* Even when the days are shortest. + Alluding to the tower of oblivion, mentioned by Pro- copius, which was the name of a tower of imprisonment among the Persians; whoever was put therein was as it were buried alive, and it was death for any but to name him. # St Matt. xi.

up to the worst of actions, whereunto confusions, tragedies, and acts, denying all religion, do owe their originals.

Rest not in an ovation,* but a triumph over thy passions. Chain up the unruly legion of thy breast; behold thy trophies within thee, not without thee. Lead thine own captivity captive, and be Caesar unto thyself.

Give no quarter unto those vices that are of thine inward family, and, having a root in thy temper, plead a right and propriety in thee. Examine well thy com- plexional inclinations. Rain early batteries against those strongholds built upon the rock of nature, and make this a great part of the militia of thy life. The politic nature of vice must be opposed by policy, and therefore wiser honesties project and plot against sin; wherein notwithstanding we are not to rest in generals, or the trite stratagems of art; that may succeed with one temper, which may prove successless with another. There is no community or commonwealth of virtue, every man must study his own economy and erect these rules unto the figure of himself.

Lastly, if length of days be thy portion, make it not thy expectation. Reckon not upon long life; but live always beyond thy account. He that so often sur- viveth his expectation lives many lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his days. Time past is gone like a shadow; make times to come present; con- ceive that near which may be far off. Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensions of them: be like a neighbour unto death, and think there is but little to come. And since there is something in us that must still live on, join both lives together, unite them

* Ovation, a petty and minor kind of triumph.

in thy thoughts and actions, and live in one but for the other. He who thus ordereth the purposes of this life, will never be far from the next, and is in some manner already in it, by a happy conformity and close appre- hension of it.

1. It was a proverb, "Ubi tres medici duo athei." 2. A Latinised word meaning a taunt (impropero.) 3. The synod of Dort was held in 1619 to discuss the doctrines of Arminius. It ended by condemning them. 4. Hallam, commenting on this passage, says--"That Jesuit must be a disgrace to his order who would have asked more than such a con- cession to secure a proselyte--the right of interpreting whatever was written, and of supplying whatever was not"--Hist. Eng- land, vol. ii. p. 74. 5. See the statute of the Six Articles (31 Hen. VIII. c. 14), which de- clared that transubstantiation, communion in one kind, celibacy of the clergy, vows of widowhood, private masses, and auricular confession, were part of the law of England. 6. In the year 1606, when the Jesuits were expelled from Venice, Pope Paul V. threatened to excommunicate that republic. A most violent quarrel ensued, which was ultimately settled by the media- tion of France. 7. Alluding to the story of OEdipus solving the riddle proposed by the Sphynx. 8. The nymph Arethusa was changed by Diana into a fountain, and was said to have flowed under the sea from Elis to the fountain of Arethusa near Syracuse.--Ov. Met. lib. v. fab. 8. 9. These heretics denied the immortality of the soul, but held that it was recalled to life with the body. Origen came from Egypt to confute them, and is said to have succeeded. (See Mosh. Eccl. Hist., lib. i. c. 5. sec. 16.) Pope John XXII. afterwards adopted it. 10. A division from the Greek [Greek omitted]. 11. The brain. 12. A faint resemblance, from the Latin adumbro, to shade. 13. Alluding to the idea Sir T. Browne often expresses, that an oracle was the utterance of the devil. 14. To fathom, from Latin profundis. 15. Beginning from the Latin efficio. 16. Galen's great work. 17. John de Monte Regio made a wooden eagle that, when the emperor was entering Nuremburg, flew to meet him, and hovered over his head. He also made an iron fly that, when at dinner, he was able to make start from under his hand, and fly round the table. --See De Bartas, 6me jour 1me semaine. 18. Hidden, from the Greek [Greek omitted]. 19. A military term for a small mine. 20. The Armada. 21. The practice of drawing lots. 22. An account. 23. See Il. VIII. 18--

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