DOCTOR BARROW.

KNOWLEDGE IS A SOURCE OF DELIGHT.* WISDOM of itself is delectable and satisfactory, as it implies a revelation of truth and a detection of error to us. "Tis like light, pleasant to behold, casting a sprightly lustre, and diffusing a benign influence all about; presenting a goodly prospect of things to the eyes of our mind; displaying objects in their due shapes, postures, magnitudes, and colours; quickening our spirits with a comfortable warmth, and disposing our minds to a cheerful activity; dispelling the darkness of ignorance, scattering the mists of doubt, driving away the spectres of delusive fancy; mitigating the cold of sullen melancholy; discovering obstacles, securing progress, and making the passages of life clear, open and pleasant. We are all naturally endowed with a strong appetite to know, to see, to pursue truth; and with a bash

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ful abhorrency from being deceived and entangled in mistake. And as success in enquiry after truth affords matter of joy and triumph; so being conscious of error and miscarriage therein, is attended with shame and sorrow. These desires wisdom in the most perfect manner satisfies, not by entertaining us with dry, empty, fruitless theories upon mean and vulgar subjects; but by enriching our minds with excellent and useful knowledge, directed to the noblest objects and serviceable to the highest ends.*

* Bacon in enumerating the advantages of knowledge, says, 1. It relieves man's afflictions. 2. It promotes public virtue and order. 3. It promotes private virtues, by humanizing, humbling, nullifying vain admiration, improving. 3. It is power. 4. The pleasure of knowledge far exceedeth all other pleasures; for, shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the senses, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner; and must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections? We see in all other pleasures there is satiety, and after they be used, their verdure departeth; which sheweth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures; and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality; and therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious princes turn melancholy. But of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually inter

WISDOM SELECTS TRUE PLEASURES.

Wisdom is exceedingly pleasant and peaceable; in general, by disposing us to acquire and to enjoy all the good delight and happiness we are capable of; and by freeing us from all the inconveniences, mischiefs, and infelicities our condition is subject to. For whatever good from clear understanding, deliberate advice, sagacious foresight, stable resolution, dextrous address, right intention,

man,

changeable; and therefore appeareth to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or accident. Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy and contentment to the mind of which the poet Lucretius describeth elegantly, "Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis, &c. "It is a view of delight," saith he, "to stand or walk upon the shore side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea; or to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain; but it is a pleasure incomparable, for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of truth, and from thence to descry and 'behold the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up and down of other men." "So always, that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. 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."

and orderly proceeding doth naturally result, wisdom confers: whatever evil blind ignorance, false presumption, unwary credulity, precipitate rashness, unsteady purpose, ill contrivance, backwardness, inability, unwieldiness and confusion of thought beget, wisdom prevents. From a thousand snares and treacherous allurements, from innumerable rocks and dangerous surprizes, from exceedingly many needless incumbrances and vexatious toils of fruitless endeavours she redeems and secures us.

Wisdom instructs us to examine, 'compare, and rightly to value the objects that court our affections and challenge our care; and thereby regulates our passions and moderates our endeavours, which begets a pleasant serenity and peaceable tranquillity of mind. For when being deluded with false shews, and relying upon ill-grounded presumptions, we highly esteem, passionately affect, and eagerly pursue things of little worth in themselves or concernment to us; as we unhandsomely prostitute our affections, and prodigally mis-spend our time, and vainly lose our labour, so the event not answering our expectation, our minds thereby are confounded, disturbed and distempered. But, when guided by right

reason, we conceive great esteem of, and zealously are enamoured with, and vigorously strive to attain things of excellent worth and weighty consequence, the conscience of having well placed our affections and well employed our pains, and the experience of fruits corresponding to our hopes, ravishes our minds with unexpressible content. And so it is: present appearance and vulgar conceit ordinarily impose upon our fancies, disguising things with a deceitful varnish, and representing those that are vainest with the greatest advantage; whilst the roblest objects, being of a more subtle and spiritual nature, like fairest jewels enclosed in a homely box, avoid the notice of gross sense and pass undiscerned by us. But the light of wisdom, as it unmasks specious imposture and bereaves it of its false colours, so it penetrates into the retirements of true excellency and reveals its genuine lustre.*

Wisdom doth balance in her scales those true and false pleasures which do equally invite the senses: and rejecting all such as have no solid value or lasting refreshment, doth select and take to her bosom those delights that, proving immortal, do seem to smell and taste of that paradise from which they sprung. Like the wise husbandman who, taking the rough grain which carries in its heart the bread to sustain life, doth trample under foot the gay and idle flowers which many times destroy it. A. M.