heaven, and thinks he is wronged if God will not take his times when to rain, when to shine. He is a slave to envy, and loseth flesh with fretting, not so much at his own infelicity, as at others' good neither hath he leisure to joy in his own blessings, whilst another prospereth. He is the wheel of a well-couched firework that flies out on all sides, not without scorching itself. Every ear was long ago weary of him, and he is now almost weary of himself; give him a little respite, and he will die alone of no other death than others' welfare.

Characters of Virtue and Vice.

How to Spend our Days.

Every day is a little life: and our whole life is but a day repeated whence it is, that old Jacob numbers his life by days; and Moses desires to be taught this point of holy arithmetic, to number, not his years, but his days. Those, therefore, that dare lose a day are dangerously prodigal; those that dare mis-spend it, desperate. We can best teach others by ourselves: let me tell your lordship how I would pass my days, that you, or whosoever others overhearing me, may either approve my thriftiness, or correct my errors.

First, therefore, I desire to awake at those hours, not when I will, but when I must: pleasure is not a fit rule for rest, but health neither do I consult so much with the sun as my own necessity, whether of body or in that of the mind. If this vassal could well serve me waking it should never sleep; but now it must be pleased that it may be serviceable. Now, when sleep is rather driven away than leaves me, I would ever awake with God. My first thoughts are for Him, who made the night for rest, and the day for travel; and, as He gives, so blesses both. If my heart be early seasoned with His presence, it will savour of Him all day after. While my body is dressing, not with an effeminate curiosity, nor yet with rude neglect, my mind addresses itself to her ensuing task; bethinking what is to be done, and in what order; and marshalling, as it may, my hours with my work.

That done, after some while meditation, I walk up to my masters and companions, my books: and, sitting down amongst them, with the best contentment, I dare not reach forth my hand to salute any of them till I have first looked up to heaven, and craved favour of Him to whom all my studies are duly referred.

without whom I can neither profit nor labour. After this, out of no over-great variety, I call forth those which may best fit my occasions; wherein I am not too scrupulous of age: sometimes I put myself to school, to one of those ancients, whom the Church hath honoured with the name of Fathers, whose volumes I confess not to open without a secret reverence of their holiness and gravity: sometimes to those latter doctors, which want nothing but age to make them classical: always to God's Book. That day is lost whereof some hours are not improved in those divine monuments: others I turn over out of choice; these out of duty.

Ere I can have sat unto weariness, my family, having now overcome all household distractions, invites me to our common devotions, not without some short preparation. These, heartily performed, send me up with a more strong and cheerful appetite to my former work, which I find made easy to me by intermission and variety. Now, therefore, can I deceive the hours with change of pleasures, that is, of labours. One while, mine eyes are busied ; another while, my hand; and sometimes, my mind takes the burden from them both; wherein I would imitate the skilfullest cooks, which make the best dishes with manifold mixtures. One hour is spent in textual divinity, another in controversy, histories relieve them both. Now, when the mind is weary of other labours, it begins to undertake its own: sometimes it meditates and winds up for future use; sometimes it lays forth her conceits into present discourse; sometimes for itself, often for others. Neither know I whether it works or plays in these thoughts: I am sure no sport hath more pleasure, no work more use only the decay of a weak body makes me think these delights insensibly laborious.

Thus could I, all day, as ringers use, make myself music with changes; and complain sooner of the day for shortness, than of the business for toil; were it not that this faint monitor interrupts me still in the midst of my busy pleasures, and enforces me both to respite and repast. I must yield to both: while my body and mind are joined together in those unequal couples, the better must follow the weaker.

Before my meals, therefore, and after, I let myself loose from all my thoughts; and now would forget that I ever studied. A full mind takes away the body's appetite, no less than a full body makes a dull and unwieldy mind. Company, discourse, recrea

M

tions, are now seasonable and welcome. These prepare me for a diet, not gluttonous, but medicinal: the palate may not be pleased, but the stomach; nor that for its own sake. Neither would I think any of these comforts worth respect in themselves, but in their use, in their end; so far as they may enable me to better things. If I see any dish to tempt my palate, I fear a serpent in that apple; and would please myself in a wilful denial. I rise capable of more, not desirous: not now immediately from my trencher to my book; but after some intermission. Moderate speed is a sure help to all proceedings; where those things which are prosecuted with violence of endeavour or desire, either succeed not, or continue not.

After my latter meal my thoughts are slight; only my memory may be charged with her task of recalling what was committed to her custody in the day: and my heart is busy in examining my hands, and mouth, and all other senses, of that day's behaviour. And, now the evening is come, no tradesman doth more carefully take in his wares, clear his shopboard, and shut his windows, than I would shut up my thoughts and clear my mind. That student shall live miserably which, like a camel, lies down under his burden. All this done, calling together my family, we end the day with God.

I grant, neither is my practice worthy to be exemplary, neither are our callings proportionable. The lives of a nobleman, of a courtier, of a scholar, of a citizen, of a countryman, differ no less than their dispositions: yet must all conspire in honest labour. Sweat is the destiny of all trades, whether of the brows or of the mind. God never allowed any man to do nothing. How miserable is the condition of those men which spend the time as if it were given to them, and not lent!-as if hours were waste creatures, and such as should never be accounted for!-as if God would take this for a good bill of reckoning :-Item, spent upon my pleasures forty years. These men shall once find that no blood can privilege idleness, and that nothing is more precious to God than that which they desire to cast away-time.

HALL'S Letters. Sixth Decade. Letter to Lord Denny.

Occasional Meditations.

On the sight of two snails. There is much variety even in creatures of this kind. See these two snails. One hath a

house, the other wants it; yet both are snails; and it is a question whether case is the better. That which hath a house hath more shelter; but that which wants it hath more freedom. The privilege of that cover is but a burden; you see, if it hath but a stone to climb over, with what stress it draws up that beneficial load, and, if the passage prove strait, finds no entrance; whereas the empty snail makes no difference of way.

Surely it is always an ease, and sometimes a happiness, to have nothing. No man is so worthy of envy as he that can be cheerful in want.

On the sound of a cracked bell.-What a harsh sound doth this bell make in every ear! The metal is good enough; it is the rift that makes it so unpleasingly jarring.

How too like is this bell to a scandalous and ill-lived teacher! His calling is honourable; his noise is heard far enough; but the flaw which is noted in his life mars his doctrine, and offends those ears which else would take pleasure in his teaching. It is possible that such a one, even by that discordous noise, may ring in others into the triumphant church of heaven; but there is no remedy for himself but the fire, whether for his reforming or judgment.

What would you have? Quid placet ergo.

I wot not how the world's degenerate,
That men or know, or like not, their estate;
Out from the Gades up to th' eastern morne

Not one but holds his native state forlorne ...
Fach muck worme will be rich with lawlesse gaine,
Although he smother up mowes of seven years' graine,
And hang himself when Corne grows cheap again;
Altho' he buy whole harvests in the spring,
And foyst in false strikes to the measuring;
Altho' his shop be muffled from the light,
Like a day dungeon, a Cimmerian night;
Nor full nor fasting can the carle take rest,
While his george-nobles rusten in his chest ;
He sleeps but once and dreams of burglary,
And wakes and casts about his frighted eye,
And gropes for thieves in every darker shade,
And if a mouse but stirre, he calls for ayde.

The sturdy ploughman doth the soldier see,
All scarf'd with piëd colours to the knee,
Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate,
And now he 'gins to loath his former state;
Now doth he inly scorne his Kendal-greene,
And his patch'd cockers now despised beene;
Nor list he now go whistling to the carre,
But sells his teeme, and getteth to the warre...
Some drunken rimer thinks his time well spent,
If he can live to see his name in print, . . .
Nor then can rest, but volumes up bodged rhymes,
To have his name talked of in future times.
The brain-sick youth, that feeds his tickled ear
With sweet-sauced lies of some false traveller,
Which hath the Spanish Decades read awhile
Or whetstone leasings of old Mandeville,
Now with discourses breakes his midnight sleepe,
Of his adventures through the Indian deepe,
Of all their massy heapes of golden mine,
Or of the antique toombes of Palestine.
'Mongst all these sins of discontented strife,
O let me lead an academic life;

a

To know much, and to think we nothing know,
Nothing to have, yet think we have enowe,
Envy ye monarchs with your proud excesse,
At our low sayle, and our high happinesse.

HALL'S Sutires. Bk. iv, satire vi.

Most of Hall's satires abound in allusions to the customs of the times, and have therefore special interest. Some of his most vigorous lines are, as Campbell thinks, in book iii., satire i.

"Time was, and that was term'd the time of gold,

When world and time were young that now are old."

In point and fulness they often resemble Dryden's.

• Spanish Decades, a book of Travels, translated about 1590.