by boats or little ships of intelligence, a nearer commerce is opened and carried on with the celestial bodies? Does not the mariner also find, by the help of a small magnet, a safe path in the waters, and wing his way to the harbour as surely as doth heaven's own bird? Have we not also, by the industry of good Mr. Caxton, who, going out into foreign lands to cloathe men's bodies, hath brought home and perfected what shall exceedingly cloathe and ornament their minds, that ingenious art of printing, condemned in other countries as a work of darkness, but exalted here to a place of sanctity, carried on in God's own house, a work worthy of that holy place, for thereby are the poor taught,-a charity deemed so great, as to be one proof of the divineness of Christ's mission. And the fabrick which sustains this device, without which help ignorance would be but half conquered, the very paper from which you are now reading is in itself no mean contrivance; for, if well observed, artificial matters are either merely wove with direct and tranverse threads, as silk, cloth, linen, &c., or made of concreted juices, as brick, clay, glass, enamel, porcelane, and the like; which if well united, shine, but if less united, prove hard, but bear no polish,—and all these latter substances made of concreted juices are brittle, and do not hold well together: on the other hand, paper is a tenacious substance that may be cut or torn, so that it resembles, and in a manner rivals, the skin or membrane of some animal, the leaves of some plant, or the like production of nature; for 'tis neither brittle as glass, nor thready as cloth, for though it has its fibres, yet it has no distinct threads, but doth exactly resemble the texture of natural matters, insomuch that the like can hardly be found again among artificial things. And here, which doth ill-suit the tranquil scholar, who is, for the most part, willing only to commend the fair arts of peace, I am in some sort bound to mention the lately discovered powder, so inflammable that it may be kindled by the smallest spark, and yet withal so potent that it can discharge thorow metal tubes divers heavy substances, and with such mortal violence as might seem to imitate Jove's own thunder." Observe the excellencies of music,-of Handel, Haydn, Mozart, &c. Observe the different beauties of our different arts, -the works in glass, silver, &c., the art of printing, engraving, &c. Know the best pictures of the most eminent artists,-of Raphael, Michael Angelo, Guido, &c.; the best statues,-the Apollo, the Antinous, &c.; the works of our greatest philosophers,-of Bacon; of our best poets,-of Shakspeare, Milton, &c. Observe the beauty of style in writing and speaking. "We enter into a desire of knowledge, sometimes from a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain our minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; sometimes to enable us to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession, and seldom sincerely to give a true account of our gift of reason for the benefit and use of man; as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down, with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich store-house for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate."-Bacon. 66 LOVE OF IMMORTALITY. Leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning man excelleth man in that wherein man excelleth beasts, that by learning man ascendeth to the heavens and their motions, where in body he cannot come, and the like; let us conclude, with the dignity and excellency of knowledge and learning, in that whereunto man's nature doth most aspire, which is immortality or continuance for to this tendeth generation, and raising of houses and families; to this tendeth buildings, foundations, and monuments; to this tendeth the desire of memory, fame, and celebration, and, in effect, the strength of all human desires. We see, then, how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands; for have not the verses of Homer continued twentyfive hundred years or more without the loss of a syllable or letter? during which time infinite palaces, temples, and cities have been decayed and demolished? It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar; no, nor of the kings or great personages of much later years; for the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot but leese of the life and truth; but the images of men's wits and knowledge remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages. So that if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other."-Bacon. ABUSE OF POWER. "The honest and just bounds of observation, by one person upon another, extend no further but to understand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence; or whereby to be able to give him faithful counsel; or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard and caution with respect to man's self: but to be speculative into another man, to the end to know how to work him, or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous."-Bacon. LOVE OF ORDER. See ante, page 123. BISHOP TAYLOR. "It is," says the pious Bishop Taylor, "a mighty change that is made by the death of every person, and it is visible to us who are alive. Reckon but from the spitefulness of youth, and the fair cheeks and the full eyes of childhood, from the vigorousness and strong flexure of the joints of five-and-twenty to the hollowness and dead paleness, to the loathsomeness and horror of a three days' burial, and we shall perceive the distance to be very great and very strange. But so I have seen a rose newly springing from the clefts of its hood, and at first it was fair as the morning, and full of the dew of heaven as a lamb's fleece; but when a ruder breath had forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its too youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to decline to softness and the symptoms of a sickly age; it bowed the head, and broke its stalk, and at night, having lost some of its leaves and all its beauty, it fell," &c. SHAKSPEARE. "Then think no more of me when I am dead, MILTON. "And chiefly thou, O, Spirit! that dost prefer Illumine; what low, raise and support." "How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose; But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, Where no crude surfeit reigns."—Comus. |