the lowest couch; and on all his journeys they either preceded him in another carriage, or rode on horseback by his side.

6. We are all in a state of education for the kingdom of heaven, in statu pupillari, upon earth the education of our immortal spirits is our sole business. For this we are formed in the womb, and pass through the several stages of infancy, youth, and manhood. Studies of the school fit us for man

So in the same place, with respect to the girls-Filiam et neptes ita instituit, ut etiam lanificio assuefaceret, vetaretque loqui aut agere quidquam, nisi propalam, et quod in diurnos commentarios referretur.-His daugh- hood; so manhood, and the several occupations ter and grand-daughters by his direction were carefully taught to spin: and they were habituated to speak and act on all occasions so openly, that every word and deed might be entered in a journal.

2. The Neapolitan jockeys break in their colts with so rough a hand, and such want of temper, that the animal's spirit is quite beaten down: I once saw one thrown down by a brutal fellow, and almost strangled. Travels in the Sicilies.

3. Such is the force of education and habit, that there is hardly a quaker to be found, young or old, who has not the command of the irascible passions. Why can it not be so with others?

4. "In the schools of philosophy anciently," says Goldsmith (i. 339.), "were taught the great maxims of true policy: the rules of every kind of duty; the motives for a true discharge of them; what we owe to our country; the right use of authority; wherein true courage consists; in a word, the qualities that form the good citizen, statesman, and great captain; and in all these Epaminondas excelled."-See his character there drawn, for eloquence, knowledge, modesty; he knew not what it was to be ostentatious. Spintherus said of him, "he had never met with a man, who knew more or spoke less." -0 that our young statesmen and officers would copy him!-Agesilaus, himself a great commander, seeing him passing at the head of his infantry, after having attentively considered and followed him with his eyes a long time, could not help crying out, in admiration of him, O the wonder-working man!

consequent upon it, is a state of preparation for something else. Faith and practice are the end of wisdom and knowledge, and prepare us for the conversation, society, and intercourse of angels, as wisdom and knowledge prepare us for the conversation of men.

7. Milton's plan of education has more of show than value. He does not recommend those studies to boys, which, as Cicero says, adolescentiam alunt. Instead of laying a stress on such authors as open and enlarge a young understanding, he prescribes an early acquaintance with geometry and physics: but these will teach no generous sentiments, nor inculcate such knowledge as is of use at all times and on all occasions. Mathematics and astronomy do not enter into the proper improvement and general business of the mind-such sciences do not apply to the manners, nor operate upon the character. They are extraneous and technical. They are useful; but useful as the knowledge of his art is to the artificer. An excellent writer observes, we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary and at leisure. Physical knowledge is of such rare emergence, that one man may know another half his life, without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy: but his moral and prudential character immediately appears. Those authors therefore are to be read at schools, that supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators, and historians. (Warton, 117.)-Milton afterwards reasoned better on this subject, P. L. viii. 191.

EULER.

5. Indulgence, when shown in too great a degree by parents to children, generally meets with a bad return. It seems to awaken a strange malignity in human nature towards those who have thus displayed an injudicious fondness. Children delight in vexing such parents. There may be two This is a bird in Iceland. It lays most reasons-1. It makes them feel foolish, to be eggs in rainy weather: as soon as the young so cockered and teased with kindness. 2. It ones are out of the egg, the mother leads discovers a weakness, over which they can them to the shore: when they come to the insult and triumph. But whatever may be water side, she takes them upon her back, the cause, it furnishes an argument to parents, and swims with them for the space of a few why they should never practice this beha- yards, when she dives, and the young ones, vior towards their children. The present who are left floating on the water, are obliged miseries of France arose under the govern- to take care of themselves. So the parent ment of a kind and indulgent monarch. carries children into the world, dives, and

leaves them to combat with its waves. Van EPAMINONDAS.-HIS HUMILITY AND PATRIOTISM. Troil's Letters.

FLOQUENCE.

For the difference between Cicero's eloquence and that of some who styled themselves Attic, dealing in short sentences and turns, like Pliny afterwards, see Middleton's Life of Cicero, iii. 332.-Is there not at this time a similar decline in England from the true, nervous flowing eloquence-particularly of the pulpit? Dr. Blair is the Pliny.

EMPLOYMENT.

1. Employment is the best cure for grief; as Tacitus tells us of Agricola, that, when he had lost his son, in luctu bellum inter remedia erat-he resorted to war as a remedy against grief. In Vità, sect. 28.

2. Cheerfulness is the daughter of employment; and I have known a man come home in high spirits from a funeral, merely because he had had the management of it.

3. Anxiety and melancholy are best dispelled and kept at a distance by employment. On the day before the battle of Pharsalia, Plutarch tells us, when dinner was ended in the camp, while others either went to sleep, or were disquieting their minds with apprehensions concerning the approaching battle, Brutus employed himself in writing till the evening,composing an epitome of Polybius.

us.

ENEMIES.

His enemies, jealous of his glory, with a design to affront him, caused him to be elected the city scavenger. He accepted the place with thanks, and declared, that, instead of deriving honor from his office, he would give it dignity in his turn.-I dare say kennels never were so well scoured before.

Euler lived at Petersburgh during the administration of Biron, one of the most tyrannical ministers that ever breathed. On the philosopher's coming to Berlin, after the tyrant's death, the late queen of Prussia, who could hardly get a word out of him, asked him the reason of his silence.-" Because," said he, "I come from a place where if a man says a word he is hanged."

EURIPIDES.

The use to be made of their revilings, &c., is thus set forth by Bishop Taylor: "Our enemies perform accidentally the office of friends: they tell us our faults, with all their deformities and aggravations: they offer us Many of the Athenians, during their capaffronts, which exercise our patience, and tivity at Syracuse, owed the good usage they restrain us from scandalous crimes, lest we met with to the scenes of Euripides, which become a scorn and reproof to them that hate they repeated to their captors, who were exAnd it is not the least of God's mercies, tremely fond of them. On their return they that he permits enmities among men, by went and saluted that poet as their deliverer, means of which our failings are reproved and informed him of the admirable effects, more sharply, and corrected with more seve-wrought in their favor by his verses. Scarce rity and simplicity than they would otherwise any circumstance could be more pleasing and be. The gentle hand of a friend is more apt flattering than this testimony. to bind our wounds up, than to probe them and make them smart." See Life of Christ, for. p. 541.

ENVY.

EXERCISE.

The most common cause of fatness is too great a quantity of food, and two small a Envy pines at the applauses which virtue quantity of motion; in plain English, glutreceives; as Plutarch tells us, that when tony and laziness. I am of opinion, that Titus Flaminius, by conquering Philip, had spare diet and labor will keep constitutions, restored the Grecian cities to their freedom, where this disposition is strongest, from being the acclamations of the people assembled fat. You may see in an army forty thou at the celebration of the Isthmian games caused the crows, as they were flying over the stage, to drop down dead upon it.-In

Vitâ Flamin.

sand foot soldiers without a fat man amongst them: and I dare affirm, that by plenty and rest twenty of the forty shall grow fat.

Arbuthnot.

FACTION.

same, it depends, whether a man shall believe, or not: and here we must look for the true reasons why one man is a Christian, and another an Infidel.

While a faction entertain their old principles, it is folly to suppose they will not, when opportunity serves, return to their old practices. Quæro, quid facturi fuissetis? Quan-minds of the truth of a doctrine, but it is 6. Rational evidence may satisfy men's quam quid facturi fueritis non dubitem, cum videam quid feceritis. Cic. pro Ligario. The fine lady will be the cat she was, when a mouse runs before her.

FAITH.

1. In the affairs of this world, as husbandry, trade, &c., men know little and believe much. In the affairs of another world, they would know every thing, and believe nothing.

2. If we are rationally led, upon clear principles and good evidence, to believe a point, it is no objection that the point is mysterious and difficult to be accounted for. A man in his senses will not deny the phenomenon of the harvest moon, because he cannot solve it.

3. When the Jews attribute the miracles of our Saviour to the power of magic, they prove the facts, without disproving the cause to which we ascribe them.

4. Enthusiasts require assurance, and philosophers will be content with nothing less than demonstration. But how is it in the affairs of common life? The soldier does! not ask a demonstration, whether, in the day of battle, he shall be crowned with victory, or covered with disgrace; but, fearing the worst, and hoping the best, he minds his duty the merchant does not want a demonstration concerning the returns of his trade: the husbandman cannot promise himself a plentiful crop, proportioned to his labor and industry. No man can assure himself that he shall see another day but every one minds his business as if he knew for certain that he should and he would be thought a downright madman that acted otherwise.

grace which must bring them to obey and adhere to it, by convincing them of its excellence, by subduing the desires and affections that militate against it, and so improving an historical into a saving faith.

7. "Experience (saith Mr. Hume) is our only guide in matters of fact." Doth he mean our own experience or that of others? If our own, we are to believe nothing but what we ourselves have seen parallel instances of; if that of others, we depend for that upon testimony, which only informs us, there has been in past ages an established order and course of nature, and at certain times a violation or suspension of them.

8. There are many people who cannot see; there are more, perhaps, who will not. It is remarked of the elder Scaliger, that, in his confutation of Cardan, he would not read the second edition of the book de Subtilitate, in which were made a great number of corrections, lest he should be deprived of many occasions of triumphing over his adversary. Gen. Dict. Scaliger.-See another instance in Jones's Essay, p. 191.

9. Infidelity is often punished with credulity. The prediction of a mad life-guardman was attended to in London by those who never heeded the prophecies of Isaiah, or Jeremiah; and an impudent mountebank sold a large cargo of pills, which, as he told the people, were excellent against earthquakes.

10. The deist will not believe in revelation till every difficulty can be solved. The atheist will not believe in the being of a God, but upon the same terms. They must both die in their unbelief. They should believe upon sufficient evidence, and trust God 5. Faith is reckoned for a virtue, and for the rest. The atheist e. g. cannot reconrewarded as such, because, though it be an cile the notion of a God with the existence assent of the understanding upon proper evi- of evil. But there is sufficient evidence for dence, the will hath a great share in facili- the existence of both. Here let us rest: tating or withholding such assent. For the God has his reasons for permitting evil, or strongest evidence will be nothing to him he would not have permitted it. If he has who does not inquire diligently after it, judge been pleased to discover them in his word, honestly and impartially of it without passion or if we can discover them by a view of or prejudice, and frequently consider and things, well: if not, still reasons there are; reflect upon it from time to time through and, what we cannot know now, we shall life, that it may produce its fruits, and be a know hereafter. principle of action. These are acts of the will, in a man's power to perform or not to perform, and therefore rewardable. On the performance or non-performance of these, 12. First Tim. iv. 6. Nourished up in the not on the evidence, which is always the words of faith." It is one thing for a man i

11. No cloud can overshadow a true Christian, but his faith will discern a rainbow in it.

to enlighten his understanding, to fill his | Swift-gliding mists the dusky fields invade, imagination, and to load his memory; and To thieves more grateful than the midnight shade.

POPE'S Il. b. iii. v. 17.

another to nourish his heart with it. A man nourishes himself with it, if he live upon it; 6. Superstition often leads to atheism. and he lives upon it, if he change it into his Many Turks are Epicureans; and in counown substance, if he practice it himself, if tries where popery prevails, the philosophers, he render it proper and familiar unto him- as they affect to call themselves, are running self, so as to make it the food and nourish-apace into materialism. When a man has ment with which he ought to feed others."— Quesnel in loc.

FALSE LEARNING.

been cheated by a rogue pretending to hon-
esty, he is apt too hastily to conclude, there
is no such thing as honesty in the world.
7. Magic was originally nothing more

1. Some people rate the modern improve-than the application of natural philosophy to ments in religious knowledge by the volumes the production of surprising but yet natural of metaphysical subtilties written upon the effects. Chemists had opportunities of being subject; as the emperor Heliogabalus formed best acquainted with the elements and their an estimate of the greatness of Rome, from operations, and were the greatest magicians, ten thousand pounds' weight of cobwebs and reputed conjurors. which had been found in that city.

8. Sir Henry Wotton ordered the following inscriptton to be put on his monument—

Disputandi pruritus ecclesiarum scabies.
The itch of disputation is the bane of the church.

"You

2. Two learned physicians and a plain honest countryman, happening to meet at an inn, sat down to dinner together. A dispute presently arose between the two doctors, on the nature of aliment, which proceeded to such a height, and was carried on with so 9. The same person being asked, if he much fury, that it spoiled their meal, and thought a Papist could be saved? they parted extremely indisposed. The may be saved," replied he, "without knowcountryman, in the meantime, who under-ing that."-An excellent answer to the stood not the cause, though he heard the questions of impertinent curiosity in religious quarrel, fell heartily to his meat, gave God matters. thanks, digested it well, returned in the strength of it to his honest labor, and at evening received his wages. Is there not sometimes as much difference between the polemical and practical Christian?

3. Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, disputes against certain philosophers, who, it seems, held that a thing might be, and not be, at the

-Fools shall be pull'd

10. Many persons spend so much time in criticising and disputing about the Gospel, that they have none left for practising it. As if two sick men should quarrel about the phraseology of their physician's prescription, and forget to take the medicine.

11. Geo. Trapezuntius had a good portion of the spirit which prevailed among the learned of his times: proud, conceited, dogmatical, impatient of contradiction, and quarrelsome, he contributed, as much as any one, to falsify the maxim of Ovid-Ingenuas didicesse, &c." Biog. Dict.-See instance of Laurentius Valle, Valesius, Scioppius, Scaliger, Cardan, and others.

12. Never (say the moderns) were the SS. From wisdom's seat; those baleful unclean birds, so much studied, and so thoroughly explained, Those lazy owls, who, perch'd near fortune's top, Sit only watchful with their heavy wings as at present. So, probably, said the PhariTo cuff down new-fledg'd virtues, that would rise sees, and doctors of the law when they cruTo nobler heights, and make the grove harmonious. cified Christ. Refined criticisms on the Pierre, of lazy Senators, in Venice Preserved. sacred writings made the most fashionable 5. The science called metaphysics seems branch of learning among the Jews, in comnever to have been of service to true parison of which, profane literature was held religion, but only to have obscured and in great contempt, and indeed, by many of darkened its truths, which, under that cover, have often been stolen away by its enemies. May it not be compared to the mist, or fog, described by Homer, as spread on the tops of the hills?

their zealots, in great abhorrence.-See Joseph. Antiq. lib. xx. cap. ult. sect. ult. Dodglory from men;" he never soothed the vandridge, i. 317.-Our Lord "received not ity of great and learned men, in order to obtain their favor. The Jews searched the SS. Ποιμέσιν ότι φίλην, κλεπτη δε τε νυκτος αμείνο.—Il. γ. 11. but it was in order to find in them their own