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know: for therein our ignorance was the first cause of our wickedness.

Veritas proprium hominis.-Truth is man's proper good; and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to No good Christian or ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it: no statesman or

use.

patriot should. For without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, or what you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says, he hates him worse than hell-mouth, that utters one thing with his tongue, and keeps another in his breast. Which high expression was grounded on divine reason: for a lying mouth is a stinking pit, and murthers with the contagion it venteth. Beside, nothing is lasting that is feigned; it will have another face than it had, ere long. As Euripides saith, "No lie ever grows old."

Nullum vitium sine patrocinio.-It is strange there should be no vice without its patronage, that, when we have no other excuse, we will say we love it; we cannot forsake it. As if that made it not more a fault. We cannot, because we think we

De vere argutis.-I do hear them say often, some men are not witty, because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore be all eye or nose! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin, lip, natural in the place. But now nothing is or any part else, are as necessary, and good that is natural: right and natural language seems to have least of the wit in it; that which is writhed and tortured, is counted the more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no face were fair that were not powdered or painted? no beauty to be had, but in wresting and writhing our own tongue? Nothing is fashionable till it be deformed; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be affected, and preposterous as our gallants' clothes, sweet bags, and night dressings: in which you would think our men lay in, like ladies, it is so curious.

would never light his tobacco with them. And those men almost named for miracles, who yet are so vile, that if a man should go about to examine and correct them, he must make all they have done but one blot. Their good is so entangled with their bad, as forcibly one must draw on the other's death with it. A sponge dipt in ink will do all:

Comitetur Punica librum

Censura de poetis.-Nothing in our age, I have observed, is more preposterous than the running judgments upon poetry and cannot, and we love it because we will poets; when we shall hear those things defend it. We will rather excuse it than writings, which a man would scarce vouchcommended, and cried up for the best be rid of it. That we cannot, is pre-safe to wrap any wholesome drug in; he tended; but that we will not, is the true reason. How many have I known, that would not have their vices hid? nay, and to be noted, live like Antipodes to others in the same city? never see the sun rise or set, in so many years; but be as they were watching a corpse by torch light; would not sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity; they would do it new, or contrary, for the infamy; they were ambitious of living backward; and at last arrived at that, as they would love nothing but the vices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform these natures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may say they desired to leave it; but do not trust them: and they may think they desired it, but they may lie for all that: they are a little angry with their follies now and then; marry they come into grace with them again quickly. They will confess they are offended with their manner of living like enough; who is not? When they can put me in security that they are more than offended, that they hate it, then I will hearken to them; and perhaps believe them: but many now a days love and hate their ill together.

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multæ una litura potest.* Cestius.-Cicero.- Heath. Taylor.Spenser.-Yet their vices have not hurt them: nay, a great many they have profited; for they have been loved for And this false opinion nothing else. grows strong against the best men; if once it take root with the ignorant. Cestius, in his time, was preferred to Cicero, so far as They learned him the ignorant durst. without book, and had him often in their mouths: but a man cannot imagine that

* Mart. I. iv. epig. zo.

thing so foolish, or rude, but will find and enjoy an admirer; at least a reader or spectator. The puppets are seen now in despight of the players: Heath's epigrams, and the Skuller's poems have their applause. There are never wanting, that dare prefer the worst preachers, the worst pleaders, the worst poets; not that the better have left to write, or speak better, but that they that hear them judge worse; Non illi pejus dicunt, sed hi corruptius judicant. Nay, if it were put to the question of the Water-rhymer's works, against Spenser's, I doubt not but they would find more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out of a prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments and like that which is naught.

Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mistress to such as have wholly addicted themselves to her, or given their names up to her family. They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of their own professions (both the law and the gospel) beyond all they could have hoped or done for themselves without her favour. Wherein she doth emulate the judicious but preposterous bounty of the time's grandees who accumulate all they can upon the parasite, or fresh-man in their friendship; but think an old client, or honest servant, bound by his place to write

and starve.

Indeed the multitude commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers; who if they come in robustiously, and put for it with a deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows: when many times their own rudeness is a cause of their disgrace; and a slight touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. But in these things the unskilful are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things greater than polished;

and scattered more numerous than com

posed: nor think this only to be true in the sordid multitude, but the neater sort of our gallants: for all are the multitude; only they differ in clothes, not in judgment or understanding.

De Shakespeare nostrat.-Augustus in Hat.—I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he had blotted a thou- |

sand. Which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who choose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour: for I loved the man, and do honour his memory, on this side idolatry, as much as any. He was (indeed) honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantsie, brave notions, and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped: Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power, would the rule of it had been so too. Many times he fell into those things could not escape laughter: as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, "Cæsar thou dost me wrong. He replied, "Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause," and such like; which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.

Ingeniorum discrimina. Not. 1.-In the difference of wits I have observed there are many notes: and it is a little maistry to know them; to discern what every nature, every disposition will bear: for, before we sow our land, we should plough it. There are no fewer forms of minds than of bodies amongst us. variety is incredible, and therefore we must search. Some are fit to make divines, some poets, some lawyers, some physicians: some to be sent to the plough, and trades.

The

There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting. Some wits are swelling and high; others low and still: some hot and fiery, others cold and dull; one must have a bridle, the other a spur.

and bold; and these will do every little thing easily; I mean that is hard-by and next them, which they will utter unretarded perform much, but quickly. They are without any shamefastness. These never what they are, on the sudden; they shew presently like grain, that scattered on the top of the ground, shoots up, but takes no root; has a yellow blade, but the ear empty. They are wits of good promise at stand still at sixteen, they get no higher. first, but there is an ingenistitium* they

Not. 2.-There be some that are forward

A Wit-stand

Not. 3.-You have others that labour only to ostentation; and are ever more busy about the colours and surface of a work than in the matter and foundation : for that is hid, the other is seen.

Not. 4.-Others, that in composition are nothing but what is rough and broken : Quæ per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt.* And if it would come gently, they trouble it of purpose. They would not have it run without rubs, as if that style were more strong and manly, that stroke the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by themselves, have some singularity in a ruff, cloak, or hat-band; or their beards specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon themselves. They would be reprehended, while they are looked on. And this vice, one that is authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to them to be imitated; so that oft-times the faults which he fell into, the others seek for this is the danger, when vice becomes a precedent.

Not. 5.-Others there are that have no composition at all; but a kind of tuning and rhyming fall, in what they write. It runs and slides, and only makes a sound. Women's poets they are called, as you have women's tailors;

They write a verse as smooth, as soft as

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You may sound these wits, and find the depth of them with your middle finger. They are cream-bowl, or but puddle deep.

Not. 6.-Some that turn over all books, and are equally searching in all papers, that write out of what they presently find or meet, without choice; by which means it happens, that what they have discredited and impugned in one work, they have

before or after extolled the same in another.

Such are all the essayists, even their master Montaigne. These, in all they write, confess still what books they have read last; and there their own folly, so much that they bring it to the stake raw and undigested: not that the place did need it neither; but that they thought themselves furnished, and would vent it.

* Martial. lib. 11, epig. 91.

Not. 7.-Some again (who after they have got authority, or, which is less, opinion, by their writings, to have read much) dare presently to feign whole books and authors, and lye safely. For what never was, will not easily be found, not by the most curious.

Not. 8.-And some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert the sagacity of their readers from themselves, and cool the scent of their own fox-like thefts; when yet they are so rank as a man may find whole pages together usurped from one author: their necessities compelling them to read for present use, which could not be in many books; and so come forth more ridiculously and palpably guilty than those, who because they cannot trace, they yet would slander their industry.

Not. 9.-But the wretcheder are the obstinate contemners of all helps and arts; such as presuming on their own naturals (which perhaps are excellent) dare deride all diligence, and seem to mock at the terms, when they understand not the things; thinking that way to get off wittily with their ignorance. These are imitated often by such as are their peers in negligence, though they cannot be in nature: and they utter all they can think with a kind of violence and indisposition unexamined, without relation either to person, place, or any fitness else; and the more wilful and stubborn they are in it, multitude, through their excellent vice of the more learned they are esteemed of the judgment: who think those things the stronger, that have no art; as if to break, were better than to open; or to rent asunder, gentler than to loose.

Not. 10.-It cannot but come to pass, that these men who commonly seek to do more than enough, may sometimes happen on something that is good and great; but very seldom : and when it comes, it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent; because all is sordid, and vile about them; as lights are

more discerned in a thick darkness, than a faint shadow. Now because they speak all they can (however unfitly) they are thought to have the greater copy: where the learned use ever election and a mean;

In the

virtue in itself; but not without the service of the senses; by these organs the Soul works: she is a perpetual agent, prompt and subtle; but often flexible and erring, intangling herself like a silkworm: but her reason is a weapon with two edges, and cuts through. In her indagations ofttimes new scents put her by, and she takes in errors into her by the same conduits she doth truths.

The

they look back to what they intended at first, and make all an even and proportioned body. The true artificer will not run away from nature as he were afraid of her or depart from life and the likeness of truth; but speak to the capacity of his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes, and Tamer-Chams of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting and furious vociferation, to warrant them to the ignorant gapers. knows it is his only art, so to carry it as none but artificers perceive it. meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or by what contumelious word can come in their cheeks, by these men, who without labour, judgment, knowledge, or almost sense, are received or preferred before him. He gratulates them, and their fortune. Another age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveigh-grew stronger and more earnest by the ing, what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses how he doth reign in men's affections: how invade, and break in upon them; and makes their minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what is beautifully translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, which strong, to shew the composition manly and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene, sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate phrase; which is not only praised of the most, but commended (which is worse) especially for that it is naught.

Otium.-Studiorum.-Ease and relaxa tion are profitable to all studies. He mind is like a bow, the stronger by being unbent. But the temper in spirits is all, favour it. I have known a man vehement when to command a man's wit, when to on both sides, that knew no mean, either to intermit his studies, or call upon them again.

Ignorantia anime.-I know no disease of the soul but ignorance; not of the arts and sciences, but of itself: yet relating to those it is a pernicious evil, the darkener of man's life, the disturber of his reason, and common confounder of truth; with which a man goes groping in the dark, no otherwise than if he were blind. Great understandings are most racked and troubled with it: nay, sometimes they will rather choose to die than not to know the things they study for. Think then what an evil it is, and what good the contrary. Scientia.-Knowledge is the action of the Soul, and is perfect without the senses, as having the seeds of all science and

When he hath set himself to writing, he would join night to day, press upon himself without release, not minding it, till he fainted; and when he left off, resolve himself into all sports and looseness again, that it was almost a despair to draw him to his book; but once got to it, he

ease. His whole powers were renewed ;
he would work out of himself what he
could not be ruled; he knew not how to
desired; but with such excess as his study
dispose his own abilities, or husband them,
himself. Nor was he only a strong but an
he was of that immoderate power against
absolute speaker, and writer; but his
thought that a vice: for the ambush hurts
subtlety did not shew itself; his judgment
more that is hid.
language, nor went out of the highway of
speaking, but for some great necessity or
apparent profit: for he denied figures to
be invented for ornament, but for aid;
and still thought it an extreme madness
to bend or wrest that which ought to be
right.

He never forced his

Stili eminentia.-Virgil.-Tully.-Sallust.-Plato.—It is no wonder men's eminence appears but in their own way. Virgil's felicity left him in prose, as Tully's forsook him in verse. Sallust's orations are read in the honour of story; yet the most eloquent Plato's speech, which he made for Socrates, is neither worthy of the patron, or the person defended. Nay, in the same kind of oratory, and where the matter is one, you shall have him that reasons strongly, open negligently; another that prepares well, not fit so well. And this happens not only to brains, but to bodies.

One

can wrestle well, another run well, a third leap, or throw the bar, a fourth lift, or stop a cart going each hath his way of strength. So in other creatures, some dogs are for the deer, some for the wild boar, some are fox-hounds, some otter-hounds. Nor are all horses for the coach or saddle, some are for the cart and paniers.

De claris Oratoribus.—I have known many excellent men, that would speak suddenly, to the admiration of their hearers; who upon study and premeditation have been forsaken by their own wits, and no way answered their fame: their eloquence was greater than their reading; and the things they uttered better than those they knew: their fortune deserved better of them than their care. For men of present spirits, and of greater wits than study, do please more in the things they invent than in those they bring. And I have heard some of them compelled to speak out of necessity, that have so infinitely exceeded themselves as it was better both for them and their auditory that they were so surprised not prepared. Nor was it safe then to cross them for their adversary, their anger made them more eloquent. Yet these men I could not but love and admire, that they returned to their studies. They left not diligence (as many do) when their rashness prospered; for diligence is a great aid, even to an indifferent wit; when we are not contented with the examples of our own age, but would know the face of the former. Indeed, the more we confer with, the more we profit by, if the persons be chosen.

Dominus Verulamius.-One, though he be excellent and the chief, is not to be

imitated alone: for never no imitator ever, grew up to his author; likeness is always on this side truth. Yet there happened in my tine one noble Speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he

1

* Sir Thomas Moore. Sir Thomas Wiat. Henry, Earl of Surrey. Sir Thomas Chaloner. Sir Thomas Smith. Sir Thomas Eliot. Bishop Gardiner. Sir Nicholas Bacon L.K. Sir Philip Sidney. Master Richard Hooker. Robert, Earl

VOL. III.

spoke; and had his judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was, lest he should make an end.

to be the only wit that the people of Rome Scriptorum Catalogus.*-Cicero is said had equalled to their Empire. Ingenium par imperio. We have had many, and in their several ages (to take in but the former seculum) Sir Thomas Moore, the elder Wiat, Henry, Earl of Surrey, Chaloner, Smith, Eliot, B. Gardiner, were for their times admirable; and the more, because they began eloquence with us. Sir Nicholas Bacon was singular, and almost alone, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's time. Sir Philip Sidney, and Mr. Hooker (in different matter) grew great masters of wit and language, and in whom all vigour of invention and strength of judgment met. The Earl of Essex, noble and high; and Sir Walter Raleigh, not to be contemned, either for judgment or style. Sir Henry Savile, grave, and truly lettered; Sir Edwin Sandys, excellent in both; Lord Egerton, the Chancellor, a grave and great orator, and best when he was provoked. But his learned and able (though unfortunate) successor, is he who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue, which may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wits born that could honour a language or help study. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquence grows backward: so that he may be named and stand as the mark and άkμý of our language.

De Augmentis Scientiarum.-Julius Cæsar.-Lord St. Alban.—I have ever observed it to have been the office of a wise Patriot, among the greatest affairs of the State, to take care of the Commonwealth of Learning. For schools, they are the Seminaries of State; and nothing is worthier the study of a statesman than that part of the Republic which we call the Advancement of Letters. Witness the care of Julius Cæsar, who in the heat of the civil war writ his books of Analogy, and dedicated them to Tully. This made the

of Essex. Sir Walter Raleigh. Sir Henry Savile. Sir Edwin Sandys. Sir Thomas Egerton, L.C. Sir Francis Bacon, L.C.

[In the folio this word is presly; I should ke to have printed it prestly, i.e. readily.—F. C}

D D

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