PSALM CIV.

Father and King of Powers, both high

and low,

Whose founding fame all creatures serve to blow ;

My voice fhall with the reft ftrike up Thy praise,

And carol of Thy works and wondrous

Of crystal bright, mother of colours all. (St., Ibid.)

READING OF BOOKS.

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and difcourfe; but to

weigh and confider. Some books are to be tafted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digefted; that is, fome books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and fome few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. ... Histories make men wife; poets, witty; the mathematics, fubtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. (Efays: of Studies.)

REVENGE.

Revenge is a kind of wild juftice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought Law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but in paffing it over, he is fuperior; for it is a prince's part to pardon, and Solomon, I am fure,

faith, It is the glory of a man to pass by an offence.' (Essays, 1625, iv.)

RICHES.

I cannot call Riches better than the baggage of Virtue. The Roman word is better, impedimenta. For as the baggage is to an army, fo is riches to Virtue. It cannot be spared nor left behind, but it hindereth the march. Yea, and the care of it fometimes lofeth or disturbeth the victory. Of great riches there is no real ufe, except it be in the diftribution; the reft is but conceit. (Efays, 1625, xxxiv.)

SATIRICAL

RELIGIOUS

WRITING CONDEMNED.

It is more than time that there were an end and furceafe made of this immodest and deformed manner of writing lately entertained, whereby matter of religion is handled in the ftyle of the ftage. Indeed, bitter and earnest writing

must not be haftily condemned; for men cannot contend coldly, and without affection, about things which they hold dear and precious. A politic man may write from his brain, without touch and sense of his heart; as in a speculation that appertaineth not unto him; but a feeling Christian will express in his words a character of zeal or love. The latter of which, as I could wish rather embraced, being more proper for these times, yet is the former warranted alfo by great examples. But to leave. all reverent and religious compaffion towards evils, or indignation towards faults, and to turn religion into a comedy or fatire; to fearch and rip up wounds with a laughing countenance, to intermix Scripture and fcurrility fometimes in one fentence, is a thing far from the devout reverence of a Christian, and fcant befeeming the honest regard of a fober man: There is no greater confufion than the confounding of jeft and earnest.' The majesty of religion, and the contempt and deformity of things ridiculous, are things as diftant as things may be. Two principal caufes have I ever known of atheism;

curious controverfies, and profane scoffing now that these two are joined in one, no doubt that fect will make no small progreffion. (Advertisement touching Controverfies.)

SOURCE OF GOOD SOLDIERS.

It hath been held by the general opinion of men of beft judgment in the wars (howfoever fome few have varied, and that it may receive fome distinction of cafe) that the principle ftrength of an army confifteth in the infantry or foot. And to make good infantry, it requireth men bred, not in a fervile or indigent fashion, but in fome free and plentiful manner. Therefore if a State run most to noblemen and gentlemen, and that the husbandmen, or elfe mere cottagers (which are but houfed beggars), you may have a good cavalry, but never good stable bands of foot; like to coppice woods, that if you leave in them ftaddles too thick, they will run to bushes and briers, and have little clean underwood. And this is to be seen in