chiefest, especially to catch those natures which, like the good-fellow planet, Mercury, are most swayed by others.

4. If thou beest cast into bad company, like Hercules thou must sleep with thy club in thine hand, and stand on thy guard. I mean if against thy will the tempest of an unexpected occasion drives thee amongst such rocks; then be thou like the river Dee, in Merionethshire in Wales,* which running through Pimblemere remains entire, and mingles not her streams with the waters of the lake. Though with them, be not of them; keep civil communion with them, but separate from their sins. And if against thy will thou fallest amongst wicked men, know to thy comfort thou art still in thy calling, and therefore in God's keeping, who on thy prayers will preserve thee.

5. The company he keeps is the comment by help whereof men expound the most close and mystical man; understanding him for one of the same religion, life, and manners with his associates. And though perchance he be not such a one, it is just he should be counted so for conversing with them. Augustus Cæsar came thus to discern his two daughters' inclinations: for being once at a public show, where much people were present, he observed that the grave senators talked with Livia, but loose youngsters and riotous persons with Julia.+

6. He that eats cherries with noblemen, shall have his eyes spirted out with the stones. This outlandish proverb hath in it an English truth, that they who constantly converse with men far above their estates, shall reap shame and loss thereby; if thou payest nothing they will count thee a sucker, no branch; a wen, no member of their company; if in payments thou keepest pace with them, their long strides will soon tire thy short legs. The beavers in New England, when some ten of them together draw a stick to the building of their lodging, set the weakest beavers to the lighter end of the log,‡ and the strongest take the heaviest part thereof: whereas men often lay the greatest burthen on the weakest back; and great persons to teach meaner men to learn their distance, take pleasure to make them pay for their company. I except such men who, having some excellent quality, are gratis very welcome to their betters; such a one, though he pays not a penny of the shot, spends enough in lending them his time and discourse.

7. To affect always to be the best of the company argues a base disposition. Gold always worn in the same purse with silver, loses both of the colour and weight; and so to converse always with inferiors, degrades a man of his worth. Such there are that love to be the lords of the company, whilst the rest must be their tenants;

Cambd. Brit. in Merioneth.

+ Sueton. in August. Cæs.

↑ Wood, in his Description of New England.

as if bound by their lease to approve, praise, and admire whatsoever they say. These, knowing the lowness of their parts, love to live with dwarfs, that they may seem proper men. To come amongst their equals, they count it an abridgment of their freedom, but to be with their betters, they deem it flat slavery.

8. It is excellent for one to have a library of scholars, especially if they be plain to be read. I mean of a communicative nature, whose discourses are as full as fluent, and their judgments as right as their tongues ready: such men's talk shall be thy lectures. To conclude, good company is not only profitable whilst a man lives, but sometimes when he is dead. For he that was buried with the bones of Elisha, by a posthumous miracle of that prophet, recovered his life by lodging with such a grave-fellow.*

OF MEMORY.

It is the treasure-house of the mind, wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved. Plato makes it the mother of the muses ;+ Aristotle sets it one degree further, making experience the mother of the arts, memory the parent of experience. Philosophers place it in the rear of the head; and it seems the mine of memory lies there, because there naturally men dig for it, scratching it when they are at a loss. This again is twofold; one, the simple retention of things; the other, a regaining them when forgotten.

1. Brute creatures equal, if not exceed men, in a bare retentive memory. Through how many labyrinths of woods, without other clue of thread than natural instinct, doth the hunted hare return to her muce! How doth the little bee, flying into several meadows and gardens, sipping of many cups, yet never intoxicated, through an ocean as I may say of air, steadily steer herself home, without help of card or compass! But these cannot play an after-game, and recover what they have forgotten, which is done by the meditation of discourse.

2. Artificial memory is rather a trick than an art, and more for the gain of the teacher than profit of the learners. Like the tossing of a pike, which is no part of the postures and motions thereof, and is rather for ostentation than use, to show the strength and nimbleness of the arm, and is often used by wandering soldiers as an introduction to beg. Understand it of the artificial rules which at this day are delivered by memory-mountebanks; for sure an art thereof may be made, wherein as yet the world is defective, and that no more destructive to natural memory than spectacles are to eyes, which girls in Holland wear from twelve years of age. But till this be found out, let us observe these plain rules.

3. 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 over-night, and clinching it the next morning.

was weary.

4. Overburthen not thy memory, to make so faithful a servant a slave. Remember Atlas Have as much reason as a camel, to rise when thou hast thy full load. Memory, like a purse, if it be over full 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.

5. Spoil not thy memory with thine own jealousy, nor make it bad by suspecting it. How canst thou find that true which thou wilt not trust? St Augustine tells us of his friend, Simplicius, who being asked, could tell all Virgil's verses backward and forward; and yet the same party vowed to God that he knew not he could do it till they did try him. Sure there is concealed strength in men's memories which they take no notice of.

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

7. 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 publicly they declaim against. A commonplace book contains many notions in garrison, whence the owner may draw out an army into the field on competent warning.

8. Moderate diet and good air preserve memory: but what air is best I dare not define, when such

great ones differ. Some say a pure and subtle air is best; another commends thick and foggy air. For the Pisans, sited in the fens and marsh of Arnus, have excellent memories, as if the foggy air were a cap for their heads. +

Thuan. Obit. Doct. Virorum, p. 384.

+ Plato, Aristotle, Tully. "Singulari valent me

9. Thankfulness to God for it, continues the memory: whereas some proud people have been visited with such oblivion that they have forgotten their own names. Staupitius, tutor to Luther, and a godly man, in a vain ostentation of his memory repeated Christ's genealogy (Matt. i.) by heart in his sermon, but being out about the captivity of Babylon, "I see," saith he, "God resisteth the proud," and so betook himself to his book.* Abuse not thy memory to be sin's register, nor make advantage thereof for wickedness. Excellently Augustine: "Quidam vero pessimi memoria sunt mirabili, qui tanto pejores sunt, quanto minus possunt, quæ male cogitant. oblivisci."+

OF FANCY.

It is an inward sense of the soul, for a while retaining and examining things brought in thither by the common sense. It is the most boundless and restless faculty of the soul: for whilst the understanding and the will are kept as it were in libera custodia to their objects of verum et bonum, the fancy is free from all engagements: it digs without spade, sails without ship, flies without wings, builds without charges, fights without bloodshed, in a moment striding from the centre to the circumference of the world, by a kind of omnipotency creating and annihilating things in an instant; and things divorced in nature are married in fancy as in a lawful place. It is also most restless: whilst the senses are bound, and reason in a manner asleep, fancy, like a sentinel, walks the round, ever working, never wearied. The chief diseases of the fancy are, either that they are too wild and high soaring, or else too low and grovelling, or else too desultory and over voluble. Of the first:

1. If thy fancy be but a little too rank, age itself will correct it. To lift too high is no fault in a young horse, because with travelling he will mend it for his own ease. Thus lofty fancies in young men will come down of themselves, and in process of time the overplus will shrink to be but even measure. But if this will not do it, then observe these rules,

2. Take part always with thy judgment against thy fancy in anything wherein they shall dissent. If thou suspectest thy conceits too luxuriant, herein account thy suspicion a legal conviction, and damn whatsoever thou doubtest of. Warily Tully: "Bene monent, qui vetant quicquam facere, de quo dubitas, æquum sit an iniquum."

3. Take the advice of a faithful friend, and submit thy inventions to his censure. When thou pennest an oration, let him have the power of index expurgatorius, to expunge what he

moria quo urbs crassiore fruatur ære."-Mercat. Atlas in Tuscia.

* Melchior Adamus, in Vita Staupitii, p 20. ↑ De Civ. Dei, lib. vii., cap. 3.

pleaseth; and do not thou, like a fond mother, cry if the child of thy brain be corrected for playing the wanton. Mark the arguments and reasons of his alterations; why that phrase least proper, this passage more cautious and advised; and after a while thou shalt perform the place in thine own person, and not go out of thyself for a censurer. If thy fancy be too low and humble:

4. Let thy judgment be king, but not tyrant over it, to condemn harmless, yea, commendable conceits. Some for fear their orations should giggle, will not let them smile. Give it also liberty to rove, for it will not be extravagant. There is no danger that weak folks, if they walk abroad, will straggle far, as wanting strength.

ridge of them in high words having nothing of worth, but what rather stalls than delights the auditor.

9. Fine fancies in manufactures invent engines rather pretty than useful; and commonly one trade is too narrow for them. They are better to project new ways than to prosecute old, and are rather skilful in many mysteries, than thriving in one. They affect not voluminous inventions, wherein many years must constantly be spent to perfect them, except there be in them variety of pleasant employment.

6. Whip this vagrant home to the first object whereon it should be settled. Indeed, nimbleness is the perfection of this faculty, but levity the bane of it. Great is the difference betwixt a swift horse and a skittish, that will stand on no ground. Such is the ubiquitary fancy, which will keep long residence on no one subject, but is so courteous to strangers, that it ever welcomes that conceit most which comes last; and new species supplant the old ones, before seriously considered. If this be the fault of thy fancy, I say whip it home to the first object whereon it should be settled. This do as often as occasion requires, and by degrees the fugitive servant will learn to abide by his work without running away.

7. Acquaint thyself by degrees with hard and knotty studies, as school-divinity, which will clog thy over nimble fancy. True, at the first it will be as welcome to thee as a prison, and their very solutions will seem knots unto thee. But take not too much at once, lest thy brain turn edge. Taste it first as a potion for physic, and by degrees thou shalt drink it as beer for thirst: practice will make it pleasant. Mathematics are also good for this purpose. If beginning to try a conclusion, thou must make an end, lest thou lose thy pains that are past, and must proceed seriously and exactly. I meddle not with those bedlam-fancies, all whose conceits are antiques, but leave them for the physician to purge with hellebore.

8. To clothe low-creeping matter with highflown language is not fine fancy, but flat foolery. It rather loads than raises a wren, to fasten the feathers of an ostrich to her wings. Some men's speeches are like the high mountains in Ireland, having a dirty bog in the top of them: the very

11. Fancy runs most furiously when a guilty conscience drives it. One that owed much money and had many creditors, as he walked London streets in the evening, a tenter-hook caught his cloak. "At whose suit?" said he, conceiving some bailiff had arrested him. Thus guilty consciences are afraid where no fear is, and count every creature they meet a sergeant sent from God to punish them.

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.

1. 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 his conscience sins with a witness.

2. Spill not the morning (the quintessence of the day) in recreations. For sleep itself is a recreation; add not therefore sauce to sauce:

and he cannot properly have any title to be refreshed, who was not first faint. Pastime, like wine, is poison 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 own flock, and to shear God's lamb.

3. 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.

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

5. Yet the ruder sort of people scarce count anything a sport which is not loud and violent. The Muscovite women esteem none loving husbands, except they beat their wives. It is no pastime with country clowns that cracks not pates, breaks not skins, bruises not limbs, tumbles and tosses not all the body. They think themselves not warm in their geers, 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 ruborum, but non ad sudorem, is too scant measure.

6. 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 cozening thy mind, in setting it to a double task under pretence of giving it a playday, as in the labyrinth of chess, and other tedious and studious games.

7. Yet recreations distasteful to some dispositions, relish best to others. Fishing with an angle is to some rather a torture than a pleasure, to stand an hour as mute as the fish they mean to take: yet herewithal Dr Whitaker was much delighted. When some noblemen had gotten William Cecil, 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 fault." "Yea," quoth the treasurer, "take me again in such a fault, and I'll give you leave to punish me." Thus as soon may the same meat please all palates, as the same sport suit with all dispositions.

8. 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 mathematics, and the rules of proportion; swimming hath saved many a man's life, when himself hath been both

* In his Life, written by Mr Ashton.

the wares and the ship; tilting and fencing is war without anger; and manly sports are the grammar of military performance.

9. But above all, shooting is a noble recreation and a 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 Protector's head." But our age sees his successor exceeding him in that art, whose eye, like his judgment, is clear and quick to discover the mark, and his hands as just in shooting as in dealing aright.

10. Some sports being granted to be lawful, more propend to be ill than well used. Such I count stage-plays, when made always the actors' work, and often the spectators' 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 choler, 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 as stage-plays: some grave sentences, prudent counsels, and punishment of vicious 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 palates 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 vicious courses, with seeing the, woeful 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.

11. Choke not thy soul with immoderate pouring in the cordial of pleasures. The creation lasted but six days of the first week: profane they whose recreation lasts seven days every week. Rather abridge thyself of thy lawful liberty herein; it being a wary rule which St Gregory gives us, "Solus in illicitis non cadit, qui se aliquando et à 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 prays also to God to bless the

Plin. Nat. Hist., lib. xxxv., cap. 10.

↑ Lib. v., Moral. et Homil. 35, supra Evang.

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.

OF TOMBS.

Tombs are the clothes of the dead: a grave is but a plain suit, and a rich monument is one embroidered. Most moderate men have been careful for the decent interment of their corpse. Few of the fond mind of Arbogastus, an Irish saint, and Bishop of Spires in Germany, who would be buried near the gallows, in imitation of our Saviour, whose grave was in Mount Calvary near the place of execution.*

1. It is a provident way to make one's tomb in one's lifetime; both hereby to prevent the negligence of heirs, and to mind him of his mortality. Virgil tells us that when bees swarm in the air, and two armies meeting together fight as it were a set battle with great violence, cast but a little dust upon them and they will be quiet.+ "Hi motus animorum, atque hæc certamina tanta Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescunt." "These stirrings of their minds, and strivings vast, If but a little dust on them be cast, Are straightways stinted, and quite overpast.” Thus the most ambitious motions and thoughts of man's mind are quickly quelled when dust is thrown on him, whereof his fore-prepared sepulchre is an excellent remembrancer.

2. Yet some seem to have built their tombs, therein to bury their thoughts of dying, never thinking thereof, but embracing the world with greater greediness. A gentleman made choice of a fair stone, and, intending the same for his gravestone, caused it to be pitched up in a field a pretty distance from his house, and used often to shoot at it for his exercise. "Yea, but," said a wag that stood by, "you would be loath, sir, to hit the mark." And so are many unwilling to die who, notwithstanding, have erected their monuments.

3. Tombs ought in some sort to be proportioned, not to the wealth, but deserts of the party interred. Yet may we see some rich man of mean worth loaden under a tomb big enough for a prince to bear. There were officers appointed in the Grecian games, who always by public authority did pluck down the statues erected to the victors, if they exceeded the true symmetry and proportion of their bodies. We need such nowa-days to order monuments to men's merits, chiefly to reform such depopulating tombs as have no good fellowship with them, but engross all the room, leaving neither seats for the living, nor graves for the dead. It was a wise and

* Warræus, de Scriptor. Hiber., p. 28. Georgic., lib. iv.

* Lucian, περὶ εἰκόνων.

thrifty law which Reutha, King of Scotland, made, that noblemen should have so many pillars or long pointed stones set on their sepulchres, as they had slain enemies in the wars. If this order were also enlarged to those who, in peace, had excellently deserved of the church or commonwealth, it might well be revived.

4. Over-costly tombs are only baits for sacrilege. Thus sacrilege hath beheaded that peerless prince, King Henry the Fifth, the body of whose statue, on his tomb in Westminster, was covered over with silver plate gilded, and his head of massy silver, † both which now are stolen away. Yea, hungry palates will feed on coarser meat. I had rather Mr Stow than I should tell you of a nobleman who sold the monuments of noblemen in St Augustine's Church in Broad Street,+ for a hundred pounds, which cost many thousands, and in the place thereof made fair stabling for horses; as if Christ, who was born in a stable, should be brought into it the second time. It was not without cause in the civil law, that a wife might be divorced from her husband, if she could prove him to be one that had broken the sepulchres of the dead. For it was presumed he must needs be a tyrannical husband to his wife, who had not so much mercy as to spare the ashes of the departed.

5. The shortest, plainest, and truest epitaphs are best. I say the shortest; for when a passenger sees a chronicle written on a tomb, he takes it on trust some great man lies there buried, without taking pains to examine who he is. Mr Cambden, in his "Remains," presents us with examples of great men that had little epitaphs.§ And when once I asked a witty gentleman, an honoured friend of mine, what epitaph was fittest to be written on Mr Cambden's tomb? "Let it be," said he, "CAMBDEN'S REMAINS." I say also the plainest; for except the sense lie above ground, few will trouble themselves to dig for it. Lastly, it must be true. Not as in some monuments, where the red veins in the marble may seem to blush at the falsehoods written on it. He was a witty man that first taught a stone to speak, but he was a wicked man that taught it first to lie.

6. To want a grave is the cruelty of the living, not the misery of the dead. An English gentleman not long since did lie on his death-bed in Spain, and the Jesuits did flock round about him to pervert him to their religion. All was in vain. Their last argument was, if you will not turn Roman Catholic, then your body shall be unburied. "Then," answered he, "I will stink;" and so turned his head and died. Thus love, if

* Hector Boeth, in the Life of King Reutha. J. Speed, in the End of Henry V.

In the Descript. of London, Broad Street Ward,

p. 184.

§ As, "Fui Caius," "Scaligeri quod reliquum est," Depositum Cardinalis Poli," etc.