though with moderation, the times of sickness and indisposedness of health, the times of cares, journeys, and travels; the times for necessary recreations, interviews of friends and relations, and a thousand such expenses of time, the residue will be but a small pittance for our business of the greatest moment, the business, I mean, of fitting our souls for glory; and, if that be mispent, or idly spent, we have lost our treasure, and the very flower and jewel of our time.

9. Let us remember, that when we shall come to die, and our souls, sit as it were, hovering upon our lips, ready to take their flight, at how great a rate we would then be willing to purchase some of these hours we once trifled away, but we

cannot.

10. Remember that this is the very elixir, the very hell of hell, to the damned spirits, that they had once a time wherein they might, upon easy terms, have procured everlasting rest and glory; but they foolishly and vainly mispent that time and season, which is now not be recovered.

SIR MATTHEW HALE.

TRUTH.

Defend the truth: for that who will not die,
A coward is, and gives himself the lie.

Truth still is one; truth is divinely bright,
No cloudy doubts obscure her native light.

RANDOLPH.

ROSCOMMON.

WHOSOEVER, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may happily strike out his teeth.

SIR WALTER RALEGH.

CERTAINLY it is heaven upon earth, to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

LORD BACON.

IT will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honour of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like allay in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it.

IBID.

THERE is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false and perfidious;

and therefore, Montaigne saith prettily, when he enquired the reason why the word of the lie, should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge? "If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say, that he is brave "towards God, and a coward towards men: for 66 a lie faces God, and shrinks from man," Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith, cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being foretold, that when "Christ cometh, he shall not find "faith upon earth.”

LORD BACON.

THE way to find out the truth, is by other's mistakings; for if I was to go to such a place, aud one had gone before me on the right hand, and he was out; another had gone on the left hand, and he was out, this would direct me to keep the middle way; that, peradventure, would bring me to the place I desired to go.

SELDEN.

WISDOM.

Not to know at large of things remote
From use, obscure and subtle; but to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom: what is more is fume,
Or emptiness, or fond impertinence;
And renders us in things that most concern,
Unpractis'd, unprepar'd, and still to seek.

MILTON.

THE pleasures of the mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of truth carries with it; to which add the joyful reflections on a well-spent life, and the assured hopes of a future happiness.

SIR THOMAS MORE'S UTOPIA,
Translated by Bishop Burnett.

WHOSO thinks himself the wisest man, is but a poor and miserable ignorant. Those that are the best men of war against all the vanities and fooleries of the world, do always keep the strongest guard against themselves, to defend them from themselves, from self-love, self-estiination, and self-opinion.

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SIR WALTER RALEGH.

TO the end that no man should be proud of himself, God hath distributed unto men such a

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proportion of knowledge, as the wisest may behold in themselves their own weakness.

SIR WALTER RALEGH.

WE take cunning for a sinister, or crooked wisdom, and certainly there is great difference between a cunning man and a wise man, not only in point of honesty, but in point of ability. There be that can pack the cards, and yet cannot play weil, so there are some that are good in canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak men.

LORD BACON.

WISDOM for a man's self, is, in many branches thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which is specially to be noted, is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey) are sui amantes sine rivali, are many times unfortunate. And whereas they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become, in the end, themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune, whose wings they thought, by their self-wisdom, to have pinioned.