visible decay of their good looks, that they can shine no more by that light, put on the varnish of an affected devotion to keep up some kind of figure in the world. They take sanctuary in the church, when they are pursued by growing contempt, which will not be stopped, but followeth them to the altar. Such late penitence is only a disguise for the tormenting grief of being no more handsome. This is the killing thought, which draweth the sighs and tears, that appear outwardly to be applied to a better end.

There are many who have an aguish devotion, hot and cold fits, long intermissions and violent raptures. This unevenness is, by all means, to be avoided. Let your method be a steady course of good life, that may run like a smooth stream, and be a perpetual spring to furnish to the continued exercise of virtue. Your devotion may be earnest, but it must be unconstrained; and, like other duties, you must make it your pleasure too, or else it will have very little efficacy. By this rule, you may best judge of your own heart. While those duties are joys, it is an evidence of their being sincere: but when they are a penance, it is a sign, that your nature maketh some resistance ; and while that lasteth, you can never be entirely secure of yourself.

If you are often unquiet, and too nearly touched by the cross accidents of life, your devotion is not of the right standard: there is too much alloy in it. That, which is right and unmixed, taketh away the sting of every thing that would trouble you. It is like a healing balm, that extinguisheth the sharpness of the blood; so this softeneth, and dissolveth, the anguish of the mind. A devout mind hath the privilege of being free from passions, as some climates are

from all yenomous kind of creatures.

you

It will raise

above the little vexations, to which others for want of it will be exposed; and bring you to a temper, not of stupid indifference, but of such a wise resignation that you may live in the world, so as it may hang about you like a loose garment, and not tied too close to you.

• Take heed of running into that common error, of applying God's judgements upon particular occasions. Our weights and measures are not competent to make the distribution either of his mercy, or of his justice. He hath thrown a veil over these things, which makes it not only an impertinence, but a kind of sacrilege, for us to give sentence in them without his commission.

As to your particular faith, keep to the religion that is grown up with you, both as it is the best in itself, and that the reason of staying in it upon that ground is somewhat stronger for your sex, than it will perhaps be allowed to be for ours; in respect that the voluminous inquiries into the truth, by reading, are less expected from you. The best of books will be direction enough to you not to change; and while you are fixed and sufficiently confirmed in your own mind, you will do best to keep vain doubts and scruples at such a distance, that they may give you no disquiet.

'Let me recommend you to a method of being rightly informed, which can never fail : it is, in short, this-Get understanding, and practise virtue. And if you are so blessed as to have those for your share, it is not surer that there is a God, than it is, that by him all necessary truths will be revealed to you.

In your clothes, avoid too much gaudy. Do not

value yourself upon an embroidered gown; and remember that a reasonable word, or an obliging look, will gain you more respect than all your fine trappings. This is not said, to restrain you from a decent compliance with the world, provided you take the wiser, and not the foolisher, part of your sex for your pattern. Some distinctions are to be allowed, while they are well suited to your quality and fortune; and, in the distribution of the expense, it seemeth to me that a full attendance and well-chosen ornaments for your house will make you a better figure, than too much glittering in what you wear, which may with more ease be imitated by those that are below you. Yet this must not tempt you to starve every thing but your own apartment; or, in order to more abundance there, give just cause to the least servant you have, to complain of the want of what is necessary. Above all, fix it in your thoughts, as an unchangeable maxim, that nothing is truly fine but what is fit; and that just so much, as is proper for your circumstances of their several kinds, is much finer than all you can add to it. When you once break through these bounds, you launch into a wide sea of extravagance. Every thing will become necessary, because you have a mind to it; not because it is fit for you, but because somebody else hath it. This lady's logic setteth reason upon it's head, by carrying the rules from things to persons, and appealing from what is right to every fool that is in the wrong. The word, necessary,' is miserably applied; it disordereth families, and overturneth governments, by being so abused. Remember, that children and fools want every thing, because they want wit to distinguish: and, therefore, there is no stronger evidence of a crazy understanding than the

making too large a catalogue of things necessary,' when in truth there are so very few things that have a right to be placed in it. Try every thing first in your judgement, before you allow it to place in your desire; else, your husband may think it as necessary for him to deny, as it is for you to have, whatever is unreasonable; and, if you shall too often give him that advantage, the habit of refusing may perhaps reach to things that are not unfit for you.

• There are unthinking ladies, who do not enough consider how little their own figure agreeth with the fine things they are so proud of. Others, when they have them, will hardly allow them to be visible: they cannot be seen without light, and that is many times. so saucy and so pressing, that like a too froward gallant it is to be forbidden the chamber. Some, when you are ushered into their dark ruelle, it is with such solemnity, that a man would swear there was something in it; till the unskilful lady breaketh silence, and beginneth a chat, which discovereth it is a puppetplay with magnificent scenes. Many esteem things rather as they are to be gotten, than that they are worth getting. This looketh, as if they had an interest to pursue that maxim because a great part of their own value dependeth upon it. Truth in these cases would be often unmannerly, and might derogate from the prerogative great ladies would assume to themselves, of being distinct creatures from those of their sex, which are inferior and of less difficult

access.

In other things, too, your condition must give the rule to you; and, therefore, it is not a wife's part to aim at more than a bounded liberality: the farther extent of that quality (otherwise to be commended)

belongeth to the husband, who hath better means for it. Generosity, wrong-placed, becometh a vice. It is no more a virtue, when it groweth into an inconvenience; virtues must be enlarged, or restrained, according to differing circumstances. A princely mind will undo a private family: therefore things must be suited, or else they will not deserve to be commended, let them in themselves be never so valuable: and the expectations of the world are best answered, when we acquit ourselves in that manner which seemeth to be prescribed to our several conditions, without usurping upon those duties which do not so particularly belong I will close the consideration of this article of expense with this short word: do not fetter yourself with such a restraint in it, as may make you remarkable; but remember that virtue is the greatest ornament, and good sense the best equipage.

to us.

Cautions for Choice of Members of Parliament.

• XIII. It would be of very great use to take general resolution throughout the kingdom, that none should be chosen for a county, but such as have either in possession or reversion a considerable estate in it; nor for a borough, except he be resident, or that he hath some estate in the county in present or expectancy.

There have been eminent men of law who were of opinion, that in the case of a burgess of a town not resident, the court is to give judgement according to the statute, notwithstanding custom to the contrary.

But not to insist now upon that, the pruden