that the marble colours of obsequies, weeping, and funeral pomp (which we ourselves paint it with) did add much more ghastliness unto it than otherwise it hath. To avert which conclusion, when I had gathered my wandering thoughts, I began thus with myself.

If on the great theatre of this earth, amongst the numberless number of men, to die were only proper to thee and thine, then undoubtedly thou hadst reason to repine at so severe and partial a law; but since it is a necessity from which never any age bypast hath been exempted, and unto which they which be, and so many as are to come, are thralled (no consequent of life being more common and familiar), why shouldst thou, with unprofitable and noughtavailing stubbornness, oppose so inevitable and necessary a condition ? This is the highway of mortality, and our general home. Behold what millions have trod it before thee, what multitudes shall after thee, with them which at that same instant run. In so universal a calamity (if death be one) private complaints cannot be heard; with so many royal palaces, it is no loss to see thy poor cabin burn. Shall the heavens stay their ever-rolling wheels (for what is the motion of them but the motion of a swift and everwhirling wheel, which twineth forth, and again uprolleth our life), and hold still time to prolong thy miserable days, as if the highest of their working were to do homage unto thee? Thy death is a pace of the order of this all,' a part of the life of this world; while the world is the world, some creatures must die, and others take life. Eternal things are raised far above this sphere of generation and corruption, where the first matter, like an ever-flowing and ebbing sea, with divers waves, but the same water, keepeth a restless and never-tiring current; what is below, in the universality of the kind, not in itself doth abide : Man a long line of years hath continued, this man every hundred is swept away. This globe, environed with air, is the sole region of death, the grave where everything that taketh life must rot, the stage of fortune and change, only glorious in the inconstancy and varying alterations of it, which, though many, seem yet to abide one, and being a certain entire one, are ever many. The never-agreeing bodies of the elemental brethren turn one into another; the earth changeth her countenance with the seasons, sometimes looking cold and naked, other times hot and flowery. Nay, I cannot tell how, but even the lowest of those celestial bodies,3 that mother of months, and empress of seas and moisture, as if she were a mirror of our constant mutability, appeareth (by her too great nearness unto us) to participate of our changes; never seeing us twice with that same face; now looking black, then pale and wan, sometimes, again, in the perfection and fulness of her beauty, shining over us. Death no less than life doth here act a part, the taking away of what is old being the making way for what is young. This earth is as a table-book, and the men are the notes; the first are

1 i. e., this universe.

2 ie., the human species has continued for many years, though every individual of the race is cut off before a hundred years run their course. 3 i. e., the moon.

G

washen out that new may be written in. They who forewent us did leave a room for us, and should we grieve to do the same to those which should come after us? Who, being suffered to see the exquisite rarities of an antiquary's cabinet, is grieved that the curtain be drawn, and to give place to new pilgrims? And when the Lord of this universe hath showed us the amazing wonders of this various frame, should we take it to heart, when He thinketh time, to dislodge? This is His unalterable and inevitable decree: as we had no part of our will in our entrance into this life, we should not presume to any in our leaving it, but soberly learn to will that which He wills, whose very will giveth being to all that it wills; and reverencing the Orderer, not repine at the order and laws, which al-where and always are so perfectly established that who would essay to correct and amend any of them, he should either make them worse or desire things beyond the level of possibility. All that is necessary and convenient for us He hath bestowed upon us, and freely granted; and what He hath not bestowed nor granted us, neither is it necessary nor convenient that we should have it.

If thou dost complain that there shall be a time in which thou shalt not be, why dost thou not also grieve that there was a time in which thou wast not, and so that thou are not as old as that enlivening planet of time? For not to have been a thousand years before this moment, is as much to be deplored as not to live a thousand after it, the effect of them both being one. That will be after us which, long, long before we were, was. Our children's children have that same reason to murmur that they were not young men in our days, which we have to complain that we shall not be old in theirs. The violets have their time, though they impurple not the winter, and the roses keep their season, though they disclose not their beauty in the spring.

Empires, states, and kingdoms have, by the doom of the Supreme Providence, their fatal periods; great cities lie sadly buried in their dust; arts and sciences have not only their eclipses, but their wanings and deaths. The ghastly wonders of the world, raised by the ambition of ages, are overthrown and trampled. Some lights above, not idly entitled stars, are lost, and never more seen of us. The excellent fabric of this universe itself shall one day suffer ruin, or a change like a ruin; and should poor earthlings thus to be handled complain?

Years are a sea into which a man wadeth until he drown.

VI. BISHOP HALL.

JOSEPH HALL was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire in 1574, and received his education at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. While yet in his twenty-third year he published a volume of satires, called Virgidemiarum, the earliest in the language that are characterized by grace, vigour, and truth to nature, without grossness. His abilities and eminent piety secured for him distinguished church

preferment; he was appointed chaplain to Prince Henry, the heirapparent to the throne, Dean of Worcester, Bishop of Exeter (1627), and finally Bishop of Norwich (1641). In the controversy with the Puritans, he took an active part; he is supposed to have had a share in the replies to the famous treatise called Smectymnuus, and he thus exposed himself to a torrent of most scurrilous and undeserved abuse from the reckless pen of Milton. Neither his piety nor his learning could shield him 'from persecution in the unhappy times which followed. Having joined with the other bishops in protesting against the violence which a mob of ruffians were encouraged by the leaders of the Commons to offer to his order, he was committed with them to the Tower, from which he was released in 1642. The next year the Presbyterians, who were now in the ascendency, plundered his house, destroyed his cathedral at Norwich, sequestered his estate, and drove him out to spend his old age-he was now seventy-in hopeless destitution. He endured his misfortunes with that cheerful piety and calm fortitude which he had so often recommended to others in the days of his prosperity, and died in 1656 in his eighty-second year.

His works, which are numerous enough to fill twelve volumes, are all excellent, and are perhaps more read at the present day than those of any of his contemporaries. His largest and best work "Contemplations on the Old and New Testament," still enjoys a high degree of popularity, and as a simple commentary upon the narrative of Scripture, is far superior to any work in the English language. Of his other writings, the best known are his "Three Centuries of Meditations and Vows," "Occasional Meditations," and "Characters of Virtues and Vices." As a writer, Hall is universally allowed to form one of the noble trio who stand at the head of our prose literature; and of the three he is perhaps the most generally read at the present day. It must be admitted that Hall is inferior in learning to both the others; that Hooker surpasses him in majesty of style, and Taylor in eloquence; yet in his power of shrewd and penetrating observation, his intimate knowledge of the secret workings of the human mind, the force of his quaint and homely style, and the unerring accuracy with which he points his earnest personal appeals, he has no rival in our literature. At the distance of two hundred years, the quiet simple earnestness of Hall has lost nothing of its force, and still comes home to the business and bosoms of readers of every class.

1. THE MALE-CONTENT.-(FROM THE CHARACTERS OF VIRTUES

AND VICES.")

He is neither well full, nor fasting; and though he abound with complaints, yet nothing dislikes him but the present; for what he condemned while it was, once past, he magnifies, and strives to recall it out of the jaws of time. What he hath, he seeth not; his eyes are so taken up with what he wants: and what he sees, he cares not for; because he cares so much for that which is not. When his friend carves him the best morsel, he murmurs "that it is a happy feast wherein each one may cut for himself." When a present is sent him, he asks, "Is this all?" and "What! no better?" and so accepts it, as if he would have his friend know how much

he is bound to him for vouchsafing to receive it: it is hard to entertain him with a proportionable gift; if nothing, he cries out of unthankfulness; if little, that he is basely regarded; if much, he exclaims of flattery, and expectation of a large requital. Every blessing hath somewhat to disparage and distaste it: children bring cares; single life is wild and solitary; eminency is envious; retiredness, obscure; fasting, painful; satiety, unwieldy; religion, nicely severe; liberty is lawless; wealth, burdensome; mediocrity, contemptible; everything faulteth, either in too much or too little. This man is ever headstrong and self-willed; neither is he always tied to esteem and pronoune according to reason: some things he must dislike, he knows not wherefore; but he likes them not: and, other where, rather than not censure, he will accuse a man of virtue. Every thing he meddleth with, he either findeth imperfect, or maketh so neither is there anything that soundeth so harsh in his ear as the commendation of another; whereto yet perhaps he fashionably and coldy assenteth, but with such an after-clause of exception as doth more than mar his former allowance: and, if he list not to give a verbal disgrace, yet he shakes his head and smiles, as if his silence should say, 'I could, and will not." And, when himself is praised without excess, he complains that such imperfect kindness hath not done him right. If but an unseasonable shower cross his recreation, he is ready to fall out with heaven, and thinks he is wronged if God will not take his times when to rain, when to shine. He is a slave to envy, and loseth flesh with fretting, not so much at his own infelicity, as at others' good: neither hath he leisure to joy in his own blessings, whilst another prospereth. Fain would he see some mutinies, but dare not raise them, and suffers his lawless tongue to walk through the dangerous paths of conceited' alterations; but so as, in good manners, he would rather thrust every man before him when it comes to acting. Nothing but fear keeps him from conspiracies, and no man is more cruel when he is not manacled with danger. He speaks nothing but satires and libels, and lodgeth no guests in his heart but rebels. The inconstant and he agree well in their felicity, which both place in change, but herein they differ; the inconstant man affects that which will be, the male-content commonly that which was. Finally, he is a querulous cur, whom no horse can pass by without barking at; yea, in the deep silence of night, the very moonshine openeth his clamorous mouth: he is the wheel of a well-couched firework that flies out on all sides, not without scorching itself. Every ear was, long ago, weary of him, and he is now almost weary of himself; give him but a little respite, and he will die alone of no other death than others' welfare.

2. THE SLOTHFUL.-(FROM "CHARACTERS OF VIRTUES AND VICES.")

He is a religious man, and wears the time in his cloister; and,

as the cloak of his doing nothing, pleads contemplation: yet he is no whit the leaner for his thoughts; no whit learneder. He takes no less care to spend time, than others how to gain by the expense; and, when business importunes him, is more troubled to forethink what he must do than another to effect it. Summer is out of his favour for nothing but long days that make no haste to their even. He loves still to have the sun witness of his rising; and lies long, more for lothness to dress him than will to sleep and, after some stretching and yawning, calls for dinner, unwashed; which having digested with a sleep in his chair, he walks forth to the bench in the market-place, and looks for companions: whomsoever he meets he stays with idle questions and lingering discourse: how the days are lengthened; how kindly the weather is; how false the clock; how forward the spring; and ends ever with, "What shall we do?" It pleases him no less to hinder others than not to work himself. When all the people are gone from church he is left sleeping in his seat alone. He enters bonds, and forfeits them by forgetting the day: and asks his neighbour, when his own field was fallowed, whether the next piece of ground belong to himself. His care is either none or too late when winter is come, after some sharp visitations, he looks on his pile of wood, and asks how much was cropped the last spring. Necessity drives him to every action; and what he cannot avoid he will yet defer. Every change troubles him, although to the better; and his dulness counterfeits a kind of contentment. When he is warned on a jury, he would rather pay the mulct than appear. All but that which nature will not permit he doth by a deputy: and counts it troublesome to do nothing; but to do anything yet more. He is witty in nothing but framing excuses to sit still; which, if the occasion yield not, he coineth with ease. There is no work that is not either dangerous or thankless, and whereof he foresees not the inconvenience and gainlessness before he enters; which, if it be verified in event, his next idleness hath found a reason to patronize it. He would rather freeze than fetch wood; and chuses rather to steal than work, to beg than take pains to steal; and, in many things, to want than beg. He is so loth to leave his neighbour's fire, that he is fain to walk home in the dark; and, if he be not looked to, wears out the night in the chimney-corner; or, if not that, lies down in his clothes to save two labours. He eats and prays himself asleep, and dreams of no other torment but work. This man is a standing pool, and cannot chuse but gather corruption: he is descried, amongst a thousand neighbours, by a dry and nasty hand, that still savours of the sheet; a beard uncut, uncombed; an eye and ear yellow with their excretions: a coat, shaken on, ragged, unbrushed; by linen and face striving whether shall excel in uncleanliness. For body, he hath a swoln leg, a dusky and swinish eye, a blown cheek, a drawling tongue, a heavy foot, and is nothing but a colder earth moulded with standing water: to conclude, is a man in nothing but in speech and shape.