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ON EDUCATION AND ENTERING ON LIFE.

Sir Thomas Wyatt to his Son.

NASMUCH as now you are come to some years of understanding, and that you gather within yourself some fame of honesty, I thought that I should not lose my labour wholly, if now I did something advertise you to take the sure foundations and stablished opinions that leadeth to honesty.

And here, I call not honesty that men commonly call honesty, as reputation for riches, for authority, or some like thing; but that honesty, that I dare well say your grandfather had rather left to me than all the lands he did leave that was, wisdom, gentleness, soberness, de

me,

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sire to do good, friendship to get the love of many, and truth above all the rest. A great part to have all these things, is to desire to have them. And although glory and honest name are not the very ends wherefore these things are to be followed, yet surely they must needs follow them, as light followeth the fire, though it were kindled for warmth. Out of these things the chiefest and infallible ground is the dread and reverence of God, whereupon shall ensue the eschewing of the contraries of these said virtues; that is to say, ignorance, unkindness, rashness, desire of harm, unquiet enmity, hatred, many and crafty falsehoods, the very root of all shame and dishonesty. I say, the only dread and reverence of God, that seeth all things, is the defence of the creeping in of all these mischiefs into you. And for my part, although I do well say there is no man that would wish his son better than I; yet, on my faith, I had rather have you lifeless, than subject to these vices. Think and

imagine always that you are in presence of some honest men that you know; as Sir John Russell your father-in-law, your uncle Parson, or some other such; and ye shall, if at any time ye find a pleasure in naughty touches, remember what shame it were before these men to do naughtily. And sure this imagination shall cause you to remember that the pleasure of a naughty deed is soon past, and the rebuke, shame, and the note thereof shall remain ever. Then, if these things ye take for vain imaginations, yet remember that it is certain, and no imagination, that ye are always in the presence and sight of God; and though you see Him not, so much is the reverence the more to be had, for that He seeth, and is not seen.

Men punish with shame as greatest punishment on earth-yea, greater than death; but His punishment is, first, the withdrawing of His favour and grace, and, in leaving His hand to rule the stern, to let

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