This fine passage, beginning at “Prosperity is the blessing,” which was not published till 1625, twenty-eight years after the first Essays, has been quoted by Macaulay, with considerable justice, as a proof that the writer’s fancy did not decay with the advance of old age, and that his style in his later years became richer and softer. The learned critic contrasts this passage with the terse style of the Essay of Studies (Essay 50), which was published in 1597.

Tac. Ann. v. 1.

Tac. Hist. ii. 76.

A word now unused, signifying the “traits,” or “features.”

A truth.—A. L. II. xxiii. 14.

Proverbs x. 1: “A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.”

Petted—spoiled.

This word seems here to mean “a plan,” or “method,” as proved by its results.

Ends in.