There is fome 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 fhorter. Epicurus writes a letter to Idomeneus (who was then a very powerful, wealthy, and, it seems, bountiful perfon) to recommend to him, who had made fo many men rich, one Pythocles, a friend of his, whom he defired might be made a rich man too; "but I intreat you that you would not do it just the fame way as you have done to many less deserving perfons, but in the moft gentlemanly manner of obliging him, which is, not to add any thing to his eftate, but to take fomething from his defires."

The fum of this is, that, for the uncertain hopes of fome conveniences, we ought not to defer the execution of a work that is neceffary; efpecially, when the use of those things, which we would stay for, may otherwife be fupplied; but the loss of time, pever recovered: nay, farther yet, though we were fure to obtain all that we had a mind to, though we were fure of getting never fo much by continuing the game, yet, when the light of life is fo near going out, and ought to be fo precious," le jeu ne vaut pas la "chandelle," the play is not worth the expence of the candle: after having been long toft in a tempeft, if our mafts be ftanding, and we have ftill fail and tackling enough to carry us to our port, it is no matter for the want of ftreamers and top-gallants;

-utere velis,

Totos pande finus—*

A gentleman in our late civil wars, when his quarters were beaten up by the enemy, was taken prifoner, and loft his life afterwards, only by staying to put on a band, and adjust his periwig: he would escape like a perfon of quality, or not at all, and died the noble martyr of ceremony and gentility. I think, your counsel of "Feftina lente” is as ill to a man who is flying from the world, as it would have been to that unfortunate, wellbred gentleman, who was fo cautious as not to fly undecently from his enemies; and therefore I prefer Horace's advice before yours,

Incipe

-fapere aude,

Begin; the getting out of doors is the greateft part of the journey. teaches us that Latin proverb,

Horace,

166

Varro +

portam itineri longiffimam effe:" but to return to

-Sapere aude:

"Incipe: vivendi recte qui prorogat horam,

"Rufticus expectat, dum labitur amnis at ille

"Labitur, & labetur in omne volubilis ævum ."

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wife ;

He who defers this work from day to day,

Does on a river's bank expecting flay,

Till the whole ftream, which ftopt him, fhould be gone,
That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on.

Cæfar (the man of expedition above all others) was fo far from this folly, that whenfoever, in a journey, he was to crofs 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 courfe we ought to imitate, if we meet with any stops in our way to happiness. Stay, till the waters are low; itay, till fome boats come by to transport you; flay till a bridge be built for you; you had even as good stay, till the river be quite palt. Perfius (who, you use to fay, you do not know whether he be a good poet or no, because you cannot understand him, and whom therefore, I fay, I know to be not

a good poet) has an odd expreffion of these procrastinators, which, methinks is full of fancy :

"Jam cras hefternum confumpfimus; ecce aliud cras
Egerit hos annos.'

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

And now, I think, I am even with you, for your "Otium cum dignitate," and "Festiną "lente," and three or four other more of your new Latin fentences: if I fhould draw upon you all my forces out of Seneca and Plutarch upon this fubject, I fhould overwhelm you; but I leave thofe, as Triarii, for your next charge. I fhall only give you now a light skirmish out of an epigrammatift, your special good friend; and fo, vale.

MARTIAL, LIB. V. EPIGR. lix.

“Cras te vidurum, cras dicis, Pofthume, femper ;" &c.
TO-MORROW you will live, you always cry ;

In what far country does this morrow lie,
That 'tis fo mighty long ere it arrive?
Beyond the Indies does this morrow live?
'Tis fo far fetch'd this morrow, that I fear
"Twill be both very old and very dear.
To-morrow I will live, the fool does fay:
To-day itfel's too late; the wife liv'd yefterday.

MARTIAL, LIB. II. EPIGR. XC.

Quintiliane, vaga moderator fumme juventa," Ec.

WONDER not, Sir (you who inftruct the town
In the true wisdom of the facred gown)

That I make hafte to live, and cannot hold
Patiently out till I grow rich and old.

Life for delays and doubts no time does give,
None ever yet made hafte enough to live.
Let him defer it, whofe prepofterous care
Omits himself, and reaches to his heir;
Who does his father's bounded stores defpife;
And whom his own too never can fuffice:
My humble thoughts no glittering roofs require,
Or rooms that fhine with aught but conftant fire.
I well content the avarice of my fight
With the fair gildings of reflected light:
Pleafures abroad, the fport of nature yields,
Her living fountains, and her fmiling fields;
And then at home, what pleasure is 't to fee
A little, cleanly, cheerful, family!
Which if a chalte wife crown, no lefs in her
Than fortune, I the golden mean prefer.

Too noble, nor too wife, fhe fhould not be,
No, nor too rich, too fair, too fond of me.
Thus let my life flide filently away,
With fleep all night, and quiet all the day.

I'

XI.

OF MYSELF.

T is a hard and nice fubject for a man to write of himself; it grates his own heart to fay any thing of difparagement, and the reader's ears to hear any thing of praife 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 fufficient for my own contentment, that they have preferved me from being scandalous or remarkable on the defective fide. But, befides that, I fhall here fpeak of myfelf only in relation to the fubject of thefe precedent difcourfes, and fhall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt, than rife up to the estimation, of molt people.

As far as my memory can return back into my pait life, before I knew, or was capable of gueffing, what the world, or the glories or bufinefs of it, were, the natural me a fecret bent of averfion from them, as fome plants are affections of my foul gave faid to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themfelves, and infcrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at fchool, instead of running about on holy-days and playing with my fellows, I was wont to teal from them, and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, or with fome one companion, if I could find any of the fame temper. I was then, too, fo much an enemy to all conftraint, that my maiters could never prevail on me, by any perfuafions or encouragements, to learn without book the common rules of grantmar; in which they difpenfed with me alone, because they found I made a fhift to do the ufual exercife out of my own reading and obfervation. That I was then of the fame mind as I am now (which I confefs, I wonder at myfelf) may appear by the latter end of an ode, which Ì made when I was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed with many other verfes. The beginning of it is boyish; but of this part, which I here fet down (if a very little were corrected) I fhould hardly now be much afhamed.

may lie
This only grant me, that my means
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.

Some honour I would have,

Not from great deeds, but good alone ;
Th' unknown are better than ill known:
Rumour can ope the grave.

Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice, of friends.

Books fhould, not bufinefs, entertain the light,
And fleep, as undisturb'd as death, the night.
My houfe a cottage more

Than palace; and fhould fitting be

For all my ufe, no luxury.

My garden painted o'er

With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield,
Horace might envy in his Sabin field.

Thus would I double my life's fading space;

For he, that runs it well, twice runs his race.

You may

fee by it, I was even then acquainted with the poets (for the conclufion is taken out of Horace *); and perhaps it was the immature and immoderate love of them, which stampt firft, or rather engraved, thefe characters in me: they were like letters cut in the bark of a young tree, which with the tree ftill grow proportionably. But, how this love came to be produced in me fo early, is a hard question: I believe, I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head firft with fuch chimes of verse, as have never fince left ringing there: for I remember, when I began to read, and to take fome pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour (I know not by what accident, for the herself never in her life read any book but of devotion) but there was wont to lie Spenfer's works; this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the ftories 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 tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers; fo 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.

With thefe affections of mind, and my heart wholly fet upon letters, I went to the university; but was foon torn from thence by that violent public ftorm, which would fuffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the princely cedars to me the hyffop. Yet, I had as good fortune as could have befallen me in fuch a tempeft; for I was caft by it into the family of one of the best perfons, and into the court of one of the beft princeffes, of the world. Now, though I was here engaged in ways molt contrary to the original defign of my life, that is, into much company, and no fmall bufinefs, and into a daily fight of greatnefs, both militant and triumphant (for that was the ftate then of the English and French courts); yet all this was fo far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reafon to that which was before but natural inclination. I faw plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; and the 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 faw that it was adulterate. I met with feveral great perfons, whom I liked very well; but could not perceive that any part of their greatnefs was to be liked or defired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in a storm, though I faw many ships which rid fafely and bravely in it: a ftorm would not agree with my ftomach, if it did with my courage. Though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found any where; though I eat at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for prefent fubfiftence that ought to be defired by a man of my condition in banishment and public diflreffes; yet I could not abitain from renewing my old fchool-boy's with, in a copy of verfes to the fame effect:

Well then ; I now do plainly fee

This bufy world and I fhall ne'er agree, &c.

And I never then propofed to myfelf any other advantage from his majefty's happy Reftoration, but the getting into fome moderately convenient retreat in the country; which I thought in that cafe I might eafily have compaffed, as well as fome others, with no greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary fortunes: but I had before written a fhrewd prophecy against myfelf; and I think Apollo infpired me in the truth, though not in the elegance, of it:

• 3 Od. xxix. 41.

We have thefe verfes, under the name of The Wib, in the MISTRESS.

Thou neither great at court, nor in the war,

"Nor at th' exchange, fhalt be, nor at the wrangling bar.
"Content thyfelf with the fmall barren praife,

"Which neglected verfe does raife."

She fpake; and all my years to come
Took their unlucky doom.

Their feveral ways of life let others chufe,
Their feveral pleafures let them ufe ;
But I was born for Love, and for a Muse.

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

And fome fmall light it did difpenfe,

But neither heat nor influence.

No matter, Cowley; let proud Fortune fee,
That thou canst her defpife, no less than fhe does thee.

Let all her gifts the portion be

Of folly, luft, and flattery,

Fraud, extortion, calumny, , Murder, infidelity,

Rebellion and hypocrify.

Do thou not grieve nor blush to be,
As all th' infpired tuneful men,

And all thy great forefathers, were, from Homer down to Ben.

However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did not quit the defign which I had refolved on; I caft myfelf into it à corps perdu, without making capí tulations, or taking counfel of fortune. But God laughs at a man, who fays to his foul," Take thy eafe:" I met prefently not only with many little incumbrances and impediments, but with so much fickness (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 facramentum:" nothing fhall feparate me from a miftrefs which I have loved fo long, and have now at laft married; though the neither has brought me a rich portion, nor lived yet fo quietly with me as I hoped from

her:

But this is a very pretty ejaculation.-Because I have concluded all the other chapters with a copy of verfes, I will maintain the humour to the last.

MARTIAL, LIB. X. EPIGR. xlvii.

"Vitam quæ faciunt beatiorem," &c.

SINCE, dearest friend, 'tis your defire to fee
A true receipt of happiness from me;