Poor and content, is rich and rich enough.

Poverty is no crime.

pay it thyself; if for a rich man, he needs not:
therefore, from suretyship, as from a man-slayer or
enchanter, keep thyself; for the best profit and return
will be this-that if thou force him for whom thou art
bound to pay it himself, he will become thy enemy;
if thou pay it thyself, thou wilt become a beggar.
And believe thy father in this, and print it in thy

thought-that what virtue soever thou hast, be it
never so manifold, if thou be poor withal, thou and
thy qualities shall be despised: besides, poverty is
oftentimes sent as a curse of God, it is a shame
amongst men, an imprisonment of the mind, a
vexation of every worthy spirit. Thou shalt neither
help thyself nor others; thou shalt drown thee in all
thy virtues, having no means to show them; thou
shalt be a burden and an eye-sore to thy friends;
every man will fear thy company; thou shalt be
driven basely to beg, and depend on others, to flatter
unworthy men, to make dishonest shifts: and, to
conclude, poverty provokes a man to do infamous
and detested deeds. Let not vanity, therefore, or
persuasion draw thee to that worst of worldly

miseries.

If thou be rich, it will give thee pleasure in health, comfort in sickness, keep thy mind and body free, save thee from many perils, relieve thee in thy elder years, relieve the poor and thy honest friends, and give means to thy posterity to live and defend them

Poverty is a hard taskmaster.

The ready penny is the best friend.

Folly is the poverty of the mind.

Jest not with edge-tools.

selves and thine own fame. Where it is said in the
Proverbs that "he shall be sore vexed that is surety
for a stranger, and he that hateth suretyship is sure:"
it is farther said, “the poor is hated even of his own
neighbour, but the rich have many friends." Lend
not to him that is mightier than thyself, for if thou
lendest him count it but lost. Be not surety above
thy power, for if thou be surety think to pay it.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

IDLE FESTING.

E not scurrilous in conversation, nor satirical in thy jests. The one will make thee unwelcome to all company; the other pull on quarrels, and get thee hatred of thy best friends. For suspicious jests, when any of them savour of truth, leave a bitterness in the minds of those which are touched. I think it necessary to give this to thee as a special caution; because I have seen many so prone to quip and gird as they would rather lose their friend than their jest. And if perchance their boiling brain yield a quaint scoff, they will travail to be delivered of it as a woman with child. These nimble fancies are but the froth of wit.

LORD BURLEIGH.

Bitter jests poison friendship.

Lose thy jest rather than thy friend.

There shall no evil happen to the just.

Dare to do right. Nothing can need a lie;

Do RIGHT.

ARE to do right-dare to be singular, if needs be, though the finger of scorn be pointed at you, and your spirit chafes under your comrades' sneers or laughter. Let it be enough that God smiles upon you-dare to strip off sin's artful disguises, to despise its hollow mockeries, to lay open its shallow pretences, and to make your face as adamant against its wiles and its threats-dare to go forth to battle with the Goliaths of evil, though they be of giant stature, and their spears like weavers' looms, and they defy in swelling words the armies of Israel; for the stripling David, with his sling and stone, shall conquer them in the name of the Lord of hosts. Be valiant for the truth, patient under oppression, meek under injury, strong in the anointing Spirit of God; and then the great social evils that we now deplore shall be slain, the better day shall dawn upon the human brotherhood, and the glad reign of love, virtue, peace, and holiness, for which men have so long waited, shall bless this weary world.

COLLYER.

A fault that needs one most, grows two thereby.

Blessings are upon the head of the just.

Apply thine heart to instruction.

"Tis education forms the common mind,

APHORISMS ON EDUCATION.

I. Let not an over-passionate prosecution of learning draw you from making an honest improvement of your estate; as such do who are better read in the bigness of the earth than that little spot left them by their friends for their support.

II. A mixed education suits employment best.

III. Huge volumes, like the ox roasted at Bartholomew Fair, may proclaim plenty of labour and invention, afford less of what is delicate, savoury, and wellconcocted than smaller pieces: this makes me think that though, upon occasion, you may come to the table, and examine the bill of fare set down by such authors; yet it cannot but lessen ingenuity, still to fall aboard with them; human sufficiency being too narrow to inform, with the pure soul of reason, such vast bodies.

IV. As the grave hides the faults of physic, no less than mistakes, opinion and contrary applications are known to have enriched the art withal; so many old books, by like advantages rather than desert, have crawled up to an esteem above new: it being the business of better heads perhaps than ever their writers owned, to put a glorious and significant gloss upon the meanest conceit or improbable opinion of antiquity: whereas modern authors are brought by critics to a

Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.

Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge.

A man of knowledge increaseth strength.

A sound heart is the life of the flesh.

strict account for the smallest semblance of a mistake.
If you consider this seriously, it will learn you more
moderation, if not wisdom.

V. When I consider with what contradiction re-
ports arrived at us, during our late civil wars, I can
give the less encouragement to the reading of history:
romances, never acted, being born purer from sophis-
tication than actions reported to be done, by which
posterity hereafter, no less than antiquity heretofore,
is likely to be led into a false, or at best but a con-
tingent, belief. Cæsar, though in this happy, that he
had a pen able to grave into neat language what his
sword at first more roughly cut out, may, in my judg-
ment, abuse his reader; for he that, for the honour of
his own wit, doth make people speak better than can
be supposed men so barbarously bred were able, may
possibly report they fought worse than really they
did. Of a like value are the orations of Thucydides,
Livy, Tacitus, and most other historians; which doth
not a little prejudice all the rest.

VI. A few books well studied, and thoroughly digested, nourish the understanding more than hundreds but gargled in the mouth, as ordinary students

use.

VII. Company, if good, is a better refiner of spirits than ordinary books.

VIII. Propose not them for patterns who make all places rattle where they come with Latin and Greek;

There is measure in everything.

No man can be wise but by his own wisdom.