Ex Libris 
 I C. K. OGDEN 
 
 
 celling, and the Love of Excel- 
 ivate Tour, or Thoughts upon, 
 lf. S 1820 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 

 
 ipribate Cuter: 
 
 OR 
 
 THOUGHTS 
 
 UPON THE 
 
 of 
 
 AND THE 
 
 of excellence* 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR ROWLAND HUNTER, 
 
 Successor to Mr. Johnson, 
 NO. 72, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD. 
 
 1820.
 
 Printed by R. and A. Taylor, Shoe Lane, London.
 
 BD 
 III 
 
 WITH THE AFFECTIONATE REMEMBRRANCE OF 
 THIRTY YEARS UNINTERRUPTED FRIENDSHIP, 
 THIS TRACT IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO 
 THE REVEREND FRANCIS WRANGHAM, 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR.
 
 preface. 
 
 AFTER having passed a few days at Salamis, upon 
 the shores where Xerxes was defeated and Solon 
 was born, I sailed with a fair wind, and in less 
 than an hour anchored in the Piraeus, now called 
 Porto Leone. 
 
 In my way to Athens we passed along the ruins 
 of Themistocles's wall, by a road in the midst of a 
 beautiful plain covered with vineyards and olive- 
 trees, bounded on one side by mountains and on 
 the other by the sea. Upon approaching the city I 
 saw the temple of Theseus, built by the Athenians 
 soon after the battle of Marathon; and at a small 
 distance the temple of Jupiter Olympius, which 
 contained the most celebrated works of art, the 
 gifts of all the cities of Greece. A few beautiful 
 marble pillars, with their friezes, architraves, and
 
 vi PREFACE. 
 
 cornices, are now the only remains of this once 
 magnificent structure. 
 
 Near to it are the ruins of the temple of the 
 winds. The Triton which stood at the top, so con- 
 trived as to point with his wand to each wind, is no 
 more to be seen ; but the figures with their proper 
 attributes may be traced. I easily discovered the 
 God Zephyrus represented as a beautiful young 
 man gliding with a scarcely perceptible motion 
 and surrounded by flowers. 
 
 Above all stands the Parthenon, the most re- 
 nowned temple in Greece. Here the people of 
 Attica, regardless of their several religious dissen- 
 tions, joined in an unanimous worship. As I was 
 passing between two of the columns I perceived 
 some men watching me with a sort of suspicion 
 and jealousy, which being little disposed to en- 
 counter, I avoided and quitted the city. I quitted 
 it with the sad consciousness that the whole of this 
 country, the plains of Marathon and the pass of 
 Thermopylae, are under the dominion of the Turks.
 
 PREFACE. Vli 
 
 Athens is governed by a Vaivode, who buys the 
 office of the chief of the black eunuchs, to whom 
 the whole revenue belongs. 
 
 I am always disposed rather to discover the cause 
 of misery than to distress or indulge myself in la- 
 mentations over its existence. The decline and fall 
 of empires proceed from causes as certain in their 
 operation as any other cause in nature. I saw in the 
 horizon the island of Calaurea, where Demosthenes 
 is buried: I was on the very spot where he opposed 
 the misguided multitude; where he in vain exhorted 
 a heedless people to remember that, as vice hurries 
 individuals to destruction, it converts a living nation 
 into a sepulchre. The city is a ruin; the country 
 is governed by unlettered barbarians: but it is 
 some consolation to reflect that the mighty heart 
 is not still. " Of all those massive temples," says 
 a favourite author, " which for pomp or pleasure 
 " were builded in goodly Athens, scarcely one stone 
 " doth stand upon another: and yet those strains 
 " which were chaunted by sweet Menander, learned
 
 Viii PREFACE. 
 
 " Euripides, lofty Sophocles, scarce noted by the 
 " vulgar, and counted by the most but as thin air; 
 " these are familiar to our ears, our instructors at 
 " school, our solace in old age : and the walls that 
 " did echo them are laid low : so will it ever be when 
 " the hand of man doth strive with the imperish- 
 " able spirit, the mortal with the immortal." With 
 this consolation I proceeded. On my left was the 
 river Ilyssus : on my right, close under the walls of 
 the Acropolis, the theatre of Bacchus, where the 
 Athenians performed their dramas and where the 
 statues of their dramatic poets were placed. I passed 
 over the hill where the poetMusseus is buried, to the 
 very spot where the Academy, where the schools of 
 Pythagoras, of Plato, of Isocrates, and of Aristotle 
 flourished. 
 
 The thoughts of an Englishman, in joy or in 
 sorrow, turn untravelled to his own country. And 
 did these schools produce more celebrated philoso- 
 phers, orators, historians, poets, and princes, than 
 the universities of England ? Were the youth of
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 Greece and of Rome more ardent in the pursuit of 
 knowledge than the young men of England ? It 
 has been said that the youth of former times were 
 animated by the love of excellence, which is a per- 
 manent motive of action; and that we are stimu- 
 lated by the love of excelling, which operates inju- 
 riously, or ceases soon after our entrance into life. 
 An author of a very valuable work, when speak- 
 ing of education in England, says, " The youths 
 that attended upon Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, 
 and Epictetus, were thus educated. Their every 
 day lessons and instructions were so many lec- 
 tures upon the nature of man, his true end, and 
 the right use of his faculties ; upon the immor- 
 tality of the soul, its relation to God, the beauty 
 of virtue, and its agreeableness to the divine na- 
 ture; upon the dignity of reason, the necessity 
 of temperance, fortitude and generosity, and the 
 shame and folly of indulging our passions. An 
 education under Pythagoras, or Socrates, had no 
 other end, but to teach you to think, judge, act,
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 and follow such rules of life, as Pythagoras and 
 Socrates used. But alas, our modern education is 
 not of this kind. The first temper that we try to 
 awaken in children, is pride ; as dangerous a passion 
 as that of lust. We stir them up to vain thoughts 
 of themselves, and do every thing we can, to puff 
 up their minds with a sense of their own ahilities. 
 Whatever way of life we intend them for, we ap- 
 ply to the fire and vanity of their minds, and ex- 
 hort them to every thing from corrupt motives: 
 We stir them up to action from principles of strife 
 and ambition, from glory, envy, and a desire of 
 distinction, that they may excel others, and shine 
 in the eyes of the world. We repeat and incul- 
 cate these motives upon them, till they think it 
 a part of their duty to be proud, envious, and 
 vain-glorious of their own accomplishments. And 
 when we have taught them to scorn to be out- 
 done by any, to bear no rival, to thirst after every 
 instance of applause, to be content with nothing 
 but the highest distinctions; then we begin to take
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 comfort in them, and promise the world some 
 mighty things from youths of such a glorious spirit. 
 If children are intended for holy orders, we set 
 before them some eminent orator, whose fine preach- 
 ing has made him the admiration of the age, and 
 carried him through all the dignities and prefer- 
 ments of the church. We encourage them to have 
 these honours in their eye, and to expect the re- 
 ward of their studies from them. If the youth is 
 intended for a trade, we bid him look at all the 
 rich men of the same trade, and consider how 
 many now are carried about in their stately coaches, 
 who began in the same low degree as he now does. 
 We awaken his ambition, and endeavour to give 
 his mind a right turn, by often telling him how 
 very rich such and such a tradesman died. If he 
 is to be a lawyer, then we set great counsellors, 
 lords, judges, chancellors, before his eyes. We 
 tell him what great fees, and great applause at- 
 tend fine pleading. We exhort him to take fire 
 at these things, to raise a spirit of emulation in
 
 Xll PREFACE. 
 
 himself, and to be content with nothing less than 
 the highest honours of the long robe. That this is 
 the nature of our best education, is too plain to 
 need any proof; and I believe there are few parents, 
 but would be glad to see these instructions daily 
 given to their children." 
 
 Is there any foundation for these opinions ? 
 Were the motives which influenced the young men 
 of Greece and of Rome in the acquisition of know- 
 ledge different from those by which the young 
 men of England are actuated ? and, supposing this 
 difference to exist, is the Love of Excellence or 
 the Love of Excelling the best motive for the for- 
 mation of a noble mind a ? " How shall our reason 
 be guided that it may be right ; that it be not a 
 blind guide, but direct us to the place where the 
 star appears, and point to the very house where the 
 babelieth?" 
 
 a See note 2 A at the end of this Tract, p. 172.
 
 Contents, 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 1. Is the Love of Knowledge a Motive for 
 
 the Acquisition of Knowledge ... 1 
 
 2. Is the Love of Knowledge a powerful Mo- 
 
 tive for the Acquisition of Knowledge . 16 
 
 S. Does not the Art of Education consist not 
 in giving Knowledge, but in giving a 
 Desire to know 23 
 
 4. How is the Love of Knowledge generated 26 
 
 5 . Of the Association of Pain with the Acqui- 
 
 sition of Knowledge 30
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 6. Of Mental Stimulants 31 
 
 7. The Works of Nature 52 
 
 8. The Works of Art 60 
 
 9. The Advantages of Knowledge ... 65 
 
 10. Knoiuledge avoids the Misery to which 
 
 Ignorance is exposed 66 
 
 1 1 . Knowledge rejects false and selects true 
 
 Pleasures 71 
 
 12. Knowledge humanizes the Possessor . 85 
 
 13. Knowledge promotes Order . . . . 91 
 
 14. Knowledge is Power 96 
 
 15. Of the Love of Excelling 100 
 
 16. Of Forcing the Mind Ill
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 17. Note upon same of our Pleasures . .128 
 
 Pleasures- of Sense 129 
 
 Pleasures of Benevolence 146 
 
 Pleasures of Malevolence 150 
 
 Pleasures of Taste 152
 
 3fe t&e JLobe of &notote&se a jHattbe for t&e 
 acquisition of fenotolelrge? 
 
 How charming is divine philosophy ! 
 
 Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose ; 
 
 But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
 
 And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, 
 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns. 
 
 COMUS. 
 
 1 . As the eye rejoices to receive the light, the ear 
 to hear sweet music: so the mind, which is the man, 
 rejoices to discover the secret works, the varieties 
 and beauties of nature. 
 
 2. The inquiry of truth, which is the love mak- 
 ing or wooing it ; the knowledge of truth, which is 
 the presence of it ; and the belief of truth, which is 
 the enjoying it, is the sovereign good of our nature.
 
 3. The unlearned man knows not what it is to 
 descend into himself or to call himself to account* 
 or the pleasure of that suavissima vita indies sen- 
 tire se fieri meliorem. 
 
 4. The mind of man doth wonderfully endeavour 
 and extremely covet that it may not be pensile: but 
 that it may light upon something fixed and immove- 
 able, on which, as on a firmament, it may support it- 
 self in its swift motions and disquisitions. Aristotle 
 endeavours to prove that in all motions of bodies 
 there is some point quiescent : and very elegantly 
 expounds the fable of Atlas, who stood fixed and 
 bore up the heavens from falling, to be meant of 
 the poles of the world whereupon the conversion is 
 accomplished. In like manner, men do earnestly 
 seek to have some Atlas or axis of their cogitations 
 within themselves, which may, in some measure, 
 moderate the fluctuations and wheelings of the un- 
 derstanding, fearing it may be the falling of their 
 heaven. 
 
 5. The pleasure and delight of knowledge far sur-
 
 passeth all other in nature. We see in all other 
 pleasures there is a satiety, and after they be used, 
 their verdour departeth: which showeth well they 
 be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures: and 
 therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, 
 and ambitious princes turn melancholy*. But of 
 knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and 
 appetite are perpetually interchangeable; and there- 
 fore appeareth to be good in itself simply without 
 fallacy or accident. Neither is that pleasure of 
 small efficacy and contentment in the mind of man, 
 which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly, suave 
 mari magno turbantibus (pquora ventis, fyc. " It is 
 " a view of delight," saith he, " to stand or walk 
 " upon the shore, and to see a ship tost with tempest 
 " upon the sea: a pleasure to stand in the window 
 " of a castle, and to see two battles join upon a 
 " plain : but it is a pleasure incomparable for the 
 " mind of man to be settled, landed, and fortified 
 " in the certainty of truth, and from thence to de- 
 
 a See note A at the end. 
 B2
 
 " scry and behold the errors, perturbations, labours, 
 " and wanderings up and down of other men." 
 So always that this prospect be with pity, and not 
 with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven 
 upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, 
 rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of 
 truth. 
 
 6. God hath made all things beautiful or de- 
 cent in the true return of their seasons; also he hath 
 placed the world in man's heart: yet cannot man 
 find out the work which God worketh from the be- 
 ginning to the end, declaring, not obscurely, that 
 God hath framed the mind of man as a mirror or 
 glass, capable of the image of the universal world, 
 and joyful to receive the impression thereof, as the 
 eye joyeth to receive light, and not only delighted 
 in beholding the variety of things, and vicissitudes 
 of times, but raised how to find out and discover 
 the ordinances and decrees which throughout all 
 these changes are infallibly observed. 
 
 7. The discovery of the different properties of
 
 creatures and the imposition of names was the oc- 
 cupation and pleasure of Adam in Paradise 3 . 
 
 8. THE pleasures of speculation have been some- 
 times so great, so intense, and so engrossing all the 
 powers of the soul, that there has been no room left 
 for any other pleasure. It has so called together all 
 the spirits to that one work, that there has been no 
 supply to carry on the inferior operations of nature. 
 Contemplation feels no hunger, nor is sensible of 
 any thirst but of that after knowledge. How frequent 
 and exalted a pleasure did David find from his 
 meditation in the divine call ! All the day long it 
 was the theme of his thoughts : the affairs of state, 
 the government of his kingdom, might indeed em- 
 ploy, but it was this only that refreshed his mind. 
 How short of this are the delights of the epicure ! 
 how vastly disproportionate are the pleasures of the 
 eating and of the thinking man! indeed as dif- 
 ferent as the silence of Archimedes in the study of 
 a problem, and the stillness of a sow at her wash. 
 
 * Bacon from 1 to 8.
 
 6 
 
 Nothing is comparable to the pleasure of an active 
 and a prevailing thought: a thought prevailing 
 over the difficulty and obscurity of the object, and 
 refreshing the soul with new discoveries and images 
 of things; and thereby extending the bounds of 
 
 apprehension and enlarging the territories of 
 reason a . 
 
 9. In Ascham's Schoolmaster he says, " Before I 
 went into Germany I came to Broadgate in Leices- 
 tershire, to take my leave of the noble Lady Jane 
 Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholding. 
 Her parents, the Duke and Dutchess, with all the 
 household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunt- 
 ing in the park. I found her in her chamber read- 
 ing Phaedon Platonis in Greek, and this with as 
 much delight as some gentlemen would read a 
 merry tale in Boccacio. After salutation and duty 
 done, with some other talk, I asked her * why she 
 * would lose such pastime in the park?' smiling 
 she answered me, * I wisse all their sport in the park 
 
 South.
 
 ' is but a shadow to that pleasure that I find in 
 ( Plato. Alas ! good folk, they never felt what true 
 
 * pleasure meant.' ' And how came you, Madam/ 
 quoth I, 'to this deep knowledge of pleasure? and 
 ' what did chiefly allure you unto it, seeing not 
 ' many women, but very few men have attained 
 'thereunto?' 'I will tell you,' quoth she, 'and 
 
 * tell you a truth,' &c. " 
 
 10. Heinsius, the keeper of the library at Leyden, 
 after being mewed up in it the whole of one year, 
 said, " I no sooner come into the library but I bolt 
 the door after me, excluding lust, ambition, ava- 
 rice, and all such vices, whose nurse is idleness the 
 mother of ignorance and melancholy herself: and 
 in the very lap of eternity, amidst so many divine 
 souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and such 
 sweet content, that I pity all our great ones and 
 rich men who know not this happiness." 
 
 1 1 . The things, says Boyle, for which I hold life 
 valuable are the satisfaction that accrues from the 
 improvement of knowledge and the exercise of piety.
 
 8 
 
 12. La lecture est la nourriture de Fesprit a : c'est 
 par elle que nous connoissons notre Createur, ses 
 ouvrages, et surtout, nous memes et nos sem- 
 blables b . 
 
 13. I persuade myself that the life and faculties 
 of man, at the best but short and limited, cannot 
 be employed more rationally or laudably than in 
 the search of knowledge; and especially of that sort 
 which relates to our duty and conduces to our hap- 
 piness. In these inquiries, therefore, wherever I 
 perceive any glimmering of truth before me, I 
 readily pursue and endeavour to trace it to its 
 source, without any reserve or caution of pushing 
 the discovery too far, or opening too great a glare 
 of it to the public. I look upon the discovery of 
 any thing which is true, as a valuable acquisition to 
 society, which cannot possibly hurt, or obstruct the 
 good effect of any other truth whatsoever ; for they 
 
 * Knowledge is " pabulum animi/' says Bacon ; and the nature of 
 man's appetites is as the Israelites in the desert, who were weary of 
 manna, and would fain have turned ad olios carnium. 
 
 b Gibbon.
 
 all partake of one common essence, and necessarily 
 coincide with each other : and like the drops of 
 rain which fall separately into the river, mix them- 
 selves at once with the stream, and strengthen the 
 general current 1 . 
 
 14. Against the inconveniences and vexations of 
 long life may be set the pleasure of discovering truth, 
 one of the greatest pleasures that age affords 5 . 
 
 15 . What an heaven lives a scholar in, that at once 
 in one close room can daily converse with all the 
 glorious martyrs and fathers; that can single out 
 at pleasure, either sententious Tertullian, or grave 
 Cyprian, or resolute Hierome, or flowing Chryso- 
 stome, or divine Ambrose, or devout Bernard, or 
 (who alone is all these) heavenly Augustine, and 
 talk with them, and hear their wise and holy coun- 
 sels, verdicts, resolutions : yea, to rise higher, with 
 courtly Esay, with learned Paul, with all their fel- 
 low prophets, apostles ; yea more, like another Moses 
 with God himself, in them both! Let the world con- 
 
 a Middleton. b Johnson.
 
 10 
 
 temnus: while we have these delights we cannot 
 envy them: we cannot wish ourselves other than 
 we are. Besides, the way to all other contentments 
 is troublesome: the only recompense is in the 
 end. To delve in the mines, to scorch in the fire 
 for the getting, for the fining of gold, is a slavish 
 toyle: the comfort is in the wedge to the owner, not 
 the labourers : where our very search of knowledge 
 is delightsome. Study itself is our life : from which 
 we would not be barred for a world. How much 
 sweeter then is the fruit of study, the conscience of 
 knowledge ! In comparison whereof the soul that 
 hath once tasted it easily contemns all human com- 
 forts. Go now, ye worldlings, and insult over our 
 paleness, our neediness, our neglect, ye could not 
 be so jocund if ye were not ignorant; if you did not 
 want knowledge you could not overlook him that 
 hath it: for me, I am so far from emulating you, 
 that I profess I had as lieve be a brute beast, as an 
 ignorant rich man a . 
 
 Bishop Hall.
 
 11 
 
 16. In my solitary and retired imagination, 
 I remember I am not alone, and therefore forget 
 not to contemplate him and his attributes who is 
 ever with me, especially those two mighty ones, 
 his wisdom and eternity : with the one I recreate, 
 with the other I confound my understanding: for 
 who can speak of eternity without a soloecism, or 
 think thereof without an ecstasie? 
 
 That other attribute wherewith I recreate my 
 devotion, is his wisdom, in which I am happy; and 
 for the contemplation of this only, do not repent 
 me that I was bred in the way of study : The ad- 
 vantage I have of the vulgar, with the content and 
 happiness I conceive therein, is an ample recom- 
 pense for all my endeavours, in what part of know- 
 ledge soever 1 . Wisdom is his most beauteous attri- 
 bute; no man can attain unto it, yet Solomon 
 pleased God when he desired it, He is wise, be- 
 cause he knows all things; and he knoweth all 
 things, because he made them all: but his greatest 
 
 * See note B at the end.
 
 12 
 
 knowledge is in comprehending that he made not, 
 that is, himself. And this is also the greatest know- 
 ledge in man. But these are contemplations meta- 
 physical : my humble speculations have another me- 
 thod, and are content to trace and discover those ex- 
 pressions he hath left in his creatures, and the ob- 
 vious effects of nature: there is no danger to pro- 
 found these mysteries, no sanctum sanctorum in 
 philosophy: the world was made to be inhabited 'by 
 beasts, but studied and contemplated by man: 'tis 
 the debt of our reason we owe unto God, and the 
 homage we pay for not being beasts; without this, 
 the world is still as though it had not been, or as 
 it was before the sixth day, when as yet there was 
 not a creature that could conceive, or say there was 
 a world. The wisdom of God receives small ho- 
 nour from those vulgar heads that rudely stare about, 
 and with a gross rusticity admire his works*; those 
 highly magnifie him, whose judicious inquiry into 
 
 a Man is placed in this stage of the world, to view the several na- 
 tures and actions of the creature not idly as they view us.
 
 13 
 
 his acts, and deliberate research into his creatures, 
 return the duty of a devout and learned admi- 
 ration*. 
 
 17- Wisdom reacheth from one end to another, 
 mightily and sweetly doth she order all things. I 
 loved her and sought her out from my youth: I 
 desired to make her my spouse; and I was a lover 
 of her beauty, for she is privy to the mysteries of the 
 knowledge of God, and a lover of his works. If a 
 man love righteousness, her labours are virtues, for 
 she teacheth temperance and prudence, justice and 
 fortitude, which are such things as men can have 
 
 a Sir Thomas Brown; of whose writings it has been said, " I won- 
 der and admire his entireness in every subject that is before him. He 
 follows it, he never wanders from it 5 and he has no occasion to wan- 
 der, for whatever happens to be the subject he metamorphoses all 
 nature into it. In that treatise on some urns dug up in Norfolk, how 
 earthy, how redolent of graves and sepulchres, is every line ! You 
 have now dark mold, now a thigh bone, now a skull, then a bit of a 
 mouldered coffin, a fragment of an old tomb-stone with moss in its 
 Hie jacet, a ghost or a winding sheet, or the echo of a funeral psalm 
 wafted on a November wind; and the gayest thing you shall meet 
 with shall be a silver nail or a gilt Anno Domini, from a perished 
 coffin top." C. L.
 
 14 
 
 nothing more profitable in their life. If a man desire 
 much experience, she knoweth things of old, and 
 conjectureth aright what is to come : she knoweth 
 the subtleties of speeches and can expound dark 
 sentences ; she foreseeth signs and wonders and the 
 events of seasons and times. Therefore I pur- 
 posed to take her to me to live with me, knowing 
 she would be a counsellor of good things and 
 a comfort in cares and grief. After I am come 
 into my house I will repose myself with her: for 
 her conversation hath no bitterness, and to live 
 with her hath no sorrow, but mirth and joy. Ne- 
 vertheless when I perceived that I could not other- 
 wise obtain her except God gave her me, (and that 
 was a point of wisdom also to know whose gift she 
 was,) I prayed unto the Lord and besought him, 
 and with my whole heart I said, " Oh God of my 
 " fathers, and Lord of mercy, who hast made all 
 " things with thy word, and ordained man through 
 " thy wisdom, that he should have dominion over the 
 " creatures which thou hast made, and order the
 
 15 
 
 " world according to equity and righteousness, and 
 " execute judgement with an upright heart, give me 
 " wisdom that sitteth by thy throne, and reject me 
 " not from among thy children."
 
 fte Hobe of fenotole&ge to be a 
 jflottbe far tije acquisition of fenatoletop: 
 is ft a powerful jttotibe? 
 
 1 . DURING a considerable part of the time in which 
 Savage was employed upon his tragedy of Sir Tho- 
 mas Overbury, he was without lodging and often 
 without meat; nor had he any other conveniences 
 for study, than the fields or the streets allowed him : 
 there he used to walk and form his speeches, and 
 afterwards step into a shop, beg for a few moments 
 the use of the pen and ink, and write down what 
 he had composed upon paper which he had picked 
 up by accident 3 . 
 
 Johnson's Life of Savage.
 
 2. For a great part of the life of Erasmus, he was 
 ill supplied with the gifts of fortune, and led from 
 city to city,- and from kingdom to kingdom by the 
 hopes of patrons and preferment; hopes which al- 
 ways flattered and always deceived him. He yet 
 found means by unshaken constancy, and a vigilant 
 improvement of those hours, which in the midst of 
 the most restless activity will remain unengaged, 
 to write more than another in the same condition 
 would have hoped to have read. Compelled by 
 want to attendance and solicitation, and so much 
 versed in common life that he has transmitted 
 to us the most perfect delineation of the man- 
 ners of his age, he is yet more distinguished for his 
 literary attainments. How this, proficiency was 
 obtained he sufficiently discovers, by informing 
 us, that the Praise of Folly, one of his most cele- 
 brated performances, was composed by him on the 
 road to Italy ; Ne totum illud tempus quo equo 
 fuit insidendum, illiteratis fabulis tereretur, lest 
 the hours which he was obliged to spend on horse-
 
 18 
 
 back, should be tattled away without regard to lite- 
 rature*." 
 
 3. Voltaire, when shut up in theBastile, and for 
 aught he knew for life, deprived of the means either 
 of writing or reading, arranged and in part executed 
 the project of his Henriade. 
 
 4. Brutus, when a soldier under Pornpey in the 
 civil wars, employed all his leisure in study; and the 
 very day before the battle of Pharsalia, though it was 
 in the middle of summer and the camp under many 
 privations, spent all his time till the evening in 
 writing an epitome of Polybius. 
 
 5. A slave named Juan de Paresa, who belonged 
 to the celebrated Velasquez, was a mulatto, and em- 
 ployed in mixing his master's colours. From point- 
 ing the arrows of Apollo he became desirous of 
 trying his strength at the bow. But the casts in 
 India are not separated by a greater distance than 
 the degrees of men in Spain. Paresa was a slave; 
 and to slavery the fine arts were prohibited. In the 
 
 Rambler.
 
 19 
 
 moments of his master's absence Paresa became an 
 accomplished artist. He observed that it was the 
 king's practice, in Velasquez's chamber, to order the 
 pictures that stood with their faces to the walls to 
 be turned; this suggested to Paresa, to reverse 
 one of his own. The king coming into the paint- 
 ing-room ordered his picture to be turned: Pa- 
 resa eagerly obeyed. It was not easy to appeal to 
 a better judgement than the king's, or enter upon 
 his trial at a more merciful tribunal. Paresa fell 
 upon his knees, and avowing the guilt of the per- 
 formance, implored protection against the resent- 
 ment of his master. " Velasquez," said the king, 
 " Paresa's talents have burst his bonds; you must 
 pardon and restore him to liberty." 
 
 6. As Cicero laboured under a very weak consti- 
 tution, and a natural default in his make of a long 
 and thin neck ; it was feared that the bodily exertions 
 required in an orator would endanger his life; as in 
 kis pleading he always raised his voice to the highest 
 pitch, and was vehement in his gesture and action. 
 
 c2
 
 20 
 
 Upon this consideration, the physicians and his 
 nearest friends were continually urging him to lay 
 aside all thoughts of a profession which appeared 
 so extremely prejudicial to his health. But Cicero 
 showed himself equally inflexible to the advice of 
 the one, and the entreaties of the other; and de- 
 clared his resolution rather to run the risk of any 
 danger that might happen, than deprive himself of 
 the glory which he might justly challenge from the 
 bar*. 
 
 7. Bacon's great attainments were not checked 
 by the feebleness of his constitution, or by his 
 occupations in active life. He says, " We judge 
 also that mankind may conceive some hopes from 
 our example, which we offer, not by way of ostenr 
 tation, but because it may be useful. If any one 
 therefore should despair, let him consider a man 
 as much employed in civil affairs as any other of 
 his age, a man of no great share of health, who 
 must therefore have lost much time, and yet, in 
 
 Romae Antiquae Notitia. . .
 
 21 
 
 this undertaking, he is the first that leads the way, 
 unassisted by any mortal, and steadfastly entering 
 the true path, that was absolutely untrod before, 
 and submitting his mind to things, may somewhat 
 have advanced the design." 
 
 8. The power of the love of knowledge is irresisti- 
 ble; it surmounts all obstacles which are opposed 
 by external circumstances: it is not diverted from 
 its object by the tumult of business, the distresses of 
 poverty, or the interruptions of a wandering life: it 
 may indeed be impeded for a time, but it is never 
 destroyed. When waves interpose, love converts 
 his quiver into a canoe, one arrow is his mast, an- 
 other is his oar. 
 
 Over the mountains, 
 
 And over the waves : 
 Under the fountains, 
 
 And under the graves : 
 Under floods that are deepest 
 
 Which Neptune obey : 
 Over rocks that are steepest 
 will find out the way.
 
 22 
 
 Where there is no place 
 
 For the glow-worm to lie, 
 Where there is no space 
 
 For receipt of a fly: 
 Where the midj;e dares not venture, 
 
 Lest herself fast she lay, 
 If Love come, he will enter 
 
 And soon find out the way.
 
 uerp 
 
 Does not tfje Stt of CUucatton cjneflp consist 
 not tn gtbtns fenotoleDge, but tn jjfiring a 
 Desire to ttnoto? 
 
 THE duties of an instructor seem to be stated by 
 Lord Bacon in tbe " Advancement of Learning" 
 where, with his usual authority of conscious wisdom 
 and happiness of familiar illustration, he says, 
 " The delivery of knowledge is as of fair bodies of 
 trees; if you mean to use the shoot, as the builder 
 doth, it is no matter for the roots: but if you mean 
 it to grow, as the planter doth, look you well that 
 the slip hath part of the root." 
 
 The office of a teacher is therefore two-fold; 
 first, to inculcate knowledge for use, which must
 
 24 
 
 depend upon the probable future situation of his 
 pupil; secondly y knowledge for growth, or the 
 desire of continual improvement; of the daily con- 
 sciousness of being daily wiser and better. " The 
 skilful tutor," says Milton, " will temper his pu- 
 pils with such lectures and explanations, upon 
 every opportunity, as may lead and draw them In 
 willing obedience, inflamed with the study of learn- 
 ing and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with 
 high hopes of living to be brave men, and worthy 
 patriots, dear to God and famous to all ages; that 
 they may despise and scorn all their childish and ill 
 taught qualities, to delight in manly and liberal 
 exercises; which he who hath the art and proper 
 eloquence to catch them with, might in a short 
 space gain them to an incredible diligence and 
 courage; infusing into their young breasts such an 
 ingenuous and noble ardour, as would not fail to 
 make many of them renowned and matchless men. 
 And to the neglect of this part of education he has 
 chiefly ascribed " the fixedness of young men in.
 
 25 
 
 their first shallows : or if on a sudden transported 
 under another climate, to be tossed and turmoiled, 
 with their unballasted wits, in fathomless and un- 
 quiet deeps, they do for the most part grow into 
 hatred and contempt of learning, or retire them- 
 selves, knowing no better, to enjoyments of ease 
 and luxury, wasting their days in feast and jollity." 
 And by Lord Bacon we are admonished that " a 
 desire to know is the very soul of education; with- 
 out which she is only as a statue; lovely, indeed, to 
 behold, but dead and motionless."
 
 fe tfje JLobe of fenotoie&ge generated? 
 
 1 . M. VAUCAUSON'S mother had a spiritual direc- 
 tor, who lived in a cell, to which the hall, where 
 a clock was placed, served as an anti -chamber. 
 The mother paid frequent visits to this director: 
 her son waited for her in the anti-chamber, and 
 having nothing to do, he wept with weariness, 
 while his mother wept with repentance: however, 
 as we commonly weep and weary ourselves as little 
 as possible, and as in a state of vacation there are 
 no sensations indifferent, young Vaucauson was 
 soon struck with the uniform motion of the pendu- 
 lum and desirous of discovering the cause. His 
 curiosity was roused: he approached the clock-
 
 27 
 
 case, and saw through the crevices, the wheels 
 that turn each other; discovered a part of the 
 mechanism and guessed at the rest. He pro- 
 jected a similar machine, which he executed in 
 wood with a knife ; and at last was able to make 
 a clock more or less perfect. Encouraged by this 
 first success, his taste for mechanics was deter- 
 mined. His talents displayed themselves, and the 
 same genius that enabled him to make a clock in 
 wood, showed him the possibility of forming a 
 fluting automaton 3 . 
 
 2. About the year 1666, in the 24th year of his 
 age, Sir Isaac Newton retired from Cambridge into 
 the country, in order to avoid the plague, which at 
 that time raged with great fury: and sitting one day 
 under a tree, in an orchard, an apple by chance fall- 
 ing upon his head, gave a new turn to his reflec- 
 tions. The phenomenon of falling bodies particu- 
 larly engaged his attention ; and pursuing the ideas 
 which presented themselves to his mind, he car- 
 ried his researches, from the earth to the heavens, 
 
 * Hclvetius on Man.
 
 28 
 
 and began to investigate the nature of motion in 
 general. 
 
 3. It appears then that the impressions made by 
 objects depend much upon the time at which they 
 strike us. When the mind is in perfect repose; when 
 its surface is not agitated by the least breath of pas- 
 sion ; it may be awakened by judicious excitement. 
 When it is troubled, impression may be made by 
 a judicious diversion of thought : when in fusion, 
 it may be thrown into form. 
 
 The time of making impressions depends on the 
 state of the patient: this is not, however, the only 
 or the most important consideration. The mode 
 of making impressions, or the proper conduct of the 
 agent, is not less deserving attention. 
 
 4. In planting a seed, care must be taken that it 
 is not cast on a soil destructive of its existence : 
 that it is so placed as to have its living powers 
 properly excited: and, if it is intended to be healthy 
 and durable, that it is not forced in its growth. 
 So it seems to be in education. The love of truth 
 ought not to be checked in its infancy by painful
 
 29 
 
 f 
 
 associations. It ought to be judiciously excited in 
 
 youth by natural causes of excitement; by the exhi- 
 bition of good; or of the particular works of nature: 
 or of the admirable and exquisite subtlety of na- 
 ture : or of the great effects which result from ap- 
 parently trivial causes : or of the noble inventions 
 in arts and sciences : or by so imparting knowledge 
 as to generate an anxiety to know more : and, if it 
 is intended not for show but for substance, not to 
 run out in talk for the gratification of the youth 
 or the vanity of the parent, but for perpetual pro- 
 gress, it ought not to be stimulated into unnatural 
 action. 
 
 The considerations with respect to the mode of 
 generating knowledge seem therefore to be : 
 
 C 1st. Not to associate pain with the acquisition 
 of knowledge. 
 
 2dly. The application of proper mental stimu- 
 lants. 
 
 3dly. Not to force the mind.
 
 30 
 
 1. 
 
 t&e Sssoctatton of pant toitf) t&e 3cquu 
 srtttcm of 
 
 When, says Ascham, the great plage was at Lon- 
 don, the yeare 1563, the Queenes Majestic Queen 
 Elizabeth lay at her castle of Windsore: where, upon 
 the 10th day of December, it fortuned, that, in Sir 
 William Cicells chamber, her Highnesse principal 
 secretarie, there dined together these personages, 
 M. Secretarie himselfe, Sir William Peter, Sir J. 
 Mason, D. Wotton, Sir Richard Sackville treasurer 
 of the Exchequer, Sir Walter Mildmaye chauncel- 
 lor of the Exchequer, M. Haddon master of Re- 
 questes, M.John Astely master of the Jewell-house, 
 M. Bernard Hampton, M. Nicasius, and I. Of 
 which number, the most part were of her Majesties 
 most honourable Privie Counsell, and the rest serv- 
 ing her in very good place. I was glad then, and do 
 rejoice yet to remember, that my chance was so
 
 31 
 
 happie to be there that day, in the companie of so 
 manie wise and good men together, as hardly then 
 could have beene piked out againe out of all En- 
 glande besides. 
 
 M. Secretarie hath this accustomed maner, 
 though his head be never so full of most weightie 
 affaires of the realme, yet, at dinner time he doth 
 seem to lay them always aside a : and findeth ever 
 fitte occasion to taulke pleasantlie of other matters, 
 but most gladlie of some matter of learning: where- 
 in he will curteslie heare the minde of the meanest 
 at his table b . 
 
 a No man was more pleasant and merry at meals; and he had a 
 pretty wit-rack in himself to make the dumbe to speak, to draw 
 speech out of the most sullen and silent guest at his table, to shew 
 his disposition in any point he should propound. For foreign intelli- 
 gence, though he traded sometimes on the stock of Secretary Wal- 
 singham, yet wanted he not a plentiful bank of his own. At night 
 when he put off his gown, he used to say, Lye there, Lord Treasurer, 
 and bidding adieu to all state affairs, disposed himself to his quiet 
 rest. FULLER'S Holy State. 
 
 b Rawley, speaking of Bacon, says, He would draw a man on and 
 allure him to speak upon such a subject as wherein he was peculiarly 
 skilful, and would delight to speak. And for himself, he contemned no 
 man's observations, but would light his torch at every man's candle.
 
 32 
 
 Not long after our sitting doune " I have strange 
 newes brought me, sayth M. Secretarie, this morn- 
 ing, that diverse scholers of Eaton be runne away 
 from the schole, for feare of beating." Whereupon, 
 M. Secretarie took occasion to wishe, that some more 
 discretion were in many scholemasters, in using 
 correction, than commonlie there is : who many 
 times punishe rather the weakness of nature, than 
 the fault of the scholer. Whereby many scholers, 
 that might else prove well, be driven to hate learn- 
 ing, before they knowe what learning meaneth : and 
 so are made willing to forsake their booke, and be 
 glad to be put to any other kinde of living. 
 
 M. Peter, as one somewhat severe of nature, said 
 plainlie, " That the rodde onelie was the sworde, 
 that must keepe the schole in obedience, and the 
 scholer in good order." M. Wotton, a man milde of 
 nature, with soft voice and fewe wordes, inclined 
 to M. Secretaries judgment, and said, " In mine 
 opinion, the schole-house should be in deede, as it 
 is called by name, the house of play and pleasure.
 
 33 
 
 and not of feare and bondage: and as I do remember, 
 so saith Socrates in one place of Plato. And there- 
 fore, if a rodde carie the feare of a sworde, it is no 
 marville, if those that be fearfull of nature, chose 
 rather to forsake the place, than to stande alwayes 
 within the feare of a sworde in a fonde mans hand- 
 ling." M. Mason, after his maner, was verie merrie 
 with both parties, pleasantlie playing, both with the 
 shrewde touches of many curste boyes, and with the 
 small discretion of many leude scholemasters. M. 
 Haddon was fullie of M. Peter's opinion, and said, 
 "That the best scholemaster of our time was the 
 greatest beater," and named the person. " Though,'* 
 quoth I, " it was his good fortune to send from his 
 schole unto the university one of the best seholers 
 indeede of all our time, yet wise men do thincke,that 
 that came so to passe, rather by the great toward* 
 nesse of the scholer, than by the great beating of the 
 master ; and whether this be true or no, you your* 
 selfe are best witnesse." I said somewhat further in 
 the matter, how and why yong children were soner 
 
 P
 
 34 
 
 allured by love, than driven by beating, to attayne 
 good learning : wherein I was the bolder to say my 
 minde, because M. Secretarie courteslie provoked 
 me thereunto, or else, in such a companie, and 
 namelie in his presence, my wonte is, to be more 
 willing to use mine eares than to occupy my tonge. 
 Sir Walter Mildmaye, M. Astely, and the rest, 
 said verie litle; onelie Sir Richard Sackville said 
 nothing at all. After dinner I went up to read with 
 the Queenes Majestic. We red then together in 
 the Greeke tonge, as I well remember, that noble 
 oration of Demosthenes against ^Eschines, for his 
 false dealing in his ambassage to king Philip of 
 Macedonie. Sir Richard Sackville came up sone 
 after; and finding me in her Majesties privy cham- 
 ber, he tooke me by the hand, and carrying me to 
 a windoe, said, " M. Ascham, I would not for a 
 good deale of monie, have been this day absent, 
 from dinner. Where, though I said nothing, yet I 
 gave as good eare, and do consider as well the taulke 
 that passed, as any one did there. M. Secretarie
 
 35 
 
 said very wisely, and most truely, that many yong 
 wittes be driven to hate learninge, before they know 
 what learninge is. I can be good witness to this 
 myselfe: for a fond scholemaster, before I was fullie 
 fourtene yeare olde, drave me so, with feare of beat- 
 ing, from all love of learninge, as nowe, when I 
 know what difference it is to have learninge, and to 
 have little, or none at all, I feele it my greatest 
 griefe, and find it my greatest hurte, that ever came 
 to me, that it was my so ill chance to light upon so 
 lewde a scholemaster. But seeing it is but in vain 
 to lament thinges paste, and also wisdome to looke 
 to thinges to come, surelie, God willing, if God lend 
 me life, I will make this my mishap, some occasion 
 of good hap to litle Robert Sackville my sonnes 
 sonne; for whose bringinge up I would gladlie, if it 
 so please you, use speciallie your good advice." But, 
 sayth he, because this place, and this tyme, will 
 not suffer so long taulke, as these good matters re- 
 quire, therefore I praye you, at my request, and at 
 your leysure, put in some order of writing, the chiefe
 
 36 
 
 pointes of this our taulke, concerning the right 
 order of teachinge, and honesty of living, for the 
 good bringing up of children, and yong men. And 
 surelie, beside contenting me, you shall both please 
 and profit very many others." 
 
 I beginning some further excuse, sodainlie was 
 called to come to the Queene. The night following 
 I slept little, my head was so full of this our former 
 talke, and I so mindfull somewhat to satisfie the ho- 
 nest request of so deare a friend. I thought to pre- 
 pare some little treatise, for a new years gift, that 
 Christmass. But, as it chaunceth to busie builders, 
 so, in building this my poor schole-house, (the ra- 
 ther because the form of it is somewhat new, and 
 differing from others) the work rose dailie higher 
 and wider, than I thought it would at the begin- 
 ninge. 
 
 In consequence of this conversation Ascham 
 wrote his Schoolmaster: in the commencement of 
 this work he says, " But concerning the trewe notes 
 of the best wittes for learning in a childe, J will
 
 37 
 
 reporte not myne own opinion, but the very judge- 
 ment of him that was counted the best teacher and 
 wisest man that learning maketh mention of, and 
 that is Socrates in Plato, who expresseth orderlie 
 these seven plaine notes, to chose a good witte in a 
 childe for learninge. 
 
 1. 
 2. 
 3. 
 
 5. 
 6. 
 
 7 '. 
 
 4. 
 
 3>ihs7raivo, He that loveth to be praised for well 
 doing at his father or masters hand. A childe 
 of this nature will earnestlie love learninge, gladlie 
 labor for learninge, willinglie learne of others, 
 boldlie ask any doubte. 
 
 And thus, by Socrates judgement, a good father, 
 and a wise scholemaster should chose a childe to 
 make a scholer of, that hath, by nature, the foresaid 
 perfite qualities, and cumlie furniture, both of minde 
 and bodie : hath memorie quicke to receyve, sure to 
 kepe, and readie to deliver; hath love to learning;
 
 38 
 
 hath lust to labor; hath desire to learne of others; 
 hath boldnesse to aske any question ; hath minde 
 holie bent to wynne praise by well doing. 
 
 The two first pointes be speciall benefites of na- 
 ture ; which, neverthelesse, be well preserved, and 
 much encreased by good order. But, as for the five 
 last, love, labor, gladnesse to learne of others, bold- 
 nesse to aske doubtes, and will to wynne praise, be 
 wonne and maintained by the onelie wisdome and 
 discretion of the scholemaster. Which five poyntes, 
 whether a scholemaster shall worke soner in a childe 
 by fearfull beating, or curtese handling, you that be 
 wise, judge. 
 
 Yet some men, wise in deede, but, in this matter, 
 more by severitie of nature than any wisdome at 
 all, do laugh at us, when we thus wishe and reason, 
 that young children should rather be allured to 
 learning by jentlenesse and love, than compelled to 
 learning by beating and feare : they say " our rea- 
 sons serve onlie to breede forth taulke, and passe 
 awaie time, but we never saw good scholemasters
 
 39 
 
 do so, nor never red of wise men that thought 
 so." 
 
 Yes, forsothe: as wise as they be, either in 
 other mens opinions, or in their own conceite; I 
 will bring the contrarie judgement of him, who, 
 they themselves shall confesse, was as wise as they 
 are, or else they may be justlie thought to have 
 small witte at all; and that is Socrates, whose 
 judgement in Plato is plainlie this, in these words ; 
 which, because they be very notable, I will recite 
 them in his own toung: OuSsV pxQypx psTa 
 TOV IfavQspcv %$ potvQavsiv. of ^sv yap TOV 
 
 TTOVOl (3lC6 TTCVOVpSVOl, %s7^0V Outsit TO <Tt*)fJ*Ot 
 
 ovToci' ijf %Jj $s fi'uxiov ovbsv s^psvov [AccQypa. 
 In Englishe thus; " No learning ought to be 
 learned with bondage : for bodily labours, wrought 
 by compulsion, hurt not the bodie; but any learn- 
 ing learned by compulsion, tarieth not long in the 
 mynde." And why ? For whatsoever the mynde doth 
 learne unwillinglie with feare, the same it doth 
 quicklie forget without care. And lestproude wittes,
 
 40 
 
 that love not to be contraryed, but have lust to 1 
 wrangle and trifle away troth, will say, that Socrates 
 meaneth not this of childrens teaching, but of 
 some other higher learninge; hear what Socrates, 
 in the same place, doth more plainlie say: Mvj roivvv 
 (Bix, uc> fti>/5"e, TOV$ 7ra7$a$ Iv loig fj.oc9^x<riV) AAo? 
 truifyvTotg rg'sQs. That is to say : " And therefore, 
 my deare friend, bryngnot up your children in learn- 
 inge by compulsion and feare, but by playing and 
 pleasure." And you that do read Plato as ye shold, 
 do well perceyve that these be no questions asked by 
 Socrates as doubtes, but they be sentences, first af- 
 firmed by Socrates, as mere trothes, and after given 
 forth by Socrates as right rules; most necessarie 
 to be marked, and fitte to be folowed of all them, 
 that would have children taughte as they should. 
 And, in this counsell, judgement, and authority of 
 Socrates, I will repose myselfe, untill I meete with 
 a man of the contrarie mynde, whom I may justlie 
 take to be wiser than I thinke Socrates was. Fonde 
 scholemasters neither can understand, nor will fo-.
 
 41 
 
 low, this good counsell of Socrates; but wise ryders, 
 in their office, can, and will do both ; which is the 
 onelie cause, that commonlie the yongjentlemen of 
 England go so unwillinglie to schole, and run so fast 
 to the stable: for, in very deede, fond schokmas- 
 ters, by feare,do beate into them the hatred of learn- 
 ing; and wise ryders, by jentle allurementes, do 
 breed up in them the love of ryding. They finde 
 feare and bondage in scholes, they feele libertie and 
 freedome in stables; which causeth them utterlie to 
 abhorre the one, and most gladlie to haunt the 
 other. And I do not write this, that, in exhorting to 
 the one, I would dissuade yonge jentlemen from the 
 other; yea I am sorry, with all myharte, that they 
 be given no more to ryding than they be; for, of all 
 outward qualities, to ride faire is most cumlie for 
 himselfe, most necessarie for his countrie; and the 
 greater he is in blood, the greater is his praise, 
 the more he doth excede all other therein. It was 
 one of the three excellent praises amongst the no- 
 ble jentlemen, the old Persians; " Alwaiso to say
 
 42 
 
 troth, to ride faire, and shote well:" and so it was 
 engraven upon Darius tumbe, as Strabo beareth 
 witnesse: 
 
 Darius the King lieth buried heare, 
 
 Who in ryding and shoting had never peare. 
 
 But to our purpose : yonge men, by any meanes 
 leesing the love of learning, when by tyme they 
 cum to their owne rule, they carie commonlie from 
 the schole with them, a perpetuall hatred of their 
 master, and a continual contempt of learninge. If 
 ten jentlemen be asked, Why they forget stf sone in 
 court, that which they were learning so long in 
 schole? eight of them, or let me be blamed, will 
 laie the fault on their ill handling by their schole- 
 masters. 
 
 Cuspinian doth report, that that noble emperour 
 Maximilian would lament verie oft his misfortune 
 herein. 
 
 Yet some will say, that children, of nature, love 
 pastime, and mislike learning; because, in their 
 kinde, the one is easie and pleasant, the other hard
 
 43 
 
 and wearisome. Which is an opinion not so true, 
 as some men weene. For, the matter lieth not so 
 much in the disposition of them that be yong, as 
 in the order and maner of bringing up, by them 
 that be old ; nor yet in the difference of learninge 
 and pastime. For, beate a child if he daunce not 
 well, and cherish him though he learne not well, ye 
 shall have him unwilling to go to daunce, and glad 
 to go to his booke: knock him alwaies when he 
 draweth his shafte ill, and favour him againe though 
 he fault at his booke, ye shall have him verie loth 
 to be in the field, and verie willing to be in the 
 schole. Yea, I saie more, and not of myselfe, but 
 by the judgement of those, from whom few wise men 
 will gladlie dissent ; that if ever the nature of man 
 be given at any time, more than other, to receive 
 goodnesse, it is in innocencie of yonge yeares, be* 
 fore that experience of evill have taken roote in him. 
 For the pure cleane witte of a sweete yonge babe is 
 like the newest wax, most hable to receive the best 
 and fairest printing; and, like a new bright silver
 
 44 
 
 dishe never occupied, to receive, and kepe cleane, 
 any good thyng that is put into it. 
 
 And thus will in children, wiselie wrought with- 
 all, maie easilie be won to be verie well willing to 
 learne. " And witte in children, by nature, namelie 
 memorie, the onely keie and keper of all learning, is 
 readiest to receive, and surest to kepe anie maner 
 of thing that is learned in youth." This, lewde and 
 learned, by common experience, know to be most 
 trewe. For we remember nothyng so well when we 
 be olde, as those thinges which we learned when we 
 were yonge : And this is not straunge, but common 
 in all natures workes. Every man sees (as I sayd 
 before) new wax is best for printing; new claie fit- 
 test for working; new shorn woll aptest for sone 
 and surest dying ; new fresh flesh for good and du- 
 rable salting. And this similitude is not rude, nor 
 borrowed of the larder-house, but out of his schole- 
 house, of whom the wisest of England nede not be 
 ashamed to learne. Yonge graftes grow not onlie 
 sonest, but also fairest, and bring always forth the
 
 45 
 
 best and sweetest fruite; yonge whelpes learne easilie 
 to carie; yonge popingeis learne quicklie to speake: 
 and so, to be short, if in all other thinges, though 
 they lacke reason, sens, and life, the similitude of 
 youth is fittest to all goodnesse; surelie nature, in 
 mankinde, is most beneficiall and effectuall in this 
 behalfe. 
 
 Therefore, if to the goodnesse of nature be joyned 
 the wisedome of the teacher, in leading yonge wittes 
 into a right and plain way of learning, surelie chil- 
 dren, kept up in Gods feare, and governed by his 
 grace, maie most easilie be brought well to serve 
 God and theyr contrey, both by vertue and wise- 
 dome. 
 
 But if will and witte, by farder age, be once 
 allured from innocencie, delited in vaine sightes, 
 filled with foull taulke, crooked with wilfulnesse, 
 hardened with stubburnesse, and let louse to disobe- 
 dience ; surelie it is hard with jentlenesse, but un- 
 possible with severe crueltie, to call them backe to 
 good frame againe. For where the one, perchance,
 
 46 
 
 maie bend it, the other shall surelie breake it ; and 
 so, insteade of some hope, leave an assured despe- 
 ration, and shamelesse contempt of all goodnesse ; 
 the fardest pointe in all mischief, as Xenophon doth 
 most trewlie and most wittelie marke. 
 
 Therefore, to love or to hate, to like or con- 
 temne, to plie this waie or that waie, to good or to 
 bad, ye shall have as ye use a childe in his youth. 
 
 And one example, whether love or feare doth 
 worke more in a childe for vertue and learninge, I 
 will gladlie report ; which maie be hard with some 
 pleasure, and folowed with more profit. Before I 
 went into Germanic, I came to Brodegate, in Leices- 
 tershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady Jane 
 Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholdinge. 
 Her parentes, the Duke and the Duches, with all the 
 houshould, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunt- 
 ing in the parke. I found her in her chamber, read- 
 inge Phsedon Platonis in Greeke, and that with as 
 much delite, as some jentlemen would read a 
 merrie tale in Bocase. After salutation, and dewtie
 
 47 
 
 done, with some other taulke, I asked her, why she 
 would leese such pastime in the parke ? Smiling, she 
 answered me; " I wisse, all their sport in the parke 
 is but a shadoe to that pleasure that I find in Plato. 
 Alas ! good folke, they never felt what trewe pleasure 
 ment." " And howe came you, Madame, quoth I, 
 to this deepe knowledge of pleasure? And what did 
 chieflie allure you unto it, seeinge not many women, 
 but verie fewe men, have attained thereunto." " I 
 will tell you, quoth she, and tell you a truth, which 
 perchance ye will marvell at. One of the greatest 
 benefites that ever God gave me, is, that he sent me 
 so sharpe and severe parentes, and so jentle a schole- 
 master. For when I am in presence eyther of fa- 
 ther or mother; whether I speake, kepe silence, 
 sit, stand, or go, eate, drinke, be merrie, or sad, be 
 sowyng, playing, dauncing, or doing anie thing else, 
 I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and 
 number, even so perfitelie as God made the world, 
 or else I am so sharplie taunted, so cruellie threat- 
 ened, yea presentlie, sometimes, with pinches,
 
 48 
 
 nippes, and bobbes, and otber waies which I will not 
 name for the honor I bear them, so without measure 
 misordered, that I thincke myselfe in hell, till time 
 come that I must go to Mr. Elmer; who teacheth me 
 so jentlie, so pleasantlie, with such fair allurementes 
 to learninge, that I thinke all the time nothing 
 whiles I am with him. And when I am called from 
 him, I fall on weeping, because whatsoever I do els, 
 but learninge, is full of grief, trouble, feare, and 
 whole misliking unto me. And thus my booke hath 
 been so much my pleasure, and bringeth dayly to 
 me more pleasure and more, that, in respect of it, 
 all other pleasures, in very deede, be but trifles and 
 troubles unto me." 
 
 I remember this taulk gladly, both because it is 
 so worthie of memorie, and because also it was the 
 last taulke that ever I had, and the last tyme that 
 ever I saw that noble and worthie ladie. 
 
 I could be over long, both in shewinge just 
 causes, and in recitinge trewe examples, why learn- 
 ing should be taught rather by love than feare, He
 
 49 
 
 that would see a perfite discourse of it, let him read 
 that learned treatise which my friende Joan. Stur- 
 mius wrote, De Institutione Principis, to the duke 
 of Cleves. 
 
 The godlie counsels of Solomon and Jesus the 
 sonne of Sirach, for sharpe keping in, and bridlinge 
 of youthe, are ment rather for fatherlie correction, 
 than masterlie beating ; rather for maners, than for 
 learninge ; for other places, than for scholes. For 
 God forbid, but ail evill touches, wantonnes, lyinge, 
 pickinge, slouthe, will, stubbornnesse, and disobe- 
 dience, should l?e, with sharpe chastisement, daily 
 cut away. 
 
 This discipline was well known, and cliligentlie 
 used, among the Grecians and old Romanes ; as 
 doth appeare in Aristophanes, Isocrates, and Plato, 
 and also in the Comedies of Plautus ; where we see 
 that children were under the rule of three persones, 
 Prffceptore, Padagogo, Parente. The scholemas* 
 ter taught him learninge with all jentlenesse ; the 
 jgovernour corrected his maners with much sharps 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 ncsse ; the father held the sterne of his whole obe- 
 dience. And so, he that used to teache, did not 
 commonlie use to beate, but remitted that over to 
 another mans charge. But what shall we sale, 
 when now, in our dayes, the scholemaster is used 
 both for Pr&ceptor in learninge, and P&dagogus in 
 maners ? Surely I would he should not confound 
 their offices, but discretelie use the dewtie of both ; 
 so that neither ill touches should be left unpunished, 
 nor jentlenesse in teachinge anie wise omitted. 
 And he shall well do both, if wiselie he do appointe 
 diversitie of time, and seperate place, for either 
 purpose ; using alwaies sucb discrete moderation, 
 as the schole-house should be counted a sanctuarie 
 against feare ; and verie well learninge, a common 
 pardon for ill doing, if the fault of itselfe be not 
 over heinous,
 
 >f Cental Stimulants, 
 
 IF fear is not the passion, if violence is not the 
 mode by which a love of knowledge is generated : 
 by what means is the mind to be awakened ? to 
 what excitements can we resort? The answer is 
 easy. The Love of Excellence and the Love of 
 Excelling. 
 
 These motives may partly be thus exhibited. 
 
 fl . The love of excellence. 
 f 1 . The works of nature. 
 < 2. The works of art. 
 V.3. The advantages of knowledge. 
 2. The love of excelling. 
 
 1 . The love of fame. 
 
 2, The love of wealth, &c. &c. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 THE WORKS OF NATURE. 
 
 What is it you love? 
 Simply, all things that live, 
 From the crooked worm to man's imperial form 
 And God-resembling likeness. The poor fly, 
 That makes short holyday in the sun-beam, 
 And dies by some child's hand. The feeble bird 
 With little wings, yet greatly venturous 
 In the upper sky. The fish in th' other element 
 That knows no touch of eloquence. What else ? 
 Yon tall and elegant stag, 
 Who paints a dancing shadow of his horns 
 In the water, where he drinks*. 
 
 1 . WHENCE is it that Solomon putteth the slug- 
 gard to school unto the ant ; and Jesus sendeth the 
 distrustful to the lily of the field ? Was it that the 
 creatures should pass carelessly by, only seen, not 
 thought upon? was it that we should view the 
 
 C. Lamb.
 
 53 
 
 several creatures, idly and without use, as they view 
 
 us 
 
 a ? 
 
 2. Observe in the vegetation of plants from the 
 first sowing of the seed. Pluck up the seed after it 
 has remained for two or three days in the ground, 
 and observe in what manner the seed begins to swell, 
 grow plump, and be filled, or become turgid, as it 
 were, with spirit; next, how it bursts the skin, 
 and strikes its fibres with some tendency upwards, 
 unless the earth be very stubborn ; how it shoots 
 its fibres, in part, to constitute roots downwards : 
 in part, to form stems upwards ; and sometimes 
 creeping sideways, as if there to find the earth 
 more open, pervious, and yielding, &c. 
 
 3. Light passes from the, sun to the earth, a space 
 of ninety-five millions of miles, in eight minutes, 
 and the beams of the smallest taper are visible at 
 sea, in a dark night, for at least three miles: so 
 that the particles of light instantaneously fill a 
 
 a Bishop Hall. See ante page 12. The world was made to be in-, 
 habited by beasts, but studied and contemplated by man.
 
 54 
 
 spherical space of six miles in diameter, or 1, 130,976 
 cubical miles 8 . 
 
 Instances of the exquisite subtlety of nature 
 are infinite. That so small a drop of ink in a 
 pen should be drawn out into so many letters 
 or lines, as we find it; that silver gilt upon its 
 external surface, should be drawn to such a vast 
 length of gilded wire; that so very small a worm 
 as that found in the skin, should have a spirit, 
 and a peculiar structure and organization of dif- 
 ferent parts; that a little saffron should tinge a 
 whole hogshead of water; that a little civet or 
 musk should fill a large chamber with its odour; 
 that such a great cloud of smoke should be raised 
 from a little incense ; that the exact differences of 
 
 a These are what Bacon terms lancing instances. " In the twentieth 
 place come lancing instances, which we also, for a different reason, 
 call by the name of vellicating instances. We call them vellicating 
 instances, because they twitch the understanding j and lancing in- 
 stances, because they cut or lance through nature j whence we also 
 call them democritical instances ; that is, such as remind the under- 
 standing of the admirable and exquisite subtilty of nature, so as to 
 excite and awaken it to attention, observation, and proper enquiry."
 
 55 
 
 sounds, should be every way conveyed through the 
 air, and even through the holes and pores of wood 
 and water, (though much weakened, indeed, in the 
 passage,) and be reflected with great distinctness 
 and velocity; that light and colour should so sud- 
 denly pass through such a bulk of solid matter, as 
 glass, or of a fluid, as water; yet so as at the same 
 time to convey a great and exquisite variety of 
 images, even though the light suffers refraction and 
 reflection; that the loadstone should operate through 
 all kinds of bodies, even the most compact and 
 solid; and what is still more wonderful, that in all 
 these cases the action of one thing does not greatly 
 hinder the action of another, in a neutral or indif- 
 ferent medium, such as the air is. Thus number- 
 less images of visible objects are carried through 
 the air ; numberless percussions of articulate voices ; 
 numberless specific odours, as those of violets, 
 roses, &c. even cold, heat, and magnetical virtues, 
 all pass through the air at once, without obstructing 
 one another, as if each of them had its own sepa-
 
 56 
 
 * 
 
 rate way or passage, so as to prevent impinge- 
 ing againstj meeting with, or obstructing one 
 another. 
 
 4. The loadstone animates* numberless bodies 
 without loss or diminution of its virtue. By 
 the rapid and powerful expansion of gun-pow- 
 der into flainej vast masses of building are in a 
 moment overturned, and great weights thrown 
 to considerable distances. By some poisons the 
 
 a In the twenty-seventh, says Lord Bacon, among our prerogative 
 instances, come magical instances ; by which we understand such 
 wherein t'.e matter, or efficient, is but small, compared with the 
 greatness of the work, or effect, produced : so that though these in- 
 stances were common, they would still be almost miraculous ; some 
 of them at first sight, and others even when attentively considered. 
 Nature, indeed, of herself, affords these sparingly ; but what she 
 may do, when farther searched and entered into ; and after the disco- 
 very of forms, latent processes and concealed structures ; will appear 
 to posterity. 
 
 These magical effects, so far as we can hitherto conjecture, are 
 produced three ways; viz. (1.) by self-multiplication, as in fife, and 
 those poison*, called specific; as also in motions, which pass and in- 
 crease, as they go, from wheel to wheel; (2.) by excitation, or invi- 
 tation, in another body; as the loadstone animates numberless 
 needles, without loss, or diminution of its virtue; and we find the 
 same kind of virtue in yeast, &c. (3.) by the preoccupation of mo- 
 tion, as we above observed in gunpowder, guns, and mines.
 
 57 
 
 most powerful animals may in a moment be 
 destroyed 3 . 
 
 6. What reason may not go to school to the 
 wisdom of bees, ants and spiders? What wise hand 
 teacheth them to do what reason cannot teach us ? 
 Ruder heads stand amazed at these prodigious pieces 
 of nature, whales, elephants, dromedaries and ca- 
 mels: these, I confess, are the colossuses and ma- 
 
 a Mons. Condamine relates the experiments made by him with the 
 vegetable poison of ticunas mixed with that of lamas. 
 
 June 8th. I made a very small incision with a lancet between the 
 ears of a cat, and with a pencil I put into it a drop of the poison: in 
 an instant the creature died in my hands. 
 
 July 15th. I pricked a hawk in the left claw : into the puncture I 
 introduced a small drop of the poison, and then set the creature at 
 liberty; but he could not fly: the utmost he could do was to perch on 
 a stick, which was within six inches of the ground. He shook his 
 head several times, as if to get rid of something that seemed trouble- 
 some in his throat. His eyes were restless, and his feathers were all 
 bristled up. His head fell between his legs, and in three minutes he 
 died. 
 
 M. le Chevalier de Grdsse"e had an eagle, which he kept a good 
 while in his court-yard, and intended to make a present of it to M. 
 Reaumur, to adorn his cabinet, but wanted to know how to put it to 
 death without injuring its feathers. M. de Reaumur sent him an 
 arrow fresh dipped in the poison : it was stuck into the wing of thia 
 large bird, the eagle dropped down dead in an instant.
 
 58 
 
 jestic pieces of her hand. But in these narrow en- 
 gines there is more curious mathematics: and the 
 civility of these little citizens, more nearly sets forth 
 the wisdom of their Maker*. 
 
 6. I hold there is a general beauty in the works 
 of God, and therefore no deformity in any kind of 
 species of creature whatsoever. I cannot tell by 
 what logick we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant 
 ugly, they being created in those outward shapes 
 and figures which best express the actions of their 
 inward forms; and having passed that general 
 visitation of God, who saw that all that he had 
 made was good; that is, conformable to his will, 
 which abhors deformity, and is the rule of ord r 
 and beauty: there is no deformity but in mon- 
 strosity, wherein, notwithstanding, there is a kind 
 of beauty b , Nature so ingeniously contriving the 
 irregular parts, as they become sometimes more 
 remarkable than the principal fabric . 
 
 a Sir T. Browne. 
 
 b See note M at the end of this tract, 
 
 c Sir Thomas Browne.
 
 59 
 
 7. As travellers, in a foraine countrey, make every 
 sight a lesson, so ought we in this our pilgrimage. 
 Thou seest the heaven rolling, above thine head, 
 in constant and unmoveable motion : the Starrs so 
 overlooking one another, that the greatest shew 
 little: the least greatest, all glorious ; the aire full 
 of the bottles of raine, or fleeces of snow, or divers 
 forms of fiery exhalations. The sea, under one 
 uniform face, full of strange and monstrous shapes : 
 beneath the earth so adorned with variety of plants, 
 that thou canst not but tread on many at once with 
 every foot ; besides the store of creatures that flie 
 above it, walke upon it, live in it. Thou idle truant, 
 doest thou learn nothing of so many masters ?
 
 60 
 
 THE WORKS OF ART. 
 
 I'erdita. For I have heard it said, 
 There is an art, which in their piedness shares 
 With great creating nature. 
 
 Pol. Say there be, 
 
 Yet nature is made better by no mean, 
 But nature makes that mean; 
 So over that art, which you say adds to nature, 
 Is an art that nature makes; you see, sweet maid, 
 We marry a gentle scyon to the wildest stock, 
 And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
 By bud of nobler race. This is an art 
 Which does mend nature, change it rather; but 
 The art itself is nature 3 . 
 
 WE admire, says a favourite author, the industry 
 and skilfulness of the bee in gathering honey out 
 of the flowers, carrying it home and disposing of 
 it in several cells ingeniously contrived for the pur- 
 pose ; the wisdom of the little ant in a hundred 
 
 a See note N at the end of this tract.
 
 61 
 
 particular instances of her polity and managery 
 of business; the curious embroidery and net- 
 work of the busie spider in making webs, and pur- 
 suing her game ; the strange artifice of the poor 
 silk-worm, which, by the impulse of mere nature, 
 works herself out of breath, and spends herself to 
 clothe nobles. But let us sit awhile at home, and 
 call back our rambling thoughts, and view our- 
 selves, and we shall certainly find the human intel- 
 lectuals pitching upon more noble objects, pro- 
 pounding more excellent ends, and pursuing them 
 with proper and apt methods; insomuch that we 
 shall find ourselves astonished at our own powers, 
 and the wisdom of him that made us. If we do 
 but cast our eyes backward to those works already 
 attained, are they not like so many fair provinces 
 conquered and taught a new language? Have there 
 not lately been discovered certain glasses, by means 
 whereof, as by boats or little ships of intelligence, 
 a nearer commerce is opened and carried on with 
 the celestial bodies ? Does not the mariner also
 
 62 
 
 find, by the help of a small magnet, a safe path in 
 the waters, and wing his way to the harbour as 
 surely as doth heaven's own bird ? Have we not 
 also by the industry of good Mr. Caxton, who, 
 going out into foreign lands to cloathe men's bodies, 
 hath brought home and perfected what shall ex- 
 ceedingly cloathe and ornament their minds, that 
 ingenious art of printing, condemned in other coun- 
 tries as a work of darkness, but exalted here to a 
 place of sanctity, being carried on in God's own 
 house a , a work worthy of that holy place, for there- 
 by are the poor taught, a charity deemed so great 
 as to be one proof of the divineness of Christ's 
 mission. And the fabrick which sustains this de- 
 vice, without which help ignorance would be but 
 half conquered: the very paper from which you are 
 now reading is in itself no mean contrivance; 
 for, if well observed, artificial matters are either 
 merely wove with direct and transverse threads, as 
 silk, cloth, linen, &c. or made of concreted juices, 
 
 See note T at the end of this tract.
 
 63 
 
 as brick, clay, glass, enamel, porcelane, and the like ; 
 which, if well united, shine; but if less united, prove 
 hard, but bear no polish ; and all these latter sub- 
 stances made of concreted juices are brittle, and do 
 not hold well together. On the other hand, paper 
 is a tenacious substance that may be cut or torn, 
 so that it resembles, and in a manner rivals, the 
 skin or membrane of some animal, the leaves of 
 some plant, or the like production of nature : for 
 'tis neither brittle as glass, nor thready as cloth ; 
 for though it has its fibres, yet it has no distinct 
 threads ; but doth exactly resemble the texture of 
 natural matters : insomuch that the like can hardly 
 be found again among artificial things. And here, 
 which doth ill-suit the tranquil scholar, who is, for 
 the most part, willing only to commend the fair 
 arts of peace, I am in some sort bound to mention, 
 the lately discovered powder, so inflammable that it 
 may be kindled by the smallest spark, and yet withal 
 so potent that it can discharge thorow metal tubes 
 divers heavy substances, and with such mortal vio-
 
 64 
 
 lence as might seem to imitate Jove's own thun- 
 der 3 . 
 
 Surely when we set before us the condition of 
 these times, and withal diligently behold with what 
 various supplies and supports we are furnished ; 
 the height and vivacity of many wits, the excel- 
 lent monuments of ancient writers, which as so 
 many great lights shine before us ; the art of print- 
 ing, which communicates books with a liberall hand 
 to men of all fortunes ; the traveFd bosome of 
 the ocean and of the world, opened on all parts, 
 whereby multitudes of experiments unknown to 
 the ancients have been disclosed; and naturall his- 
 tory, by the accesse of an infinite masse advanced : 
 the leasure wherewith the kingdomes and states of 
 Europe every where abound ; and the inseparable 
 property which attends time it selfe, which is, ever 
 more and more to disclose truth: when we think/ 
 I say, on these advantages, and contemplate the 
 wonderful phenomena of art the world is furnished 
 
 a See note at the end of this tract.
 
 65 
 
 withal, and we sit as the principal spectators 
 thereof, let us offer our sacrifices of praise, and ac- 
 knowledge that " the spirit of man is as the lamp 
 of God, wherewith may be searched the inwards of 
 all secrets ;" and let us not despair, but, trusting in 
 the powers given to us, continue in endless pro- 
 gression until all things are subdued under our 
 feet." 
 
 THE ADVANTAGES OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 A few of the advantages of knowledge may be 
 thus exhibited. 
 
 f \. Knowledge avoids the misery to which ig- 
 norance is exposed. 
 
 2. Knowledge rejects false and selects true plea- 
 
 sures. 
 
 3. Knowledge humanizes the possessor. 
 
 4. Knowledge preserves order in society. 
 
 5. Knowledge is power.
 
 66 
 
 I. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE AVOIDS THE MISERY TO WHICH IGNORANCE 
 IS EXPOSED. 
 
 Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 
 Quique metus omnes et inexorabile fatum 
 Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari. 
 
 ] . Benvenuto Cellini, when speaking of his grand- 
 father Andrew Cellini, says: " He was still living 
 when I was about three years of age, and he then 
 above an hundred. They had one day removed a 
 water-pipe, and there came out of it a large scorpion, 
 which they had not perceived : it descended upon 
 the ground, and had crept under a great bench when 
 I saw it, and ran to take hold of it. This scorpion 
 was of such a size, that, whilst I held it in my little 
 hand, it put out its tail on one side, and on the 
 other darted its two mouths. I ran overjoyed to 
 my grandfather. The good old man begged it of 
 me, but I grasped it the harder and cried, for I did
 
 67 
 
 not choose to part with it. My father took a pair of 
 scissars, and, humouring me all he could, he cut off 
 the tail and head of the scorpion, without my hav- 
 ing received any injury. 
 
 .2. A little girl sat on a fine summer's morning 
 by the side of a river, eating her bread and milk 
 from a small basin which she held in her hand. A 
 snake crept up the bank, raised itself, and, bending 
 over, took a piece of the bread and instantly shrunk 
 back. The child, pleased with the beautiful colours 
 and flexible form of the creature, looked eagerly, but 
 in vain, for its retreat. She returned disappointed 
 to finish her meal. In a few moments the snake 
 again raised itself, and was just taking the largest 
 piece of bread, when the child, lifting up her hand, 
 said, " Not so fast, speckled back" 
 
 3. Near to the Hartz Mountains in Germany, a 
 gigantic figure has from time immemorial occa- 
 sionally appeared in the heavens. It is indistinct, 
 but always resembles the form of a human being. 
 Its appearance has ever been a certain indication 
 
 F2
 
 of approaching misfortune. It is called the Spec- 
 tre of the Broken. It has been seen by many tra- 
 vellers. In speaking of it, Monsieur Jordan says! 
 " In the course of my repeated tours through the 
 Hartz Mountains, I often, but in vain, ascended 
 the Broken, that I might see the Spectre. At 
 length, on a serene morning, as the sun was just 
 appearing above the horizon, it stood before me, 
 at a great distance, towards the opposite moun- 
 tain. It seemed to be the gigantic figure of a 
 man. It vanished in a moment." In Septem- 
 ber 1796, the celebrated Abb6 Haiiy visited this 
 country. He says: " After having ascended the 
 mountain for thirty times, I at last saw the Spec- 
 tre. It was just at sun-rise in the middle of the 
 month of May, about four o'clock in the morning. 
 I saw distinctly a human figure of a monstrous size. 
 The atmosphere was quite serene towards the east. 
 In the south-west a high wind carried before it 
 some light vapours, which were scarcely condensed 
 into clouds and hung round the mountains upon
 
 69 
 
 which the figure stood. I bowed. The colossal 
 figure repeated it. I paid my respects a second 
 time, which was returned with the same civility. I 
 then called the landlord of the inn; and having 
 taken the same position which I had before occu- 
 pied, we looked towards the mountain, when we 
 clearly saw two such colossal figures, which, after 
 having repeated our compliment by bending their 
 bodies, vanished. When the rising sun throws his 
 rays over the Broken upon the body of a man 
 standing opposite to fleecy clouds, let him fix his 
 eye steadfastly upon them, and in all probability he 
 will see his own shadow extending the length of 
 five or six hundred feet, at the distance of about two 
 miles from him." 
 
 4. Ignorance can shake strong sinews with idle 
 thoughts, and sink brave hearts with light sorrows, 
 and doth lead innocent feet to impure dens, and 
 haunts the simple rustic with credulous fears, and 
 the swart Indian with that more potent magic, under 
 which spell he pines and dies. And by ignorance is
 
 70 
 
 a man fast bound from childhood to the grave, till 
 knowledge, which is the revelation of good and evil, 
 doth set him free. 
 
 5. Wisdom makes all the troubles, griefs and 
 pains incident to life, whether casual adversities, or 
 natural afflictions, easy and supportable, by rightly 
 valuing the importance, and moderating the influ- 
 ence of them. It suffers not busy fancy to alter the 
 nature, amplify the degree, or extend the duration 
 of them, by representing them more sad, heavy and 
 remediless than they truly are. It allows them no 
 force beyond what naturally and necessarily they 
 have, nor contributes nourishment to their increase. 
 It keeps them at a due distance, not permitting 
 them to encroach upon the soul, or to propagate 
 their influence beyond their proper sphere*. 
 
 6. Knowledge mitigates the fear of death and ad- 
 verse fortune : for, if a man be deeply imbued with 
 the contemplation of mortality and the corruptible 
 nature of all things, he will easily concur with 
 
 * Barrow, and see note P at the end of this Tract.
 
 71 
 
 Epictetus who went forth one day and saw a woman 
 weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken ; 
 and went forth the next day and saw a woman 
 weeping for her son that was dead: and thereupon 
 said, " Heri vidifragilemfrangi', hodie vidi mor- 
 talem mori" And therefore Virgil did excellently 
 and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes and 
 the conquest of all fears as concomitant: 
 
 Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 
 Quique metus omnes et inexorabile fatum 
 Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari*. 
 
 II. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE REJECTS FALSE AND SELECTS TRUE 
 PLEASURES \ 
 
 1 . Wisdom doth balance in her scales those true 
 and false pleasures which do equally invite the 
 senses ; and rejecting all such as have no solid value 
 
 Lord Bacon. 
 
 b See the Choice of Hercules See also Paradise Regained 
 Barrow's Sermon on the Pleasantness of Religion and Bacon on 
 the Advantages of Learning.
 
 72 
 
 or lasting refreshment, doth select and take to her 
 bosom those delights that, proving immortal, do 
 seem to smell and taste of that paradise from which 
 they sprung. Like the wise husbandman who, tak- 
 ing the rough grain which carries in its heart the 
 bread to sustain life, doth trample under foot the 
 gay and idle flowers which many times destroy it. 
 
 2. Wisdom instructs us to examine, compare, and 
 rightly to value the objects that court our affections, 
 and challenge our care; and thereby regulates our 
 passions, and moderates our endeavours, which be- 
 gets a pleasant serenity and peaceable tranquillity of 
 mind. For when, being deluded with false shews, 
 and relying upon ill grounded presumptions, we 
 highly esteem, passionately affect, and eagerly pur- 
 sue things of little worth in themselves, or concern- 
 ment to us, as we unhandsomely prostitute our af- 
 fections, and prodigally mis-spend our time, and 
 vainly lose our labour; so the event not answering 
 our expectation, our minds thereby are confounded, 
 disturbed and distempered. But when, guided by
 
 73 
 
 right reason, we conceive great esteem of and zea* 
 lously are enamoured with, and vigorously strive to 
 attain things of excellent worth, and weighty conse- 
 quence, the conscience of having well placed our 
 affections, and well employed our pains, and the 
 experience of fruits corresponding to our hopes, 
 ravishes our mind with unexpressible content. And 
 so it is: Present appearance and vulgar conceit 
 ordinarily impose upon our fancies, disguising 
 things with a deceitful varnish, and representing 
 those that are vainest with the greatest advantage; 
 whilst the noblest objects being of a more subtile 
 and spiritual nature, like fairest jewels enclosed in a 
 homely box, avoid the notice of gross sense, and 
 pass undiscerned by us. But the light of wisdom, 
 as it unmasks specious imposture, and bereaves it 
 of its false colours ; so it penetrates into the retire- 
 ments of true excellency, and reveals its genuine 
 lustre. For example, corporeal pleasure, which so 
 powerfully allures and enchants us, wisdom declares 
 that it is but a present, momentary, and transient
 
 74 
 
 satisfaction of brutish sense, dimming the light, 
 sullying the beauty, impairing the vigour, and re- 
 straining the activity of the mind; diverting it from 
 better operations, and indisposing it to enjoy purer 
 delights ; leaving no comfortable relish or gladsome 
 memory behind it, but often followed with bitter- 
 ness, regret and disgrace. That the profit the 
 world so greedily gapes after is but a possession of 
 trifles, not valuable in themselves, nor rendering 
 the masters of them so : accidentally obtained, and 
 promiscuously enjoyed by all sorts, but commonly 
 by the worst of men ; difficultly acquired, and easily 
 lost; however, to be used but for a very short time, 
 and then to be resigned into uncertain hands. That 
 the honour men so dote upon is, ordinarily, but the 
 difference of a few petty circumstances, a peculiar 
 name or title, a determinate place, a distinguishing 
 ensign; things of only imaginary excellence, de- 
 rived from chance, and conferring no advantage, 
 except from some little influence they have upon 
 the arbitrary opinion and fickle humour of the
 
 75 
 
 people; complacence in which is vain, and reliance 
 upon it dangerous. That power and dominion, 
 which men so impatiently struggle for, are but ne- 
 cessary evils introduced to restrain the bad tempers 
 of men; most evil to them that enjoy them; re- 
 quiring tedious attendance, distracting care, and 
 vexatious t6il; attended with frequent disappoint- 
 ment, opprobrious censure, and dangerous envy; 
 having such real burthens, and slavish incum- 
 brances, sweetened only by superficial pomps, 
 strained obsequiousness, some petty privileges and 
 exemptions scarce worth the mentioning. That 
 wit and parts, of which men make such ostentation, 
 are but natural endowments, commendable only in 
 order to use, apt to engender pride and vanity, and 
 hugely dangerous, if abused or mis-employed. 
 What should I mention beauty, that fading toy; 
 or bodily strength and activity, qualities so palpably 
 inconsiderable ? Upon these and such like flatter- 
 ing objects, so adored by vulgar opinion, wisdom 
 exercising severe and impartial judgment, and per*
 
 76 
 
 delving in them no intrinsic excellence, no solid 
 content springing from them, no perfection thence 
 accruing to the mind, no high reward allotted to 
 them, no security to the future condition, or other 
 durable advantages proceeding from them; it con- 
 cludes they deserve not any high opinion of the 
 mind, nor any vehement passion of the soul, nor 
 any laborious care to be employed on them, and 
 moderates our affections toward them : it frees us 
 from anxious desire of them; from being trans^ 
 ported with excessive joy in the acquisition of them; 
 from being overwhelmed with disconsolate sorrow 
 at the missing of them, or parting with them ; from 
 repining and envying at those who have better suc- 
 cess than ourselves in the procuring them; from 
 immoderate toil in getting, and care in preserving 
 them : and so delivering us from all these unquiet 
 anxieties of thought, tumultuous perturbations of 
 passion, and tedious vexations of body, it maintains 
 our minds in a chearful calm, quiet indifferency, 
 and comfortable liberty. On the other side, things
 
 77 
 
 of real worth and high concernment, that produce 
 great satisfaction to the mind, and are mainly con- 
 ducible to our happiness, such as are a right under- 
 standing and strong sense of our obligations to Al- 
 mighty God, and relations to men, a sound temper 
 and complexion of mind, a virtuous disposition, 
 a capacity to discharge the duties of our places, 
 a due qualification to enjoy the happiness of the 
 other world ; these and such like things, by dis- 
 covering their nature, and the effects resulting from 
 them, it engages us highly to esteem, ardently to 
 affect, and industriously to pursue; so preventing 
 the inconveniencies that follow the want of them, 
 and conveying the benefits arising from the pos- 
 session of them a . 
 
 3. Nous ^prouvons sans cesse une variete* de per- 
 ceptions qui ne nous interessent pas, qui glissent 
 pour ainsi dire sur nous, sans fixer notre attention. 
 Ainsi, la plupart des objets qui nous sont familiers, 
 ne produisent plus une sensation assez forte, pour 
 
 * Barrow.
 
 78 
 
 nous causer de la peine ou du plaisir. On ne peut 
 donner ce nom qu'aux perceptions int^ressantes, & 
 celles qui se font remarquer dans la foule, et dont 
 nous desirons ou la duree, ou la fin. Ces percep- 
 tions int^ressantes sont simples ou complexes: 
 simples, si on ne peut pas les decomposer en plu- 
 sieurs : complexes, si elles sont composers de plu- 
 sieurs plaisirs ou de plusieurs peines simples, ou 
 me'me de plaisirs et de peines tout-^-la-fois. Ce qui 
 nous determine & regarder plusieurs plaisirs comme 
 un plaisir complexe, et non pas comme plusieurs 
 plaisirs simples, c'est la nature de la cause qui les 
 excite. Tous les plaisirs qui sont produits par 
 1'action d'une m6me cause, nous sommes portes & 
 les considerer comme un seul. Ainsi un spectacle 
 qui flatte en me'me-tems plusieurs de nos facultes 
 sensibles par la beaut6 des decorations, la musique, 
 la compagnie, les parures, It; jeu des acteurs, con- 
 stitue un plaisir complexe. 
 
 II a fallu un grand travail analy tique pour dresser 
 un catalogue complet des plaisirs et des peines sim-
 
 79 
 
 pies. Ce catalogue me* me est d'une aridite* qui re- 
 butera bien des lecteurs; car ce n'est pas 1'ouvrage 
 du romancier qui cherche a plaire et a e*mouvoir, 
 c'est le compte rendu, 1'inventaire de nos sensa- 
 tions. 
 
 Plaisirs simples. 
 
 1. Plaisirs des Sens: ceux qui se rapportent 
 imme'diatement a nos organes, inde'pendamment 
 de toute association, plaisirs du Gout, de 1' Odoraf, 
 de la Vue, de YOu'ie, du Toucher; de plus, le 
 bien-tre de la Sante, ce cours heureux des esprits, 
 ce sentiment d'une existence l^gere et facile, qui ne 
 se rapporte pas a un sens particulier, mais a toutes 
 les fonctions vitales: enfin, les plaisirs de la Nou- 
 veaute, ceux que nous e'prouvons, lorsque de nou- 
 veaux objets s'appliquent a nos sens. Us ne for- 
 ment pas une classe diff6rente; mais ils jouent un 
 si grand r61e, qu'il faut en faire une mention ex- 
 presse a . 
 
 a See postea for further Observations upon the Pleasures of the 
 Senses.
 
 80 
 
 2. Plaisirs de la Richesse: on entend par la, 
 ce genre de plaisir que donne & un homme la pos- 
 session d'une chose qui est un instrument de jouis- 
 sance ou de se'curite', plaisir plus vif au moment de 
 1'acquisition. 
 
 3. Plaisirs de VAdresse\ ce sont ceux qui re*- 
 sultent de quelque difficulte vaincue, de quelque 
 perfection relative dans le maniement et Femploi 
 des instrumens qui servent & des objets d'agre'ment 
 ou d'utilite 1 . Une personne qui touche du clavecin, 
 par exemple, e'prouve un plaisir parfaitement dis- 
 tinct de celui qu'elle auroit & entendre la mme 
 piece de musique exe*cute par un autre. 
 
 4. Plaisir s de VAndtit: ceux qui accompa- 
 gnent la persuasion de posse'der la bienveillance de 
 tel ou tels individus en particulier, et de pouvoir en 
 consequence attendre de leur part des services 
 6pontane"s et gratuits. 
 
 5. Plaisirs d'une bonne Reputation: ce sont 
 ceux qui accompagnent la persuasion d'acque'rir ou 
 de posse'der 1'estime et la bienveillance du monde
 
 81 
 
 qui nous environne, des personnes en gtme'ral avec 
 qui nous pouvons avoir des relations ou des inte"- 
 re"ts; et pour fruit de cette disposition, de pouvoir 
 espeVer de leur part au besoin des services volon- 
 taires et gratuits. 
 
 6. Plaisirs du Pouvoir: ceux qu'^prouve un 
 homme qui se sent les moyens de disposer les 
 autres & le servir par leurs craintes ou leurs esp- 
 rances, c'est-a-dire, par la crainte de quelque mal 
 et I'espeVance de quelque bien qu'il pourroit leur 
 faire. 
 
 7. Plaisirs de la Piete: ceux qui accompa- 
 gnent la persuasion d'acquerir ou de posseder la 
 faveur de Dieu, et de pouvoir en consequence en 
 attendre des graces particuli^res, soit dans cette vie, 
 soit dans une autre. 
 
 8. Plaisirs de la Bienveillance : ceux que nous 
 sommes susceptibles de gouter, en consid^rant le 
 bonheur des personnes que nous aimons. On peut 
 les appeler encore Plaisirs de sympathie, ou Plai- 
 sirs des affections sociales. Leur force est plus ou
 
 82 
 
 moins expansive: ils peuvent se concentrer dans un 
 cercle troit, ou s'etendre sur I'humanite' entire. 
 La bienveillance s'applique aux animaux dont nous 
 aimons les especes ou les individus : les signes de 
 leur bien-e"tre nous affectent agr^ablement. 
 
 9. Plaisirs de la Malveillance : ils r^sultent de 
 la vue ou de la pense des peines qu'endurent les 
 tres que nous n'aimons pas, soit hommes, soit 
 animaux. On peut les appeler encore Plaisirs 
 des passions irascibles, de T antipathic, des affec- 
 tiom anti-sociales. 
 
 10. Lorsque nous avons gout6 tel ou tel plaisir, 
 ou m^me en certains cas, lorsque nous avons souf- 
 fert telle ou telle peine, nous aimons il nous les re- 
 tracer exactement, selon leur ordre, sans en alt^rer 
 les circonstances. Ce sont les Plaisirs de la Me- 
 moire. Ils sont aussi varies que les souvenirs qui en 
 sont 1'objet. 
 
 11. Mais quelquefois la me" moire nous suggere 
 Tid6e de certains plaisirs que nous rangeons dans 
 un ordre different, selon nos desirs, et que nous ac-
 
 83 
 
 compagnons des circonstances les plus agr^ables 
 qui nous ont frappe", soit dans notre vie, soit dans 
 la vie des autres hommes. Ce sont les Plaisirs 
 de f Imagination. Le peintre qui copie d'apres 
 nature, repr^sente les operations de la me" moire. 
 Celui qui prend & et 1^ des groupes et les assem- 
 ble a son gre, repr^sente 1'imagination. Les nou- 
 velles ides dans les Arts, dans les Sciences, les d- 
 couvertes interessantes pour la curiosit, sont des 
 plaisirs de 1'imagination qui voit agrandir le champ 
 de ses jouissances. 
 
 12. L'ide d'un plaisir futur, accompagn6 de la 
 croyance d'en jouir, constitue le Plaisir de VEspi- 
 rance. 
 
 13. Plaisirs d Association. Tel objet ne peut 
 donner aucun plaisir en lui-m^me; mais s'il s'est 
 H6 ou associe dans 1'esprit avec quelque objet agre- 
 able, il participe ii cet agr^ment. Ainsi, les divers 
 incidens d'un jeu de hasard, quand on joue pour 
 rien, tirent leur plaisir de leur association avec le 
 plaisir de gagner.
 
 84 
 
 14. Enfin, il y a des Plaisirs fondes sur dea 
 Peines. Lorsqu'on a souffert, la cessation ou la di- 
 minution de la douleur est un plaisir, et souvent 
 tres-vif. On peut les appeler Plaisirs du Soulage- 
 ment ou de la Dtlivrance. Us sont susceptibles de 
 la meme vari^te* que les peines. 
 
 Tels sont les mate'riaux de toutes nos jouissances. 
 Us s'unissent, se combinent, se modifient de mille 
 manieres; ensorte qu'il faut un peu d'exercice et 
 d'attention pour deme'ler dans un Plaisir complexe, 
 tous les Plaisirs simples qui en sont les e'lemens. 
 
 Le plaisir que nous fait 1'aspect de la campagne 
 est compost de differens plaisirs des Sens, de 1'Ima- 
 gination, et de la Sympathie. La varie'te' des objets, 
 les fleurs, les couleurs, les belles formes des arbres, 
 les melanges d'ombre et de lumitrre r^jouissent la 
 vue; 1'oreille est flattie du chant des oiseaux, du 
 murmure des fontaines, du bruit l^ger que le vent 
 excite dans les feuillages; Fair embaume' des par- 
 fums d'une fraiche v^g^tation porte a 1'odorat des 
 sensations agr^ables, en mme terns que sa puret
 
 85 
 
 et sa 16geret6 rendeht la circulation du sang plus 
 rapide, et 1'exercice plus facile. L'imagination, la 
 bienveillance embellissent encore cette scene, en 
 nous pr^sentant des id^es de richesse, d'abondance, 
 de fertilit^. L'innocence et le bonheur des oiseaux, 
 des troupeaux, des animaux domestiques contraste 
 agr^ablement avec le souvenir des fatigues et des 
 agitations de notre vie. Nous protons aux habi- 
 tans des campagnes tout le plaisir que nous e"prou- 
 vons nous-mmes par la nouveaut6 de ces objets. 
 Enfin, la reconnaissance pour 1'Etre Supreme, que 
 nous regardons comme 1'auteur de tous ces bienfaits, 
 augmente notre confiance et notre admiration a . 
 
 KNOWLEDGE HUMANIZES THE POSSESSOR. 
 
 1 . Upon the capture of prisoners in the European 
 settlements in America, they are tortured by every 
 pain which the mind of man ingenious in cruelty 
 
 * Jer. Bentham: and see note N, at the end of this tract.
 
 86 
 
 can invent; and the women, transformed into some- 
 thing worse than furies, exceed the men in these 
 scenes of horror. " This serves," says Burke, 
 " to shew to what an inconceiveable degree of bar- 
 barity the passions of men let loose will carry 
 them. It will point out to us the advantages of a 
 religion that teaches a compassion to our enemies, 
 which is neither known nor practised in other reli- 
 gions ; and it will make us more sensible than some 
 appear to be of the value of commerce, the arts of 
 a civilized life, and the lights of literature ; which, if 
 they have abated the force of some of the natural 
 virtues by the luxury which attends them, have 
 taken out likewise the sting of our natural vices, 
 and softened the ferocity of the human race without 
 enervating their courage*." 
 
 2. Ignorant of all things, a young boy will in very 
 wantonness destroy nests, which have been patiently 
 built, with a watchful eye, and a weary wing, and a 
 cheated appetite, and a fond instinct, till all should 
 
 See Burke's European Settlements in America, p. 198.
 
 87 
 
 be warm and ready for the expected brood; and 
 that very brood, so carefully lodged and so tenderly 
 watched, he shall dash to the ground without pity, 
 for he is without knowledge. Not so the poet: 
 
 Thy wee-bit housie now in ruin, 
 Its silly wa's the winds are strewin ! 
 An' naething now to build a new one, 
 
 O' foggage green ! 
 And bleak December's winds ensuin ! 
 
 Baith snell and keen. 
 
 Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, 
 An' weary winter comin fast, 
 An' cozie here, beneath the blast, 
 
 Thou thought to dwell, 
 Till crash, the cruel coulter past 
 
 Out thro' thy cell. 
 
 That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, 
 Has cost thee many a weary nibble ! 
 Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, 
 
 But house or hald, 
 To thole the winter's sleety dribble, 
 
 An' cranreuch cauld a ! 
 
 Not so the prophet! who describes the highest 
 
 * Robert Burns." To a Mouse, on turning her up in her nest 
 with the plough."
 
 88 
 
 intelligence, as caring for the cattle in Nineveh, 
 and not only preserving his people in the desert, 
 but gently leading the kids that were with young. 
 
 3. It is an assured truth which is contained in these 
 verses : 
 
 Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes 
 Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros. 
 
 It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and 
 fierceness of men's minds. But indeed the accent 
 had need be upon fideliter \ for a little superficial 
 learning doth rather work a contrary effect. It 
 taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by 
 copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, 
 and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on 
 both sides, and to turn back the first offers and 
 conceits of the mind, and to accept of nothing 
 until it is examined and tried*. 
 
 4. Si Descartes cut quelques foiblesses de 1'hu- 
 manite, il cut aussi les principales vertus du philo- 
 sophic. Sobre, temperant, ami de la liberte* et de 
 
 * Bacon.
 
 89 
 
 la retraite, reconnoissant, liberal, sensible a 1'amitie, 
 tendre, compatissant, il ne connoissoit que les pas- 
 sions douces et savoit resister aux violentes. Quand 
 on me fait offense, disoit-il, je tdche cT clever mon 
 ame si haut, que r offense ne parvienne pasjusqua 
 elle. L'ambition ne 1'agita pas plus que la ven- 
 geance. 11 disoit, comme Ovide: Vivre cache, 
 cest vivre heureux. Newton e'toit doux, tran- 
 quille, modeste, simple, affable, toujours de niveau 
 avec tout le monde, ne se de*mentit point pendant 
 le cours de sa longue et brillante carriere. II auroit 
 mieux aime tre inconnu, que de voir le calme de 
 sa vie trouble par ces orages litteraires, que 1'esprit 
 et la science attirent a ceux qui cherchent trop la 
 gloire. Je me reprocherois, disoit-il,, mon impru- 
 dence, de perdre une chose aussi reelle que le repos, 
 pour courir apres une ombre. 
 
 5. I thank God, amongst those millions of vices 
 I do inherit and hold from Adam, I have escaped 
 one, and that a mortal enemy to charity, the first 
 and father sin, not only of man, but of the devil,
 
 90 
 
 pride; a vice whose name is comprehended in a 
 monosyllable, but in its nature not circumscribed 
 with a world; I have escaped it in a condition that 
 can hardly avoid it: Those petty acquisitions and re- 
 puted perfections that advance and elevate the con- 
 ceits of other men, add no feathers unto mine. I 
 have seen a grammarian tower and plume himself 
 over a single line in Horace, and show more pride 
 in the construction of one ode, than the author in 
 the composure of the whole book. For my own 
 part, besides the jargon and patois of several pro- 
 vinces, I understand no less than six languages ; yet 
 I protest I have no higher conceit of myself, than 
 had our fathers before the confusion of Babel, when 
 there was but one language in the world, and none 
 to boast himself either linguist or critick. I have 
 not only seen several countries, beheld the nature 
 of their climes, the chorography of their provinces, 
 topography of their cities, but understood their seve- 
 ral laws, customs and policies; yet cannot all this 
 perswade the dulness of my spirit unto such an opi-
 
 nion of myself, as I^behold in nimbler and conceited 
 heads that never looked a degree beyond their nests. 
 I know the names and somewhat more of all the 
 constellations in my horizon; yet I have seen a 
 prating mariner, that could only name the pointers 
 and the north-star, out-talk me, and conceit him- 
 self a whole sphere above rne a . 
 . 6. All the world, all that we are and all that we 
 have, our bodies and our souls, our actions and our 
 sufferings, our conditions at home, our accidents 
 abroad, our many sins and our seldom virtues, are 
 as so many arguments to make our souls dwell low 
 in the deep valleys of humility b . 
 
 KNOWLEDGE PROMOTES ORDER. 
 
 1. Wisdom is glorious, and never fadethaway: 
 yea, she is easily seen of them that love her, and 
 found of such as seek her. She preventeth them 
 
 a Sir T. Browne. b Bishop Taylor.
 
 92 
 
 that desire her, in making herself first known unto 
 them. Whoso seeketh her early shall have no great 
 
 
 
 travel: for he shall find her sitting at his doors. 
 To think therefore upon her, is perfection of wis- 
 dom : and whoso watcheth for her, shall quickly be 
 without care. For she goeth about seeking such 
 as are worthy of her, sheweth herself favourably 
 unto them in the ways, and meeteth them in every 
 thought. For the very true beginning of her is 
 the desire of discipline ; and the care of discipline 
 is love ; and love is the keeping of her laws. 
 
 2. Wisdom discovers our relations, duties and 
 concernments, in respect of men, with the natural 
 grounds of them ; thereby both qualifying and in- 
 clining us to the discharge of them: whence ex- 
 ceeding convenience, pleasure and content ensues. 
 By it we understand we are parts and members of 
 the great body, the universe; and are therefore con- 
 cerned in the good management of it, and are there- 
 by obliged to procure its order and peace, and by 
 no irregular undertaking to disturb or discompose
 
 93 
 
 it; which makes us honest and peaceable men: 
 that we proceed from the same primitive stock, are. 
 children of the same father, and partake of the same 
 blood with all men; are endowed with like facul- 
 ties of mind, passions of soul, shape of body and 
 sense of things : that we have equally implanted in 
 our original constitution inclinations to love, pity, 
 gratitude, sociableness, quiet, joy, reputation: that 
 we have an indispensable need and impatient desire 
 of company, assistance, comfort and relief: that 
 therefore it is according to the design of nature, and 
 agreeable to reason, that to those, to whom our 
 natural condition by so many bands of cognation, 
 similitude and mutual necessitude, hath knit and 
 conjoined us, we should bear a kind respect and 
 tender affection; should chearfully concur in un- 
 dergoing the common burthens; should heartily 
 wish and industriously promote their good, assist 
 them in accomplishing their reasonable desires, ' 
 thankfully requite the courtesies received from them, 
 congratulate and rejoice with them in their pro-
 
 94 
 
 sperity, comfort them in their distresses, and as we 
 are able, relieve them; however, tenderly compas- 
 sionate their disappointments, miseries and sorrows. 
 This renders us kind and courteous neighbours; 
 sweet and grateful companions. It represents 
 unto us the dreadful effects and insupportable mis- 
 chiefs arising from breach of faith, contravening 
 the obligations of solemn pacts, infringing public 
 laws, deviating from the received rules of equity, 
 violating promises, and interrupting good corre- 
 spondence among men : by which considerations it 
 engages us to be good citizens, obedient subjects, 
 just dealers, and faithful friends. It minds us of the 
 blindness, impotence and levity, the proneness to 
 mistake, and misbehaviour that human nature ne- 
 cessarily is subject to ; deserving rather our com- 
 miseration, than anger or hatred, which prompts 
 us to bear the infirmities of our brethren, to be 
 gentle in censure, to be insensible of petty affronts, 
 to pardon injuries, to be patient, exorable and re- 
 concileable to those that give us greatest cause of
 
 95 
 
 offence. It teaches us, the good may, but the evil 
 of our neighbour can in no wise advantage us ; that 
 from the suffering of any man, simply considered^ 
 no benefit can accrue, nor natural satisfaction arise 
 to us; and that therefore 'tis a vain, base, brutish 
 and unreasonable thing, for any cause whatsoever, 
 to desire or delight in the grief, pain or misery of 
 our neighbour, to hate or envy him, or insult over 
 him, or devise mischief to him, or prosecute re- 
 venge upon him; which makes us civil, noble and 
 placable enemies, or rather no enemies at all. So 
 that wisdom is in effect the genuine parent of all 
 moral and political virtue, justice and honesty; as 
 Solomon says in her person, I lead in a way of 
 righteousness, and in the midst of the paths of judg- 
 ment. And how sweet these are in the practice, 
 how comfortable in the consequences, the testi- 
 mony of continual experience, and the unanimous 
 consent of all wise men sufficiently declare 3 . 
 3. In Orpheus's Theatre all beasts and birds as- 
 
 a Barrow.
 
 96 
 
 sembled, and forgetting their several appetites, some 
 of prey, some of game, some of quarrel, stood all 
 sociably together, listening to the airs and accords 
 of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, 
 or drowned by some louder noise, but every beast 
 returned to his own nature; wherein is aptly de- 
 scribed the nature and condition of men : who are 
 full of savage and unreclaimed desires of profit, 
 of lust, of revenge, which as long as they give ear 
 to precepts, to laws, to religion, so sweetly touched 
 with eloquence, and persuasion of books, of ser- 
 mons, of harangues ; so long is society and peace 
 maintained; but if their instruments be silent, or 
 sedition and tumult make them not audible, all 
 things dissolve into anarchy and confusion*. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. 
 
 1. The power of a man is his means to attain 
 any object which it may have in view. 
 
 * Bacon.
 
 97 
 
 2. Archimedes by his knowledge of optics was 
 enabled to burn the Roman fleet before Syracuse, 
 and baffle the unceasing efforts of Marcellus to take 
 the town. An Athenian admiral delayed till even- 
 ing to attack, on the coast of Attica, a Lacedemo- 
 nian fleet, which was disposed in a circle, because 
 he knew that an evening breeze v always sprung up' 
 from the land. The breeze arose, the circle was 
 disordered, and at that instant he made his onset. 
 The Athenian captives by repeating the strains of 
 the learned poet Euripides were enabled to charm 
 their masters into a grant of their liberty. 
 
 In Lichtenstein's travels in Africa, he says: "Near 
 one of these pits was the proper habitation of Van 
 Wyk. On account of the weakness of our horses, 
 he had lent us some of his oxen to assist in convey- 
 ing us on to the next place where we were to stop. 
 While our oxen were grazing awhile, and we sought 
 the shade within the door of his house, he related 
 to us the following history. * It is now/ he said, 
 ' more than two years since, in the very place where 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 we Stand; my wife was sitting within the house, 
 near the door; the children were playing about her, 
 and I was without, near the house, busied in doing 
 something to a waggon ; when, suddenly, though 
 it was mid-day, an enormous lion appeared, came 
 up, and laid himself quietly down in the shade, 
 upon the threshold of the door. My wife, aware of 
 the danger attending any attempt to fly, remained 
 motionless in her place, while the children took 
 refuge in her lap. The cry they uttered attracted 
 my attention, and I hastened towards the door; but 
 my astonishment may well be conceived when I 
 found the entrance to it barred in such a way. 
 Although the animal had not seen me, unarmed as 
 I was, escape seemed impossible; yet I glided gently, 
 scarcely knowing what I meant to do, to the side 
 of the house, up to the window of my chamber, 
 where I knew my loaded gun was standing. By a 
 most happy chance, I had set it into the corner 
 close by the window, so that I could reach it with 
 my hand; for, as you may perceive, the opening is
 
 99 
 
 too small to admit of my having got in ; and, still 
 more fortunately, the door of the room was open, 
 so that I could see the whole danger of the scene. 
 The lion was beginning to move; there was no 
 longer any time to think: I called softly to the 
 mother not to be alarmed, and, invoking the name 
 of the Lord, fired my piece. The ball passed di- 
 rectly over the hair of my boy's head, and lodged in 
 the forehead of the lion, immediately above his 
 eyes; he never stirred more." 
 
 3. Knowledge is the just and lawful sovereignty 
 over men's minds: it being remembered that the 
 honest and just bounds of observation by one per- 
 son upon another, extend no further but to under- 
 stand him sufficiently whereby not to give him of- 
 fence; or whereby to be able to give him faithful 
 counsel; or whereby to stand upon reasonable 
 guard and caution with respect to a man's self: but 
 to be speculative into another man, to the end to 
 know how to work him, or wind him, or govern 
 him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and 
 
 H2
 
 100 
 
 cloven, and not entire and ingenuous. Such are 
 a few of the many blessings which result from know- 
 ledge. 
 
 OF THE LOVE OF EXCELLING. 
 
 IF, from some obtuseness or some warp of the 
 mind of the student; or from some inability, mental 
 or moral, in the preceptor; or from any of the 
 many obstacles which exist to the advancement of 
 learning, the love of knowledge cannot be excited, 
 recourse must be had to the love of wealth, the 
 love of fame, to any sort of distinction, whether it 
 be of intellectual superiority, or of external splen- 
 dour. If the mind cannot be influenced by the 
 love of excellence, it must be stimulated by the love 
 of excelling. And such are the motives by which 
 the generality of our young men are actuated. 
 " We enter into a desire of knowledge sometimes 
 from a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite;
 
 101 
 
 sometimes to entertain our minds with variety and 
 delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; 
 sometimes to enable us to victory of wit and con- 
 tradiction, and most times for lucre and profession; 
 and seldom sincerely to give a true account of our 
 gift of reason, for the benefit and use of man : as 
 if there were sought in knowledge a couch where- 
 upon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a 
 terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk 
 up and down, with a fair prospect; or a tower of 
 state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a 
 fort or commanding ground for strife and conten- 
 tion; or a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich 
 store-house for the glory of the Creator and the re- 
 lief of man's estate." 
 
 It is true, indeed, that these motives are rela- 
 tively bad; that they are only temporary; that 
 they are stimulants which are attended with col- 
 lapse; that from such seeds true doctrine is sel- 
 dom the fruit; and that they have scarcely any in- 
 fluence upon the noblest minds. " It is commonly
 
 102 
 
 found," says Lord Bacon, " that men have views to 
 fame and ostentation, sometimes in uttering and 
 sometimes in circulating the knowledge they think 
 they have acquired. But for our undertaking, we 
 judge it of such a nature, that it were highly un- 
 worthy to pollute it with any degree of ambition or 
 affectation; as it is an unavoidable decree with us 
 ever to retain our native candour and simplicity, 
 and not attempt a passage to truth under the con- 
 duct of vanity; for, seeking real nature with all her 
 fruits about her, we should think it a betraying of 
 our trust to infect such a subject either with an am- 
 bitious, an ignorant, or any other faulty manner of 
 treating it." And in the same spirit, Milton says, 
 " I'am not speaking to the mercenary crew of false 
 pretenders to learning, but the free and ingenuous 
 sort of such as evidently were born to study, and 
 love learning for itself, not for lucre, or any other 
 end, but the service of God and of truth, and per- 
 haps that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise 
 which God and good men have consented shall be
 
 103 
 
 the reward of those whose published labours advance 
 the good of mankind." 
 
 These motives are not, however, without their 
 advantages; they not only lead to the acquisition 
 of that portion of knowledge, for which they operate, 
 but they are attended with the chance of generating 
 a habit to acquire knowledge, which may continue 
 when the motives themselves have ceased to act. 
 They are baits for pride, which, when seized, may 
 sink into the affections. 
 
 Whether, in the formation of a noble mind, 
 we ought to any and what extent, to resort to 
 the love of excelling, is a question which has been 
 so repeatedly agitated and so ably treated in that 
 most valuable work a " The Light of Nature pur- 
 sued", that the author of this tract is satisfied he 
 cannot do better than subjoin it. 
 
 "But it will probably be asked, would I then ex- 
 tinguish every spark of vanity in the world, all thirst 
 of fame, of splendour, of magnificence, of show, 
 See note X at the end of this tract.
 
 104 
 
 all desire of excelling or distinguishing one's self 
 from the common herd ? What must become of 
 the public service, of sciences, arts, commerce, 
 manufactures ? The business of life must stagnate. 
 Nobody would spend his youth in fatigues and 
 dangers to qualify himself for becoming a general 
 or admiral. Nobody would study, and toil, and 
 struggle, and roar for liberty to be a minister. The 
 merchant would not drudge on through the infir- 
 mities of age to fill his own coffers, and supply his 
 country with foreign commodities. The artificer, 
 having acquired an independence, would leave his 
 business to be practised by novices and bunglers. 
 The man of learning would not waste his time and 
 spirits to enrich the public wiih knowledge, to com- 
 bat error, or defend his favourite truths against all 
 opposers. Poetry, painting, music, elegance, wit 
 and humour, would be lost from among us ; affability, 
 politeness, gallantry, and the pleasures ^of refined 
 conversation be things unknown. How would you 
 keep your children from rolling in the dirt without
 
 103 
 
 some motive of shame to influence them, or bring 
 the schoolboy to ply close to his task ? How pre- 
 vent your sons from consorting with blackguards, 
 or your daughters from romping with the grooms? 
 " Now to confess the honest truth, I am afraid if 
 this evil weed were totally eradicated, so as to leave 
 no fibre of it remaining any where, we should find 
 business of all kinds go on very slowly without it. 
 Nor would I wish to see it banished from the world 
 till some better principle can be had in lieu of it. 
 While we remain indolent and selfish, it may be 
 necessary for us to .have vanity to counteract those 
 mischievous qualities, as one poison serves as an 
 antidote to another. But I could wish that there 
 were no necessity for the poison, which must always 
 have a tendency to impair the constitution. Moral- 
 ists are constantly misrepresented in this, as if when 
 they attacked any particular vice, they were at the 
 same time for keeping all the others. They do not 
 say to people, We think selfishness a good thing for 
 the world, but vanity a bad thing ; but they are for
 
 106 
 
 getting rid of both one and the other; they wish 
 them to he neither vain, nor selfish, nor indolent, 
 but actuated by other and nobler motives, the pub- 
 lic good, and their own good ; and as far as they 
 can succeed in persuading people to act upon these 
 motives, all the good effects will follow, and in a 
 greater degree without the same mixture of evil. 
 The only question is, how far this change for the 
 better is practicable: and for my own part, I can- 
 not help thinking that education might be carried 
 on very effectually without any tincture of vanity. 
 Though in this I cannot speak from my own expe- 
 rience, for I had vanity enough myself while a 
 schoolboy. As soon as I could well read, having 
 gotten some books of chivalry, I determined upon 
 making the conquest of the world ; but being of a 
 weakly constitution, and continually bumped about 
 by other boys, I found this scheme impracticable : 
 so at thirteen resolved to write a finer poem than 
 Homer or Virgil. Before I went to the university, 
 having been told that the solid sciences were more
 
 107 
 
 noble than poetry, I purposed as soon as I should 
 have made myself perfect master of logic, to eluci- 
 date all useful truths, and banish error from among 
 mankind. What benefit these ambitious projects 
 may have done me, I know not: perhaps my pre- 
 sent labours might be owing to some remains of 
 them ; for I well remember that while the design of 
 these dissertations lay in embryo in my head, they 
 promised a much more shining appearance than I 
 find them now make upon paper. 
 
 " If masters can find no other way of making their 
 lads apply to their learning willingly, but by excit- 
 ing an emulation among them, I would not deprive 
 them of the use of this instrument. But there may 
 be a commendation which has no personal compa- 
 rison in it, and the pleasures, the advantages, the 
 credit of a proficiency in learning may be displayed 
 in sufficiently alluring colours, without suggesting 
 a thought of superiority over others, or of being the 
 foremost. I acknowledge that it is a very nice 
 point to distinguish between the desire of excellence
 
 108 
 
 and the desire of excelling, and the one is very apt 
 to degenerate insensibly into the other: yet I think 
 it may be effected by an attentive and skilful tutor, 
 and the first will answer all the good purposes of the 
 latter without running the hazard of its inconve- 
 niences. It is evident that in one point of view 
 there is nothing more pernicious than the general 
 disposition of parents to bring up children with a 
 notion of their extraordinary parts and consequence: 
 for being taught to look upon themselves as supe-i 
 rior to every one else, they will naturally despise 
 what is fit for their talents and situation, aim at 
 things out of their reach, gain a general ill-will, and 
 involve themselves in quarrels and difficulties by 
 claiming a respect and deference to which they are 
 not entitled. 
 
 " And we find in fact that the best and greatest 
 men, those who have done the most essential ser- 
 vices to mankind, have been the most free from the 
 impulses of vanity. Lycurgus and Solon, those two 
 excellent lawgivers, appear to have had none: So-
 
 109 
 
 crates, the prime apostle of reason, Euclid and Hip- 
 pocrates, had none: whereas Protagoras with his 
 brother sophists, Diogenes, Epicurus, Lucretius, 
 the Stoics who were the bigots, and the latter 
 Academics who were the freethinkers of antiquity, 
 were overrun with it. And among the moderns, 
 Boyle, Newton, Locke, have made large improve- 
 ments in the sciences without the aid of vanity; 
 while some others I could name, having drawn in 
 copiously of that intoxicating vapour, have laboured 
 only to perplex and obscure them. This passion al- 
 ways chooses to move alone in a narrow sphere, where 
 nothing noble or important can be achieved, rather 
 than join with others in moving mighty engines, by 
 which much good might be effected. Where did 
 ambition ever glow more intensely than in Caesar ? 
 whose favourite saying, we are told, was, that he 
 would rather be the first man in a petty village than 
 the second in Rome. Did not Alexander, another 
 madman of the same kind, reprove his tutor, Aris- 
 totle, for publishing to the world those discoveries
 
 110 
 
 in philosophy he would have had reserved for him- 
 self alone ? We may therefore fairly conclude that 
 the world would go on infinitely better if men would 
 learn to do without it; and we may rank it among 
 those evils permitted by Providence to bring forth 
 some unknown good, but which we should neither 
 encourage in ourselves or others."
 
 Ill 
 
 jTcmns tlje jftftto, 
 
 I was a scholar : seven useful springs 
 
 Did I deflower in quotations 
 
 Of cross'd opinions 'bout the soul of man : 
 
 The more I learnt, the more I learnt to doubt; 
 
 Delight, my spaniel, slept, whilst I baused leaves, 
 
 Toss'd o'er the dunces, pored on the old print 
 
 Of titled words; and still my spaniel slept, 
 
 Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, baited my flesh, 
 
 Shrunk up my veins : and still my spaniel slept. 
 
 And still I held converse with Zabarell, 
 
 Aquinas', Scotus, and the musty saw 
 
 Of antique Donate : still my span-iel slept. 
 
 Still on went 1 : first, an sit anima ; 
 
 Then, an it were mortal. O hold, hold, afrthat 
 
 They're at brain-buffets, fell by the ears amain 
 
 Pell-mell together : still my spaniel slept. 
 
 Then whether 'twere corporeal, local, fixt, 
 
 Ex traduce, but whether I had free will 
 
 Or no, hot philosophers 
 
 Stood banding factions, all so strongly propt, 
 
 I stagger'd, knew not which was firmer part, 
 
 But thought, quoted, read, observ'd and pryed, 
 
 Stufft noting books : and still my spaniel slept. 
 
 At length he waked and yawned ; and by yon sky, 
 
 For aught I know he knew as much as I.
 
 112 
 
 * 
 1. IF the love of knowledge is the passion upon 
 
 which the hope of endless progression mainly de- 
 pends, it must be remembered that by improper 
 stimulants this love may be weakened or destroyed, 
 and that debility is the consequence of excess. 
 When Prospero sees the incipient love of Ferdi- 
 nand and Miranda, he says 
 
 this swift business 
 
 I must uneasy make, lest too light winning 
 Make the prize light. 
 
 2. Cicero, at five years old, when other children 
 are not capable of applying themselves to any thing, 
 discovered a great inclination to study: but his 
 father thought good rather to keep him back awhile 
 than to urge him on : at which Cicero seemed not 
 a little dissatisfied and impatient ; especially when 
 he saw some of his companions go to school to one 
 Plotius, who was then in high repute. 
 
 3. There are various modes of producing late 
 roses: by cutting off the tops immediately after 
 bearing; by pulling off the buds of the roses when
 
 113 
 
 they are newly knotted: by cutting off some few of 
 the top boughs in the spring-time, but suffering the 
 lower boughs to grow on: by removing the tree 
 some months before it buddeth; and by planting 
 them in the shade: and, indeed, the November rose 
 is the sweetest, having been less exhaled by the 
 sun. 
 
 4. Upon the supposition that the mind ought to 
 be forced, how much is expected from direct edu- 
 cation, where information is intentionally commu- 
 nicated; how little from indirect, or the effect of 
 accident and virtuous example! It is not, however, 
 by the exertions, but by the temperament and ex- 
 ample of the instructor, that the mind is awakened 
 to be ever alive and ever active. It is seldom effected 
 by direct education ; it results rather from the slow, 
 indirect, silent, but certain and persuasive admo- 
 nition of an intellectual and virtuous life. It does 
 not originate in precept, but in the manner of the 
 preceptor not in the lecture-room, but by the fire- 
 side, and amidst the sweet charities of private life 
 
 i
 
 114 
 
 not in the praise of temperance, of simplicity, of 
 diligence ; but in being temperate, and meek and 
 industrious not in extolling wisdom, but in loving 
 her beauty : in taking her to dwell with us, repos- 
 ing with her, and manifesting that her conversation 
 hath no bitterness, and to live with her hath no sor- 
 row, but mirth and joy a . 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Whether the young men of Greece and of Rome 
 were more ardent in the pursuit of knowledge than 
 the young men of England, which was the professed 
 object of this inquiry, may seem, amidst these dif- 
 ferent queries, to have been forgotten ; as the tract 
 endeavours to establish only certain general propo- 
 sitions; viz. 
 
 See note Z at the end of this Tract.
 
 115- 
 
 1. That the love of knowledge is a motive, and a 
 
 powerful motive, for the acquisition of know- 
 ledge 3 . 
 
 2. That the art of education consists, not so much 
 
 in giving knowledge, as in giving a desire to 
 know b . 
 
 3. That the love of knowledge is generated by not 
 
 associating pain with the acquisition of know- 
 ledge . By the application of proper mental 
 stimulants d . (The love of excellence, and the 
 love of excelling] And by not forcing the 
 mind e . 
 
 It is true, indeed, that there is this apparent de- 
 viation ; it may seem that the professed object of 
 this enquiry has been forgotten : but how can the 
 question be answered except by a more extensive 
 investigation, upon which the author may be more 
 disposed to enter than the reader ? an examination 
 
 * From page 1 to page 22. 
 
 b Page 23. Page 30. d Page51 . c Page 111. 
 
 i 2
 
 116 
 
 of the Conduct of the understanding, which would 
 comprehend a survey of 
 
 1st. Our powers, with the assistants to our 
 
 powers, for the discovery of truth. 
 2dly. The motives for the exercise of these 
 
 powers. 
 
 3dly. The obstacles to the acquisition of know- 
 ledge. And 
 
 Mthly. Supposing our powers to be duly esti- 
 mated; our motives for the acquisition 
 of knowledge to be the greatest; and 
 the obstacles to the acquisition of know- 
 ledge to be the least, in what way the 
 mind should proceed? 
 
 How shall our reason be guided that it may be 
 right, that it be not a blind guide, but direct us to 
 the place where the star appears, and point to the 
 very house where the babe lieth?
 
 117 
 
 ADDITIONAL NOTES. 
 
 NOTE A. TEXT, p. 3. 
 
 IT is of the utmost importance to our well being 
 that we should form a due estimate of the different 
 pleasures amidst which we are placed ; that we 
 may select from this garden beautiful and salutary 
 flowers, and reject poison although fair to the eye 
 and inviting to the taste. In judging of the value 
 of different objects men seem much to differ : in 
 the mode of attaining an object conceived to be 
 desirable men seem more to agree. In Bacon's 
 tract on the Advancement of Fortune, he says, 
 " The first precept is, that the architect of his own 
 fortune rightly use his rule, that is, that he inure 
 his mind to judge of the proportion and value of 
 things, as they conduce more or less to his own 
 fortune and ends; and that he intend the same sub- 
 stantially, and not superficially. For it is strange,
 
 118 
 
 but most true, that there are many, whose logical 
 part of mind (if I may so term it) is good, but the 
 mathematical part nothing worth ;" that is, who 
 can judge soundly of the mode of attaining any ob- 
 ject, but are very unskilful in judging of the value 
 of the object itself*. 
 
 Hobbes says : " The causes of misery are intem- 
 perance and a vicious disposition concerning things 
 desirable." 
 
 Most people err, not so much from want of ca- 
 pacity to find their object, as from not knowing 
 what object to pursue. REYNOLDS'S LECTURES. 
 
 Man on the dubious waves of error tost, 
 His ship half founder'd, and his compass lost, 
 Sees, far as human optics may command, 
 A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land; 
 Spreads all his canvass, every sinew plies; 
 Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies. 
 
 * Give e'en a dunce the employment he desires, 
 And he soon finds the talents it requires. COWPER. 
 
 But the sentiments of Portia seem to differ from the opinion of 
 philosophers. She says, " If to do were as easy as to know what were 
 good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages 
 princes' palaces."
 
 119 
 
 NOTE B.TEXT, p. 1 1 . 
 
 This sentiment is very similar to the following 
 favourite passage from Middleton. 
 
 " But to speak my mind freely on the subject of 
 consequences, I am not so scrupulous, perhaps, in 
 my regard to them, as many of my profession are 
 apt to be: my nature is frank and open, and warm- 
 ly disposed, not only to seek, but to speak what I 
 take to be true, which disposition has been greatly 
 confirmed by the situation into which Providence 
 has thrown me. For I was never trained to pace 
 in the trammels of the church, nor tempted by 
 the sweets of its preferment to sacrifice the phi- 
 losophic freedom of a studious to the servile re- 
 straints of an ambitious life : and from this very 
 circumstance, as often as I reflect upon it, I feel 
 that comfort in my own breast which no external 
 honours can bestow. I persuade myself that the 
 life and faculties of man, at the best but short and 
 limited, cannot be employed more rationally or 
 laudably than in the search of knowledge ; and
 
 120 
 
 especially of that sort which relates to our duty and 
 conduces to our happiness. In these inquiries, 
 therefore, wherever I perceive any glimmering of 
 truth before me, I readily pursue, and endeavour 
 to trace it to its source ; without any reserve or 
 caution of pushing the discovery too far, or opening 
 too great a glare of it to the public. I look upon 
 the discovery of any thing which is true, as a valua- 
 ble acquisition to society; which cannot possibly 
 hurt or obstruct the good effect of any other truth 
 whatsoever: for they all partake of one common 
 essence, and necessarily coincide with each other : 
 and like the drops of rain, which fall separately into 
 the river, mix themselves at once with the stream 
 and strengthen the general current, 
 
 NOTE M. Page 58. 
 
 May not a very common species of ridicule and 
 of laughter be traced to a partial view of the sub- 
 ject by which the laughter is produced? 
 
 An Emperor of Germany coming by chance,
 
 121 
 
 on a Sunday, into a church, found there a most 
 misshapen priest, pene portentum naturae, insomuch 
 as the Emperor scorned and contemned him. But 
 when he heard him read those words in the ser- 
 vice, For it is he that hath made us, and not we 
 ourselves, the Emperor checked his own proud 
 thoughts, and made inquiry into the quality and 
 condition of the man : and finding him, on exa- 
 mination, most learned and devout, he made him 
 Archbishop of Colen, which place he did excellent- 
 ly discharge. 
 
 Hobbes says: "Sudden glory is the passion which 
 maketh those grimaces called laughter; and is 
 caused either by some sudden act of their own 
 which pleaseth them ; or by the apprehension of 
 some deformed thing in another, by comparison 
 whereof they suddenly applaud themselves. And it 
 is incident most to them, that are conscious of the 
 fewest abilities in themselves, who are forced to 
 keep themselves in their own favour, by observing 
 the imperfections of other men. And therefore
 
 122 
 
 much laughter at the defects of others, is a sign 
 of pusillanimity. For of great minds, one of the 
 proper works is, to help and free others from scorn ; 
 and compare themselves only with the most able." 
 In Love's Labour Lost, there is the following 
 dialogue between Rosalind and Biron. 
 
 Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron, 
 Before I saw you ; and the world's large tongue 
 Proclaims you for a man replete with mocks j 
 Full of comparisons and wounding flouts j 
 Which you on all estates will execute, 
 That lye within the mercy of your wit : 
 To weed this wormwood from your fruitful brain, 
 And there-withal to win me, if you please, 
 Without the which I am not to be won; 
 You shall this twelve-month term from day to day 
 Visit the speechless sick, and still converse 
 With groaning wretches ; and your task shall be, 
 With all the fierce endeavour of your wit, 
 To enforce the pained impotent to smile. 
 
 BIRON. To move wild laughter in the throat of death? 
 It cannot be, it is impossible: 
 Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. 
 Ros. Why, that's the way to choak a gibing spirit, 
 Whose influence is begot of that loose grace, 
 Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools:
 
 123 
 
 Ajesfs prosperity lies in the ear 
 Of him that hears it; never in the tongue 
 Of him that makes it : then if sickly ears, 
 Deaf with the clamours of their own dear groans. 
 Will hear your idle scorns ; continue then, 
 And I will have you, and that fault withal : 
 But if they will not, throw away that spirit ; 
 And I shall find you empty of that fault, 
 Right joyful of your reformation. 
 
 When Dr. Franklin attended before the Privy 
 Council, during the struggle between America and 
 England, as the representative of the province of 
 Massachusetts; Mr. Wedderburn (afterwards Lord 
 Loughborough) inveighed against him in the se- 
 verest language. At the sallies of his wit, all the 
 members of the council, the president himself (Lord 
 Gower) not excepted, frequently laughed outright. 
 No person belonging to the council behaved with 
 decent gravity except Lord North. Dr. Franklin 
 told Mr. Lee, one of his counsel, after the business 
 was concluded, that he was indifferent to Mr. Wed- 
 derburn's speech, but that he was indeed sincerely 
 sorry to see the Lords of the council behave so in*
 
 124 
 
 decently. " They shewed," he added, " that the 
 
 coarsest language can be grateful to the politest 
 ear." 
 
 In the very clothes which he wore before the Privy 
 Council when he was so insulted, he afterwards 
 signed the treaties of commerce and alliance with 
 France. 
 
 NOTE N. See TEXT, p. 60. 
 
 Nature is not at variance with art ; nor art with 
 nature : they being both the servants of the Provi-? 
 dence of God. Art is the perfection of nature : were 
 the world now as it was the sixth day, there were 
 yet a chaos. Nature hath made one world, and art 
 another. In brief, all things are artificial : for, na- 
 ture is the art of God. SIR T. BROWN, 
 
 Natural History is subject to a threefold division. 
 For nature is either free and displaying herself in 
 her ordinary course, as in the heavens, living crea- 
 tures, plants, and the universal furniture of the 
 world :- or put out o/"her usual course, as in mon->
 
 125 
 
 sterfc : or she is compressed and fashioned, and as 
 it were, new cast, as in artificial operations. An 
 opinion hath, however, long time gone currant, as 
 if art were some different thing from nature, and 
 artificiall from natural! . From this mistake, this 
 inconvenience arises, that many writers of Natural! 
 History think they have quit themselves sufficiently 
 if they have compiled a history of creatures, or of 
 plants, or of mineralls ; the experiments of mecha- 
 nicall arts past over in silence. But there is yet a 
 more subtile deceit which secretly steales into the 
 mindes of men ; namely, that art should be reputed 
 a kind of additament only to nature, whose virtue 
 is this, that it can indeed either perfect nature in- 
 choate, or repaire it when it is decaied, or set it 
 at liberty from impediments ; but not quite alter, 
 transmute, or shake it in the foundations: which 
 erroneous conceit hath brought in a too hasty de- 
 spaire upon men's enterprises. But on the con- 
 trary, this certain truth should be thoroughly settled 
 in the minds of men, that artificials differ not from
 
 126 
 
 naturals in form and essence ; but in the efficient 
 only; for man hath no power over nature save only 
 in her motion ; that is, to mingle or put together 
 naturall bodies, and to separate or put them asun- 
 der ; wherefore where there is apposition and sepa- 
 ration of bodies naturall conjoyning (as theyterme 
 it) active with passive, man may doe all things ; 
 this not done, he can doe nothing. BACON. 
 
 NOTE T. TEXT, p. 62. 
 
 The art of Printing was first introduced and prac- 
 tised in England by William Caxton, a mercer and 
 citizen of London, who, by his travels abroad, and 
 a residence of many years in Holland, Flanders and 
 Germany, in the affairs of trade, had an opportunity 
 of informing himself of the whole method and pro- 
 cess of the art: and by the encouragement of the 
 great, and particularly of the Abbot of Westminster, 
 first set up a press in the Abbey, and began to print 
 books soon after the year 1471.
 
 127 
 
 NOTE O. Page 64. 
 
 Bacon, in bis Novum Organum, under what he 
 terms " Instances of Power," says, "If any one, after 
 an attentive consideration of the works already ex- 
 tant, would determine to use his best and strongest 
 endeavours, he might doubtless either carry them 
 somewhat further, or convert them to some other 
 obvious purpose; or apply and transfer them to 
 more noble uses than were known before." Gun- 
 powder and shot, which for centuries have been 
 used only as engines of destruction, have lately 
 been converted, by Captain Manby, into engines of 
 
 preservation. 
 
 
 NOTE P. Page 70. 
 
 South (in his excellent sermon on Human Per- 
 fection) when speaking of grief, says : " And, on 
 the other side, for sorrow. Had any loss or disas- 
 ter made but room for grief, it would have moved 
 according to the severe allowances of prudence, and
 
 128 
 
 the proportions of the provocation. It would not 
 have sallied out into complaint, or loudness, nor 
 spread itself upon the face, and writ sad stories 
 upon the forehead. No wringing of the hands, 
 knocking the breast, or wishing oneself unborn ; 
 all which are but the ceremonies of sorrow, the 
 pomp and ostentation of an effeminate grief; which 
 speak not so much the greatness of the misery as 
 the smallness of the mind. Tears may spoil the 
 eyes, but not wash away the affliction. Sighs may 
 exhaust the man, but not eject the burthen. Sor- 
 row then would have been- as silent as thought, as 
 severe as philosophy. It would have rested in in- 
 ward senses, tacit dislikes : and the whole scene of 
 it been transacted in sad and silent reflections." 
 
 NOTE N. Page 85. 
 
 This note, containing a few observations upon 
 the pleasures of sense, of benevolence, of malevo- 
 lence, and of taste, is published with the hope that 
 it may induce some future inquirers to consider,
 
 129 
 
 whether our happiness does not mainly depend 
 upon a due examination of our different sources of 
 delight. 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF SENSE. 
 
 Sed multi mortales, dediti ventri atque somno, indocti, 
 incultique, vitam sicuti peregrinantes transiere: Eorum 
 ego vitam mortemque juxta aestumo. 
 
 Happiness does not consist in the Pleasures of Sense. 
 
 Happiness does not consist in the pleasures of 
 sense, in whatever profusion or variety they may 
 be enjoyed: for 1st, These pleasures continue but 
 a little while at a time. 2dly, By repetition they 
 lose their relish. 3dly, The eagerness for high 
 and intense delights takes away the relish from all 
 others. 
 
 There is hardly any delusion by which men are 
 greater sufferers in their happiness, than by their 
 expecting too much from what is called pleasure; 
 that is, from those intense delights which vulgarly 
 engross the name of pleasure. 
 
 K
 
 130 
 
 These pleasures have, however, their value : and 
 as the young are always too eager in the pursuit of 
 them, the old are sometimes too remiss, that is, 
 too studious of their ease, to be at the pains for them 
 which they really deserve. 
 
 The supposition thai Happiness consists in the Pleasures 
 of Sense is from Ignorance. 
 
 Euphranor. But Socrates, who was no country 
 parson, suspected your men of pleasure were such 
 through ignorance. 
 
 Lysicles. Ignorance of what ? 
 
 Euph. Of the art of computing: it was his 
 opinion that rakes cannot reckon ; and that for 
 want of this skill they make wrong judgements 
 about pleasure, on the right choice of which their 
 happiness depends. 
 
 Lys. I do not understand you. 
 
 Evph. Do you grant that sense perceiveth only 
 
 sensible things ? 
 Lys. I do.
 
 131 
 
 JEuph. Sense perceiveth only things present ? 
 
 Lys. This too I grant. 
 
 JEuph. Future pleasures, therefore, and pleasures 
 of the understanding, are not to be judged of by 
 actual sense. 
 
 Lys. They are not. 
 
 JEuph. Those, therefore, who judge of pleasure 
 by sense, may find themselves mistaken at the foot 
 of the account. 
 
 Cum lapidosa chiragra 
 Contudit articulos veteris ramalia fagi, 
 Turn crassos transisse dies lucemque palustrem, 
 Et sibi jam seri vitam ingemuere relictam. 
 
 To make a right computation, should you not 
 consider all the faculties and all the kinds of plea- 
 sure, taking into your account the future as well 
 as the present, and rating them all according to 
 their true value ? 
 
 Onto. The Epicureans themselves allowed, that 
 pleasure, which procures a greater pain or hinders 
 a greater pleasure, should be regarded as a pain ; 
 and that pain, which procures a greater pleasure 
 
 K2
 
 132 
 
 or prevents a greater pain, is to be accounted a 
 pleasure. In order, therefore, to make a true esti- 
 mate of pleasure, the great spring of action, and 
 that from whence the conduct of life takes its bias, 
 we ought to compute intellectual pleasures and 
 future pleasures, as well as present and sensible : 
 we ought to make allowance in the valuation of 
 each particular pleasure, for all the pains and evils, 
 for all the disgust, remorse, and shame that attend 
 it: we ought to regard both kind and quantity, the 
 sincerity, the intenseness, and the duration of plea- 
 sures. 
 
 Euph. And all these points duly considered, will 
 not Socrates seem to have reason on his side, when 
 he thought ignorance made rakes, and particularly 
 thtfir being ignorant of what he calls the science 
 of more and less, greater and smaller, equality and 
 comparison, that is to say, the art of computing 3 ? 
 
 Aristotle says, that were it possible to put a young 
 man's eye into an old man's head, he would see as 
 
 Bishop Berkeley.
 
 133 
 
 plainly and clearly as the other ; so could we infuse 
 the inclinations and principles of a vertuous person 
 into him that prosecutes his debauches with the 
 greatest keenness of desire, and sense of delight, he 
 would loath and reject them as heartily as he now 
 pursues them. Diogenes being asked at a feast, 
 why he did not continue eating as the rest did, an- 
 swered him that asked him with another question : 
 Pray why do you eat? Why, says he, for my plea- 
 sure. Why so, says Diogenes, do I abstain for my 
 pleasure 1 . 
 
 I have sat upon the sea shore and waited for its 
 gradual approaches, and have seen its dancing 
 waves and its white surf, and admired that he who 
 measured it in his hand had given to it such life 
 and motion; and I have lingered till its gentle 
 waters grew into mighty billows, and had well 
 nigh swept me from my firmest footing. So 
 have I seen an heedless youth gazing with a too 
 curious spirit upon the sweet motions and gentle 
 
 South.
 
 134 
 
 approaches of an inviting pleasure, till it has de- 
 tained his eye and imprisoned his feet, and 
 swelled upon his soul, and swept him to a swift 
 destruction a . 
 
 There is no doubt, but a man, while he re- 
 signs himself up to the brutish guidance of sense 
 and appetite, has no relish at all for the spiritual, 
 refined delights of a soul clarified by grace and ver- 
 tue. The pleasures of an angel can never be the 
 pleasures of a hog. But this is the thing that we 
 contend for; that a man having once advanced him- 
 self to a state of superiority o ver the control of his 
 inferior appetites, finds an infinitely more solid and 
 sublime pleasure in the delights proper to his rea- 
 son, than the same person had ever conveyed to 
 him by the bare ministry of his senses. His taste 
 is absolutely changed, and therefore that which 
 pleased him formerly, becomes flat and insipid to 
 his appetite, now grown more masculine and se- 
 vere. For as age and maturity passes a real and a 
 
 A. M.
 
 135 
 
 marvellous change upon the dyet and recreations 
 of the same person, so that no man at the years 
 and vigour of thirty, is either fond of sugar-plums 
 or rattles : in like manner, when reason, by the as- 
 sistance of grace, has prevailed over, and outgrown 
 the encroachments of sense, the delights of sensua- 
 lity are to such an one but as an hobby-horse would 
 be to a councellour of state ; or as tasteless, as a bundle 
 of hay to an hungry lyon a . 
 
 The Pleasures of Sense, unless cautiously used, do not 
 contribute to Health. 
 
 For my part, says an elegant writer, when I be- 
 hold a fashionable table set out in all its magnifi- 
 cence, I fancy I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and 
 lethargies, with other innumerable distempers, ly- 
 ing in ambuscade among the dishes. 
 
 The story of Prometheus seems to have been in- 
 vented by physicians, in those ancient times when 
 
 a South.
 
 136 
 
 all things were clothed in hieroglyphic or in fable, 
 Prometheus was painted as stealing fire from hea- 
 ven, which might well represent the inflammable 
 spirit produced by fermentation; which may be 
 said to animate or enliven the man of clay: whence 
 the conquests of Bacchus, as well as the temporary 
 mirth and noise of his devotees, But the after- 
 punishment of those who steal this accursed fire, 
 is a vulture gnawing the liver; and well allegorizes 
 the poor inebriate, lingering for years under pain- 
 ful hepatic diseases* 
 
 CHORUS. . 
 
 Desire of wine and all delicious drinks, 
 Which many a famous warrior overturns, 
 Thou couldst repress : nor did the dancing ruby 
 Sparkling, out-poured, the flavour or the smell 
 Or taste, that cheers the heart of gods and men, 
 Allure thee from the cool crystalline stream. 
 
 SAMSON. 
 
 Wherever fountain or fresh current flowed 
 Against the eastern ray, translucent, pure, 
 With touch ethereal of heaven's fiery rod, 
 I drank, from the clear milky juice allaying
 
 137 
 
 Thirst, and refreshed : nor envied them the grape 
 Whose head that turbulent liquor fills with fumes. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 O madness, to think use of strongest wines 
 And strongest drinks our chief support of health, 
 When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear 
 His mighty champion, strong above compare, 
 Whose drink was only from the liquid brook". 
 
 The Pleasures of Sense, unless cautiously enjoyed, do not 
 contribute to personal Beauty. 
 
 The drunkard, for the honour of his banquet, hath 
 some ministers attending that he did not dream of, 
 and, in the midst of his loud laughter, " Pal/or et 
 gena pendula, oculorum ulcera, tremula manus" 
 as Pliny reckons them Paleness and hanging 
 cheeks, ulcers of the eyes, and trembling hands. 
 He says, " Wine maketh the hand quivering, the 
 eye watery, the night unquiet, lewd dreams, a 
 stinking breath in the morning." 
 
 * From Milton's Samson Agonistes.
 
 138 
 
 Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance, 
 
 Th' express resemblance of the Gods, is changed 
 
 Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear, 
 
 Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat, 
 
 All other parts remaining as they were; 
 
 And they, so perfect is their misery, 
 
 Not once perceive their foul disfigurement, 
 
 But boast themselves more comely than before. 
 
 The Pleasures of Sense, unless moderately enjoyed, do not 
 contribute to intellectual Excellence. 
 
 Multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit, 
 Abstinuit venere et vino. 
 
 Nothing is so great a friend to the mind of man 
 as abstinence; it strengthens the memory, clears 
 the apprehension, and sharpens the judgment; and 
 in a word, gives reason its full scope of acting : and 
 when reason has that, it is always a diligent and 
 faithful handmaid to conscience. And therefore, 
 where men look no further than mere nature, which 
 many do not, let no man expect to keep his glut-
 
 139 
 
 tony and his parts, his drunkenness and his wit, his 
 revellings and his judgment, and much less his 
 conscience, together. For neither grace nor nature 
 will have it so. It is an utter contradiction to the 
 methods of both. " Who hath woe ? who hath sor- 
 row? who hath contention? who hath babbling? 
 who hath wounds without cause ? who hath redness 
 of eyes ?" says Solomon ; which question he himself 
 presently answers " They who tarry long at the 
 wine; they who seek after mixed wine." So say I: 
 Who has a stupid intellect, a broken memory, and 
 a blasted wit, and which is worse than all, a blind 
 and benighted conscience, but the intemperate and 
 luxurious, the epicure and the smell-feast? So im- 
 possible it is for a man to turn sot, without making 
 himself a blockhead too. I know this is not always, 
 the present effect of these courses, but at long rim 
 it will infallibly be so, And time and luxury toge- 
 ther will as certainly change the inside as it does 
 the outside of the best heads whatsoever, and much 
 more of such heads as are strong for nothing but to
 
 140 
 
 bear drink : concerning which, it ever was, and is 
 and will be a sure observation, that such as are 
 ablest at the barrel are weakest at the book 3 . 
 
 Milton, speaking of his own morning occupa- 
 tions, says, " My morning haunts are where they 
 should be, at home; not sleeping, or concocting 
 the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up, and stir- 
 ring; in winter, often ere the sound of any bell 
 awake men to labour, or to devotion; in summer, 
 as oft with the bird that first rises, or not much 
 tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be 
 read, till the attention be weary, or memory have 
 its full freight: then with useful and generous la- 
 bours preserving the body's health and hardiness, 
 to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obe- 
 dience to the mind, to the cause of religion and 
 our country's liberty, when it shall require firm 
 hearts in sound bodies to stand and cover their sta- 
 tions, rather than to see the ruin of our protesta- 
 tion, and the enforcement of a slavish life." 
 
 * South.
 
 141 
 
 Abstinence in diet was one of Milton's favourite 
 virtues ; which he practised invariably through life, 
 and availed himself of every opportunity to recom- 
 mend in his writings. In his second beautiful 
 elegy to his friend Deodati, he admits of the use of 
 wine and good cheer to the lyric and the elegiac 
 poet ; but to the lofty and ambitious epic, who re- 
 quires the higher and more continued exertion of 
 the more comprehensive intellect, he will only allow 
 the diet of Pythagoras 8 . 
 
 8 See Symmons's Life of Milton, page 1 66, who says, " I will 
 give the whole passage to which I refer; and I persuade myself the 
 reader will not regard it as too long, in consequence not only of its 
 own beauty, but of that of the translation with which the kindness 
 of my friend, the Rev. Francis Wrangbam, has enabled me to ac- 
 company it : a translation which unites the rare qualities of fidelity 
 and elegance ; of concise yet ornamented diction."*
 
 142 
 
 The Pleasures of Sense, unless cautiously used, do not 
 contrilule to moral Excellence. 
 
 The following is an address, spoken by a native of 
 the American Settlements, to the English Com- 
 mittee. 
 
 "Brothers and friends! When our forefathers 
 first met on this island* your Red Brethren were 
 very numerous. But, since the introduction amongst 
 us of what you call spirituous liquors, our numbers 
 are greatly diminished. It has destroyed a great 
 part of your Red Brethren. 
 
 " My brothers and friends! We plainly perceive 
 that you see the very evil which destroys your Red 
 Brethren. It is not an evil of our own making. 
 We have not placed it amongst ourselves. It is an 
 evil placed amongst us by the white people We 
 look to them to remove it out of our country. We 
 tell them, Brethren, fetch us useful things; bring 
 
 a Meaning that Continent, but sometimes so miscalled by them.
 
 143 
 
 goods that will clothe us, our women, and our chil- 
 dren; and not this evil liquor that destroys our 
 reason, that destroys our health, that destroys our 
 lives. But all we can say on this subject is of no 
 service, nor gives relief to your Red Brethren ." 
 
 An English Ambassador lately sent to a Ma- 
 hometan Prince, was conducted, upon his arrival 
 at the palace, through several richly decorated and 
 spacious apartments crowded with officers arrayed 
 in superb dresses, to a room small in dimensions, 
 but ornamented with the most splendid and costly 
 furniture. The attendants withdrew. After a short 
 interval, two persons of superior mien entered the 
 saloon, followed by state bearers carrying under 
 lofty canopy a litter covered with delicate silks and 
 the richest Cashmire shawls, upon which lay a 
 human form to all appearance dead, except that 
 its" head was dangling loosely from side to side, 
 as the bearers moved into the room. Two of- 
 ficers holding rich filagree salvers carried each & 
 chalice, and a vial containing a black fluid. The-
 
 144 
 
 Ambassador, considering the spectacle to be con- 
 nected with some court ceremony of mourning, 
 endeavoured to retire: but he was soon undeceived 
 by seeing the officers hold up the head of the ap- 
 parent corpse, and after gently chafing the throat, 
 and returning the tongue, which hung from a mouth 
 relaxed and gaping, they poured some of the black 
 liquid into the throat, and closed the jaws until 
 it sank down the passage. After six or seven 
 times repeating this ceremony, the figure opened its 
 eyes, and closed its mouth voluntarily; it then 
 swallowed a large portion of the black fluid, and, 
 within the hour, an animated being sat on the 
 couch, with blood returning into his lips, and a 
 feeble power of articulation. In the Persian lan- 
 guage he addressed his visitor, and inquired the 
 particulars of his mission. Within two hours this 
 extraordinary person became alert, and his mind 
 capable of arduous business. The Ambassador, after 
 apologizing for the liberty, ventured to inquire into 
 the cause of the scene which he had just witnessed.
 
 145 
 
 Cc Sir," said he, " I am an inveterate opium-taker, 
 I have by slow degrees fallen into this melancholy 
 excess. Out of the diurnal twenty-four periods of 
 time, I continually pass eighteen in this reverie. 
 Unable to move, or to speak, I am yet conscious, 
 and the time passes away amid the phantoms of this 
 pleasing imagination ; nor should I ever awake from 
 the wanderings of this state, had I not the most 
 faithful and attached servants, whose regard and 
 religious duty impel them to watch my pulse. As 
 soon as my heart begins to falter, and my breathing 
 is imperceptible except on a mirror, they imme- 
 diately pour the solution of opium into my throat, 
 and restore me as you have seen. Within four 
 hours I shall have swallowed many ounces, and 
 much time will not pass away, ere I relapse into 
 my ordinary torpor." 
 
 I have seen a print after Corregio, in which 
 three female figures are ministering to a man who 
 sits fast bound at the root of a tree. Sensuality is 
 soothing him, Evil Habit is nailing him to a branch,
 
 146 
 
 and Repugnance at the same instant of time is ap- 
 plying a snake to his side. In his face is feeble de- 
 light, the recollection of past rather than percep- 
 tion of present pleasures, languid enjoyment of evil 
 with utter imbecility to good, a Sybaritic effeminacy, 
 a submission to bondage, the springs of the will 
 gone down like a broken clock, the sin and the suf- 
 fering co-instantaneous, or the latter forerunning 
 the former, remorse preceding action all this re- 
 presented in one point of time. When I saw this, 
 I admired the wonderful skill of the painter. But 
 when I went away, I wept, because I thought of 
 my own condition. 
 
 PLEASURES OF BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 And the Lord saw all the work that he had made, and 
 behold it was very good. 
 
 An old man of the name of Guyot lived and died 
 in the town of Marseilles he amassed a large for-
 
 147 
 
 tune by the most laborious industry, and the se- 
 verest habits of abstinence and privation. The po- 
 pulace pursued him, whenever he appeared, with 
 hootings and execrations. In his will there were 
 found the following words : " Having observed from 
 my infancy that the poor of Marseilles are ill sup- 
 plied with water, which can only be purchased at a 
 great price, I have cheerfully laboured the whole of 
 my life to procure for them this great blessing, and 
 I direct that the whole of my property shall be laid 
 out in building an aqueduct for their use." 
 
 Howard says : " A person of more ability, with 
 my knowledge of facts, would have written better : 
 but the object of my ambition was not the fame 
 of an author. Hearing the cry of the miserable, 
 I devoted my time to their relief. In order to pro- 
 cure it, I made it my business to collect mate- 
 rials, the authenticity of which could not be dis- 
 puted. For the warmth of some expressions 
 where my subject obliges me to complain, and 
 for my eagerness to remove the several grievances, 
 
 L'2
 
 my apology must be drawn from the deep di- 
 stress of the sufferers, and the impression the view 
 of it made upon me an impression too deep to 
 
 be effaced by any length of time ! What I 
 
 have proposed throughout my work is liable, I 
 am sensible, to some objections ; and these will, 
 doubtless, be heightened by the cavils of those 
 whose interest it is to prevent the reformation 
 of abuses on which their ease or emolument may 
 depend. Yet I hope not to be entirely deserted 
 in the conflict : and if this publication should be 
 the means of exciting the attention of my coun- 
 trymen to this important national concern of al- 
 leviating the distress of poor debtors and other pri- 
 soners of procuring for them cleanly and whole- 
 some abodes and exterminating the gaol-fever, 
 which has so often spread abroad its dreadful con- 
 tagion of abolishing, or at least reducing, the 
 oppressive fees of clerks of assize, and of the peace 
 of preventing the sale of liquors in prisons of 
 checking the impositions of gaolers, and the extor-
 
 149 
 
 tions of bailiffs of introducing a habit of industry 
 into our bridewells ; and restraining the shocking 
 debauchery and immorality which prevail in our 
 gaols and other prisons if any of these beneficial 
 consequences shall accrue, the writer will be happy 
 in the pleasing reflection that he has not lived with- 
 out doing some good to his fellow-creatures ; and 
 will think himself abundantly repaid for all the 
 pains he has taken, the time he has spent, and the 
 hazards he has encountered." 
 
 The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply 
 in the nature of man ; insomuch, that if it issue 
 not towards men, it will take unto other living 
 creatures ; as it is seen in the Turks, a cruel 
 people, who, nevertheless, are kind to beasts, 
 
 and give alms to dogs and birds. The parts 
 
 and signs of goodness are many. If a man be 
 gracious and courteous to strangers, it shews he 
 js a citizen of the world, and that his heart is 
 no island cut off from other lands, but a conti- 
 pent that joins to them ; if he be compassionate
 
 150 
 
 towards the afflictions of others, it shews that 
 his heart is like the noble tree that is wounded 
 itself when it gives the balm ; if he easily par- 
 dons and remits offences, it shews that his mind 
 is planted above injuries, so that he cannot be shot ; 
 if he be thankful for small benefits it shews that 
 he weighs men's minds, and not their trash ; but, 
 above all, if he have St. Paul's perfection, that he 
 would wish to be an anathema from Christ, for the 
 salvation of his brethren, it shews much of a divine 
 nature, and a kind of conformity with Christ him- 
 self. This, of all virtues and dignities of the 
 
 mind, is the greatest, being the character of the 
 Deity; and without it man is a busy, mischiev- 
 ous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of ver- 
 min 8 . 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF MALEVOLENCE. 
 
 At the battle of Sedgmoor, a young maid inter- 
 ceded with Colonel Kirk for the life of her brother. 
 
 * Bacon.
 
 151 
 
 Captivated by her beauty and innocence, he pro- 
 mised to grant her request, if she, in her turn, 
 would be compliant to him. The maid yielded. 
 After she had passed the night with him, he shewed 
 her, from the window, her brother, for whom she 
 had sacrificed her virtue, hanging on a gibbet. 
 
 Neither is there only a habit of goodness directed 
 by right reason ; but there is in some men, even in 
 nature, a disposition towards it; as on the other 
 side, there is a natural malignity ; for there be that 
 in their nature do not affect the good of others. 
 The lighter sort of malignity turneth but to a 
 crossness or frowardness, or aptness to oppose, or 
 difficileness, or the like ; but the deeper sort to envy 
 and mere mischief. Such men, in other men's ca- 
 lamities, are, as it were, in season, and are ever on 
 the loading part : not so good as the dogs that 
 licked Lazarus' sores, but like flies that are still 
 buzzing upon any thing that is raw ; misanthropi, 
 that make it their practice to bring men to the 
 bough, and yet have never a tree for the purpose in
 
 152 
 
 their gardens, as Timon had : such dispositions are 
 the very errors of human nature a . 
 
 THE PLEASURES OF TASTE. 
 
 1 . If a sensible rustic should be invited to see 
 the fine picture of the Death of Seneca, he will per- 
 ceive an aged man bleeding to death in the midst 
 of persons apparently listening to him, or writing 
 down his discourse : he will see the representations 
 of furniture, and of the human form in age and in 
 youth : and, as we are formed to experience plea- 
 sure from resemblance, (which appears evident 
 from considering that we are pleased with pictures 
 of the most ordinary and even painful objects, such 
 as kitchen utensils, dead bodies, &c.) he will re- 
 ceive pleasure from the imitation. It seems, 
 
 therefore, that even uneducated persons are, to 
 a certain extent, capable of enjoying the pleasures 
 of taste. Their pleasures are, however, limited by
 
 153 
 
 their knowledge. When the Turk saw a decollated 
 head of John the Baptist, he observed that the skin 
 did not shrink from the wounded part of the neck. 
 When the barber was asked what he thought of 
 the king, " Oh," said he, " how excellently well he 
 is trimmed !" 
 
 2. Whilst the simple rustic is viewing the picture, 
 let a man of education and cultivated taste enter. 
 He sees the imitation in common with the country- 
 man, but he sees beyond it : he sees a philosopher, 
 venerable for knowledge as well as for age, sur- 
 rounded by his affectionate pupils. He has lived 
 only for virtue, and dies to prove that it is no empty 
 name : he sees that cruelty contends in vain with 
 courage : that no tyrant can oppress the soul. He 
 remembers the very words of Seneca : " I have ap- 
 plied myself to liberal studies, though both the 
 poverty of my condition, and my own reason 
 might rather have put me upon the making of my 
 fortune. I have given proof, that all minds are 
 capable of goodness ; and I have illustrated the
 
 obscurity of my family, by the eminency of my 
 virtue. I have preserved my faith in all extremities, 
 and I have ventur'd my life for it. I have never 
 spoken one word contrary to my conscience, and I 
 have been more sollicitous for my friend, than for 
 myself: I never made any base submissions to any 
 man ; and I have never done any thing unworthy 
 of a resolute, and of an honest man. My mind is 
 raised so much above all dangers, that I have 
 master'd all hazards ; and I bless myself in the pro- 
 vidence which gave me that experiment of my 
 virtue : For it was not fit, methought, that so great 
 a glory should come cheap. Nay, I did not so 
 much as deliberate, whether good faith should suf- 
 fer for me, or I for it. I stood my ground, with- 
 out laying violent hands upon myself, to scape the 
 rage of the powerful : tho' under Caligula I saw 
 cruelties, to such a degree, that to be kill'd out- 
 right, was accounted a mercy, and yet I persisted 
 in my honesty, to shew, that I was ready to do more 
 than die for it. My mind was never corrupted with
 
 155 
 
 gifts : and when the humour of avarice was at the 
 height, I never laid my hand upon any unlawful 
 gain. I have been temperate in my diet ; modest 
 in my discourse ; courteous and affable to my in- 
 feriors ; and have ever paid a respect and reverence 
 to my betters." 
 
 It seems then, that the same picture contains 
 more resemblances and exciting causes, and is there- 
 fore productive of more pleasure to intelligence 
 than to ignorance a . 
 
 3. In Raphael's celebrated picture of " la Ma- 
 donna del Pesce, our Lady of the Fish," the Virgin 
 is supposed to be sitting with the child Jesus in her 
 lap, attentively listening to Saint Jerom, who is 
 reading the prophecies of the Old Testament re- 
 
 a Watts in his Logic says : " Ideas are either vulgar or learned. A 
 vulgar idea represents to us the most obvious and sensible appear- 
 ances that are contained in the object of them; but a learned idea 
 penetrates farther into the nature, properties, reasons, causes, and 
 ejects of things. 
 
 " It is a vulgar idea that we have of a rainbow, when we conceive 
 a large arch in the clouds, made up of various colours parallel to each 
 other ; but it is a learned idea which a philosopher has when he con-
 
 156 
 
 lative to the birth, preaching, and miracles of the 
 Messiah. St. Jerom is interrupted in his lecture 
 by the entrance of the archangel, who introduces 
 the young Tobit, whom, he presents to the Virgin, 
 and in an attitude which only Raphael could have 
 drawn, implores her favour and intercession with God, 
 that the elder Tobit might be restored to his sight. 
 She, as the mother of piety and clemency, is list- 
 ening to the archangel with great attention, direct- 
 ing her compassionate looks to the young Tohit, 
 who, full of reverential awe-, raises his eyes to the 
 child, or rather towards it, because Tobit appears 
 to be too much embarrassed and confused to fix 
 them on any determinate object. The child, anxious, 
 to get at the fish, which hangs to a string in the 
 
 siders it as the various reflections and refractions of sun-beams in 
 drops of falling rain. 
 
 " It is with a vulgar idea that the world beholds the cartoons of 
 Raphael at Hampton-court, and every one feels his share of pleasure 
 and entertainment ; but a painter contemplates the wonders of that 
 Italian pencil, and sees a thousand beauties.in them which the vulgar 
 eye neglected : his learned ideas give him a transcendent delight, 
 and yet, at the same time, discovev the blemishes which the common, 
 gazer never observed."
 
 157 
 
 right hand of Tobit, bends gently towards it, look- 
 ing, in the mean time, at the archangel, as if de- 
 siring his assistance to obtain it ; meanwhile St. 
 Jerom, who since the entrance of the angel had been 
 reading to himself) and had finished the leaf, is 
 ready to turn over another, and appears only to 
 wait till the child lifts its little arm from the book, 
 whereon it had carefully rested it. 
 
 How different will be the feelings of a delicate 
 and pure mind when viewing this picture, from the 
 feelings of vice and grossness ! How different will 
 be the feelings of an affectionate mother, from those 
 of an unfortunate young creature, one of the sad 
 victims of seduction, living amidst nights of pol- 
 lution and days of blasphemy, to whom the recol- 
 lection of home is wretchedness, and the thought of 
 a mother's love is agony not to be endured ! 
 
 How different, again, will be the feelings of a 
 delicate and pure mind when viewing a picture of 
 the Lady Godiva riding through the streets of Co- 
 ventry, from those of grossness and vulgarity!
 
 158 
 
 The story of Godiva is not a fiction, as many 
 suppose it. At least it is to be found in Mat- 
 thew of Westminster, and is not of a nature to 
 have been a mere invention. Her name, and that 
 of her husband, Leofric, are mentioned in an old 
 
 charter recorded by another early historian. 
 
 Whether it was owing to Leofric or not does not 
 appear; but Coventry was subject to a very op- 
 pressive tollage, by which the feudal lord enjoyed 
 the greater part of the profit of all marketable com- 
 modities. The countess entreated her lord to give 
 up his feudal right, but in vain. At last, wishing 
 to put an end to her importunities, he told her, 
 either in a spirit of bitter jesting, or with a playful 
 raillery that could not be bitter with so sweet an 
 earnestness, that he would give up the tax, provided 
 she rode through the city of Coventry, naked. She 
 took him at his word ; and said she would. One 
 may imagine the astonishment of a fierce unlet- 
 tered chieftain, not untinged with chivalry, at hear- 
 ing a woman, and that too of the greatest delicacy
 
 159 
 
 and rank, maintaining seriously her intention of 
 acting in a manner contrary to all that was sup- 
 posed fitting for her sex, and at the same time forc- 
 ing upon him a sense of the very beauty of her con- 
 duct by its principled excess. It is probable, that 
 as he could not prevail upon her to give up her 
 design, he had sworn some religious oath when he 
 made his promise : but be this as it may, he took 
 every possible precaution to secure her modesty 
 from hurt. The people of Coventry were ordered 
 to keep within doors, to close up all their windows 
 and outlets, and not to give a glance into the streets, 
 upon pain of death. The day came ; and Coventry, 
 it may be imagined, was silent as death. The lady 
 went out at the palace door, was set on horseback, 
 and at the same time divested of her wrapping gar- 
 ment, as if she had been going into a bath ; then 
 taking the fillet from her head, she let down her 
 long and lovely tresses, which poured around her 
 body like a veil ; and so, with only her white legs
 
 160 
 
 remaining conspicuous, took her gentle way through 
 the streets*. 
 
 What scene can be more touching to the ima- 
 gination! beauty, modesty, feminine softness, a 
 daring sympathy ; an extravagance, producing by 
 the nobleness of its object and the strange gentle- 
 ness of its means, the grave and profound effect of 
 the most reverend custom. We may suppose the 
 scene taking place in the warm noon ; the doors all 
 shut, the windows closed ; the earl and his court 
 
 serious and wondering; the other inhabitants, 
 
 f 
 many of them gushing with grateful tears, and all 
 
 reverently listening to hear the footsteps of the 
 horse ; and lastly, the lady herself, with a down- 
 cast but not a shamefaced eye, looking towards 
 
 a " Nuda," says Matthew of Westminster, " equum ascendens, 
 crines capitis et tricas dissolvens, corpus suum totum, praeter crura 
 candidissima, inde velavit." See Selden's Notes to the Polyolbion of 
 Drayton. Song 13. It is Selden from whom we learn, that Leofric 
 was Earl of Leicester, and the other particulars of him mentioned 
 above. The Earl was buried at Coventry, his Countess most pro- 
 bably in the same tomb.
 
 161 
 
 the earth through her flowing locks, and riding 
 through the dumb and deserted streets, like an 
 angelic spirit. It was an honourable supersti- 
 tion in that part of the country, that a man who 
 ventured to look at the fair saviour of his native 
 town, was struck blind. But the vulgar use to 
 which this superstition has been turned by some 
 writers of late times, is not so honourable. The 
 whole story is as unvulgar and as sweetly serious, 
 as can be conceived 3 . 
 
 It seems, therefore, that the pleasures from 
 painting increase with the delicacy and purity of 
 our minds b . 
 
 3 From an interesting publication entitled The Indicator. 
 
 b There is a letter in " The World" upon the subject of taste, which 
 contains the following observations. " I will venture to assert that 
 the first thing necessary for those who wish to acquire a true taste, 
 is to prepare their minds by an early pursuit and love of moral order, 
 propriety, and all the rational beauties of a just and well regulated 
 conduct. " Were we to erect a temple to taste, every Science should 
 furnish a pillar, every Virtue should there have an altar, and the 
 three Graces should hold the high-priesthood in commission. 
 
 " Philalethes is a man of taste, according to the notion I have here 
 givenof that quality. His conduct is influenced by sentiment as well as 
 by principle ; and if he were ever so secure" of secrecy and impunity, he 
 
 M
 
 162 
 
 4. Whilst the rustic and the man of education 
 are examining the Death of Seneca, or the Madonna 
 del Pesce, let an artist enter the room. He, from 
 
 would no more be capable of committing a low or base action, than of 
 admitting a vile performance into his noble collection of painting and 
 sculpture. His just taste of the fine arts, and his exquisite delicacy 
 in moral conduct;-are but one and the same sense, exerting itself upon 
 different objects j a love of beauty, order, and propriety, extended to 
 all their various intellectual and visible exhibitions. Accordingly, 
 Philalethes is consistent in every part of his character. You see the 
 same elegant and noble simplicity, the same correct and judicious 
 way of thinking, expressed in his dress, his equipage, his furniture, 
 his gardens, and his actions. 
 
 " How different is Micio from Philalethes ! yet Micio would be 
 thought a ruan of taste ; but the misfortune is, he has not a heart for 
 it. I say a heart, however odd the expression may sound ; for as a 
 celebrated ancient has denned an orator to be vir bonus dicendi peritus, 
 so I must insist upon it, that a good heart is an essential ingredient 
 to form a good taste. When I see Micio, therefore, dissipating his 
 health and strength in lewd embraces and midnight revels; when I 
 see him throwing away over-night at the gaming-table, what he must 
 refuse the next morning to the just demands of his injured trades- 
 men ; I am not the least surprised ut his trimmed trees, his unnatural 
 terraces, his Chinese bells, and his tawdry equipage." 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO'S MOSES. The office and duty of the poet is to 
 select the most dignified as well as 
 
 " The happiest, gayest attitude of things." 
 
 The reverse, for in all cases the reverse is possible, is the appro- 
 priate business of burlesque and travesty, a predominant taste for 
 which has been always deemed a mark of a low and degraded mind.
 
 163 
 
 his peculiar knowledge of the subject, from the per- 
 ception of excellence where there is difficulty of exe- 
 cution ; from the beauty of the design ; the harmony 
 
 When I was at Rome, among many other visits to the tomb of Julius 
 the Second, I went thither once with a Prussian artist, a man of 
 genius and great vivacity of feeling. As we were gazing on Michael 
 Angelo's Moses, our conversation turned on the horns and beard of 
 that stupendous statue, of the necessity of each to support the 
 other, of the super-human effect of the former, and the necessity of 
 the existence of both, to give a harmony and integrity both to the 
 image and the feeling excited by it. Conceive them removed, and 
 the statue would become wn-natural without being //>er-natural. We 
 called to mind the horns of the rising sun, and I repeated the noble pas- 
 sage from 'Taylor's Holy Dying.' That horns were the emblem of power 
 among the Eastern nations, and are still retained as such in Abyssinia; 
 the Achelous of the ancient Greeks, and the probable ideas and 
 feelings that originally suggested the mixture of the human and the 
 brute form in the figure, by which they realised the idea of their my- 
 sterious Pan, as representing intelligence blended with a darker power, 
 deeper, mightier, and more universal than the conscious intellect of 
 man than intelligence; all these thoughts and recollections passed 
 in procession before our minds. My companion, who possessed more 
 than his share of the hatred which his countrymen bore to the French, 
 had just observed to me, ' A Frenchman, Sir, is the only animal in 
 the human shape, that by no possibility can lift itself up to religion 
 or poetry:' when, lo! two French officers of distinction entered the 
 church. ' Mark you,' whispered the Prussian ; ' the first thing 
 which those scoundrels will notice (for they will begin by instantly 
 noticing the statue in parts, without one moment's pause of admira- 
 tion impressed by the whole) will be the horns and the beard ; and 
 
 M 2
 
 164 
 
 of the colouring; the facility of the handling; and 
 from the many other causes, which to the writer of 
 this note are almost wholly unknown, will contem- 
 plate these great works' with a different source of 
 pleasure. 
 
 In the Madonna del Pesce, the Child appears 
 as if desirous to stand up, Tobit kneels on one 
 knee, the Angel is standing, the Virgin sitting, 
 and St. Jerom kneels on both knees. The Child's 
 face is three-quarters, that of Tobit an exact pro- 
 file, that of the Angel foreshortened, that of the 
 Virgin nearly full, and that of St. Jerom some- 
 what more than a profile. The Child's hair is 
 of a clear chesnut colour, Tobit's inclining to red, 
 the Angel's brown, the Virgin's rather darker, and 
 St. Jerom's grey, and the crown of his head bald. 
 
 The Angel is an exact balance. As St. Jerom 
 
 the associations which they will immediately connect with them, will 
 be those of a he-goat and a cuckold.' Never did man guess more 
 uckily. Had he inherited a portion of the great legislator's prophe- 
 tic powers, whose statue we had been contemplating, he could 
 scarcely have uttered words more coincident with the result ; for 
 veu as he had said, so it came to pass. Coleridge's Life.
 
 165 
 
 is not a sufficient counterpoise for the Angel and 
 Tobit, the Child is placed on the left arm of the 
 Virgin's chair with only one of its feet bearing on 
 her lap : and its danger of falling, from the eager- 
 ness with which it springs to seize Tobit's fish, is 
 prevented by the Virgin, without interrupting the 
 Angel, or taking her eyes off Tobit, inclining her- 
 self gently forward, and, with a slight and graceful 
 turn of her neck, placing her hand against the 
 breast of the Child. The Angel, conscious of his 
 own dignity, appears to ask with the confidence 
 that his petition is granted the moment he makes 
 it ; whilst Tobit, sensible of his own unworthiness, 
 trembles, even though an Angel pleads for him. 
 
 The intercession of Raphael with the Virgin, - 
 the anxiety of the Child for the fish,- the silent at- 
 tention with which St. Jerom waits till it should 
 take its arm from the book, in order to turn over 
 the leaf, and the. manner of uniting St. Jerom 
 with the other figures, by making the Child's arm 
 rest on his book, are some of the many pleasures
 
 166 
 
 which, with the consciousness of difficulties over- 
 come, the artist almost peculiarly enjoys. 
 
 It seems then, that the pleasures from painting 
 depend partly upon the consciousness of excellence, 
 where there is difficulty of execution. 
 
 5. A beautiful sermon of Dr. South's, upon Adam 
 in Paradise, contains the following description of true 
 joy. " In the next place for the lightsome passion of 
 joy. It was not that which now often usurps this 
 name: that trivial, vanishing, superficial thing, 
 that only gilds the apprehension, and plays upon 
 the surface of the soul. It was not the mere 
 crackling of thorns, a sudden blaze of the spirits, 
 the exultation of a tickled fancy, or a pleased appe- 
 tite. Joy was then a masculine and a severe thing: 
 the recreation of the judgement, the jubilee of rea- 
 son. It was the result of a real good suitably ap- 
 plied. It commenced upon the solidities of truth, 
 and the substance of fruition. It did not run out in 
 voice, or undecent eruptions, but filled the soul, as 
 God does the universe, silently and without noise.'*
 
 167 
 
 To this pure source of pleasure, the pleasures of 
 taste belong. The emotions which they excite are 
 soft and tender. They divert the mind from the 
 hurry of business ; they cherish reflection and dis- 
 pose to tranquillity. 
 
 6. Some of our pleasures are liable to casualties; 
 as health, money, glory, &c. There are also plea- 
 sures placed almost beyond the reach of accident, 
 as cheerfulness, content, virtue, piety, delicacy, pu- 
 rity of mind, and the pleasures of knowledge. 
 
 One day, Lord Bacon was dictating to Dr. Rawley 
 some of the experiments in his Sylva. The same 
 day, he had sent a friend to court, to receive for 
 him a final answer, touching the effect of a grant 
 which had been made him by King James. He 
 had hitherto only hope of it, and hope deferred ; 
 and he was desirous to know the event of the mat- 
 ter, and to be freed, one way or other, from the sus- 
 pense of his thoughts. His friend returning, told 
 him plainly, that he must thenceforth despair of 
 that grant, how much soever his fortunes needed it.
 
 108 
 
 He it so, said his Lordship ; and then he dismissed 
 his friend very chearfully, with thankful acknow- 
 ledgments of his service. His friend being gone, 
 he came straightway to Dr. Rawley, and said thus 
 to him, Well, Sir, Yo?i business worit go on, let 
 us go on with this, for this is in our power. And 
 then he dictated to him afresh, for some hours, 
 without the least hesitancie of speech, or discernible 
 interruption of thought. Of such are the pleasures 
 of taste. 
 
 7. As the pleasures of taste increase with our 
 knowledge and the purity of our minds, so they 
 have a tendency to improve the delicacy upon which 
 they depend. 
 
 Ingenuas didiclsse Jideliler artes 
 Emollit mores, nee sinit esseferos. 
 
 8. As the pleasures of taste are common to all 
 men, as they increase with our knowledge and the 
 purity of our minds, as they tend to generate the 
 purity upon which they depend, as they are tran- 
 quil, and as they are in our own power, it seems
 
 169 
 
 that they can seldom, if ever, be too sedulously 
 cultivated. 
 
 NOTE X. Page 103. 
 
 Paley, in the preface to his " Moral Philosophy," 
 says, There is, however, one work, to which I owe 
 so much, that it would be ungrateful not to confess 
 the obligation: I mean the writings of the late 
 Abraham Tucker, Esquire, part of which I published 
 by themselves, and the remainder since his death, 
 under the title of " The Light of Nature pursued, 
 by Edward Search, Esq." I have found in this 
 writer more original thinking and observation upon 
 the several subjects that he has taken in hand, than 
 in any other, not to say than in all others put toge- 
 ther. His talent also for illustration is unrivalled. 
 But his thoughts are confused through a long, 
 various, and irregular work. I shall account it no 
 mean praise if I have been sometimes able to dis-
 
 170 
 
 pose into method, to collect into heads and articles, 
 or to exhibit in more compact and tangible masses 
 what, in that otherwise excellent performance, is 
 spread over so much surface. 
 
 Dr. Parr, in a note to his Spital Sermon, says, 
 " From dazzling coruscations of paradox, which 
 will only lead him into errour, into singularity, or 
 into artificial sensibility, let me turn his attention 
 to that pure and steady light which has been thrown 
 upon moral truth in the pages of Abraham Tucker, 
 Dr. Hartley, Paley, Locke, Reid, Dugald Stewart, 
 Hutcheson, Archbishop King, Bishop Cumberland 
 Hooker, Taylor, Cudworth, Barrow, and Butler. 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh, in his discourse on the 
 Study of the law of nature and of nations, says, 
 when speaking of " The Light of Nature pursued," 
 " 1 cannot express my opinion on this subject so 
 well as in the words of a most valuable, though 
 generally neglected writer."* 
 
 * There is an excellent abridgment of this work sold by Johnson, 
 St. Paul's Church-yard.
 
 171 
 NOTE Z. Page 114. 
 
 Many Grecian philosophers were convened be- 
 fore the ambassador of a foreign prince, and every 
 one, according to their several abilities, made some 
 demonstration of his wisdom, that so the ambassa- 
 dor might have matter of report touching the ad- 
 mired wisdom of the Grecians: but amongst 
 these there was one r as the story goes, who stood 
 still and uttered nothing in the assembly, insomuch 
 that the ambassador turned to him and said, And 
 what is your gift, that I may report it ? To whom 
 the philosopher answered, Report unto your king, 
 that you found one among the Grecians who knew 
 how to hold his peace. 
 
 Interdum magis afficmnt non dicta quam dicta.
 
 172 
 
 NOTE 2 A. Page xii. 
 
 This Tract consists chiefly of the notes to the 
 second part of a work upon which the author 
 has, for many years, been engaged, and which he 
 has thus divided. 
 
 As the commander of an army, before he com- 
 mences an attack, considers the strength and num- 
 ber of his troops, both regular and allies : the 
 spirit by which they are animated, whether they 
 are the lion or the sheep in the lion's skin : the 
 power of the enemy to which he is opposed ; their 
 walled towns, their stored arsenals and armories, 
 their horses and chariots of war, elephants, ord- 
 nance and artillery, and their races of men : and 
 then in what mode he shall commence his attack 
 and proceed in the battle : so before man directs 
 his strength against nature, and endeavours to take 
 her high towers and dismantle her fortified holds, 
 and thus enlarge the borders of his dominion, as
 
 173 
 
 far as Almighty God of his goodness shall permit : 
 it behoves him well to estimate 
 
 1st. His powers natural and artificial for the 
 
 discovery of truth. 
 2d. His different motives for the exercise of his 
 
 powers. 
 3rd. The obstacles to which he is opposed in the 
 
 discovery of truth. 
 4th. The mode in which he can exert his powers 
 
 with most efficacy. 
 
 Printed by K. and A. TayUrr, Skat-lane, London.

 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 APR 
 <W& 
 
 JUL -i J985 
 
 Form L9-Series 4939
 
 3 1158 01126 5997 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 001 402 965 6