best objects of their own country so little to the size of those abroad, as if they were shew'd them by the wrong end of a Prospective; for Man, continuing the appetites of his first Childhood till he arive at his second, which is more froward, must be quieted with somthing that he 5 thinks excellent wch he may call his own, but when he sees the like in other places, not staying to compare them, wrangles at all he has. This leads us to observe the craftiness of the Comicks, who are only willing when they describe humor (& humor is the drunkeness of a Nation 10 which no sleep can cure) to lay the Scene in their own Country, as knowing we are, like the Son of Noah, so little distasted to behold each others shame, that we delight to see even that of a Father; yet when they would set forth greatness and excellent vertue, which is the Theme of 15 Tragedy, publiquely to the people, they wisely, to avoid the quarrels of neighbourly envy, remove the Scene from home. And by their example I travail'd too; and Italie, which was once the Stage of the World, I have made the Theater where I shew, in either Sex, some patterns of 20 humane life that are perhaps fit to be follow'd.

Having told you why I took the actions that should be my Argument from men of our own Religion, and given you reasons for the choyce of the time and place design'd for those actions, I must next acquaint you with the 25 Schooles where they were bred; not meaning the Schooles where they took their Religion, but Morality; for I know Religion is universally rather inherited then taught, and the most effectual Schools of Morality are Courts and Camps yet towards the first the people are unquiet 30 through envie, and towards the other through fear, and always jealous of both for Injustice, which is the naturall scandal cast upon authority and great force. They look upon the outward glory or blaze of Courts, as wilde Beasts in dark nights stare on their Hunters Torches; but though 35

the expences of Courts, whereby they shine, is that consuming glory in which the people think their liberty is wasted, for wealth is their liberty, and lov'd by them even to jealousie, being themselves a courser sort of Princes, 5 apter to take then to pay,—yet Courts (I mean all abstracts of the multitude, either by King or Assemblies) are not the Schools where men are bred to oppression, but the Temples where sometimes Oppressors take sanctuary, a safety which our reason must allow them. For the ancient laws of 10 Sanctuary, deriv'd from God, provided chiefly for actions that proceeded from necessity; and who can imagine less then a necessity of oppressing the people, since they are never willing either to buy their Peace or to pay for Warr?

Nor are Camps the Schools of wicked Destroyers, more 15 then the Inns of Court, being the Nursery of Judges, are the Schools of Murderers; for as Judges are avengers of private men against private Robbers, so are Armies the avengers of the publique against publique Invaders, either civill or forraign, and Invaders are Robbers, though more 20 in countenance then those of the high-way because of their number. Nor is there other difference between Armies when they move towards Sieges or Battail, and Judges moving in their Circuit, during the danger of extraordinary malefactors, with the guards of the County, but that the 25 latter is a lesse Army, and of lesse Discipline. If any man can yet doubt of the necessary use of Armies, let him study that which was anciently call'd a Monster, the Multitude,— for Wolves are commonly harmlesse when they are met alone, but very uncivill in Herds, and he will not finde 30 that all his kindred by Adam are so tame and gentle as those Lovers that were bred in Arcadia; or to reform his opinion, let him ask why, during the utmost age of History, Cities have been at the charge of defensive Walls, and why Fortification hath been practic'd so long till it is grown an Art ?

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I may now beleeve I have usefully taken from Courts and Camps the patterns of such as will be fit to be imitated by the most necessary men; and the most necessary men are those who become principall by prerogative of blood, which is seldom unassisted with education, or by greatnesse 5 of minde, which in exact definition is Vertue. The common Crowd, of whom we are hopelesse, we desert, being rather to be corrected by laws, where precept is accompanied with punishment, then to be taught by Poesy; for few have arriv'd at the skill of Orpheus or at his good fortune, 10 whom we may suppose to have met with extraordinary Grecian Beasts, when so successfully he reclaim'd them with his Harp. Nor is it needfull that Heroick Poesy should be levell❜d to the reach of Common men: for if the examples it presents prevail upon their Chiefs, the delight of Imita- 15 tion (which we hope we have prov'd to be as effectuall to good as to evill) will rectify, by the rules which those Chiefs establish of their own lives, the lives of all that behold them; for the example of life doth as much surpasse the force of Precept as Life doth exceed Death.

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In the choice of these Objects which are as Seamarks to direct the dangerous voyage of life, I thought fit to follow the rule of Coasting Mapps, where the Shelves and Rocks are describ'd as well as the safe Channell, the care being equall how to avoid as to proceed; and the Characters of 25 men whose passions are to be eschew'd I have deriv'd from the distempers of Love or Ambition, for Love and Ambition are too often the raging Feavers of great minds. Yet Ambition, if the vulgar acception of the word were corrected, would signifie no more then an extraordinary lifting of the 30 feet in the rough ways of Honor over the impediments of Fortune, and hath a warmth, till it be chaf'd into a Feaver, which is necessary for every vertuous breast: for good men are guilty of too little appetite to greatness, and it either proceeds from that they call contentednesse (but 35

contentednesse when examin'd doth mean something of Lasynesse as well as moderation) or from some melancholy precept of the Cloyster, where they would make life, for which the world was only made, more unpleasant then 5 Death; as if Nature, the Vicegerent of God,—who, in providing delightfull varieties which vertuous greatnesse can best possesse or assure peaceably to others, implicitly commanded the use of them,-should in the necessaries of life (life being her chief business), though in her whole 10 reign she never committed one error, need the counsell of Fryars, whose solitude makes them no more fit for such direction then Prisoners long fetter'd are for a race.

In saying this I onely awaken such retir❜d men as evaporate their strength of minde by close and long think. 15 ing, and would every where separate the soul from the body ere we are dead, by perswading us (though they were both created and have been long companions together) that the preferment of the one must meerly consist in deserting the other,-teaching us to court the Grave, 20 as if during the whole lease of life we were like Moles to live under ground, or as if long and well dying were the certain means to live in Heaven. Yet Reason (which, though the most profitable Talent God hath given us, some Divines would have Philosophers to bury in the Napkin, 25 and not put it to use) perswades us that the painful activeness of Vertue (for Faith, on which some wholly depend, seems but a contemplative boast till the effects of it grow exemplary by action) will more probably acquire everlasting dignities. And surely if these severe Masters, who, 30 though obscure in Cells, take it ill if their very opinions rule not all abroad, did give good men leave to be industrious in getting a Share of governing the world, the Multitudes, which are but Tenants to a few Monarchs, would endure that subjection which God hath decreed 35 them, with better order and more ease; for the world is

onely ill govern'd because the wicked take more paines to get authority then the vertuous, for the vertuous are often preach'd into retirement, which is to the publick as (un-) profitable as their sleep; and the erroneousnesse of such lazy rest let Philosophers judge, since Nature, of whose 5 body man thinks himself the chiefest member, hath not any where, at any time, been respited from action (in her call'd motion) by which she universally preserves and makes Life. Thus much of Ambition, which should have succeeded something I was saying of Love.

Love, in the Interpretation of the Envious, is Softnesse; in the Wicked, good men suspect it for Lust; and in the Good, some spiritual men have given it the name of Charity. And these are but terms to this which seems a more considered definition, that indefinite Love is Lust, and Lust 15 when it is determin'd to one is Love. This definition, too, but intrudes it self on what I was about to say, which is (and spoken with sobernesse though like a Lay-man) that Love is the most acceptable imposition of Nature, the cause and preservation of Life, and the very healthfulnesse of the 20 mind as well as of the Body, but Lust, our raging Feaver, is more dangerous in Cities then the Calenture in Ships.

Now, Sir, I again ask you pardon, for I have again digressed, my immediate business being to tell you, That the distempers of Love and Ambition are the only Characters 25 I design'd to expose as objects of terrour, and my purpose was also to assure you that I never meant to prostitute Wickednesse in the Images of low and contemptible people, as if I expected the meanest of the multitude for my Readers, since only the is seen at common 30

executions, nor intended to rabble to that height of

iniquity

horrour, till it might seem the fury of something worse then a beast. In order to the first, I beleeve the Spartans, who, to deter their children from Drunkennesse, accustom'd their Slaves to vomit before them, did by such fulsome 35