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you enjoy, I am glad to find this favourite of mine the most predominant; that you choose this for your wife, though you have hundreds of other arts for your concubines; though you know them, and beget sons upon them all (to which you are rich enough to allow great legacies), yet the issue of this seems to be designed by you to the main of the estate; you have taken most pleasure in it, and bestowed most charges upon its education and I doubt not to see that book, which you are pleased to promise to the world, and of which you have given us a large earnest in your calendar, as accomplished as anything can be expected from an extraordinary wit, and no ordinary expenses, and a long experience. I know nobody that possesses more private happiness than you do in your garden; and, yet no man, who makes his happiness more public, by a free communication of the art and knowledge of it to others. All that I myself am able yet to do, is only to recommend to mankind the search of that felicity, which you instruct them how to find and to enjoy.

OF GREATNESS.

"Since we cannot attain to greatness," says the Sieur de Montaigne, "let us have our revenge by railing at it" this he spoke but in jest. I believe he desired it no more than I do, and had less reason; for he enjoyed so plentiful and honourable a fortune in a most excellent country, as allowed him all the real conveniences of it, separated and purged from the incommodities. If I were but in his condition, I should think it hard measure, without being convinced of any crime, to be sequestrated from it, and made one of the principal officers of state. But the reader may think that what I now say is of small authority, because I never was, nor ever shall be, put to the trial: I can therefore only make my protestation:

If ever I more riches did desire

Than cleanliness and quiet do require:
If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat,
With any wish, so mean as to be great,
Continue, Heaven, still from me to remove
The humble blessings of that life I love.

I know very many men will despise, and some pity me, for this humour, as a poor-spirited fellow; but I am content, and, like Horace, thank God for being so.

"Di bene fecerunt, inopis me quodque pusilli, Finxerunt animi."*

I confess I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast; and, if I were to fall in love again (which is a great passion, and therefore, I hope, I have done with it), it would be, I think, with prettiness, rather

* Horace, Sat. I., iv. 17: "The gods have done well In making me a humble and small-spirited fellow."

than with majestical beauty. I would neither wish that my mistress, nor my fortune, should be a bona roba, nor, as Homer uses to describe his beauties, like a daughter of great Jupiter, for the stateliness and largeness of her person; but, as Lucretius says,

"Parvula, pumilio, Xapírwv ula, tota merum sal."

Where there is one man of this, I believe there are a thousand of Senecio's mind, whose ridiculous affectation of grandeur Seneca the elder describes to this effect: Senecio was a man of a turbid and confused wit, who could not endure to speak any but mighty words and sentences, till this humour grew at last into so notorious a habit, or rather disease, as became the sport of the whole town: he would have no servants, but huge, massy fellows; no plate or household stuff, but thrice as big as the fashion: you may believe me, for I speak it without raillery, his extravagancy came at last into such a madness that he would not put on a pair of shoes, each of which was not big enough for both his feet: he would eat nothing but what was great, nor touch any fruit but horse-plums and pound-pears: he kept a concubine that was a very giantess, and made her walk too always in chiopins, till at last he got the surname of Senecio Grandio, which, Messala said, was not his cognomen, but his cognomentum: when he declaimed for the three hundred Lacedæmonians, who alone opposed Xerxes's army of above three hundred thousand, he stretched out his arms, and stood on tiptoes, that he might appear the taller, and cried out, in a very loud voice: "I rejoice, I rejoice" - we wondered, I remember, what new great fortune had befallen his eminence"Xerxes," says he, "is all mine own. He who took away the sight of the sea with the canvas veils of so many ships "-and then he goes on so, as I know not what to make of the rest, whether it be the fault of the edition, or the orator's own burly way of nonsense.

This is the character that Seneca gives of this hyperbolical fop, whom we stand amazed at, and yet there are very few men who are not in some things, and to some degrees, Grandios. Is anything more common than to see our ladies of quality wear such high shoes as they cannot walk in, without one to lead them; and a gown as long again as their body, so that they cannot stir to the next room, without a page or two to hold it up? I may safely say that all the ostentation of our grandees is just like a train, of no use in the world, but horribly cumbersome and incommodious. What is all this but a spice of Grandio? how tedious would this be if we were always bound to it! I do believe there is no king who would not rather be deposed than endure, every day of his reign, all the cere monies of his coronation.

The mightiest princes are glad to fly often from these majestic pleasures (which is, me.

thinks, no small disparagement to them) as it were for refuge, to the most contemptible divertisements, and meanest recreations, of the vulgar, nay, even of children. One of the most powerful and fortunate princes of the world, of late, could find out no delight so satisfactory, as the keeping of little singing birds, and hearing of them, and whistling to them. What did the emperors of the whole world? If ever any men had the free and full enjoyment of all human greatness (nay, that would not suffice, for they would be gods too), they certainly possessed it: and yet one of them, who styled himself lord and god of the earth, could not tell how to pass his whole day pleasantly, without spending constantly two or three hours in catching of flies, and killing them with a bodkin, as if his god. ship had been Beelzebub. One of his predecessors, Nero (who never put any bounds, nor met with any stop to his appetite), could divert himself with no pastime more agreeable than to run about the streets all night in a disguise, and abuse the women, and affront the men whom he met, and sometimes to beat them, and sometimes to be beaten by them: this was one of his imperial nocturnal pleasures. His chiefest in the day was to sing and play upon a fiddle, in the habit of a minstrel, upon the public stage: he was prouder of the garlands that were given to his divine voice (as they called it then) in those kind of prizes, than all his forefathers were of their triumphs over nations: he did not at his death comist t that so mighty an emperor, and the last when he Cæsarian race of deities, should be bror 30 shameful and miserable an end; but only cout, "Alas! what pity it is that so excellent musician should perish in this manner!" is uncle Claudius spent half his time at playing at dice; that was the main fruit of his sovereignty. I omit the madnesses of Caligula's delights, and the execrable sordidness of those of Tiberius. Would one think that Augustus himself, the highest and most fortunate of mankind, a person endowed too with many excellent parts of nature, should be so hard put to it sometimes for want of recreations, as to be found playing at nuts and bounding-stones with little Syrian and Moorish boys, whose company he took delight in, for their prating and their wantonness?

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Was it for this that Rome's best blood he spilt,
With so much falsehood, so much guilt?
Was it for this, that his ambition strove
To equal Cæsar, first; and after, Jove?
Greatness is barren, sure, of solid joys;
Her merchandise (I fear) is all in toys:
She could not else, sure, so uncivil be,
To treat his universal majesty,

Louis XIII. The Duke of Luynes, Constable of France, is said to have gained the favour of this powerful prince by training up singing birds for him. -Anonymous.

↑ Beelzebub signifies the Lord of flies.--Cowley.

His new-created deity,

With nuts and bounding-stones and boys. But we must excuse her for this meagre entertainment; she has not really wherewithal to make such feasts as we imagine. Her guests

must be contented sometimes with but slender

cates, and with the same cold meats served over and over again, even till they become nauseous. When you have pared away all the vanity, what solid and natural contentment does there

remain, which may not be had with five hundred pounds a year? Not so many servants or horses; but a few good ones, which will do all the business as well: not so many choice dishes at every meal; but at several meals all of them, which makes them both the more healthy, and the more pleasant: not so rich garments, nor so frequent changes; but as warm and as comely, and so frequent change too, as is every jot as good for the master, though not for the tailor or valet de chambre: not such a stately palace, nor gilt rooms, or the costliest sorts of tapestry; but a convenient brick house, with decent wainscot, and pretty forest-work hangings. Lastly (for I omit all other particulars, and will end with that which I love most in both conditions), not whole woods cut in walks, nor vast parks, nor fountain or cascade gardens; but herb, and flower, and fruit gardens, which are more useful, and the water every whit as clear and wholesome as if it darted from the breasts of a marble

nymph, or the urn of a river god.

If, for all this, you like better the substance of that former estate of life, do but consider the inseparable accidents of both : servitude, disquiet, danger, and, most commonly, guilt, inherent in the one; in the other, liberty, tranquillity, security, and innocence. And when you have thought upon this, you will confess that to be a truth which appeared to you before but a ridi culous paradox, that a low fortune is better guarded and attended than a high one. indeed, we look only upon the flourishing head of the tree, it appears a most beautiful object,

"Sed quantum vertice ad auras Etherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit."

As far as up towards heaven the branches grow, So far the roots sink down to hell below.

If,

Another horrible disgrace to greatness is, that it is for the most part in pitiful want and distress. What a wonderful thing is this! Unless it degenerate into avarice, and so cease to be greatness, it falls perpetually into such necessities, as drive it into all the meanest and most sordid ways of borrowing, cozenage, and robbery:

"Mancipiis locuples, eget æris Cappadocum rex."

This is the case of almost all great men, as well as of the poor King of Cappadocia: they abound with slaves, but are indigent of money. The

E

ancient Roman emperors, who had the riches of
the whole world for their revenue, had where-
withal to live (one would have thought) pretty
well at ease, and to have been exempt from the
pressures of extreme poverty. But, yet with
most of them it was much otherwise; and they
fell perpetually into such miserable penury, that
they were forced to devour or squeeze most of
their friends and servants, to cheat with infamous
projects, to ransack and pillage all their pro-
vinces. This fashion of imperial grandeur is
imitated by all inferior and subordinate sorts of
it, as if it were a point of honour. They must
be cheated of a third part of their estates; two
other thirds they must expend in vanity; so
that they remain debtors for all the necessary
provisions of life, and have no way to satisfy
those debts, but out of the succours and supplies
of rapine: "As riches increase," says Solomon,"so
do the mouths that devour them."* The master
mouth has no more than before.
The owner,
methinks, is like Ocnus in the fable, who is per-
petually winding a rope of hay, and an ass at the
end perpetually eating it.

Out of these inconveniences arises naturally one more, which is, that no greatness can be satisfied or contented with itself: still, if it could mount up a little higher, it would be happy; if it could gain but that point, it would obtain all its desires; but yet at last, when it is got up to the very top of the Peak of Teneriffe, it is in very great danger of breaking its neck downwards, but in no possibility of ascending upwards into the seat of tranquillity above the moon. The first ambitious men in the world, the old giants, are said to have made an heroical attempt of scaling heaven in despite of the gods; and they cast Ossa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa: two or three mountains more, they thought, would have done their business; but the thunder spoilt all the work, when they were come up to the third story.

And what a noble plot was crossed!
And what a brave design was lost!

A famous person of their offspring, the late giant of our nation, when, from the condition of a very inconsiderable captain, he made himself lieutenant-general of an army of little Titans, which was his first mountain, and afterwards general, which was his second, and after that, absolute tyrant of three kingdoms, which was the third, and almost touched the heaven which he affected, is believed to have died with grief and discontent, because he could not attain to the honest name of a king, and the old formality of a crown, though he had before exceeded the power by a wicked usurpation. If he could have compassed that, he would perhaps have wanted something else that is necessary to felicity, and pined away for the want of the title of an emperor

Eccles, v. 11.

or a god. The reason of this is, that greatness has no reality in nature, but is a creature of the fancy, a notion that consists only in relation and comparison: it is indeed an idol; but St Paul teaches us "that an idol is worth nothing in the world." There is, in truth, no rising or meridian of the sun, but only in respect to several places: there is no right or left, no upper hand, in nature; everything is little, and everything is great, according as it is diversely compared. There may be perhaps some village in Scotland or Ireland, where I might be a great man; and in that case I should be like Cæsar (you would wonder how Cæsar and I should be like one another in anything); and choose rather to be the first man of the village, than second at Rome. Our country is called Great Britainy, in regard only of a lesser of the same name; it would be but a ridiculous epithet for it, when we consider it together with the kingdom of China. That, too, is but a pitiful rood of ground, in comparison of the whole earth besides: and this whole globe of earth, which we account so immense a body, is but one point or atom in relation to those numberless worlds that are scattered up and down in the infinite space of the sky which we behold.

THE DANGERS OF AN HONEST MAN IN
MUCH COMPANY.*

If twenty thousand naked Americans were not able to resist the assaults of buts, wenty wellarmed Spaniards, I see little posle tali for one honest man to defend himself aI rejotwenty thousand knaves, who are all furnisubcap a pie, with the defensive arms of wort er prudence, and the offensive, too, of craft and malice. He will find no less odds than this against him, if he have much to do in human affairs. The only advice therefore which I can give him is, to be sure not to venture his person any longer in the open campaign, to retreat and intrench himself, to stop up all avenues, and draw up all bridges against so numerous an enemy.

The truth of it is, that a man in much business must either make himself a knave, or else the world will make him a fool: and, if the injury went no further than the being laughed at, a wise man would content himself with the revenge of retaliation; but the case is much worse, for these civil cannibals too, as well as the wild ones, not only dance about such a taken stranger,† A sober man cannot but at last devour him.

get too soon out of drunken company, though

"The pure virtue of Cowley, clouded by chagrin, and, perhaps, a constitutional melancholy, could scarce fail of taking somewhat too much of the character of a misanthrope; yet his good sense and good temper generally kept him from any extravagance in the ex

pression of it, except in this chapter."-Hurd.

Taken in the double sense of seized and circum

vented.

they be never so kind and merry among themselves; it is not unpleasant only, but dangerous to him.

Do ye wonder that a virtuous man should love to be alone? It is hard for him to be otherwise; he is so, when he is among ten thousand: neither is the solitude so uncomfortable to be alone without any other creature, as it is to be alone in the midst of wild beasts. Man is to man all kinds of beasts; a fawning dog, a roaring lion, a thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture. The civilest, methinks, of all nations, are those whom we account the most barbarous ; there is some moderation and good-nature in the Toupinambaltians, who eat no men but their enemies, whilst we learned and polite and Christian Europeans, like so many pikes and sharks, prey upon everything that we can swallow. It is the great boast of eloquence and philosophy, that they first congregated men dispersed, united them into societies, and built up the houses and the walls of cities. I wish they could unravel all they had woven; that we might have our woods and innocence again, instead of | our castles and our policies. They have assembled many thousands of scattered people into one body it is true, they have done so; they have brought them into cities to cozen, and into armies to murder one another: they found them hunters and fishers of wild creatures; they have made them hunters and fishers of their brethren; they boast to have reduced them to a state of peace, when the truth is, they have only taught them an of war; they have framed, I must confess, wi olesome laws for the restraint of vice, but they raised first that devil which now they conjure and cannot bind; though there were before no punishments for wickedness, yet there was less committed, because there were no rewards for it.

But the men who praise philosophy from this topic, are much deceived; let oratory answer for itself, the tinkling perhaps of that may unite a swarm it never was the work of philosophy to assemble multitudes, but to regulate only, and govern them, when they were assembled; to make the best of an evil, and bring them, as much as is possible, to unity again. Avarice and ambition only were the first builders of towns, and founders of empires; they said, "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the earth." What was the beginning of Rome, the metropolis of all the world? what was it, but a concourse of thieves, and a sanctuary of criminals? It was justly named by the augury of no less than twelve vultures, and the founder cemented his walls with the blood of his brother. Not unlike to this was the beginning even of the

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Gen. xl. 4.

first town too in the world, and such is the original sin of most cities: their actual increase daily with their age and growth: the more people, the more wicked all of them; every one brings in his part to inflame the contagion, which becomes at last so universal and so strong, that no precepts can be sufficient preservatives, nor anything secure our safety, but flight from among the infected.

We ought, in the choice of a situation, to regard, above all things, the healthfulness of the place, and the healthfulness of it for the mind, rather than for the body. But suppose (which is hardly to be supposed) we had antidote enough against this poison? nay, suppose further, we were always and at all pieces armed and provided, both against the assai ts of hostility, and the mines of treachery, it will yet be but an uncomfortable life to be ever in alarms; though we were compassed round with fire, to defend ourselves from wild beasts, the lodging would be unpleasant, because we must always be obliged to watch that fire, and to fear no less the defects of our guard, than the diligences of our enemy. The sum of this is, that a virtuous man is in danger to be trod upon and destroyed in the crowd of his contraries, nay, which is worse, to be changed and corrupted by them; and that it is impossible to escape both these inconveniences without so much caution, as will take away the whole quiet, that is, the happiness of his life.

Ye see, then, what he may lose; but, I pray, what can he get there?

"Quid Romæ faciam? Mentiri nescio." What should a man of truth and honesty do at Rome? He can neither understand nor speak the language of the place; a naked man may swim in the sea, but it is not the way to catch fish there; they are likelier to devour him, than he them, if he bring no nets, and use no deceits. I think, therefore, it was wise and friendly advice, which Martial gave to Fabian, when he

met him newly arrived at Rome:

Honest and poor, faithful in word and thought;
What has thee, Fabian, to the city brought?
Thou neither the buffoon nor bawd canst play,
Nor with false whispers th' innocent betray;
Nor corrupt wives, nor from rich beldams get
A living by thy industry and sweat;
Nor with vain promises and projects cheat,
Nor bribe or flatter any of the great.
But you're a man of learning, prudent, just;
A man of courage, firm, and fit for trust.
Why you may stay, and live unenvied here;
But (faith) go back, and keep you where you were.

Nay, if nothing of all this were in the case, yet the very sight of uncleanness is loathsome to the cleanly; the sight of folly and impiety, vexatious to the wise and pious.

Lucretius, by his favour, though a good poet, was but an ill-natured man, when he said, it was delightful to see other men in a great storm: and no less ill-natured should I think Demo

mains, that they that have wives be as though they had none. But I would that all men were even as myself.”*

In all cases, they must be sure that they do mundum ducere, and not mundo nubere. They must retain the superiority and headship over it; happy are they who can get out of the sight of this deceitful beauty, that they may not be led so much as into temptation; who have not only quitted the metropolis, but can abstain from ever seeing the next market town of their country.

critus, who laughed at all the world, but that he retired himself so much out of it, that we may perceive he took no great pleasure in that kind of mirth. I have been drawn twice or thrice by company to go to Bedlam, and have seen others very much delighted with the fantastical extravagancy of so many various madnesses, which upon me wrought so contrary an effect, that I always returned, not only melancholy, but even sick with the sight. My compassion there was perhaps too tender, for I meet a thousand madmen abroad, without any perturbation; though, to weigh the matter justly, the total loss of reason is less deplorable than the total THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE, AND UNCERdepravation of it. An exact judge of human blessings, of riches, honours, beauty, even of wit itself, should pity the abuse of them, more than the want.

Briefly, though a wise man could pass never so securely through the great roads of human life, yet he will meet perpetually with so many objects and occasions of compassion, grief, shame, anger, hatred, indignation, and all passions but envy (for he will find nothing to deserve that), that he had better strike into some private path; nay, go so far, if he could, out of the common way, "ut nec facta audiat Pelopidarum;" that he might not so much as hear of the actions of the sons of Adam. But whither shall we fly then into the deserts like the ancient hermits?

"Qua terra patet, fera regnat Erinnys, In facinus jurasse putes."

One would think that all mankind had bound themselves by an oath to do all the wickedness they can; that they had all (as the Scripture speaks) "sold themselves to sin:" the difference only is, that some are a little more crafty (and but a little, God knows), in making of the bargain. I thought, when I went first to dwell in the country, that, without doubt, I should have met there with the simplicity of the old poetical golden age; I thought to have found no inhabitants there, but such as the shepherds of Sir Philip Sidney in Arcadia, or of Monsieur d'Urfé upon the banks of Lignon: and began to consider with myself, which way I might recommend no less to posterity the happiness and innocence of the men of Chertsea: but, to confess the truth, I perceived quickly, by infallible demonstrations, that I was still in Old England, and not in Arcadia, or La Forrest; that, if I could not content myself with anything less than exact fidelity in human conversation, I had almost as good go back and seek for it in the Court, or the Exchange, or Westminster Hall. I ask again then, whither shall we fly, or what shall we do? The world may so come in a man's way, that he innot choose but salute it; he must take heed, ugh, not to go a whoring after it. If, by any pin vocation, or just necessity, men happen to

ied to it, I can only give them St Paul's "Brethren, the time is short; it re

TAINTY OF RICHES.

If you should see a man, who were to cross from Dover to Calais, run about very busy and solicitous, and trouble himself many weeks before in making provisions for his voyage, would you commend him for a cautious and discreet person, or laugh at him for a timorous and impertinent coxcomb? A man, who is excessive in his pains and diligence, and who consumes the greatest part of his time in furnishing the remainder with all conveniences and even superfluities, is to angels and wise men no less ridicu lous; he does as little consider the shortness of his passage, that he might proportion his cares accordingly. It is, alas, so narrow a strait betwixt the womb and the grave, that it might be called the Pas de Vie, as well as that the Pas de Calais.

We are all puepo (as Pindar calls us), creatures of a day, and therefore r Saviour bounds our desires to that little space; as if it were very probable that every day shall be our last, we are taught to demand even bread for no longer a time. The sun ought not to set upon our covetousness, no more than upon our anger; but, as to God Almighty a thousand years are as one day, so, in direct opposition, one day to the covetous man is as a thousand years; "tam brevi fortis jaculatur ævo multa," so far he shoots beyond his butt: one would think, he were of the opinion of the millenaries, and hoped for so long a reign upon earth. The patriarchs before the flood, who enjoyed almost such a life, made, we are sure, less stores for the maintaining of it; they, who lived nine hundred years, scarcely provided for a few days; we, who live but a few days, provide at least for nine hundred years. What a strange alteration is this of human life and manners! and yet we see an imitation of it in every man's particular experience; for we begin not the cares of life till it be half spent, and still increase them, as that de

creases.

What is there among the actions of beasts s0 illogical and repugnant to reason? When they do anything which seems to proceed from that

* 1 Cor. vii. 29.

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