d most effective when they are
neither pampered nor starved. There, too, is the Executive Will;
Prudence, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Self-love, minister for the
Home Department; Observation, Secretary of Foreign Affairs; Poetry,
over the Woods and Forests; Lord Keeper Conscience, a sage,
scrupulous, hesitating, head-shaking, hair-splitting personage, whose
decisions are most just, but too slow to be useful, and who is the
readier to weep for what is done, than to direct what should be done;
Wit, Manager of the House of Commons, a flashy, either-sided
gentleman, who piques himself on never being out; and Self-Denial,
always eager to vacate his seat and accept the Chiltern
Hundreds."--_Blackwood's Mag._

* * * * *

MAN.

Man is so pugnacious an animal, that even the quakers, who in all
other things seem effectually to have subdued this part of their
animal nature, carry on controversy, whenever they engage in it, tooth
and nail.--_Quarterly Rev._

* * * * *

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS,

* * * * *

GLEANINGS ON GLUTTONY.

_Against Voracitie and immoderate drinking, instanced by sundry
histories_.

Vitellius, an Emperour of Rome, was among divers other his notorious
vices so luxuriously given, that at one supper he was served with two
thousand fishes of divers kindes, and seven thousand flying foules; he
was afterward drawne through the streets with a halter about his neck,
and shamefully put to death.

But what shall we wonder at emperours prodigalities, when of later
yeares a simple Franciscan frier, Peter de Ruere, after hee had
attained to the dignitie of cardinall by the favour of the pope, his
kinsman, hee spent in two yeares, in which he lived at Rome, in feasts
and banquets, two hundred thousand crownes, besides his debts, which
were as much more.

In our time Muleasses, King of Tunis, was so drowned in pleasures,
that being expelled from his kingdome for his vices, after his returne
from Germanie, being denyed of ayd hee sought of the Emperour Charles
the Fifth, he spent an hundred crownes upon the dressing of a peacocke
for his owne mouth. And that hee might with more pleasure heare
musicke, he used to cover his eyes.--But the judgment of God fell upon
him; for his sone or brother dispossessed him of his kingdome, and
provided him a remedie that his sight should be no longer annoyance to
his h