learned a man's greatness or baseness is in himself; and in this he may even contest with the proud, that he thinks his own the best. Or if he must be outwardly great, he can but turn the other end of the glass, and make his stately manor a low and straight cottage; and in all his costly furniture he can see not richness but use. He can see dross in the best metal, and earth through the best cloths: and in all his troop he can see himself his own servant. He lives quietly at home,* out of the noise of the world,† and loves to enjoy himself always, and sometimes his * I knew a man that had health and riches and several houses, all beautiful and ready furnished, and would often trouble himself and family to be removing from one house to another: and being asked by a friend, “ Why he removed so often from one house to another?" replied, "It was to find content in some one of them.” "Content," said his friend, "ever dwells in a meek and quiet soul."-WALTON's Angler. †The happiness of light minds is always in the next room; its eyes are in the ends of the earth. The Philosopher carries with him into the world the temper of the cloister, and preserves the fear of doing evil, while he is impelled by the zeal of doing good. He is rich or poor, without pride in riches, or discontent in poverty; he partakes the pleasures of sense with temperance, and enjoys the distinctions of honor with moderation. He passes undefiled through a polluted world, and, amidst all the vicissitudes of good and evil, has his heart fixed only where true joys are to be found. Newton étoit doux, tranquille, modeste, simple, affable, toujours de niveau avec tout le monde, ne se démentit point pendant le cours de sa longue et brillante carrière. Il auroit mieux aimé être inconnu, que de voir le calme de sa vie troublé par ces orages littéraires, que l'esprit et la science attirent à ceux qui cherchent trop la gloire. Je me reprocherois, disoit-il, mon imprudence, de perdre une chose aussi réelle que le repos, pour courir après une ombre. Si Descartes eut quelques foiblesses de l'humanité, il eut aussi les principales vertus du philosophe. Sobre, tempérant, ami de la liberté et de la retraite, reconnoissant, libéral, sensible à l'amitié, tendre, compatissant, il ne connoissoit que les passions douces et savoit résister aux violentes. Quand on me fait offense, disoit-il, je tache d'élever mon âme si haut, que l'offense ne parvienne pas jusqu'à elle. L'ambition ne l'agita pas plus que la vengeance. Il disoit, comme Ovide; Vivre caché, c'est vivre heu reux. The Caliph of Bagdad, fatigued with hunting, separated himself from the company, to sleep on the green bank of a rivulet, which seemed by its gentle murmuring to invite him to repose. He awoke suddenly in the most acute pain. In a few days after his return to the palace, his complexion He is not so friend, and hath as full scope to his thoughts as to his eyes. He walks ever even in the midway betwixt hopes and fears, resolved to fear nothing but God, to hope for nothing but that which he must have. He hath a wise and virtuous mind in a serviceable body; which, that better part affects as a present servant and a future companion, so cherishing his flesh, as one that would scorn to be all flesh. He hath no enemies; not for that all love him, but because he knows to make a gain of malice.* engaged to any earthly thing that they two cannot part on even terms; there is neither laughter in their meeting, nor in their shaking hands, tears. He keeps ever the best company, the God of spirits, and the spirits of that God, whom he entertains continually in an awful familiarity, not being hindered either with too much light or with none at all. His conscience and his hands are friends, and (what devil soever tempt him) will not fall out. That 66 became pale and sickly, his eyes grew dim, his limbs swelled, and his appetite failed. The physicians employed all their art in vain ; The Angel of Death stood ready to summon him. A stranger at that time in Bagdad, of great skill in medicine, was summoned to the palace. The moment he looked upon the eyes of the Caliph, he said, "It is the sting of a lizard:" and, taking a small phial from his pocket, gave the Caliph a few drops mixed with water. After the struggle of an hour his patient became composed; on the next day the delirium left him; and, before the moon had performed its revolution, his color returned, and the heat of youth glowed again in his veins. Henceforth, Alchaman," said the Caliph, "the palace of Bagdad is your home. My treasure is open to you. The honors of my kingdom are at your disposal." "Generous Monarch," said Alchaman, "to your majesty's care in action the public welfare is entrusted, my utility consists in contemplation. Permit me to return to my home, where I endeavor to converse with truth and wisdom. Pardon me, Sire, for saying that freedom of mind is the only empire a philosopher can covet; not from sloth, but from a conviction that the life and faculties of man, at the best but short and limited, cannot be more usefully employed than in researches which may enlighten the world and benefit future ages: and, as a knowledge of the properties of a few drops of fluid has enabled me to restore a beloved monarch to his people, may I retire with this grateful recollection, confirmed in my opinion, that all truths partake of one common essence, and, like drops of rain, which fall separately into the river, mix themselves at once with the stream, and strengthen the general current." * "Did a person," said the Abbé de Raunci, "but know the value of an enemy, he would purchase him with pure gold." † See ante, p. 5. divine part goes ever uprightly and freely, not stooping under the burthen of a willing sin, not fettered with the gyves of unjust scruples; he would not, if he could, run away from himself, or from God; not caring from whom he is hid so he may look these two in the face. Censures and applauses are passengers to him, not guests his ear is their thoroughfare, not their harbor; he hath learned to fetch both his counsel and his sentence from his own breast. He doth not lay weight upon his own shoulders, as one that loves to torment himself with the honor of much employment; but as he makes work his game, so doth he not list to make himself work. His strife is ever to redeem and not to spend time. It is his trade to do good, and to think of it as his recreation. He hath hands enough for himself and others, which are ever stretched forth for beneficence, not for need. He walks cheerfully the way that God hath chalked, and never wishes it more wide, or more smooth. Those very temptations whereby he is foiled, strengthen him; he comes forth crowned, and triumphing out of the spiritual battles, and those scars that he hath, make him beautiful. His soul is every day dilated to receive that God in whom he is, and hath attained to love himself for God, and God for his own sake. His eyes stick so fast in heaven, that no earthly object can remove them; yea, his whole self is there before his time; and sees with Stephen, and hears with Paul, and enjoys with Lazarus, the glory that he shall have; and takes possession before hand of his room amongst the saints; and these heavenly contentments have so taken him up, that now he looks down displeasedly upon the earth, as the regions of his sorrow and banishment; yet joying more in hope than troubled with the sense of evil, he holds it no great matter to live, and greatest business to die: and is so well acquainted with his last guest, that he fears no unkindness from him; neither makes he any other of dying, than of walking home when he is abroad, or of going to bed when he is weary of the day. He is well pro vided for both worlds, and is sure of peace here, of glory hereafter; and therefore hath a light heart and a cheerful face. All his fellow creatures rejoice to serve him; his betters, the angels, love to observe him; God himself takes pleasure to converse with him; and hath sainted him before his death, and in his death crowned him. THE HYPOCRITE. AN hypocrite is the worst kind of player, by so much that he acts the better part; which hath always two faces, ofttimes two hearts; that can compose his forehead to sadness and gravity, while he bids his heart be wanton and careless within, and (in the meantime) laughs within himself to think how smoothly he hath cozened the beholder. In whose silent face are written the characters of religion, which his tongue and gestures pronounce, but his hands recant. That hath a clean face and garment, with a foul soul; whose mouth belies his heart, and his fingers bely his mouth. Walking early up into the city he turns into the great church, and salutes one of the pillars on one knee, worshipping that God which at home he cares not for, while his eye is fixed on some window or some passenger, and his heart knows not whither his lips go. He rises, and, looking about with admiration, complains of our frozen charity, commends the ancient. At church he will ever sit where he may be seen the best, and in the midst of the sermon pulls out his tables in haste, as if he feared to lose that note, when he writes either his forgotten errand, or nothing. Then he turns his Bible with a noise, to seek an omitted quotation, and folds the leaf as if he had found it, and asks aloud the name of the preacher, and repeats it, whom he publicly salutes, thanks, praises in an honest mouth. He can command tears when he speaks of his youth, indeed, because it is past, not because it was sinful; himself is now better, but the times are worse. All other sins he reckons up with detestation, while he loves and hides his darling in his bosom; all his speech returns to himself, and every occurrent draws in a story to his own praise. When he should give, he looks about him, and says, Who sees me? no alms nor prayers fall from him without a witness; belike lest God should deny that he hath received them; and when he hath done (lest the world should not know it) his own mouth is his trumpet to proclaim it. With the superfluity of his usury he builds an hospital, and harbors them whom his extortion hath spoiled; so when he makes many beggars, he keeps some. He turneth all gnats into camels, and cares not to undo the world for a circumstance. Flesh on a Friday is more abominable to him than his neighbor's bed; he abhors more not to uncover at the name of Jesus than to swear by the name of God. When a rhymer reads his poem to him, he begs a copy, and persuades the press. There is nothing that he dislikes in presence, that in absence he censures not. He comes to the sick bed of his stepmother and weeps, when he secretly fears her recovery. He greets his friend in the street with a clear countenance, so fast a closure, that the other thinks he reads his heart in his face; and shakes hands with an indefinite invitation of When will you come? and when his back is turned, joys that he is so well rid of a guest; yet if that guest visit him unfeared, he counterfeits a smiling welcome and excuses his cheer, when closely he frowns on his wife for too much. He shows well, and says well, and himself is the worst thing he hath. In brief, he is the stranger's saint, the neighbor's disease, the blot of goodness, a rotten stick in a dark night, the poppy in a corn field, an ill-tempered candle with a great snuff, that in going out smells ill; an angel abroad, a devil at home; and worse when an angel, than when a devil. DAVID.* DAVID had lived obscurely in his father's house; his only care and ambition was the welfare of the flock he tended; and now while his father and his brothers neglected him as fit for nothing In the preface to an edition of Horne on the Psalms by the Rev. Edward Irving, there is a character of David, from which the following is extracted 66 Now, as the apostle, in writing to the Hebrews, concerning the priesthood of Christ, calls upon them to consider Melchizedek his solitary majesty, and singular condition and remarkable honor; so call we upon the church to consider David, the son of Jesse, his unexampled accumulation of gifts, his wonderful variety of conditions, his spiritual riches and his spiritual desolation, and the multifarious contingencies of his life; with his faculty, his unrivalled faculty, of expressing the emotions of his soul, under |