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once, shame whips them all the week after. Such natures he useth with all gentleness.

These think with

2. Those that are ingenious and idle. the hare in the fable, that running with snails, so they count the rest of their schoolfellows, they shall come soon enough to the post, though sleeping a good while before their starting. O! a good rod would finely take them napping!

3. Those that are dull and diligent. Wines, the stronger they be the more lees they have when they are new. Many boys are muddy-headed till they be clarified with age, and such afterwards prove the best. Bristol diamonds are both bright and squared and pointed by nature, and yet are soft and worthless; whereas orient ones in India are rough and rugged naturally. Hard, rugged, and dull natures in youth acquit themselves afterwards the jewels of the country, and therefore their dulness at first is to be borne with, if they be diligent. That schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself who beats nature in a boy for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can make their parts which are naturally sluggish rise one minute before the hour nature hath appointed.

4. Those that are invincibly dull and negligent also. Correction may reform the latter, not amend the former. All the whetting in the world can never set a razor's edge on that which hath no steel in it. Such boys he assigneth over to other professions. Shipwrights and boatmakers will choose those crooked pieces of timber which other carpenters refuse. Those may make excellent merchants and mechanics who will not serve for scholars.

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Spill not the morning (the quintessence of the day!) in recreations. For sleep itself is a recreation. Add not therefore sauce to sauce; and he cannot properly have any title to be refreshed, who was not first faint. Pastime, like wine, is poison in the morning. It is then good husbandry to sow the head which hath lain fallow all night with some serious work.

7. God's weapons last while they are wanted.

God's children are immortal while their Father hath anything for them to do on earth, and death, that beast, cannot overcome or kill them till first they have finished their testimony, which done, like silkworms they willingly die when their web is ended, and are comfortably entombed in their own endeavours.

8. A Votary at a doubtful Shrine.

A foreign Ambassador some two hundred years since coming to Durham addressed himself first to the high and sumptuous shrine of St. Cuthbert. If thou beest a Saint, pray for me!' Then coming to the plain, low, and little tomb of Bede, 'Because,' said he, 'thou art a Saint, good Bede pray for me!'

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XIII.

EDWARD HYDE, EARL OF CLARENDON.

1608-1674.

EDWARD HYDE was born 1608, at Dinton in Wiltshire. He began his studies at Oxford in his thirteenth year, but resided only one year, his father having determined to bring him up to the law. He pursued this profession with considerable success, till his increasing interest in public business led him to retire from the practice of it. He was returned to the Long Parliament for the borough of Saltash. He took a prominent part in the suppression of the Earl Marshall's Court and was chairman of the committee on the case of ship-money; he also supported the proceedings against Strafford. Clarendon seceded from the popular party on the passing of a Bill to prevent the dissolution of Parliament except with its own consent, and he ever afterwards adhered to the Royal cause, and for a time was one of the King's principal advisers.

He accompanied Prince Charles to Jersey, where he passed two years in study and in the production of political papers for the King. He afterwards represented the cause of the Stuarts at various foreign Courts until the Restoration, when his ability and integrity were of essential service in re-establishing order, while by his moderation he restrained the excessive zeal of the Royalists.

He was created a peer in 1660, and also elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford. His conduct in the sale of Dunkirk and other public questions was opposed to popular feeling, and in some cases also to the wishes of the King, and in 1667 he fell into disgrace, was required to resign the Great Seal and all other

public offices of trust, and after an unsuccessful impeachment for high treason by the Commons he received the Royal command to withdraw from the kingdom. From Calais he wrote a letter, given below, resigning the Chancellorship of the University.

He never returned to England, and died at Rouen in 1674. Clarendon's most important works are his History of the Rebellion, and his own Life. His style is sometimes deficient both in clearness and elegance, and betrays a want of care and accuracy; but his sentiments are always noble and dignified, and he shows peculiar skill and delicacy in the delineation of character. Of this, striking examples are found in the sketches of eminent men which abound in his History.

1. Character of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

THIS great man was a person of a noble nature, and generous disposition, and of such other endowments, as made him very capable of being a great favourite to a great king. He understood the arts of a court, and all the learning that is professed there, exactly well. By long practice in business, under a master that discoursed excellently, and surely knew all things wonderfully, and took much delight in indoctrinating his young unexperienced favourite, who, he knew, would be always looked upon as the workmanship of his own hands, he had obtained a quick conception, and apprehension of business, and had the habit of speaking very gracefully and pertinently. He was of a most flowing courtesy and affability to all men who made any address to him; and so desirous to oblige them, that he did not enough consider the value of the obligation, or the merit of the person he chose to oblige; from which much of his misfortune resulted. He

was of a courage not to be daunted, which was manifested in all his actions.

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His kindness and affection to his friends was so vehement, that they were as so many marriages for better and worse, and so many leagues offensive and defensive; as if he thought himself obliged to love all his friends, and to make war upon all they were angry with, let the cause be what 'it would. And it cannot be denied that he was an enemy in the same excess, and prosecuted those he looked upon as his enemies with the utmost rigour and animosity, and was not easily induced to reconciliation. And yet there were some examples of his receding in that particular. And when he was in the highest passion, he was so far from stooping to any dissimulation, whereby his displeasure might be concealed and covered till he had attained his revenge, (the low method of courts,) that he never endeavoured to do any man an ill office, before he first told him what he was to expect from him, and reproached him with the injuries he had done, with so much generosity, that the person found it in his power to receive further satisfaction, in the way he would choose for himself.

His single misfortune was, (which indeed was productive of many greater,) that he never made a noble and worthy friendship with a man so near his equal, that he would frankly advise him for his honour and true interest, against the current, or rather the torrent, of his impetuous passion; which was partly the vice of the time, when the court was not replenished with great choice of excellent men; and partly the vice of the persons who were most worthy to be applied to, and looked upon his youth, and his obscurity before his rise, as obligations upon him to gain their friendships by extraordinary application. Then his ascent was

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