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nondum est occupata. Multum ex illâ, welcome; yet he had rather be drunk with etiam futuris relicta est. mine host and the fiddlers of such a town than go home.

Dissentire licet, sed cum ratione.—If in some things I dissent from others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgment I look up at, and admire; let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude, and rashness. For I thank those that have taught me, and will ever: but yet dare not think the scope of their labour and inquiry was to envy their posterity what they also

could add and find out.

Non mihi credendum sed veritati.-If I err, pardon me: Nulla ars simul et inventa est, et absoluta. I do not desire to be equal to those that went before; but to have my reason examined with theirs, and so much faith to be given them, or me, as those shall evict. I am neither author nor

fautor of any sect. I will have no man addict himself to me; but if I have any thing right, defend it as Truth's, not mine, save as it conduceth to a common good. It profits not me to have any man fence or fight for me, to flourish, or take a side. Stand for Truth, and 'tis enough.

Scientia liberales.-Arts that respect the mind were ever reputed nobler than those that serve the body: though we less can be without them. As tillage, spinning, weaving, building, &c. without which we could scarce sustain life a day. But these were the works of every hand; the other of the brain only, and those the most generous and exalted wits and spirits, that cannot rest, or acquiesce. The mind of man is still fed with labour: Opere pascitur.

Non vulgi sunt.-There is a more secret cause and the power of liberal studies lies more hid, than that it can be wrought out by profane wits. It is not every man's way to hit. They are men, I confess, that set the caract and value upon things, as they love them; but science is not every man's mistress. It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble

nature.

Honesta ambitio.-If divers men seek fame or honour by divers ways; so both be honest, neither is to be blamed: but they that seek immortality, are not only worthy of love, but of praise.

Maritus improbus.-He hath a delicate wife, a fair fortune, and family to go to be

Afflictio pia magistra. Affliction teacheth a wicked person some time to pray: Prosperity never.

The devil take all.--Many might go to Deploratis facilis descensus Averni.heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture their industry the right way: but the devil take all (quoth he) that was choked in the milldam, with his four last words in his mouth.

Aegidius cursu superat.-A cripple in the way out-travels a footman, or a post out of the way.

Prodigo nummi nauci.—Bags of money to a prodigal person, are the same that cherry-stones are with some boys, and so thrown away.

Munda et sordida.-A woman, the more curious she is about her face, is commonly the more careless about her house.

Debitum deploratum. — Of this spilt water, there is a little to be gathered up: it is a desperate debt.

had a longing at the gallows to commit Latro sesquipedalis.-The thief* that one robbery more, before he was hanged.

And like the German lord,† when he order to have his arms set up in his last went out of Newgate into the cart, took herborough: said he was taken, and committed upon suspicion of treason; no witness appearing against him: but the judges entertained him most civilly, discoursed with him, offered him the courtesy of the rack; but he confessed, &c.

calumny, that she hath so endeavoured, Calumnie fructus.-I am beholden to and taken pains to belie me. It shall make me set a surer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.

Impertinens.-A tedious person is one a man would leap a steeple from, gallop down any steep hill to avoid him; forsake his meat, sleep, nature itself, with all her benefits, to shun him. A mere impertinent: one that touched neither heaven nor earth in his discourse. He opened an entry into a fair room, but shut it again presently. 1 spake to him of Garlic, he

* With a great belly. ↑ Comes de Schortenhein.

answered Asparagus: consulted him of have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes marriage, he tells me of hanging, as if they | beyond her bounds; but Impudence knows went by one and the same destiny.

Bellum Scribentium.-What a sight it is to see writers committed together by the ears for ceremonies, syllables, points, colons, commas, hyphens, and the like? fighting as for their fires and their altars; and angry that none are frighted at their noises and loud brayings under their asses skins. There is hope of getting a fortune without digging in these quarries. Sed meliore (in omne) ingenio, animoque quàm fortunâ,

sum usus.

Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor. Differentia inter Doctos et Sciolos. Wits made out their several expeditions then, for the discovery of truth, to find out great and profitable knowledges; had their several instruments for the disquisition of arts. Now there are certain scioli or smatterers, that are busy in the skirts and outsides of learning, and have scarce any thing of solid literature to commend them. They may have some edging or trimming of a scholar, a welt or so: but it is no

more.

Impostorum fucus.-Imposture is a specious thing: yet never worse than when it feigns to be best, and to none discovered sooner than the simplest. For truth and goodness are plain and open; but imposture is ever ashamed of the light.

Icuncularum motio. A puppet-play must be shadowed, and seen in the dark: for draw the curtain, Et sordet gesticulatio. Principes, et Administri.-There is a great difference in the understanding of some princes, as in the quality of their ministers about them. Some would dress their masters in gold, pearl, and all true jewels of majesty: others furnish them with

feathers, bells, and ribands; and are therefore esteemed the fitter servants. But they are ever good men, that must make good the times: if the men be naught, the times will be such. Finis expectandus est in unoquoque hominum; animali ad mutationem promptissimo.

Scitum Hispanicum. It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, Artes inter hæredes non dividi. Yet these have inherited their father's lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man, that affects a triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie themselves

none.

Non nova res livor.-Envy is no new thing, nor was it born only in our times. The ages past have brought it forth, and the coming ages will. So long as there are men fit for it, quorum odium virtute relictâ placet, it will never be wanting. It is a barbarous envy, to take from those men's virtues, which because thou canst not arrive at, thou impotently despairest to imitate. Is it a crime in me that I know that, which others had not yet known, but from me? or that I am the author of many things, which never would have come in thy thought, but that I taught them? is a new, but a foolish way you have found out, that whom you cannot equal, or come near in doing, you would destroy or ruin with evil speaking: as if you had bound both your wits and natures prentices to slander, and then came forth the best artificers, when you could form the foulest calumnies.

It

Nil gratius protervo lib.-Indeed nothing is of more credit or request now, than a petulant paper, or scoffing verses; and it is but convenient to the times and manners we live with, to have then the worst writings and studies flourish, when the best begin to be despised. Ill arts begin where good end.

Fam literæ sordent.-Pastus hodiern. Ingen.-The time was when men would learn and study good things, not envy those that had them. Then men were had in price for learning; now letters only make men vile. He is upbraidingly called a Poet, as if it were a most contemptible nickmade the learning cheap. Railing and name: but the professors, indeed, have tinkling Rhymers, whose writings the vulgar the scurrility and petulancy of such wits. more greedily read, as being taken with He shall not have a reader now, unless he jeer and lie. It is the food of men's natures; the diet of the times! Gallants cannot sleep else. The writer must lie, and the gentle reader rests happy, to hear the worthiest works misinterpreted, the clearest actions obscured, the innocentest life traduced and in such a licence of lying, a field so fruitful of slanders, how can there be matter wanting to his laughter? Hence comes the epidemical infection: for how can they escape the contagion of the

writings, whom the virulency of the calumnies hath not staved off from reading.

set in our mouth, to restrain the petulancy of our words; that the rashness of talking should not only be retarded by the guard and watch of our heart, but be fenced in and defended by certain strengths placed

But you shall see some so abound with words, without any seasoning or taste of matter, in so profound a security, as while theyare speaking for the most part they confess to speak they know not what.

Sed seculi morbus.-Nothing doth more invite a greedy reader, than an unlookedfor subject. And what more unlooked-in the mouth itself, and within the lips. for, than to see a person of an unblamed life made ridiculous or odious, by the artifice of lying? but it is the disease of the age: and no wonder if the world, growing old, begin to be infirm: old age itself is a disease. It is long since the sick world! began to doat and talk idly: would she had but doated still! but her dotage is now broke forth into a madness, and become a mere frenzy.

Alastoris malitia.-This Alastor, who hath left nothing unsearched, or unassailed, by his impudent and licentious lying in his aguish writings (for he was in his cold quaking fit all the while); what hath he done more, than a troublesome base cur? barked and made a noise afar off; had a fool or two to spit in his mouth, and cherish him with a musty bone? but they are rather enemies of my fame than me, these barkers.

Mali Choragi fuere.-It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing; that though the nakedness would shew deformed and odious, the suiting of it might draw their readers. Some love any strumpet (be she never so shop-like or meretricious) in good clothes. But these, nature could not have formed them better, to destroy their own testimony, and overthrow their calumny.

Hear-say news-That an elephant, in 1630, came hither ambassador from the great Mogul (who could both write and read) and was every day allowed twelve cast of bread, twenty quarts of Canary sack, besides nuts and almonds the citizens' wives sent him. That he had a Spanish boy to his interpreter, and his chief negociation was to confer or practise with Archy, the principal fool of state, about stealing hence Windsor-castle, and carrying it away on his back if he can.

Lingua sapientis, potius quàm loquentis. -A wise tongue should not be licentious and wandering; but moved, and, as it were, governed with certain reins from the heart and bottom of the breast and it was excellently said of that philosopher, that there was a wall or parapet of teeth |

Of the two (if either were to be wished) I would rather have a plain downright wisdom, than a foolish and affected eloquence. For what is so furious and Bethlem-like, as a vain sound of chosen and excellent words, without any subject of sentence or science

mixed?

Optanda. -Thersites Homeri. -Whom the disease of talking still once possesseth, he can never hold his peace. Nay, rather than he will not discourse he will hire men to hear him. And so heard, not hearkened unto, he comes off most times like a mountebank, that when he hath praised his medicines, finds none will take them, or trust him. He is like Homer's Thersites. Αμετροεπῆς, ἀκριτόμυθος ; speaking without judgment or measure.

Loquax magis, quàm facundus,
Satis loquentiæ, sapientiæ parum.*
Γλώσσης τοι θησαυρὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἄριστος
Φειδωλῆς, πλείστη δὲ χάρις κατα μέτρον ἰούσης.
Optimus est homini linguæ thesaurus, et
ingens

Gratia,quæ parcis mensurat singula verbis.

Homeri Ulysses.-Demacatus Plutarchi. -Ulysses in Homer is made a long-thinking man before he speaks; and Epaminondas is celebrated by Pindar, to be a man, that though he knew much yet he spoke but little. Demacatus, when on the bench he was long silent, and said nothing; one asking him, if it were folly in him, or want of language? he answered, A fool could never hold his peace. For too much talking is ever the indice of a fool. Dum tacet indoctus, poterit cordatus haberi; Is morbos animi namque tacendo tegit.§ Nor is that worthy speech of Zeno the philosopher to be past over with the note of ignorance; who being invited to a feast

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in Athens, where a great prince's ambassadors were entertained, and was the only person had said nothing at the table; ne of them with courtesy asked him, What shall we return from thee, Zeno, to the prince our master, if he asks us of thee? Nothing, he replied, more, but that you found an old man in Athens that knew to be silent amongst his cups. It was near a miracle to see an old man silent, since talking is the disease of age; but amongst cups makes it fully a wonder.

Argute dictum.-It was wittily said upon one that was taken for a great and grave man so long as he held his peace: This man might have been a counsellor of state till he spoke but having spoken, not the beadle of the ward. 'Exeuvoia. Pythag. quàm laudabilis! yawσons Tρо Tv av κрáτει, beоîs éτóμevos. Linguam cohibe, præ aliis omnibus, ad Deorum exemplum.* Digito compesce labellum.†

they run to it, and are taken. Which shews that the only decay, or hurt of the best men's reputation with the people is, their wits have out-lived the people's palates. They have been too much or too long a feast.

the father oft-times helps not forth, but Claritas patris.-Greatness of name in overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth; so much, that we see the grandchild come more and oftener to be heir of the first, than doth the second: he dies between; the possession is the third's.

diverse thing: nor did she yet ever favour Eloquentia.--Eloquence is a great and any man so much as to become wholly his. He is happy that can arrive to any degree of her grace. Yet there are who prove themselves masters of her, and absolute lords; but I believe they may mistake their evidence for it is one thing to be eloquent Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes. in the schools, or in the hall; another at --There is almost no man but he sees the bar, or in the pulpit. There is a difclearlier and sharper the vices in a speaker, ference between mooting and pleading; than the virtues. And there are many, between fencing and fighting. To make that with more ease will find fault with arguments in my study, and confute them, what is spoken foolishly, than that can is easy; where I answer myself, not an adgive allowance to that wherein you are versary. So I can see whole volumes diswise silently. The treasure of a fool is patched by the umbratical doctors on all always in his tongue, said the witty comic sides: but draw these forth into the just poet; and it appears not in anything more lists; let them appear sub dio, and they than in that nation, whereof one, when he are changed with the place, like bodies had got the inheritance of an unlucky old bred in the shade; they cannot suffer the grange, would needs sell it ;§ and to draw sun or a shower, nor bear the open air: buyers, proclaimed the virtues of it. No- they scarce can find themselves, that they thing ever thrived on it, saith he. No were wont to domineer so among their owner of it ever died in his bed; some auditors: but indeed I would no more hung, some drowned themselves; some choose a rhetorician for reigning in were banished, some starved; the trees school, than I would a pilot for rowing in were all blasted; the swine died of the a pond. measils, the cattle of the murrain, the sheep of the rot; they that stood were ragged, bare, and bald as your hand; nothing was ever reared there, not a duckling or a goose. Hospitium fuerat calamitatis.

Was not this man like to sell it? Vulgi expectatio.-Expectation of the vulgar is more drawn and held with newness than goodness; we see it in fencers, in players, in poets, in preachers, in all where fame promiseth any thing; so it be new, though never so naught and depraved,

* Vide Apuleium.

+ Juvenal. Trin. act. ii. sc. 4.

a

Amor et Odium.-Love that is ignorant, and hatred have almost the same ends: many foolish lovers wish the same to their friends, which their enemies would: as to wish a friend banished, that they might accompany him in exile; or some great want, that they might relieve him; or a disease, that they might sit by him. They make a causeway to their country by injury, as if it were not honester to do nothing than to seek a way to do good by a mischief.

Injuria. — Injuries do not extinguish courtesies: they only suffer them not to appear fair. For a man that doth me an Mart. lib: 1. ep. 85. injury after a courtesy, takes not away

Plautus.

that courtesy, but defaces it: as he that writes other verses upon my verses takes not away the first letters, but hides them.

Horses

Beneficia.-Nothing is a courtesy, unless it be meant us and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or meats, that they be nourishing. For these are what they are necessarily. carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some man may receive a courtesy, and not know it; but never any man received it from him that knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by accidents; but they were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of an ague by falling into a water; another whipped out of a fever: but no man would ever use these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the event, that distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may offend the judge with his pride and impertinences, and I win my cause; but he meant it not me as a courtesy. I scaped pirates by being shipwracked, was the wrack a benefit therefore? No: the doing of courtesies aright, is the mixing of the respects for his own sake, and for mine. He that doeth them merely for his own sake, is like one that feeds his cattle to sell them: he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield.

Valor rerum.-The price of many things is far above what they are bought and sold for. Life and health, which are both inestimable, we have of the physician: as learning and knowledge, the true tillage of the mind, from our school-masters. But the fees of the one, or the salary of the other, never answer the value of what we received, but served to gratify their labours.

I

Memoria.-Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail: it is the first of our faculties that age invades. Seneca, the father, the rhetorician, confesseth of himself he had a miraculous one; not only to receive, but to hold. myself could, in my youth, have repeated all that ever I had made, and so continued till I was past forty: since, it is much decayed in me. Yet I can repeat whole books that I have read, and poems of some selected friends, which I have liked to charge my memory with. It was wont to be faithful to me, but shaken with age now, and sloth, which weakens the

strongest abilities, it may perform somewhat, but cannot promise much. By exercise it is to be made better, and serviceable.. Whatsoever I pawned with it while I was young and a boy, it offers me readily, and without stops: but what I trust to it now, or have done of later years, it lays up more negligently, and oftentimes loses; so that I receive mine own (though frequently called for) as if it were new and borrowed. Nor do I always find presently from it what I do seek: but while I am do ing another thing, that I laboured for will come: and what I sought with trouble, will offer itself when I am quiet. Now in some men I have found it as happy as nature, who, whatsoever they read or pen, they can say without book presently; as if they did then write in their mind. And it is more a wonder in such as have a swift slowest; such as torture their writings, style, for their memories are commonly and go into council for every word, must needs fix somewhat, and make it their own at last; though but through their own vexation.

Comit. suffragia.-Suffrages in parliament are numbered, not weighed: nor can it be otherwise in those public councils, where nothing is so unequal as the equality: for there, how odd soever men's brains or wisdoms are, their power is always even and the same.

Stare à partibus.-Some actions, be they never so beautiful and generous, are often obscured by base and vile misconstructions, either out of envy, or ill-nature, that judgeth of others as of itself. Nay, the times are so wholly grown to be either partial or malicious, that if he be a friend, all sits well about him, his very vices shall be virtues; if an enemy, or of the contrary him: insomuch that we care not to disfaction, nothing is good or tolerable in credit and shame our judgments, to soothe our passions.

Deus in creaturis.-Man is read in his face; God in his creatures; but not as the philosopher, the creature of glory, reads him: but as the divine, the servant of humility: yet even he must take care not to be too curious. For to utter truth of God (but as he thinks only) may be dangerous; who is best known by our not knowing. Some things of him, so much as he hath revealed, or commanded, it is not only lawful but necessary for us to

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