what I say ? Certainly because there is something about me that tells me "Fides est servanda; " and if we after alter our minds, and make a new bargain, there's "fides servanda " there too.

LEARNING.

1. No man is the wiser for his learning: it may adminster matter to work in, or objects to work upon; but wit and wisdom are born with

a man.

2. Most men's learning is nothing but history duly taken up. If I quote Thomas Aquinas for some tenet, and believe it because the schoolmen say so, that is but history. Few men make themselves masters of the things they write or speak.

3. The Jesuits and the lawyers of France, and the Low-country-men, have engrossed all learning. The rest of the world make nothing but homilies.

4. 'T is observable, that in Athens where the arts flourished, they were governed by a democracy learning made them think themselves as wise as any body, and they would govern as well as others; and they spake as it

were by way of contempt, that in the east and in the north they had kings, and why? Because the most part of them followed their business; and if some one man had made himself wiser than the rest, he governed them, and they willingly submitted themselves to him. Aristotle makes the observation. And as in Athens the philosophers made the people knowing, and therefore they thought themselves wise enough to govern; so does preaching with us, and that makes us affect a democracy; for upon these two grounds we all would be governors, either because we think ourselves as wise as the best, or because we think ourselves the elect, and have the spirit, and the rest a company of reprobates that belong to the devil.

LECTURERS.

1. LECTURERS do in a parish-church what the friars did heretofore, get away not only the affections, but the bounty, that should be bestowed upon the minister.

2. Lecturers get a great deal of money, because they preach the people tame, as a man watches a hawk; and then they do what they list with them.

3. The lectures in Black-friars, performed by officers of the army, tradesmen, and ministers, is as if a great lord should make a feast, and he would have his cook dress one dish, and his coachman another, his porter a third, &c.

LIBELS.

as take a

THOUGH Some make slight of libels, yet you may see by them how the wind sits: straw and throw it up into the air, see by that which way the wind is, shall not do by casting up a stone. things do not show the complexion of the times so well as ballads and libels.

you shall which you More solid

LITURGY.

1. THERE is no church without a liturgy, nor indeed can there be conveniently, as there is no school without a grammar. One scholar may be taught otherwise upon the stock of his acumen, but not a whole school. One or two that are piously disposed, may serve themselves their own way, but hardly a whole nation.

all

2. To know what was generally believed in ages, the way is to consult the liturgies, not any private man's writing. As if you would know how the church of England serves God, go to the common-prayer-book, consult not this nor that man. Besides, liturgies never compliment, nor use high expressions. The Fathers ofttimes speak oratoriously.

LORDS IN THE PARLIAMENT.

1. THE lords' giving protections is a scorn upon them. A protection means nothing actively, but passively; he that is a servant to a parliament man is thereby protected. What a scorn is it to a person of honor to put his hand to two lies at once, that such a man is my servant, and employed by me, when haply he never saw the man in his life, nor before never heard of him.

2. The lords' protesting is foolish. To protest is properly to save to a man's self some right; but to protest as the lords protest, when they their selves are involved, 't is no more than if I should go into Smithfield, and sell my horse, and take the money, and yet when I

have your money, and you my horse, I should protest this horse is mine, because I love the horse, or I do not know why I do protest, because my opinion is contrary to the rest. Ridiculous! When they say the bishops did anciently protest, it was only dissenting, and that in the case of the pope.

LORDS BEFORE THE PA R-
LIAMENT.

1. GREAT lords, by reason of their flatterers, are the first that know their own virtues, and the last that know their own vices. Some of them are ashamed upwards, because their ancestors were too great. Others are ashamed downwards, because they were too little.

2. The prior of St. John of Jerusalem is said to be "primus baro Angliæ," the first baron of England, because being last of the spiritual barons, he chose to be first of the temporal. He was a kind of an otter, a knight half spiritual, and half temporal.

3. Question. Whether is every baron a baron of some place? Answer. 'T is according to his patent of late years they have been made baron of some place, but anciently not, called