LESSON XI.

OF ANGER.

BY LORD BACON.

To seek to extinguish Anger utterly, is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: "Be angry, but sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger.” Anger must be limited and confined both in race and in time. We will first speak how the natural inclination and habit to be angry may be attempered and calmed. Secondly, how the particular motions of anger may be repressed or at least refrained from doing mischief. Thirdly, how to raise anger or appease anger in

another.

For the first: there is no other way, but to meditate and ruminate well upon the effects of anger, how it troubles man's life. And the best time to do this, is to look back upon anger when the fit is thoroughly over. Seneca saith well "That anger is like ruin, which breaks itself upon that it falls." The Scripture exhorteth us "To possess our souls in patience." Whosoever is out of patience is out of possession of his soul. Men must not turn bees. . . . that put their lives in the sting.

Anger is certainly a kind of baseness; as it appears well in the weakness of those subjects in whom it reigns: children, women, old folks, sick folks. Only men must beware that they carry their anger rather with scorn than with fear; so that they may seem rather

to be above the injury than below it; which is a thing easily done, if a man will give law to himself in it.

For the second point; the causes and motives of anger are chiefly three. First, to be too sensible of hurt; for no man is angry that feels not himself hurt; and therefore tender and delicate persons must needs be oft angry; they have so many things to trouble them which more robust natures have little sense of. The next is, the apprehension and construction of the injury offered, to be, in the circumstances thereof, full of contempt: for contempt is that which putteth an edge upon anger, as much, or more than the hurt itself. And therefore, when men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt, they do kindle their anger much. Lastly, opinion of the touch of a man's reputation, doth multiply and sharpen anger. Wherein the remedy is that a man should have..

a stouter web of honour. But in all refrainings of anger it is the best remedy to win time; and to make a man's self believe, that the opportunity of his revenge is not yet come, but that he foresees a time for it; and so to still himself in the meantime and reserve it.

To contain anger from mischief, though it take hold of a man, there be two things whereof you must have special caution. The one, of extreme bitterness of words, especially if they be aculeate and proper . . . . and again, that in anger a man reveal no secrets; for that makes him not fit for society. The other, that you do not peremptorily break off, in any business, in a fit of anger; but howsoever you show bitterness, do not act anything that is not revocable.

For raising and appeasing anger in another; it is

done chiefly by choosing of times, when men are frowardest and worst disposed, to incense them. Again, by gathering (as was touched before) all that you can find out to aggravate the contempt. And the two remedies are by the contraries. The former, to take good times, when first to relate to a man an angry business s; for the first impression is much and the other is, to sever, as much as may be, the construction of the injury from the point of contempt; imputing it to misunderstanding, fear, passion, or what you will.

1. What do you know of the Stoics?

2. What is an Oracle, and what is the sense of it here?

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3. Explain the meaning of the sentence beginning Anger must," and ending "in time."

4. What is the meaning of the word attemper, and what is its modern form? What is its noun, and what different meanings has it?

5. Give other words for "motions," and "refrained." 6. To what class of verb does "to refrain" belong, and how is it used here? Give its derivation.

7. Give the meaning of the word "ruminate," and the senses in which it is used.

8. Paraphrase the quotation from Seneca.

9. What is the meaning of the figure taken from bees?

10. Leave out a word in the sentence " as it appears well in the weakness," &c., and make the sense clearer. 11. Why is the word subjects used here? Would the word "persons" be equally appropriate?

12. Paraphrase clearly the sentence beginning" Only men must," and ending "himself in it."

13. Substitute a word for sensible, in "sensible of hurt."

14. Explain the words "apprehension," "construction," and "robust," with their special application in

the text.

15. Paraphrase clearly the sentence beginning" The next is " and ending "hurt itself."

16. What is the statement made in the sentence beginning "lastly" and ending "anger"?

17. What words would be used now instead of "refrainings of anger," and "to contain anger from mischief" ?

18. In what mood is the verb take, in "though it take hold of a man"?

proper

" here?

19. What is the meaning of the word aculeate? 20. What sense has the word " 21. To what part of the sentence does "that in anger a man reveal no secrets," refer?

22. What meaning has the word "peremptorily" here? Has it any other meaning?

23. What is the meaning of the sentence," to sever as much as may be, the construction of the injury from the point of contempt"?

24. What are the three divisions of this Essay? State clearly, what causes should keep us from anger. What adds bitterness to anger. How to keep anger from going too far. And how to produce and allay it. 25. For what is Lord Bacon renowned ?

LESSON XII.

SONNET ON HIS BLINDNESS.

BY JOHN MILTON.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

1. JOHN MILTON was born in Bread Street, London, on the 9th of December, 1608. His father was a

scrivener, or what we might call an attorney, and lived at a house called the Spread Eagle, because there was a sign hung above the door bearing this device. All the shops and places of business in London, when Milton was a boy, had these signs or signboards above the doors, which were not as now designated by numbers. Milton was educated at the Grammar School of St. Paul's in St. Paul's Churchyard, and at Christ's College, Cambridge. He was a very studious boy, saying of himself that he used often to sit up till midnight studying his lessons, school exercises, or voluntary tasks of his own. It was this habit which weakened his eyesight, and helped to produce the blindness of after years.

2. Milton wrote poetry both as a schoolboy and student of Cambridge. The Ode on the Nativity, given in this little book for analysis, was composed when he was twenty-one years of age, and had been five years in college. It has been called "perhaps the finest Ode in the English language," and will well repay a careful study. The number of mythological allusions will show the extent of Milton's reading, and the peculiar bent of his mind.

3. After leaving college, Milton lived for more than five quiet years in Horton, Buckinghamshire, a green country place within sight of the towers of Windsor. He had no distinct business or profession, but spent his time in study and the composition of the more celebrated of his minor poems. He then went abroad and travelled for fifteen months, before finally settling down in London, where he spent the remainder of his life. It was during this time that the troubles connected Iwith the dethronement and death of Charles I. were taking place. The nation was in a ferment on one side or the other, and Milton was a fervent Puritan, and strongly against the King and his party. He wrote several prose pamphlets on questions of the day, and during the Commonwealth became Latin Secretary to Oliver Cromwell, and was a well-known and marked man in England; so much so as to be obliged to hide