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ye into the joy of your Lord!" I also heard the men themselves say, that they sang with a loud voice, saying, lessing, honour, glory and power, be to Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever."

the streets

Now just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked in after them; and behold, the city shone like the sun, also were paved with gold, and in them walked many men, with crowns on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps to sing praises withal. There were also of them (those) that had wings, and they answered one another without intermission, saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord." And after that they shut up the gates: which when I had seen, I wished myself among them.

SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.'

1. SELF-INSTRUCTION.

(FROM "MISCELLANEA," PUBLISHED IN 1680.)

I CAN truly say that of all the paper I have blotted, which has been a great deal in my time, I have never written anything for the public without the intention of some public good. Whether I have succeeded or no, is not my part to judge; and others, in what they tell me, may deceive either me or themselves. Good

(1) "Sir William Temple was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose; before his time, they were careless of arrangement, and did not mind whether a sentence ended with an important word or an insignificant word, or with what part of speech it concluded."-Johnson, quoted by Boswell.

Dr. Johnson's judgment respecting Temple's cadences has been questioned by Robert Chambers, Angus, and others; and Hooker, Cowley, Dryden, have been quoted in opposition. To these might certainly be added Milton. The above extract is a fair specimen of that graceful management of style which renders Temple's writings the object of especial admiration to many men of taste.

"He had gradually formed a style singularly lucid and melodious, superficially deformed, indeed, by Gallicisms and Hispanicisms, picked up in travel or negociation, but at the bottom pure English, which generally flowed along with careless simplicity, but occasionally rose even to Ciceronian magnificence."-Macaulay, Essays, iii. 47.

"Sir William Temple's style is the model by which the best prose writers in the reign of Queen Anne formed theirs."-Goldsmith.

intentions are at least the seed of good actions; and every man ought to sow them, and leave it to the soil and the seasons whether they come to fruit or no, and whether he or any other gather the fruit. I have chosen those subjects of these essays, wherein I take human life to be most concerned, and which are of most common use, or most necessary knowledge; and wherein, though I may not be able to inform men more than they know, yet I may perhaps give them the occasion to consider more than they do. This is a sort of instruction that no man can dislike, since it comes from himself, and is made without envy or fear, constraint or obligation, which make us commonly dislike what is taught by others. All men would be glad to be their own masters, and should not be sorry to be their own scholars, when they pay no more for their learning than their own thoughts, which they have commonly more store of about them than they know what to do with; and which, if they do not apply to something of good use, nor employ about something of ill, they will trifle away upon something vain or impertinent (useless); their thoughts will be but waking dreams, as their dreams are sleeping thoughts. Yet, of all sorts of instructions, the best is gained from our own thoughts as well as experience: for though a man may grow learned by other men's thoughts, yet he will grow wise or happy only by his own;' the use of other men's towards these ends is but to serve for one's own reflections; otherwise they are but like meat swallowed down for pleasure or greediness, which only charges (loads) the stomach, or fumes into the brain, if it be not well-digested, and thereby turned into the very mass or substance of the body that received it.2

2. DISCRETION IN GRIEF.

(PART OF A LETTER WRITTEN TO THE COUNTESS OF ESSEX, ON THE Loss OF HER DAUGHTER.)

You will say, perhaps, that one thing was all to you, and your fondness of (for) it made you indifferent to everything else; but this, I doubt, will be so far from justifying you, that it will prove to be your fault as well as your misfortune. God Almighty

(1) See extract from Locke, and the note thereon.

(2) The modern assimilate very happily expresses in one word all that is above represented in fourteen, beginning, "thereby turned," &c.

(3) Fault, misfortune. These words are very aptly used above just as we use them now. That is my fault, which I have brought upon myself; my misfortune

gave you all the blessings of this life, and you set your heart wholly upon one, and despise or undervalue all the rest: is this His fault or yours? Nay, is it not to be very unthankful to Heaven, as well as very scornful to the rest of the world? Is it not to say, because you have lost one thing God hath given, you thank Him for nothing he has left, and care not what He takes away? Is it not to say, since that one thing hath gone out of the world, there then is nothing left in it which you think can deserve your kindness or esteem? A friend makes me a feast, and sets before me all that his care or kindness could provide; but I set my heart upon one dish alone, and if that happen to be thrown down, I scorn all the rest; and though he sends for another of the same, yet I rise from the table in a rage, and say my friend is my enemy, and has done me the greatest wrong in the world. Have I reason1 or good grace in what I do? or would it become me better to eat of the rest that is before me, and think no more of what had happened, and could not be remedied?

Christianity teaches and commands us to moderate our passions; to temper our affections towards all things below; to be thankful for the possession, and patient under the loss, whenever He who gave shall see fit to take away. Your extreme fondness was perhaps as displeasing to God before as now your extreme affliction is; and your loss may have been a punishment for your faults in the manner of enjoying what you had. It is, at least, pious to ascribe all the ill that befalls us to our own demerits, rather than to injustice in God. And it becomes us better to adore the issues of his providence in the effects, than to inquire into the causes; for submission is the only way of reasoning between a creature and its Maker; and contentment (acquiescence) in his will is the greatest duty we can pretend to, and the best remedy we can apply to all our misfortunes.

2

which has been allotted to me. The derivation of fault fr. Fr. faillir to fail, err, go astray, shows that fault is a failure in goodness, something that I might have corrected; while misfortune, answering nearly to bad luck, indicates irresponsibility.

(1) Have I reason? Evidently one of the Gallicisms referred to by Macaulay (p. 232), fr. Fr. ai-je raison? "am I right?"

(2) Demerits, &c. This word, above meaning ill-deserts, not long before was used as a synonym of merit, inasmuch as the Lat. mereor and demereor, fr. wh. they are respectively derived, can scarcely be distinguished from each other. Holland ("Pliny ") speaks of it as "a singular demerit (merit) and gracious act not to kill a citizen of Rome," &c.

THOMAS BURNET.'

THE FINAL CONFLAGRATION OF THE GLOBE. (FROM "THE SACRED THEORY OF THE EARTH," PUBLISHED IN 1691.)

BUT if we suppose the storm over, and that the fire hath gotten an entire victory over all other bodies, and subdued everything to itself, the conflagration will end in a deluge of fire, or in a sea of fire, covering the whole globe of the earth; for, when the exterior region of the earth is melted into a fluor, like molten glass or running metal, it will, according to the nature of other fluids, fill all vacuities and depressions, and fall into a regular surface, at an equal distance everywhere from its centre. This sea of fire, like the first abyss, will cover the face of the whole earth, make a kind of second chaos, and have a capacity for another world to rise from it. But that is not our present business. Let us only, if you please, to take leave of this subiect, reflect upon this occasion on the vanity and transient glory of all this habitable world; how, by the force of one element breaking loose upon the rest, all the varieties of nature, all the works of art, all the labours of men, are reduced to nothing; all that we admired and adored before, as great and magnificent, is obliterated or vanished; and another form and face of things, plain and simple, and everywhere the same, overspreads the whole earth. Where are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities? Their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? Show me where they stood, read the inscription, tell me the victor's name. What remains, what impressions, what difference or distinction do you see in this mass of fire? Rome itself, eternal Rome, the great city, the Empress of the world, whose domination and superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this

(1) "His English style is singularly flowing and harmonious, as well as perspicuous and animated, and rises on fit occasions to much majesty and even splendour." -Craik, English Literature, ii. 191.

It may, however, be remarked that Burnet's style is a little too "flowing," and becomes wordy. See, for instance, in the first sentence, "the fire has gotten a victory over, and subdued everything;" "the conflagration ends in a deluge, or a sea of fire." The law of Economy in style (see note 3, p. 222) is manifestly violated here; still, though faulty in drawing, the colouring is, in many places, fine.

earth, what is become of her now? She laid her foundations deep, and her palaces were strong and sumptuous: she "glorified herself, and lived deliciously," and said in her heart, "I sit a queen, and shall see no sorrow." But her hour is come; she is wiped away from the face of the earth, and buried in perpetual oblivion. But it is not cities only, and works of men's hands, but the everlasting hills, the mountains and rocks of the earth, are melted as wax before the sun, and their place is nowhere found. Here stood the Alps, a prodigious range of stone, the load of the earth, that covered many countries, and reached their arms from the ocean to the Black Sea; this huge mass of stone is softened and dissolved, as a tender cloud into rain. Here stood the African mountains, and Atlas with his top above the clouds. There was frozen Caucasus, and Taurus, and Imaus, and the mountains of Asia. And yonder, towards the north, stood the Riphæan hills, clothed in ice and snow. these are vanished, dropped away as the snow upon their heads, and swallowed up in a red sea of fire. (Rev. xv. 3.) "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are all thy ways, thou King of Saints." Hallelujah.

All

JOHN LOCKE.1

1. READING.

(FROM "THE CONDUCT OF THE UNDERSTANDING," PUBLISHED IN 1704.)

THIS is what I think great readers are apt to be mistaken in. Those who have read of everything are thought to understand everything too; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge: it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load

(1) "Locke is certainly a good writer, relatively to the greater part of his contemporaries; his plain and manly sentiments often give us pleasure by the wording alone. In all his writings he is occasionally negligent, and, though not vulgar, at least, according to the idiom of his age, slovenly in the structure of his sentences, as well as the choice of his words."-Hallam, Lit. of Europe, iii. 559.