SUBJECTS FOR EXERCISES. [The following extracts are presented for the purpose of avoiding the inconvenience and loss of time, to the student, which would be caused by frequent references to the library, for the material on which to practise the exercises prescribed on synonyms and other topics, in preceding pages of this manual, and, more particularly, that on the analysis of composition. The extracts furnish examples of the varying character of the English language, from its earlier prose forms to our own time. They are introduced to aid the student in forming a correct conception of the prominent characteristics of eminent writers whose modes of expression are standards of reference, as models of style, and, in particular, of acknowledged classical purity and propriety in their choice and use of words. The close, analytic study of such au thors, is the best of all resorts for the acquisition of true taste and critical discernment, the indispensable conditions of a skilful and effective use of language.] What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting freewill in thinking, as well as in acting: and, though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth; nor again, that, when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight, that doth not shew the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights. Truth may, perhaps, come to the price of a pearl, that sheweth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that sheweth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasDoth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? ure. One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy, the wine of demons, because it filleth the imagination; and yet it is but the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the lovemaking, or wooing, of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it; is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his sabbath work, ever since, is the illu mination of his Spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well, 'It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth, (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene,) and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below:" so always, that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business, it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear and sound dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it: for these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent; which goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious: and therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge, "If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men: for a lie faces God, and shrinks from man." Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men; it being foretold that when "Christ cometh,” he shall not “find faith upon earth." Learning taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men's minds: it taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to accept of nothing but examined and tried. It taketh away vain admiration of anything, which is the root of all weakness: for all things are admired, either because they are new, or because they are great. For novelty, no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly, but will find that printed in heart, "There is nothing new upon the earth." Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion. And for magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after that he was used to great armies, and the great conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece, of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage, or a fort, or some walled town, at the most, he said, "It seemed to him, that he was advertised of the battle of the frogs and the mice, that the old tales went of." So certainly, if a man meditate upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it, the divineness of souls excepted, will not seem much other than an anthill; whereas some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to-and-fro a little heap of dust. It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death, or adverse fortune; which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue, and imperfections of manners. For if a man's mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth, one day, and saw a woman weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken; and went forth the next day, and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead; and thereupon said, "Yesterday, I saw the brittle broken: to-day, I saw the mortal dead." And therefore Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of cause and the conquest of all fears together, as concomitants." 66 "Happy the man, whose vigorous soul can pierce Who nobly dares despise, with soul sedate, The din of Acheron, and vulgar fears, and fate." It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind; sometimes purging the ill-humors, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping digestion, sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the like; and therefore I will conclude with that which hath "the greater reason of all," which is, that it disposeth the constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of growth and reformation. For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to call himself to account; nor the pleasure of "that most pleasant life, to feel himself daily growing better." The good parts he hath he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously, but not much to increase them; the faults he hath he will learn |