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him. This tree was afterwards denominated the royal oak, and for many years was regarded by the neighbourhood with great veneration.

219.

D. HUME

EXPENDITURE. Riches are for spending; and spending for honour and good actions-therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the worth of the occasion; for voluntary undoing may be as well for a man's country, as for the kingdom of heaven. But ordinary expense ought to be limited by a man's estate, and governed with such regard as it be within his compass; and not subject to deceit and abuse of servants; and ordered to the best show, that the bills may be less than the estimation abroad. Certainly if a man will keep but of even hand, his ordinary expenses ought to be but to the half of his receipts; and if he think to wax rich, but to the third part.

LORD BACON

220. REGICIDE EMPIRE. We dare not be wise. We have not the fortitude of rational fear; we will not provide for our future safety; but we endeavour to hush the cries of present timidity by guesses at what may be hereafter. Talk not to me of what swarm of Republics may come from this carcass ! It is no carcass. Now, now, whilst we are talking, it is full of life and action. What say you to the Regicide Empire of to-day? Tell me, my friend, do its terrors appal you into an abject submission, or rouse you to a vigorous defence? But do I no longer prevent it-do go on-look into futurity. Has this Empire nothing to alarm you, when all the struggle against it is over, when mankind shall be silent before it, when all nations shall be disarmed, disheartened, and truly divided by a treacherous peace? Its malignity towards humankind will subsist with undiminished heat, whilst the means of giving it effect must proceed and every means of resisting it must inevitably and rapidly decline.

E. BURKE

221. BEAUTY. Thus then, said he, smiling, whatever passion you may have for other beauties; I know, good Philocles, you are no such admirer of wealth in any kind, as to allow much beauty to it; especially in a rude heap or mass. But in coins, imbost-work, statues and well-fabri

cated pieces, of whatever sort, you can discover beauty and admire the kind. True, said I; but not for the metal's sake. 'Tis not then the metal or matter which is beautiful with you? No. But the art. Certainly. The art then is the beauty. Right. And the art is that which beautifies. The same. So that the beautifying, not the beautified, is the really beautiful. It seems so. For that which is beautified, is beautiful only by the accession of something beautifying: and by the recess or withdrawing of the same, it ceases to be beautiful. G. BERKELEY

222.

SPARTA.

DIVISION OF COMMAND BETWEEN ATHENS AND This journey therefore utterly defaced the reputation of the Spartans, in such wise that they did no longer demand the conduct of the army, which was to be raised, nor any manner of precedence: but sending ambassadors from Sparta and from all the cities which held league with it unto Athens, they offered to yield the admiralty to the Athenians, requesting that they themselves might be generals by land. This had been a composition well agreeing with the situation and quality of those two cities; but it was rejected, because the mariners and others that were to be employed at sea, were men of no mark or estimation, in regard of those companies of horse and foot, whereof the land-army was compounded, who being all gentlemen or citizens of Athens were to have served under the Lacedæmonians. Wherefore it was agreed that the authority should be divided by time, the Athenians ruling five days, the Lacedæmonians other five, and so successively that each of them should have command of all both by land and by sea. It is manifest, that in this conclusion vain ambition was more regarded than the common profit: which must of necessity be very slowly advanced, where consultation, resolution and performance are so often to change hands.

SIR W. RALEIGH

223. THE DEMANDS OF WAR. In the nature of things, it is not with their persons, that the higher classes pay their contingent to the demands of war. There is another and not less important part, which rests with almost exclusive weight upon them. They contribute all the mind that actuates the

THE HIGHER CLASSES-THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO

whole machine. The fortitude required of them is very different from the unthinking alacrity of the common soldier or common sailor in the face of danger and death: it is not a passion, it is not an impulsc, it is not a sentiment; it is a cool, steady, deliberate principle, always present, always equable; having no connexion with anger; tempering honour with prudence; incited, invigorated and sustained, by a generous love of fame; informed, moderated and directed by an enlarged knowledge of its own great public ends; flowing in one blended stream from the opposite sources of the heart and the head; carrying in itself its own commission, and proving its title to every other command, by the first and most difficult command, that of the bosom in which it resides; it is a fortitude which unites with the courage of the field the more exalted and refined courage of the council; which can conquer as well by delay as by the rapidity of a march, or the impetuosity of an attack: which can be, with Fabius, the black cloud that lowers on the tops of the mountains, or, with Scipio, the thunderbolt of war.

E. BURKE

224. LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING. When a man hath been labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please, only that he may try the matter by dint of argument; for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of truth. For who knows not that truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies nor stratagems nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power: give her but room and do not bind her when she sleeps, for then she speaks not true, as the old Proteus did, who spake oracles only when he was caught and bound, but then rather she turns herself into all shapes except her own, and perhaps tunes her voice according to the time, until she be abjured into her own likeness. J. MILTON

FOL. CENT.

29

225. FAMILIAR ILLUSTRATIONS OF ABSTRUSE NOTIONS. The science of abstruse learning, when completely attained, is like Achilles's spear that healed the wounds it had made before; so this knowledge serves to repair the damage itself had occasioned: and this perhaps is all it is good for, it casts no additional light upon the paths of life, but disperses the clouds with which it had overspread them before: it advances not the traveller one step on his journey, but conducts him back again to the spot from whence he had wandered. Thus the land of philosophy contains partly an open champain country, passable by every common understanding, and partly a range of woods traversable only by the speculative, and where they too frequently delight to amuse themselves. Since then we shall be obliged to make incursions into this latter tract, and shall probably find it a region of obscurity, danger and difficulty, it behoves us to use our utmost endeavours for enlightening and smoothing the way before us.

There seems to be no likelier method of answering this purpose than that of Plato, if one could be so happy as to copy him: I mean in his art of illustrating and exemplifying abstruse notions by the most familiar instances taken from common life, though sometimes of the lowest and basest kind. We find him indeed rebuked, particularly in the Hippias or dialogue upon beauty, for introducing earthen crocks and pitchers into discourses upon philosophy: and if the plainness of ancient times could not endure such vulgar images, what quarter can we expect for them in this nice and refined age? But when one cannot do as one would, one must be content with what one can: I shall pay so much respect to my contemporaries as never to offend their delicacy willingly: therefore shall choose such illustrations as may appear fashionable and courtly as well as clear and luminous whenever I have the option; but where I want skill to compass both, shall hope for indulgence if I prefer clearness and aptness before neatness and politeness.

The Light of Nature pursued

226. LEAGUE BETWEEN AVÀRIČE AND LUXURY. There were two very powerful tyrants engaged in a perpetual war against each other: the name of the first was luxury, and of the second, avarice. The aim of each of them was no

less than universal monarchy over the hearts of mankind. Luxury had many generals under him, who did him great service, as pleasure, mirth, pomp and fashion. Avarice was likewise very strong in his officers, being faithfully served by hunger, industry, care and watchfulness: he had likewise a privy-counsellor who was always at his elbow, and whispering something or other in his ear: the name of this privy-counsellor was poverty. As avarice conducted himself by the counsels of poverty, his antagonist was entirely guided by the dictates and advice of plenty, who was his first counsellor and minister of state, that concerted all his measures for him and never departed out of his sight. While these two great rivals were thus contending for empire, their conquests were very various. Luxury got possession of one heart and avarice of another. The father of a family would often range himself under the banners of avarice and the son under those of luxury. The wife and husband would often declare themselves on the two different parties; nay, the same person would very often side with one in his youth and revolt to the other in his old age. Indeed, the wise men of the world stood neuter: but alas! their numbers were not considerable. At length, when these two potentates had wearied themselves with waging war upon one another, they agreed upon an interview, at which neither of their counsellors was to be present. It is said that luxury began the parley, and after having represented the endless state of war in which they were engaged, told his enemy, with a frankness of heart which is natural to him, that he believed they two should be very good friends, were it not for the instigations of poverty, that pernicious counsellor, who made an ill use of his ear and filled him with groundless apprehensions and prejudices. To this avarice replied, that he looked upon plenty (the first minister of his antagonist) to be a much more destructive counsellor than poverty, for that he was perpetually suggesting pleasures, banishing all the necessary cautions against want and consequently undermining those principles on which the government of avarice was founded. At last, in order to an accommodation, they agreed upon this preliminary; that each of them should immediately dismiss his privy-counsellor. When things were thus far adjusted towards a peace, all other differences were soon accommodated, insomuch that for the future they resolved to live as good friends and confederates and to share between them

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