Whatsoever is commendable to the grave orator is most exquisitely perfect in him, for by a full and significant action of body he charms our attention.  Sit in a full theatre and you will think you see so many lines drawn from the circumference of so many ears, while the actor is the centre.  He doth not strive to make nature monstrous; she is often seen in the same scene with him, but neither on stilts nor crutches; and for his voice, ’tis not lower than the prompter, nor louder than the foil or target.  By his action he fortifies moral precepts with examples, for what we see him personate we think truly done before us:  a man of a deep thought might apprehend the ghost of our ancient heroes walked again, and take him at several times for many of them.  He is much affected to painting, and ’tis a question whether that make him an excellent player, or his playing an exquisite painter.  He adds grace to the poet’s labours, for what in the poet is but ditty, in him is both ditty and music.  He entertains us in the best leisure of our life—­that is, between meals; the most unfit 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