else I had never come off so many times from these precipices, whither men's malice hath pursued me. It is true, I have been accused to the lords, to the king, and by great ones: but it happened my accusers had not thought of the accusation with themselves; and so were driven, for want of crimes, to use invention, which was found slander: or too late (being entered so far) to seek starting-holes for their rashness, which were not given them. And then they may think what accusation that was like to prove, when they that were the ingineers feared to be the authors. Nor were they content to feign things against me, but to urge things feigned by the ignorant against my profession; which though, from their hired and mercenary impudence, I might have passed by, as granted to a Nation of Barkers, that let out their tongues to lick others' sores; yet I durst not leave myself undefended, having a pair of ears unskilful to hear lies, or have those things said of me which I could truly prove of them. They objected making of verses to me, when I could object to most of them, their not being able to read them, but as worthy of scorn. Nay, they would offer to urge mine own writings against me; but by pieces (which was an excellent way of malice) as if any man's context might not seem dangerous and offensive, if that which was knit to what went before were defrauded of his beginning; or that things by themselves uttered might not seem subject to calumny, which read entire, would appear most free. At last they upbraided my poverty: I confess she is my Domestic; sober of diet, simple of habit, frugal, painful, a good counseller to me, that keeps me from cruelty, pride, or other more delicate impertinences, which are the nurse-children of riches. But let them look over all the great and monstrous wickednesses, they shall never find those in poor families. They are the issue of the wealthy giants and the mighty hunters: whereas no great work, or worthy of praise or memory, but came out of poor cradles. It was the ancient poverty that founded commonweals, built cities, invented arts, made wholesome laws, armed men against vices, rewarded them with their own virtues, and preserved the honour and state of nations till they betrayed themselves to riches. Amor nummi.-Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can order himself to the law of nature, is not only without the sense, but the fear of poverty. O! but to strike blind the people with our wealth and pomp, is the thing! what a wretchedness is this, to thrust all our riches outward, and be beggars within; to contemplate nothing but the little, vile, and sordid things of the world; not the great, noble, and precious? we serve our avarice: and not content with the good of the earth that is offered us, we search and dig for the evil that is hidden. God offered us those things, and placed them at hand, and near us, that he knew were profitable for us; but the hurtful he laid deep and hid. Yet do we seek only the things whereby we may perish; and bring them forth, when God and nature hath buried them. We covet superfluous things, when it were more honour for us, if we would contemn necessary. What need hath nature of silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins? she requires meat only, and hunger is not ambitious. Can we think no wealth enough, but such a state, for which a man may be brought into a premunire, begged, proscribed, or poisoned? O! if a man could restrain the fury of his gullet, and groin, and think how many fires, how many kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews, ponds, and parks, coops and garners he could spare; what velvets, tissues, embroideries, laces he could lack; and then how short and uncertain his life is; he were in a better way to happiness than to live the Emperor of these delights, and be the Dictator of fashions; but we make ourselves slaves to our pleasures; and we serve Fame and Ambition, which is an equal slavery. Have not I seen the pomp of a whole kingdom, and what a foreign king could bring hither? Also to make himself gazed and wondered at, laid forth as it were to the shew, and vanish all away in a day? And shall that which could not fill the expectation of few hours, entertain and take up our whole lives? when even it appeared as superfluous to the possessors, as to me that was a spectator. The bravery was shewn, it was not possessed; while it boasted itself, it perished. It is vile, and a poor thing, to place our happiness on these desires. Say we wanted them all. Famine ends famine. De mollibus et effæminatis.-There is nothing valiant or solid to be hoped for from such as are always kempt and perfumed, and every day smell of the tailor; tempest shall shake him: to be secure of all opinion, and pleasing to himself, even for that wherein he displeaseth others: for the worst opinion gotten for doing well, should delight us. Wouldst not thou be just but for fame, thou ought'st to be it with infamy: he that would have his virtue published, is not the servant of virtue, but glory. t Periculosa melancholia.-It is a dangerous thing when men's minds come to sojourn with their affections, and their diseases eat into their strength: that when too much desire and greediness of vice hath made the body unfit, or unprofitable, it is yet gladded with the sight and spectacle of it in others; and for want of ability to be an actor, is content to be a witness. It the exceedingly curious, that are wholly in mending such an imperfection in the face, in taking away the morphew in the neck, or bleaching their hands at midnight, gumming and bridling their beards, or making the waist small, binding it with hoops, while the mind runs at waste: too much pickedness is not manly. Not from those that will jest at their own outward imperfections, but hide their ulcers within, their pride, lust, envy, ill-nature, with all the art and authority they can. These persons are in danger; for whilst they think to justify their ignorance by impudence, and their persons by clothes and outward ornaments, they use but a commission to deceive themselves: where, if we will look with our understanding, and not our senses, we may behold virtue and beauty (though covered with rags) in their brightness; and enjoys the pleasure of sinning, in beholding vice, and deformity so much the fouler, in others sin; as in dicing, drinking, drabhaving all the splendour of riches to gild bing, &c. Nay, when it cannot do all them, or the false light of honour and power these, it is offended with his own narrowto help them. Yet this is that wherewithness, that excludes it from the universal the world is taken, and runs mad to gaze of a Melancholy, that it cannot be vicious delights of mankind; and oftentimes dies on: clothes and titles, the birdlime of Fools. enough. De stultitia.-What petty things they are we wonder at? like children, that esteem every trifle, and prefer a fairing before their fathers; what difference is between us and them? but that we are dearer fools, coxcombs at a higher rate? They are pleased with cockleshells, whistles, hobbyhorses, and such like; we, with statues, marble pillars, pictures, gilded roofs, where underneath is lath and lime, perhaps loam. Yet we take pleasure in the lie, and are glad we can cozen ourselves. Nor is it only in our walls and ceilings; but all that we call happiness is mere painting and gilt; and all for money: what a thin membrane of honour that is? and how hath all true reputation fallen, since money began to have any? yet the great herd, the multitude, that in all other things are divided, in this alone conspire and agree; to love money. They wish for it, they embrace it, they adore it; while yet it is possest with greater stir and torment than it is gotten. De sibi molestis. Some men what losses soever they have, they make them greater: and if they have none, even all that is not gotten is a loss. Can there be creatures of more wretched condition than these, that continually labour under their own misery, and others' envy? a man should study other things, not to covet, not to fear, not to repent him to make his base such as no I see any man avoid the infamy of a vice; Decipimur specie. There is a greater reverence had of things remote or strange to us, than of much better, if they be nearer, and fall under our sense. Men, and almost all sort of creatures, have their reputation by distance. Rivers, the farther they run, and more from their spring, the broader they are, and greater. And where our original is known, we are the less confident among strangers we trust fortune. in his own country, or a private village, as Yet a man may live as renowned at home, in the whole world. For it is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere. It is only that can naturalize him. A native, if he be vicious, deserves to be a stranger, and cast out of the com monwealth as an alien: Dejectio Aulic.-A dejected countenance, and mean clothes, beget often a contempt, but it is with the shallowest creatures; courtiers commonly: look up even with them in a new suit, you get above them straight. Nothing is more short-lived than pride; it is but while their clothes last: stay but while these are worn out, you cannot wish the thing more wretched or dejected. Poesis, et pictura.-Plutarch.-Poetry and Picture are arts of a like nature, and both are busy about imitation. It was excellently said of Plutarch, poetry was a speaking picture, and picture a mute poesy. For they both invent, feign, and devise many things, and accommodate all they invent to the use and service of nature. Yet of the two the Pen is more noble than the Pencil; for that can speak to the understanding; the other but to the sense. They both behold pleasure and profit, as their common object: but should abstain from all base pleasures, lest they should err from their end, and while they seek to better men's minds, destroy their manners. They both are born artificers, not made. Nature is more powerful in them than study. De stylo.-Pliny.-In Picture light is required no less than shadow: so in style, height as well as humbleness. But beware they be not too humble; as Pliny pronounced of Regulus's writings. You would think them written not on a child, but by a child. Many, out of their own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words; as occupy, nature, and the like: so the curious industry in some of having all alike good, hath come nearer a vice than a virtue. De progres. Picturæ.*-Picture took her feigning from Poetry; from Geometry her rule, compass, lines, proportion, and the whole symmetry. Parrhasius was the first wan reputation by adding symmetry to picture: he added subtlety to the countenance, elegancy to the hair, love-lines to the face, and by the public voice of all artificers, deserved honour in the outer lines. Eupompus gave it splendour by numbers and other elegancies. From the Optics it drew reasons by which it considered how things placed at distance, and afar off, should appear less: how above or beneath the head should deceive the eye, &c. So from thence it took shadows, recessor, De Pictura. Whosoever loves not Pic- light, and heightnings. From Moral Phiture, is injurious to truth, and all the wis-losophy it took the soul, the expression of dom of Poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most ancient, and most akin to nature. It is itself a silent work, and always of one and the same habit: yet it doth so enter and penetrate the inmost affection (being done by an excellent artificer) as sometimes overcomes the power of speech and oratory. There are divers graces in it; so are there in the artificers. One excels in care, another in reason, a third in easiness, a fourth in nature and grace. Some have diligence and comeliness; but they want majesty. They can express a human form in all the graces, sweetness and elegancy; but they miss the authority. They can hit nothing but smooth cheeks; they cannot express roughness or gravity. Others aspire to truth so much, as they are rather lovers of Likeness thah beauty. Zeuxis and Parrhasius are said to be contemporaries: the first found out the reason of lights and shadows in Picture; the other more subtlely examined the lines. *Parrhasius. Eupompus. Socrates. Parrhasius. Clito. Polygnotus. Aglaophon. Zeuxis. Parrhasius. Raphael de Urbino. Mich. Angelo Buonarota. Titian. Antony de Correg. Sebast. senses, perturbations, manners, when they would paint an angry person, a proud, an inconstant, an ambitious, a brave, a magnanimous, a just, a merciful, a compassionate, an humble, a dejected, a base, and the like; they made all heightnings bright, all shadows dark, all swellings from a plane, all solids from breaking. See where he complains of their painting Chimæras, † by the vulgar unaptly called Grotesque; saying, that men who were born truly to study and emulate nature, did nothing but make monsters against nature, which Horace so laughed at. The Art Plastic was moulding in clay, or potters earth anciently. This is the parent of statuary sculpture, graving, and picture ; cutting in brass and marble, all serve under her. Socrates taught Parrhasius and Clito (two noble statuaries) first to express manners by their looks in imagery. Polygnotus and Aglaophon were ancienter. After them Zeuxis, who was the law-giver to all painters; after, Parrhasius. They were contemporaries, and lived both about Philip's time, the father of Alexander the Great. There lived in this latter age six famous painters in Italy, who were ex-discoveries themselves. Neither will an cellent and emulous of the ancients; Raphael de Urbino, Michael Angelo Buonarota, Titian, Antony of Correggio, Sebastian of Venice, Julio Romano, and Andrea Sartorio. Parasiti ad mensam.- -These are flatterers for their bread, that praise all my oraculous lord does or says, be it true or false invent tales that shall please; make baits for his lordship's ears; and if they be not received in what they offer at, they shift a point of the compass, and turn their tale, presently tack about, deny what they confessed, and confess what they denied; fit their discourse to the persons and occasions. What they snatch up and devour at one table, utter at another: and grow suspected of the master, hated of the servants, while they enquire, and reprehend, and compound, and delate business of the house they have nothing to do with: they praise my lord's wine, and the sauce he likes; observe the cook and bottle-man, while they stand in my lord's favour, speak for a pension for them; but pound them to dust upon my lord's least distaste, or ehange of his palate. How much better is it to be silent, or at least to speak sparingly! for it is not enough to speak good but timely things. If a man be asked a question, to answer; but to repeat the question before he answer is well, that he be sure to understand it, to avoid absurdity: for it is less dishonour to hear imperfectly, than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused, the understanding is not. And in things unknown to a man, not to give his opinion, lest by the affectation of knowing too much, he lose the credit he hath by speaking or knowing the wrong way, what he utters. Nor seek to get his patron's favour, by embarking himself in the factions of the family to enquire after domestic simulties, their sports or affections. They are an odious and vile kind of creatures, that fly about the house all day, and picking up the filth of the house, like pies or swallows carry it to their nest (the lord's ears) and often-times report the lies they have feigned, for what they have seen and heard. persons; but they are indeed the organs of their impotency, and marks of weakness. For sufficient lords are able to make these honourable person enquire who eats and drinks together, what that man plays, whom this man loves, with whom such a one walks, what discourse they held, who sleeps with whom. They are base and servile natures, that busy themselves about these disquisitions. How often have I seen (and worthily) these censors of the family undertaken by some honest rustic, and cudgelled thriftily? These are commonly the off-scowring and dregs of men that do these things, or calumniate others: yet I know not truly which is worse; he that maligns all, or that praises all. There is as great a vice in praising, and as frequent, as in detracting. It pleased your lordship of late, to ask my opinion touching the education of your sons, and especially to the advancement of their studies. To which, though I returned somewhat for the present, which rather manifested a will in me, than gave any just resolution to the thing propounded; I have upon better cogitation called those aids about me, both of mind and memory, which shall venture my thoughts clearer, if not fuller, to your lordship's demand. I confess, my lord, they will seem but petty and minute things shall offer to you, being writ for children, and of them. But studies have their infancy, as well as creatures. We see in men even the strongest compositions had their beginnings from milk and the cradle ; and the wisest tarried sometimes about apting their mouths to letters and syllables. In their education, therefore, the care must be the greater had of their beginnings, to know, examine, and weigh their natures: which though they be proner in some children to some disciplines; yet are they naturally prompt to taste all by degrees, and with change. For change a kind of refreshing in studies, and infuseth knowledge by way of recreation. Thence the school itself is called a play or game: and all letters are so best taught to scholars. They should not be affrighted or deterred in their entry, but drawn on with exercise and emulation. A youth should not be made to hate study before he know the causes to love it; or taste the bitterness before the sweet; Imo serviles.-These are called instru- but called on and allured, intreated ments of grace and power with great and praised: yea, when he deserves it not. For which cause I wish them sent to the best school, and a public, which think the best. Your lordship, I fear, hardly hears of that, as willing to breed them in your eye, and at home, and doubting their manners may be corrupted abroad. They are in more danger in your own family, among ill servants (allowing they be safe in their schoolmaster) than amongst a thousand boys, however immodest. Would we did not spoil our own children, and overthrow their manners ourselves by too much indulgence! To breed them at home is to breed them in a shade; where in a school they have the light and heat of the sun. They are used and accustomed to things and men. When they come forth into the commonwealth, they find nothing new, or to seek. They have made their friendships and aids, some to last their age. They hear what is commanded to others as well as themselves. Much approved, much corrected; all which they bring to their own store and use, and learn as much as they hear. Eloquence would be but a poor thing, if we should only converse with singulars; speak but man and man together. Therefore I like no private breeding. I would send them where their industry should be daily increased by praise; and that kindled by emulation. It is a good thing to inflame the mind, and though ambition itself be a vice, it is often the cause of great virtue. Give me that wit whom praise excites, glory puts on, or disgrace grieves; he is to be nourished with ambition, pricked forward with honour, checked with reprehension, and never to be suspected of sloth. Though he be given to play, it is a sign of spirit and liveliness, so there be a mean had of their sports and relaxations. And from the rod or ferule, I would have them free, as from the menace of them; for it is both deformed and servile. at first, so it be laboured and accurate; seek the best, and be not glad of the froward conceits, or first words, that offer themselves to us; but judge of what we invent, and order what we approve. Repeat often what we have formerly written; which beside that it helps the consequence, and makes the juncture better, it quickens the heat of imagination, that often cools in the time of setting down, and gives it new strength, as if it grew lustier by the going back. As we see in the contention of leaping, they jump farthest, that fetch their race largest: or, as in throwing a dart or javelin, we force back our arms, to make our loose the stronger. Yet, if we have a fair gale of wind, I forbid not the steering out of our sail, so the favour of the gale deceive us not. For all that we invent doth please us in the conception or birth, else we would never set it down. But the safest is to return to our judgment, and handle over again those things the easiness of which might make them justly suspected. So did the best writers in their beginnings; they imposed upon themselves care and industry; they did nothing rashly: they obtained first to write well, and then custom made it easy and a habit. By little and little their matter shewed itself to them more plentifully; their words answered, their composition followed; and all, as in a well-ordered family, presented itself in the place. So that the sum of all is, ready writing makes not good writing; but good writing brings on ready writing yet, when we think we have got the faculty, it is even then good to resist it; as to give a horse a check sometimes with a bit, which doth not so much stop his course, as stir his mettle. Again, whether a man's genius is best able to reach thither, it should more and more contend, lift, and dilate itself, as men of low stature raise themselves on their toes, and so ofttimes get even, if not eminent. Besides, as it is fit for grown and able writers to stand of themselves, and work with their own strength, to trust and endeavour by their own faculties: so it is fit for the beginner and learner to study others and the best. For the mind and memory are more sharply exercised in comprehending another man's things than our own; and such as accustom themselves, and are familiar with the best authors, shall ever and anon find somewhat of them in themselves, and in the expression of their minds, even when they feel it not, be able to utter De stylo, et optimo scribendi genere.For a man to write well, there are required three necessities: to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style. In style to consider what ought to be written, and after what manner; he must first think and excogitate his matter, then choose his words, and examine the weight of either. Then take care in placing and ranking both matter and words, that the composition be comely, and to do this with diligence and often. No matter how slow the style be |