3004 If a husband would have peace and quiet at home, let him not stand too much upon fuperiority. Some things belong moft to the husband, and fome again to the wife. Each of them ought to govern in their proper province and if fuperiority be thus moderated and used, it is probable it may never come to a dispute.

3005 Please not thyfelf with barely thinking that thy notions are just, and thy intentions good; for things go not for what they really are, but for what they appear. To know how to do, and to know how to fhew it, is a different knowledge. What is not feen, is as if it had no being. Reason itself lofes its authority, when it doth not appear to be fo.

3006 Thou muft not be fo fingular as wholly to flight the fashion, though it be never fo odd. When all the world falls into a fault nobody can be blamed and how extravagant foever a mode may be, thou wouldest be ftill more extravagant if thou refuseft to comply with it; and alone wouldest offer to withstand the general confent of thy country.

3007 To praise thyself can never be decent, except it be in rare cases: but thy office or profeffion thou may'st praise with good grace, and

with

with a kind of magnanimity. Yet there is a way of fending forth praise and catching it again for thyfelf, by being liberal of praise and commendation of others, for that wherein thou thyself haft a remarkable perfection.

3008 Let the morning and noon of thy life be spent in the acquiring virtue, honour, knowledge, and good-humour; and then in the evening, thou wilt have no reason to complain of the lofs of youth and beauty. Time will do thee no other injury than it does statues, medals, and pictures, whofe price and value is enhanced by their antiquity.

3009 This thou may'ft make ufe of as a touchftone to try thy affections by, whether they are earthly or heavenly-If thou examinest thyself whether thou canft rather condemn, deny, and part with thy worldly riches and state, than venture upon any thing that thou believest to be difpleafing to God, or omit ought which thou apprehendeft to be thy indispensible duty.

3010 Be nor like those who are so impatient to hear any speak out their mind, that they unmannerly break in and interrupt them, before they know the true fenfe of what is intended further to be uttered; and fo by this means they neither VOL. II.

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hear,

hear, nor are heard, but fenfelessly chatter. This is a mighty failing; but do thou bring along with thee a modeft and a patient attention, and that will make whatever is beneficial in difcourfe thy own.

3011 When thou thinkeft people under a mistake, be not over eager to fet them right; for many times contentions would cool into nothing at all, if but one party only spoke; but if thou laboureft to convince them of errors, and fo both come to argument, then heat follows; and that which was but a fpark at firft, and might eafily have gone out, is thus blown up into a raging flame.

3012 When trouble and misfortune happens, be not impatient and querulous, but thank God for the fame for if thou thinkeft rightly, thou wilt know that the want of miferies would prove defireable; for the mind, cloyed with continual felicity, would grow but a burthen to itself, loathing that at laft which intermiffion would have made pleasant.

3013 Evils come never the fooner for that (thou lookeft for them, but they will come the eafier. It is a labour well loft if they come not, and well beftowed if they do come. We are fure

the

the worst may come; why should we be fure that it will not? Suddennefs finds weak minds fecure, makes them miferable, leaves them defperate : the best way therefore is, to make things prefent in conceit, before they come, that they may be half past in their violence, when they do

come.

3014 We are all weak and subject to imperfections, even the beft of us and if thou haft not the indulgence to pardon thy friends, and they、 the fame to pardon thee, your friendship will laft no longer than it can ferve both your interefts, and both can find your account in it. And when thou breakeft with thy friend, thy tongue will make known what thou haft a long time.concealed in thy heart.

3015 Thou art not peremptorily to avoid the company of one of thy acquaintance, because he is fometimes humourfome and troublesome, being he may have his intervals. Of what ufe is thy reafon and virtue, if thou makest not use of it upon occafions? That man has faults, but has good qualities alfo; pardon the one for

the other.

3016 Be not so injurious to the ladies, as to imagine they come to church out of hypocrify or vanity.

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vanity. It cannot be denied that women are more fincere and firm in their devotion than men; fince in that occafion where there was most affection to be fhewed to God, there were found three Maries under the cross, where there was but one difciple, and he too denied him thrice.

3017 If thou art a good man, and hast taken care all thy life to please God, thou wilt have little more to do, when thou feeft death approaching, than to take leave of thy friends; to bless thy children; to support and comfort thyself with the hopes of an immortal life and a glorious refurrection; and to refign up thy spirit into the hands of God and of thy Saviour.

3018 Let thy clothes he very good in their kind, but not fine and foppifh. Gay clothes is the pride of children, and the weakest of women. The little foul that converfes no higher than the looking-glafs; and a fantastic dress may help to make up the fhew of the world, but muft not be reckoned among the rational inhabitants of it; ferving only as pictures, images, ornaments to the stage, and not to the actors in it.

3019 Of the evils of life, never take more to thy share than are really thy own: decline, if thou canft, an evil lying in thy way, as thou doft

a bustle