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A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. Areopagitica.

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for not without dust and heat.

Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid-day beam.

Who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?

Ibid.

By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth and idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at far distance, true colours and shapes. History of England. Book i. ad fin.

Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.

Tetrarchordon.

For such kind of borrowing as this, if it be not bettered by the borrower, among good authors is accounted Plagiarè.

Iconoclastes, xxiv. ad fin.

THOMAS FULLER. 1608-1661.

THE HOLY AND THE PROFANE STATE. Ed. Nichols, 1841.

Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body.1

The Life of Monica. But our captain counts the image of God, nevertheless his image, cut in ebony as if done in ivory. The Good Sea-Captain.

Their heads sometimes so little, that there is no room for wit; sometimes so long, that there is no wit for so much room. Of Natural Fools.

The Pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names of their founders. Of Tombs. Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost. Of Books.

They that marry ancient people, merely in expectation to bury them, hang themselves, in hope that one will come and cut the halter.

Of Marriage.

To smell to a turf of fresh earth is wholesome for the body; no less are thoughts of mortality cordial to the soul. The Court Lady.

1 Compare Waller, p. 179.

A little skill in antiquity inclines a man to Popery; but depth in that study brings him about again to our religion.

The true Church Antiquary.

Often the cockloft is empty, in those whom Nature hath built many stories high.1

Andronicus, ad fin. 1.

He was one of a lean body and visage, as if his eager soul, biting for anger at the clog of his body, desired to fret a passage through it. Life of Duke d'Alva.

HENRY VAUGHAN. 1621-1695.

I see them walking in an air of glory
Whose light doth trample on my days;
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.

They are all gone.
Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just!
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!

Ibid.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,

So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted

themes,

And into glory peep.

1 Compare Bacon, Apothegm, No. 17.

Ibid.

FRANCIS DUC DE ROCHEFOUCAULD.

1613-1680.

ED. LONDON, 1871.

Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils, but present evils triumph over it.1 Maxim 22.

Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue.

Maxim 227.

The pleasure of love is in loving. We are happier in the passion we feel than in that we inspire.2 Maxim 259.

We always like those who admire us, we do not always like those whom we admire.

Maxim 294. The gratitude of most men is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.

Maxim 298.

In their first passion women love their lovers, in all the others they love love.* Maxim 471. In the adversity of our best friends we always find something which is not wholly displeasing to us." Reflections xv.

1 This same philosophy is a good horse in the stable, but an arrant jade on a journey. - Goldsmith, The GoodNatured Man, Act i.

2 Compare Shelley, p. 539.

3 The gratitude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favours. - Sir Robert Walpole.

4 In her first passion, woman loves her lover:

In all the others, all she loves is love.

Byron, Don Juan, c. iii. St. 3.

5 I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others. Burke, The Sublime and Beautiful, Part 1,

Sec. 14.

SAMUEL BUTLER. 1600-1680.

HUDIBRAS.

And pulpit, drum ecclesiastick,

Was beat with fist instead of a stick.

Parti. Canto i. Line 11.

We grant, altho' he had much wit,

Parti. Canto i. Line 45.

He was very shy of using it.

Beside, 't is known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs squeak;

That Latin was no more difficile

Than to a blackbird 't is to whistle.

Parti. Canto i. Line 51.

He could distinguish, and divide

A hair, 'twixt south and south-west side.

Parti. Canto i. Line 67.

For rhetoric, he could not ope

His mouth, but out there flew a trope.

For all a rhetorician's rules

Parti. Canto i. Line 81.

Teach nothing but to name his tools.

Parti. Canto i. Line 89.

For he, by geometric scale,

Could take the size of pots of ale.

Parti. Canto i. Line 121.

And wisely tell what hour o' th' day
The clock does strike, by Algebra.

Parti. Canto i. Line 125.

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