The cafe thus judg'd against the king we fee,

By one, that would not be so rich, though wiser far than he. Nor does this happy place only difpenfe

Such various pleasures to the fenfe;

Here health itself does live,

That falt of life, which does to all a relish give,

Its ftanding pleasure, and intrinfic wealth,

The body's virtue, and the foul's good-fortune, health.

The tree of life, when it in Eden stood,

Did its immortal head to heaven rear ;
It lafted a tall cedar, till the flood;
Now a small thorny fhrub it does appear;
Nor will it thrive too every where
It always here is freshest seen;
'Tis only here an ever green.

If, through the ftrong and beauteous fence
Of temperance and innocence,

And wholefome labours, and a quiet mind,
Any difeafes paffage find,

They must not think here to affail
A land unarm'd, or without a guard;
They must fight for it, and dispute it hard,
Before they can prevail:

Scarce any plant is growing here,
Which against death fome weapon does not bear.
Let cities boaft, that they provide

For life the ornaments of pride :
But 'tis the country and the field,

That furnish it with ftaff and shield.

Where does the wifdom and the power divine
In a more bright and sweet reflection shine?
Where do we finer ftrokes and colours fee
Of the Creator's real poetry,

Than when we with attention look
Upon the third day's volume of the book?
If we could open and intend our eye,
We all, like Mofes, fhould efpy

Ev'n in a bufh the radiant Deity.
But we defpife these his inferior ways
(Though no lefs full of miracle and praife):

Upon the flowers of heaven we gaze;
The ftars of earth no wonder in us raife,
Though thefe perhaps do, more than they,
The life of mankind fway.

Although no part of mighty nature be
More flor'd with beauty, power, and mystery;
Yet, to encourage human induftry,

God has fo order'd, that no other part

Such space and fuch dominion leaves for art.
We no-where Art do fo triumphant fee,
As when it grafts or buds the tree :
In other things we count it to excel,
If it a docile fcholar can appear
To Nature, and but imitate, her well;
It over-rules, and is her master, here.

It imitates her Maker's power divine,

And changes her fometimes, and fometimes does refine :
It does, like grace, the fallen tree restore

To its bleft ftate of Paradise before:

Who would not joy to fee his conquering hand

O'er all the vegetable world command?
And the wild giants of the wood receive
What law he's pleas'd to give?

He bids th' ill-natur'd crab produce
The gentler apple's winy juice;

The golden fruit, that worthy is
Of Galatea's purple kiss:

He does the favage hawthorn teach
To bear the medlar and the pear:
He bids the ruftic plum to rear
A noble trunk, and be a peach.
Ev'n Daphne's coynefs he does mock,
And weds the cherry to her ftock,
Though fhe refus'd Apollo's fuit;
Ev'n fhe, that chafte and virgin tree,
Now wonders at herself, to see

That she's a mother made, and blushes in her fruit.

Methinks, I fee great Dioclefian walk

In the Salonian garden's noble fhade,
Which by his own imperial hands was made:
I fee him fmile, methinks, as he does talk
With the ambassadors, who come in vain

T'entice him to a throne again.

If I, my friends (faid he) fhould to you show
All the delights which in thefe gardens grow,
'Tis likelier much, that you should with me stay,
Than 'tis, that you should carry me away:
And truft me not, my friends, if, every day,
I walk not here with more delight,

Than ever, after the moft happy fight,

In triumph to the capitol I rode,

To thank the gods, and to be thought, myself, almost a god.

INCE we cannot attain to greatness (fays the Sieur de Montagne) let us have

more than I do, and had lefs reason; for he enjoyed fo plentiful and honourable a fortune in a moft excellent country, as allowed him all the real conveniences of it, fepaed and purged from the incommodities. If I were but in his condition, I fhould Lak it hard meafure, without being convinced of any crime, to be fequeftered from it, ad made one of the principal officers of state. But the reader may think that what Í Bowlay is of fmall authority, because I never was, nor ever fhall be, put to the trial: I can therefore only make my proteftation,

If ever I more riches did defire
Than cleanliness and quiet do require ;
If e'er ambition did my fancy cheat,
With any wifh, fo mean as to be great;
Continue, Heaven, ftill from me to remove
The humble bleflings of that life I love.

I know very many men will defpife, and fome pity me, for this humour, as a poorfpirited fellow; but I am content, and, like Horace, thank God for being so.

Di bene fecerunt, inopis me quódque pufilli

Finxerunt animi*.

I confefs, I love littlenefs almoft in all things. A little convenient eftate, a littl company, and a very little feast; and, if I were ever to fall in love again (which is great paffion, and therefore, I hope, I have done with it) it would be, I think, wit prettinefs, rather than with majeftical beauty. I would neither with that my miftreft nor my fortune, fhould be a bona roba, nor, as Homer ufes to defcribe his beauties, lik a daughter of great Jupiter for the ftatelinefs and largenefs of her perfon; but Lucretius fays,

Parvola, pumilio, Xagirav pía, tota merum fal†.

Where there is one man of this, I believe there are a thoufand of Senecio's mine whofe ridiculous affectation of grandeur Seneca the eldert defcribes to this effect Senecio was a man of a turbid and confufed wit, who could not endure to speak an but mighty words and fentences, till this humour grew at laft into fo notorious a habi or rather difcafe, as became the fport of the whole town: he would have no fervant but huge, mafly fellows; no plate or household-ftuff, but thrice as big as the fashion: yo may believe me, for I fpeak it without raillery, his extravagancy came at last into fuc a madnels, that he would not put on a pair of thoes, each of which was not big enoug for both his feet: he would eat nothing but what was great, nor touch any fruit by horfe-plums and pound-pears: he kept a concubine, that was a very giantefs, and mad her walk too always in chiopins, till at last, he got the furname of Senecio Grandic which Meffala said, was not his cognomen, but his cognomentum: when he declaimed fi the three hundred Lacedæmonians, who alone oppofed Xerxes's army of above thre hundred thousand, he ftretched out his arms, and flood on tiptoes, that he might appe the taller, and cried out, in a very loud voice; " I rejoice, I rejoice.”—We wondere I remember, what new great fortune had befallen his eminence. "Xerxes (fays he is all mine own. He, who took away the fight of the fea, with the canvas veils of many fhips"-and then he goes on fo, as I know not what to make of the reft, whe ther it be the fault of the edition, or the orator's own burley way of nonfense.

This is the character that Seneca gives of this hyperbolical fop, whom we ftan amazed at, and yet there are very few men who are not in fome things, and to fom degrees, Grandios. Is any thing more common, than to fee our ladies of qualit wear fuch high fhoes as they cannot walk in, without one to lead them; and a gow as long again as their body, fo that they cannot ftir to the next room without a pag or two to hold it up? I may fafely fay, that all the oftentation of our grandees is, jul like a train, of no ufe in the world, but horribly cumbersome and incommodious What is all this, but a fpice of Grandio? how tedious would this be, if we wer always bound to it! I do believe there is no king, who would not rather be depofed than endure every day of his reign all the ceremonies of his coronation.

The mightielt princes are glad to fly often from thefe majeftic pleasures (which is, methinks, no fmall difparagement to them) as it were for refuge, to the moft con temptible divertisements and meaneft recreations of the vulgar, nay, even of children

* 1 Sat. iv. 17.

Luck. iv. 1155.

Suaforiarum Liber. Suaf. II.

1.

*

One of the most powerful and fortunate princes of the world, of late, could find out no delight fo fatisfactory, as the keeping of little finging birds, and hearing of them, and whiftling to them. What did the emperors of the whole world? If ever any men had the free and full enjoyment of all human greatnefs (nay, that would not fuffice, for they would be gods too), they certainly poffeffed it: and yet one of them, who ftyled himself lord and god of the earth, could not tell how to pass his whole day pleasantly, without spending conftantly two or three hours in catching of flies, and killing them with a bodkin, as if his godfhip had been Beelzebub t. One of his predeceffors Nero, (who never put any bounds, nor met with any ftop to his appetite) could divert himself with no paftime more agreeable, than to run about the streets all night in a disguise, and abuse the women, and affront the men whom he met, and fometimes to beat them, and fometimes to be beaten by them: this was one of his imperial nocturnal pleasures. His chiefeft in the day was, to fing and play upon a fiddle, in the habit of a minstrel, upon the public ftage: he was prouder of the garlands that were given to his divine voice (as they called it then) in thofe kind of prizes, than all his forefathers were, of their triumphs over nations: he did not at his death complain, that fo mighty an emperor, and the laft of all the Cæfarian race of deities, should be brought to fo fhameful and miferable an end; but only cried out, "Alas, what pity it is, that fo excellent a musician should perish in this manner!" His uncle Claudius fpent half his time at playing at dice; and that was the main fruit of his fovereignty. I omit the madneffes of Caligula's delights, and the execrable fordidnefs of thofe of Tiberius. Would one think that Auguftus himfelf, the higheft and moft fortunate of mankind, a perfon endowed too with many excellent parts of nature, fhould be fo hard put to it fometimes for want of recreations, as to be found playing at nuts and bounding ftones, with little Syrian and Moorish boys, whofe company he took delight in, for their prating and their wantonnefs?

Was it for this that Rome's best blood he spilt,
With fo much falfehood, fo much guilt?
Was it for this that his ambition ftrove
To equal Cæfar, firft; and after, Jove?
Greatness is barren, fure, of folid joys;
Her merchandize (I fear) is all in toys;
She could not elfe, fure, fo uncivil be,
To treat his univerfal majefty,

His new-created Deity,

With nuts, and bounding-ftones, and boys.

But we muft excufe her for this meagre entertainment; fhe has not really wherewithal to make fuch feafts as we imagine. Her guests must be contented fometimes with but flender cates, and with the fame cold meats ferved over and over again, even till they become naufeous. When you have pared away all the vanity, what folid and natural contentment does there remain, which may not be had with five hundred a year? Not fo many fervants or horfes; but a few good ones, which will do all the bufinefs as well: not fo many choice dishes at every meal; but at feveral meals all of them, which makes them both the more healthy, and the more pleafant: not fo rich garments, nor fo frequent changes; but as warm and as comely, and fo frequent change too, as is every jot as good for the mafter, though not for the taylor or valet de chambre: not fuch a stately palace, nor gilt rooms, or the cclieft forts of tapestry; but a convenient brick houfe, with decent wainscot, and pretty forelt-work hangings. Lastly, (for I omit all other particulars, and will end with that which I love most in both conditions) not whole woods cut in walks, nor vaft parks, nor fountain or caf

Louis XIII.-The Duke de Luynes, the Constable of France, is faid to have gained the favour of this powerful and fortunate prince by training up finging birds for him. ANON. † Beelzebub fignifies the Lord of flies. COWLEY. +- "Qualis artifex pereo!"

Sueton. Nero.

1

1

cade-gardens; but herb, and flower, and fruit gardens, which are more useful, and the water every whit as clear and wholesome, as if it darted from the breafts of a marble nymph, or the urn of a river-god.

If, for all this, you like better the substance of that former cftate of life, do but confider the infeparable accidents of both: fervitude, difquiet, danger, and most com monly guilt, inherent in the one; in the other liberty, tranquillity, fecurity, and innocence. And when you have thought upon this, you will confefs that to be a truth which appeared to you, before, but a ridiculous paradox, that a low fortune is better guarded and attended than an high one. If, indeed, we look only upon the flourishing head of the tree, it appears a molt beautiful object,

"-fed quantum vertice ad auras

"Ætherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit

As far up towards heaven the branches grow,
So far the root finks down to hell below.

Another horrible difgrace to greatnefs is, that it is for the most part in pitiful want and diftrefs: what a wonderful thing is this! Unless it degenerate into avarice, and fo ceafe to be greatnefs, it falls perpetually into fuch neceflities, as drive it into all the meaneft and moft fordid ways of borrowing, cozenage, and robbery:

Mancipiis locuples, eget æris Cappadocum rex t.

This is the cafe of almost all great men, as well as of the poor king of Cappadocia : they abound with flaves, but are indigent of money. The ancient Roman emperors, who had the riches of the whole world for their revenue, had wherewithal to live (one would have thought) pretty well at eafe, and to have been exempt from the preffures of extreme poverty. But yet with most of them it was much otherwife; and they fell perpetually into fuch miferable penury, that they were forced to devour or fqueeze molt of their friends and fervants, to cheat with infamous projects, to ranfack and pillage all their provinces. This fashion of imperial grandeur is imitated by all inferior and fubordinate forts of it, as if it were a point of honour. They must be cheated of a third part of their eftates, two other thirds they must expend in vanity; fo that they remain debtors for all the neceffary provifions of life, and have no way to fatisfy thofe debts, but out of the fuccours and fupplies of rapine: " as riches incrçafe" (lays Solomon) "fo do the mouths that devour them ‡." The mafter mouth has no more than before. The owner, methinks, is like Ocnus in the fable, who is perpetually winding a rope of hay, and an ass at the end perpetually eating it.

Out of thefe inconveniences arifes naturally one more, which is, that no greatness can be fatisfied or contented with itself: ftill, if it could mount up a little higher, it would be happy; if it could gain but that point, it would obtain all its defires; but yet at laft, when it is got up to the very top of the Pic of Teneriff, it is in very great danger of breaking its neck downwards, but in no poffibility of afcending upwards into the feat of tranquillity above the moon. The firft ambitious men in the world, the old giants, are faid to have made an heroical attempt of fealing heaven in defpite of the gods and they caft Offa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Offa: two or three mountains more, they thought, would have done their bufinefs: but the thunder spoilt all the work, when they were come up to the third story:

And what a noble plot was croft!

And what a brave defign was loft!

A famous perfon of their offspring, the late giant of our nation, when, from the condition of a very inconfiderable captain, he had made himself lieutenantgeneral of an army of little Titans, which was his firft mountain, and afterwards general, which was his fecond, and after that, abfolute tyrant of three kingdoms,