nfit time for study or bodily exercise. The
flight of hawks and chase of wild beasts, either of them are delights
noble; but some think this sport of men the worthier, despite all
calumny. All men have been of his occupation; and indeed, what he doth
feignedly, that do others essentially. This day one plays a monarch, the
next a private person; here one acts a tyrant, on the morrow an exile; a
parasite this man tonight, tomorrow a precisian; and so of divers
others. I observe, of all men living, a worthy actor in one kind is the
strongest motive of affection that can be; for, when he dies, we cannot
be persuaded any man can do his parts like him. But, to conclude, I
value a worthy actor by the corruption of some few of the quality as I
would do gold in the ore--I should not mind the dross, but the purity of
the metal.

A FRANKLIN.

His outside is an ancient yeoman of England, though his inside may give
arms with the best gentleman and never see the herald. There is no truer
servant in the house than himself. Though he be master, he says not to
his servants, "Go to field," but "Let us go;" and with his own eye doth
both fatten his flock and set forward all manner of husbandry. He is
taught by nature to be contented with a little; his own fold yields him
both food and raiment; he is pleased with any nourishment God sends,
whilst curious gluttony ransacks, as it were, Noah's ark for food only
to feed the riot of one meal. He is never known to go to law;
understanding, to be law-bound among men is to be hide-bound among his
beasts; they thrive not under it, and that such men sleep as unquietly
as if their pillows were stuffed with lawyers' penknives. When he builds
no poor tenant's cottage hinders his prospect: they are indeed his
almshouses, though there be painted on them no such superscription. He
never sits up late but when he hunts the badger, the vowed foe of his
lambs; nor uses he any cruelty but when he hunts the hare; nor subtilty
but when he setteth snares for the snipe or pitfalls for the blackbird;
nor oppression but when, in the month of July, he goes to the next river
and shears his sheep. He allows of honest pastime, and thinks not the
bones of the dead anything bruised or the worse for it though the
country lasses dance in the churchyard after evensong. Rock Monday and
the wake in summer, Shrovings, the wakeful catches on Christmas Eve, the
hockey or seed-cake, these he yearly keeps, yet holds them no r