only by their surname, or the surname of some family, into which they have been married.

4. The making of new lords lessens all the rest. 'Tis in the business of lords as 't was with St. Nicholas's image: the countryman, you know, could not find in his heart to adore the new image, made of his own plum-tree, though he had formerly worshipped the old one. The lords that are ancient we honor, because we know not whence they come; but the new ones we slight, because we know their beginning.

5. For the Irish lords to take upon them here in England, is as if the cook in the fair should come to my Lady Kent's kitchen, and take upon him to roast the meat there, because he is a cook in another place.

MARRIAGE.

1. Or all actions of a man's life, his marriage does least concern other people; yet of all actions of our life it is most meddled with by other people.

2. Marriage is nothing but a civil contract: it is true it is an ordinance of God: so is every other contract: God commands me to keep it when I have made it.

3. Marriage is a desperate thing. The frogs in Æsop were extreme wise; they had a great mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well, because they could not get out again.

4. We single out particulars, and apply God's providence to them thus when two are married, they cry it was God's providence we should come together, when God's providence does equally concur to every thing.

MARRIAGE OF COUSIN-GERMANS.*

SOME men forbear to marry cousin-germans out of this kind of scruple of conscience, because it was unlawful before the Reformation, and is still in the church of Rome. And so by reason their grandfather or their great grandfather did not do it, upon that old score they think they ought not to do it: as some men forbear flesh upon Friday, not reflecting upon the statute which with us makes it unlawful, but out of an old score, because the church of

* The marriage of cousin-germans is discussed by a very learned and judicious writer, contemporary with Selden. See the Works of John Hales, Vol. i. p. 145.

Rome forbids it, and their forefathers always forebore flesh on that day. Others forbear it out of a natural consideration, because it is observed, for example, in beasts, if two couple of a near kind, the breed proves not so good. The same observation they make in plants and trees, which degenerate, being grafted upon the same stock. And 't is also further observed, those matches between cousin-germans seldom prove fortunate. But for the lawfulness there is no color but cousin-germans in England may marry both by the law of God and man; for with us we have reduced all the degrees of marriage to those in the Levitical law, and 't is plain there's nothing against it. As for that that is said, cousin-germans once removed may not marry, and therefore being a further degree may not, 't is presumed a nearer should not, no man can tell what it means.

*

* In this sentence the author's meaning appears to be somewhat disguised; but he evidently alludes to a vulgar notion, still prevalent in England, that first-cousins may marry, but second-cousins may not; in reference to which Selden may easily be supposed to have said, "no man can tell what it means." Its true origin seems, however, to have been traced by Dr. Taylor, Elements of the Civil Law, p. 331. In computing the degrees of consanguinty, the civil and the canon law follow very different methods. The rule of the civil law is, that there are as many degrees as persons, exclusive

MEASURE OF THINGS.

1. WE measure from ourselves; and as things are for our use and purpose, so we approve them. Bring a pear to the table that is rotten, we cry it down, 't is naught; but bring a medlar that is rotten, and 't is a fine thing; and yet I'll warrant you the pear thinks as well of itself as the medlar does.

2. We measure the excellency of other men by some excellency we conceive to be in ourselves. Nash, a poet poor enough, as poets used to be, seeing an alderman with his gold chain, upon his great horse, by way of scorn, said to one of his companions, "Do you see yon fellow, how goodly, how big he looks! Why that fellow cannot make a blank verse."

3. Nay, we measure the goodness of God from ourselves; we measure his goodness, his justice, his wisdom, by something we call just, good, or wise in ourselves; and in so doing,

of the common stock; that of the canon law, that degrees of consanguinity are to be reckoned by the number of descents in one line; and where the lines are unequal, the canonist takes the longer of the two. The canon law prohibits marriages in the third degree, the civil law permits them in the fourth; or, in other words, the one law prohibits the marriages of second-cousins, and the other permits the marriages of first-cousins.

we judge proportionably to the country fellow in the play, who said if he were a king, he would live like a lord, and have pease and bacon every day, and a whip that cried slash.

DIFFERENCE OF MEN.

THE difference of men is very great: you would scarce think them to be of the same species, and yet it consists more in the affection than in the intellect. For as in the strength of body, two men shall be of an equal strength, yet one shall appear stronger than the other, because he exercises and puts out his strength, the other will not stir nor strain himself; so 't is in the strength of the brain; the one endeavours, and strains, and labors, and studies, the other sits still, and is idle, and takes no pains, and therefore he appears so much the inferior.

MINISTER, DIVINE.

1. THE imposition of hands upon the minister, when all is done, will be nothing but a designation of a person to this or that office or