- SECT. IX. While others are curious in the choice of good air, and chiefly solicitous for healthful habitations, study thou conversation, and be critical in thy consortion. The aspects, conjunctions, and configurations of the stars, which mutually diversify, intend, or qualify their influences, are but the varieties of their nearer or farther conversation with one another, and like the consortion of men, whereby they become better or worse, and even exchange their natures. Since men live by examples, and will be imitating something, order thy imitation to thy improvement, not thy ruin. Look not for roses in Attalus's garden,* or wholesome flowers in a venomous plantation. And since there is scarce any one bad, but some others are the worse for him; tempt not contagion by proximity, and hazard not thyself in the shadow of corruption. He who hath not early suffered this shipwreck, and in his younger days escaped this Charybdis, may make a happy voyage, and not come in with black sails into the port.1 Self-conversation, or to be alone, is better than such consortion. Some school-men tell us, that he is properly alone, with whom in the same place there is no other of the same species. Nebuchadnezzar was alone, though among the beasts of the field; and a wise man may be tolerably said to be alone, though with a rabble of people little better than beasts about him. Unthinking heads, who have not learned to be alone, are in a prison to themselves, if they be not also with others: whereas, on the contrary, they whose thoughts are in a fair, and hurry within, are sometimes fain to retire into company, to be out of the crowd of themselves. He who must needs have company, must needs have sometimes bad company. Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself; nor be only content, but delight to be alone and single with Omnipresency. He who is thus prepared, the day is not uneasy nor the night black unto him. Darkness may bound his eyes, not his imagination. In his bed he may lie, like Pompey and his sons,† in all quarters of Attalus made a garden which contained only venomous plants. Pompeios Juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsum Terra tegit Libyes. black sails, &c.] Alluding to the story of Theseus, who had black sails when he went to engage the Minotaur in Crete.-Dr. J. the earth; may speculate the universe, and enjoy the whole world in the hermitage of himself. Thus the old Ascetick Christians found a paradise in a desert, and with little converse on earth held a conversation in heaven; thus they astronomized in caves, and, though they beheld not the stars, had the glory of heaven before them. SECT. X.-Let the characters of good things stand indelibly in thy mind, and thy thoughts be active on them. Trust not too much unto suggestions from reminiscential amulets, or artificial memorandums. Let the mortifying Janus of Covarrubias be in thy daily thoughts, not only on thy hand and signets. Rely not alone upon silent and dumb remembrances. Behold not death's heads till thou dost not see them, nor look upon mortifying objects till thou overlookest them. Forget not how assuefaction unto any thing minorates the passion from it; how constant objects lose their hints, and steal an inadvertisement upon us. There is no excuse to forget what every thing prompts unto us. To thoughtful observators, the whole world is a phylactery; and every thing we see an item of the wisdom, power, or goodness of God. Happy are they who verify their amulets, and make their phylacteries speak in their lives and actions. To run on in despite of the revulsions and pull-backs of such remoras aggravates our transgressions. When death's heads on our hands have no influence upon our heads, and fleshless cadavers abate not the exorbitances of the flesh; when crucifixes upon men's hearts suppress not their bad commotions, and his image who was murdered for us withholds not from blood and murder; phylacteries prove but formalities, and their despised hints sharpen our condemnation. 3 • Don Sebastian de Covarrubias writ three centuries of moral emblems in Spanish. In the 88th of the second century he sets down two faces averse, and conjoined Janus-like; the one, a gallant beautiful face, the other, a death's head face, with this motto out of Ovid's Metamorphoses :— SECT. XI.-Look not for whales in the Euxine sea, or expect great matters where they are not to be found. Seek not for profundity in shallowness, or fertility in a wilderness. Place not the expectations of great happiness here below, or think to find heaven on earth; wherein we must be content with embryon felicities, and fruitions of doubtful faces: for the circle of our felicities makes but short arches. In every clime we are in a periscian state; and with our light, our shadow, and darkness walk about us. Our contentments stand upon the tops of pyramids ready to fall off, and the insecurity of their enjoyments abrupteth our tranquillities. What we magnify is magnificent; but, like to the Colossus, noble without, stuft with rubbage and coarse metal within. Even the sun, whose glorious outside we behold, may have dark and smoky entrails. In vain we admire the lustre of thing seen: that which is truly glorious is invisible. Paradise was but a part of the earth, lost not only to our fruition but our knowledge. And if, according to old dictates, no man can be said to be happy before death, the happiness of this life goes for nothing before it be over, and while we think ourselves happy we do but usurp that name. Certainly, true beatitude groweth not on earth, nor hath this world in it the expectations we have of it. He swims in oil,5 and can hardly avoid sinking, who hath such light foundations to support him: 'tis, therefore, happy that we have two worlds to hold on. To enjoy true happiness, we must travel into a very far country, and even out of ourselves; for the pearl we seek for is not to be found in the Indian but in the Empy rean ocean. any SECT. XII.-Answer not the spur of fury, and be not prodigal or prodigious in revenge. Make not one in the Historia Horribilis; flay not thy servant for a broken glass, nor 4 * A book so intitled, wherein are sundry horrid accounts. periscian state.] "With shadows all around us." The Periscii are those who, living within the polar circle, see the sun move round them, and, consequently, project their shadows in all directions.Dr. J. He swims in oil.] Which being a 8 pound him in a mortar who offendeth thee; supererogate not in the worst sense, and overdo not the necessities of evil; humour not the injustice of revenge. Be not stoically mistaken in the equality of sins, nor commutatively iniquitous in the valuation of transgressions; but weigh them in the scales of heaven, and by the weights of righteous reason. Think that revenge too high, which is but level with the offence. Let thy arrows of revenge fly short; or be aimed like those of Jonathan, to fall beside the mark. Too many there be to whom a dead enemy smells well, and who find musk and amber in revenge. The ferity of such minds holds no rule in retaliations, requiring too often a head for a tooth, and the supreme revenge for trespasses which a night's rest should obliterate. But patient meekness takes injuries like pills, not chewing but swallowing them down, laconically suffering, and silently passing them over; while angered pride makes a noise, like Homerican Mars,* at every scratch of offences. Since women do most delight in revenge, it may seem but feminine manhood to be vindictive. Ifthou must needs have thy revenge of thine enemy, with a soft tongue break his bones,† heap coals of fire on his head, forgive him and enjoy it. To forgive our enemies is a charming way of revenge, and a short Cæsarian conquest overcoming without a blow; laying our enemies at our feet, under sorrow, shame, and repentance; leaving our foes our friends, and sollicitously inclined to grateful retaliations. Thus to return upon our adversaries, is a healing way of revenge; and to do good for Tu miser exclamas, ut Stentora vincere possis Thus translated by Creech : You rage and storm, and, blasphemously loud, A soft tongue breaketh the bones.-PROV. xxv. 15. glass, for which his master ordered him to be thrown into his pond to feed his lampreys. Augustus, to punish his cruelty, ordered all the glasses in the house to be broken.-Dr. J. nor pound him in a mortar, &c.] Anaxarchus, an ancient philosopher, was beaten in a mortar by a tyrant.—Dr. J. 9 Since women, &c.] Minuti -Revenge! which still we find The weakest frailty of a feeble mind. evil a soft and melting ultion, a method taught from heaven,1 to keep all smooth on earth. Common forceable ways make not an end of evil, but leave hatred and malice behind them. An enemy thus reconciled is little to be trusted, as wanting the foundation of love and charity, and but for a time restrained by disadvantage or inability. If thou hast not mercy for others, yet be not cruel unto thyself. To ruminate upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in their apprehensions, is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the arrows of our enemies, to lash ourselves with the scorpions of our foes, and to resolve to sleep no more; for injuries long dreamt on, take away at last all rest; and he sleeps but like Regulus, who busieth his head about them. SECT. XIII.-Amuse not thyself about the riddles of future things. Study prophecies when they are become histories, and past hovering in their causes. Eye well things past and present, and let conjectural sagacity suffice for things to come. There is a sober latitude for prescience in contingencies of discoverable tempers, whereby discerning heads see sometimes beyond their eyes, and wise men become prophetical. Leave cloudy predictions to their periods, and let appointed seasons have the lot of their accomplishments. "Tis too early to study such prophecies before they have been long made, before some train of their causes have already taken fire, lay open in part what lay obscure and before buried unto us. For the voice of prophecies is like that of whispering-places: they who are near, or at a little distance, hear nothing; those at the farthest extremity will understand all. But a retrograde cognition of times past, and things which have already been, is more satisfactory than a suspended knowledge of what is yet unexistent. And the greatest part of time being already wrapt up in things behind us; it's now somewhat late to bait after things before us; for futurity still shortens, and time present sucks in time to come. What is prophetical in one age proves historical in another, and so must hold on unto the last of time; when there will be no room 1 from heaven.] "Not to be learned but leave unquietness in the other,―of a elsewhere."-MS. Sloan. 1847. seeming friend making but a close ad2 behind them.] "Quiet one party, versary.."-MS. Sloan. 1847. |