The bæta is said to have been a kind of garment, made of skins, long, and sufficiently large to invest the whole body, equally calculated therefore to guard against the cold in winter, and the scorching rays of the sun in summer. The adage was applied by the anccients to any objects that might be made to answer a variety of useful purposes: to literature, which is both useful and ornamental to every age and station in life, and to philosophy, which may enable us to bear prosperity without insolence, and adversity without debasement.