the other falls into his simplicity. Could he put off
his body with his little coat, he had got eternity without
a burden, and exchanged but one heaven for
another.
* N.B. Perhaps the first example of this since much-
abused metaphor.

As a counterfoil to this picture, it may be
well to take the other extremity of human
life; and to give Earle's description of

A GOOD OLD MAN

Is the best antiquity, and which we may with least
vanity admire. One whom time hath been thus long
a working, and, like winter fruit, ripened when others
are shaken down. He hath taken out as many lessons
of the world as days, and learnt the best thing in it;
the vanity of it. He looks over his former life
as a danger well past, and would not hazard himself to
begin again. The next door of death sads him not,
but he expects it calmly as his turn in nature; and
fears more his recoiling back to childishness than dust.
All men look on him as a common father, and on old
age, for his sake, as a reverent thing. He practises his
experience on youth without the harshness of reproof,
and in his counsel his good company. He has some
old stories still of his own seeing to confirm what he
says, and makes them better in the telling; yet is not
troublesome neither with the same tale again, but
remembers with them how oft he has told them. He
is not apt to put the boy on a younger man, nor the
fool on a boy, but can distinguish gravity from a sour
look; and the less testy he is, the more regarded.
You must pardon him if he likes his own times better
than these, because those things are follies to him now
that were wisdom then; yet he makes us of that
opinion too when we see him, and conjecture those
times by so good a relic. He goes away at last too
soon whensoever, with all men's sorrow but his own;
and his memory is fresh, when it is twice as old.

Mr. Macaulay's description of the clergy,
and the tempest of denial which that description
brought about the historian's head, are
tolerably well harmonised by Bishop Earle,
who appears, in this case, to use his own
words, to see the wranglers agree even in
that they fall out upon. He first describes
a young, raw preacher; and in the next essay,
a grave divine. The first: "is a bird not yet
fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to
be chirping on a hedge, and will be straggling
abroad at what peril soever. * * * The
pace of his sermon is a full career, and he
runs wildly over hill and dale, till the clock
stop him. The labour of it is chiefly in his
lungs, and the only thing he has made in it
himself is the faces. He takes on against the
Pope without mercy; yet he preaches heresy,
if it comes in his way, though with a mind,
I must needs say, very orthodox. * * * His
commendation is that he never looks upon
book: and, indeed, he was never used to it,
He preaches but once a-year, though twice
on Sunday; for the stuff is still the same,
only the dressing a little altered. * * * The
companion of his walk is some zealous
tradesman, whom he astonishes with strange
points, which they both understand alike.
His friends, and much painfulness, may
prefer him to thirty pounds a year, and
this means to a chambermaid; with whom
we leave him now in the bonds of
wedlock:—next Sunday you shall have him
again."

The second, a class of which the author seems
himself to have been an admirable type, is
described as: "one that knows the burthen of
his calling, and hath studied to make his
shoulders sufficient; for which he hath not
been hasty to launch forth of his port, the
university, but expected the ballast of learning,
and the wind of opportunity. * * * The
ministry is his choice, not refuge, and yet the
pulpit not his itch, but fear. * * * In
matters of ceremony he is not ceremonious, but
thinks he owes that reverence to the church
to bow his judgment to it, and make more
conscience of schism, than a surplice. In
simoniacal purchases he thinks his soul goes
in the bargain, and is loath to come by
promotion so dear: yet his worth at length
advances him, and the price of his own merit
buys him a living. He is a main pillar of
our church, though not yet dean or canon,
and his life our religion's best apology. His
death is the last sermon, where, in the pulpit
of his bed, he instructs men to die by his
example."

Besides these personages, there are many
others whose peculiarities deserve a moment's
notice; and the city authorities of King
James's time are described in a way that is
very suggestive of their existing successors,
as reflected in the columns of the daily papers.
The alderman, whose head, when in conjunction
with his brethren, may bring forth a
city apophthegm, or some such sage matter;
the citizen, who has still something to
distinguish him from a gentleman, though his
doublet cost more; and the shopkeeper who
tells you lies by rote, and not minding, as the
phrase to sell in, and the language he spent
most of his years to learn; none of these are
extinct species as yet, and, if we believe
Doctors Letheby and Hassall, the last named
is flourishing luxuriantly. As the leaves
turn, we find more and more acquaintances.
The mere dull physician, who if he have been,
but a bystander at some desperate recovery,
is slandered with it though he be guiltless:
the meer formal man, who can excuse his
good cheer in the accustomed apology, and
who apprehends a jest by seeing men smile,
and laughs orderly himself, when it comes to
his turn: the young man who leaves repentance
for grey hairs, and performs it in being
covetous: the plain country fellow whose
mind is not much distracted with objects,
but if a good fat cow come in his way, he
stands dumb and astonished, and though his
haste be never so great, will fix here half an
hour's contemplation: the plausible man who
uses all companies, drinks all healths, and is
reasonable cool in all religions: the sceptic
in religion who would be wholly a Christian,
but that he is something of an Atheist, and
wholly an Atheist, but that he is partly a