"_
MICROCOSMOGRAPHY;
OR,
A PIECE OF THE WORLD CHARACTERIZED.
A CHILD
Is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted
of Eve or the apple; and he is happy whose small practice in the world
can only write this character. He is nature's fresh picture newly drawn
in oil, which time, and much handling, dims and defaces. His soul is yet
a white paper[3] unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith,
at length, it becomes a blurred note-book. He is purely happy, because
he knows no evil, nor hath made means by sin to be acquainted with
misery. He arrives not at the mischief of being wise, nor endures evils
to come, by foreseeing them. He kisses and loves all, and, when the
smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater. Nature and his parents
alike dandle him, and tice him on with a bait of sugar to a draught of
wormwood. He plays yet, like a young prentice the first day, and is not
come to his task of melancholy. [4][All the language he speaks yet is
tears, and they serve him well enough to express his necessity.] His
hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitful an
organ; and he is best company with it when he can but prattle. We laugh
at his foolish sports, but his game is our earnest; and his drums,
rattles, and hobby-horses, but the emblems and mocking of man's
business. His father hath writ him as his own little story, wherein he
reads those days of his life that he cannot remember, and sighs to see
what innocence he hath out-lived.
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