Good Widow.—­“If she can speak but little good of him [her dead husband] she speaks but little of him.  So handsomely folding up her discourse, that his virtues are shown outwards, and his vices wrapt up in silence; as counting it barbarism to throw dirt on his memory, who hath mould cast on his body.”

Horses.—­“These are men’s wings, wherewith they make such speed.  A generous creature a horse is, sensible in some sort of honor; and made most handsome by that which deforms men most—­pride.”

Martyrdom.—­“Heart of oak hath sometimes warped a little in the scorching heat of persecution.  Their want of true courage herein cannot be excused.  Yet many censure them for surrendering up their forts after a long siege, who would have yielded up their own at the first summons.—­Oh! there is more required to make one valiant, than to call Cranmer or Jewel coward; as if the fire in Smithfield had been no hotter than what is painted in the Book of Martyrs.”

Text of St. Paul.—­“St. Paul saith, Let not the sun go down on your wrath, to carry news to the antipodes in another world of thy revengeful nature.  Yet let us take the Apostle’s meaning rather than his words, with all possible speed to depose our passion; not understanding him so literally, that we may take leave to be angry till sunset:  then might our wrath lengthen with the days; and men in Greenland, where the day lasts above a quarter of a year, have plentiful scope for revenge."[1]

[Footnote 1:  This whimsical prevention of a consequence which no one would have thought of deducing,—­setting up an absurdum on purpose to hunt it down,—­placing guards as it were at the very outposts of possibility,—­gravely giving out laws to insanity and prescribing moral fences to distempered intellects, could never have entered into a head less entertainingly constructed than that of Fuller or Sir Thomas Browne, the very air of whose style the conclusion of this passage most aptly imitates.]

Bishop Brownrig.—­“He carried learning enough in numerato about him in his pockets for any discourse, and had much more at home in his chests for any serious dispute.”

Modest Want.—­“Those that with diligence fight against poverty, though neither conquer till death makes it a drawn battle, expect not but prevent their craving of thee:  for God forbid the heavens should never rain, till the earth first opens her mouth; seeing some grounds will sooner burn than chap.”

Death-bed Temptations.—­“The devil is most busy on the last day of his term; and a tenant to be ousted cares not what mischief he doth.”

Conversation.—­“Seeing we are civilized Englishmen, let us not be naked savages in our talk.”

Wounded Soldier.—­“Halting is the stateliest march of a soldier; and ’tis a brave sight to see the flesh of an ancient as torn as his colors.”

Wat Tyler.—­“A misogrammatist; if a good Greek word may be given to so barbarous a rebel.”