take them napping! (3.) Those that are dull and diligent. Wines the stronger they be the more lees they have when they are new. Many boys are muddyheaded till they be clarified with age, and such afterwards prove the best. Bristol diamonds are both bright, and squared and pointed by nature, and yet are soft and worthless; whereas orient ones in India are rough and rugged naturally. Hard, rugged and dull natures of youth acquit themselves afterwards the jewels of the country, and therefore their dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself, who beats nature in a boy for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can make their parts, who are naturally sluggish, rise one minute before the hour nature hath appointed. (4.) Those that are invincibly dull and negli gent also. Correction may reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the world can never set a razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such boys he consigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and boatmakers will choose those crooked pieces of timber which other carpenters refuse. Those may make excellent merchants and mechanics who will not serve for scholars. 3. He is able, diligent, and methodical in his teaching; not leading them rather in a circle than forwards. He minces his precepts for children to swallow, hanging clogs on the nimbleness of his own soul, that his scholars may go along with him. 4. He is and will be known to be an absolute monarch in his school. If cockering mothers proffer him money to purchase their sons an exemption from his rod (to live as it were in a peculiar, out of their master's jurisdiction), with disdain he refuseth it, and scorns the late custom, in some places, of commuting whipping into money, and ransoming boys from the rod at a set price. If he hath a stubborn youth, correctionproof, he debaseth not his authority by contesting with him, but fairly, if he can, puts him away before his obstinacy hath infected others. 5. He is moderate in inflicting deserved correction. Many a schoolmaster better answereth the name waιdorpions than waidaywyds, rather tearing his scholars' flesh with whipping, than giving them good education. No wonder if his scholars hate the muses, being presented unto them in the shapes of fiends and furies. Junius complains de insolenti carnificina of his schoolmaster,* by whom conscindebatur flagris septies aut octies in dies singulos. Yea, hear the lamentable verses of poor Tusser, in his own Life : "From Paul's I went, to Eton sent, For fault but small, or none at all, To me, poor lad." Such an Orbilius mars more scholars than he makes their tyranny hath caused many tongues to stammer, which spake plain by nature, and whose stuttering at first was nothing else but fears quavering on their speech at their master's presence; and whose mauling them about their heads hath dulled those who in quickness exceeded their master. 6. He makes his school free to him who sues to him in forma pauperis. And surely learning is the greatest alms that can be given. But he is a beast who, because the poor scholar cannot pay him his wages, pays the scholar in his whipning. Rather are diligent lads to be encouraged with all excitements to learning. This minds me of what I have heard concerning Mr Bust, that worthy late schoolmaster of Eton, who would never suffer any wandering begging scholar, such as justly the statute hath ranked in the forefront of rogues, to come into his school, but would thrust him out with earnestness (however privately charitable unto him) lest his schoolboys should be disheartened from their books, by eing some scholars, after their studying in the universi y, preferred to beggary. 7. He spoils not a good school to make thereof a bad college, therein to teach his scholars logic. f'or, besides that logic may have an action of Trespass against grammar for encroaching on her liberties, syllogisms are solecisms taught in the school, and oftentimes they are forced afterwards 'n the university to unlearn the fumbling skill they had before. 8. Out of his school he is no whit pedantical in carriage or discourse; contenting himself to be rich in Latin, though he doth not jingle with it in every company wherein he comes. To conclude, let this amongst other motives make schoolmasters careful in their place, that the eminences of their scholars have commended In his Life, of his own writing. Nich. Udal, schoolmaster of Eton in the reign of King Henry VIII. the memories of their schoolmasters to posterity, who otherwise in obscurity had altogether been forgotten. Who had ever heard of R. Bond in Lancashire, but for the breeding of learned Ascham his scholar; or of Hartgrave in Brundley school, † in the same county, but because he was the first did teach worthy Dr Whitaker? Nor do I honour the memory of Mulcaster for anything so much as for his scholar, that gulf of learning, Bishop Andrews. This made the Athenians, the day before the great feast of Theseus their founder, to sacrifice a ram to the memory of Conidas his schoolmaster that first instructed him. ‡ OF JESTING. Harmless mirth is the best cordial against the consumption of the spirits: wherefore jesting is not unlawful if it trespasseth not in quantity, quality, or season. 1. It is good to make a jest, but not to make a trade of jesting. The Earl of Leicester, knowing that Queen Elizabeth was much delighted to see a gentleman dance well, brought the master of the dancing school to dance before her. "Pish," said the queen, "it is his profession, I will not see him." She liked it not where it was a master quality, but where it attended on other perfec tions. The same may we say of jesting. 2. Jest not with the two-edged sword of God's Word.§ Will nothing please thee to wash thy hands in, but the font, or to drink healths in, but the church chalice? And know the whole art is learnt at the first admission, and profane jests will come without calling. If in the troublesome days of King Edward the Fourth, a citizen in Cheapside was executed as a traitor for saying he would make his son heir to the Crown, though he only meant his own house, having a crown for the sign; more dangerous it is to wit-wanton it with the majesty of God. Wherefore, if without thine intention, and against thy will, by chance course, yet fly to the city of refuge, and pray to medley thou hittest Scripture in ordinary disGod to forgive thee. 3. Wanton jests make fools laugh, and wise let us not be naked savages in our talk. men frown. Seeing we are civilised Englishmen, Such rotten speeches are worst in withered age, when men run after that sin in their words which flieth from them in the deed. 4. Let not thy jests, like mummy, be made of dead men's flesh. Abuse not any that are departed; for to wrong their memories is to rob their ghosts of their winding-sheets. * Grant, in Vit. Ascham, p. 629. † Ashton, in the Life of Whitaker, p. 29. ↑ Plutarch, in Vit. Thesei. § Μάχαιραν δίστομον (Heb. iv. 12). I Speed, in Edward the Fourth. 1 5. Scoff not at the natural defects of any which are not in their power to amend. Oh, it is cruelty to beat a cripple with his own crutches! Neither flout any for his profession, if honest, though poor and painful. Mock not a cobbler for his black thumbs. 6. He that relates another man's wicked jests with delight, adopts them to be his own. Purge them therefore from their poison. If the profaneness may be severed from the wit, it is like a lamprey; take out the string in the back, it may make good meat. But if the staple conceit consists in profaneness, then it is a viper, all poison, and meddle not with it. 7. He that will lose his friend for a jest, deserves to die a beggar by the bargain. Yet some think their conceits, like mustard, not good except they bite. We read that all those who were born in England the year after the beginning of the great mortality 1349,* wanted their four cheek-teeth. Such let thy jests be, that may not grind the credit of thy friend, and make not jests so long till thou becomest one. 8. No time to break jests when the heart-strings are about to be broken. No more showing of wit when the head is to be cut off, like that dying man, who, when the priest coming to him to give him extreme unction, asked of him where his feet were, answered, "At the end of my legs." But at such a time jests are an unmannerly crepitus ingenii. And let those take heed who end here with Democritus, that they begin not with Heraclitus hereafter. OF SELF-PRAISING. 1. Ile whose own worth doth speak, need not speak his own worth. Such boasting sounds proceed from emptiness of desert: whereas the conquerors in the Olympian games did not put on the laurels on their own heads, but waited till some other did it. Only anchorets that want company may crown themselves with their own commendations. 2. It showeth more wit but no less vanity to commend one's self, not in a straight line, but by reflection. Some sail to the port of their own praise by a side wind; as when they dispraise themselves, stripping themselves naked of what is their due, that the modesty of the beholders may clothe them with it again, or when they Hatter another to his face, tossing the ball to him that he may throw it back again to them; or when they commend that quality wherein themselves excel, in another man, though absent, whom all know far their inferior in that faculty; or lastly, to omit other ambushes men set to surprise praise, when they send the children of their own brain to be nursed by another man, and commend their own works in a third person; but Tho. Walsingham, in eodem anno. | if challenged by the company that they were authors of them themselves, with their tongues they faintly deny it, and with their faces strongly affirm it. 3. Self-praising comes most naturally from a man when it comes most violently from him in his own defence. For though modesty binds a man's tongue to the peace in this point, yet being assaulted in his credit he may stand upon his guard, and then he doth not so much praise as purge himself. One braved a gentleman to his face, that in skill and valour he came far behind him: "It is true," said the other, "for when I fought with you, you ran away before me." In such a case, it was well returned, and without any just aspersion of pride. 4. Ile that falls into sin, is a man; that grieves at it, is a saint; that boasteth of it, is a devil. Yet some glory in their shame, counting the stains of sin the best complexion for their souls. These men make me believe it may be true what Mandeville writes of the isle of Somabarre, in the East Indies, that all the nobility thereof brand their faces with a hot iron in token of honour. 5. He that boasts of sins never committed, is a double devil. Many brag how many gardens of virginity they have deflowered, who never came near the walls thereof. Others, who would sooner creep into a scabbard than draw a sword, boast of their robberies, to usurp the esteem of valour. Whereas first let them be well whipped for their lying, and as they like that, let them come afterward and entitle them selves to the gallows. OF TRAVELLING. It is a good accomplishment to a man, if first the stock be well grown whereon travel is grafted, and these rules observed before, in, and after his going abroad. 1. Travel not early before thy judgment be risen; lest thou observest rather shows than substance, marking alone pageants, pictures, beautiful buildings, etc. 2. Get the language, in part, without which key thou shalt unlock little of moment. It is a great advantage to be one's own interpreter. Object not that the French tongue learnt in England must be unlearnt again in France; for it is easier to add than begin, and to pronounce than to speak. 3. Be well settled in thine own religion, lest, travelling out of England into Spain, thou goest out of God's blessing into the warm sun. They that go over maids for their religion, will be ravished at the sight of the first popish church they enter into. But if first thou be well grounded, their fooleries shall rivet thy faith the faster, and travel shall give thee confirmation in that baptism thou didst receive at home. D 4. Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the threshold thereof. Especially seeing England presents thee with so many observables. But late writers lack nothing but age, and home-wonders but distance, to make them admired. It is a tale what Josephus writes of the two pillars set up by the sons of Seth in Syria, the one of brick, fire-proof; the other of stone, water-free, thereon engraving many heavenly matters to perpetuate learning in defiance of time. But it is truly moralised in our universities, Cambridge (of brick) and Oxford (of stone), wherein learning and religion are preserved, and where the worst college is more sightworthy than the best Dutch gymnasium. First view these, and the rest home rarities; not like those English that can give a better account of Fontainebleau than Hampton Court, of the Spa than Bath, of Anas in Spain than Mole in Surrey. 5. Travel not beyond the Alps. Mr Ascham did thank God that he was but nine days in Italy, wherein he saw in one city (Venice) more liberty to sin, than that in London he ever heard of in nine years. That some of our gentry have gone thither, and returned thence without infection, I more praise God's providence than their adventure. 6. To travel from the sun is uncomfortable. Yet the northern parts with much ice have some crystal, and want not their remarkables. 7. If thou wilt see much in a little, travel the Low Countries. Holland is all Europe in an Amsterdam print, for Minerva, Mars, and Mercury, learning war and traffic. 8. Be wise in choosing objects, diligent in marking, careful in remembering of them; yet herein men much follow their own humours. One asked a barber, who never before had been at the court, what he saw there? "Oh," said he, "the king was excellently well trimmed!" Thus merchants most mark foreign havens, exchanges, and marts, soldiers note forts, armouries, and magazines; scholars listen after libraries, disputations, and professors; statesmen observe courts of justice, councils, etc. Every one is partial in his own profession. 9. Labour to distil and unite into thyself the scattered perfections of several nations. But, as it was said of one who, with more industry than judgment, frequented a college library, and commonly made use of the worst notes he met with in any authors, "that he weeded the library," many weed foreign countries, bringing home Dutch drunkenness, Spanish pride, French wantonness, and Italian atheism. As for the good herbs, Dutch industry, Spanish loyalty, French courtesy, and Italian frugality, these they leave behind them. Others bring home just nothing; and because they singled not * Antiq. Jud., lib i., cap. 3. + In his preface to his Schoolmaster. themselves from their countrymen, though some years beyond sea, were never out of England. 10. Continue correspondence with some choice foreign friend after thy return; as some professor or secretary, who virtually is the whole university, or state. It is but a dull Dutch fashion, their albus amicorum, to make a dictionary of their friends' names. But a selected familiar in every country is useful: betwixt you there may be a letter exchange. Be sure to return as good wares as thou receivest, and acquaint him with the remarkables of thy own country, and he will willingly continue the trade, finding it equally gainful. 11. Let discourse rather be easily drawn, than willingly flow from thee. That thou mayest not seem weak to hold, or desirous to vent news, but content to gratify thy friends. Be sparing in reporting improbable truths, especially to the vulgar, who, instead of informing their judgments, will suspect thy credit. Disdain their peevish pride who rail on their native land (whose worst fault is that it bred such ungrateful fools), and in all their discourses prefer foreign countries, herein showing themselves of kin to the wild Irish in loving their nurses better than their mothers. OF COMPANY. 1. Company is one of the greatest pleasures of the nature of man. For the beams of joy are made hotter by reflection, when related to another; and otherwise gladness itself must grieve for want of one to express itself to. 2. It is unnatural for a man to court and hug solitariness. It is observed, that the farthest islands in the world are so seated that there is none so remote but that from some shore of it another island or continent may be discerned; as if hereby nature invited countries to a mutual commerce, one with another. Why then should any man affect to environ himself with so deep and great reservedness, as not to communicate with the society of others? And though we pity those who made solitariness their refuge in time of persecution, we must condemn such as choose it in the Church's prosperity. For well may we count him not well in his wits who will live always under a bush, because others in a storm shelter themselves under it. 3. Yet a desert is better than a debauched companion. For the wildness of the place is but uncheerful, whilst the wildness of bad persons is also infectious. Better therefore ride alone than have a thief's company. And such is a wicked man who will rob thee of precious time, if he doth no more mischief. The Nazarites, who might drink no wine, were also forbidden (Num. vi. 3) to eat grapes, whereof wine is made. We must not only avoid sin itself, but also the causes and occasions thereof; amongst which bad company (the lime-twigs of the devil) is the |