Queen Elizabeth was much delighted to see a gentleman dance well, brought the master of a dancing school to dance before her. "Pish," said 66 queen, it is his profession, I will not see

the

him."

Wanton jests make fools laugh, and wise men frown.

the convenience of a college cell, within gates which are shut betimes, as carefully as a besieged city, it being well thought by the fathers and founders of learning that the outward world is not more adverse to knowledge than to true religion. Here he trims his midnight lamp, and paleth the bloom of his youthful cheek; he stinteth himself of sleep, his books are his silent companions; the thoughts of the learned are his banquet, his inward man engrosses him, his outward man often altogether neglected,-health itself hardly cared for, while he is passing through this chrysalis state of the mind, and obtaining for his soul that plumage, which shall bear it into the regions of thought and fancy, hitherto unexplored, and reward him with discoveries hitherto unknown, and weave a chaplet of laurel for his brow, and bequeath unto his name an immortality of fame. But if I keep my eye on this bookworm, and follow him onward through the more advanced stage of knowledge, then I perceive the selfish, avaricious, and monopolizing feeling which moved him to such sacrifice of his pleasure and health, begin to abate as he becomes well fraught and stored; and as if God used his soul for a transport vessel, which doubtless he doth, he is driven with his spirit full of knowledge, to carry the same abroad, to communicate it to his fellows; he no sooner discovers truth than he hastens to reveal it; he no sooner detects errors than he hastens to warn the world of them, he joins himself to the societies of the learned, he enters into fellowships, and academies, and colleges,-he meditates in his mind and stirs up his thoughts, he writes books and communicates his gathered knowledge to all mankind; so that, in the first instance, while there is nothing so avaricious as the spirit of knowledge, there

Jest not with the two-edged sword of God's word. Will nothing please thee to wash thy hands in but the font, or to drink healths in but the church chalice ?§

Let not thy jests, like mummy, be made of dead men's flesh. Abuse not any that are departed, for to wrong their memories is to rob their ghosts of their winding sheets.

Scoff not at the natural defects of any which are

is in the next instance nothing so generous. It reveals without being put to the question. It bestows without being besought. The more precious its discoveries, the more it hastens to make them common. If, again, I consider the pursuit of wealth, then I perceive a like correspondence of the selfish and the social. The merchant and tradesman are indefatigable, making the most of every occasion, and driving every bargain with as much nicety as if their all was at stake. They measure with exactness,-they weigh out scrupulously. They gather up the remnants of things and suffer nothing to be lost, -they introduce an economy of time into their business, almost as if every day were the last ;-they lay off the several branches, each to a several hand, and there they ply at their departments with a haste and with an accuracy, which nothing can surpass. Their books are kept like the book of fate; every man's account is there as if it were the book of divine remembrance :-not an error through the whole can escape their view, and when the balance is struck it turns out as just and exact to the uttermost farthing. And to see the house in the work of accumulation, you would suppose every one a niggard and a miser who could part with nothing, and who could not bear that anything should be lost. But this is only half the man; to know him wholly you must see the other half likewise in action. Follow him from his workshop to his house, and you will see a spirit of profusion equalled only by the spirit of accumulation, and often to his cost not equalled by that. Here is generosity in every form. It is lavished on elegancies of the house, on attendants, on equipage, on

not in their power to amend. Oh! 'tis cruelty to beat a cripple with his own crutches.

No time to break jests when the heart-strings are about to be broken.

He that will lose his friend for a jest, deserves to die a beggar by the bargain.

OF TRAVELLING.

TRAVEL not early before thy judgment be risen ; lest thou observest rather shows than substance.

Get the language (in part) without which key thou shalt unlock little of moment.

sensual enjoyments, on magnificent schemes of pleasure, on charities, on subscriptions, on every profuse, liberal, and noble undertaking. Insomuch that these men who in the morning gathered with a hundred hands, in the evening scatter with a hundred hands that which they gathered; and are under the providence of God but instruments for changing the current of his beneficence, for gathering it where otherwise it would be wasted, and bestowing it where otherwise it would not be had. He gathered it at a thousand fountains, as the streams which come out of the recesses of a thousand solitudes are gathered into one lake; then he dispenseth it through the fertile places of society, and setteth in action, or engageth a thousand departments of business, just as if you should sluice off that lake into a thousand rills, with each of which to fertilize a productive field, or give force to the wheel of some more active machine.

E. I.

As for jest, there be certain things which ought to be privileged from it; namely, religion, matters of state, great persons, any man's present business of importance, and any case that deserveth pity.-LORD BACON.

S

Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the threshold thereof.

Travel not beyond the Alps. Mr. Ascham did thank God that he was but nine days in Italy, wherein he saw in one city (Venice) more liberty to sin than in London he ever heard of in nine years.†

To travel from the sun is uncomfortable. Yet the northern parts with much ice have some crystal. If thou wilt see much in a little, travel the Low Countries. Holland is all Europe in an Amster

dam print.

† I was once in Italy myself; but I thank God my abode there was but nine days; and yet I saw in that little time in one city, more liberty to sin, than ever I heard tell of in our noble city of London in nine years. I saw, it was there as free to sin, not only without all punishment, but also without any man's marking, as it is free in the city of London, to choose without all blame, whether a man list to wear shoe or pantofle. And good cause why: for being unlike in truth of religion, they must needs be unlike in honesty of living. For, blessed be Christ, in our city of London, commonly the commandments of God be more diligently taught, and the service of God more reverently used, and that daily in many private men's houses, than they be in Italy once a week in their common churches: where making ceremonies to delight the eye, and vain sounds to please the ear; do quite thrust out of the churches all service of God in spirit and in truth. Yea, the Lord Mayor of London, being but a civil officer, is commonly for his time more diligent in punishing sin, the bent enemy against God and good order, than all the bloody inquisitors in Italy be in seven years. For their care and charge is, not to punish sin, not to amend manners, not to purge doctrine, but only to watch and oversee that Christ's true religion set no sure footing where the Pope has any jurisdiction.-ASCHAM.

Be wise in choosing objects, diligent in marking, careful in remembering of them. Yet herein men much follow their own humours. One asked a barber who never before had been at the court, what he saw there? "Oh," said he," the king was excellently well trimmed!"

Labour to distil and unite into thyself the scattered perfections of several nations. Many weed foreign countries, bringing home Dutch drunkenness, Spanish pride, French wantonness, and Italian Atheism; as for the good herbs, Dutch industry, Spanish loyalty, French courtesy, and Italian frugality, these they leave behind them; others bring home just nothing; and, because they singled not themselves from their countrymen, though some years beyond see, were never out of England.

OF COMPANY.

COMPANY is one of the greatest pleasures of the nature of man.

It is unnatural for a man to court and hug solitariness. Yet a desart is better than a debauched companion. The Nazarites who might drink no wine were also forbidden to eat grapes whereof wine is made.

If thou be cast into bad company, like Hercules, thou must sleep with thy club in thine hand and stand on thy guard; like the river Dee in Merionethshire, in Wales, which running through Pimble