Note c — AN EPISTLE TO A FRIEND.

Small change of scene, small space his home requires, Many a great man, in passing through the apartments of his palace, has made the melancholy reflection of the venerable Cosmo: “Questa è troppo gran casa à si poco famiglia.” MACH. Ist. Fior. lib. vii. “Parva, sed apta mihi,” was Ariosto’s inscription over his door in Ferrara; and who can wish to say more? “I confess,” says Cowley, “I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little cheerful house, a little company, and a very little feast.” Essay vi. When Socrates was asked why he had built for himself so small a house, “Small as it is,” he replied, “I wish I could fill it with friends.” PHÆDRUS, 1. iii. 9. These indeed are all that a wise man would desire to assemble; “for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.” BACON’S Essays, xxvii.