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himself out of straits, he will revert to his customs; but he that cleareth by degrees, induceth a habit of frugality, and gaineth as well upon his mind as upon his estate.

Certainly, he who hath a state to repair may not despise small things; and, commonly, it is less dishonourable to abridge petty charges than to stoop to petty gettings. A man ought warily to begin charges, which once begun will continue; but in matters that return not, he may be more magnificent.

HEALTH.

THERE is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man's own observation what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is the best physic to preserve health; but it is a safer conclusion to say, "This agreeth not well with me, therefore I will not continue it;" than this, "I find no offence of this, therefore I may use it." For strength of nature in youth passeth over many excesses which are owing a man till his age.

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Discern the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied. Beware of sudden change in any great point of diet; and, if necessity enforce it, fit the rest to it: for it is a secret both in nature and in states, that it is safer to change many things than one.

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Examine your customs of diet, sleep, exercise, apparel, and the like; and try, in any thing you shall judge hurtful, to discontinue it by little and little; but so that if find any inconvenience by the change, you come back to it again for it is hard to distinguish that which is generally held good and wholesome, from that which is good particularly, and fit for your own body.

To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat, and of sleep, and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of long-lasting. As for the passions and studies of the mind, avoid envy, anxious fears, anger, fretting inwards, subtile and knotty inquisitions, joys and exhilarations in excess, sadness not communicated.

Entertain hopes, mirth rather than joy, variety of delights rather than surfeit of them; wonder and admiration, and therefore novelties; studies that fill the mind with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contemplations of nature. If you fly physic in health

altogether, it will be too strange for your body when you shall need it; if you make it too familiar, it will work no extraordinary effect when sickness cometh.

I commend rather some diet for certain seasons, than frequent use of physic, except it be grown into a custom ; for those diets alter the body more, and trouble it less. Despise no new accident in your body, but ask opinion of it. In sickness, respect health principally; and in health, action: for those that put their bodies to endure in health, may in most sicknesses, which are not very sharp, be cured only with diet and tendering.

Celsus could never have spoken it as a physician, had he not been a wise man withal, when he giveth it for one of the great precepts of health and lasting, that a man do vary and interchange contraries; but with an inclination to the more benign extreme; using fasting and full eating, but rather full eating; watching and sleep, but rather sleep; sitting and exercise, but rather exercise, and the like: : so shall nature be cherished, and yet taught masteries.

Physicians are some of them so pleasing and conform able to the humour of the patient, that they press not the true cure of the disease; and some other are so regular in proceeding according to art for the disease, that they respect not sufficiently the condition of the patient. Take one of a middle temper; or, if it may not be found in one man, combine two of either sort; and forget not to call in as well the best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed of for his faculty.

DEATH.

MEN fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Certainly the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin and the passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes a mixture of vanity and of superstition.

You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured, and thereby imagine what the pains of death are when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a

limb for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense. And, by him that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was well said, "The solemnities of death are more terrible than death itself." Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible.

It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear pre-occupieth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity-which is the tenderest of affections-provoked many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers.

Nay, Seneca adds niceness and satiety: "Consider how long you have been employed in the same pursuits; not only fortitude or wretchedness, but even satiety can create a wish for death." A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over. It is no less worthy to observe how little alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make; for they appear to be the same men till the last instant.

Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment: "My Livia, mindful of our union, live, and farewell." Tiberius in dissimulation, as Tacitus saith of him: "And now his strength and corporeal faculties, but not his dissimulation, forsook Tiberius." Vespasian in a jest. Galba with a sentence: "Strike, if it be for the interest of the Roman people," holding forth his neck. Septimius Severus in dispatch: "Come forward, if any thing else remains for me to do;" and the like.

Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death; and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. "Better," saith he, "to lay down the last end of life among the offices of nature." It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarcely feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolours of death.

But, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace," when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy. "The same person (who was envied while alive) shall be loved when dead."

BEAUTY.

VIRTUE is like a rich stone, best plain set; and surely virtue is best in a body that is comely, though not of delicate features; and that hath rather dignity of presence, than beauty of aspect. It is rarely seen that very beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue; as if nature were rather busy not to err, than in labour to produce excellency; and therefore they prove accomplished, but not of great spirit; and study rather behaviour than virtue.

In beauty, that of favour is more than that of colour; and that of decent and gracious motion, more than that of favour. That is the best part of beauty which a picture cannot express; no, nor the first sight of the life. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A man cannot tell whether Apelles or Albert Durer were the greater trifler; whereof the one would make a personage by geometrical proportions; the other, by taking the best parts out of several faces, to make one excellent. Such personages, I think, would please nobody but the painter that made them.

Not but I think a painter may make a better face than ever was; but he must do it by a kind of felicity,—as a musician that maketh an excellent air in music,-and not by rule. A man shall see faces that, if you examine them part by part, you shall find no good feature; and yet all together do well.

If it be true, that the principal part of beauty is in decent motion, certainly it is no marvel, though persons in years seem many times more amiable: "The autumn of the beautiful is beauteous;" for no youth can be comely but by pardon, and considering the youth as to make up the comeliness. Beauty is as summer fruits, which are easy to corrupt and cannot last; and for the most part it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a little out of countenance; but yet certainly again, if it light well, it maketh virtues shine, and vices blush.

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SELECTIONS FROM MILTON.

PARADISE LOST, BOOK VII.

DESCEND from heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly thou art call'd, whose voice divine
Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegasean wing!

The meaning, not the name, I call: for thou
Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwell'st; but, heavenly-born,
Before the hills appear'd, or fountain flow'd,
Thou with Eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased
With thy celestial song.

Up-led by thee
Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy tempering: with like safety guided down,
Return me to my native element;

Lest, from this flying steed unrein'd (as once
Bellerophon, though from a lower clime)
Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,
Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.
Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound
Within the visible diurnal sphere:

Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compass'd round,
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east: still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find, though few.

But drive far off the barbarous dissonance
Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race
Of that vile rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
To rapture, till the savage clamour drown'd
Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend

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