Insere nunc, Melibae, pyros; pone ordine For when to future years thou' extend'st thy vites!

son, whom you and I love very much, and would believe as soon as another man) cum dignitate otium. This were excellent advice to Joshua, who could bid the Sun stay too. But there is no fooling with life, when it is once turned beyond forty. The seeking for a fortune then, is but a desperate after-game: it is a hundred to one, if a man fling two sixes and recover all; especially, if his hand be no luckier than mine.

There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for, if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter. Epicurus writes a letter to Idomeneus (who was then a very powerful, wealthy, and, it seems, bountiful person) to recommend to him, who had made so many men rich, one Pythocles, a friend of his, whom he desired might be made a rich man too; "but I entreat you that you would not do it just the same way as you have done to many less deserving persons, but in the most gentlemanly manner of obliging him, which is not to add any thing to his estate, but to take something from his desires."

Cæsar (the man of expedition above all others)
was so far from this folly, that whensoever, in a
journey, he was to cross any river, he never went
one foot out of his way for a bridge, or a ford, or a
ferry; but flung himself into it immediately, and
swam over and this is the course we ought to
imitate, if we meet with any stops in our way to
happiness. Stay, till the waters are low; stay,
till some boats come by to transport you; stay,
till a bridge be built for you; you had even as
good stay till the river be quite past. Persius
(who, you use to say, you do not know whether
he be a good poet or no, because you cannot un-
derstand him, and whom therefore, I say, I know
to be not a good poet) has an odd expression of
these procrastinators, which, methinks, is full of
fancy:

Jam cras hesternum consumpsimus; ecce aliud
Egerit hos annos.
[cras

Our yesterday's to morrow now is gone.
And still a new to morrow does come on;
We by to morrows draw up all our store,
Till the exhausted well can yield no more.

The sum of this is, that, for the uncertain hopes of some conveniences, we ought not to defer the execution of a work that is necessary; especially, when the use of those things, which we would stay for, may otherwise be supplied; but the loss of time, never recovered: nay, farther yet, though we were sure to obtain all that we had a mind to, though we were sure of getting never so much by continuing the game, yet, when the light of life is so near going out, and ought to be so precious, le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle, the play is not worth the expense of the candle: after having been long tost in a tempest, if our masts be standing, and we have still sail and tackling enough to carry us to our port, it is no matter for the want of streamers and top-gal-as Triari, for your next charge. lants ;

-utere velis,

Totos pande sinus-9

A gentleman in our late civil wars, when his quarters were beaten up by the enemy, was taken

And now, I think, I am even with you, for your otium cum dignitate, and festina lente, and three or four other more of your new Latin sentences: if I should draw upon you all my forces out of Seneca and Plutarch upon this subject, I should overwhelm you; but I leave those, I shall only

give you now a light skirmish out of an epigrammatist, your special good friend; and so, vale.

MARTIAL, Lib. V. Epigr. lix.

prisoner, and lost his life afterwards, only by Cras te victurum, cras dicis, Posthume, sem

staying to put on a band, and adjust his periwig: he would escape like a person of quality, or not at all, and died the noble martyr of ceremony and gentility. I think, your counsel of festina lente is as ill to a man who is flying from the world, as it would have been to that unfortunate well-bred gentleman, who was so cautious as not to fly undecently from his enemies; and therefore I prefer Horace's advice before yours,

Incipe

-sapere aude,

Begin; the getting out of doors is the greatest part of the journey. Varro teaches us that Latin proverb, portam itineri longissimam esse: but to return to Horace,

-Sapere aude:

Incipe vivendi rectè qui prorogat horam,
Rusticus expectat, dum labitur annis: at ille
Labitur, & labetur in omne volubilis ævum?."

per; &c.

TO MORROW you will live, you always cry;
That 'tis so mighty long ere it arrive?
In what far country does this morrow lie,
Beyond the Indies does this morrow live?
'Tis so far fetch'd this morrow, that I fear
"Twill be both very old and very dear.
To morrow I will live, the fool does say:
To day itself's too late; the wise liv'd yesterday.

MARTIAL, Lib. II. Epigr. xc. Quinctiliane, vagæ moderator summe juventæ, &c.

WONDER not, sir, (you who instruct the town
In the true wisdom of the sacred gown)
That I make haste to live, and cannot hold

Juv. i. 150. Lib. 1. Agric. 21 Ep. ii. 4. Patiently out till I grow rich and old.

Life for delays and doubts no time does give,
None ever yet made haste enough to live.
Let him defer it, whose preposterous care
Omits himself, and reaches to his heir;
Who does his father's bounded stores despise,
And whom his own too never can suffice:
My humble thoughts no glittering roofs require,
Or rooms that shine with aught but constant fire.
I well content the avarice of my sight
With the fair gildings of reflected light:
Pleasures abroad, the sport of Nature yields,
Her living fountains, and her smiling fields;
And then at home, what pleasure is 't to see
A little, cleanly, cheerful, family!
Which if a chaste wife crown, no less in her
Than fortune, I the golden mean prefer.
Too noble, nor too wise she should not be,
No, nor too rich, too fair, too fond of me.
Thus let my life slide silently away,
With sleep all night, and quiet all the day.

XI.

OF MYSELF.

It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it grates his own heart to say any thing of disparagement, and the reader's ears to hear any thing of praise from him. There is no danger from me of offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune, allow me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient for my own contentment, that they have preserved me from being scandalous or remarkable on the defective side. But, besides that, I shall here speak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedent discourses, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt, than rise up to the estimation, of most people.

You may see by it, I was even then acquainted with the poets (for the conclusion is taken out of Horace3); and perhaps it was the immature and immoderate love of them, which stampt first, or rather engraved, these characters in me: they were like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which with the tree still grow proportionably. But, how this love came to be produced in me so early, is a hard question: I believe, I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such chimes of verse, as have never since left ringing there: for I remember, when I began to read, and to take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour, (I know not by what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book but of devotion) but there was wont to lie Spen

was infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and monsters, and brave houses, which I found every where there (though my understanding had little to do with all this ;) and, by degrees, with the tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers; so that, I think, I had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a poet as immediately as a child is made an eunuch.

As far as my memory can return back into my past life, before I knew, or was capable of guessIng, what the world, or the glories or business of it, were, the natural affections of my soul gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themselves, and in-ser's works; this I happened to fall upon, and scrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running about on holy-days and playing with my fellows, I was wont to steal from them, and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. I was then, too, so much an enemy to all constraint, that my masters could never prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn without book the common rules of grammar; in which they dispensed with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the same mind as I am now (which, I confess, I wonder at myself) may appear by the latter end of an ode, which I made when I was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed with maby other verses. The beginning of it is boyish;

With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the university, but was soon torn from thence by that violent public storm, which would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the princely cedars to me the hyssop. Yet, I had as good fortune as could have befallen me in such a tempest; for I was cast by it into the family of

3 Od, xxix. 41,

No matter, Cowley; let proud Fortune see,
That thou canst her despise no less than she does

thee.

Let all her gifts the portion be
Of folly, lust, and flattery.
Fraud, extortion, calumny,
Murder, infidelity,

Rebellion, and hypocrisy.
Do thou not grieve nor blush to be,
As all th' inspired tuneful men,
And all thy great forefathers, were, from Homer
down to Ben,

one of the best persons, and into the court of one of the best princesses, of the world. Now, though I was here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of my life, that is, into much company, and no small business, and into a daily sight of greatness, both militant and triumphant (for that was the state then of the English and French courts); yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; and that beauty, which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me, when I saw that it was adulterate. I met with several great persons, whom I liked very well; but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it; a storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my courage. Though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found any where; though I was in business of great and honourable trust; though I eat at the best table, and enjoy-shall separate me from a mistress which I have ed the best conveniences for present subsistence that ought to he desired by a man of my condition in banishment and public distresses; yet I could not abstain from renewing my old schoolboy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same effect:

Well then 4; I now do plainly see

This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, &c. And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from his majesty's happy restoration but the getting into some moderately convenient retreat in the country; which I thought in that case I might easily have compassed, as well as some others, with no greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary fortunes: but I had before written a shrewd prophecy against myself; and I think Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in the elegance, of it:

"Thou neither great at court, nor in the war, Nor at the exchange, shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar,

Content thyself with the small barren praise,

Which neglected verse does raise."
She spake; and all my years to come
Took their unlucky doom,
Their several ways of life let others chuse,
Their several pleasures let them use;
But I was born for love, and for a Muse.

With Fate what boots it to contend?
Such I began, such am, and so must end.
The star, that did my being frame,
Was but a lambent flame.

And some small light it did dispense,
But neither heat nor influence.

However by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did not quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it a corps perdu, without making capitulations, or taking counsel of Fortune. But God laughs at a man, who says to his soul, "Take thy ease :" I met presently not only with many little incumbrances and impediments, but with so much sickness (a new misfortune to me) as would have spoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine: yet I do neither repent, nor alter my course. Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum: nothing

loved so long, and have now at last married; though she neither has brought me a rich portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her:

-Nec vos, dulcissima mundi
Nomina, vos Musæ, libertas, otia, libri,
Hortique, silvæque, animâ remanente, relin,

SINCE, dearest friend, 'tis your desire to see
A true receipt of happiness from me;
These are the chief ingredients, if not all:
Take an estate neither too great or small,
Which quantum sufficit the doctors call:
Let this estate from parents' care descend;
The getting it too much of life does spend:
Take such a ground whose gratitude may be
A fair encouragement for industry.
Let constant fires the winter's fury tame;
And let thy kitchen's be a vestal flame.
Thee to the town let never suit at law,
And rarely, very rarely, business, draw.
Thy active mind in equal temper keep,
In undisturbed peace, yet not in sleep.

4 We have these verses, under the name of Let exercise a vigorous health maintain, The Wish, in the MISTRESS,

Without which all the composition's vain.

In the same weight prudence and innocence take, | Hic sparge flores, sparge breves rosas

Ana of each does the just mixture make.

But a few friendships wear, and let them be
By nature and by fortune fit for thee.
Instead of art and luxury in food,

Let mirth and freedom make thy table good.
If any cares into thy day-time creep,

At night, without wine's opium, let them sleep.
Let rest, which nature does to darkness wed,
And not lust, recommend to thee thy bed.
Be satisfied and pleas'd with what thou art,
Act cheerfully and well th' allotted part;
Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past,
And neither fear, nor wish, th' approaches of
the last.

MARTIAL, Lib. X. Epigr. xcvi.

Sæpe loquar nimium gentes, &c.

ME, who have liv'd so long among the great,
You wonder to hear talk of a retreat:
And a retreat so distant as may show
No thoughts of a return, when once I go.
Give me a country, how remote so'er,
Where happiness a moderate rate does bear,
Where poverty itself in plenty flows,
And all the solid use of riches knows.

[there;
The ground about the house maintains it,
The house maintains the ground about it, here;
Here even hunger's dear; and a full board
Devours the vital substance of the lord.
The land itself does there the feast bestow,
The land itself must here to market go.
Three or four suits one winter here does waste,
One suit does there three or four winters last,
Here every frugal man must oft be cold,
And little luke-warm fires are to you sold.
There fire's an element, as cheap and free,
Almost, as any of the other three.
Stay you then here, and live among the great,
Attend their sports and at their tables eat.
When all the bounties here of men you score,
The place's bounty there shall give me more.

EPITAPHIUM VIVI AUCTORIS.

Hic, o viator, sub lare parvulo
Couleius hic est conditus, hic jacet ;
Defunctis humani laboris

Sorte, supervacuâqe vitâ.

Non indecorâ pauperie nitens,
Et non inerti nobilis otio,
Vanóque dilectis popello
Divitiis animosus hostis.

Nam vita gaudet mortua floribus

Herbisque odoratis corona

Vatis adhuc cinerem calentem.

A PROPOSITION FOR THE AD-
VANCEMENT OF EXPERIMENTAL
PHILOSOPHY 1.

THE COLLEGE.

THAT the philosophical college be situated within one, two, or (at farthest) three miles of London; and, if it be possible to find that convenience upon the side of the river, or very near it.

That the revenue of this college amount to four thousand pounds a year.

That the company received into it be as follows: 1. Twenty philosophers or professors. 2. Sixteen young scholars, servants to the professors. 3. A chaplain. 4. A bailiff for the revenue. 5. A manciple or purveyor for the provisions of the house. 6. Two gardeners. 7. A master-cook. 8. An under-cook. 9. A butler. 10. An underbutler. 11. A surgeon. 12. Two lungs, or chymical servants. 13. A library-keeper, who is likewise to be apothecary, druggist, and keeper of instruments, engines, &c. 14. An officer to feed and take care of all beasts, fowl, &c. kept by the college. 15. A groom of the stable. 16. A messenger, to send up and down for all uses of the college. 17. Four old women, to tend the chambers, keep the house clean, and such-like services.

2.

That the annual allowance for this company be as follows: 1. To every professor, and to the chaplain, one hundred and twenty pounds. To the sixteen scholars, twenty pounds apiece; ten pounds for their diet, and ten pounds for their entertainment. 3. To the bailiff, thirty pounds, besides allowance for his journies. 4. To the purveyor, or manciple, thirty pounds. 5. To each of the gardeners, twenty pounds. 6. To the master-cook, twenty pounds. 7. To the under-cook, four pounds. 8. To the butler, ten pounds. 9. To the under-butler, four pounds. 10. To the surgeon, thirty pounds. 11. To the library-keeper, thirty pounds. 12. To each of the lungs, twelve pounds. 13. To the keeper

Ingenious men delight in dreams of reformation. In comparing this Proposition of Cowley, with that of Milton, addressed to Mr. Hartlib, we find that these great poets had amused themselves with some exalted, and, in the main, congenial fancies, on the subject of education: that, of the two plans proposed, this of Mr. Cowley was better digested, and is the less fanciful; if a preference, in this respect, can be given to either, when both are manifestly Utopian: and that our universities, in their present form, are well enough calculated to answer all the reasonable ends of such institutions; provided we allow for the un5 See a translation of this Epitaph among the avoidable defects of them, when drawn out into poems of Mr. Addison.

Possis ut illum dicere mortuum ;
En terra jam nunc quantula sufficit !
Exempta sit curis, viator.

Terra sit illa levis, precare.

practice. HURD.