who being disciplined from his birth in the precepts and practice of temperance and sobriety, without the strong drink of injurious and excessive desires, grows up to a noble strength and perfection with those his illustrious and sunny locks and laws, waving and curling about his godlike shoulders. And while he keeps them about him undiminished and unshorn, he may with the jawbone of an ass, that is, with the word of his meanest officer, suppress and put to confusion thousands of those that rise against his just power.*

Dr. Symmons, in his Life of Milton, says,—Abstinence in diet was one of Milton's favorite virtues; which he practised invariably through life, and availed himself of every opportunity to recommend in his writings.

O madness! to think use of strongest wines

And strongest drinks our chief support of health,
When God, with these forbidden, made choice to rear
His mighty champion, strong above compare,
Whose drink was only from the liquid brook.

Samson Agonistes.

When the Angel of the Lord appeared unto the wife of Manoah, and promised that she who was now childless, should bear a son, he gave to her this strong injunction, "Now therefore beware, I pray thee, drink not wine, nor strong drink." And when Manoah besought the heavenly messenger that he would vouchsafe to shew him "how to order the child," the angel of the Lord answered, “of all that I have said to the woman let her beware."

"She may not eat of any thing that cometh of the vine, nor drink wine, nor strong drink."

And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson, and the child grew and the Lord blessed him.-Judges, xiii.

THE POET'S MORNING.

My morning haunts are, where they should be, at home; not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring; in winter, often ere the sound of any bell awake men to labour or to devotion; in summer, as oft with the bird that first rises, or not much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be read till the attention be weary, or memory have its full freight.

PARADISE LOST.

A WORK not to be raised from the heat of youth or the vapours of wine, like that which flows from the pen of some vulgar amorist, nor to be obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her Syren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases.*

* And chiefly thou O spirit that dost prefer

Before all temples, the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me-what in me is dark

Illumine, what low, raise and support.-MILTON,

Father of light and life! thou good supreme,
O teach me what is good! teach me thyself;
Save me from folly, vanity, and vice,
From every low pursuit! and feed my soul,

With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure,
Sacred, substantial, never fading bliss.—THOMSON.

SECTION X.

LORD BACON.

MEN have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason to the benefit and use of man. As if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention or a shop for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate.-Advancement of Learning.

UNIVERSITIES.

As water, whether it be the dew of heaven or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and lose itself in the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle, where it may by union comfort and sustain itself; and, for that cause, the industry of man hath framed and made spring-heads, conduits, cisterns, and pools; which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with accomplishments of magnificence and state, as

well as of use and necessity. So knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration or spring from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places appointed, as universities, colleges, and schools for the receipt and comforting the same.

LIBRARIES.*

LIBRARIES are as the shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed.

PATENT AND LATENT VICE.

In the law of the leprosy it is said, "If the whiteness overspread the flesh, the patient may pass abroad for clean: but if there be any whole flesh remaining, he is to be shut up for unclean." One of the rabbins noteth a principle of moral philosophy, that men abandoned to vice do not so

* Heinsius, the keeper of the library at Leyden, after being mewed up in it the whole of one year, said, "I no sooner come into the library but I bolt the door after me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is idleness, the mother of ignorance and melancholy herself; and in the very lap of eternity, amidst so many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit and such sweet content, that I pity all the great and rich who know not this happi

ness."

much corrupt manners as those that are half good and half evil.*

PHILOSOPHISING AND THEORISING.

THE wit and mind of man, if it work upon matter which is the contemplation of the creatures of

Coleridge, in his Aids to Reflection, says, "Where virtue is, sensibility is the ornament and becoming attire of virtue. On certain occasions it may almost be said to become virtue. But sensibility and all the amiable qualities may likewise become, and too often have become, the panders of vice and the instruments of seduction.

"So must it needs be with all qualities that have their rise only in parts and fragments of our nature. A man of warm passions may sacrifice half his estate to rescue a friend from prison; for he is naturally sympathetic, and the more social part of his nature happened to be uppermost. The same man shall afterwards exhibit the same disregard of money in an attempt to seduce that friend's wife or daughter.

"All the evil achieved by Hobbs and the whole school of materialists will appear inconsiderable if it be compared with the mischief effected and occasioned by the sentimental philosophy of Sterne and his numerous imitators. The vilest appetites and the most remorseless inconstancy towards their object, acquired the titles of the heart, the irresistible feelings, the too tender sensibility; and if the frosts of prudence, the icy chains of human law, thawed and vanished at the genial warmth of human nature, who could help it? It was an amiable weakness !

“About this time too the profanation of the word love rose to its height. The French naturalists, Buffon and others, borrowed it from the sentimental novelists: the Swedish and English philosophers took the contagion: and the Muse of science condescended to seek admission into the saloons of fashion and frivolity, rouged like a harlot, and with the harlot's wanton leer. I know not how the annals of guilt could