books: yet when they have done all, they miss their end, it being in the editions of authors as in the fashions of clothes, when a man thinks he hath gotten the latest and newest, presently another newer comes out.

Some books are only cursorily to be tasted of. Namely, first, voluminous books, the task of a man's life to read them over; secondly, auxiliary books, only to be repaired to on occasions; thirdly, such as are mere pieces of formality, so that if you look on them you look through them; and he that peeps through the casement of the index sees as much as if he were in the house. But the laziness of those cannot be excused who perfunctorily pass over authors of consequence, and only trade in their tables of contents. These, like city-cheaters, having gotten the names of all country gentlemen, make silly people believe they have long lived in those places where they never were, and flourish with skill in those authors they never seriously studied.

The genius of the author is commonly discovered in the dedicatory epistle. Many place the purest grain in the mouth of the sack for chapmen to handle or buy; and from the dedication one may probably guess at the work, saving some rare and peculiar exceptions. Thus, when once a gentleman admired how so pithy, learned, and witty a dedication was

matched to a flat, dull, foolish book: "In truth,' said another, "they may be well matched together, for I profess they are nothing akin."

Proportion an hour's meditation to an hour's reading of a staple author. This makes a man master of his learning, and dispirits the book into the scholar. The King of Sweden never filed his men above six deep in one company, because he would not have them lie in useless clusters in his army, but so that every particular soldier might be drawn out into service. Books that stand thin on the shelves, yet so as the owner of them can bring forth every one of them into use, are better than far greater libraries.

Learning hath gained most by those books by which the printers have lost. Arias Montanus, in printing the Hebrew Bible, (commonly called the Bible of the King of Spain,) much wasted himself, and was accused in the court of Rome for his good deed, and being cited thither, pro tantorum laborum præmio vix veniam impetravit. Likewise, Christopher Plantin, by printing of his curious interlineary Bible in Antwerp, through the unseasonable exactions of the king's officers, sunk and almost ruined his estate. And our worthy English knight, who set forth the golden-mouthed Father in a silver print, was a loser by it. * Chrysostom.

*

Whereas foolish pamphlets prove most beneficial to the printers. When a French printer complained that he was utterly undone by printing a solid serious book of Rabelais concerning physic, Rabelais, to make him recompense, made that his jesting, scurrilous work, which repaired the printer's loss with advantage. Such books the world swarms too much with. When one had set out a witless pamphlet, writing Finis at the end thereof, another wittily wrote beneath it,

Nay, there thou liest, my friend,

In writing foolish books there is no end."

And surely such scurrilous, scandalous papers do more than conceivable mischief. First, their lusciousness puts many palates out of taste, that they can never after relish any solid and wholesome writers; secondly, they cast dirt on the faces of many innocent persons, which, dried on by continuance of time, can never after be washed off; thirdly, the pamphlets of this age may pass for records with the next, (because publicly uncontrolled,) and what we laugh at, our children may believe; fourthly, grant the things true they jeer at, yet this music is unlawful in any Christian church, to play upon the sins and miseries of others, the fitter object of the elegies than the satires of all truly religious.

But what do I, speaking against multiplicity

of books in this age, who trespass in this nature myself? What was a learned man's * compliment, may serve for my confession and conclusion:-Multi mei similes hoc morbo laborant, ut cum scribere nesciant, tamen a scribendo temperare non possint.

THERE

OF TIME-SERVING.

HERE be four kinds of time-serving: first, out of Christian discretion, which is commendable; second, out of human infirmity, which is more pardonable; third, and fourth, out of ignorance, or affectation, both which are damnable of them in order.

:

He is a good time-server that complies his manners to the several ages of this life: pleasant in youth, without wantonness; grave in old age, without frowardness. Frost is as proper for winter as flowers for spring. Gravity becomes the ancient; and a green Christmas is neither handsome nor healthful.

He is a good time-server that finds out the fittest opportunity for every action. God hath made "a time for everything under the sun," save only for that which we do at all times, to wit, sin.

* Erasmus.

He is a good time-server that improves the present for God's glory and his own salvation. Of all the extent of time, only the instant is that which we can call ours.

He is a good time-server that is pliant to the times in matters of mere indifferency. To blame are they whose minds may seem to be made of one entire bone without any joints: they cannot bend at all, but stand as stiffly in things of pure indifferency as in matters of absolute necessity.

He is a good time-server that in time of persecution neither betrays God's cause nor his own safety. And this he may do,

:

1. By lying hid both in his person and practice though he will do no evil, he will forbear the public doing of some good. He hath as good cheer in his heart, though he keeps not open house, and will not publicly broach his religion, till the palate of the times be better in taste to relish it. "The prudent shall keep silence in that time, for it is an evil time;" though according to St. Peter's command we are to “give a reason of our hope to every one that asketh," namely, that asketh for his instruction, but not for our destruction, especially if wanting lawful authority to examine us. "Ye shall be brought," saith Christ, (no need have they therefore to run,) "before princes for my sake."