SHAKSPEARE.
“Human felicity,” says Dr. Franklin, “is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. Thus if you teach a poor young man to shave himself and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas. This sum may be soon spent, the regret only remaining of having foolishly consumed it: but in the other case he escapes the frequent vexation of waiting for barbers, and of their sometimes dirty fingers, offensive breaths and dull razors; he shaves when most convenient to him, and enjoys daily the pleasure of its being done with a good instrument.”
By Jupiter,
Were I the wearer of Antonius' beard
I would not shave 't to day.
SHAKSPEARE.
D'Israeli says that a clergyman who had the longest and largest beard of any Englishman in Elizabeth's reign, gave as a reason for wearing it the motive it afforded “that no act of his life might be unworthy the gravity of his appearance.”
FRAGMENT ON MORTALITY.
When Fuller in his Pisgah Sight of Palestine, comes to the city of Aigalon, where Elon, Judge of Israel, was buried, “of whom nothing else is recorded save his name, time of his rule (ten years), and place of his interment; slight him not he says, because so little is reported of him, it tending much to the praise of his policy in preventing foreign invasions, and domestic commotions, so that the land enjoyed peace, as far better than victory, as health is to be preferred before a recovery from sickness. Yea, times of much doing are times of much suffering, and many martial achievements are rather for the Prince's honour, than the people's ease.”
“To what purpose,” says Norris, “should a man trouble both the world's and his own rest, to make himself great? For besides the emptiness of the thing, the Play will quickly be done, and the Actors must all retire into a state of equality, and then it matters not who personated the Emperor, or who the Slave.”