Any person who is desirous to see the confirmation of these opinions upon death will find the subject exhausted in a noble essay, in Tucker's Light of Nature, Vol. 7. in his enquiry whether we cannot help ourselves by the use of our reason, so as to brave looking death calmly and steadily in the face to contemplate all his features and examine fairly what there is of terrible and what of harmless in them. NOTE B. See Bacon's Essay on Church Controversies, in a subsequent volume. NOTE C. Referring to page 17. See Advancement of Learning, ante Vol. ii. 278, as to the Art of Revealing a Man's Self, and the Art of covering Defects. And see the Analysis of this subject in the analysis prefixed to Vol. 2, page lxiii. NOTE D On this subject, see Bishop's Taylor's sermon entitled “The Marriage Ring." NOTE E Referring to page 25. There are some observations upon Envy, in Taylor's Holy Living: NOTE F. Referring to page 31. See Bishop Taylor's Holy Living, of Charity, or the Love of God. It begins thus: "Love is the greatest thing that God can "give us, for himself is love; and it is the greatest thing we "can give to God, for it will also give ourselves, and carry "with it all that is ours. The apostle calls it the band of perfection; it is the old, and it is the new, and it the great com"mandment, and it is all the commandments, for it is the fulfilling of the law.' It does the work of all other graces, "without any instrument but its own immediate virtue. For as "the love to sin makes a man sin against all his own reason, and 66 66 66 all the discourses of wisdom, and all the advices of his friends, and "without temptation, and without opportunity: so does the love of “God; it makes a man chaste without the laborious acts of fasting "and exteriour disciplines, temperate in the midst of feasts, and is "active enough to chuse it without any intermedial appetites, and "reaches at glory through the very heart of grace, without any "other arms but those of love." Then see his magnificent discourse on Friendship in his polemical discourses. "Christian charity is friendship to all the world; and when friendships "were the noblest things in the world, charity was little, like "the sun drawn in at a chink, or his beams drawn into the cen"tre of a burning-glass; but christian charity is friendship expanded "like the face of the sun when it mounts above the eastern hills; and I "was strangely pleased when I saw something of this in Cicero; for "I have been so push'd at by herds and flocks of people that follow any body that whistles to them, or drives them to pasture, that I am grown afraid of any truth that seems chargeable with singularity but therefore I say, glad I was when I saw Lælius in Cicero "discourse thus: Amicitia ex infinitate generis humani quam con"ciliavit ipsa natura, contracta res est, et adducta in angustum; ut “omnis charitas, aut inter duos, aut inter paucos jungeretur.' 64 66 Na ture hath made friendships and societies, relations and endear"ments; and by something or other we relate to all the world; there "is enough in every man that is willing to make him become our "friend; but when men contract friendships, they inclose the com> mons: and what nature intended should be every man's, we make proper to two or three. Friendship is like rivers, and the strand "of seas, and the air,-common to all the world; but tyrants, and "evil customs, wars, and want of love have made them proper and "peculiar." "The friendship is equal to all the world, and of it self hath no "difference; but is differenced only by accidents, and by the capaFor thus the sun is the "city or incapacity of them that receive it. eye of the world; and he is indifferent to the Negro, or the cold "Russian, to them that dwell under the line, and them that stand "near the tropicks, the scalded Indian or the poor boy that shakes "at the foot of the Riphean hills. But the fluxures of the heaven "and the earth, the conveniency of abode, and the approaches to the "north or south respectively change the emanations of his beams; "not that they do not pass always from him, but that they are not "equally received below, but by periods and changes, by little inlets And some have only “ and reflections, they receive what they can. 66 a dark day and a long night from him, snows and white cattle, a "miserable life, and a perpetual harvest of catarrhes and consumpBut some have splendid fires tions, apoplexies and dead palsies. "and aromatick spices, rich wines and well-digested fruits, great "wit and great courage, because they dwell in his eye, and look in "his face, and are the courtiers of the sun, and wait upon him in "his chambers of the east. Just so is it in friendships," &c. NOTE G. See ante vol. ii. p. 274-Referring to page 41. "It was both pleasantly and wisely said, though I think very untruly, by a nuncio of the pope, returning from a certain nation "where he served as lieger; whose opinion being asked touching the "appointment of one to go in his place, he wished that in any case "they did not send one that was too wise; because no very wise "man would ever imagine what they in that country were like to do. "And certainly it is an errour frequent for men to shoot over, and "to suppose deeper ends, and more compass-reaches than are; the "Italian proverb being elegant, and for the most part true: "Di danari, senno, e di fede, Ce ne manco che non credi." (There is commonly less money, less wisdom and less good faith than men do account upon.) NOTE H. Referring to page 49. See the treatise de Augmentis, book viii. chapter 3, where the subject to which this note is annexed, is investigated. 66 "Let states and kingdoms that aim at greatness by all means "take heed how the nobility and grandees, and that those which we "call gentlemen, multiply too fast; for that makes the common subject grow to be a peasant and base swain driven out of heart, and "in effect nothing else but the nobleman's bondslaves and labourers. "Even as you may see in coppice-wood, if you leave your studdles "too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and "bushes' as in a country, if the nobility he too many, the commons "will be base and heartless, and you will bring it to that, that not the "hundreth pole will be fit for an helmet; especially as to the infan"try, which is the nerve of an army, and so there will be great po"pulation and little strength. This which I speak of, hath been "in no nation more clearly confirmed than in the examples of "England and France, whereof England, though far inferior in ter"ritory and population, hath been nevertheless always an overmatch "in arms, in regard the middle people of England make good sol"diers, which the peasants of France do not. And herein the device "of Henry the Seventh King of England, whereof I have spoken "largely in the history of his life, was profound and admirable, in "making farms and houses of husbandry of a standard; that is, "maintained with such a proportion of land unto them, as may breed "a subject to live in convenient plenty, and to keep the plough in "the hands of the owners, or at least use-fructuary, and not hirelings "and mercenaries, and thus a country shall merit that character whereby Virgil expresses ancient Italy, 66 66 66 "Terra potens Armis, atque ubere gleba." "Neither is that state which is almost peculiar to England, and for any thing I know, hardly to be found any where else, except it be "perhaps in Poland, to be passed over, I mean the state of free ser"vants and attendants upon noblemen and gentlemen; of which sort " even they of inferior condition, do no ways yield unto the yeo"manry, for infantry. And therefore out of all question the mag"nificence and that hospitable splendour, the household servants, and "great retinues of noblemen and gentlemen, received into custom in England, doth much conduce unto martial greatness; whereas on "the other side, the close, reserved and contracted living of noble"men, causeth a penury of military forces." |