we should conclude with ourselves, that if there be so much sweetness in a drop, there must be infinitely more in the fountain; if there be so much splendour in a ray, what must the sun be in its glory?

[University Scholarship, 1846.]

155. It seems to me a strange, and a thing much to be marveiled, that the laborer, to repose himself, hasteneth as it were the course of the sun: that the mariner rowes with all force to attain the port, and with a joyfull crie salutes the descried land: that the traveller is never content nor quiet till he be at the end of his voyage: and that we, in the meanwhile, tied in this world to a perpetual taske, tossed with continual tempest, tyred with a rough and combersome way, yet cannot see the end of our labour but with grief, nor behold our port but with teares, nor approach our home and quiet abode but with horrour and trembling. This life is but a Penelope's web, wherein we are always doing and undoing; a sea open to all winds; a weary journey thro' extreme heats and colds; over high mountains, steep rocks, and thievish deserts; and so we terme it, in weaving at this web, in rowing at this oar, in passing this miserable way. Yet loe, when death comes to end our worke; when she stretcheth out her armes to pull us into the port, when after so many dangerous passages she would conduct us to our true home and resting place; instead of rejoycing at the end of our labour, of taking comfort at the sight of our land, of singing at the approch of our happy mansion; we would faine retake our worke in hand; we would again hoise sail to the wind, and willingley undertake our journey anew. We fear more the cure than the disease: the surgeon, than the paine. We have

more sense of the medicine's bitterness, sooner gone, than of a bitter languishing, long continued; more feeling of death, the end of our miseries, than the endlesse miserie of our life. We fear that we ought to hope for, and wish that we ought to fear.

[Classical Tripos, 1846.]

156. I AM glad that you approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself from all tumult and business of the world, and consecrating the little rest of my time to those studies to which nature has so motherly inclined me, and from which fortune, like a step-mother, has so long detained me. But, nevertheless you say, (which but is ærugo mera, a rust which spoils the good metal it grows upon. But you say) you would advise me not to precipitate that resolution, but to stay a while longer with patience and complaisance, till I had gotten such an estate as might afford me (according to the saying of that person, whom you and I love very much, and would believe as soon as another man) cum dignitate otium. This were excellent advice to Joshua, who could bid the sun stay too. But there is no fooling with life, when it is once turned beyond forty: the seeking for a fortune then is but a desperate after-game; it is a hundred to one if a man fling two sixes, and recover all; especially if his hand be no luckier than mine.

157.

[Clare Hall Scholarships, 1846.]

THE Commander also must be of repute, so that the soldiers may be confident of his wisdom: and they shall always be so, when they perceive him to be a man orderly, careful, and courageous, and that maintains well, and with esteem the majesty of his dignity: and he shall always be able to do so, while he punisheth their faults,

while he tires not out the soldiers to no purpose, keeps his word with them, shews them an easy way to vanquish the enemy; those things that may endanger them, conceals from them; or if they be evident, by his speeches lessens their opinion of them: which things well observed, are a great occasion of confidence in the army. And the Romans used moreover to make their armies thus confident by way of religion: from hence proceeded, that by their soothsayings and auspices they created their consuls, they levied their soldiers, marched with their armies, and fought their battles; and without having done some of these things, never would a good or discreet commander, have put anything to hazard, deeming that he might easily lose, unless his soldiers had first understood that the gods were on their side. And when any consul or captain of theirs should have fought contrary to the auspices, they would have punished him, as they did Claudius Pulcher.

[St John's College Vol. Class., 1846.]

158. He was of that rare affability and temper in debate, and of that seeming humility and submission of judgment, as if he brought no opinion of his own with him, but a desire of information and instruction; yet he had so subtle a way of interrogating, and, under the notion of doubts, insinuating his objections, that he infused his own opinions into those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them. And even with them who were able to preserve themselves from his infusions, and discerned those opinions to be fixed in him, with which they could not comply, he always left the character of an ingenious and conscientious person. He was very temperate in diet, and a supreme governor over all his passions and affections, and had thereby a great

power over other men's. He was of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out, or wearied by the most laborious; and of parts, not to be imposed upon by the most subtle or sharp; and of a personal courage, equal to his best parts; so that he was an enemy not to be wished whenever he might have been made a friend; and as much to be apprehended where he was so, as any man could deserve to be. And therefore his death was no less pleasing to the one party, than it was condoled in the other. [Trinity College Scholarships, 1846.]

Bar

159. THE character of the people with whom the Romans had to contend was, in all respects, the reverse of theirs. Those northern adventurers, or Barbarians, as they are called, breathed nothing but war; their martial spirit was yet in its vigour; they sought a milder climate, and lands more fertile than their forests and mountains: the sword was their right; and they exercised it without remorse, as the right of nature. barous they surely were, but they were superior to the people they invaded, in virtue as well as in valour. Simple and severe in their manners, they were unacquainted with the word luxury; anything was sufficient for their extreme frugality: hardened by exercise and toil, their bodies seemed inaccessible to disease or pain: war was their element; they sported with danger, and met death with expressions of joy. Though free and independent, they were firmly attached to their leaders, because they followed them from choice, not from constraint, the most gallant being always dignified with the command. Nor were these their only virtues. They were remarkable for their regard to the sanctity of the marriage-bed; for their generous hospitality; for their

detestation of treachery and falsehood: they possessed many maxims of civil wisdom, and wanted only the culture of reason to conduct them to the true principles of social life. [Trinity Hall, 1846.]

160. SYLLA had a general taste for literature; he was intimately acquainted with the writers of Greece; he delighted in the society of men of talent; and he was himself long and carefully engaged in recording the history of his own actions; yet no man was ever more stained with cruelty, nor was ever any more degraded by habitual and gross profligacy. Nor is this at all wonderful, if we consider that the intellectual faculties like the sensual are gratified by exercise, and that the pleasure derived from the employment of talent is quite distinct from the application of the lessons taught by the understanding to the government of the affections and the conduct. In all men whose mental powers are at all considerable, the indulgence of them is as much an object of mere natural appetite as the gratification of hunger and thirst; and it is only because it is less common that it is regarded as conferring on the character a much superior value. [Sidney Sussex College, 1846.]

161. HE entertained very high notions of friendship, and of its excellent use and benefit to human life; which he has beautifully illustrated in his entertaining treatise on that subject; where he lays down no other rules, than what he exemplified by his practice. For in all the variety of friendships, in which his eminent rank engaged him, he was never charged with deceiving, deserting, or even slighting any one, whom he had once called his friend, or esteemed an honest man. It was his delight to advance their prosperity, to relieve their adversity;