MAXIM VII

In time of famine, he is the Joseph of the country, and keeps the poor from starving.—Then he tameth his stacks of corn, which not his covetousness but providence hath reserved for time of need; and to his poor neighbours abateth somewhat of the high price of the market. The neighbour gentry court him for his acquaintance; which either he modestly waveth, or thankfully accepteth, but no way greedily desireth. He insults not on the ruins of a decayed gentleman, but pities and relieves him; and, as he is called "Goodman," he desires to answer to the name, and to be so indeed.

MAXIM VIII

In war, though he serveth on foot, he is ever mounted on a high spirit.-As being a slave to none, and a subject only to his own prince. Innocence and independence make a brave spirit, whereas, otherwise, one must ask his leave to be valiant on whom one depends. Therefore, if a State run up all to noblemen and gentlemen, so that the husbandmen be only mere labourers or cottagers, (which one calls "but housed beggars,") it may have good cavalry, but never good bands of foot; so that their armies will be like those birds called apodes, "without feet," always only flying on their wings of horse. Wherefore, to make good infantry, it requireth men bred, not in a servile or indigent fashion, but in some free and plentiful manner. Wisely, therefore, did that knowing prince, King Henry VII., provide laws for the increase of his yeomanry, that his kingdom should not be like to coppice woods; where, the staddles being left too thick, all runs to bushes and briars, and there is little clean underwood. For, enacting that houses used to husbandry should be kept up with a competent proportion of land, he did secretly sow Hydra's teeth; whereupon, according to the poet's fiction, should rise up armed men for the service of this kingdom. (From The Holy State.)

EJACULATIONS: THEIR PRIVILEGE

EJACULATIONS take not up any room in the soul. They give liberty of callings, so that at the same instant one may follow his

proper vocation.

The husbandman may dart forth an ejaculation and not make a balk the more. The seaman nevertheless steer his ship right, in the darkest night. Yea, the soldier at the same time may shoot out his prayer to God, and aim his pistol at his enemy, the one better hitting the mark for the other.

The field wherein bees feed is no whit the barer for their biting; when they have taken their full repast on flowers or grass, the ox may feed, the sheep fat, on their reversions. The reason

is because those little chemists distil only the refined part of the flower, leaving the gross or substance thereof. So ejaculations bind not men to any bodily observance, only busy the spiritual half, which maketh them consistent with the prosecution of any other employment.

(From Good Thoughts in Bad Times.)

AN ILL MATCH

DIVINE Providence is remarkable in ordering, that a fog and a tempest never did, nor can, meet together in nature. For as soon as a fog is fixed the tempest is allayed; and as soon as a tempest doth arise the fog is dispersed. This is a great mercy; for otherwise such small vessels as boats and barges, which want the conduct of the card and compass, would irrecoverably be lost. How sad, then, is the condition of many sectaries in our age; which in the same instant have a fog of ignorance in their judgments, and a tempest of violence in their affections, being too blind to go right, and yet too active to stand still.

(From the Same.)

THE IMPRISONMENT AND RANSOM OF

KING RICHARD

KING RICHARD setting sail from Syria, the sea and wind favoured him till he came into the Adriatic (Oct. 8); and on the coasts of Istria he suffered shipwreck; wherefore he intended to pierce through Germany by land, the nearest way home. But the nearness of the way is to be measured not by the shortness but the safeness of it.

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He disguised himself to be one Hugo, a merchant, whose only commodity was himself, whereof he made but a bad bargain. For he was discovered in an inn in Austria, because he disguised his person, not his expenses; so that the very policy of an hostess, finding his purse so far above his clothes, did detect him (Dec. 20); yea, saith mine author, Facies orbi terrarum nota, ignorari non potuit. The rude people, flocking together, used him with insolencies unworthy him, worthy themselves; and they who would shake at the tail of this loose lion, durst laugh at his face now they saw him in a grate; yet all the weight of their cruelty did not bow him beneath a princely carriage.

Leopold Duke of Austria hearing hereof, as being lord of the soil, seized on this royal stray (Dec. 20); meaning now to get his pennyworths out of him, for the affront done unto him in Palestine.

Not long after the duke sold him to Henry the emperor, for his harsh nature surnamed Asper, and it might have been Sævus, being but one degree from a tyrant. He kept King Richard in bands, charging him with a thousand faults committed by him in Sicily, Cyprus, and Palestine. The proofs were as slender as the crimes gross, and Richard having an eloquent tongue, innocent heart, and bold spirit, acquitted himself in the judgment of all the hearers. At last he was ransomed for a hundred and forty thousand marks, collen weight. A sum so vast in that age, before the Indies had overflowed all Europe with their gold and silver, that to raise it in England they were forced to sell their church plate, to their very chalices. Whereupon out of most deep divinity it was concluded, that they should not celebrate the sacrament in glass, for the brittleness of it; nor in wood, for the sponginess of it, which would suck up the blood; nor in alchymy, because it was subject to rusting; nor in copper, because that would provoke vomiting; but in chalices of latten, which belike was a metal without exception. And such were used in England for some hundred years after, until at last John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, when the land was more replenished with silver, inknotteth that priest in the greater excommunication that should consecrate poculum stanneum.

(From the History of the Holy War.)

FULLER'S FAREWELL TO EXETER ON THE EVE OF ITS SURRENDER

AND now I am to take my final farewell of this famous city of Exeter. I have suffered from some for saying several times, that I thought this or this would be my last sermon, when afterwards I have preached again. Yet I hope the guests are not hurt, if I bring them in a course more than I promised or they expect. Such would have forborne their censures had they consulted with the Epistle to the Romans. In the fifteenth chapter, verse 33, the apostle seems to close and conclude his discourse, 'Now the God of Peace be with you all, Amen.' And yet presently he beginneth afresh and continueth his epistle a whole chapter longer. Yea, in the sixteenth chapter, verse 20, St. Paul takes a second solemn vale, 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, Amen ;' and, notwithstanding, still he spins out his matter three verses farther, till that full and final period, verse. 27, ‘To God only wise be glory through Jesus Christ for ever, Amen.' Thus loath to depart is the tune of all loving friends: the same I may plead for myself, so often taking my farewell, wherein if any were deceived, none I am sure were injured.

Now this is all: the Rabbins have a conceit that manna relished so to the palates of the Jews just as the eater thereof did fancy or desire. Consult with yourselves, and wish your own spiritual and temporal conveniences, wish what you will, for body, soul, both; you, yours, your private, the public; confine not your happiness with too narrow measure of your own making. And my constant prayer to God shall be, that he would be pleased to be to you all in general, each one in particular, that very thing which you for your own good do most desire, Amen.

(From Fear of losing the Old Light, a Sermon preached in Exeter.)