reap it. Did not David's murder and adultery bring the sword and incest into his family? How fatally and strikingly was the massacre at Paris marked by the massacre of the chief actors and contrivers of it! Charles the king, before the twenty-fifth year of his age, died bathed in blood; and Anjou, his successor, was assassinated, and slain in the same room that the massacre was plotted in. Guise was murdered by the king's order; the queen was consumed with grief; and with succeeding civil war, both Paris and the nation torn. It is a remarkable instance of retaliation, which is afforded in the story of Valentinian and Maximus. Valentinian by fraud and force seduced the wife of Maximus: for which Maximus by fraud and force murdered him and married his wife; who, from disdain at being forced into the marriage, and a desire to revenge her husband's death, plotted the destruction of Maximus and Rome. No proverb is more true than the saying of the satirist :

Ad generum Cereris sine cæde et sanguine, pauci
Descendunt reges, et sicca morte tyranni.

Juv. Sat. x.

Few tyrants find death natural, calm, or good; But, broach'd with slaughter, roll to hell in blood.

There is in vices not only a natural production of evil in general, but there is a proportion of parts B b

VOL. III.

and dimensions, as a seed bringing forth a plant, or the parent a son. Bagoas, a Persian nobleman, having poisoned Artaxerxes and Arsamues, was detected by Darius, and forced to drink poison himself. Diomedes, who with human flesh fed beasts, was at last, by Hercules, made their food himself. Pope Alexander the Sixth, having designed the poisoning of his friend cardinal Adrian, by his cup-bearer's mistake of the bottle, took the draught himself; and so died by the same engine which he himself had appointed to kill another. In vain do they exert good, who would have it arise out of evil. I may as well, when I plant a thistle, expect a fig; or upon sowing cockle, look for wheat, as to think by indirect courses, to beget my own benefit. The best policy is to sow good and honest actions, and then we may expect a harvest that is answerable.

Of Neglect.

There is the same difference between diligence and neglect, that there is between a garden properly cultivated and the sluggard's field which fell under Solomon's view, when overgrown with nettles and thorns. The one is clothed with beauty, the other is unpleasant and disgusting to the sight. Negligence is the rust of the soul, that corrodes through all her best

resolutions. What nature made for use, for strength, and ornament, neglect alone converts to trouble, weakness, and deformity. We need only sit still, and diseases will arise from the mere want of exercise.

How fair soever the soul may be; yet while connected with our fleshy nature, it requires continual care and vigilance to prevent its being soiled and discoloured. Take the weeders from the Floralium, and a very little time will change it to a wilderness; and turn that which was before a recreation for men, into a habitation for vermin. Our life is a warfare; and we ought not, while passing through it, to sleep with out a sentinel, or march without a scout. He who neglects either of these precautions, exposes himself to surprise, and to becoming a prey to the diligence and perseverance of his adversary. The mounds of life and virtue, as well as those of pastures, will decay; and if we do not repair them, all the beasts of the field will enter, and tear up every thing good which grows within them. With the religious and well-disposed, a slight deviation from wisdom's laws will disturb the mind's fair peace. Macarius did penance for only killing a guat in anger. Like the Jewish touch of things unclean, the least miscarriage requires purification. Man is like a watch; if evening and morning he be not wound up with prayer and circumspection, he is unprofitable and false; or serves to mislead. If the instrument be not truly set,

it will be harsh and out of tune; the diapason dies, when every string does not perform his part. Surely, without an union to God, we cannot be secure or well. Can he be happy, who from happiness is divided? To be united to God we must be influenced by his goodness, and strive to imitate his perfections. Diligence alone is a good patrimony; but neglect will waste the fairest fortune. One preserves and gathers; the other, like death, is the dissolution of all. The industrious bee, by her sedulity in summer, lives on honey all the winter. But the drone is not only cast out from the hive, but beaten and punished.

FRANCE TO THE LIFE.

FRANCE painted to the Life, by a learned and impartial hand.-Motto.

Quid non Gallia parturit ingens.

Second edition; London, printed for William Leake, at the Crown, in Fleet-street, betwixt the two Temple gates, 1657.

Of this curious book, I know nothing more than what we are told in the title page. It will be seen from the following extract, that the French national character has not materially altered since the time of its being written.

The cart stayeth, and it is fit we were in it; horses we could get none for money, and for love we did not expect them. We are now mounted in one chariot,