PROSPERITY AND ADVERSITY.

The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearselike airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle-works and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground; judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant where they are incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

FRIENDSHIP.

It had been hard for him that spake it, to have put more truth and untruth together in few words, than in that speech, 'Whoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god;' for it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred and aversion towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathens-as Epimenides, the Candian; Numa, the Roman; Empedocles, the Sicilian; and Apollonius, of Tyana; and truly, and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth; for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little: 'Magna civitas, magna solitudo,'-[' Great city, great solitude;'] because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighbourhoods; but we may go farther, and affirm most truly, that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness; and, even in this scene also of solitude, whosoever, in the frame of his nature and affections, is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fullness of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and induce. We know diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most dangerous in the body, and it is not much otherwise in the mind: you may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flour of sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain; but no receipt openeth the heart but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.

It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship whereof we speak-so great, as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety and greatness: for princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune from that of their subjects and servants, can not gather this fruit, except, to make themselves capable thereof, they raise some persons to be, as it were, companions, and almost equals to themselves, which many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give unto such persons the name of favourites, or privadoes, as if it were matter of grace or conversation; but the Roman name attaineth the true use and cause thereof, naming them 'participes curarum,' [participators in cares;] for it is that which tieth the knot: and we see plainly that

this hath been done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and most politic that ever reigned, who have oftentimes joined to themselves some of their servants, whom both themselves have called friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner,using the word which is received between private men. It is not to be forgotten what Comineus observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy--namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and, least of all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith, that towards his latter time, that closeness did impair and a little perish his understanding. Surely Comineus might have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Louis XI., whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true, 'Cor ne edito,'-['Eat not the heart.'] Certainly if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto, are cannibals of their own hearts; but one thing is most admirable, (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship,) which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend, works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves; for there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more, and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is, in truth, of operation upon a man's mind of like virtue as the alchymists used to attribute to their stone for man's body, that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature; byt yet, without praying in aid of alchymists, there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature; for, in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action, and, on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression-and even so is it of minds.

The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the understanding, as the first is for the affections; for friendship maketh indeed a fair day in the affections from storm and tempests, but it maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts. Neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to that, certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily-he marshalleth them more orderly--he seeth how they look when they are turned into words-finally, he waxeth wiser than himself; and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation. It was well said by Themistocles to the king of Persia, 'That speech was like cloth of Arras, opened and put abroad'-whereby the imagery doth appear in figure, whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, restrained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel (they indeed are best,) but even without that a man learneth of himself, and bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a stone, which itself cuts not. In a word, a man were better relate himself to a statue or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.

Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that other point which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observation—which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus saith well, in one of his enigmas, 'Dry light is ever the best;' and certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and judg ment, which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and customs So as there is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer; for there is no such flatterer as is a man's self, and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts; the one concerning manners, the other concerning business: for the first, the best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition of a friend. The calling

of a man's self to a strict account, is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive; reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead; observing our faults in others is sometimes improper for our case; but the best receipt (best, I say, to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both of their fame and fortune: for, as St. James saith, they are as men 'that look sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and favour' as for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more than a looker-on; or, that a man in anger is as wise as he that hath said over the four-and-twenty letters; or, that a musket may be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest; and such other fond and high imaginations to think himself all in all: but when all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight; and if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by pieces, asking counsel in one business of one man, and in another business of another man; it is as well (that is to say, better, perhaps, than if he asked none at all,) but he runneth two dangers; one, that he shall not be faithfully counselled--for it is a rare thing, except it be from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as shall be bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath that giveth it; the other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe (though with good meaning,) and mixed partly of mischief and partly of remedy—even as if you would call a physician, that is thought good for the cure of the disease you complain of, but is unacquainted with your body-and, therefore, may put you in a way for present cure, but overthroweth your health in some other kind, and so cure the disease, and kill the patient: but a friend, that is wholly acquainted with a man's estate, will beware, by furthering any present business, how he dasheth upon other inconvenience--and, therefore, rest not upon scattered counsels, for they will rather distract and mislead, than settle and direct. After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections, and support of the judgment,) followeth the last fruit, which is, like the pomegranate, full of many kernels-I mean, aid and bearing a part in all actions and occasions. Here, the best way to represent to life the manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there are which a man can not do himself; and then it will appear that it was a sparing speech of the ancients to say 'that a friend is another himself.' Men have their time, and die many times in desire of some things which they principally take to heart; the bestowing of a child, the finishing of a work, or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure that the care of those things will continue after him; so that a man hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and that body is confined to a place; but where friendship is, all offices of life are, as it were, granted to him and his deputy; for he may exercise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man can not, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself? A man can scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them; a man can not sometimes brook to supplicate or beg; and a number of the like, but all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which are blushing in a man's own. man's person hath many proper relations which he can not put off. not speak to his son but as a father; to his wife but as a husband; to his enemy but upon terms: whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were endless: I have given the rule, where a man can not fitly play his own part; if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.

So, again, a
A man can

From the eminent and distinguished prose writers whom we have just noticed, we now revert to a useful, though less brilliant, class of authors

The English Chroniclers-a continuous succession of whom was kept up during the entire period of which we are now treating. Of these writers, Grafton, Stow, Holinshed, Hooker, Boteville, Harrison, Hakluyt, and Purchas first claim our attention.

RICHARD GRAFTON, the first of these writers mentioned, was by trade a printer, and practiced the typographical art in the city of London during the latter part of the reign of Henry the Eighth, through the reigns of that monarch's two immediate successors, and for a number of years after Elizabeth ascended the throne. Being printer to Edward the Sixth, Grafton was employed, after the death of that young king, to prepare the proclamation which declared the succession of Lady Jane Grey to the crown. For this simple professional act, he was deprived of his patent, and afterward, ostensibly for the same reason, committed to prison. While thus removed from his regular calling, he compiled An Abridgment of the Chronicles of England, which was published in 1562. The work possesses little merit for originality, and the author, though sometimes referred to as authority by modern compilers, holds but a low rank among English historians. It does not afford any passage that our design requires us to introduce.

JOHN STOW was contemporary with Grafton, and enjoyed a much higher reputation as an accurate and impartial recorder of public events. He was the son of a respectable tailor, and was born in London in 1525. Of his youth nothing is farther known than that he was brought up to his father's trade, and early exhibited a strong inclination for antiquarian research. By industry and perseverance he acquired, while still following his business, a vast amount of historical information; and, in 1560, he formed the design of composing annals of English history. To prepare himself to execute this design successfully, he abandoned his trade, and travelled on foot through a considerable part of England, for the purpose of examining the historical manuscripts preserved in cathedrals and other public establishments. He also enlarged, as far as his pecuniary means would allow him, his collection of old books and manuscripts, of which there were, at that time, many scattered throughout the country, in consequence of the recent suppression of monasteries by Henry the Eighth. He was, however, compelled, through necessity, to resume his trade, and his studies were suspended, till, by the bounty of Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, he was enabled again to prosecute them.

In 1565, Stow published his Summary of English Chronicles, embracing the period which elapsed from the coming in of Brutus, until the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth. This work was dedicated to the Earl of Leicester, and was founded on a curious tract written by that nobleman's grandfather while he was confined in the Tower. The original chronicle was entitled The Tree of the Commonwealth, and was dedicated to Henry the Eighth, but it never came into that monarch's hands.

The death of bishop Parker, in 1575, materially reduced Stow's income, though he still managed to continue his researches, to which his whole time and energies were now devoted. After many years of laborious research and severe study, appeared, in 1598, his Survey of London, the best known of his writings, and the work which has served as the basis of all subsequent histories of that metropolis. He wrote another work, his large Chronicle, or History of England, on which he bestowed forty years' labor, and which he was very anxious to publish; but no part of it, excepting an extract under the title of Annals of England, ever appeared.

In his old age Stow's poverty was such as to compel him to solicit public charity. With this view he made two applications to the mayor and aldermen of London, but with little success. He at length appealed to James. the First, and received the royal license to repair to churches, or other places, to receive the gratuities and charitable benevolence of well-disposed people.' It is little to the honor of the contemporaries of this worthy and industrious man, that he should have been thus literally reduced to beggary. Under the pressure of want and disease Stow died on the fifth of April, 1605, at the advanced age of eighty years, and was buried in the church of St. Andrew Under Shaft, London, where a suitable monument was afterward erected to his memory by his widow.

The works of this interesting author, though possessing few graces of style, have always been highly esteemed for accuracy and research. He used often to declare that, in composing them he had never allowed himself to be swayed either by fear, favor, or malice; but that he had impartially, and to the best of his knowledge, delivered the truth. So highly was his accuracy esteemed by contemporary authors, that even Bacon and Camden were accustomed to take statements upon his sole authority. We shall conclude these remarks with the following extract, taken from the 'Survey of London.'

SPORTS UPON THE ICE IN ELIZABETH'S REIGN.

When that great moor which washeth Moorfields, at the north wall of the city, is frozen over, great companies of young men go to sport upon the ice; then fetching a run, and setting their feet at a distance, and placing their bodies sidewise, they slide a great way. Others take heaps of ice, as if it were great mill-stones, and make seats; many going before, draw him that sits thereon, holding one another by the hand in going so fast; some slipping with their feet, all fall down together; some are better practiced to the ice, and bind to their shoes bones, as the legs of some beasts, and hold stakes in their hands headed with sharp iron, which sometimes they strike against the ice; and these men go on with speed as doth a bird in the air, or darts shots from some warlike engine: sometimes two men set themselves at a distance, and run one against another, as it were at tilt, with these stakes, wherewith one or both parties are thrown down, not without some hurt to their bodies; and after their fall, by reason of the violent motion, are carried a good distance from one another; and wheresoever the ice doth touch their head, it rubs off all the skin, and lays it bare; and if one fall upon his leg or arm, it is usually broken; but young men, greedy of honour, and desirous of victory, do thus exercise themselves in counterfeit battles, that they may bear the brunt more strongly when they come to it in good earnest.