WE

CHA P. VIII.

ON GOOD SENSE.

ERE I to explain what I understand by good sense, I should call it right reafon; but right reason that arifes not from formal and logical deductions, but from a fort of intuitive faculty in the foul, which distinguishes by immediate perception: a kind of innate fagacity, that in many of its properties feems very much to resemble instinct. It would be improper, therefore, to say, that Sir Ifaac Newton shewed his good fenfe, by those amazing discoveries which he made in natural philofophy: the operations of this gift of Heaven are rather inftantaneous, than the result of any tedious procefs. Like Diomed, after Minerva had endued him with the power of difcerning gods from mortals, the man of good fense discovers at once the truth of those objects he is most concerned to diftinguish; and conducts himself with fuitable caution and fecurity.

IT is for this reason, poffibly, that this quality of the mind is not so often found united with learning as one could wifh: for good fenfe being accustomed to receive her discoveries without labour or ftudy, the cannot so easily wait for those truths, which being placed at a distance, and lying concealed under numberless covers, require much pains and application to unfold.

BUT though good fenfe is not in the number, nor always, it must be owned, in the company of the sciences; yet is it (as the most sensible of poets has justly observed)

• fairly worth the seven.'

Rectitude of understanding is indeed the most useful, as well as the moft noble of human endowments, as it is the fove

reign guide and director in every branch of civil and focial intercourse.

UPON whatever occafion this enlightening faculty is exerted, it is always fure to act with diftinguished eminence; but its chief and peculiar province feems to lie in the commerce of the world. Accordingly we may observe, that those who have converfed more with men than with books; whose wifdom is derived rather from experience than contemplation; generally poffefs this happy talent with fuperior perfection. For good fenfe, though it cannot be acquired, may be improved; and the world, I believe, will ever be found to afford the most kindly foil for its cultivation.

MELMOTH.

STO

CHA P. IX.

ON STUDY.

TUDIES ferve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. The chief ufe for delight is in privatenefs and retiring; for ornament, is in difcourfe; and for ability, is in the judgment and difpofition of bufinefs. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars one by one; but the general counfels, and the plots, and marshalling of affairs, come beft from those that are learned. To spend too much time in ftudies is floth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience; for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by duty, and ftudies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, fimple men admire them, and wife men use them:

for they teach not their own ufe, but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by obfervation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and difcourfe, but to weigh and confider. Some books are to be tafted, others to be swallowed, and fome few to be chewed and digested; that is, fome books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and fome few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that fhould be only in the lefs important arguments, and the meaner fort of books; else distilled books are like common diftilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man ; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a prefent wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to feem to know that he doth not.

ΟΝ

CHAP. X.

SATIRICAL

WIT.

BACON.

-TRUS

RUST me, this unwary pleasantry of thine will fooner or later bring thee into fcrapes and difficulties which no after wit can extricate thee out of. In these fallies, too oft I fee, it happens, that the perfon laughed at confiders himself in the light of a perfon injured, with all the rights of such a situation belonging to him; and when thou vieweft him in that light too, and reckoneft upon his friends, his family, his kindred and allies, and muftereft up with them the many recruits which will lift under him from

a fenfe

a sense of common danger; 'tis no extravagant arithmetic to fay, that for every ten jokes, thou haft got an hundred enemies; and, till thou haft gone on, and raised a fwarm of wafps about thine ears, and art half ftung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is fo.

I CANNOT fufpect it in the man whom I efteem, that there is the leaft fpur from fpleen or malevolence of intent in these fallies. I believe and know them to be truly honeft and sportive; but confider, that fools cannot diftinguish this, and that knaves will not; and thou knowest not what it is, either to provoke the one, or to make merry with the other whenever they affociate for mutual defence, depend upon it they will carry on the war in such a manner against thee, my dear friend, as to make thee heartily fick of it, and of thy life too.

REVENGE from fome baneful corner fhall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall fet right. The fortunes of thy house shall totter-thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every fide of it-thy faith queftioned-thy works belied-thy wit forgotten-thy learning trampled on. Το wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, CRUELTY and CowARDICE, twin ruffians, hired and fet on by MALICE in the dark, shall strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes: the best of us, my friend, lie open there, and trust me— when to gratify a private appetite, it is once refolved upon, that an innocent and an helpless creature fhall be facrificed, it is an easy matter to pick up sticks enough from any thicket where it has ftrayed, to make a fire to offer it up with.

S

CHAP. XI.

HAMLET's INSTRUCTIONS TO THE PLAYER S.

PEAK the fpeech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,

trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lieve the town crier had spoke my lines. And do not saw the air too much with your hand thus; but ufe all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may fay, whirlwind of your paffion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the foul, to hear a robufteous periwigpated fellow tear a paflion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb fhews and noise: I could have fuch a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing termagant; it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this fpecial obfervance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing fo overdone is from the purpose of playing; whofe end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to fhew virtue her own feature, fcorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and preffure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy of, though it make the unfkilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve: the cenfure of one of which muft in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players that I have feen play, and heard others praife, and that highly (not to

speak