Dr. David Wilkins, in three volumes, folio, 1725; containing several speeches, arguments, debates, and letters, never before printed.

The last piece in Wilkins's edition, is entitled, Table Talk, being a collection of miscellaneous observations on a great variety of subjects, a few of which I shall select. They are commonly amusing, often instructive; and are better adapted, perhaps, for extraction, than any other part of his works.

Changing Sides.

1. "Tis the trial of a man to see if he will change his side; and if he be so weak as to change once, he will change again. Your country fellows have a way to try if a man be weak in the hams, by coming behind him, and giving him a blow unawares; if he bend once, he will bend again.

2. The lords that fall from the king, after they have got estates by base flattery at court, and now pretend conscience, do as a vintner, that when he first sets up, you may bring your wench to his house, and do your things there; but when he grows rich, he turns conscientious, and will sell no wine upon the sabbath day.

3. Colonel Goring serving first the one side, and then the other, did like a good miller, that knows how to grind which way soever the wind sits.

4. After Luther had made a combustion in Ger many about religion, he was sent to by the pope to be taken off, and offered any preferment in the church that he would make choice of; Luther answered, if he had offered half so much at first, he would have accepted it; but now he had gone so far, he could not come back. In truth, he had made himself a greater thing than they could make him; the Ger man princes courted him: he was become the author of a sect ever after to be called Lutherans. So have our preachers done that are against the bishops; they have made themselves greater with the people, than they can be made the other way, and therefore there is the less charity probably in bringing them off. Charity to strangers is enjoined in the text. By strangers is there understood, those that are not of our own kind; strangers to your blood, not those you cannot tell whence they come; that is, be cha ritable to your neighbours whom you know to be honest people.

Christians.

In the high church of Jerusalem, the Christians were but another sect of Jews, that did believe the

Messias was come. To be called, was nothing else, but to become a christian, to have the name of a christian, it being their own language; for amongst the Jews, when they made a doctor of law, 'twas said, he was called

2. The Turks tell their people of a heaven, where there is sensible pleasure, but of a hell where they shall suffer they do not know what. The Christians quite invert this order, they tell us of a hell where we shall feel sensible pain, but of a heaven where we shall enjoy we cannot tell what.

House of Commons.

1. There be but two erroneous opinions in the House of Commons: that the lords sit only for themselves; when the truth is, they sit as well for the commonwealth. The knights and burgesses sit for themselves and others, some for more, some for fewer. And what is the reason? Because the room will not hold all; the lords being few, they all come; and imagine the room able to hold all the commons of England; then the lords and burgesses would sit no otherwise than the lords do. The second error is, that the House of Commons are to begin to give subsidies; yet if the lords dissent, they can give no

money.

2. The House of Commons is called the Lower House in twenty acts of parliament; but what are twenty acts of parliament amongst friends?

3. The form of a charge runs thus, I accuse in the name of all the commons of England. How then can any man be as a witness, when every man is made the accuser.

Damnation.

1. If a physician sees you eat any thing that is not good for your body, to keep you from it, he cries it is poison. If the divine sees you do any thing that is hurtful for your soul, to keep you from it, he cries you are damned.

2. To preach long, loud, and damnation, is the way to be cried up. We love a man who damns us, and we run after him again to save us. If a man had a sore leg, and he should go to an honest judicious surgeon, and he should only bid him keep it warm, and anoint with such an oil, (an oil well known) that would do the care, haply he would not much regard him, because he knows the medicine beforehand an ordinary medicine. But if he should go to a surgeon that should tell him, your leg will gangrene within three days, and it must be cut off, and you will die, unless you do something that I

could tell you; what listening there would be to this man! Oh! for the Lord's sake, tell me what this is, I will give you any content for your pains.

Equity.

1. Equity in law is the same that the spirit is in religion, what every one pleases to make it. Sometimes they go according to conscience, sometimes according to law, sometimes according to the rule of court.

2. Equity is a roguish thing. For law we have a measure, we know what to trust to; equity is according to the conscience of him that is chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is equity. "Tis all one, as if they should make the standard for the measure, a chancellor's foot. What an uncertain measure would this be! One chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot: "Tis the same thing in the chancellor's conscience.

3. That saying, Do as you would be done to, is often misunderstood; for it is not thus meant, that I, a private man, should do to you, a privateman, as I would have you to me, but do' as we have agreed to do one to another by public agreement. If the prisoner should ask the judge, whether he