God, through the visible things of him from the creation of the world: but he also says that for their ignorance in this, the wrath of God is revealed against them: because when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, but changed the glory of the incorruptible God, into an image made like to corruptible man,and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Thus, we see there are three things which the Scriptures teach us, which without them, we could never have learned from all the books in the world. We have also seen, that as to morality, nature is vigorous and intelligent: but in the things of God, that she is short-sighted, and cannot of herself see them. Can a fly comprehend man, upon the top of monarchy? No more can man comprehend God, in the height of Omnipotency. There are mysteries of faith, as well as causes of reason. Reason may

guide me, when I have to deal with man; but in divine affairs, she shall wait on faith, and submit to her prerogative. The conscience is great, but God is far greater than it.

OF LOQUACITY AND TEDIOUSNESS IN DISCOURSE.

A PRATING barber came to trim king Archelaüs, and said to him, How will you please to have me cut your hair?-Said the king, Silently. Though a man has nothing to do, but to hear and answer, yet a boundless tongue is a strange unbridled beast to be worried with; and the misery is, that those who speak much, seldom speak well. It is a sign of ignorance

not to know that long speeches, though they may please the speaker, are the torture of the hearer. Horace, I think, was to be pitied when he was put into a sweat, and was almost slain in the via sacra, by the accidental detention of a prating tongue. There is nothing tires one more than words, when they clatter, like a loose window shaken by the wind. A talkative fellow may be compared to an unbraced drum, which beats a wise man out of his wits. Surely, nature did not guard the tongue with the double fence of teeth and lips, without meaning that it should not move too nimbly. When a scholar full of words, applied to Isocrates for instruction, the latter demanded of him a double fee: one, to learn him to speak well; another, to teach him to hold his peace. Those who talk too much to others, I fear, seldom speak enough with themselves; and then, for want of acquaintance with their own bosoms, they may well be mistaken, and exhibit foolishness when they think they are displaying wisdom. Loquacity is the fistula of the mind; ever running, and almost incurable. Some are blabbers of secrets; and these are traitors to society; they are vessels unfit for use, for they are bored in their bottoms.

There are others, again, who will cloy you with their own inventions; and this is a fault of poets. He who in his epigram invited his friend to supper, made him promise, that he

no verses would repeat.

Some will preamble a tale impertinently and cannot

be delivered of a jest, till they have travelled an hour in trivials;-as if they had taken the whole particulars in short-hand, and were reading from their notes;→ thus, they often spoil a good dish with improper sauce and unsavory farcements. Some are addicted to counselling, and will pour it in, even till they stop the ear. Tedious admonitions stupify the advised, and make the giver contemptible. It is the short reproof which stays like a stab in the memory, that tells; and oftentimes three words do more good, than an idle discourse of three hours. Some have varieties of stories, even to the wearing out of an auditor; and this is frequently the grave folly of old persons, whose unwatched tongues stray into the waste of words, and give us cause to blame their memories, for retaining so much of their youth. There are others also who have a leaping tongue, to jig into the tumult of discourse; and unless you have an Aristius to take you off, you are in great danger of a deep vexation. A rook-yard in a spring morning, is not a greater nuisance than one of these. Doubtless, the best is to be short, plain, and material. Let me hear one wise man sentence it, rather than twenty fools, garrulous in their lengthened tattle.-Est tempus quando nikil, est tempus quando aliquid: nullum autem est tempus, in quo dicenda sunt omnia. (Hug. Viet.) There is a time when we ought to be silent, and there is a time when we may speak; but there is no time, in which all things should be spoken.

OF THE CAUSES THAT MAKE MEN DIFFERENT.

CERTAINLY, those men that we see mounting to a nobleness of mind in honourable actions, are pieces of nature's truest work; especially in their inward faculties. External defects there may be, and yet they do not always hinder the internal powers. These, are commonly affected by the temperature of the air, by education, by diet, and by age and passion. From the air, we see the southern people are lightsome, ingenious, and subtil. The northern are slower, and more dull.

Temperie cali corpusque, animusque juvatur.

Both soul and body, change by change of air.

The influence of education is seen in every place. If you travel but from court to the country; or but from a village to an academy; or see but a horse well managed, and another resty in his own fierceness, you witness its effects. Diet, no question, alters much; even the giddy airiness of the French, I rather impute to their diet of wine and wild fowl, than to the difference of their clime, it being so near an adjoiner to ours. And in England, I believe our great use of strong beer and gross flesh, is a great occasion of dregging our spirits, and corrupting them, till they shorten life. Age, is also a changer. Man has his zenith, as well in understanding, as in vigour of body; he grows from sense to reason; and then again declines to dotage and to imbecility. Youth is too young in brain; and age again drains away the spirits. Passion blunts the edge of conceit; and

where there is much sorrow, the mind is dull, and unperceiving; the soul is oppressed, and lies languishing in an unsociable loneliness, till it becomes stupid and inhuman. Nor do these more alter the mind, than the body. The lamenting Poet puts them both together;

Jam mihi deterior canis aspergitur ætas ;

Jamque meos vultus ruga senilis arat.

Jum vigor, et quasso languent in corpore vires :
Nec juveni, lusus, qui placuere, juvant.

Nec me, si subito videas, cognoscere possis ;

Etatis facta est tanta ruina mea.

Confiteor, facere hoc annos: sed et altera causa est;
Anxietas animi, continuusque labor.

De Pont. 1. 1. Ep. 4.

Now, colder years, with snow my hairs enchase:
And now the aged wrinkle plows my face.
Now through my trembling joints, my vigour fails,
Mirth too, that cheer'd my youth, now nought avails.
So ruin'd and so alter'd am I
grown,

That at first sight, I am not to be known.

Age one cause is: but that which more I find,
Is pain perpetual, and a troubled mind.

Certainly, the best is, to weigh every man, as his means have been. A man may look in vain for courtly behaviour in a ploughman; or learning in a mechanic. Who can expect a lame man should be swift in running; or, that a sick man should deliver an oration with grace and animation. If I find any one failing in his manners, I will first consider his means, before I censure the man. And he who, from negligence, falls short of what he might be, I will think as justly blameable, as he that from care has adorned his behaviour above his means, is commendable.