est virtue. Certainly, extreme poverty is worse than abundance. We
may be good in plenty, if we will; in biting penury we cannot, though we
would. In one, the danger is casual; in the other, it is necessitating.
The best is that which partakes of both, and consists of neither.
He that hath too little wants feathers to fly withal; he that hath too
much, is but cumbered with too large a tail. If a flood of wealth could
profit us, it would be good to swim in such a sea; but it can neither
lengthen our lives, nor inrich us after the end. There is not in the
world such another object of pity as the pinched state; which no man
being secured from, I wonder at the tyrant's braves and contempt.
Questionless, I will rather with charity help him that is miserable, as
I may be, than despise him that is poor, as I would not be. They have
flinty and steeled hearts that can add calamities to him that is already
but one entire mass."

W.G.C.

* * * * *

ACCOUNT OF THE IRISH MANTLE.

Edmund Spencer (the English poet) in his _View of the State of
Ireland_, says--"First the outlaw, being for his many crimes and
villanies banished from the towns and houses of honest men, and
wandering in waste places, far from danger of law, maketh his
_mantle_ his house, and under it covereth himself from the wrath of
heaven, from the offence of the earth, and from the sight of men. When
it raineth, it is his pent-house; when it bloweth, it is his tent; when
it freezeth, it is his tabernacle. In summer he can wear it loose; in
winter he can wrap it close; at all times he can use it--never heavy,
never cumbersome. Likewise for a rebel it is as serviceable; for in his
warre that he maketh, (if at least it deserve the name of warre), when
he still flyeth from his foe, and lurketh in the thick woods and strait
passages, waiting for advantages, it is his bed, yea, and almost his
household stuff; for the wood is his house against all weathers, and his
mantle is his couch to sleep in. Therein he wrappeth himselfe round, and
coucheth himself strongly against the gnats, which in that country doe
more annoye the naked rebells, whilst they keepe the woods, and doe more
sharply wound them than all their enemies' swords, or spears, which can
seldome come nigh them; yea, and oftentimes their mantle serveth them,
when they are neare driven, being wrapped about their left arme, instead
of a target, for it is hard to cut through with