fill our sails; or meats, that they be nourishing. For these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some men may receive a courtesy and not know it; but never any man received it from him that knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by accidents; but they were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of an ague by falling into a water, another whipped out of a fever; but no man would ever use these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the event, that distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may offend the judge with his pride and impertinences, and I win my cause; but he meant it not me as a courtesy. I scaped pirates by being shipwrecked; was the wreck a benefit therefore? No; the doing of courtesies aright is the mixing of the respects for his own sake and for mine. He that doeth them merely for his own sake is like one that feeds his cattle to sell them: he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield. Valor rerum. The price of many things is far above what they are bought and sold for. Life and health, which are both inestimable, we have of the physician; as learning and knowledge, the true tillage of the mind, from our schoolmasters. But the fees of the one or the salary of the other never answer the value of what we received, but served to gratify their labors. It is strange there should be no vice without his patronage, that when we have no other excuse we will say, we love it, we cannot forsake it. As if that made it not more a fault. We cannot, because we think we cannot, and we love it because we will defend it. We will rather excuse it than be rid of it. That we cannot is pretended; but that we will not is the true reason. How many have I known that would not have their vices hid; nay, and, to be noted, live like Antipodes to others in the same city: never see the sun rise or set in so many years, but be as they were watching a corpse by torchlight; would not sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity. They would do it new, or contrary, for the infamy; they were ambitious of living backward; and at last arrived at that, as they would love nothing but the vices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform these natures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may say they desired to leave it, but do not trust them; and they may think they desire it, but they may lie for all that; they are a little angry with their follies now and then; marry, they come into grace with them again quickly. They will confess they are offended with their manner of living: like enough; who is not? When they can put me in security that they are more than offended, that they hate it, then I'll hearken to them, and perhaps believe them: but many nowadays love and hate their ill together. De Shakespeare nostrat [i].I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand," which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. "Sufflaminandus erat," as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him: "Cæsar, thou dost me wrong." He replied: "Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause; and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned. One [Lord Bacon], though he be excellent and the chief, is not to be imitated alone; for never no imitator ever grew up to his author; likeness is always on this side truth. Yet there happened in my time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking; his language, where he could spare or pass by a jest, was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end. . . . My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place or honors. But I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want. If we would consider what our affairs are indeed, not what they are called, we should find more evils belonging us than happen to us. How often doth that which was called a calamity prove the beginning and cause of a man's happiness? and, on the contrary, that which happened or came to another with great gratulation and applause, how it hath lifted him but a step higher to his ruin? as if he stood before where he might fall safely. Men that talk of their own benefits are not believed to talk of them because they have done them; but to have done them because they might talk of them. That which had been great, if another had reported it of them, vanisheth, and is nothing, if he that did it speak of it. For men, when they cannot destroy the deed, will yet be glad to take advantage of the boasting, and lessen it. De sibi molestis.- Some men, what losses soever they have, they make them greater, and if they have none, even all that is not gotten is a loss. Can there be creatures of more wretched condition than these, that continually labor under their own misery and others' envy? A man should study other things, not to covet, not to fear, not to repent him; to make his base such as no tempest shall shake him; to be secure of all opinion, and pleasing to himself, even for that wherein he displeaseth others; for the worst opinion gotten for doing well, should delight us. Wouldst not thou be just but for fame, thou oughtest to be it with infamy; he that would have his virtue published is not the servant of virtue, but glory. BASIA. BY THOMAS CAMPION. [1567-1620.] TURN back, you wanton flyer, With mutual greeting. Yet bend a little nearer, - True beauty still shines clearer In closer meeting! Hearts with hearts delighted Should strive to be united, Each other's arms with arms enchaining, Hearts with a thought, Rosy lips with a kiss still entertaining. What harvest half so sweet is There is no strict observing Of times' or seasons' swerving, There is ever one fresh spring abiding; Then what we sow with our lips OVERREACH OVERREACHED. BY PHILIP MASSINGER. (From "A New Way to pay Old Debts.") [PHILIP MASSINGER, English dramatist, was baptized at St. Thomas', Salisbury, November 24, 1583. He studied at Oxford, but quitted the university without taking a degree, and repaired to London about 1606. Little is known of his personal history beyond the fact that he wrote many plays both independently and in conjunction with Field, Daborne, Dekker, and Fletcher; with the last he was associated from 1613 to 1625. He was found dead in bed in his house at Southwark (March, 1640), and was buried at the hands of actors in the churchyard of St. Saviour's. He wrote fifteen plays unaidedtragedies, tragi-comedies, and comedies- such as "The Bondman," "Duke of Milan," "Parliament of Love," ," "Maid of Honor," "City Madam," and "A |