ty in all his members and victorious over fortune;
till at last the old gentleman unluckily tumbled down from the top of a
certain ill-propped and rotten staircase, and so there was an end of him.

If by some disaster health is fled from your worships to the right or to
the left, above or below, before or behind, within or without, far or near,
on this side or the other side, wheresoever it be, may you presently, with
the help of the Lord, meet with it. Having found it, may you immediately
claim it, seize it, and secure it. The law allows it; the king would have
it so; nay, you have my advice for it. Neither more nor less than the
law-makers of old did fully empower a master to claim and seize his runaway
servant wherever he might be found. Odds-bodikins, is it not written and
warranted by the ancient customs of this noble, so rich, so flourishing
realm of France, that the dead seizes the quick? See what has been
declared very lately in that point by that learned, wise, courteous, humane
and just civilian, Andrew Tiraqueau, one of the judges in the most
honourable court of Parliament at Paris. Health is our life, as Ariphron
the Sicyonian wisely has it; without health life is not life, it is not
living life: abios bios, bios abiotos. Without health life is only a
languishment and an image of death. Therefore, you that want your health,
that is to say, that are dead, seize the quick; secure life to yourselves,
that is to say, health.

I have this hope in the Lord, that he will hear our supplications,
considering with what faith and zeal we pray, and that he will grant this
our wish because it is moderate and mean. Mediocrity was held by the
ancient sages to be golden, that is to say, precious, praised by all men,
and pleasing in all places. Read the sacred Bible, you will find the
prayers of those who asked moderately were never unanswered. For example,
little dapper Zaccheus, whose body and relics the monks of St. Garlick,
near Orleans, boast of having, and nickname him St. Sylvanus; he only
wished to see our blessed Saviour near Jerusalem. It was but a small
request, and no more than anybody then might pretend to. But alas! he was
but low-built; and one of so diminutive a size, among the crowd, could not
so much as get a glimpse of him. Well then he struts, stands on tiptoes,
bustles, and bestirs his stumps, shoves and makes way, and with much ado
clambers up a sycamore. Upon this, the Lord, who knew his