1 files changed, 4252 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/dscv10.txt b/old/dscv10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dd8bff4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/dscv10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,4252 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Discoveries, by Ben Jonson
+(#7 in our series by Ben Jonson)
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Discoveries and Some Poems
+
+Author: Ben Jonson
+
+Release Date: February, 2004  [EBook #5134]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on May 10, 2002]
+[Most recently updated: May 10, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, DISCOVERIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, from the
+1892 Cassell & Company edition.
+
+
+
+
+DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER
+AND SOME POEMS
+
+
+
+
+Contents:
+   Introduction by Henry Morley
+   Sylva
+   Timber, or Discoveries ...
+   Some Poems
+      To William Camden
+      On My First Daughter
+      On My First Son
+      To Francis Beaumont
+      Of Life and Death
+      Inviting a Friend to Supper
+      Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy
+      Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H.
+      Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke
+      To the Memory of my Beloved Master William Shakespeare
+      To Celia
+      The Triumph of Charis
+      In the Person of Womankind
+      Ode
+      Praeludium
+      Epode
+      An Elegy
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+
+Ben Jonson's "Discoveries" are, as he says in the few Latin words
+prefixed to them, "A wood--Sylva--of things and thoughts, in Greek
+"[Greek text]" [which has for its first meaning material, but is also applied
+peculiarly to kinds of wood, and to a wood], "from the multiplicity
+and variety of the material contained in it.  For, as we are
+commonly used to call the infinite mixed multitude of growing trees
+a wood, so the ancients gave the name of Sylvae--Timber Trees--to
+books of theirs in which small works of various and diverse matter
+were promiscuously brought together."
+
+In this little book we have some of the best thoughts of one of the
+most vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of English
+literature.  The songs added are a part of what Ben Jonson called
+his "Underwoods."
+
+Ben Jonson was of a north-country family from the Annan district
+that produced Thomas Carlyle.  His father was ruined by religious
+persecution in the reign of Mary, became a preacher in Elizabeth's
+reign, and died a month before the poet's birth in 1573.  Ben
+Jonson, therefore, was about nine years younger than Shakespeare,
+and he survived Shakespeare about twenty-one years, dying in August,
+1637.  Next to Shakespeare Ben Jonson was, in his own different way,
+the man of most mark in the story of the English drama.  His mother,
+left poor, married again.  Her second husband was a bricklayer, or
+small builder, and they lived for a time near Charing Cross in
+Hartshorn Lane.  Ben Jonson was taught at the parish school of St.
+Martin's till he was discovered by William Camden, the historian.
+Camden was then second master in Westminster School.  He procured
+for young Ben an admission into his school, and there laid firm
+foundations for that scholarship which the poet extended afterwards
+by private study until his learning grew to be sworn-brother to his
+wit.
+
+Ben Jonson began the world poor.  He worked for a very short time in
+his step-father's business.  He volunteered to the wars in the Low
+Countries.  He came home again, and joined the players.  Before the
+end of Elizabeth's reign he had written three or four plays, in
+which he showed a young and ardent zeal for setting the world to
+rights, together with that high sense of the poet's calling which
+put lasting force into his work.  He poured contempt on those who
+frittered life away.  He urged on the poetasters and the mincing
+courtiers, who set their hearts on top-knots and affected movements
+of their lips and legs:-
+
+
+"That these vain joys in which their wills consume
+Such powers of wit and soul as are of force
+To raise their beings to eternity,
+May be converted on works fitting men;
+And for the practice of a forced look,
+An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase,
+Study the native frame of a true heart,
+An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge,
+And spirit that may conform them actually
+To God's high figures, which they have in power."
+
+
+Ben Jonson's genius was producing its best work in the earlier years
+of the reign of James I.  His Volpone, the Silent Woman, and the
+Alchemist first appeared side by side with some of the ripest works
+of Shakespeare in the years from 1605 to 1610.  In the latter part
+of James's reign he produced masques for the Court, and turned with
+distaste from the public stage.  When Charles I. became king, Ben
+Jonson was weakened in health by a paralytic stroke.  He returned to
+the stage for a short time through necessity, but found his best
+friends in the best of the young poets of the day.  These looked up
+to him as their father and their guide.  Their own best efforts
+seemed best to them when they had won Ben Jonson's praise.  They
+valued above all passing honours man could give the words, "My son,"
+in the old poet's greeting, which, as they said, "sealed them of the
+tribe of Ben."
+
+H. M.
+
+
+
+SYLVA
+
+
+
+Rerum et sententiarum quasi "[Greek text] dicta a multiplici materia et
+varietate in iis contenta.  Quemadmodum enim vulgo solemus infinitam
+arborum nascentium indiscriminatim multitudinem Sylvam dicere:  ita
+etiam libros suos in quibus variae et diversae materiae opuscula
+temere congesta erant, Sylvas appellabant antiqui:  Timber-trees.
+
+
+
+TIMBER;
+OR,
+DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER,
+AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS,
+OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIAR
+NOTION OF THE TIMES.
+
+Tecum habita, ut noris quam sit tibi curta supellex {11}
+PERS.  Sat. 4.
+
+
+
+Fortuna.--Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune
+deceived not.  I therefore have counselled my friends never to trust
+to her fairer side, though she seemed to make peace with them; but
+to place all things she gave them, so as she might ask them again
+without their trouble, she might take them from them, not pull them:
+to keep always a distance between her and themselves.  He knows not
+his own strength that hath not met adversity.  Heaven prepares good
+men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man.  Contraries
+are not mixed.  Yet that which happens to any man may to every man.
+But it is in his reason, what he accounts it and will make it.
+
+Casus.--Change into extremity is very frequent and easy.  As when a
+beggar suddenly grows rich, he commonly becomes a prodigal; for, to
+obscure his former obscurity, he puts on riot and excess.
+
+Consilia.--No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel
+sometimes; and no man is so wise but may easily err, if he will take
+no others' counsel but his own.  But very few men are wise by their
+own counsel, or learned by their own teaching.  For he that was only
+taught by himself {12} had a fool to his master.
+
+Fama.--A Fame that is wounded to the world would be better cured by
+another's apology than its own:  for few can apply medicines well
+themselves.  Besides, the man that is once hated, both his good and
+his evil deeds oppress him.  He is not easily emergent.
+
+Negotia.--In great affairs it is a work of difficulty to please all.
+And ofttimes we lose the occasions of carrying a business well and
+thoroughly by our too much haste.  For passions are spiritual
+rebels, and raise sedition against the understanding.
+
+Amor patriae.--There is a necessity all men should love their
+country:  he that professeth the contrary may be delighted with his
+words, but his heart is there.
+
+Ingenia.--Natures that are hardened to evil you shall sooner break
+than make straight; they are like poles that are crooked and dry,
+there is no attempting them.
+
+Applausus.--We praise the things we hear with much more willingness
+than those we see, because we envy the present and reverence the
+past; thinking ourselves instructed by the one, and overlaid by the
+other.
+
+Opinio.--Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing;
+settled in the imagination, but never arriving at the understanding,
+there to obtain the tincture of reason.  We labour with it more than
+truth.  There is much more holds us than presseth us.  An ill fact
+is one thing, an ill fortune is another; yet both oftentimes sway us
+alike, by the error of our thinking.
+
+Impostura.--Many men believe not themselves what they would persuade
+others; and less do the things which they would impose on others;
+but least of all know what they themselves most confidently boast.
+Only they set the sign of the cross over their outer doors, and
+sacrifice to their gut and their groin in their inner closets.
+
+Jactura vitae.--What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the
+better part of life in! in scattering compliments, tendering visits,
+gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a
+little winter-love in a dark corner.
+
+Hypocrita.--Puritanus Hypocrita est Haereticus, quem opinio propriae
+perspicaciae, qua sibi videtur, cum paucis in Ecclesia dogmatibus
+errores quosdam animadvertisse, de statu mentis deturbavit:  unde
+sacro furore percitus, phrenetice pugnat contra magistratus, sic
+ratus obedientiam praestare Deo. {14}
+
+Mutua auxilia.--Learning needs rest:  sovereignty gives it.
+Sovereignty needs counsel:  learning affords it.  There is such a
+consociation of offices between the prince and whom his favour
+breeds, that they may help to sustain his power as he their
+knowledge.  It is the greatest part of his liberality, his favour;
+and from whom doth he hear discipline more willingly, or the arts
+discoursed more gladly, than from those whom his own bounty and
+benefits have made able and faithful?
+
+Cognit. univers.--In being able to counsel others, a man must be
+furnished with a universal store in himself, to the knowledge of all
+nature--that is, the matter and seed-plot:  there are the seats of
+all argument and invention.  But especially you must be cunning in
+the nature of man:  there is the variety of things which are as the
+elements and letters, which his art and wisdom must rank and order
+to the present occasion.  For we see not all letters in single
+words, nor all places in particular discourses.  That cause seldom
+happens wherein a man will use all arguments.
+
+Consiliarii adjunct.  Probitas, Sapientia.--The two chief things
+that give a man reputation in counsel are the opinion of his honesty
+and the opinion of his wisdom:  the authority of those two will
+persuade when the same counsels uttered by other persons less
+qualified are of no efficacy or working.
+
+Vita recta.--Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage.  And
+therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten, which
+cannot be but by living well.  A good life is a main argument.
+
+Obsequentia.--Humanitas.--Solicitudo.--Next a good life, to beget
+love in the persons we counsel, by dissembling our knowledge of
+ability in ourselves, and avoiding all suspicion of arrogance,
+ascribing all to their instruction, as an ambassador to his master,
+or a subject to his sovereign; seasoning all with humanity and
+sweetness, only expressing care and solicitude.  And not to counsel
+rashly, or on the sudden, but with advice and meditation.  (Dat nox
+consilium. {17a})  For many foolish things fall from wise men, if
+they speak in haste or be extemporal.  It therefore behoves the
+giver of counsel to be circumspect; especially to beware of those
+with whom he is not thoroughly acquainted, lest any spice of
+rashness, folly, or self-love appear, which will be marked by new
+persons and men of experience in affairs.
+
+Modestia.--Parrhesia.--And to the prince, or his superior, to behave
+himself modestly and with respect.  Yet free from flattery or
+empire.  Not with insolence or precept; but as the prince were
+already furnished with the parts he should have, especially in
+affairs of state.  For in other things they will more easily suffer
+themselves to be taught or reprehended:  they will not willingly
+contend, but hear, with Alexander, the answer the musician gave him:
+Absit, o rex, ut tu melius haec scias, quam ego. {17b}
+
+Perspicuitas.--Elegantia.--A man should so deliver himself to the
+nature of the subject whereof he speaks, that his hearer may take
+knowledge of his discipline with some delight; and so apparel fair
+and good matter, that the studious of elegancy be not defrauded;
+redeem arts from their rough and braky seats, where they lay hid and
+overgrown with thorns, to a pure, open, and flowery light, where
+they may take the eye and be taken by the hand.
+
+Natura non effaeta.--I cannot think Nature is so spent and decayed
+that she can bring forth nothing worth her former years.  She is
+always the same, like herself; and when she collects her strength is
+abler still.  Men are decayed, and studies:  she is not.
+
+Non nimium credendum antiquitati.--I know nothing can conduce more
+to letters than to examine the writings of the ancients, and not to
+rest in their sole authority, or take all upon trust from them,
+provided the plagues of judging and pronouncing against them be
+away; such as are envy, bitterness, precipitation, impudence, and
+scurrilous scoffing.  For to all the observations of the ancients we
+have our own experience, which if we will use and apply, we have
+better means to pronounce.  It is true they opened the gates, and
+made the way that went before us, but as guides, not commanders:
+Non domini nostri, sed duces fuere. {19a}   Truth lies open to all;
+it is no man's several.  Patet omnibus veritas; nondum est occupata.
+Multum ex illa, etiam futuris relicta est. {19b}
+
+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. {19c}  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 anything 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 my side.  Stand for truth, and 'tis enough.
+
+Scientiae 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.  There are men, I
+confess, that set the carat 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, a family
+to go to and be welcome; yet he had rather be drunk with mine host
+and the fiddlers of such a town, than go home.
+
+Afflictio pia magistra.--Affliction teacheth a wicked person some
+time to pray:  prosperity never.
+
+Deploratis facilis descensus Averni.--The devil take all.--Many
+might go to 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 mill-dam, 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.
+
+Latro sesquipedalis.--The thief {22} that had a longing at the
+gallows to commit one robbery more before he was hanged.
+
+And like the German lord, when he went out of Newgate into the cart,
+took order to have his arms set up in his last herborough:  said was
+he 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.
+
+Calumniae fructus.--I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so
+endeavoured 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 lull 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.  I spoke to him of garlic, he answered asparagus;
+consulted him of marriage, he tells me of hanging, as if they 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 quam fortuna, sum
+usus. {23}
+
+"Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor." {24a}
+
+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 anything 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.
+
+Icunculorum motio.--A puppet-play must be shadowed and seen in the
+dark; for draw the curtain, et sordet gesticulatio. {24b}
+
+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 exspectandus est in unoquoque
+hominum; animali ad mutationem promptissmo. {25a}
+
+Scitum Hispanicum.--It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, Artes
+inter haeredes non dividi. {25b}  Yet these have inherited their
+fathers' 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 have forged, is frontless.  Folly often goes
+beyond her bounds; but Impudence knows 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
+relicta 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?  It is 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.
+
+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.
+
+Jam literae 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
+contemptible nick-name:  but the professors, indeed, have made the
+learning cheap--railing and tinkling rhymers, whose writings the
+vulgar more greedily read, as being taken with the scurrility and
+petulancy of such wits.  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?
+
+Sed seculi morbus.--Nothing doth more invite a greedy reader than an
+unlooked-for subject.  And what more unlooked-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 dote and talk
+idly:  would she had but doted 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 show 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 quam 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 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 in the mouth itself, and within the lips.
+But you shall see some so abound with words, without any seasoning
+or taste of matter, in so profound a security, as while they are
+speaking, for the most part they confess to speak they know not
+what.
+
+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 Bedlam 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.
+
+[Greek text]; speaking without judgement or measure.
+
+
+"Loquax magis, quam facundus,
+Satis loquentiae, sapientiae parum.{31a}
+[Greek verse]. {31b}
+Optimus est homini linguae thesaurus, et ingens
+Gratia, quae 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." {31c}
+For too much talking is ever the index of a fool.
+
+
+"Dum tacet indoctus, poterit cordatus haberi;
+Is morbos animi namque tacendo tegit." {32a}
+
+
+Nor is that worthy speech of Zeno the philosopher to be passed over
+with the note of ignorance; who being invited to a feast in Athens,
+where a great prince's ambassadors were entertained, and was the
+only person that said nothing at the table; one 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."  [Greek text]. {32b}  Pytag. quam
+laudabilis!  [Greek text].  Linguam cohibe, prae aliis omnibus, ad
+deorum exemplum. {33a}  Digito compesce labellum. {33b}
+
+Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes.--There is almost no man but
+he sees clearlier and sharper the vices in a speaker, than the
+virtues.  And there are many, that with more ease will find fault
+with what is spoken foolishly than can give allowance to that
+wherein you are wise silently.  The treasure of a fool is always in
+his tongue, said the witty comic poet; {33c} and it appears not in
+anything more than in that nation, whereof one, when he had got the
+inheritance of an unlucky old grange, would needs sell it; {33d} and
+to draw buyers proclaimed the virtues of it.  Nothing ever thrived
+on it, saith he.  No owner of it ever died in his bed; some hung,
+some drowned themselves; some were banished, some starved; the trees
+were all blasted; the swine died of the measles, 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. {34a}  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 anything; so it be
+new, though never so naught and depraved, 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.
+
+Claritas patriae.--Greatness of name in the father oft-times helps
+not forth, but 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.
+
+Eloquentia.--Eloquence is a great and diverse thing:  nor did she
+yet ever favour 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
+in the schools, or in the hall; another at the bar, or in the
+pulpit.  There is a difference between mooting and pleading; between
+fencing and fighting.  To make arguments in my study, and confute
+them, is easy; where I answer myself, not an adversary.  So I can
+see whole volumes dispatched by the umbratical doctors on all sides:
+but draw these forth into the just lists:  let them appear sub dio,
+and they are changed with the place, like bodies bred in the shade;
+they cannot suffer the sun or a shower, nor bear the open air; they
+scarce can find themselves, that they were wont to domineer so among
+their auditors:  but indeed I would no more choose a rhetorician for
+reigning in a school, than I would a pilot for rowing in a pond.
+
+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 injury after a
+courtesy, takes not away that courtesy, but defaces it:  as he that
+writes other verses upon my verses, takes not away the first
+letters, but hides them.
+
+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.  Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not.
+It is true, some men 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 to
+me as a courtesy.  I scaped pirates by being shipwrecked; was the
+wreck 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 schoolmasters.  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.
+
+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.  I 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 seek; but while I am doing 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 style, for their
+memories are commonly slowest; such as torture their writings, 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 a 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 faction,
+nothing is good or tolerable in him; insomuch that we care not to
+discredit and shame our judgments to soothe our passions.
+
+Deus in creaturis.--Man is read in his face; God in His creatures;
+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 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 use.  No good Christian
+or ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it; no statesman or 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 murders with
+the contagion it venteth.  Beside, nothing is lasting that is
+feigned; it will have another face than it had, ere long. {41}  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 cannot, and we love it
+because we will defend it.  We will rather excuse it than be rid of
+it.  That we cannot is pretended; 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 desire 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.
+
+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, or any part else are as necessary and natural
+in the place.  But now nothing is 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.
+
+Censura de poetis.--Nothing in our age, I have observed, is more
+preposterous than the running judgments upon poetry and poets; when
+we shall hear those things commended and cried up for the best
+writings which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome
+drug in; he 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
+dipped in ink will do all:-
+
+
+"--Comitetur Punica librum
+Spongia.--" {44a}
+
+
+Et paulo post,
+
+
+"Non possunt . . . multae . . . liturae
+. . . 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 nothing else.  And this false opinion 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 the ignorant durst.
+They learned him without book, and had him often in their mouths;
+but a man cannot imagine that thing so foolish or rude but will find
+and enjoy an admirer; at least a reader or spectator.  The puppets
+are seen now in despite of the players; Heath's epigrams and the
+Sculler'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 composed; 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 Shakspeare nostrat.--Augustus in Hat.--I remember the players
+have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakspeare, that in his
+writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line.  My
+answer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand," which they
+thought a malevolent speech.  I had not told posterity this but for
+their ignorance who chose 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 phantasy, brave notions, and gentle
+expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes it
+was necessary he should be stopped.  "Sufflaminandus erat," {47a} 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 Caesar,
+one speaking to him, "Caesar, thou dost me wrong."  He replied,
+"Caesar 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.  The 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.
+
+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.
+
+Not. 2.--There be some that are forward and bold; and these will do
+every little thing easily.  I mean that is hard by and next them,
+which they will utter unretarded without any shamefastness.  These
+never perform much, but quickly.  They are what they are on the
+sudden; they show 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 first, but there is
+an ingenistitium; {49a} they stand still at sixteen, they get no
+higher.
+
+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.  Quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt. {49b}  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 struck 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 ofttimes the faults which be 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 cream,
+In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream."
+
+
+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 week, 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 therein 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
+
+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 lie 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 the more learned they are esteemed of the multitude,
+through their excellent vice of judgment, who think those things the
+stronger that have no art; as if to break were better than to open,
+or to rend 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, 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-
+chains of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical
+strutting and furious vociferation to warrant them to the ignorant
+gapers.  He knows it is his only art so to carry it, as none but
+artificers perceive it.  In the 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 inveighing, 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 show 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.
+
+Ignorantia animae.--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 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, entangling herself like a silkworm, but
+her reason is a weapon with two edges, and cuts through.  In her
+indagations oft-times new scents put her by, and she takes in errors
+into her by the same conduits she doth truths.
+
+Otium Studiorum.--Ease and relaxation are profitable to all studies.
+The mind is like a bow, the stronger by being unbent.  But the
+temper in spirits is all, when to command a man's wit, when to
+favour it.  I have known a man vehement on both sides, that knew no
+mean, either to intermit his studies or call upon them again.  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 grew stronger and more earnest by the ease.  His
+whole powers were renewed; he would work out of himself what he
+desired, but with such excess as his study could not be ruled; he
+knew not how to dispose his own abilities, or husband them; he was
+of that immoderate power against himself.  Nor was he only a strong,
+but an absolute speaker and writer; but his subtlety did not show
+itself; his judgment thought that a vice; for the ambush hurts more
+that is hid.  He never forced his 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 bind or wrest that which
+ought to be right.
+
+Stili eminentia.--Virgil.--Tully.--Sallust.--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 nor 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 no imitator ever grew up to his
+author; likeness is always on this side truth.  Yet there happened
+in my time 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 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.
+
+Scriptorum catalogus. {59a}  Cicero is said to be the only wit that
+the people of Rome 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 More, 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
+Nicolas 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
+[Greek text] of our language.
+
+De augmentis scientiarum.--Julius Caesar.--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 Caesar, who, in the heat of the civil war, writ his books
+of Analogy, and dedicated them to Tully.  This made the late Lord
+St. Alban entitle his work Novum Organum; which, though by the most
+of superficial men, who cannot get beyond the title of nominals, it
+is not penetrated nor understood, it really openeth all defects of
+learning whatsoever, and is a book
+
+
+"Qui longum note scriptori proroget aevum." {62a}
+
+
+My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place
+or honours; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that
+was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his
+work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that
+had been in many ages.  In his adversity I ever prayed that God
+would give him strength; for greatness he could not want.  Neither
+could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no
+accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it
+manifest.
+
+De corruptela morum.--There cannot be one colour of the mind,
+another of the wit.  If the mind be staid, grave, and composed, the
+wit is so; that vitiated, the other is blown and deflowered.  Do we
+not see, if the mind languish, the members are dull?  Look upon an
+effeminate person, his very gait confesseth him.  If a man be fiery,
+his motion is so; if angry, it is troubled and violent.  So that we
+may conclude wheresoever manners and fashions are corrupted,
+language is.  It imitates the public riot.  The excess of feasts and
+apparel are the notes of a sick state, and the wantonness of
+language of a sick mind.
+
+De rebus mundanis.--If we would consider what our affairs are
+indeed, not what they are called, we should find more evils
+belonging to us than happen to us.  How often doth that which was
+called a calamity prove the beginning and cause of a man's
+happiness? and, on the contrary, that which happened or came to
+another with great gratulation and applause, how it hath lifted him
+but a step higher to his ruin? as if he stood before where he might
+fall safely.
+
+Vulgi mores.--Morbus comitialis.--The vulgar are commonly ill-
+natured, and always grudging against their governors:  which makes
+that a prince has more business and trouble with them than ever
+Hercules had with the bull or any other beast; by how much they have
+more heads than will be reined with one bridle.  There was not that
+variety of beasts in the ark, as is of beastly natures in the
+multitude; especially when they come to that iniquity to censure
+their sovereign's actions.  Then all the counsels are made good or
+bad by the events; and it falleth out that the same facts receive
+from them the names, now of diligence, now of vanity, now of
+majesty, now of fury; where they ought wholly to hang on his mouth,
+as he to consist of himself, and not others' counsels.
+
+Princeps.--After God, nothing is to be loved of man like the prince;
+he violates Nature that doth it not with his whole heart.  For when
+he hath put on the care of the public good and common safety, I am a
+wretch, and put off man, if I do not reverence and honour him, in
+whose charge all things divine and human are placed.  Do but ask of
+Nature why all living creatures are less delighted with meat and
+drink that sustains them than with venery that wastes them? and she
+will tell thee, the first respects but a private, the other a common
+good, propagation.
+
+De eodem.--Orpheus' Hymn.--He is the arbiter of life and death:
+when he finds no other subject for his mercy, he should spare
+himself.  All his punishments are rather to correct than to destroy.
+Why are prayers with Orpheus said to be the daughters of Jupiter,
+but that princes are thereby admonished that the petitions of the
+wretched ought to have more weight with them than the laws
+themselves.
+
+De opt. Rege Jacobo.--It was a great accumulation to His Majesty's
+deserved praise that men might openly visit and pity those whom his
+greatest prisons had at any time received or his laws condemned.
+
+De Princ. adjunctis.--Sed vere prudens haud concipi possit Princeps,
+nisi simul et bonus.--Lycurgus.--Sylla.--Lysander.--Cyrus.--Wise is
+rather the attribute of a prince than learned or good.  The learned
+man profits others rather than himself; the good man rather himself
+than others; but the prince commands others, and doth himself.
+
+The wise Lycurgus gave no law but what himself kept.  Sylla and
+Lysander did not so; the one living extremely dissolute himself,
+enforced frugality by the laws; the other permitted those licenses
+to others which himself abstained from.  But the prince's prudence
+is his chief art and safety.  In his counsels and deliberations he
+foresees the future times:  in the equity of his judgment he hath
+remembrance of the past, and knowledge of what is to be done or
+avoided for the present.  Hence the Persians gave out their Cyrus to
+have been nursed by a bitch, a creature to encounter it, as of
+sagacity to seek out good; showing that wisdom may accompany
+fortitude, or it leaves to be, and puts on the name of rashness.
+
+De malign. studentium.--There be some men are born only to suck out
+the poison of books:  Habent venenum pro victu; imo, pro deliciis.
+{66a}  And such are they that only relish the obscene and foul
+things in poets, which makes the profession taxed.  But by whom?
+Men that watch for it; and, had they not had this hint, are so
+unjust valuers of letters as they think no learning good but what
+brings in gain.  It shows they themselves would never have been of
+the professions they are but for the profits and fees.  But if
+another learning, well used, can instruct to good life, inform
+manners, no less persuade and lead men than they threaten and
+compel, and have no reward, is it therefore the worst study?  I
+could never think the study of wisdom confined only to the
+philosopher, or of piety to the divine, or of state to the politic;
+but that he which can feign a commonwealth (which is the poet) can
+govern it with counsels, strengthen it with laws, correct it with
+judgments, inform it with religion and morals, is all these.  We do
+not require in him mere elocution, or an excellent faculty in verse,
+but the exact knowledge of all virtues and their contraries, with
+ability to render the one loved, the other hated, by his proper
+embattling them.  The philosophers did insolently, to challenge only
+to themselves that which the greatest generals and gravest
+counsellors never durst.  For such had rather do than promise the
+best things.
+
+Controvers. scriptores.--More Andabatarum qui clausis oculis
+pugnant.--Some controverters in divinity are like swaggerers in a
+tavern that catch that which stands next them, the candlestick or
+pots; turn everything into a weapon:  ofttimes they fight blindfold,
+and both beat the air.  The one milks a he-goat, the other holds
+under a sieve.  Their arguments are as fluxive as liquor spilt upon
+a table, which with your finger you may drain as you will.  Such
+controversies or disputations (carried with more labour than profit)
+are odious; where most times the truth is lost in the midst or left
+untouched.  And the fruit of their fight is, that they spit one upon
+another, and are both defiled.  These fencers in religion I like
+not.
+
+Morbi.--The body hath certain diseases that are with less evil
+tolerated than removed.  As if to cure a leprosy a man should bathe
+himself with the warm blood of a murdered child, so in the Church
+some errors may be dissimuled with less inconvenience than they can
+be discovered.
+
+Jactantia intempestiva.--Men that talk of their own benefits are not
+believed to talk of them because they have done them; but to have
+done them because they might talk of them.  That which had been
+great, if another had reported it of them, vanisheth, and is
+nothing, if he that did it speak of it.  For men, when they cannot
+destroy the deed, will yet be glad to take advantage of the
+boasting, and lessen it.
+
+Adulatio.--I have seen that poverty makes me do unfit things; but
+honest men should not do them; they should gain otherwise.  Though a
+man be hungry, he should not play the parasite.  That hour wherein I
+would repent me to be honest, there were ways enough open for me to
+be rich.  But flattery is a fine pick-lock of tender ears;
+especially of those whom fortune hath borne high upon their wings,
+that submit their dignity and authority to it, by a soothing of
+themselves.  For, indeed, men could never be taken in that abundance
+with the springes of others' flattery, if they began not there; if
+they did but remember how much more profitable the bitterness of
+truth were, than all the honey distilling from a whorish voice,
+which is not praise, but poison.  But now it is come to that extreme
+folly, or rather madness, with some, that he that flatters them
+modestly or sparingly is thought to malign them.  If their friend
+consent not to their vices, though he do not contradict them, he is
+nevertheless an enemy.  When they do all things the worst way, even
+then they look for praise.  Nay, they will hire fellows to flatter
+them with suits and suppers, and to prostitute their judgments.
+They have livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the spit, that
+wait their turns, as my lord has his feasts and guests.
+
+De vita humana.--I have considered our whole life is like a play:
+wherein every man forgetful of himself, is in travail with
+expression of another.  Nay, we so insist in imitating others, as we
+cannot when it is necessary return to ourselves; like children, that
+imitate the vices of stammerers so long, till at last they become
+such; and make the habit to another nature, as it is never
+forgotten.
+
+De piis et probis.--Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages
+wherein they live and illustrate the times.  God did never let them
+be wanting to the world:  as Abel, for an example of innocency,
+Enoch of purity, Noah of trust in God's mercies, Abraham of faith,
+and so of the rest.  These, sensual men thought mad because they
+would not be partakers or practisers of their madness.  But they,
+placed high on the top of all virtue, looked down on the stage of
+the world and contemned the play of fortune.  For though the most be
+players, some must be spectators.
+
+Mores aulici.--I have discovered that a feigned familiarity in great
+ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less.  For great and
+popular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those
+slaves to them.  So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach,
+dace, &c., that they may be food to him.
+
+Impiorum querela.--Augusties.--Varus.--Tiberius.--The complaint of
+Caligula was most wicked of the condition of his times, when he said
+they were not famous for any public calamity, as the reign of
+Augustus was, by the defeat of Varus and the legions; and that of
+Tiberius, by the falling of the theatre at Fidenae; whilst his
+oblivion was eminent through the prosperity of his affairs.  As that
+other voice of his was worthier a headsman than a head when he
+wished the people of Rome had but one neck.  But he found when he
+fell they had many hands.  A tyrant, how great and mighty soever he
+may seem to cowards and sluggards, is but one creature, one animal.
+
+Nobilium ingenia.--I have marked among the nobility some are so
+addicted to the service of the prince and commonwealth, as they look
+not for spoil; such are to be honoured and loved.  There are others
+which no obligation will fasten on; and they are of two sorts.  The
+first are such as love their own ease; or, out of vice, of nature,
+or self-direction, avoid business and care.  Yet these the prince
+may use with safety.  The other remove themselves upon craft and
+design, as the architects say, with a premeditated thought, to their
+own rather than their prince's profit.  Such let the prince take
+heed of, and not doubt to reckon in the list of his open enemies.
+
+Principum. varia.--Firmissima vero omnium basis jus haereditarium
+Principis.--There is a great variation between him that is raised to
+the sovereignty by the favour of his peers and him that comes to it
+by the suffrage of the people.  The first holds with more
+difficulty, because he hath to do with many that think themselves
+his equals, and raised him for their own greatness and oppression of
+the rest.  The latter hath no upbraiders, but was raised by them
+that sought to be defended from oppression:  whose end is both
+easier and the honester to satisfy.  Beside, while he hath the
+people to friend, who are a multitude, he hath the less fear of the
+nobility, who are but few.  Nor let the common proverb (of he that
+builds on the people builds on the dirt) discredit my opinion:  for
+that hath only place where an ambitious and private person, for some
+popular end, trusts in them against the public justice and
+magistrate.  There they will leave him.  But when a prince governs
+them, so as they have still need of his administrations (for that is
+his art), he shall ever make and hold them faithful.
+
+Clementia.--Machiavell.--A prince should exercise his cruelty not by
+himself but by his ministers; so he may save himself and his dignity
+with his people by sacrificing those when he list, saith the great
+doctor of state, Machiavell.  But I say he puts off man and goes
+into a beast, that is cruel.  No virtue is a prince's own, or
+becomes him more, than this clemency:  and no glory is greater than
+to be able to save with his power.  Many punishments sometimes, and
+in some cases, as much discredit a prince, as many funerals a
+physician.  The state of things is secured by clemency; severity
+represseth a few, but irritates more. {74a}  The lopping of trees
+makes the boughs shoot out thicker; and the taking away of some kind
+of enemies increaseth the number.  It is then most gracious in a
+prince to pardon when many about him would make him cruel; to think
+then how much he can save when others tell him how much he can
+destroy; not to consider what the impotence of others hath
+demolished, but what his own greatness can sustain.  These are a
+prince's virtues:  and they that give him other counsels are but the
+hangman's factors.
+
+Clementia tutela optima.--He that is cruel to halves (saith the said
+St. Nicholas {74b}) loseth no less the opportunity of his cruelty
+than of his benefits:  for then to use his cruelty is too late; and
+to use his favours will be interpreted fear and necessity, and so he
+loseth the thanks.  Still the counsel is cruelty.  But princes, by
+hearkening to cruel counsels, become in time obnoxious to the
+authors, their flatterers, and ministers; and are brought to that,
+that when they would, they dare not change them; they must go on and
+defend cruelty with cruelty; they cannot alter the habit.  It is
+then grown necessary, they must be as ill as those have made them:
+and in the end they will grow more hateful to themselves than to
+their subjects.  Whereas, on the contrary, the merciful prince is
+safe in love, not in fear.  He needs no emissaries, spies,
+intelligencers to entrap true subjects.  He fears no libels, no
+treasons.  His people speak what they think, and talk openly what
+they do in secret.  They have nothing in their breasts that they
+need a cypher for.  He is guarded with his own benefits.
+
+Religio.  Palladium Homeri.--Euripides.--The strength of empire is
+in religion.  What else is the Palladium (with Homer) that kept Troy
+so long from sacking?  Nothing more commends the Sovereign to the
+subject than it.  For he that is religious must be merciful and just
+necessarily:  and they are two strong ties upon mankind.  Justice
+the virtue that innocence rejoiceth in.  Yet even that is not always
+so safe, but it may love to stand in the sight of mercy.  For
+sometimes misfortune is made a crime, and then innocence is
+succoured no less than virtue.  Nay, oftentimes virtue is made
+capital; and through the condition of the times it may happen that
+that may be punished with our praise.  Let no man therefore murmur
+at the actions of the prince, who is placed so far above him.  If he
+offend, he hath his discoverer.  God hath a height beyond him.  But
+where the prince is good, Euripides saith, "God is a guest in a
+human body."
+
+Tyranni.--Sejanus.--There is nothing with some princes sacred above
+their majesty, or profane, but what violates their sceptres.  But a
+prince, with such a council, is like the god Terminus, of stone, his
+own landmark, or (as it is in the fable) a crowned lion.  It is
+dangerous offending such a one, who, being angry, knows not how to
+forgive; that cares not to do anything for maintaining or enlarging
+of empire; kills not men or subjects, but destroyeth whole
+countries, armies, mankind, male and female, guilty or not guilty,
+holy or profane; yea, some that have not seen the light.  All is
+under the law of their spoil and licence.  But princes that neglect
+their proper office thus their fortune is oftentimes to draw a
+Sejanus to be near about them, who at last affect to get above them,
+and put them in a worthy fear of rooting both them out and their
+family.  For no men hate an evil prince more than they that helped
+to make him such.  And none more boastingly weep his ruin than they
+that procured and practised it.  The same path leads to ruin which
+did to rule when men profess a licence in government.  A good king
+is a public servant.
+
+Illiteratus princeps.--A prince without letters is a pilot without
+eyes.  All his government is groping.  In sovereignty it is a most
+happy thing not to be compelled; but so it is the most miserable not
+to be counselled.  And how can he be counselled that cannot see to
+read the best counsellors (which are books), for they neither
+flatter us nor hide from us?  He may hear, you will say; but how
+shall he always be sure to hear truth, or be counselled the best
+things, not the sweetest?  They say princes learn no art truly but
+the art of horsemanship.  The reason is the brave beast is no
+flatterer.  He will throw a prince as soon as his groom.  Which is
+an argument that the good counsellors to princes are the best
+instruments of a good age.  For though the prince himself be of a
+most prompt inclination to all virtue, yet the best pilots have
+needs of mariners besides sails, anchor, and other tackle.
+
+Character principis.--Alexander magnus.--If men did know what
+shining fetters, gilded miseries, and painted happiness thrones and
+sceptres were there would not be so frequent strife about the
+getting or holding of them; there would be more principalities than
+princes; for a prince is the pastor of the people.  He ought to
+shear, not to flay his sheep; to take their fleeces, not their the
+soul of the commonwealth, and ought to cherish it as his own body.
+Alexander the Great was wont to say, "He hated that gardener that
+plucked his herbs or flowers up by the roots."  A man may milk a
+beast till the blood come; churn milk and it yieldeth butter, but
+wring the nose and the blood followeth.  He is an ill prince that so
+pulls his subjects' feathers as he would not have them grow again;
+that makes his exchequer a receipt for the spoils of those he
+governs.  No, let him keep his own, not affect his subjects'; strive
+rather to be called just than powerful.  Not, like the Roman
+tyrants, affect the surnames that grow by human slaughters; neither
+to seek war in peace, nor peace in war, but to observe faith given,
+though to an enemy.  Study piety toward the subject; show care to
+defend him.  Be slow to punish in divers cases, but be a sharp and
+severe revenger of open crimes.  Break no decrees or dissolve no
+orders to slacken the strength of laws.  Choose neither magistrates,
+civil or ecclesiastical, by favour or price; but with long
+disquisition and report of their worth by all suffrages.  Sell no
+honours, nor give them hastily, but bestow them with counsel and for
+reward; if he do, acknowledge it (though late), and mend it.  For
+princes are easy to be deceived; and what wisdom can escape where so
+many court-arts are studied?  But, above all, the prince is to
+remember that when the great day of account comes, which neither
+magistrate nor prince can shun, there will be required of him a
+reckoning for those whom he hath trusted, as for himself, which he
+must provide.  And if piety be wanting in the priests, equity in the
+judges, or the magistrates be found rated at a price, what justice
+or religion is to be expected? which are the only two attributes
+make kings akin to God, and is the Delphic sword, both to kill
+sacrifices and to chastise offenders.
+
+De gratiosis.--When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to
+his friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity.  Nay,
+his honours are a great part of the honour of the times; when by
+this means he is grown to active men an example, to the slothful a
+spur, to the envious a punishment.
+
+Divites.--Heredes ex asse.  He which is sole heir to many rich men,
+having (besides his father's and uncle's) the estates of divers his
+kindred come to him by accession, must needs be richer than father
+or grandfather; so they which are left heirs ex asse of all their
+ancestors' vices, and by their good husbandry improve the old and
+daily purchase new, must needs be wealthier in vice, and have a
+greater revenue or stock of ill to spend on.
+
+Fures publici.--The great thieves of a state are lightly the
+officers of the crown; they hang the less still, play the pikes in
+the pond, eat whom they list.  The net was never spread for the hawk
+or buzzard that hurt us, but the harmless birds; they are good
+meat:-
+
+
+"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas." {81a}
+"Non rete accipitri tenditur, neque milvio." {81b}
+
+
+Lewis XI.--But they are not always safe though, especially when they
+meet with wise masters.  They can take down all the huff and
+swelling of their looks, and like dexterous auditors place the
+counter where he shall value nothing.  Let them but remember Lewis
+XI., who to a Clerk of the Exchequer that came to be Lord Treasurer,
+and had (for his device) represented himself sitting on fortune's
+wheel, told him he might do well to fasten it with a good strong
+nail, lest, turning about, it might bring him where he was again.
+As indeed it did.
+
+De bonis et malis.--De innocentia.--A good man will avoid the spot
+of any sin.  The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose
+his way in his life as he would in his journey.  The ill man rides
+through all confidently; he is coated and booted for it.  The
+oftener he offends, the more openly, and the fouler, the fitter in
+fashion.  His modesty, like a riding-coat, the more it is worn is
+the less cared for.  It is good enough for the dirt still, and the
+ways he travels in.  An innocent man needs no eloquence, his
+innocence is instead of it, 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
+fair) 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 engineers 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 show--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 shown, 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 effoeminatis.--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; 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 vice and deformity so much the fouler, in having all
+the splendour of riches to gild them, or the false light of honour
+and power to help them.  Yet this is that wherewith the world is
+taken, and runs mad to gaze on--clothes and titles, the birdlime of
+fools.
+
+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, hobby-horses, 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 possessed 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 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 oughtest to be it with infamy; he that would have his
+virtue published is not the servant of virtue, but glory.
+
+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 enjoys the pleasure of
+sinning in beholding others sin, as in dining, drinking, drabbing,
+&c.  Nay, when it cannot do all these, it is offended with his own
+narrowness, that excludes it from the universal delights of mankind,
+and oftentimes dies of a melancholy, that it cannot be vicious
+enough.
+
+Falsae species fugiendae.--I am glad when I see any man avoid the
+infamy of a vice; but to shun the vice itself were better.  Till he
+do that he is but like the 'pientice, who, being loth to be spied by
+his master coming forth of Black Lucy's, went in again; to whom his
+master cried, "The more thou runnest that way to hide thyself, the
+more thou art in the place."  So are those that keep a tavern all
+day, that they may not be seen at night.  I have known lawyers,
+divines--yea, great ones--of this heresy.
+
+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 sorts 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 less the confident; among strangers we
+trust fortune.  Yet a man may live as renowned at home, in his own
+country, or a private village, as in the whole world.  For it is
+virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere.  It
+is only that can naturalise him.  A native, if he be vicious,
+deserves to be a stranger, and cast out of the commonwealth 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 pictura.--Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth and
+all the wisdom 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 it 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 than 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 line.
+
+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. picturae. {93}  Picture took her feigning from poetry;
+from geometry her rule, compass, lines, proportion, and the whole
+symmetry.  Parrhasius was the first won 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,
+light, and heightnings.  From moral philosophy it took the soul, the
+expression of 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 Chimaeras {94}
+(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. {95} The art plastic was
+moulding in clay, or potter's 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 lawgiver 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 excellent and emulous of the
+ancients--Raphael de Urbino, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, 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 inquire, and reprehend,
+and compound, and dilate 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 change 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 inquire 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
+oftentimes report the lies they have feigned for what they have seen
+and heard,
+
+Imo serviles.--These are called instruments of grace and power with
+great persons, but they are indeed the organs of their impotency,
+and marks of weakness.  For sufficient lords are able to make these
+discoveries themselves.  Neither will an honourable person inquire
+who eats and drinks together, what that man plays, whom this man
+loves, with whom such a one walks, what discourse they hold, 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-scouring
+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 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 I 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 is 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; but called on and
+allured, entreated and praised--yea, when he deserves it not.  For
+which cause I wish them sent to the best school, and a public, which
+I 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, whereas 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 common-wealth, 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.
+
+De stylo, et optimo scribendi genere.--For a man to write well,
+there are required three necessaries--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 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 conception of 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 showed 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 something like
+theirs, which hath an authority above their own.  Nay, sometimes it
+is the reward of a man's study, the praise of quoting another man
+fitly; and though a man be more prone and able for one kind of
+writing than another, yet he must exercise all.  For as in an
+instrument, so in style, there must be a harmony and consent of
+parts.
+
+Praecipiendi modi.--I take this labour in teaching others, that they
+should not be always to be taught, and I would bring my precepts
+into practice, for rules are ever of less force and value than
+experiments; yet with this purpose, rather to show the right way to
+those that come after, than to detect any that have slipped before
+by error, and I hope it will be more profitable.  For men do more
+willingly listen, and with more favour, to precept, than
+reprehension.  Among divers opinions of an art, and most of them
+contrary in themselves, it is hard to make election; and, therefore,
+though a man cannot invent new things after so many, he may do a
+welcome work yet to help posterity to judge rightly of the old.  But
+arts and precepts avail nothing, except Nature be beneficial and
+aiding.  And therefore these things are no more written to a dull
+disposition, than rules of husbandry to a soil.  No precepts will
+profit a fool, no more than beauty will the blind, or music the
+deaf.  As we should take care that our style in writing be neither
+dry nor empty, we should look again it be not winding, or wanton
+with far-fetched descriptions; either is a vice.  But that is worse
+which proceeds out of want, than that which riots out of plenty.
+The remedy of fruitfulness is easy, but no labour will help the
+contrary; I will like and praise some things in a young writer which
+yet, if he continue in, I cannot but justly hate him for the same.
+There is a time to be given all things for maturity, and that even
+your country husband-man can teach, who to a young plant will not
+put the pruning-knife, because it seems to fear the iron, as not
+able to admit the scar.  No more would I tell a green writer all his
+faults, lest I should make him grieve and faint, and at last
+despair; for nothing doth more hurt than to make him so afraid of
+all things as he can endeavour nothing.  Therefore youth ought to be
+instructed betimes, and in the best things; for we hold those
+longest we take soonest, as the first scent of a vessel lasts, and
+the tint the wool first receives; therefore a master should temper
+his own powers, and descend to the other's infirmity.  If you pour a
+glut of water upon a bottle, it receives little of it; but with a
+funnel, and by degrees, you shall fill many of them, and spill
+little of your own; to their capacity they will all receive and be
+full.  And as it is fit to read the best authors to youth first, so
+let them be of the openest and clearest. {106a}  As Livy before
+Sallust, Sidney before Donne; and beware of letting them taste Gower
+or Chaucer at first, lest, falling too much in love with antiquity,
+and not apprehending the weight, they grow rough and barren in
+language only.  When their judgments are firm, and out of danger,
+let them read both the old and the new; but no less take heed that
+their new flowers and sweetness do not as much corrupt as the
+others' dryness and squalor, if they choose not carefully.  Spenser,
+in affecting the ancients, writ no language; yet I would have him
+read for his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius.  The reading of
+Homer and Virgil is counselled by Quintilian as the best way of
+informing youth and confirming man.  For, besides that the mind is
+raised with the height and sublimity of such a verse, it takes
+spirit from the greatness of the matter, and is tinctured with the
+best things.  Tragic and lyric poetry is good, too, and comic with
+the best, if the manners of the reader be once in safety.  In the
+Greek poets, as also in Plautus, we shall see the economy and
+disposition of poems better observed than in Terence; and the
+latter, who thought the sole grace and virtue of their fable the
+sticking in of sentences, as ours do the forcing in of jests.
+
+Fals. querel. fugiend. Platonis peregrinatio in Italiam.--We should
+not protect our sloth with the patronage of difficulty.  It is a
+false quarrel against Nature, that she helps understanding but in a
+few, when the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if
+they would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run,
+&c., which if they lose, it is through their own sluggishness, and
+by that means become her prodigies, not her children.  I confess,
+Nature in children is more patient of labour in study than in age;
+for the sense of the pain, the judgment of the labour is absent;
+they do not measure what they have done.  And it is the thought and
+consideration that affects us more than the weariness itself.  Plato
+was not content with the learning that Athens could give him, but
+sailed into Italy, for Pythagoras' knowledge:  and yet not thinking
+himself sufficiently informed, went into Egypt, to the priests, and
+learned their mysteries.  He laboured, so must we.  Many things may
+be learned together, and performed in one point of time; as
+musicians exercise their memory, their voice, their fingers, and
+sometimes their head and feet at once.  And so a preacher, in the
+invention of matter, election of words, composition of gesture,
+look, pronunciation, motion, useth all these faculties at once:  and
+if we can express this variety together, why should not divers
+studies, at divers hours, delight, when the variety is able alone to
+refresh and repair us?  As, when a man is weary of writing, to read;
+and then again of reading, to write.  Wherein, howsoever we do many
+things, yet are we (in a sort) still fresh to what we begin; we are
+recreated with change, as the stomach is with meats.  But some will
+say this variety breeds confusion, and makes, that either we lose
+all, or hold no more than the last.  Why do we not then persuade
+husbandmen that they should not till land, help it with marl, lime,
+and compost? plant hop-gardens, prune trees, look to bee-hives, rear
+sheep, and all other cattle at once?  It is easier to do many things
+and continue, than to do one thing long.
+
+Praecept. element.--It is not the passing through these learnings
+that hurts us, but the dwelling and sticking about them.  To descend
+to those extreme anxieties and foolish cavils of grammarians, is
+able to break a wit in pieces, being a work of manifold misery and
+vainness, to be elementarii senes.  Yet even letters are, as it
+were, the bank of words, and restore themselves to an author as the
+pawns of language:  but talking and eloquence are not the same:  to
+speak, and to speak well, are two things.  A fool may talk, but a
+wise man speaks; and out of the observation, knowledge, and the use
+of things, many writers perplex their readers and hearers with mere
+nonsense.  Their writings need sunshine.  Pure and neat language I
+love, yet plain and customary.  A barbarous phrase has often made me
+out of love with a good sense, and doubtful writing hath wracked me
+beyond my patience.  The reason why a poet is said that he ought to
+have all knowledges is, that he should not be ignorant of the most,
+especially of those he will handle.  And indeed, when the attaining
+of them is possible, it were a sluggish and base thing to despair;
+for frequent imitation of anything becomes a habit quickly.  If a
+man should prosecute as much as could be said of everything, his
+work would find no end.
+
+De orationis dignitate.  [Greek text].--Metaphora.  Speech is the
+only benefit man hath to express his excellency of mind above other
+creatures.  It is the instrument of society; therefore Mercury, who
+is the president of language, is called deorum hominumque interpres.
+{110a}  In all speech, words and sense are as the body and the soul.
+The sense is as the life and soul of language, without which all
+words are dead.  Sense is wrought out of experience, the knowledge
+of human life and actions, or of the liberal arts, which the Greeks
+called [Greek text].  Words are the people's, yet there is a choice
+of them to be made; for verborum delectus origo est eloquentiae.
+{111a}  They are to be chosen according to the persons we make
+speak, or the things we speak of.  Some are of the camp, some of the
+council-board, some of the shop, some of the sheepcote, some of the
+pulpit, some of the Bar, &c.  And herein is seen their elegance and
+propriety, when we use them fitly and draw them forth to their just
+strength and nature by way of translation or metaphor.  But in this
+translation we must only serve necessity (nam temere nihil
+transfertur a prudenti) {111b} or commodity, which is a kind of
+necessity:  that is, when we either absolutely want a word to
+express by, and that is necessity; or when we have not so fit a
+word, and that is commodity; as when we avoid loss by it, and escape
+obsceneness, and gain in the grace and property which helps
+significance.  Metaphors far-fetched hinder to be understood; and
+affected, lose their grace.  Or when the person fetcheth his
+translations from a wrong place as if a privy councillor should at
+the table take his metaphor from a dicing-house, or ordinary, or a
+vintner's vault; or a justice of peace draw his similitudes from the
+mathematics, or a divine from a bawdy house, or taverns; or a
+gentleman of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, or the Midland, should
+fetch all the illustrations to his country neighbours from shipping,
+and tell them of the main-sheet and the bowline.  Metaphors are thus
+many times deformed, as in him that said, Castratam morte Africani
+rempublicam; and another, Stercus curiae Glauciam, and Cana nive
+conspuit Alpes.  All attempts that are new in this kind, are
+dangerous, and somewhat hard, before they be softened with use.  A
+man coins not a new word without some peril and less fruit; for if
+it happen to be received, the praise is but moderate; if refused,
+the scorn is assured.  Yet we must adventure; for things at first
+hard and rough are by use made tender and gentle.  It is an honest
+error that is committed, following great chiefs.
+
+Consuetudo.--Perspicuitas, Venustas.--Authoritas.--Virgil.--
+Lucretius.--Chaucerism.--Paronomasia.--Custom is the most certain
+mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money.
+But we must not be too frequent with the mint, every day coining,
+nor fetch words from the extreme and utmost ages; since the chief
+virtue of a style is perspicuity, and nothing so vicious in it as to
+need an interpreter.  Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of
+majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes; for
+they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do
+win themselves a kind of grace like newness.  But the eldest of the
+present, and newness of the past language, is the best.  For what
+was the ancient language, which some men so dote upon, but the
+ancient custom?  Yet when I name custom, I understand not the vulgar
+custom; for that were a precept no less dangerous to language than
+life, if we should speak or live after the manners of the vulgar:
+but that I call custom of speech, which is the consent of the
+learned; as custom of life, which is the consent of the good.
+Virgil was most loving of antiquity; yet how rarely doth he insert
+aquai and pictai!  Lucretius is scabrous and rough in these; he
+seeks them:  as some do Chaucerisms with us, which were better
+expunged and banished.  Some words are to be culled out for ornament
+and colour, as we gather flowers to strew houses or make garlands;
+but they are better when they grow to our style; as in a meadow,
+where, though the mere grass and greenness delight, yet the variety
+of flowers doth heighten and beautify.  Marry, we must not play or
+riot too much with them, as in Paronomasies; nor use too swelling or
+ill-sounding words!  Quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt. {114a}
+It is true, there is no sound but shall find some lovers, as the
+bitterest confections are grateful to some palates.  Our composition
+must be more accurate in the beginning and end than in the midst,
+and in the end more than in the beginning; for through the midst the
+stream bears us.  And this is attained by custom, more than care of
+diligence.  We must express readily and fully, not profusely.  There
+is difference between a liberal and prodigal hand.  As it is a great
+point of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer out
+all sail, so to take it in and contract it, is of no less praise,
+when the argument doth ask it.  Either of them hath their fitness in
+the place.  A good man always profits by his endeavour, by his help,
+yea, when he is absent; nay, when he is dead, by his example and
+memory.  So good authors in their style:  a strict and succinct
+style is that where you can take away nothing without loss, and that
+loss to be manifest.
+
+De Stylo.--Tracitus.--The Laconic.--Suetonius.--Seneca and
+Fabianus.--The brief style is that which expresseth much in little;
+the concise style, which expresseth not enough, but leaves somewhat
+to be understood; the abrupt style, which hath many breaches, and
+doth not seem to end, but fall.  The congruent and harmonious
+fitting of parts in a sentence hath almost the fastening and force
+of knitting and connection; as in stones well squared, which will
+rise strong a great way without mortar.
+
+Periodi.--Obscuritas offundit tenebras.--Superlatio.--Periods are
+beautiful when they are not too long; for so they have their
+strength too, as in a pike or javelin.  As we must take the care
+that our words and sense be clear, so if the obscurity happen
+through the hearer's or reader's want of understanding, I am not to
+answer for them, no more than for their not listening or marking; I
+must neither find them ears nor mind.  But a man cannot put a word
+so in sense but something about it will illustrate it, if the writer
+understand himself; for order helps much to perspicuity, as
+confusion hurts.  (Rectitudo lucem adfert; obliquitas et
+circumductio offuscat. {116a})  We should therefore speak what we
+can the nearest way, so as we keep our gait, not leap; for too short
+may as well be not let into the memory, as too long not kept in.
+Whatsoever loseth the grace and clearness, converts into a riddle;
+the obscurity is marked, but not the value.  That perisheth, and is
+passed by, like the pearl in the fable.  Our style should be like a
+skein of silk, to be carried and found by the right thread, not
+ravelled and perplexed; then all is a knot, a heap.  There are words
+that do as much raise a style as others can depress it.  Superlation
+and over-muchness amplifies; it may be above faith, but never above
+a mean.  It was ridiculous in Cestius, when he said of Alexander:
+
+
+"Fremit oceanus, quasi indignetur, quod terras relinquas." {117a}
+
+
+But propitiously from Virgil:
+
+
+"Credas innare revulsas
+Cycladas." {117b}
+
+
+He doth not say it was so, but seemed to be so.  Although it be
+somewhat incredible, that is excused before it be spoken.  But there
+are hyperboles which will become one language, that will by no means
+admit another.  As Eos esse P. R. exercitus, qui caelum possint
+perrumpere, {118a} who would say with us, but a madman?  Therefore
+we must consider in every tongue what is used, what received.
+Quintilian warns us, that in no kind of translation, or metaphor, or
+allegory, we make a turn from what we began; as if we fetch the
+original of our metaphor from sea and billows, we end not in flames
+and ashes:  it is a most foul inconsequence.  Neither must we draw
+out our allegory too long, lest either we make ourselves obscure, or
+fall into affectation, which is childish.  But why do men depart at
+all from the right and natural ways of speaking? sometimes for
+necessity, when we are driven, or think it fitter, to speak that in
+obscure words, or by circumstance, which uttered plainly would
+offend the hearers.  Or to avoid obsceneness, or sometimes for
+pleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawn
+either by the commodity of a footpath, or the delicacy or freshness
+of the fields.  And all this is called [Greek text] or figured
+language.
+
+Oratio imago animi.--Language most shows a man:  Speak, that I may
+see thee.  It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of
+us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind.  No glass
+renders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech.  Nay, it is
+likened to a man; and as we consider feature and composition in a
+man, so words in language; in the greatness, aptness, sound
+structure, and harmony of it.
+
+Structura et statura, sublimis, humilis, pumila.--Some men are tall
+and big, so some language is high and great.  Then the words are
+chosen, their sound ample, the composition full, the absolution
+plenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy, and strong.  Some are
+little and dwarfs; so of speech, it is humble and low, the words
+poor and flat, the members and periods thin and weak, without
+knitting or number.
+
+Mediocris plana et placida.--The middle are of a just stature.
+There the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping,
+round without swelling:  all well-turned, composed, elegant, and
+accurate.
+
+Vitiosa oratio, vasta--tumens--enormis--affectata--abjecta.--The
+vicious language is vast and gaping, swelling and irregular:  when
+it contends to be high, full of rock, mountain, and pointedness; as
+it affects to be low, it is abject, and creeps, full of bogs and
+holes.  And according to their subject these styles vary, and lose
+their names:  for that which is high and lofty, declaring excellent
+matter, becomes vast and tumorous, speaking of petty and inferior
+things; so that which was even and apt in a mean and plain subject,
+will appear most poor and humble in a high argument.  Would you not
+laugh to meet a great councillor of State in a flat cap, with his
+trunk hose, and a hobbyhorse cloak, his gloves under his girdle, and
+yond haberdasher in a velvet gown, furred with sables?  There is a
+certain latitude in these things, by which we find the degrees.
+
+Figura.--The next thing to the stature, is the figure and feature in
+language--that is, whether it be round and straight, which consists
+of short and succinct periods, numerous and polished; or square and
+firm, which is to have equal and strong parts everywhere answerable,
+and weighed.
+
+Cutis sive cortex.  Compositio.--The third is the skin and coat,
+which rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation of
+words; whenas it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table upon
+which you may run your finger without rubs, and your nail cannot
+find a joint; not horrid, rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapped:
+after these, the flesh, blood, and bones come in question.
+
+Carnosa--adipata--redundans.--We say it is a fleshy style, when
+there is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with more
+than enough, it grows fat and corpulent:  arvina orationis, full of
+suet and tallow.  It hath blood and juice when the words are proper
+and apt, their sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked--oratio
+uncta, et bene pasta.  But where there is redundancy, both the blood
+and juice are faulty and vicious:- Redundat sanguine, quia multo
+plus dicit, quam necesse est.  Juice in language is somewhat less
+than blood; for if the words be but becoming and signifying, and the
+sense gentle, there is juice; but where that wanteth, the language
+is thin, flagging, poor, starved, scarce covering the bone, and
+shows like stones in a sack.
+
+Jejuna, macilenta, strigosa.--Ossea, et nervosa.--Some men, to avoid
+redundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no ill
+blood or juice, they lose their good.  There be some styles, again,
+that have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence.  These are
+bony and sinewy; Ossa habent, et nervos.
+
+Notae domini Sti. Albani de doctrin. intemper.--Dictator.--
+Aristoteles.--It was well noted by the late Lord St. Albans, that
+the study of words is the first distemper of learning; vain matter
+the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness of
+truth:  imposture held up by credulity.  All these are the cobwebs
+of learning, and to let them grow in us is either sluttish or
+foolish.  Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a
+dictator, as the schools have done Aristotle.  The damage is
+infinite knowledge receives by it; for to many things a man should
+owe but a temporary belief, and suspension of his own judgment, not
+an absolute resignation of himself, or a perpetual captivity.  Let
+Aristotle and others have their dues; but if we can make farther
+discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why are we envied?  Let
+us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish or deface; we
+may improve, but not augment.  By discrediting falsehood, truth
+grows in request.  We must not go about, like men anguished and
+perplexed, for vicious affectation of praise, but calmly study the
+separation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awake
+antiquity, call former times into question; but make no parties with
+the present, nor follow any fierce undertakers, mingle no matter of
+doubtful credit with the simplicity of truth, but gently stir the
+mould about the root of the question, and avoid all digladiations,
+facility of credit, or superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancy
+and concatenation of truth; stoop only to point of necessity, and
+what leads to convenience.  Then make exact animadversion where
+style hath degenerated, where flourished and thrived in choiceness
+of phrase, round and clean composition of sentence, sweet falling of
+the clause, varying an illustration by tropes and figures, weight of
+matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention,
+and depth of judgment.  This is monte potiri, to get the hill; for
+no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level.
+
+De optimo scriptore.--Cicero.--Now that I have informed you in the
+knowing of these things, let me lead you by the hand a little
+farther, in the direction of the use, and make you an able writer by
+practice.  The conceits of the mind are pictures of things, and the
+tongue is the interpreter of those pictures.  The order of God's
+creatures in themselves is not only admirable and glorious, but
+eloquent:  then he who could apprehend the consequence of things in
+their truth, and utter his apprehensions as truly, were the best
+writer or speaker.  Therefore Cicero said much, when he said, Dicere
+recte nemo potest, nisi qui prudenter intelligit. {124a}  The shame
+of speaking unskilfully were small if the tongue only thereby were
+disgraced; but as the image of a king in his seal ill-represented is
+not so much a blemish to the wax, or the signet that sealed it, as
+to the prince it representeth, so disordered speech is not so much
+injury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion and
+incoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed.
+Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune, whose words do jar;
+nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is preposterous; nor his
+elocution clear and perfect, whose utterance breaks itself into
+fragments and uncertainties.  Were it not a dishonour to a mighty
+prince, to have the majesty of his embassage spoiled by a careless
+ambassador? and is it not as great an indignity, that an excellent
+conceit and capacity, by the indiligence of an idle tongue, should
+be disgraced?  Negligent speech doth not only discredit the person
+of the speaker, but it discrediteth the opinion of his reason and
+judgment; it discrediteth the force and uniformity of the matter and
+substance.  If it be so then in words, which fly and escape censure,
+and where one good phrase begs pardon for many incongruities and
+faults, how shall he then be thought wise whose penning is thin and
+shallow? how shall you look for wit from him whose leisure and head,
+assisted with the examination of his eyes, yield you no life or
+sharpness in his writing?
+
+De stylo epistolari.--Inventio.--In writing there is to be regarded
+the invention and the fashion.  For the invention, that ariseth upon
+your business, whereof there can be no rules of more certainty, or
+precepts of better direction given, than conjecture can lay down
+from the several occasions of men's particular lives and vocations:
+but sometimes men make baseness of kindness:  As "I could not
+satisfy myself till I had discharged my remembrance, and charged my
+letters with commendation to you;" or, "My business is no other than
+to testify my love to you, and to put you in mind of my willingness
+to do you all kind offices;" or, "Sir, have you leisure to descend
+to the remembering of that assurance you have long possessed in your
+servant, and upon your next opportunity make him happy with some
+commands from you?" or the like; that go a-begging for some meaning,
+and labour to be delivered of the great burden of nothing.  When you
+have invented, and that your business be matter, and not bare form,
+or mere ceremony, but some earnest, then are you to proceed to the
+ordering of it, and digesting the parts, which is had out of two
+circumstances.  One is the understanding of the persons to whom you
+are to write; the other is the coherence of your sentence; for men's
+capacity to weigh what will be apprehended with greatest attention
+or leisure; what next regarded and longed for especially, and what
+last will leave satisfaction, and (as it were) the sweetest memorial
+and belief of all that is passed in his understanding whom you write
+to.  For the consequence of sentences, you must be sure that every
+clause do give the cue one to the other, and be bespoken ere it
+come.  So much for invention and order.
+
+Modus.--1.  Brevitas.--Now for fashion:  it consists in four things,
+which are qualities of your style.  The first is brevity; for they
+must not be treatises or discourses (your letters) except it be to
+learned men.  And even among them there is a kind of thrift and
+saving of words.  Therefore you are to examine the clearest passages
+of your understanding, and through them to convey the sweetest and
+most significant words you can devise, that you may the easier teach
+them the readiest way to another man's apprehension, and open their
+meaning fully, roundly, and distinctly, so as the reader may not
+think a second view cast away upon your letter.  And though respect
+be a part following this, yet now here, and still I must remember
+it, if you write to a man, whose estate and sense, as senses, you
+are familiar with, you may the bolder (to set a task to his brain)
+venture on a knot.  But if to your superior, you are bound to
+measure him in three farther points:  first, with interest in him;
+secondly, his capacity in your letters; thirdly, his leisure to
+peruse them.  For your interest or favour with him, you are to be
+the shorter or longer, more familiar or submiss, as he will afford
+you time.  For his capacity, you are to be quicker and fuller of
+those reaches and glances of wit or learning, as he is able to
+entertain them.  For his leisure, you are commanded to the greater
+briefness, as his place is of greater discharges and cares.  But
+with your betters, you are not to put riddles of wit, by being too
+scarce of words; not to cause the trouble of making breviates by
+writing too riotous and wastingly.  Brevity is attained in matter by
+avoiding idle compliments, prefaces, protestations, parentheses,
+superfluous circuit of figures and digressions:  in the composition,
+by omitting conjunctions [not only, but also; both the one and the
+other, whereby it cometh to pass] and such like idle particles, that
+have no great business in a serious letter but breaking of
+sentences, as oftentimes a short journey is made long by unnessary
+baits.
+
+Quintilian.--But, as Quintilian saith, there is a briefness of the
+parts sometimes that makes the whole long:  "As I came to the
+stairs, I took a pair of oars, they launched out, rowed apace, I
+landed at the court gate, I paid my fare, went up to the presence,
+asked for my lord, I was admitted."  All this is but, "I went to the
+court and spake with my lord."  This is the fault of some Latin
+writers within these last hundred years of my reading, and perhaps
+Seneca may be appeached of it; I accuse him not.
+
+2.  Perspicuitas.--The next property of epistolary style is
+perspicuity, and is oftentimes by affectation of some wit ill angled
+for, or ostentation of some hidden terms of art.  Few words they
+darken speech, and so do too many; as well too much light hurteth
+the eyes, as too little; and a long bill of chancery confounds the
+understanding as much as the shortest note; therefore, let not your
+letters be penned like English statutes, and this is obtained.
+These vices are eschewed by pondering your business well and
+distinctly concerning yourself, which is much furthered by uttering
+your thoughts, and letting them as well come forth to the light and
+judgment of your own outward senses as to the censure of other men's
+ears; for that is the reason why many good scholars speak but
+fumblingly; like a rich man, that for want of particular note and
+difference can bring you no certain ware readily out of his shop.
+Hence it is that talkative shallow men do often content the hearers
+more than the wise.  But this may find a speedier redress in
+writing, where all comes under the last examination of the eyes.
+First, mind it well, then pen it, then examine it, then amend it,
+and you may be in the better hope of doing reasonably well.  Under
+this virtue may come plainness, which is not to be curious in the
+order as to answer a letter, as if you were to answer to
+interrogatories.  As to the first, first; and to the second,
+secondly, &c. but both in method to use (as ladies do in their
+attire) a diligent kind of negligence, and their sportive freedom;
+though with some men you are not to jest, or practise tricks; yet
+the delivery of the most important things may be carried with such a
+grace, as that it may yield a pleasure to the conceit of the reader.
+There must be store, though no excess of terms; as if you are to
+name store, sometimes you may call it choice, sometimes plenty,
+sometimes copiousness, or variety; but ever so, that the word which
+comes in lieu have not such difference of meaning as that it may put
+the sense of the first in hazard to be mistaken.  You are not to
+cast a ring for the perfumed terms of the time, as accommodation,
+complement, spirit &c., but use them properly in their place, as
+others.
+
+3.  Vigor--There followeth life and quickness, which is the strength
+and sinews, as it were, of your penning by pretty sayings,
+similitudes, and conceits; allusions from known history, or other
+common-place, such as are in the Courtier, and the second book of
+Cicero De Oratore.
+
+4.  Discretio.--The last is, respect to discern what fits yourself,
+him to whom you write, and that which you handle, which is a quality
+fit to conclude the rest, because it doth include all.  And that
+must proceed from ripeness of judgment, which, as one truly saith,
+is gotten by four means, God, nature, diligence, and conversation.
+Serve the first well, and the rest will serve you.
+
+De Poetica.--We have spoken sufficiently of oratory, let us now make
+a diversion to poetry.  Poetry, in the primogeniture, had many
+peccant humours, and is made to have more now, through the levity
+and inconstancy of men's judgments.  Whereas, indeed, it is the most
+prevailing eloquence, and of the most exalted caract.  Now the
+discredits and disgraces are many it hath received through men's
+study of depravation or calumny; their practice being to give it
+diminution of credit, by lessening the professor's estimation, and
+making the age afraid of their liberty; and the age is grown so
+tender of her fame, as she calls all writings aspersions.
+
+That is the state word, the phrase of court (placentia college),
+which some call Parasites place, the Inn of Ignorance.
+
+D. Hieronymus.--Whilst I name no persons, but deride follies, why
+should any man confess or betray himself why doth not that of S.
+Hierome come into their mind, Ubi generalis est de vitiis
+disputatio, ibi nullius esse personae injuriam? {133a}  Is it such
+an inexpiable crime in poets to tax vices generally, and no offence
+in them, who, by their exception confess they have committed them
+particularly?  Are we fallen into those times that we must not -
+
+
+"Auriculas teneras mordaci rodere vero." {133b}
+
+
+Remedii votum semper verius erat, quam spes. {133c}--Sexus faemin.--
+If men may by no means write freely, or speak truth, but when it
+offends not, why do physicians cure with sharp medicines, or
+corrosives? is not the same equally lawful in the cure of the mind
+that is in the cure of the body?  Some vices, you will say, are so
+foul that it is better they should be done than spoken.  But they
+that take offence where no name, character, or signature doth blazon
+them seem to me like affected as women, who if they hear anything
+ill spoken of the ill of their sex, are presently moved, as if the
+contumely respected their particular; and on the contrary, when they
+hear good of good women, conclude that it belongs to them all.  If I
+see anything that toucheth me, shall I come forth a betrayer of
+myself presently?  No, if I be wise, I'll dissemble it; if honest,
+I'll avoid it, lest I publish that on my own forehead which I saw
+there noted without a title.  A man that is on the mending hand will
+either ingenuously confess or wisely dissemble his disease.  And the
+wise and virtuous will never think anything belongs to themselves
+that is written, but rejoice that the good are warned not to be
+such; and the ill to leave to be such.  The person offended hath no
+reason to be offended with the writer, but with himself; and so to
+declare that properly to belong to him which was so spoken of all
+men, as it could be no man's several, but his that would wilfully
+and desperately claim it.  It sufficeth I know what kind of persons
+I displease, men bred in the declining and decay of virtue,
+betrothed to their own vices; that have abandoned or prostituted
+their good names; hungry and ambitious of infamy, invested in all
+deformity, enthralled to ignorance and malice, of a hidden and
+concealed malignity, and that hold a concomitancy with all evil.
+
+
+What is a Poet?
+
+
+Poeta.--A poet is that which by the Greeks is called [Greek text], a
+maker, or a feigner:  his art, an art of imitation or feigning;
+expressing the life of man in fit measure, numbers, and harmony,
+according to Aristotle; from the word [Greek text], which signifies
+to make or feign.  Hence he is called a poet, not he which writeth
+in measure only, but that feigneth and formeth a fable, and writes
+things like the truth.  For the fable and fiction is, as it were,
+the form and soul of any poetical work or poem.
+
+
+What mean, you by a Poem?
+
+
+Poema.--A poem is not alone any work or composition of the poet's in
+many or few verses; but even one verse alone sometimes makes a
+perfect poem.  As when AEneas hangs up and consecrates the arms of
+Abas with this inscription:-
+
+
+"AEneas haec de Danais victoribus arma." {136a}
+
+
+And calls it a poem or carmen.  Such are those in Martial:-
+
+
+"Omnia, Castor, emis:  sic fiet, ut omnia vendas." {136b}
+
+
+And -
+
+
+"Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper." {136c}
+
+
+Horatius.--Lucretius.--So were Horace's odes called Carmina, his
+lyric songs.  And Lucretius designs a whole book in his sixth:-
+
+
+"Quod in primo quoque carmine claret." {136d}
+
+
+Epicum.--Dramaticum.--Lyricum.--Elegiacum.--Epigrammat.--And
+anciently all the oracles were called Carmina; or whatever sentence
+was expressed, were it much or little, it was called an Epic,
+Dramatic, Lyric, Elegiac, or Epigrammatic poem.
+
+
+But how differs a Poem from what we call Poesy?
+
+
+Poesis.--Artium regina.--Poet. differentiae.--Grammatic.--Logic.--
+Rhetoric.--Ethica.--A poem, as I have told you, is the work of the
+poet; the end and fruit of his labour and study.  Poesy is his skill
+or craft of making; the very fiction itself, the reason or form of
+the work.  And these three voices differ, as the thing done, the
+doing, and the doer; the thing feigned, the feigning, and the
+feigner; so the poem, the poesy, and the poet.  Now the poesy is the
+habit or the art; nay, rather the queen of arts, which had her
+original from heaven, received thence from the Hebrews, and had in
+prime estimation with the Greeks transmitted to the Latins and all
+nations that professed civility.  The study of it (if we will trust
+Aristotle) offers to mankind a certain rule and pattern of living
+well and happily, disposing us to all civil offices of society.  If
+we will believe Tully, it nourisheth and instructeth our youth,
+delights our age, adorns our prosperity, comforts our adversity,
+entertains us at home, keeps us company abroad, travels with us,
+watches, divides the times of our earnest and sports, shares in our
+country recesses and recreations; insomuch as the wisest and best
+learned have thought her the absolute mistress of manners and
+nearest of kin to virtue.  And whereas they entitle philosophy to be
+a rigid and austere poesy, they have, on the contrary, styled poesy
+a dulcet and gentle philosophy, which leads on and guides us by the
+hand to action with a ravishing delight and incredible sweetness.
+But before we handle the kinds of poems, with their special
+differences, or make court to the art itself, as a mistress, I would
+lead you to the knowledge of our poet by a perfect information what
+he is or should be by nature, by exercise, by imitation, by study,
+and so bring him down through the disciplines of grammar, logic,
+rhetoric, and the ethics, adding somewhat out of all, peculiar to
+himself, and worthy of your admittance or reception.
+
+1.  Ingenium.--Seneca.--Plato.--Aristotle.--Helicon.--Pegasus.--
+Parnassus.--Ovid.--First, we require in our poet or maker (for that
+title our language affords him elegantly with the Greek) a goodness
+of natural wit.  For whereas all other arts consist of doctrine and
+precepts, the poet must be able by nature and instinct to pour out
+the treasure of his mind, and as Seneca saith, Aliquando secundum
+Anacreontem insanire jucundum esse; by which he understands the
+poetical rapture.  And according to that of Plato, Frustra poeticas
+fores sui compos pulsavit.  And of Aristotle, Nullum magnum ingenium
+sine mixtura dementiae fuit.  Nec potest grande aliquid, et supra
+caeteros loqui, nisi mota mens.  Then it riseth higher, as by a
+divine instinct, when it contemns common and known conceptions.  It
+utters somewhat above a mortal mouth.  Then it gets aloft and flies
+away with his rider, whither before it was doubtful to ascend.  This
+the poets understood by their Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus; and
+this made Ovid to boast,
+
+
+"Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo
+Sedibus aethereis spiritus ille venit." {139a}
+
+
+Lipsius.--Petron. in. Fragm.--And Lipsius to affirm, Scio, poetam
+neminem praestantem fuisse, sine parte quadam uberiore divinae
+aurae.  And hence it is that the coming up of good poets (for I mind
+not mediocres or imos) is so thin and rare among us.  Every beggarly
+corporation affords the State a mayor or two bailiffs yearly; but
+Solus rex, aut poeta, non quotannis nascitur.  To this perfection of
+nature in our poet we require exercise of those parts, and frequent.
+
+2.  Exercitatio.--Virgil.--Scaliger.--Valer. Maximus.--Euripides.--
+Alcestis.--If his wit will not arrive suddenly at the dignity of the
+ancients, let him not yet fall out with it, quarrel, or be over
+hastily angry; offer to turn it away from study in a humour, but
+come to it again upon better cogitation; try another time with
+labour.  If then it succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, nor
+scratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to the
+forge and file again; torn it anew.  There is no statute law of the
+kingdom bids you be a poet against your will or the first quarter;
+if it comes in a year or two, it is well.  The common rhymers pour
+forth verses, such as they are, ex tempore; but there never comes
+from them one sense worth the life of a day.  A rhymer and a poet
+are two things.  It is said of the incomparable Virgil that he
+brought forth his verses like a bear, and after formed them with
+licking.  Scaliger the father writes it of him, that he made a
+quantity of verses in the morning, which afore night he reduced to a
+less number.  But that which Valerius Maximus hath left recorded of
+Euripides, the tragic poet, his answer to Alcestis, another poet, is
+as memorable as modest; who, when it was told to Alcestis that
+Euripides had in three days brought forth but three verses, and
+those with some difficulty and throes, Alcestis, glorying he could
+with ease have sent forth a hundred in the space, Euripides roundly
+replied, "Like enough; but here is the difference:  thy verses will
+not last these three days, mine will to all time."  Which was as
+much as to tell him he could not write a verse.  I have met many of
+these rattles that made a noise and buzzed.  They had their hum, and
+no more.  Indeed, things wrote with labour deserve to be so read,
+and will last their age.
+
+3.  Imitatio.--Horatius.--Virgil.--Statius.--Homer.--Horat.--
+Archil.--Alcaeus, &c.--The third requisite in our poet or maker is
+imitation, to be able to convert the substance or riches of another
+poet to his own use.  To make choice of one excellent man above the
+rest, and so to follow him till he grow very he, or so like him as
+the copy may be mistaken for the principal.  Not as a creature that
+swallows what it takes in crude, raw, or undigested, but that feeds
+with an appetite, and hath a stomach to concoct, divide, and turn
+all into nourishment.  Not to imitate servilely, as Horace saith,
+and catch at vices for virtue, but to draw forth out of the best and
+choicest flowers, with the bee, and turn all into honey, work it
+into one relish and savour; make our imitation sweet; observe how
+the best writers have imitated, and follow them.  How Virgil and
+Statius have imitated Homer; how Horace, Archilochus; how Alcaeus,
+and the other lyrics; and so of the rest.
+
+4.  Lectio.--Parnassus.--Helicon.--Arscoron.--M. T. Cicero.--
+Simylus.--Stob.--Horat.--Aristot.--But that which we especially
+require in him is an exactness of study and multiplicity of reading,
+which maketh a full man, not alone enabling him to know the history
+or argument of a poem and to report it, but so to master the matter
+and style, as to show he knows how to handle, place, or dispose of
+either with elegancy when need shall be.  And not think he can leap
+forth suddenly a poet by dreaming he hath been in Parnassus, or
+having washed his lips, as they say, in Helicon.  There goes more to
+his making than so; for to nature, exercise, imitation, and study
+art must be added to make all these perfect.  And though these
+challenge to themselves much in the making up of our maker, it is
+Art only can lead him to perfection, and leave him there in
+possession, as planted by her hand.  It is the assertion of Tully,
+if to an excellent nature there happen an accession or conformation
+of learning and discipline, there will then remain somewhat noble
+and singular.  For, as Simylus saith in Stobaeus, [Greek text],
+without art nature can never be perfect; and without nature art can
+claim no being.  But our poet must beware that his study be not only
+to learn of himself; for he that shall affect to do that confesseth
+his ever having a fool to his master.  He must read many, but ever
+the best and choicest; those that can teach him anything he must
+ever account his masters, and reverence.  Among whom Horace and (he
+that taught him) Aristotle deserved to be the first in estimation.
+Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge--nay, the
+greatest philosopher the world ever had--for he noted the vices of
+all knowledges in all creatures, and out of many men's perfections
+in a science he formed still one art.  So he taught us two offices
+together, how we ought to judge rightly of others, and what we ought
+to imitate specially in ourselves.  But all this in vain without a
+natural wit and a poetical nature in chief.  For no man, so soon as
+he knows this or reads it, shall be able to write the better; but as
+he is adapted to it by nature, he shall grow the perfecter writer.
+He must have civil prudence and eloquence, and that whole; not taken
+up by snatches or pieces in sentences or remnants when he will
+handle business or carry counsels, as if he came then out of the
+declaimer's gallery, or shadow furnished but out of the body of the
+State, which commonly is the school of men.
+
+Virorum schola respub.--Lysippus.--Apelles.--Naevius.--The poet is
+the nearest borderer upon the orator, and expresseth all his
+virtues, though he be tied more to numbers, is his equal in
+ornament, and above him in his strengths.  And (of the kind) the
+comic comes nearest; because in moving the minds of men, and
+stirring of affections (in which oratory shows, and especially
+approves her eminence), he chiefly excels.  What figure of a body
+was Lysippus ever able to form with his graver, or Apelles to paint
+with his pencil, as the comedy to life expresseth so many and
+various affections of the mind?  There shall the spectator see some
+insulting with joy, others fretting with melancholy, raging with
+anger, mad with love, boiling with avarice, undone with riot,
+tortured with expectation, consumed with fear; no perturbation in
+common life but the orator finds an example of it in the scene.  And
+then for the elegancy of language, read but this inscription on the
+grave of a comic poet:
+
+
+"Immortales mortales si fas esset fiere,
+Flerent divae Camoenae Naevium poetam;
+Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro,
+Obliti sunt Romae lingua loqui Latina." {146a}
+
+
+L. AElius Stilo.--Plautus.--M. Varro.--Or that modester testimony
+given by Lucius AElius Stilo upon Plautus, who affirmed, "Musas, si
+Latine loqui voluissent, Plautino sermone fuisse loquuturas."  And
+that illustrious judgment by the most learned M. Varro of him, who
+pronounced him the prince of letters and elegancy in the Roman
+language.
+
+Sophocles.--I am not of that opinion to conclude a poet's liberty
+within the narrow limits of laws which either the grammarians or
+philosophers prescribe.  For before they found out those laws there
+were many excellent poets that fulfilled them, amongst whom none
+more perfect than Sophocles, who lived a little before Aristotle.
+
+Demosthenes.--Pericles.--Alcibiades.--Which of the Greeklings durst
+ever give precepts to Demosthenes? or to Pericles, whom the age
+surnamed Heavenly, because he seemed to thunder and lighten with his
+language? or to Alcibiades, who had rather Nature for his guide than
+Art for his master?
+
+Aristotle.--But whatsoever nature at any time dictated to the most
+happy, or long exercise to the most laborious, that the wisdom and
+learning of Aristotle hath brought into an art, because he
+understood the causes of things; and what other men did by chance or
+custom he doth by reason; and not only found out the way not to err,
+but the short way we should take not to err.
+
+Euripides.--Aristophanes.--Many things in Euripides hath
+Aristophanes wittily reprehended, not out of art, but out of truth.
+For Euripides is sometimes peccant, as he is most times perfect.
+But judgment when it is greatest, if reason doth not accompany it,
+is not ever absolute.
+
+Cens. Scal. in Lil. Germ.--Horace.--To judge of poets is only the
+faculty of poets; and not of all poets, but the best.  Nemo
+infelicius de poetis judicavit, quam qui de poetis scripsit. {148a}
+But some will say critics are a kind of tinkers, that make more
+faults than they mend ordinarily.  See their diseases and those of
+grammarians.  It is true, many bodies are the worse for the meddling
+with; and the multitude of physicians hath destroyed many sound
+patients with their wrong practice.  But the office of a true critic
+or censor is, not to throw by a letter anywhere, or damn an innocent
+syllable, but lay the words together, and amend them; judge
+sincerely of the author and his matter, which is the sign of solid
+and perfect learning in a man.  Such was Horace, an author of much
+civility, and (if any one among the heathen can be) the best master
+both of virtue and wisdom; an excellent and true judge upon cause
+and reason, not because he thought so, but because he knew so out of
+use and experience.
+
+Cato, the grammarian, a defender of Lucilius. {149a}
+
+
+"Cato grammaticus, Latina syren,
+Qui solus legit, et facit poetas."
+
+
+Quintilian of the same heresy, but rejected. {149b}
+
+Horace, his judgment of Choerillus defended against Joseph Scaliger.
+{149c}  And of Laberius against Julius. {149d}
+
+But chiefly his opinion of Plautus {149e} vindicated against many
+that are offended, and say it is a hard censure upon the parent of
+all conceit and sharpness.  And they wish it had not fallen from so
+great a master and censor in the art, whose bondmen knew better how
+to judge of Plautus than any that dare patronise the family of
+learning in this age; who could not be ignorant of the judgment of
+the times in which he lived, when poetry and the Latin language were
+at the height; especially being a man so conversant and inwardly
+familiar with the censures of great men that did discourse of these
+things daily amongst themselves.  Again, a man so gracious and in
+high favour with the Emperor, as Augustus often called him his witty
+manling (for the littleness of his stature), and, if we may trust
+antiquity, had designed him for a secretary of estate, and invited
+him to the palace, which he modestly prayed off and refused.
+
+Terence.--Menander.  Horace did so highly esteem Terence's comedies,
+as he ascribes the art in comedy to him alone among the Latins, and
+joins him with Menander.
+
+Now, let us see what may be said for either, to defend Horace's
+judgment to posterity and not wholly to condemn Plautus.
+
+The parts of a comedy and tragedy.--The parts of a comedy are the
+same with a tragedy, and the end is partly the same, for they both
+delight and teach; the comics are called [Greek text], of the Greeks
+no less than the tragics.
+
+Aristotle.--Plato.--Homer.--Nor is the moving of laughter always the
+end of comedy; that is rather a fowling for the people's delight, or
+their fooling.  For, as Aristotle says rightly, the moving of
+laughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude that depraves
+some part of a man's nature without a disease.  As a wry face
+without pain moves laughter, or a deformed vizard, or a rude clown
+dressed in a lady's habit and using her actions; we dislike and
+scorn such representations which made the ancient philosophers ever
+think laughter unfitting in a wise man.  And this induced Plato to
+esteem of Homer as a sacrilegious person, because he presented the
+gods sometimes laughing.  As also it is divinely said of Aristotle,
+that to seen ridiculous is a part of dishonesty, and foolish.
+
+The wit of the old comedy.--So that what either in the words or
+sense of an author, or in the language or actions of men, is awry or
+depraved does strangely stir mean affections, and provoke for the
+most part to laughter.  And therefore it was clear that all insolent
+and obscene speeches, jests upon the best men, injuries to
+particular persons, perverse and sinister sayings (and the rather
+unexpected) in the old comedy did move laughter, especially where it
+did imitate any dishonesty, and scurrility came forth in the place
+of wit, which, who understands the nature and genius of laughter
+cannot but perfectly know.
+
+Aristophanes.--Plautus.--Of which Aristophanes affords an ample
+harvest, having not only outgone Plautus or any other in that kind,
+but expressed all the moods and figures of what is ridiculous oddly.
+In short, as vinegar is not accounted good until the wine be
+corrupted, so jests that are true and natural seldom raise laughter
+with the beast the multitude.  They love nothing that is right and
+proper.  The farther it runs from reason or possibility with them
+the better it is.
+
+Socrates.--Theatrical wit.--What could have made them laugh, like to
+see Socrates presented, that example of all good life, honesty, and
+virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the
+philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skip
+geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the
+engine.  This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing
+a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had
+savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tasten
+a wise or a learned palate,--spit it out presently! this is bitter
+and profitable:  this instructs and would inform us:  what need we
+know any thing, that are nobly born, more than a horse-race, or a
+hunting-match, our day to break with citizens, and such innate
+mysteries?
+
+The cart.--This is truly leaping from the stage to the tumbril
+again, reducing all wit to the original dung-cart.
+
+
+Of the magnitude and compass of any fable, epic or dramatic.
+
+What the measure of a fable is.--The fable or plot of a poem
+defined.--The epic fable, differing from the dramatic.--To the
+resolving of this question we must first agree in the definition of
+the fable.  The fable is called the imitation of one entire and
+perfect action, whose parts are so joined and knit together, as
+nothing in the structure can be changed, or taken away, without
+impairing or troubling the whole, of which there is a proportionable
+magnitude in the members.  As for example:  if a man would build a
+house, he would first appoint a place to build it in, which he would
+define within certain bounds; so in the constitution of a poem, the
+action is aimed at by the poet, which answers place in a building,
+and that action hath his largeness, compass, and proportion.  But as
+a court or king's palace requires other dimensions than a private
+house, so the epic asks a magnitude from other poems, since what is
+place in the one is action in the other; the difference is an space.
+So that by this definition we conclude the fable to be the imitation
+of one perfect and entire action, as one perfect and entire place is
+required to a building.  By perfect, we understand that to which
+nothing is wanting, as place to the building that is raised, and
+action to the fable that is formed.  It is perfect, perhaps not for
+a court or king's palace, which requires a greater ground, but for
+the structure he would raise; so the space of the action may not
+prove large enough for the epic fable, yet be perfect for the
+dramatic, and whole.
+
+What we understand by whole.--Whole we call that, and perfect, which
+hath a beginning, a midst, and an end.  So the place of any building
+may be whole and entire for that work, though too little for a
+palace.  As to a tragedy or a comedy, the action may be convenient
+and perfect that would not fit an epic poem in magnitude.  So a lion
+is a perfect creature in himself, though it be less than that of a
+buffalo or a rhinocerote.  They differ but in specie:  either in the
+kind is absolute; both have their parts, and either the whole.
+Therefore, as in every body so in every action, which is the subject
+of a just work, there is required a certain proportionable
+greatness, neither too vast nor too minute.  For that which happens
+to the eyes when we behold a body, the same happens to the memory
+when we contemplate an action.  I look upon a monstrous giant, as
+Tityus, whose body covered nine acres of land, and mine eye sticks
+upon every part; the whole that consists of those parts will never
+be taken in at one entire view.  So in a fable, if the action be too
+great, we can never comprehend the whole together in our
+imagination.  Again, if it be too little, there ariseth no pleasure
+out of the object; it affords the view no stay; it is beheld, and
+vanisheth at once.  As if we should look upon an ant or pismire, the
+parts fly the sight, and the whole considered is almost nothing.
+The same happens in action, which is the object of memory, as the
+body is of sight.  Too vast oppresseth the eyes, and exceeds the
+memory; too little scarce admits either.
+
+What is the utmost bounds of a fable.--Now in every action it
+behoves the poet to know which is his utmost bound, how far with
+fitness and a necessary proportion he may produce and determine it;
+that is, till either good fortune change into the worse, or the
+worse into the better.  For as a body without proportion cannot be
+goodly, no more can the action, either in comedy or tragedy, without
+his fit bounds:  and every bound, for the nature of the subject, is
+esteemed the best that is largest, till it can increase no more; so
+it behoves the action in tragedy or comedy to be let grow till the
+necessity ask a conclusion; wherein two things are to be considered:
+first, that it exceed not the compass of one day; next, that there
+be place left for digression and art.  For the episodes and
+digressions in a fable are the same that household stuff and other
+furniture are in a house.  And so far from the measure and extent of
+a fable dramatic.
+
+What by one and entire.--Now that it should be one and entire.  One
+is considerable two ways; either as it is only separate, and by
+itself, or as being composed of many parts, it begins to be one as
+those parts grow or are wrought together.  That it should be one the
+first away alone, and by itself, no man that hath tasted letters
+ever would say, especially having required before a just magnitude
+and equal proportion of the parts in themselves.  Neither of which
+can possibly be, if the action be single and separate, not composed
+of parts, which laid together in themselves, with an equal and
+fitting proportion, tend to the same end; which thing out of
+antiquity itself hath deceived many, and more this day it doth
+deceive.
+
+Hercules.--Theseus.--Achilles.--Ulysses.--Homer and Virgil.--
+AEneas.--Venus.--So many there be of old that have thought the
+action of one man to be one, as of Hercules, Theseus, Achilles,
+Ulysses, and other heroes; which is both foolish and false, since by
+one and the same person many things may be severally done which
+cannot fitly be referred or joined to the same end:  which not only
+the excellent tragic poets, but the best masters of the epic, Homer
+and Virgil, saw.  For though the argument of an epic poem be far
+more diffused and poured out than that of tragedy, yet Virgil,
+writing of AEneas, hath pretermitted many things.  He neither tells
+how he was born, how brought up, how he fought with Achilles, how he
+was snatched out of the battle by Venus; but that one thing, how he
+came into Italy, he prosecutes in twelve books.  The rest of his
+journey, his error by sea, the sack of Troy, are put not as the
+argument of the work, but episodes of the argument.  So Homer laid
+by many things of Ulysses, and handled no more than he saw tended to
+one and the same end.
+
+Theseus.--Hercules.--Juvenal.--Codrus.--Sophocles.--Ajax.--Ulysses.-
+-Contrary to which, and foolishly, those poets did, whom the
+philosopher taxeth, of whom one gathered all the actions of Theseus,
+another put all the labours of Hercules in one work.  So did he whom
+Juvenal mentions in the beginning, "hoarse Codrus," that recited a
+volume compiled, which he called his Theseide, not yet finished, to
+the great trouble both of his hearers and himself; amongst which
+there were many parts had no coherence nor kindred one with another,
+so far they were from being one action, one fable.  For as a house,
+consisting of divers materials, becomes one structure and one
+dwelling, so an action, composed of divers parts, may become one
+fable, epic or dramatic.  For example, in a tragedy, look upon
+Sophocles, his Ajax:  Ajax, deprived of Achilles' armour, which he
+hoped from the suffrage of the Greeks, disdains; and, growing
+impatient of the injury, rageth, and runs mad.  In that humour he
+doth many senseless things, and at last falls upon the Grecian flock
+and kills a great ram for Ulysses:  returning to his senses, he
+grows ashamed of the scorn, and kills himself; and is by the chiefs
+of the Greeks forbidden burial.  These things agree and hang
+together, not as they were done, but as seeming to be done, which
+made the action whole, entire, and absolute.
+
+The conclusion concerning the whole, and the parts.--Which are
+episodes.--Ajax and Hector.--Homer.--For the whole, as it consisteth
+of parts, so without all the parts it is not the whole; and to make
+it absolute is required not only the parts, but such parts as are
+true.  For a part of the whole was true; which, if you take away,
+you either change the whole or it is not the whole.  For if it be
+such a part, as, being present or absent, nothing concerns the
+whole, it cannot be called a part of the whole; and such are the
+episodes, of which hereafter.  For the present here is one example:
+the single combat of Ajax with Hector, as it is at large described
+in Homer, nothing belongs to this Ajax of Sophocles.
+
+You admire no poems but such as run like a brewer's cart upon the
+stones, hobbling:-
+
+
+"Et, quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt,
+   Accius et quidquid Pacuviusque vomunt.
+Attonitusque legis terrai, frugiferai." {160a}
+
+
+
+
+SOME POEMS.
+
+
+
+
+TO WILLIAM CAMDEN
+
+
+
+Camden! most reverend head, to whom I owe
+All that I am in arts, all that I know -
+How nothing's that! to whom my country owes
+The great renown, and name wherewith she goes!
+Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave,
+More high, more holy, that she more would crave.
+What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things!
+What sight in searching the most antique springs!
+What weight, and what authority in thy speech!
+Men scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst teach.
+Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty,
+Which conquers all, be once o'ercome by thee.
+Many of thine, this better could, than I;
+But for their powers, accept my piety.
+
+
+
+ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER
+
+
+
+Here lies, to each her parents' ruth,
+Mary, the daughter of their youth;
+Yet, all heaven's gifts, being heaven's due,
+It makes the father less to rue.
+At six months' end, she parted hence,
+With safety of her innocence;
+Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears,
+In comfort of her mother's tears,
+Hath placed amongst her virgin-train;
+Where, while that severed doth remain,
+This grave partakes the fleshly birth;
+Which cover lightly, gentle earth!
+
+
+
+ON MY FIRST SON
+
+
+
+Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
+My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy;
+Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
+Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
+Oh! could I lose all father, now! for why,
+Will man lament the state he should envy?
+To have so soon 'scaped world's, and flesh's rage,
+And, if no other misery, yet age!
+Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie
+Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry;
+For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,
+As what he loves may never like too much.
+
+
+
+TO FRANCIS BEAUMONT
+
+
+
+How I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse,
+That unto me dost such religion use!
+How I do fear myself, that am not worth
+The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth!
+At once thou mak'st me happy, and unmak'st;
+And giving largely to me, more thou takest!
+What fate is mine, that so itself bereaves?
+What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives?
+When even there, where most thou praisest me,
+For writing better, I must envy thee.
+
+
+
+OF LIFE AND DEATH
+
+
+
+The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds:
+Through which our merit leads us to our meeds.
+How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray,
+And hath it in his powers to make his way!
+This world death's region is, the other life's:
+And here it should be one of our first strifes,
+So to front death, as men might judge us past it:
+For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.
+
+
+
+INVITING A FRIEND TO SUPPER
+
+
+
+To-night, grave sir, both my poor house and I
+Do equally desire your company;
+Not that we think us worthy such a guest,
+But that your worth will dignify our feast,
+With those that come; whose grace may make that seem
+Something, which else could hope for no esteem.
+It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates
+The entertainment perfect, not the cates.
+Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate,
+An olive, capers, or some bitter salad
+Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen,
+If we can get her, full of eggs, and then,
+Lemons and wine for sauce:  to these, a coney
+Is not to be despaired of for our money;
+And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,
+The sky not falling, think we may have larks.
+I'll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come:
+Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some
+May yet be there; and godwit if we can;
+Knat, rail, and ruff, too.  Howsoe'er, my man
+Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus,
+Livy, or of some better book to us,
+Of which we'll speak our minds, amidst our meat;
+And I'll profess no verses to repeat:
+To this if aught appear, which I not know of,
+That will the pastry, not my paper, show of.
+Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be;
+But that which most doth take my muse and me,
+Is a pure cup of rich canary wine,
+Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine:
+Of which had Horace, or Anacreon tasted,
+Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted.
+Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring,
+Are all but Luther's beer, to this I sing.
+Of this we will sup free, but moderately,
+And we will have no Pooly' or Parrot by;
+Nor shall our cups make any guilty men;
+But at our parting we will be as when
+We innocently met.  No simple word
+That shall be uttered at our mirthful board,
+Shall make us sad next morning; or affright
+The liberty that we'll enjoy to-night.
+
+
+
+EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY,
+A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S CHAPEL
+
+
+
+Weep with me all you that read
+   This little story;
+And know for whom a tear you shed,
+   Death's self is sorry.
+'Twas a child that so did thrive
+   In grace and feature,
+As heaven and nature seemed to strive
+   Which owned the creature.
+Years he numbered scarce thirteen
+   When fates turned cruel;
+Yet three filled zodiacs had he been
+   The stage's jewel;
+And did act, what now we moan,
+   Old men so duly;
+As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one
+   He played so truly.
+So, by error to his fate
+   They all consented;
+But viewing him since, alas, too late!
+   They have repented;
+And have sought to give new birth,
+   In baths to steep him;
+But, being so much too good for earth,
+   Heaven vows to keep him.
+
+
+
+EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH, L. H.
+
+
+
+Wouldst thou hear what man can say
+In a little?  Reader, stay.
+Underneath this stone doth lie
+As much beauty as could die
+Which in life did harbour give
+To more virtue than doth live.
+If, at all, she had a fault
+Leave it buried in this vault.
+One name was Elizabeth,
+The other let it sleep with death.
+Fitter, where it died, to tell,
+Than that it lived at all.  Farewell.
+
+
+
+EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE
+
+
+
+Underneath this sable hearse
+Lies the subject of all verse,
+Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother:
+Death! ere thou hast slain another,
+Learned, and fair, and good as she,
+Time shall throw a dart at thee.
+
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, AND WHAT HE
+HATH LEFT US
+
+
+
+To draw no envy, Shakspeare, on thy name,
+Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;
+While I confess thy writings to be such,
+As neither man, nor muse can praise too much.
+'Tis true, and all men's suffrage.  But these ways
+Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;
+For silliest ignorance on these may light,
+Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;
+Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advance
+The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;
+Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,
+And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise.
+These are, as some infamous bawd, or whore,
+Should praise a matron; what would hurt her more?
+But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,
+Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need.
+I, therefore, will begin:  Soul of the age!
+The applause! delight! and wonder of our stage!
+My Shakspeare rise!  I will not lodge thee by
+Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
+A little further off, to make thee room:
+Thou art a monument without a tomb,
+And art alive still, while thy book doth live
+And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
+That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,
+I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses;
+For if I thought my judgment were of years,
+I should commit thee surely with thy peers,
+And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,
+Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line.
+And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,
+From thence to honour thee, I will not seek
+For names:  but call forth thundering Eschylus,
+Euripides, and Sophocles to us,
+Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead,
+To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,
+And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,
+Leave thee alone for the comparison
+Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome
+Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.
+Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,
+To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.
+He was not of an age, but for all time!
+And all the Muses still were in their prime,
+When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm
+Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!
+Nature herself was proud of his designs,
+And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!
+Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,
+As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
+The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,
+Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;
+But antiquated and deserted lie,
+As they were not of nature's family.
+Yet must I not give nature all; thy art,
+My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part.
+For though the poet's matter nature be,
+His heart doth give the fashion:  and, that he
+Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,
+(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat
+Upon the Muse's anvil; turn the same,
+And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;
+Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;
+For a good poet's made, as well as born.
+And such wert thou!  Look how the father's face
+Lives in his issue, even so the race
+Of Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly shines
+In his well-turned, and true filed lines;
+In each of which he seems to shake a lance,
+As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.
+Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were
+To see thee in our water yet appear,
+And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,
+That so did take Eliza, and our James!
+But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere
+Advanced, and made a constellation there!
+Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage,
+Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage,
+Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,
+And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.
+
+
+
+TO CELIA
+
+
+
+Drink to me only with thine eyes,
+   And I will pledge with mine;
+Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
+   And I'll not look for wine.
+The thirst that from the soul doth rise
+   Doth ask a drink divine:
+But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
+   I would not change for thine.
+
+I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
+   Not so much honouring thee,
+As giving it a hope that there
+   It could not withered be.
+But thou thereon didst only breathe,
+   And sent'st it back to me:
+Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
+   Not of itself, but thee.
+
+
+
+THE TRIUMPH OF CHARIS
+
+
+
+   See the chariot at hand here of Love,
+      Wherein my lady rideth!
+   Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
+      And well the car Love guideth.
+   As she goes, all hearts do duty
+         Unto her beauty;
+   And, enamoured, do wish, so they might
+         But enjoy such a sight,
+   That they still were to run by her side,
+Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.
+
+   Do but look on her eyes, they do light
+      All that Love's world compriseth!
+   Do but look on her hair, it is bright
+      As Love's star when it riseth!
+   Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
+         Than words that soothe her!
+   And from her arched brows, such a grace
+         Sheds itself through the face,
+   As alone there triumphs to the life
+All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife.
+
+   Have you seen but a bright lily grow
+      Before rude hands have touched it?
+   Have you marked but the fall o' the snow
+      Before the soil hath smutched it?
+   Have you felt the wool of beaver?
+         Or swan's down ever?
+   Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier?
+         Or the nard in the fire?
+   Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
+O so white!  O so soft!  O so sweet is she!
+
+
+
+IN THE PERSON OF WOMANKIND
+A SONG APOLOGETIC
+
+
+
+Men, if you love us, play no more
+   The fools or tyrants with your friends,
+To make us still sing o'er and o'er
+   Our own false praises, for your ends:
+      We have both wits and fancies too,
+      And, if we must, let's sing of you.
+
+Nor do we doubt but that we can,
+   If we would search with care and pain,
+Find some one good in some one man;
+   So going thorough all your strain,
+      We shall, at last, of parcels make
+      One good enough for a song's sake.
+
+And as a cunning painter takes,
+   In any curious piece you see,
+More pleasure while the thing he makes,
+   Than when 'tis made--why so will we.
+      And having pleased our art, we'll try
+      To make a new, and hang that by.
+
+
+
+ODE
+To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair, Sir Lucius
+Cary and Sir Henry Morison.
+
+
+
+I.
+
+THE TURN.
+
+   Brave infant of Saguntum, clear
+   Thy coming forth in that great year,
+When the prodigious Hannibal did crown
+His cage, with razing your immortal town.
+      Thou, looking then about,
+      Ere thou wert half got out,
+   Wise child, didst hastily return,
+   And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn.
+How summed a circle didst thou leave mankind
+Of deepest lore, could we the centre find!
+
+THE COUNTER-TURN.
+
+   Did wiser nature draw thee back,
+   From out the horror of that sack,
+Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right,
+Lay trampled on? the deeds of death and night,
+      Urged, hurried forth, and hurled
+      Upon th' affrighted world;
+   Sword, fire, and famine, with fell fury met,
+   And all on utmost ruin set;
+As, could they but life's miseries foresee,
+No doubt all infants would return like thee.
+
+THE STAND.
+
+For what is life, if measured by the space
+      Not by the act?
+Or masked man, if valued by his face,
+      Above his fact?
+   Here's one outlived his peers,
+   And told forth fourscore years;
+   He vexed time, and busied the whole state;
+      Troubled both foes and friends;
+      But ever to no ends:
+   What did this stirrer but die late?
+How well at twenty had he fallen or stood!
+For three of his fourscore he did no good.
+
+II.
+
+THE TURN
+
+   He entered well, by virtuous parts,
+   Got up, and thrived with honest arts;
+He purchased friends, and fame, and honours then,
+And had his noble name advanced with men:
+      But weary of that flight,
+      He stooped in all men's sight
+         To sordid flatteries, acts of strife,
+         And sunk in that dead sea of life,
+So deep, as he did then death's waters sup,
+But that the cork of title buoyed him up.
+
+THE COUNTER-TURN
+
+   Alas! but Morison fell young:
+   He never fell,--thou fall'st, my tongue.
+He stood a soldier to the last right end,
+A perfect patriot, and a noble friend;
+      But most, a virtuous son.
+      All offices were done
+   By him, so ample, full, and round,
+   In weight, in measure, number, sound,
+As, though his age imperfect might appear,
+His life was of humanity the sphere.
+
+THE STAND
+
+Go now, and tell out days summed up with fears,
+      And make them years;
+Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage,
+      To swell thine age;
+   Repeat of things a throng,
+   To show thou hast been long,
+Not lived:  for life doth her great actions spell.
+   By what was done and wrought
+   In season, and so brought
+To light:  her measures are, how well
+Each syllabe answered, and was formed, how fair;
+These make the lines of life, and that's her air!
+
+III.
+
+THE TURN
+
+   It is not growing like a tree
+   In bulk, doth make men better be;
+Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
+To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
+      A lily of a day,
+      Is fairer far in May,
+   Although it fall and die that night;
+   It was the plant, and flower of light.
+In small proportions we just beauties see;
+And in short measures, life may perfect be.
+
+THE COUNTER-TURN
+
+   Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
+   And let thy looks with gladness shine:
+Accept this garland, plant it on thy head
+And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead
+      He leaped the present age,
+      Possessed with holy rage
+   To see that bright eternal day;
+   Of which we priests and poets say,
+Such truths, as we expect for happy men:
+And there he lives with memory and Ben.
+
+THE STAND
+
+Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went,
+         Himself to rest,
+Or taste a part of that full joy he meant
+         To have expressed,
+      In this bright Asterism!
+      Where it were friendship's schism,
+   Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry,
+      To separate these twi-
+      Lights, the Dioscouri;
+   And keep the one half from his Harry,
+But fate doth so alternate the design
+Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine.
+
+IV.
+
+THE TURN
+
+   And shine as you exalted are;
+   Two names of friendship, but one star:
+Of hearts the union, and those not by chance
+Made, or indenture, or leased out t'advance
+      The profits for a time.
+      No pleasures vain did chime,
+   Of rhymes, or riots, at your feasts,
+   Orgies of drink, or feigned protests:
+But simple love of greatness and of good,
+That knits brave minds and manners more than blood.
+
+THE COUNTER-TURN
+
+   This made you first to know the why
+   You liked, then after, to apply
+That liking; and approach so one the t'other,
+Till either grew a portion of the other:
+      Each styled by his end,
+      The copy of his friend.
+   You lived to be the great sir-names,
+   And titles, by which all made claims
+Unto the virtue; nothing perfect done,
+But as a Cary, or a Morison.
+
+THE STAND
+
+And such a force the fair example had,
+         As they that saw
+The good, and durst not practise it, were glad
+         That such a law
+      Was left yet to mankind;
+      Where they might read and find
+   Friendship, indeed, was written not in words;
+      And with the heart, not pen,
+      Of two so early men,
+   Whose lines her rolls were, and records;
+Who, ere the first down bloomed upon the chin,
+Had sowed these fruits, and got the harvest in.
+
+PRAELUDIUM
+
+And must I sing?  What subject shall I choose!
+Or whose great name in poets' heaven use,
+For the more countenance to my active muse?
+
+Hercules? alas, his bones are yet sore
+With his old earthly labours t' exact more
+Of his dull godhead were sin.  I'll implore
+
+Phoebus.  No, tend thy cart still.  Envious day
+Shall not give out that I have made thee stay,
+And foundered thy hot team, to tune my lay.
+
+Nor will I beg of thee, lord of the vine,
+To raise my spirits with thy conjuring wine,
+In the green circle of thy ivy twine.
+
+Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid,
+That at thy birth mad'st the poor smith afraid.
+Who with his axe thy father's midwife played.
+
+Go, cramp dull Mars, light Venus, when he snorts,
+Or with thy tribade trine invent new sports;
+Thou, nor thy looseness with my making sorts.
+
+Let the old boy, your son, ply his old task,
+Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask;
+His absence in my verse is all I ask.
+
+Hermes, the cheater, shall not mix with us,
+Though he would steal his sisters' Pegasus,
+And rifle him; or pawn his petasus.
+
+Nor all the ladies of the Thespian lake,
+Though they were crushed into one form, could make
+A beauty of that merit, that should take
+
+My muse up by commission; no, I bring
+My own true fire:  now my thought takes wing,
+And now an epode to deep ears I sing.
+
+
+
+EPODE
+
+
+
+Not to know vice at all, and keep true state,
+   Is virtue and not fate:
+Next to that virtue, is to know vice well,
+   And her black spite expel.
+Which to effect (since no breast is so sure,
+   Or safe, but she'll procure
+Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard
+   Of thoughts to watch and ward
+At th' eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,
+   That no strange, or unkind
+Object arrive there, but the heart, our spy,
+   Give knowledge instantly
+To wakeful reason, our affections' king:
+   Who, in th' examining,
+Will quickly taste the treason, and commit
+   Close, the close cause of it.
+'Tis the securest policy we have,
+   To make our sense our slave.
+But this true course is not embraced by many:
+   By many! scarce by any.
+For either our affections do rebel,
+   Or else the sentinel,
+That should ring 'larum to the heart, doth sleep:
+   Or some great thought doth keep
+Back the intelligence, and falsely swears
+   They're base and idle fears
+Whereof the loyal conscience so complains.
+   Thus, by these subtle trains,
+Do several passions invade the mind,
+   And strike our reason blind:
+Of which usurping rank, some have thought love
+   The first:  as prone to move
+Most frequent tumults, horrors, and unrests,
+   In our inflamed breasts:
+But this doth from the cloud of error grow,
+   Which thus we over-blow.
+The thing they here call love is blind desire,
+   Armed with bow, shafts, and fire;
+Inconstant, like the sea, of whence 'tis born,
+   Rough, swelling, like a storm;
+With whom who sails, rides on the surge of fear,
+   And boils as if he were
+In a continual tempest.  Now, true love
+   No such effects doth prove;
+That is an essence far more gentle, fine,
+   Pure, perfect, nay, divine;
+It is a golden chain let down from heaven,
+   Whose links are bright and even;
+That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines
+   The soft and sweetest minds
+In equal knots:  this bears no brands, nor darts,
+   To murder different hearts,
+But, in a calm and god-like unity,
+   Preserves community.
+O, who is he that, in this peace, enjoys
+   Th' elixir of all joys?
+A form more fresh than are the Eden bowers,
+   And lasting as her flowers;
+Richer than Time and, as Times's virtue, rare;
+   Sober as saddest care;
+A fixed thought, an eye untaught to glance;
+   Who, blest with such high chance,
+Would, at suggestion of a steep desire,
+   Cast himself from the spire
+Of all his happiness?  But soft:  I hear
+   Some vicious fool draw near,
+That cries, we dream, and swears there's no such thing,
+   As this chaste love we sing.
+Peace, Luxury! thou art like one of those
+   Who, being at sea, suppose,
+Because they move, the continent doth so:
+   No, Vice, we let thee know
+Though thy wild thoughts with sparrows' wings do fly,
+   Turtles can chastely die;
+And yet (in this t' express ourselves more clear)
+   We do not number here
+Such spirits as are only continent,
+   Because lust's means are spent;
+Or those who doubt the common mouth of fame,
+   And for their place and name,
+Cannot so safely sin:  their chastity
+   Is mere necessity;
+Nor mean we those whom vows and conscience
+   Have filled with abstinence:
+Though we acknowledge who can so abstain,
+   Makes a most blessed gain;
+He that for love of goodness hateth ill,
+   Is more crown-worthy still
+Than he, which for sin's penalty forbears:
+   His heart sins, though he fears.
+But we propose a person like our Dove,
+   Graced with a Phoenix' love;
+A beauty of that clear and sparkling light,
+   Would make a day of night,
+And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys:
+   Whose odorous breath destroys
+All taste of bitterness, and makes the air
+   As sweet as she is fair.
+A body so harmoniously composed,
+   As if nature disclosed
+All her best symmetry in that one feature!
+   O, so divine a creature
+Who could be false to? chiefly, when he knows
+   How only she bestows
+The wealthy treasure of her love on him;
+   Making his fortunes swim
+In the full flood of her admired perfection?
+   What savage, brute affection,
+Would not be fearful to offend a dame
+   Of this excelling frame?
+Much more a noble, and right generous mind,
+   To virtuous moods inclined,
+That knows the weight of guilt:  he will refrain
+   From thoughts of such a strain,
+And to his sense object this sentence ever,
+   "Man may securely sin, but safely never."
+
+
+
+AN ELEGY
+
+
+
+Though beauty be the mark of praise,
+   And yours, of whom I sing, be such
+   As not the world can praise too much,
+Yet is 't your virtue now I raise.
+
+A virtue, like allay, so gone
+   Throughout your form, as though that move,
+   And draw, and conquer all men's love,
+This subjects you to love of one,
+
+Wherein you triumph yet:  because
+   'Tis of yourself, and that you use
+   The noblest freedom, not to choose
+Against or faith, or honour's laws.
+
+But who could less expect from you,
+   In whom alone Love lives again?
+   By whom he is restored to men;
+And kept, and bred, and brought up true?
+
+His falling temples you have reared,
+   The withered garlands ta'en away;
+   His altars kept from the decay
+That envy wished, and nature feared;
+
+And on them burns so chaste a flame,
+   With so much loyalty's expense,
+   As Love, t' acquit such excellence,
+Is gone himself into your name.
+
+And you are he:  the deity
+   To whom all lovers are designed,
+   That would their better objects find;
+Among which faithful troop am I;
+
+Who, as an offering at your shrine,
+   Have sung this hymn, and here entreat
+   One spark of your diviner heat
+To light upon a love of mine;
+
+Which, if it kindle not, but scant
+   Appear, and that to shortest view,
+   Yet give me leave t' adore in you
+What I, in her, am grieved to want.
+
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{11}  "So live with yourself that you do not know how ill yow mind
+is furnished."
+
+{12}  [Greek text]
+
+{14}  "A Puritan is a Heretical Hypocrite, in whom the conceit of
+his own perspicacity, by which he seems to himself to have observed
+certain errors in a few Church dogmas, has disturbed the balance of
+his mind, so that, excited vehemently by a sacred fury, he fights
+frenzied against civil authority, in the belief that he so pays
+obedience to God."
+
+{17a}  Night gives counsel.
+
+{17b}  Plutarch in Life of Alexander.  "Let it not be, O King, that
+you know these things better than I."
+
+{19a}  "They were not our lords, but our leaders."
+
+{19b}  "Much of it is left also for those who shall be hereafter."
+
+{19c}  "No art is discovered at once and absolutely."
+
+{22}  With a great belly.  Comes de Schortenhien.
+
+{23}  "In all things I have a better wit and courage than good
+fortune."
+
+{24a}  "The rich soil exhausts; but labour itself is an aid."
+
+{24b}  "And the gesticulation is vile."
+
+{25a}  "An end is to be looked for in every man, an animal most
+prompt to change."
+
+{25b}  Arts are not shared among heirs.
+
+{31a}  "More loquacious than eloquent; words enough, but little
+wisdom."--Sallust.
+
+{31b}  Repeated in the following Latin.  "The best treasure is in
+that man's tongue, and he has mighty thanks, who metes out each
+thing in a few words."--Hesiod.
+
+{31c}  Vid. Zeuxidis pict. Serm. ad Megabizum.--Plutarch.
+
+{32a}  "While the unlearned is silent he may be accounted wise, for
+he has covered by his silence the diseases of his mind."
+
+{32b}  Taciturnity.
+
+{33a}  "Hold your tongue above all things, after the example of the
+gods."--See Apuleius.
+
+{33b}  "Press down the lip with the finger."--Juvenal.
+
+{33c}  Plautus.
+
+{33d}  Trinummus, Act 2, Scen. 4.
+
+{34a}  "It was the lodging of calamity."--Mart. lib. 1, ep. 85.
+
+{41}  ["Ficta omnia celeriter tanquam flosculi decidunt, nec
+simulatum potest quidquam esse diuturnum."--Cicero.]
+
+{44a}  Let a Punic sponge go with the book.--Mart. 1. iv. epig. 10.
+
+{47a}  He had to be repressed.
+
+{49a}  A wit-stand.
+
+{49b}  Martial. lib. xi. epig. 91.  That fall over the rough ways
+and high rocks.
+
+{59a}  Sir Thomas More.  Sir Thomas Wiat.  Henry Earl of Surrey.
+Sir Thomas Chaloner.  Sir Thomas Smith.  Sir Thomas Eliot.  Bishop
+Gardiner.  Sir Nicolas Bacon, L.K.  Sir Philip Sidney.  Master
+Richard Hooker.  Robert Earl of Essex.  Sir Walter Raleigh.  Sir
+Henry Savile.  Sir Edwin Sandys.  Sir Thomas Egerton, L.C.  Sir
+Francis Bacon, L.C.
+
+{62a}  "Which will secure a long age for the known writer."--Horat.
+de Art. Poetica.
+
+{66a}  They have poison for their food, even for their dainty.
+
+{74a}  Haud infima ars in principe, ubi lenitas, ubi severitas--plus
+polleat in commune bonum callere.
+
+{74b}  i.e., Machiavell.
+
+{81a}  "Censure pardons the crows and vexes the doves."--Juvenal.
+
+{81b}  "Does not spread his net for the hawk or the kite."--Plautus.
+
+{93}  Parrhasius.  Eupompus.  Socrates.  Parrhasius.  Clito.
+Polygnotus.  Aglaophon.  Zeuxis.  Parrhasius.  Raphael de Urbino.
+Mich.  Angelo Buonarotti.  Titian.  Antony de Correg.  Sebast. de
+Venet.  Julio Romano.  Andrea Sartorio.
+
+{94}  Plin. lib. 35. c. 2, 5, 6, and 7.  Vitruv. lib. 8 and 7.
+
+{95}  Horat. in "Arte Poet."
+
+{106a}  Livy, Sallust, Sidney, Donne, Gower, Chaucer, Spenser,
+Virgil, Ennius, Homer, Quintilian, Plautus, Terence.
+
+{110a}  The interpreter of gods and men.
+
+{111a}  Julius Caesar.  Of words, see Hor. "De Art. Poet.;" Quintil.
+1. 8, "Ludov. Vives," pp. 6 and 7.
+
+{111b}  A prudent man conveys nothing rashly.
+
+{114a}  That jolt as they fall over the rough places and the rocks.
+
+{116a}  Directness enlightens, obliquity and circumlocution darken.
+
+{117a}  Ocean trembles as if indignant that you quit the land.
+
+{117b}  You might believe that the uprooted Cyclades were floating
+in.
+
+{118a}  Those armies of the people of Rome that might break through
+the heavens.--Caesar.  Comment. circa fin.
+
+{124a}  No one can speak rightly unless he apprehends wisely.
+
+{133a}  "Where the discussion of faults is general, no one is
+injured."
+
+{133b}  "Gnaw tender little ears with biting truth--Per Sat. 1.
+
+{133c}  "The wish for remedy is always truer than the hope.--Livius.
+
+{136a}  "AEneas dedicates these arms concerning the conquering
+Greeks."--Virg. AEn. lib. 3.
+
+{136b}  "You buy everything, Castor; the time will come when you
+will sell everything."--Martial, lib. 8, epig. 19.
+
+{136c}  "Cinna wishes to seem poor, and is poor."
+
+{136d}  "Which is evident in every first song."
+
+{139a}  "There is a god within us, and when he is stirred we grow
+warm; that spirit comes from heavenly realms."
+
+{146a}  "If it were allowable for immortals to weep for mortals, the
+Muses would weep for the poet Naevius; since he is handed to the
+chamber of Orcus, they have forgotten how to speak Latin at Rome.
+
+{148a}  "No one has judged poets less happily than he who wrote
+about them."--Senec. de Brev. Vit, cap. 13, et epist. 88.
+
+{149a}  Heins, de Sat. 265.
+
+{149b}  Pag. 267.
+
+{149c}  Pag. 270. 271.
+
+{149d}  Pag. 273, et seq.
+
+{149e}  Pag. in comm. 153, et seq.
+
+{160a}  "And which jolt as they fall over the rough uneven road and
+high rocks."--Martial, lib. xi. epig. 91.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, DISCOVERIES ***
+
+This file should be named dscv10.txt or dscv10.zip
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, dscv11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, dscv10a.txt
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04
+
+Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
+