touch of things unclean, the least miscarriage requires purification. Man is like a watch: if evening and morning he be not wound up with prayer and circumspection he is unprofitable and false, or serves to mislead. If the instrument be not truly set it will be harsh and out of tune: the diapason dies when every string does not perform his part. Surely without a union to God we cannot be secure or well. Can he be happy who from happiness is divided? To be united to God we must be influenced by his goodness and strive to imitate his perfections. Diligence alone is a good patrimony; but neglect will waste the fairest fortune. One preserves and gathers; the other, like death, is the dissolution of all. The industrious bee, by her sedulity in summer, lives on honey all the winter. But the drone is not only cast out from the hive, but beaten and punished. Resolves.

THOMAS FULLER, born 1608, died 1661, was the author of The Historie of the Holy Warre, Camb., 1639, fol., The Holy and Profane State, Camb., 1642, fol., The Church History of Britain, from the Birth of Jesus Christ untill the Year MDCXLVIII., Lond., 1655, fol., The History of the Worthies of England, Lond., 1662, fol., and other works.

"Next to Shakspeare, I am not certain whether Thomas Fuller beyond all other writers does not excite in me the sense and emotion of the marvellous; the degree in which any given faculty, or combination of faculties, is possessed and manifested, so far surpassing what we would have thought possible in a single mind, as to give one's admiration the flavour and quality of wonder. Fuller was incomparably the most sensible, the least prejudiced, great man of an age that boasted of a galaxy of great men. In all his numerous volumes, on SO many different subjects, it is scarcely too much to say, that you will hardly find a page in which some one sentence out of every three does not deserve to be quoted for itself as a

motto or as a maxim."-S. T. COLEeridge.

"The historical works of Fuller are simply a

caricature of the species of composition to which they professedly belong; a systematic violation of all its proprieties. The gravity and dignity of the historic muse are continually violated by him. But not only is he continually cracking his jokes and perpetrating his puns; his matter is as full of treason against the laws of history as his manner." -HENRY ROGERS: Edin. Rev., 1xxiv. 352-353, and in his Essays.

RULES FOR IMPROVING THE MEMORY. First, soundly infix in thy mind what thou desirest to remember. What wonder is it if agitation of business jog that out of thy head which was there rather tacked than fastened? Whereas those notions which get

in by "violenta possessio" will abide there till “ejectio firma," sickness, or extreme age dispossess them. It is best knocking in the nail overnight, and clinching it the next morning.

as a

Overburden not thy memory to make so faithful a servant a slave! Remember Atlas was weary. Have as much reason camel, to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory, like a purse, if it be overfull that it cannot shut, all will drop out of it: take heed of a gluttonous curiosity to feed on many things, lest the greediness of the appetite of thy memory spoil the digestion thereof. Beza's case was peculiar and memorable; being above fourscore years of age, he perfectly could say by heart any Greek chapter in St. Paul's epistles, or anything else which he had learnt long before, but forgot whatsoever was newly told him; his memory, like an inn, retaining old guests, but having no room to entertain new.

Spoil not thy memory by thine own jealousy, nor make it bad by suspecting it. How canst thou find that true which thou wilt not trust? St. Augustine tells of his friend Simplicius, who, being asked, could tell all Virgil's verses backward and forward, and yet the same party avowed to God that he knew not that he could do it till they did try him. Sure there is concealed strength in men's memories, which they

take no notice of.

Marshal thy notions into a handsome method. One will carry twice more weight trussed and packed up in bundles, than when it lies untoward flapping and hanging about his shoulders. Things orderly fardled up under heads are most portable.

Adventure not all thy learning in one bottom, but divide it betwixt thy memory and thy note-books. He that with Bias carries all his learning about him in his head, will utterly be beggared and bankrupt if a violent disease, a merciless thief, should rob and strip him. I know some have a commonplace against commonplace books, and yet, perchance, will privately make use of what they publicly declaim against. A commonplace book contains many notions in garrison, whence the owner may draw out an army into the field on competent warning.

CONVERSATION.

The study of books is a languishing and feeble motion that heats not; whereas conference teaches and exercises at once. If I confer with an understanding man and a rude jester, he presses hard upon me on both sides; his imaginations raise up mine in more than ordinary pitch. Jealousy, glory, and contention stimulate and raise

or thereabout (for the manner is, that every one must give some proof of his wit and reading there), met with acceptance above what was looked for; and other things which I had shifted, in scarcity of books and conveniences, to patch up among them, were received with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side the Alps, I began thus far to assent both to them and divers of my friends here at home; and not less to an inward prompting, which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined to the strong propensity of nature, might perhaps leave something so written, to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die. These thoughts at once possessed me, and these other, that if I were certain to write as men buy leases, for three lives and downward, there ought no regard be sooner had than to God's glory, by the honour and instruction of my country, For which cause, and not only for that I knew it would be hard to arrive at the second rank among the Latins, I applied myself to that resolution which Ariosto followed against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end, that were a toilsome vanity; but to be an interpreter, and relater of the best and safest things among my own citizens throughout this island, in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old did for their country, I in my proportion, with this over and above, of being a Christian, might do for mine; not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that, but content with these British islands as my world, whose fortune hath hitherto been, that if the Athenians, as some say, made their small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent writers, England hath had her noble achievements made small by the unskilful handling of monks and mechanics. . . . Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth or the vapours of wine; like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite; not to be obtained by the invocation of dame memory and her syren daughters; but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar,

to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly arts and affairs; till which in some measure be compassed, at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loath to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them. The Reason of Church Government.

TRUE AND FALSE EDUCATION. And seeing every nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kind of learning, therefore we are chiefly taught the languages of those people who have at any time been most industrious after wisdom; so that language is but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known. And though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet, if he have not studied the solid things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only. Hence appear the many mistakes which have made learning generally so unpleasing and so unsuccessful: first we do amiss to spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much Latin and Greek, as might be learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year.

And for the usual method of teaching arts, I deem it to be an old error of the universities, not yet well recovered from the scholastic grossness of barbarous ages, that instead of beginning with arts most easy (and those be such as are most obvious to the sense), they present their young unmatriculated novices at first coming with the most intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics, so that they having but newly left those gymnastic flats and shallows where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with lamentable construction, and now on the sudden transported under another climate, to be tossed and turmoiled with their unballasted wits in fathomless and unquiet deeps of controversy, do for the most part grow into hatred and contempt of learning, mocked and delude all this while with ragged notions and babblements, while they expected worthy and delightful knowledge; till poverty or youthful years call them importunately their several ways, and hasten them, with the sway of friends, either to an ambitious and mercenary, or ignorantly zealous divinity; some allured to the trade of law, grounding their purposes not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which was never taught them, but on the promis

ing and pleasing thoughts of litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees; others betake them to state affairs, with souls so unprincipled in virtue and true generous breeding, that flattery and courtshifts, and tyrannous aphorisms, appear to them the highest points of wisdom; instilling their barren hearts with a conscientious slavery; if, as I rather think, it be not feigned. Others, lastly, of a more delicious and airy spirit retire themselves (knowing no better) tc the enjoyments of ease and luxury, living out their days in feasts and jollity; which, indeed, is the wisest and the safest course of all these, unless they were with more integrity undertaken. Ånd these are the errors, and these are the fruits of misspending our prime youth at schools and universities as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things chiefly as were better unlearned.

I shall detain you now no longer in the demonstration of what we should not do, but straight conduct you to a hill-side, where I will point you out the right path of a virtuous and noble education; laborious, indeed, at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming. I doubt not but ye shall have more ado to drive our dullest and laziest youth, our stocks and stubs, from the infinite desire of such a happy nature, than we have now to hale and drag our choicest and hopefullest wits to that asinine feast of sowthistles and brambles which is commonly set before them, as all the food and entertainment of their tenderest and most docile age.

I call, therefore, a complete and generous education, that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.

Letter to Master Hartlib on Education.

THE CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. I deny not but that it is of the greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them, to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragons' teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.

And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. Tis true no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the living labours of public men, how spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a kind of martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and soft essence, the breath of reason itself, slays an immortality rather than a life. . . . When a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him; he searches, meditates, is industrious, and likely consults and confers with his judicious friends; after all which is done, he takes himself to be informed in what he writes, as well as any that writ before him; if in this the most consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no industry, no former proof of his abilities, can bring him to that state of maturity, as not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unless he carry all his considerate diligence, all his midnight watchings, and expense of Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an unleisured licenser, perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior in judgment, perhaps one who never knew the labour of book-writing; and if he be not repulsed, or slighted, must appear in print like a puny with his guardian, and his censor's hand on the back of his title, to be his bail and surety that he is no idiot or seducer; it cannot be but a dishonour and derogation to the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity of learning.

...

And how can a man teach with authority, which is the life of teaching; how can he be a doctor in his book, as he ought to be, or else had better be silent, whereas all he teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the correction, of his patriarchal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely accords not with the hide-bound humour which he calls his judgment? Areopagitica.

EDWARD HYDE, EARL OF

CLARENDON,

born 1608, died 1673, will always be distinguished as the author of The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, to which is added, an historical View of the Affairs of Ireland, Oxf., 1702-3-4, 3 vols. fol.

"Clarendon will always be esteemed an entertaining writer, even independent of our curiosity to know the facts which he relates. His style is prolix and redundant, and suffocates us by the length of its periods; but it discovers imagination and sentiment, and pleases us at the same time that we disapprove of it. . . . An air of probity and goodness runs through the whole work, as these qualities did in reality embellish the whole life of the author. Clarendon was always a friend

to the liberty and constitution of his country."HUME: Hist. of Eng.

"For an Englishman there is no single historical work with which it can be so necessary for him to be well and thoroughly acquainted as with Clarendon. I feel at this time perfectly assured, that if that book had been put into my hands in youth, it would have preserved me from all the political errors which I have outgrown."-SOUTHEY: Life and Corresp.

But the Hon. Agar Ellis (Character of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Lond., 1827, Svo) stamps Clarendon as an unprin cipled man of talent, and Brodie (Ilist. of the British Empire, Lond., 1822, 4 vols. 8vo) considers him "a miserable sycophant and canting hypocrite."

CHARACTER OF OLIVER CROMWELL.

He was one of those men, quos vituperare ne inimici quidem possunt, nisi ut simil laudent; whom his very enemies could not condemn without commending him at the same time; for he could never have done half that mischief without great parts of courage, industry, and judgment. He must have had a wonderful understanding in the natures and humours of men, and as great a dexterity in applying them; who, from a private and obscure birth (though of a good family), without interest or estate, alliance or friendship, could raise himself to such a height, and compound and knead such opposite and contradictory tempers, humours, and interests into a consistence that contributed to his designs, and to their own destruction; whilst himself grew insensibly powerful enough to cut off those by whom he had climbed, in the instant that they projected to demolish their own building. What was said of Cinna may very justly be said of him, ausum eum, quæ nemo auderet bonus; perfecisse quæ a nullo nisi fortissimo, perfici possent. Without doubt, no man with more wickedness ever attempted anything, or brought to pass what he desired more wick

edly, more in the face and contempt of religion and moral honesty. Yet wickedness as great as his could never have accomplished those designs without the assistance of a great spirit, an admirable circumspection and sagacity, and a most magnanimous resolution.

When he appeared first in the parliament he seemed to have a person in no degree gracious, no ornament of discourse, none of those talents which use to conciliate the affections of the stander-by. Yet as he grew into place and authority his parts seemed to be raised, as if he had concealed faculties till he had occasion to use them; and when he was to act the part of a great man he did it without any indecency, notwithstanding the want of custom.

After he was confirmed and invested Protector by the humble petition and advice, he consulted with very few upon any action of importance, nor communicated any enterprise he resolved upon with more than those who were to have principal parts in the execution of it; nor with them sooner than was absolutely necessary. What he once resolved, in which he was not rash, he would not be dissuaded from, nor endure any contradiction of his power and authority, but extorted obedience from them who were not willing to vield it.

Thus he subdued a spirit that had been often troublesome to the most sovereign power, and made Westminster Hall as obedient and subservient to his commands as any of the rest of his quarters. In all other matters, which did not concern the life of his jurisdiction, he seemed to have great reverence for the law, rarely interposing between party and party. As he proceeded with this kind of indignation and haughtiness with those who were refractory, and durst contend with his greatness, so towards all who complied with his good pleasure, and courted his protection, he used great civility, generosity, and bounty.

To reduce three nations, which perfectly hated him, to an entire obedience to all his dictates; to awe and govern those nations by an army that was indevoted to him, and wished his ruin, was an instance of a very prodigious address. But his greatness at home was but a shadow of the glory he had abroad. It was hard to discover which feared him most, France, Spain, or the Low Countries, where his friendship was current at the value he put upon it. As they did all sacrifice their honour and their interest to his pleasure, so there is nothing he could have demanded that either of them would have denied him. . . .

To conclude his character: Cromwell was not so far a man of blood as to follow Machi