ben's prefs.

"His uncommon erudition," fays he," and the probity and fincerity of his manners, render him worthy of a much better fortune: and yet I dare not with that he were rich."—"Why fo ?" you will fay." Left it fhould make him. indolent, and less active in advancing the cause of Literature. Poverty is a great spur to industry." This may be true: but, when a learned and a modeft man hath long drudged in occupations which are really beneath him, and hath fhewn evident marks of his attachment to Literature, of his zeal to serve the public, and of his capacity of doing greater things, if he were more at his ease, and at liberty to choose such works as best suited his abilities, he is furely worthy of fome recompenfe: and it is a fcandalous thing when fuch favours are only bestowed upon people, who procure them by foliciting, by flattering, &c.*

Efculapius, the Father of Physicians, loved fees too well; and for the fake of gold restored a dead man to life, for which Jupiter killed him with his thunder, as Pindar informs us, Pyth. III. I wonder that fome of the Greek Epigrammatifts, who often ridicule the Phyficians, did not take the hint from Pindar; and fay, that the children of Æfculapius, left they fhould fuffer as their father had done, instead of raising the dead, were contented to kill the living.

* Life of Erafmus, Vol. 1. p. 562.

Aras

Aras non habemus, fays Minucius Felix. If Chriftians, then, had no altars, they had no facrifice.

His too verbose in his compofitions. If he were an indigent author, who fold his works by the sheet, I could pardon him: for fuch an one lofes a penny, along with every idle fentence that he strikes out of his copy: his neceffities will not fuffer him to part with his fuperfluities.

The Greeks and Latins made the Mufes, the Graces, and all the Virtues, females.

Lord Clarendon, having mentioned the death of Ireton, on whom he hath bestowed a very bad character, fays, that Cromwell gave, the command of the army in Ireland to Ludlow, a man of a very different temper from the other. B. XIII. This paffage is remarkable: it contains no small compli ment, paid obliquely and indirectly to Ludlow.

One of the greatest wits, and fayers of bons mots, amongst the ancients, was Diogenes the Cynic. I wish I had formerly collected all his fayings: Now it is too late to seek them up and down in various authors.

1 have feen fome Divines offended at those women, who had their gloves on when they received the Sacrament. They did not know, I believe,

1

that in the fixth and seventh century, it was a law in fome places, that the men fhould receive the confecrated bread upon their bare hands; the women, upon a piece of white linen laid on their hand, which was called a dominical. This infignificant ceremony was commanded by one Council, and condemned by another. See Dallæus, de Cult. Lat. P. 573.

Boileau was a good Poet; but, not content with that, he wanted to pafs for a good Scholar. He had, in truth, a flender stock of erudition; and in this most of our celebrated English poets resemble him. He was more learned than Perrault; but that is no mighty matter: Nulla eft gloria præterire claudos.

Hadrianus Valefius, in his Valefiana, treats Salmafius as a moft contemptible critic, and thereby fhews that he himself had either no judgment, or no candour. He hated Salmafius, and attacked him, after he was dead, in a fcurrilous Poem.

Doctor B. faid in a fermon, "An hypocrite is like a reed; fmooth without, and hollow within." It was a tolerable conundrum; but he spoilt all by adding, "and toffed about with every blaft of wind." I heard the fame preacher fay, "If any one denies the uninterrupted fucceffion of bishops, I fhall not fcruple to call him a downright Atheist."

He

He might have faid parenbroker, Smuggler, or pickpocket. This, when I was young, was found, orthodox, and fashionable doctrine.

"Nothing is more proper to form the mind and manners, than the ftudy of the Roman law. Every one," fays Vigneul-Marville, "who is of any confiderable rank in life, ought to have perused with attention, once at least, the Inftitutes and the Code of Juftinian: He owes this duty to himfelf, and to the publick." I am of the fame opinion; and I add to these the Theodofian Code, for the light which it gives to Ecclefiaftical History.

Lord Bolingbroke calls Cafaubon "a pedant." If by the word Pedant is to be understood a man who is fkilled in the learned languages, Bolingbroke himself was affuredly no pedant: But, in the true fenfe of the word, he was one, in gradu fuperlativo. Good judges of compofition have pronounced the preface of Calvin to his Inftitutes, of Thuanus to his Hiftory, and of Cafaubon to Polybius, to be mafter-pieces in their kind: but Bolingbroke had neither Latin enough to understand them, nor honefty enough to relish them.

Ns dines abroad, and rails at all the world. He loves good eating and evil-fpeaking; and never opens his mouth, but at other people's coft.

Tacitus fays, Corruptiffimâ Republicâ plurimæ leges; and Plato, Παρ' δις νόμοι πολλοὶ, καὶ δίκαι, παρα 787015 καὶ βίοι μοχθηροί. For the fake of our country, I could wifh that thefe obfervations were not true.

It appears from Plato's Phædo, and from Ifocrates, that they who were initiated were taught the doctrine of a future flate, and had a promise of happiness in it. So in his Epinomis, delivering his own fentiments, Plato fays (p. 992) concerning a good and a wife man," I do moft pofitively affirm διισχυρίζομαι, παιζων καὶ σπέδαζων, (that is, both exoterically and efoterically), abfolutely, and at all times, that after death he fhall be happy, wife, and blefled : ευδαίμονά τε ἔσεσθαι, καὶ σοφώτατον ἅμα, καὶ μακάριον.”

Bad minds, fay the Platonifts, depart heavy and fpotted, and stay in our atmosphere, and fuffer for their faults. "Some are fo totally corrupted, fays Socrates, that, according to an ancient tradition, they never get out of Tartarus." See Bibl. Univ. VI. 123.

Beza's famous old manufcript, which we have at Cambridge, and on which my friend W. laid fo great a ftrefs, is the work of a bold fellow, who is perpetually explaining the fenfe, and endeavouring to amend the ftyle. See Le Clerc on Acts X. 25. and F. Simon, Lettres Choifies. II. Let, 26.