tunately, prevent us from giving a specimen.-After the lives and characters follow what the author entitles general rules. The following Essay on Recreation is one of the best.

"Of Recreations.

"Recreation is a second creation, when weariness hath almost annihilated one's spirits. It is the breathing of the soul, which otherwise would be stifled with continual business. We may trespass in them, if using such as are forbidden by the lawyer as against the statutes; physician, as against health; divine, as against conscience.

"Be well satisfied in thy conscience of the lawfulness of the recreation thou usest. Some fight against cock-fighting, and bait bull and bear-baiting, because man is not to be a common barretour to set the creatures at discord; and seeing antipathy betwixt creatures was kindled by man's sin, what pleasure can he take to see it burn? Others are of the contrary opinion, and that Christianity gives us a placard to use these sports; and that man's charter of dominion over the creatures enables him to employ them as well for pleasure as necessity. In these, as in all other doubtful recreations, be well assured first of the legality of them. He that sins against hís conscience sins with a witness.

"Spill not the morning (the quintessence of the day) in recreations. For sleep itself is a recreation; add not therefore sauce to sauces; and he cannot properly have any title to be refreshed, who was not first faint. Pastime, like wine, is poyson in the morning. It is then good husbandry to sow the head, which hath lain fallow all night, with some serious work. Chiefly intrench not on the Lord's day to use unlawful sports; this were to spare thine owne flock, and to sheere God's lamb.

"Let thy recreations be ingenious, and bear proportion with thine age. If thou sayest with Paul, when I was a child I did as a child; say also with him, But when I was a man I put away childish things. Wear also the child's coat, if thou usest his sports.

"Take heed of boisterous and over-violent exercises. Ringing oft times hath made good musick on the bells, and put men's bodies out of tune, so that by overheating themselves they have rung their own passing-bell.

"Yet the ruder sort of people scarce count any thing a sport which is not loud and violent. The Muscovite women esteem none loving husbands except they beat their wives. 'Tis no pastime with country clowns, that cracks not pates, breaks not shins, bruises not limbs, tumbles and tosses not all the body. They think themselves not warm in their geeres, till they are all on fire; and count it but dry sport, till they swim in their own sweat. Yet I conceive the physician's rule in exercises, Ad ruborem, but non ad sudorem, is too scant

measure.

"Refresh that part of thyself which is most wearied If thy life be sedentary, exercise thy body; if stirring and active, recreate thy mind. But take heed of couzening thy mind, in setting it to do a double task under pretence of giving it a play day, as in the labyrinth of chess, and other tedious and studious games.

"Yet recreations distastful to some dispositions rellish best to others. Fishing with an angle is to some rather a torture than a pleasure, to stand an houre as mute as the fish they mean to take: yet herewithall Dr. Whitaker was much delighted. When some noblemen had gotten William Cecill, Lord Burleigh and Treasurer of England, to ride with them a hunting, and the sport began to be cold; What call you this, said the Treasurer? Oh now, said they, the dogs are at a fault. Yea, quoth the Treasurer, take me again in such a fault, and I'le give you leave to punish me. Thus as soon may the same meat please all palats, as the same sport suit with all dispositions.

"Running, leaping, and dancing, the descants on the plain song of walking, are all excellent exercises. And yet those are the best recreations, which besides refreshing, enable, at least dispose men to some other good ends. Bowling teaches men's hands and eyes mathematicks, and the rules of proportion; swimming hath saved many a man's life, when himself hath been both the wares, and the ship: tilting and fencing is warre without anger; and manly sports are the grammer of military performance.

"But above all shooting is a noble recreation, and an half liberal art. A rich man told a poor man that he walked to get a stomach for his meat and I, said the poor man, walk to get meat for my stomach. Now shooting would have fitted both their turns, it provides food when men are hungry, and helps digestion when they are full. King Edward the Sixth, (though he drew no strong bow) shot very well, and when once John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, commended him for hitting the mark; you shot better (quoth the King) when you shot off my good uncle Protectour's head. But our age sees his successour exceeding him in that art, whose eye like his judgement is clear and quick to discover the mark, and his hands as just in shooting as in dealing aright.

"Some sports being granted to be lawful, more propend to be ill then well used. Such I count stage-plays, when made alwaies the actour's work, and often the spectator's recreation. Zeuxis, the curious picturer, painted a boy holding a dish full of grapes in his hand, done so lively, that the birds being deceived flew to peck the grapes. But Zeuxis, in an ingenious choller, was angry with his own workmanship. Had I (said he) made the boy as lively as the grapes, the birds would have been afraid to touch them. Thus two things are set forth to us in stage-playes: some grave sentences, prudent counsels, and punishment of vitious examples; and with these desperate oaths, lustful talk, and riotous acts are so personated to the life, that wantons are tickled with delight, and feed their palats upon them. It seems the goodness is not portrayed out with equal accents of liveliness as the wicked things are: otherwise men would be deterred from vitious courses, with seeing the woful success which follows them. But the main is, wanton speeches on stages are the devil's ordinance to beget badness; but I question whether the pious speeches spoken there be God's ordinance to increase goodness, as wanting both his institution and benediction.

"Choak not thy soul with immoderate pouring in the cordial of pleasures. The creation lasted but six dayes of the first week: prophane they, whose recreation lasts seven dayes every week. Rather abridge thyself of thy lawful liberty herein; it being a wary rule which S. Gregory gives us, Solus in illicitis non cadit, qui se aliquando et a licitis caute restringit.' And then recreations shall both strengthen labour and sweeten rest, and we may expect God's blessing and protection on us in following them, as well as in doing our work: for he that saith grace for his meat, in it prayes also to God to bless the sauce unto him. As for those that will not take lawful pleasure, I am afraid they will take unlawful pleasure, and, by lacing themselves too hard, grow awry on one side.'

The subsequent essay is no less entertaining.

"Of Books.

"Solomon saith truly,' Of making many books there is no end, so insatiable is the thirst of men therein: as also endless is the desire of many in buying and reading them. But we come to our rules.

"It is a vanity to perswade the world one hath much learning by getting a great library. As soon shall I believe every one is valiant that hath a well-furnished armory. I guess good housekeeping by the smoking, not the number of the tunnels, as knowing that many of them (built meerly for uniformity) are without chimnies, and more without fires. Once a dunce, void of learning but full of books, flouted a library-less scholar with these words, Salve doctor, sine libris: but the next day the scholar coming into the jeerer's study crowded with books, Salvete libri, (saith he,) sine doctore.

"Few books well selected are best: yet as a certain fool bought all the pictures that came out, because he might have his choice; such is the vain humour of many men in gathering of books: yet when they have done all they misse their end, it being in the editions of authors as in the fashions of clothes, when a man thinks he hath gotten the latest and newest, presently another newer comes out.

"Some books are only cursorily to be tasted of: namely, first, voluminous books, the task of a man's life to read them over; secondly, auxiliary books, onely to be repaired to on occasions; thirdly, such as are meer pieces of formality, so that if you look on them you look thorow them; and he that peeps thorow the casement of the index sees as much as if he were in the house. But the lazinesse of those cannot be excused who perfunctorily passe over authors of consequence, and onely trade in their tables and contents. These like city-cheaters having gotten the names of all countrey gentlemen, make silly people believe they have long lived in those places where they never were, and flourish with skill in those authours they never seriously studied.

"The genius of the author is commonly discovered in the dedicatory epistle. Many place the purest grain in the mouth of the sack for chapmen to handle or buy: and from the dedication one may probably guesse at the work, saving some rare and peculiar exceptions. Thus when once a gentleman admired so pithy, learned, and witty a

dedication was matched to a flat, dull, foolish book; In truth, said another, they may be well matched together, for I professe they are nothing a-kinne.

Proportion an houre's meditation to an houre's reading of a staple author. This makes a man master of his learning, and dispirits the book into the scholar. The King of Sweden never filed his men above six deep in one company, because he would not have them lie in uselesse clusters in his army, but so that every particular souldier might be drawn out into service. Books that stand thinne on the shelves, yet so as the owner of them can bring forth every one of them into use, are better than far greater libraries.

"Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost. Arius Montanus, in printing the Hebrew Bible (commonly called the Bible of the King of Spain), much wasted himself, and was accused in the court of Rome for his good deed, and being cited thither, Pro tantorum laborum præmio vix veniam impetravit.' Likewise Christopher Plantin by printing of his curious interlineary Bible in Antwerp, through the unseasonable exactions of the King's officers, sunk and almost ruined his estate. And our worthy English Knight, who set forth the golden-mouthed father in a silver print, was a loser by it.

ers.

"Whereas foolish pamphlets prove most beneficial to the printWhen a French printer complained that he was utterly undone by printing a solid serious book of Rabelais', concerning physick, Rabelais, to make him recompence, made that his foolish scurrilous work, which repaired the printer's loss with advantage. Such books the world swarms too much with. When one had set out a witless pamphlet, writing Finis at the end thereof, another wittily wrote beneath it

Nay, there thou li'st, my friend;

In writing foolish books there is no end.'

"And surely such scurrilous scandalous papers do more than conceivable mischief. First, their lusciousness puts many palats out of taste, that they can never after rellish any solid and wholesome writers secondly, they cast dirt on the faces of many innocent persons, which, dryed on by continuance of time, can never after be washed off thirdly, the pamphlets of this age may pass for records with the next (because publickly uncontrolled), and what we laugh at our children may believe: fourthly, grant the things true they jeer at, yet this musick is unlawful in any Christian church, to play upon the sinnes and miseries of others, the fitter object of the elegies than the satyrs of all truly religious.

"But what do I speaking against multiplicity of books in this age, who trespass in this nature myself? What was a learned man's complement may serve for my confession and conclusion: Multi mei similes hoc morbo laborant, ut cum scribere nesciant, tamen à scribendo temperare non possint.""

The foregoing extracts are from the Holy State. From the.

Profane State we shall only extract this curious Character of a Witch, in which Fuller displays more strikingly his quaint wit.

"The Witch.

"Before we come to describe her, we must premise and prove certain propositions, whose truth may otherwise be doubted of. "1. Formerly there were witches.

Otherwise God's law had fought against a shadow, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live: yea, we read how King Saul, who had formerly scoured witches out of all Israel, afterwards drank a draught of that puddle himself.

"2. There are witches for the present, though those night-birds flie not so frequently in flocks since the light of the Gospel. Some ancient arts and mysteries are said to be lost; but sure the devil will not wholly let down any of his gainful trades. There be many witches at this day in Lapland, who sell winds to mariners for money, (and must they not needs go whom the devil drives?) though we are not bound to believe the old story of Ericus, King of Swedeland, who had a cap, and as he turned it, the wind he wished for would blow on that side.

"3. It is very hard to prove a witch. Infernal contracts are made without witnesses. She that, in presence of others, will compact with the devil, deserves to be hanged for her folly as well as impiety.

"4. Many are unjustly accused for witches. Sometimes out of ignorance of natural, and misapplying of supernatural causes; sometimes out of their neighbours' meer malice, and the suspicion is increased, if the party accused be notoriously ill-favoured; whereas deformity alone is no more argument to make her a witch, than handsomeness had been evidence to prove her an harlot; sometimes out of their own causless confession, being brought before a magistrate they acknowledge themselves to be witches, being themselves rather bewitched with fear, or deluded with fancy. But the self-accusing of some is as little to be credited, as the self-praising of others, if alone without other evidence.

"5. Witches are commonly of the feminine sex. Ever since Satan tempted our grandmother Eve, he knows that that sex is most licorish to taste, and most careless to swallow his baits. Nescio quid habet muliebre nomen semper cum sacris: if they light well, they are inferiour to few men in piety; if ill, superior to all in superstition. They are commonly distinguished into white and black witches. White, 1 dare not say good witches, (for woe be to him that calleth evil good) heal those that are hurt, and help them to lost goods. But better it is to lap one's pottage like a dog, than to eat it mannerly with a spoon of the devil's giving. Black witches hurt and do mischief. But in deeds of darkness there is no difference of colours: the white and the black are both guilty alike in compounding with the devil. And now we come to see by what degrees people arrive at this height of profane

ness.

"At the first she is only ignorant, and very malicious. She hath usually a bad face, and a worse tongue, given to railing and cursing,