he who writes for monarchy places him some degrees above God Almighty in power and sovereignty. Now the inconveniency of greatness, that I have made choice of to consider in this place, upon some occasion that has lately put it into my head, is this: there is not peradventure anything more pleasant in the commerce of men than the trials that we make against one another, out of emulation of honour and valour, whether in the exercises of the body or in those of the mind; wherein the sovereign greatness can have no true part. And in earnest I have often thought, that out of force of respect men have used princes disdainfully and injuriously in that particular. For the thing I was infinitely offended at in my childhood, that they who exercised with me forbore to do their best because they found me unworthy of their utmost endeavour, is what we see happen to them every day, every one finding himself unworthy to contend with them. If we discover that they have the least passion to have the better, there is no one who will not make it his business to give it them, and who will not rather betray his own glory than offend theirs; and will therein employ so much force only as is necessary to advance their honour. What share have they, then, in the engagement wherein every one is on their side? Methinks I see those paladins of ancient times presenting themselves to jousts, with enchanted arms and bodies; Crisson, running against Alexander, purposely missed his blow, and made a fault in his career; Alexander chid him for it, but he ought to have had him whipped. Upon this consideration, Carneades said, that the sons of princes learned nothing right but to ride the great horse; by reason that in all their exercises every one bends and yields to them: but a horse, that is neither a flatterer nor a courtier, throws the son of a king with no more remorse than he would do that of a porter. Homer was compelled to consent that Venus, so sweet and delicate as she was, should be wounded at the battle of Troy, thereby to ascribe courage and boldness to her; qualities that cannot possibly be in those who are exempt from danger. The gods are made to be angry, to fear, to run away, to be jealous, to grieve, and to be transported with passions, to honour them with the virtues

that amongst us are built upon these imperfections. Who does not participate in the hazard and difficulty, can pretend no interest in the honour and pleasure that are the consequents of hazardous actions. 'Tis a pity a man should be so potent that all things must give way to him. Fortune therein sets you too remote from society, and places you in too great a solitude. The easiness and mean facility of making all things bow under you, is an enemy to all sorts of pleasure. This is to slide, not to go; this is to sleep, and not to live. Conceive man accompanied with omnipotency, you throw him into an abyss: he must beg disturbance and opposition as an alms. His being and his good is indigence. Their good qualities are dead and lost; for they are not to be perceived, but by comparison, and we put them out of it: they have little knowledge of the true praise, having their ears deafed with so continual and uniform an approbation. Have they to do with the meanest of all their subjects? they have no means to take any advantage of him, if he say, 'tis because he is my king, he thinks he has said enough to express that he therefore suffered himself to be overcome. This quality stifles and consumes the other true and essential qualities. They are involved in the royalty, and leave them nothing to recommend themselves withal, but actions that directly concern themselves, and that merely respect the function of their place. 'Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so; the strange lustre that environs him, conceals and shrouds him from us: our sight is there repelled and dissipated, being stopped and filled by this prevailing light. The senate awarded the prize of eloquence to Tiberius: he refused it, supposing that, though it had been just, he could derive no advantage from a judgment so partial, and that was so little free to judge. As we give them all advantages of honour, so do we soothe and authorise all their vices and defects, not only by approbation, but by imitation also. Every one of Alexander's followers carried their heads on one side, as he did; and the flatterers of Dionysius run against one another in his presence, stumbled at, and over turned whatever was under foot, to show that they were as purblind as he. Natural imperfections have sometimes also served

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to recommend a man to favour. I have seen deafness affected: and, because the master hated his wife, Plutarch has seen his courtiers repudiate theirs, whom they loved: and, which is yet more, uncleanness and all manner of dissoluteness has been in fashion; as also disloyalty, blasphemies, cruelty, heresy, supersti tion, irreligion, effeminacy, and worse if worse there be. And by an example yet more dangerous than that of Mithridates' flatterers, who, by how much their master pretended to the honour of a good physician, came to him to have incision and cauteries made in their limbs; for these others suffered the soul, a more delicate and noble part, to be cauterised. But to end where I begun: the Emperor Adrian, disputing with the philosopher Favorinus about the inter pretation of some word, Favorinus soon yielded him the victory; for which his friends rebuking him,-"You talk simply," said he; "would you not have him wiser than I, who commands thirty legions?" Augustus wrote verses against Asinius Pollio, and I, said Pollio, say nothing, for it is not prudence to write in contest with him who has power to proscribe: and he had reason: for Dionysius, because he could not equal Philoxenus in poesy, and Plato in discourse, condemned one to the Quarries, and sent the other to be sold for a slave into the island of Ægina.

The Faithful Minister.

THOMAS FULLER.

[THOMAS FULLER-the quaint, shrewd, imaginative, and witty Thomas Fuller-was born in 1608; he died in 1661. His writings are exceedingly numerous; although he was a man of action in times which made violent partisans. An adherent to the Royalist cause, he was deprived of all preferment, and his little property in books and manuscripts seized upon, in the early part of the contest between the King and Parliament. But he subsequently held various livings, and was tolerated even by those to whom he was politically opposed. The following is extracted from his "Holy State."]

We suppose him not brought up by hand only in his own country studies, but that he hath sucked of his mother University, and thoroughly learnt the arts; not as St Rumball, who is said to

have spoken as soon as he was born, doth he preach as soon as he is matriculated. Conceive him now a graduate in arts, and entered into orders, according to the solemn form of the Church of England, and presented by some patron to a pastoral charge, or place equivalent; and then let us see how well he dischargeth his office.

MAXIMS.

I. He endeavours to get the general love and good-will of his parish. This he doth, not so much to make a benefit of them, as a benefit for them, that his ministry may be more effectual; otherwise he may preach his own heart out, before he preacheth anything into theirs. The good conceit of the physician is half a cure; and his practice will scarce be happy where his person is hated. Yet he humours them not in his doctrine, to get their love; for such a spaniel is worse than a dumb dog. He shall sooner get their good-will by walking uprightly, than by crouching and creeping. If pious living, and painful labouring in his calling, will not win their affections, he counts it gain to lose them. for those who causelessly hate him, he pities and prays for them: and such there will be. I should suspect his preaching had no salt in it, if no galled horse did wince.

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II. He is strict in ordering his conversation.—As for those who cleanse blurs with blotted fingers, they make it the worse. It was said of one who preached very well, and lived very ill, "that when he was out of the pulpit, it was pity he should ever go into it; and when he was in the pulpit, it was pity he should ever come out of it." But our minister lives sermons. And yet I deny not, but dissolute men, like unskilful horsemen, who open a gate on the wrong side, may, by the virtue of their office, open heaven for others, and shut themselves out.

III. His behaviour towards his people is grave and courteous.Not too austere and retired; which is laid to the charge of good Mr Hooper the martyr, that his rigidness frighted the people from consulting with him. "Let your light," saith Christ, "shine before men;" whereas over-reservedness makes the brightest virtue burn dim. Especially he detesteth affected gravity (which is rather on

men than in them,) whereby some belie their register-book, antedate their age to seem far older than they are, and plait and set their brows in an affected sadness. Whereas St Anthony the monk might have been known among hundreds of his order by his cheerful face, he having ever (though a most mortified man) a merry countenance.

IV. He doth not clash God's ordinances together about precedency. -Not making odious comparisons betwixt prayer and preaching, preaching and catechising, public prayer and private, premeditate prayer and ex tempore. When, at the taking of New Carthage in Spain, two soldiers contended about the mural crown, due to him who first climbed the walls, so that the whole army was thereupon in danger of division; Scipio the general said he knew that they both got up the wall together, and so gave the scaling crown to them both. Thus our minister compounds all controversies betwixt God's ordinances, by praising them all, practising them all, and thanking God for them all. He counts the reading of Common Prayers to prepare him the better for preaching; and, as one said, if he did first toll the bell on one side, it made it afterwards ring out the better in his sermons.

V. He carefully catechiseth his people in the elements of religion. -Except he hath (a rare thing!) a flock without lambs, of all old sheep; and yet even Luther did not scorn to profess himself discipulum catechismi" a scholar of the catechism." By this catechising the gospel first got ground of Popery: and let not our religion, now grown rich, be ashamed of that which first gave it credit and set it up, lest the Jesuits beat us at our own weapon. Through the want of this catechising, many, who are well skilled in some dark out-corners of divinity, have lost themselves in the beaten road thereof.

VI. He will not offer to God of that which costs him nothingbut takes pains aforehand for his sermons. Demosthenes never made any oration on the sudden; yea, being called upon, he never rose up to speak except he had well studied the matter: and he was wont to say, "that he showed how he honoured and reverenced the people of Athens, because he was careful what he