STUDIES AND CONDUCT.

SUGGESTIONS BY MEN EMINENT IN LETTERS AND AFFAIRS.

SIR THOMAS WYATT TO HIS SON.

INASMUCH as now you are come to some years of understanding, and that you gather within yourself some fame of honesty, I thought that I should not lose my labour wholly, if now I did something advertise you to take the sure foundations and stablished opinions that leadeth to honesty.

And here, I call not honesty that men commonly call honesty, as reputation for riches, for authority, or some like thing; but that honesty, that I dare well say your grandfather had rather left to me than all the lands he did leave me, that was, wisdom, gentleness, soberness, desire to do good, friendship to get the love of many, and truth above all the rest. A great part to have all these things, is to desire to have them. And although glory and honest name are not the very ends wherefore these things are to be followed, yet surely they must needs follow them, as light followeth the fire, though it were kindled for warmth. Out of these things the chiefest and infallible ground is the dread and reverence of God, whereupon shall ensue the eschewing of the contraries of these said virtues; that is to say, ignorance, unkindness, rashness, desire of harm, unquiet enmity, hatred, many and crafty falsehoods, the very root of all shame and dishonesty. I say, the only dread and reverence of God, that seeth all things, is the defence of the creeping in of all these mischiefs into you. And for my part, although I do well say there is no man that would wish his son better than I; yet, on my faith, I had rather have you lifeless, than subject to these vices. Think and imagine always that you are in presence of some honest men that you know; as Sir John Russell, your father-in-law, your uncle Parson, or some other such; and ye shall, if at any time ye find a pleasure in naughty touches, remember what shame it were before these men to do naughtily. And sure this imagination shall cause you to remember that the pleasure of a naughty deed is soon past, and the rebuke, shame, and the note thereof shall remain ever. Then, if these things ye take for vain imaginations, yet remember

that it is certain, and no imagination, that ye are always in the presence and sight of God; and though you see Him not, so much is the reverence the more to be had, for that He seeth, and is not

seen.

Men punish with shame as greatest punishment on earth-yea, greater than death; but His punishment is, first, the withdrawing of His favour and grace, and, in leaving His hand to rule the stern, to let the ship run without guide to its own destruction; and suffereth so the man that He forsaketh to run headlong, as subject to all mishaps, and at last, with shameful end, to everlasting shame and death. You may see continual examples both of one sort and of the other; and the better, if ye mark them well that yourself are come of; and consider well your good grandfather, what things there were in him, and his end. And they that knew him, noted him thus: first and chiefly, to have a great reverence of God, and good opinion of godly things. Next, that there was no man more pitiful; no man more true of his word; no man faster to his friends; no man diligenter or more circumspect, which thing, both the kings his masters noted in him greatly. And if these things, and especially the grace of God, that the fear of God always kept with him, had not been, the chances of this troublesome world that he was in had long ago overwhelmed him. This preserved him in prison from the hands of the tyrant,* that could find in his heart to see him racked; from two years' or more imprisonment in Scotland, in irons and stocks; from the danger of sudden changes and commotions divers, till that well-beloved of many, hated of none, in his fair age and good reputation, godly and christianly he went to Him that loved him, for that he always had Him in reverence. And of myself, I must be a near example unto you of my folly and nothingness, that hath, as I well observed, brought me into a thousand dangers and hazards, enmities, hatreds, prisonments, despites, and indignations; but that God hath of His goodness chastised me, and not cast me clean out of His favour; which thing I can impute to nothing but the goodness of my good father, that, I dare well say, purchased with continual request of God His grace towards me, more than I regarded or considered myself; and a little part to the small fear I had of God in the most of my rage, and the little delight that I had in mischief. You, therefore, if ye be sure and have God in your sleeve to call you to His grace at last, venture hardly by mine example upon naughty unthriftiness in trust of His goodness; and, besides the shame, I dare lay ten to one ye shall perish

Richard the Third.

in the adventure; for trust me that my wish or desire of God for you shall not stand you in as much effect as I think my father's did for me. We are not all accepted of Him. Begin, therefore, betimes. Make God and goodness your foundations. Make your examples of wise and honest men; shoot at that mark; be no mocker -mocks follow them that delight therein. He shall be sure of shame that feeleth no grief in other men's shames. Have your friends in a reverence, and think unkindness to be the greatest offence, and least punished among men; but so much the more to be dreaded, for God is justiser upon that alone. Love well and agree with your wife; for where is noise and debate in the house, there is unquiet dwelling; and much more when it is in one bed. Frame well yourself to love and rule well and honestly your wife as your fellow, and she shall love and reverence you as her head. Such as you are to her, such shall she be unto you. Obey and reverence your father-in-law, as you would me; and remember that long life followeth them that reverence their fathers and elders; and the blessing of God, for good agreement between the wife and husband, is fruit of many children.

Read oft this my letter, and it shall be as though I had often written to you; and think that I have herein printed a fatherly affection to you. If I may see that I have not lost my pain, mine shall be the contentation, and yours the profit; and, upon condition that you follow my advertisement, I send you God's blessing and mine, and as well to come to honesty as to increase of years.

SIR HENRY SIDNEY TO HIS SON, PHILIP SIDNEY.*

I have received two letters from you, one written in Latin, the other in French, which I take in good part, and will you to exercise that practice of learning often; for that will stand you in most stead in that profession of life that you are born to live in. And since this is my first letter that ever I did write to you, I will not that it be all empty of some advices, which my natural care for you provoketh me to wish you to follow, as documents to you in this your tender age.

Let your first action be the lifting up of your mind to Almighty God, by hearty prayer; and feelingly digest the words you speak in prayer, with continual meditation, and thinking of Him to whom you pray, and of the matter for which you pray. And use this as an ordinary act, and at an ordinary hour; whereby the time itself

Sir Philip Sidney, to whom this letter was addressed, was then twelve years of age, at school at Shrewsbury.

will put you in remembrance to do that which you are accustomed to do. In that time apply your study to such hours as your discreet master doth assign you, earnestly; and the time (I know) he will so limit, as shall be both sufficient for your learning, and safe for your health. And mark the sense and matter of all that you read, as well as the words. So shall you both enrich your tongue with words, and your wit with matter; and judgment will grow as years groweth in you. Be humble and obedient to your master; for unless you frame yourself to obey others, yea, and feel in yourself what obedience is, you shall never be able to teach others how to obey you. Be courteous of gesture, and affable to all men, with diversity of reverence, according to the dignity of the person. There is nothing that winneth so much, with so little cost. Use moderate diet, so as, after your meat, you may find your wit fresher, and not duller, and your body more lively, and not more heavy. Seldom drink wine, and yet sometimes do, lest being enforced to drink upon the sudden, you should find yourself inflamed. Use exercise of body, but such as is without peril of your joints or bones. It will increase your force, and enlarge your breath. Delight to be cleanly as well in all parts of your body as in your garments. It shall make you grateful in each company; and, otherwise, loathGive yourself to be merry; for you degenerate from your father, if you find not yourself most able in will and body to do any thing when you be most merry; but let your mirth be ever void of all scurrility, and biting words to any man; for a wound given by a word is oftentimes harder to be cured, than that which is given with the sword. Be you rather a hearer and bearer away of other men's talk, than a beginner or procurer of speech; otherwise you shall be counted to delight to hear yourself speak. If you hear a wise sentence or an apt phrase, commit it to your memory, with respect of the circumstance when you shall speak it. Let never oath be heard to come out of your mouth, nor words of ribaldry; detest it in others, so shall custom make to yourself a law against it in yourself. Be modest in each assembly; and rather be rebuked of light fellows for a maiden-like shamefacedness, than of your sad friends for pert boldness. Think upon every word before you utter it; and remember how nature hath rampired up (as it were) the tongue with teeth, lips, yea, and hair without the lips, and all betokening reins, or bridles, for the loose use of that member. Above all things, tell no untruth-no, not in trifles. The custom of it is naughty; and let it not satisfy you, that for a time the hearers take it for a truth; for after it will be known as it is, to your shame;

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for there can not be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be accounted a liar. Study and endeavour yourself to be virtuously occupied. So shall you make such an habit of well-doing in you, that you shall not know how to do evil, though you would. Remember, my son, the noble blood you are descended of, by your mother's side; and think, that only by virtuous life and good action you may be an ornament to that illustrious family; and otherwise, through vice and sloth, you shall be counted labes generis, one of the greatest curses that can happen to man. Well, my little Philip, this is enough for me, and too much, I fear, for you. But if I shall find that this light meal of digestion nourish any thing the weak stomach of your young capacity, I will, as I find the same grow stronger, feed it with tougher food. Your loving father, so long as you live in the fear of God.

SIR THOMAS BODLEIGH TO FRANCIS BACON,

MY GOOD COUSIN,-According to your request in your letter (dated the 19th of Oct. at Orleans) I received here the 18th of Dec., I have sent you by your merchant 307. sterling, for your present supply; and had sent you a greater sum, but that my extraordinary charge this year hath utterly unfurnished me. And now, cousin, though I will be no severe exacter of accounts, either of your money or of time, yet, for the love I bear you, I am very desirous both to satisfy myself and your friends, how you prosper in your travels, and how you find yourself bettered thereby, either in knowledge of God" or of the world; the rather, because the days you have already spent abroad are now both sufficient to give you light how to fix yourself and end with counsel, and accordingly to shape your course constantly upon it. Besides, it is a vulgar scandal to travellers, that few return more religious than they went forth; wherein both my hope and request is to you, that your principal care be to hold your foundation, and to make no other use of informing yourself in the corruptions and superstitions of other nations, than only thereby to engage your own heart more firmly to the truth. You live, indeed, in a country of two several professions; and you shall return a novice, if you be not able to give an account of the ordinances, strength, and progress of each, in reputation and party, and how both are supported, balanced, and managed by the state, as being the contrary humours in the temper of predominacy, whereof the health or disease of that body doth consist. These things you will observe, not only as an Englishman, whom it may concern to know what interest his country may expect in the consciences of their neighbours;