than the city and the court used to do. He was hitherto so much perplexed with what related to the public, that he had never a full joy in his own domestics, nor those a sufficient protection and providence from him: now he is in possession of the company and conversation of his own wife, which he seldom had before; he is acquainted with his own children, who were before strangers to him, and whom he makes wise by his instruction; he keeps no more servants than he employs, and obliges them to be pious and dutiful; he regulates his expences by what he hath, and not by what he hopes to have; and if he finds his fortune to be more narrow than he could wish it, he presently retrenches those wishes; and then he finds likewise, that to have little, and not to care for much, yields the same comfort and satisfaction. In a word, he enjoys all the pleasures within himself that he would wish for, and the same delights that Dioclesian had in his garden, which were greater than he had enjoyed in the government of the world, when he had administered it eighteen years, and which he would not depart from to be restored to the possession of. What arguments can have strength and force enough to draw an honest and prudent man from this so near an approach to heaven, into the storms and tempests of this world, and to resign all that tranquillity to the rude con

tentions of the court? There cannot be imagined any attractive powerful enough in such a case, but the absolute injunction and command of the su preme authority; which an honest conscientious man can hardly resist, and the doing whereof would deprive him of much of that felicity, for the preservation whereof he hath presumed to be disobedient. And it may be, if princes did sometimes exercise this high point of sovereignty, by com. pelling men who have been very conspicuous in action, to come again into the light out of this beloved retreat, their affairs might be much improved by it, and many hasty and precipitate resolutions be prevented, by the sage advice and observation of such as are known to have had great experience. And by this means the bringing such revolutions into request and practice, the former classis of men might be the oftner induced to dismiss their business before they are dismissed; and most of those considerations which terrify them from it, would make little impression upon them, when they are not only discouraged to make any barbarous attempt upon the reputation of a person who hath left a good fame of his actions, but discern that it is probable that they may again see him in the same or a greater administration.

To conclude this disquisition, we shall only add, there may be one circumstance that hath not been

yet mentioned, and which may worthily have as great an influence upon sober men, in their election to what course of life they will dedicate their studies, as any inclination or impulsion from their own natures; and that is, the temper of the time, the age, and the climate in which they live, for there are vitia temporum, as well as vitia hominum. There may be such a current and torrent of vice of the climate, that a man of modesty and virtue is not only too weak to withstand it, but even to be overwhelmed by it, and involved in the infamy of it, though not the guilt; there may be such a levity and vanity intoxicate the most active part of the people, or those to whom the conduct of most action is entrusted, that the sobriety of advice may not only not be hearkened to, but the person who gives it rendered so ridiculous, that he can never after become useful. The rashness and precipitations of counsels may be such, the inadvertencies in those accidents which may probably fall out to disappoint the success, and the unsteadiness and irresolution in prosecuting the ways agreed on, that wary men may reasonably be unwilling to bear a part in them, which are liable to so much reproach, and the issue thereof so discernable; but, above all, the principles of religion and justice may be so little insisted upon and observed in the counsels, and the power of weak and wilful

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and wicked persons so predominant, that all wise animadversions are ingrateful, ineffectual, and render the authors of them at the mercy of those who do not approve them in all these cases, and some other, men do think themselves excusable, if they avoid and fly all the occasions and opportunities that may carry them into such infectious company, and engage them in such infamous transactions; and chuse rather to sleep in the most dark and obscure cells, and to be buried in perpetual silence and oblivion, than to be taken notice of, when such unwarrantable things are done and countenanced, though themselves are not only innocent, but known or believed to be so. There is an agony and torment that a generous and worthy person undergoes, by hearing dissolute and prophane discourses, and by the sight of impious and scandalous actions, which inflict a more sensible pain than can be expressed; and it may be is greater than can result from any wound in the flesh or fracture in the bone; yet, after all these discouragements, it may be reasonably thought that a man of virtue and magnanimity had better engage himself in this pestilent air than fly from it; there never was contagion so venomous that destroyed all that were near it, and the survivors are commonly looked upon as men born to some more than ordinary purpose. He cannot be absolved in

point of duty to his country, who, because it is invaded by a triumphant army, will not list himself for its defence; and when the safety of a nation is more threatened from within than from without, from being deceived by unfaithful and undiscerning counsellors, than from the strength and power of a foreign enemy, he is very inexcusable that will not do all he can to discover and prevent the mischief, with what hazard soever to himself. Princes may be as easily deceived by those they trust as other men can be; nay, they may, by the operation of some predominant passion or appetite, conspire with others to deceive themselves, but they can never be willing to be undone ; and how late soever they discern their ruin that approaches, and how they have been cozened and betrayed by the promoters of it; if by the former withdrawing of good men, they then shall be without that assistance which is necessary to their preservation, those withdrawers are liable to a fouler reproach, at least an equal to those who have been first in the conspiracy.

There is another argument of interest and safety, that may rather induce worthy men and of active spirits, even in the worst conjunctures, to put themselves as near the stage as they can, than to withdraw to a dark and quiet retreat till the ruining tempest be over.

In the first he moves in