they dip the arrows employed in hunting. The slightest wound with those envenomed shafts is mortal. If they only pierce the skin, the blood fixes and congeals in a moment, and the strongest animal falls motionless to the ground. Nor does this poison, notwithstanding its violence and subtlety, infect the flesh of the animal, which it kills. That may be eaten with perfect safety and retains its native relish and qualities.

W. ROBERTSON

327. TO H. CROMWELL, ESQ. You talk of fame and glory, and of the great men of antiquity: pray, tell me, what are all your great dead men, but so many little living letters? What a vast reward is here for all the ink wasted by writers, and all the blood spilt by princes! There was in old time one Severus, a Roman Emperor. I dare say you never called him by any other name in your life: and yet in his days he was styled Lucius, Septimius, Severus, Pius, Pertinax, Augustus, Parthicus, Adiabenicus, Arabicus, Maximus, and what not? What a prodigious waste of letters has time made! what a number have here dropt off, and left the poor surviving seven unattended!

A. POPE

328. MENTAL SUFFERINGS. If there be any suffering which more than another claims compassion but receives it least, it is that mental misery occasioned by the consciousness of possessing powers, which, not meeting with proportionate external excitements to action, oppress, instead of invigorating, the mind and render it the prey of wretchedness, apparently of its own creation. Beings thus organized, uninterested in the passing trifles of the hour, move gloomily through life; alternately the victims of apathy or irritation; regarded as visionaries or misanthropes, beheld with wonder and dislike,—that species of dislike which the pride of human nature always induces it to feel towards whatever it cannot comprehend. But present before them objects of pursuit adequate to their desires,-awaken their bosom hopes, rouse the master-spring of their passions,-touched with the spear of Ithuriel, their giant forms spring from the earth, new life is poured through their frames, new energies displayed in their actions; while the world beholds and confesses, with surprise, a metamorphosis which defies its comprehension.

The fear of death methods to save This is a reflec

329. EXCESSIVE ANXIETY FOR LIFE. often proves mortal, and sets people on their lives, which infallibly destroy them. tion made by some historian upon observing that there are many more thousands killed in a flight than in a battle: and may be applied to those multitudes of imaginary sick persons that break their constitutions by physicking, and throw themselves into the arms of death by endeavouring to escape it. This method is not only dangerous, but below the practice of a reasonable creature. To consult the preservation of life as the only end of it, to make our health our business, to engage in no action that is not part of a regimen or course of physic, are purposes so abject, so mean, so unworthy human nature, that a generous soul would rather die than submit to them. Besides that a continual anxiety for life vitiates all the relishes of it, and casts a gloom over the whole face of nature, as it is impossible we should take delight in any thing that we are every moment afraid of losing. J. ADDISON

330. THE SIEGE OF GLOUCESTER RAISED, A.D. 1643. It would not at first be credited at the leaguer that the Earl of Essex could be in a condition to attempt such a work and therefore they were too negligent upon the intelligence, and did not think that he would in truth venture upon so tedious a march, where he must march over a campaign nearly thirty miles in length, where half the king's body of horse would distress if not destroy his whole army, and through a country eaten bare, where he could find provision for neither man or horse. Upon these conclusions they proceeded in their works before Gloucester, their galleries being near finished, and visibly a great want of ammunition in the town. The enemies' general however marched steadily over all that campaign, which they thought he feared, and though the king's horse were often within view and entertained him with light skirmishes, he pursued his direct way; the king's horse still retiring before him, till the foot was compelled to raise the siege in more disorder and distraction than might have been expected; and so with less loss and easier skirmishes than can be imagined, the Earl with his army and train marched to Gloucester, where he found them reduced to one single barrel of powder; and all other provisions answerable.

LORD CLARENDON

331. INNATE GOODNESS OF NATURE. Many examples occur in experience and in history of men, who from dictates of common reason and natural inclinations have been very apt freely and liberally to impart unto others somewhat of any good thing they possessed: to sacrifice their own ease, pleasure, profit unto others' benefit; to undergo great pains and hazards for public good, the good of their family, of their friends, of their country, of mankind in general, and all this without any hope of recompence: except perhaps that commonly they might have some regard to the approbation and acceptance, to the good-will and gratitude of them whom their beneficence obliged; which in real esteem is no great derogation to their noble performances: and argues only there is together with such a laudable benignity or goodness of nature (to excite or enliven it) implanted a natural ambition also or generosity in man's soul; which being well moderated, seems not culpable; since God himself, in return to his most free beneficence, doth expect and require somewhat of thanks and praise, so much as we are able to render to him.

I. BARROW

332. OF FALSEHOOD. Lying supplies those who are addicted to it with a plausible apology for every crime and with a supposed shelter from every punishment. It tempts them to rush into danger from the mere expectation of impunity, and when practised with frequent success, it teaches them to confound the gradations of guilt, from the effects of which there is, in their imaginations at least, one sure and common protection. It corrupts the early simplicity of youth; it blasts the fairest blossoms of genius; and will most assuredly counteract every effort by which we may hope to improve the talents and mature the virtues of those whom it infects.

S. PARR

333. THE BEING OF GOD PROVED FROM THE RELATIONS OF THINGS TO EACH OTHER. Let me add: Whence comes it to pass, that ordinarily in nature nothing occurs noisome or troublesome to any sense, but all things wholesome and comfortable, at least innocent or inoffensive? that we may wander all about without being urged to shut our eyes, to stop our ears, our mouths, our noses; but rather invited to open all the avenues of our soul for admission of the kind

entertainments nature sets before us? doth she not everywhere present spectacles of delight (somewhat of a lively picture, somewhat of gay embroidery, somewhat of elegant symmetry) to our eyes, however seldom anything appears horrid or ugly to them? where is it that we meet with noises so violent or so jarring, as to offend our ears? is there not rather provided for us, wherever we go, some kind of harmony grateful to them; not only in fields and woods, the sweet chirping of birds, by rivers the soft warbling of the streams, but even the rude winds whistle in a tune not unpleasant; the tossing seas yield a kind of solemn and graver melody? All the air about us, is it not (not only not noisome to our smell) but very comfortable and refreshing? and doth not even the dirty earth yield a wholesome and medicinal scent? So many, so plain, so exactly congruous are the relations of things here about us to each other: which surely could not otherwise come than from one admirable wisdom and power conspiring thus to adapt and connect them together; as also from an equal goodness declared in all these things being squared so fitly for mutual benefit and convenience. I. BARROW

334. AND ORDER OF THE HEAVENS. But if we lift up our eyes and minds towards heaven, there in a larger volume and in a brighter character we shall behold the testimonies of perfection and majesty stupendous described: as our eyes are dazzled with the radiant light coming thence, so must the vast amplitude, the stately beauty, the decent order, the steady course, the beneficial efficacy of those glorious lamps, astonish our minds, fixing their attention upon them. He that shall, I say, consider with what precise regularity and what perfect constancy those (beyond our imagination) vast bodies perform their rapid motions, what pleasure, comfort, and advantage their light and heat do yield us, how their kindly influences conduce to the general preservation of all things here below, impregnating the womb of this cold and dull lump of earth with various sorts of life, with strange degrees of activity, how necessary or how convenient at least the certain recourses of seasons made by them are: how can we but wonder, and wondering adore that transcendancy of beneficent wisdom and power, which first disposed them into, which still preserves them in such a state and order? That

THE BEING OF GOD PROVED FROM THE BEAUTY

all of them should be so regulated, as for so many ages together (even through all memories of time) to persist in the same posture, to retain the same appearances; not to alter discernibly in magnitude, in shape, in situation, in distance each from other; but to abide fixed as it were in their unfixedness, and steady in their restless motions; not to vary at all sensibly in the time of their revolution (so that no one year was ever observed to differ in an hour, or one day in a minute from another) doth it not argue a constant will directing them and a mighty hand upholding them?

335.

I. BARROW

MENTEM E CAELESTI DEMISSAM TRAXIMUS ARCE.

To think a gross body may be ground and pounded into rationality, a slow body may be thumped and driven into passion, a rough body may be filed and polished into a faculty of discerning and resenting things: that a cluster of pretty thin round atoms (as Democritus forsooth conceited), that a well mixed combination of elements (as Empedocles fancied), that a harmonious contemperation or crasis of humours (as Galen would persuade us), that an implement made up of I know not what fine springs and wheels and such mechanic knacks (as some of our modern wizards have been busy in devising), should without more to do become the subject of so rare capacities and endowments, the author of actions so worthy and works so wonderful: capable of wisdom and virtue, of knowledge so vast, and of desires so lofty apt to contemplate truth and affect good; able to recollect things past and to foresee things future; to search so deep into the causes of things and disclose so many mysteries of nature; to invent so many arts and sciences, to contrive such projects of policy and achieve such feats of prowess; briefly, should become capable to design, undertake and perform all those admirable effects of human wit and industry which we daily see and hear; how senseless and absurd conceits are these; how can we without great indignation and regret entertain such suppositions? No, no: 'tis both ridiculous fondness and monstrous baseness for us to own any parentage from or any alliance to things so mean, so very much below us.

336.

1. BARROW

OUR INCAPACITY TO DISCOVER ALL THINGS IN THE SYSTEM OF THE WORLD DOES NOT ARGUE ANY DEFECT

IN THE DESIGN THEREOF. Even as a person whom we