thyfelf and thy money too. Thou didst swear to me on a parcel-gilt goblet, fitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a fea-coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitfun-week, when the Prince broke thy head, for likening him to a finging man of Windfor, thou didft swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my Lady thy wife. Canft thou deny it? Did not Goodwife Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then, and call me Goffip Quickly? Coming in to borrow a mefs of vinegar; telling us fhe had a good difh of prawns; whereby thou didft defire to eat fome; whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound? And didft not thou, when she was gone down stairs, desire me to be no more fo familiarity with fuch poor people, faying, that ere long they fhould call me Madam? And didft thou not kiss me, and bid me fetch thee thirty fhillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath, deny it if thou canft.

Second part, Henry IV. at 2. fc. 2.

On the other hand,, a man of accurate judgement cannot have a great flow of ideas. The flighter relations making no figure in his mind, have no power to introduce ideas. And hence it is, that accurate judgement is not friendly to declamation or copious elo

quence. This reasoning is confirmed by experience; for it is a noted obfervation, That a great or comprehenfive memory is feldom connected with a good judgement.

As an additional confirmation, I appeal to another noted obfervation, That wit and judgement are feldom united. Wit confifts chiefly in joining things by distant and fanciful relations, which surprise because they are unexpected. Such relations being of the flightest kind, readily occur to that perfon only who makes every relation equally welcome. Wit, upon that account, is, in a good measure, incompatible with folid judgement; which, neglecting trivial relations, adheres to what are fubftantial and permanent. Thus memory and wit are often conjoined; folid judgement feldom with either.

The train of thought depends not entirely upon relations: another cause comes in for a fhare; and that is the sense of order and arrangement. To things of equal rank, where there is no room for a preference, order cannot be applied; and it must be indifferent in what manner they be furveyed; witnefs

witness the sheep that make a flock, or the trees in a wood. But in things of unequal rank, order is a governing principle. Thus our tendency is, to view the principal fubject before we descend to its acceffories or ornaments, and the fuperior before the inferior or dependent. We are equally averse to enter into a minute confideration of constituent parts, till the thing be first surveyed as a whole. In paffing from a part to the whole, and from an acceffory to its principal, the connection is the fame as in the oppofite direction. But a sense of order aids the transition in the latter cafe, and a fenfe of disorder obftructs it in the former. needs fcarce be added, that in thinking or reflecting on any of thefe particulars, and in paffing from one to another ideally, we are fenfible of eafinefs or difficulty precisely as when they are set before our eyes.

It

Our fenfe of order is confpicuous with respect to natural operations; for it always coincides with the order of nature. Thinking upon a body in motion, we follow its natural courfe. The mind falls with a heavy body, defcends with a river, and afcends

with

with flame and fmoke. In tracing out a family, we incline to begin at the founder, and to defcend gradually to his latest posterity. On the contrary, mufing on a lofty oak, we begin at the trunk, and mount from it to the branches. As to historical facts, we love to proceed in the order of time; or, which comes to the fame, to proceed along the chain of caufes and effects.

But though, in following out a historical chain, our bent is to proceed orderly from causes to their effects, we find not the fame bent in matters of science. There we feem rather difpofed to proceed from effects to their caufes, and from particular propofitions to those which are more general. Why this difference in matters that appear fo nearly related? The cafes are fimilar in appearance only, not in reality. In a historical chain, every event is particular, the effect of fome former event, and the cause of others that follow. In fuch a chain, there is nothing to bias the mind from the order of nature. Widely different is the cafe of fcience, when we endeavour to trace out

caufes

causes and their effects. Many experiments are commonly reduced under one cause; and again, many of thefe under fome one ftill more general and comprehenfive. In our progress from particular effects to general caufes, and from particular propofitions to the more comprehenfive, we feel a gradual dilatation or expanfion of mind, like what is felt in proceeding along an ascending feries, which is extremely delightful. The pleasure here exceeds what arifes from following the courfe of nature; and it is this pleasure which regulates our train of thought in the cafe now mentioned, and in others that are fimilar. Thefe obfervations, by the way, furnish materials for instituting a comparison betwixt the fynthetic and analytic methods of reafoning. The synthetic method defcending regularly from principles to their confequences, is more agreeable to the ftrictness of order. But in following the oppofite courfe in the analytic method, we have a fenfible pleasure, like mounting upward, which is not felt in the other. The analytic method is more agreeable to the imagination. The other method

will