We may learn from this and fifty other passages, that it did not require the factious prejudices of Prynne or Burton to look with aversion on the proceedings of Laud. Bishop Hacket was as hot a royalist as a loyal Englishman could be, yet Laud was
allii nimis
.
Ib.
s. 97.
New stars have appeared and vanished: the ancient asterisms remain; there's not an old star missing.
If they had been, they would not have been old. This therefore, like many of Lord Bacon's illustrations, has more wit than meaning. But it is a good trick of rhetoric. The vividness of the image,
per se
, makes men overlook the imperfection of the simile. "You see my hand, the hand of a poor, puny fellow-mortal; and will you pretend not to see the hand of Providence in this business? He who sees a mouse must be wilfully blind if he does not see an elephant!"
Ib.