my fortune; reflecting that what I fail to attain after I have done my best must be regarded as simply impossible, and no more to be lamented over than that my body is not so hard as steel, or that I have not the convenience of wings.

Finally, for an occupation, without disputing the tastes of others, I myself will go on as before; that is to say, I will employ my life in cultivating my reason, and advancing all I can in the knowledge of truth, using the method I have prescribed to myself.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE

(A. D. 1605-1682.)

THOMAS BROWNE, physician and author, was born in London, October 19, 1605. He received his education at Oxford, Montpellier, Padua, and Leyden. In 1637 he settled at Norwich, where he died, on his birthday, October 19, 1682. He had been knighted by King Charles II., eleven years before his death. His most famous work, "Religio Medici," was published in 1643. "Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Inquiry into Vulgar Errors," appeared in 1646, and “Hydriotaphia, or Urn Burial," in 1658. His "Christian Morals" was not published until after his death. It is an expansion of a "Letter to a Friend" written previously, and was probably laid aside by the author for some careful revision. Neither his thought nor his style are represented at their best in it.

Mr. Saintsbury says of Sir Thomas Browne's writings: "The work of this country doctor is for personal savour, for strangeness, and for delight, one of the most notable things in English literature. . . . His manner is exactly proportioned to his matter; his exotic and unfamiliar vocabulary to the strangeness and novelty of his thoughts. He can never be really popular; but for the meditative reading of instructed persons he is perhaps the most delightful of English prosemen."

SELECTIONS FROM SIR THOMAS BROWNE'S "LETTER TO A FRIEND."

Tread softly and circumspectly in this funambulous track and narrow path of goodness; pursue virtue virtuously; be sober and temperate, not to preserve your body in a sufficiency to wanton ends, not to spare your purse,

not to be free from the infamy of common transgressors that way, and thereby to balance or palliate obscurer and closer vices, nor simply to enjoy health, by all which you may leaven good actions, and render virtues disputable ; but, in one word, that you may truly serve God, which, every sickness will tell you, you cannot well do without health. . . . Sit not down in the popular seats and common level of virtues, but endeavour to make them heroical. Offer not only peace-offerings but holocausts unto God. To serve him singly to serve ourselves, were too partial a piece of piety, nor likely to place us in the highest mansions of glory.

He that is chaste and continent, not to impair his strength, or terrified by contagion, will hardly be heroically virtuous.

Be charitable before wealth makes thee covetous, and lose not the glory of the mite. If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with them; and think it not enough to be liberal, but munificent. Though a cup of cold water from some hand may not be without its reward, yet stick not thou for wine and oil for the wounds of the distressed; and treat the poor as our Saviour did the multitude, to the relics of some baskets.

Trust not to the omnipotency of gold, or say unto it, Thou art my confidence; kiss not thy hand when thou beholdest that terrestrial sun, nor bore thy ear unto its servitude. A slave unto Mammon makes no servant unto God. Covetousness cracks the sinews of faith, numbs the apprehension of any thing above sense, and, only affected with the certainty of things present, makes a peradventure of things to come; lives but unto one world, nor hopes but fears another; makes our own death sweet unto others, bitter unto ourselves; gives a dry funeral, scenical mourning, and no wet eyes at the grave.

If avarice be thy vice, yet make it not thy punishment; miserable men commiserate not themselves, bowelless unto themselves and merciless unto their own bowels. Let the fruition of things bless the possession of them, and take no satisfaction in dying but living rich. For since thy good works, not thy goods, will follow thee; since riches are an appurtenance of life, and no dead man is rich; to famish in plenty, and live poorly to die rich, were a multiplying improvement in madness, and use upon use in folly.

Persons lightly dipped, not grained in generous honesty, are but pale in goodness, and faint-hued in sincerity; but be thou what thou virtuously art, and let not the ocean wash away thy tincture. Since few or none prove eminently virtuous but from some advantageous foundations in their temper and natural inclinations, study thyself betimes, and early find what nature bids thee to be, or tells thee what thou mayest be. They who thus timely descend into themselves, cultivating the good seeds which nature hath set in them, and improving their prevalent inclinations to perfection, become not shrubs, but cedars in their generation; and to be in the form of the best of the bad, or the worst of the good, will be no satisfaction unto them.

Let not the law of thy country be the "non ultra” of thy honesty, nor think that always good enough which the law will make good. Narrow not the law of charity, equity, mercy; join gospel righteousness with legal right; be not a mere Gamaliel in the faith, but let the Sermon on the Mount be thy Targum unto the law of Sinai.

Make not the consequences of virtue the ends thereof; be not beneficent for a name or cymbal of applause, nor exact and punctual in commerce for the advantages of trust and credit which attend the reputation of just and

true dealing; for such rewards, though unsought for, plain virtue will bring with her, whom all men honour, though they pursue not. . . .

Owe not thy humility unto humiliation by adversity, but look humbly down in that state when others look upward upon thee. Be patient in the age of pride and days of will and impatiency, when men live but by intervals of reason, under the sovereignty of humour and passion, when it is in the power of every one to transform thee out of thyself, and put thee into the short madness. If you cannot imitate Job, yet come not short of Socrates and those patient Pagans, who tired the tongues of their enemies while they perceived they spat their malice at brazen walls and statues.

Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks; be content to be envied, but envy not. Emulation may be plausible, and indignation allowable; but admit no treaty with that passion, which no circumstance can make good.

Look humbly upon thy virtues, and though thou art rich in some, yet think thyself poor and naked without that crowning grace, which thinketh no evil, which envieth not, which beareth, believeth, hopeth, endureth all things. With these sure graces, while busy tongues are crying out for a drop of cold water, mutes may be in happiness, and sing the Trisagium in heaven.

Let not the sun in Capricorn go down upon thy wrath, but write thy wrongs in water; draw the curtain of night upon injuries; shut them up in the tower of oblivion, and let them be as though they had not been. Forgive thine enemies totally, and without any reserve of hope that, however, God will revenge thee.

Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others; and let the world be deceived in thee, as they are in the lights of heaven. Hang early