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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 +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk, from the 1892 +Cassell & Company edition.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER<br> +AND SOME POEMS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Contents:<br> + Introduction by Henry Morley<br> + Sylva<br> + Timber, or Discoveries ...<br> + Some Poems<br> + To William Camden<br> + On My First Daughter<br> + On My First Son<br> + To Francis Beaumont<br> + Of Life and Death<br> + Inviting a Friend to Supper<br> + Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy<br> + Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H.<br> + Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke<br> + To the Memory of my Beloved Master +William Shakespeare<br> + To Celia<br> + The Triumph of Charis<br> + In the Person of Womankind<br> + Ode<br> + Præludium<br> + Epode<br> + An Elegy<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +INTRODUCTION<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +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 “υλη” [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 Sylvæ - Timber Trees - to books of theirs in +which small works of various and diverse matter were promiscuously brought +together.”<br> +<br> +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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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:-<br> +<br> +<br> +“That these vain joys in which their wills consume<br> +Such powers of wit and soul as are of force<br> +To raise their beings to eternity,<br> +May be converted on works fitting men;<br> +And for the practice of a forcéd look,<br> +An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase,<br> +Study the native frame of a true heart,<br> +An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge,<br> +And spirit that may conform them actually<br> +To God’s high figures, which they have in power.”<br> +<br> +<br> +Ben Jonson’s genius was producing its best work in the earlier +years of the reign of James I. His <i>Volpone</i>,<i> </i>the +<i>Silent Woman</i>,<i> </i>and the <i>Alchemist </i>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.”<br> +<br> +H. M.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +SYLVA<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Rerum et sententiarum quasi “Υλη dicta a multiplici +materia et varietate in iis contentá. Quemadmodùm +enim vulgò solemus infinitam arborum nascentium indiscriminatim +multitudinem Sylvam dicere: ità etiam libros suos in quibus variæ +et diversæ materiæ opuscula temere congesta erant, Sylvas +appellabant antiqui: Timber-trees.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +TIMBER;<br> +OR,<br> +DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER,<br> +AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS,<br> +OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIAR<br> +NOTION OF THE TIMES.<br> +<br> +<i>Tecum habita</i>,<i> ut nôris quam sit tibi curta supellex</i> +<a name="citation11"></a><a href="#footnote11">{11}</a><br> +PERS. Sat. 4.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Fortuna.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Casus.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Consilia.</i> - 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 <a name="citation12"></a><a href="#footnote12">{12}</a> +had a fool to his master.<br> +<br> +<i>Fama</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Negotia</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Amor patriæ</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Ingenia</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Applausus</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Opinio</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Impostura</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Jactura vitæ</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +Hypocrita<i>.</i> - <i>Puritanus Hypocrita est Hæreticus</i>,<i> +quem opinio propriæ perspicaciæ</i>,<i> quâ sibi videtur</i>,<i> +cum paucis in Ecclesiâ dogmatibus errores quosdam animadvertisse</i>,<i> +de statu mentis deturbavit: unde sacro furore percitus</i>,<i> phrenetice +pugnat contra magistratus</i>,<i> sic ratus obedientiam præstare +Deo</i>. <a name="citation14"></a><a href="#footnote14">{14}</a><br> +<br> +<i>Mutua auxilia.</i> - 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?<br> +<br> +<i>Cognit. univers</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Consiliarii adjunct. Probitas</i>,<i> Sapientia.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Vita recta.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Obsequentia.</i> - <i>Humanitas.</i> - <i>Solicitudo.</i> - 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. (<i>Dat +nox consilium</i>. <a name="citation17a"></a><a href="#footnote17a">{17a}</a>) +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Modestia</i>. - <i>Parrhesia</i>. - 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: <i>Absit</i>,<i> o +rex</i>,<i> ut tu meliùs hæc scias</i>,<i> quàm +ego. </i><a name="citation17b"></a><a href="#footnote17b">{17b}</a><br> +<br> +<i>Perspicuitas.</i> - <i>Elegantia.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Natura non effæta</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Non nimiùm credendum antiquitati</i>. - 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: <i>Non domini nostri</i>,<i> +sed duces fuêre</i>. <a name="citation19a"></a><a href="#footnote19a">{19a}</a> + Truth lies open to all; it is no man’s several. <i>Patet +omnibus veritas</i>;<i> nondum est occupata. Multum ex illâ</i>,<i> +etiam futuris relicta est</i>. <a name="citation19b"></a><a href="#footnote19b">{19b}</a><br> +<br> +<i>Dissentire licet</i>,<i> sed cum ratione.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Non mihi credendum sed veritati</i>. - If I err, pardon me: <i>Nulla +ars simul et inventa est et absoluta</i>. <a name="citation19c"></a><a href="#footnote19c">{19c}</a> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Scientiæ liberales</i>. - 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: <i>Opere pascitur.<br> +<br> +Non vulgi sunt</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Honesta ambitio</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Maritus improbus</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Afflictio pia magistra</i>. - Affliction teacheth a wicked person +some time to pray: prosperity never.<br> +<br> +<i>Deploratis facilis descensus Averni</i>. - <i>The devil take all</i>. +- 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Ægidius cursu superat.</i> - A cripple in the way out-travels +a footman or a post out of the way.<br> +<br> +<i>Prodigo nummi nauci</i>. - Bags of money to a prodigal person are +the same that cherry-stones are with some boys, and so thrown away.<br> +<br> +<i>Munda et sordida</i>. - A woman, the more curious she is about her +face is commonly the more careless about her house.<br> +<br> +<i>Debitum deploratum</i>. - Of this spilt water there is a little to +be gathered up: it is a desperate debt.<br> +<br> +<i>Latro sesquipedalis.</i> - The thief <a name="citation22"></a><a href="#footnote22">{22}</a> +that had a longing at the gallows to commit one robbery more before +he was hanged.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Calumniæ fructus</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Impertinens</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Bellum scribentium</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +There is hope of getting a fortune without digging in these quarries. +<i>Sed meliore (in omne) ingenio animoque quàm fortunâ</i>,<i> +sum usus. </i><a name="citation23"></a><a href="#footnote23">{23}</a><br> +<br> +“Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor.” <a name="citation24a"></a><a href="#footnote24a">{24a}</a><br> +<br> +<i>Differentia inter doctos et sciolos</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Impostorum fucus.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Icunculorum motio</i>. - A puppet-play must be shadowed and seen +in the dark; for draw the curtain, <i>et sordet gesticulatio. </i><a name="citation24b"></a><a href="#footnote24b">{24b}</a><br> +<br> +<i>Principes et administri.</i> - 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. <i>Finis exspectandus est in unoquoque +hominum; animali ad mutationem promptissmo</i>. <a name="citation25a"></a><a href="#footnote25a">{25a}</a><br> +<br> +<i>Scitum Hispanicum</i>. - It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, +<i>Artes inter hæredes non dividi</i>. <a name="citation25b"></a><a href="#footnote25b">{25b}</a> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Non nova res livor</i>. - 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, <i>quorum odium +virtute relictâ placet</i>,<i> </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Nil gratius protervo lib</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Jam literæ sordent.</i> - <i>Pastus hodiern. ingen.</i> - 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?<br> +<br> +<i>Sed seculi morbus</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Alastoris malitia</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Mali Choragi fuere</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Hear-say news</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Lingua sapientis</i>,<i> potius quâm loquentis</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +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?<br> +<br> +<i>Optanda.</i> - <i>Thersites Homeri</i>. - 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 <i>Thersites.<br> +<br> +</i>Αμετροεπης, +ακριτομυθος; +speaking without judgement or measure.<br> +<br> +<br> +“Loquax magis, quàm facundus,<br> +Satis loquentiæ, sapientiæ parum.<a name="citation31a"></a><a href="#footnote31a">{31a}</a><br> +Γλωσσης τοι +θησαυρος εν +ανθρωποισιν αριστος<br> +φειδωλης, πλειστη +δε χαρις κατα +μετρον ιουσης. +<a name="citation31b"></a><a href="#footnote31b">{31b}</a><br> +Optimus est homini linguæ thesaurus, et ingens<br> +Gratia, quæ parcis mensurat singula verbis.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Homeri Ulysses</i>. - <i>Demacatus Plutarchi</i>. - 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.” <a name="citation31c"></a><a href="#footnote31c">{31c}</a> +For too much talking is ever the index of a fool.<br> +<br> +<br> +“Dum tacet indoctus, poterit cordatus haberi;<br> +Is morbos animi namque tacendo tegit.” <a name="citation32a"></a><a href="#footnote32a">{32a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Argute dictum</i>. - 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.” Εχεμυθια. +<a name="citation32b"></a><a href="#footnote32b">{32b}</a> Pytag. +quàm laudabilis! γλωσσης +προ των αλλων +κρατει, θεοις +επομενος. Linguam +cohibe, præ aliis omnibus, ad deorum exemplum. <a name="citation33a"></a><a href="#footnote33a">{33a}</a> +Digito compesce labellum. <a name="citation33b"></a><a href="#footnote33b">{33b}</a><br> +<br> +<i>Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes.</i> - 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; <a name="citation33c"></a><a href="#footnote33c">{33c}</a> +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; <a name="citation33d"></a><a href="#footnote33d">{33d}</a> +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. <i>Hospitium fuerat calamitatis</i>. <a name="citation34a"></a><a href="#footnote34a">{34a}</a> +Was not this man like to sell it?<br> +<br> +<i>Vulgi expectatio</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Claritas patriæ.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Eloquentia.</i> - 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 <i>sub dio</i>,<i> +</i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Amor et odium</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Injuria</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Beneficia</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Valor rerum.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Memoria</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Comit. suffragia.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Stare à partibus.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Deus in creaturis.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Veritas proprium hominis.</i> - 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. <a name="citation41"></a><a href="#footnote41">{41}</a> +As Euripides saith, “No lie ever grows old.”<br> +<br> +<i>Nullum vitium sine patrocinio.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De vere argutis</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Censura de poetis</i>. - 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:-<br> +<br> +<br> +“ - Comitetur Punica librum<br> +Spongia. - ” <a name="citation44a"></a><a href="#footnote44a">{44a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +Et paulò post,<br> +<br> +<br> +“Non possunt . . . multæ . . . lituræ<br> +. . . una litura potest.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Cestius</i> - <i>Cicero</i> - <i>Heath</i> - <i>Taylor</i> - <i>Spenser.</i> +- 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; <i>Non illi pejus dicunt</i>,<i> +sed hi corruptius judicant</i>. 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>De Shakspeare nostrat.</i> - <i>Augustus in Hat</i>. - 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. “<i>Sufflaminandus erat</i>,” +<a name="citation47a"></a><a href="#footnote47a">{47a}</a> as Augustus +said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule +of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those things, +could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, +one speaking to him, “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” +He replied, “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause;” +and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices +with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than +to be pardoned.<br> +<br> +<i>Ingeniorum discrimina.</i> - <i>Not. </i>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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Not. </i>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 <i>ingenistitium</i>; <a name="citation49a"></a><a href="#footnote49a">{49a}</a> +they stand still at sixteen, they get no higher.<br> +<br> +<i>Not. </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Not. </i>4. - Others that in composition are nothing but what is +rough and broken. <i>Quæ per salebras</i>,<i> altaque saxa +cadunt. </i><a name="citation49b"></a><a href="#footnote49b">{49b}</a> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Not. </i>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.<br> +<br> +<br> +“They write a verse as smooth, as soft as cream,<br> +In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream.”<br> +<br> +<br> +You may sound these wits and find the depth of them with your middle +finger. They are cream-bowl or but puddle-deep.<br> +<br> +<i>Not. </i>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<br> +<br> +<i>Not. </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Not. </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Not. </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Not. </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Ignorantia animæ</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Scientia</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Otium Studiorum.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Stili eminentia.</i> - <i>Virgil.</i> - <i>Tully.</i> - <i>Sallust.</i> +- 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De Claris Oratoribus.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Dominus Verulamius</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Scriptorum catalogus</i>. <a name="citation59a"></a><a href="#footnote59a">{59a}</a> +Cicero is said to be the only wit that the people of Rome had equalled +to their empire. <i>Ingenium par imperio</i>. We have had +many, and in their several ages (to take in but the former <i>seculum</i>) +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 ακμη<i> +</i>of our language.<br> +<br> +<i>De augmentis scientiarum.</i> - <i>Julius Cæsar.</i> - <i>Lord +St. Alban</i>. - I have ever observed it to have been the office of +a wise patriot, among the greatest affairs of the State, to take care +of the commonwealth of learning. For schools, they are the seminaries +of State; and nothing is worthier the study of a statesman than that +part of the republic which we call the advancement of letters. +Witness the care of Julius Cæsar, who, in the heat of the civil +war, writ his books of Analogy, and dedicated them to Tully. This +made the late Lord St. Alban entitle his work <i>Novum Organum; </i>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<br> +<br> +<br> +“Qui longum note scriptori proroget ævum.” <a name="citation62a"></a><a href="#footnote62a">{62a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>De corruptela morum</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De rebus mundanis</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Vulgi mores.</i> - <i>Morbus comitialis.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Princeps.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De eodem.</i> - <i>Orpheus’ Hymn.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De opt. Rege Jacobo</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De Princ. adjunctis.</i> - <i>Sed verè prudens haud concipi +possit Princeps</i>,<i> nisi simul et bonus.</i> - <i>Lycurgus.</i> +- <i>Sylla.</i> - <i>Lysander.</i> - <i>Cyrus.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>De malign. studentium</i>. - There be some men are born only to suck +out the poison of books: <i>Habent venenum pro victu</i>;<i> imô</i>,<i> +pro deliciis</i>. <a name="citation66a"></a><a href="#footnote66a">{66a}</a> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Controvers. scriptores.</i> - <i>More Andabatarum qui clausis oculis +pugnant.</i> <i>- </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Morbi.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Jactantia intempestiva.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Adulatio.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De vitâ humanâ</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De piis et probis.</i> - Good<i> </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Mores aulici</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Impiorum querela.</i> - <i>Augusties.</i> - <i>Varus.</i> - <i>Tiberius</i>. +- 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 Fidenæ; 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Nobilium ingenia</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Principum. varia.</i> - <i>Firmissima verò omnium basis jus +hæreditarium Principis.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Clementia.</i> - <i>Machiavell</i>. - 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. <a name="citation74a"></a><a href="#footnote74a">{74a}</a> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Clementia tutela optima.</i> - He<i> </i>that is cruel to halves +(saith the said St. Nicholas <a name="citation74b"></a><a href="#footnote74b">{74b}</a>) +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Religio. Palladium Homeri.</i> - <i>Euripides.</i> - 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.”<br> +<br> +<i>Tyranni.</i> - <i>Sejanus.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Illiteratus princeps.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Character principis.</i> - <i>Alexander magnus.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De gratiosis</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Divites. - Heredes ex asse</i>. 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 <i>ex +asse </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Fures publici.</i> - 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:-<br> +<br> +<br> +“Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.” <a name="citation81a"></a><a href="#footnote81a">{81a}</a><br> +“Non rete accipitri tenditur, neque milvio.” <a name="citation81b"></a><a href="#footnote81b">{81b}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Lewis XI.</i> - But<i> </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>De bonis et malis.</i> - <i>De innocentiâ</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Amor nummi</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De mollibus et effœminatis</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De stultitiâ</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De sibi molestis</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Periculosa melancholia.</i> - It<i> </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Falsæ species fugiendæ.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Decipimur specie</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Dejectio Aulic.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Poesis</i>,<i> et pictura.</i> - <i>Plutarch. </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>De pictura</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De stylo.</i> - <i>Pliny.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De progres. picturæ</i>. <a name="citation93"></a><a href="#footnote93">{93}</a> +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 Chimæras <a name="citation94"></a><a href="#footnote94">{94}</a> +(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. <a name="citation95"></a><a href="#footnote95">{95}</a> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Parasiti ad mensam.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +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,<br> +<br> +<i>Imò serviles</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>De stylo</i>,<i> et optimo scribendi genere.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Præcipiendi modi.</i> - 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. <a name="citation106a"></a><a href="#footnote106a">{106a}</a> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Fals. querel. fugiend. Platonis peregrinatio in Italiam.</i> - We<i> +</i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Præcept. element.</i> - 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 <i>elementarii senes</i>. 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De orationis dignitate.</i> ’Εγκυκλοπαιδεια. +- <i>Metaphora</i>. 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 <i>deorum hominumque interpres</i>. <a name="citation110a"></a><a href="#footnote110a">{110a}</a> +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 ’Εγκυκλοπαιδειαν. +Words are the people’s, yet there is a choice of them to be made; +for <i>verborum delectus origo est eloquentiæ</i>. <a name="citation111a"></a><a href="#footnote111a">{111a}</a> +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 <i>(nam temerè nihil transfertur +à prudenti) </i><a name="citation111b"></a><a href="#footnote111b">{111b}</a> +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, <i>Castratam morte Africani rempublicam; </i>and another, +<i>Stercus curiæ Glauciam</i>,<i> </i>and <i>Canâ nive conspuit +Alpes. </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Consuetudo. - Perspicuitas</i>,<i> Venustas.</i> - <i>Authoritas.</i> +- <i>Virgil.</i> - <i>Lucretius. - Chaucerism.</i> - <i>Paronomasia</i>. +- 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 <i>aquai +</i>and <i>pictai</i>! 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! <i>Quæ per salebras</i>,<i> altaque saxa cadunt</i>. +<a name="citation114a"></a><a href="#footnote114a">{114a}</a> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>De Stylo.</i> - <i>Tracitus.</i> - <i>The Laconic. - Suetonius. </i>- +<i>Seneca and Fabianus.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Periodi.</i> - <i>Obscuritas offundit tenebras.</i> - <i>Superlatio.</i> +- 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. (<i>Rectitudo lucem adfert; obliquitas et circumductio +offuscat</i>. <a name="citation116a"></a><a href="#footnote116a">{116a}</a>) +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:<br> +<br> +<br> +“Fremit oceanus, quasi indignetur, quòd terras relinquas.” +<a name="citation117a"></a><a href="#footnote117a">{117a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +But propitiously from Virgil:<br> +<br> +<br> +“Credas innare revulsas<br> +Cycladas.” <a name="citation117b"></a><a href="#footnote117b">{117b}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +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 <i>Eos esse </i>P. R. <i>exercitus</i>,<i> +qui cælum possint perrumpere</i>, <a name="citation118a"></a><a href="#footnote118a">{118a}</a> +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 εσχηματισμενη +or figured language.<br> +<br> +<i>Oratio imago animi</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Structura et statura</i>,<i> sublimis</i>,<i> humilis</i>,<i> pumila.</i> +- 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Mediocris plana et placida.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Vitiosa oratio</i>,<i> vasta</i> - <i>tumens</i> - <i>enormis - affectata</i> +- <i>abjecta</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Figura.</i> - The<i> </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Cutis sive cortex. Compositio.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Carnosa</i> - <i>adipata</i> - <i>redundans.</i> - 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: <i>arvina +orationis</i>,<i> </i>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 - <i>oratio uncta</i>,<i> et benè pasta. +</i>But where there is redundancy, both the blood and juice are faulty +and vicious:- <i>Redundat sanguine</i>,<i> quia multo plus dicit</i>,<i> +quam necesse est. </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Jejuna</i>,<i> macilenta</i>,<i> strigosa.</i> - <i>Ossea</i>,<i> +et nervosa.</i> - 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; <i>Ossa habent</i>,<i> +et nervos.<br> +<br> +Notæ domini Sti. Albani de doctrin. intemper.</i> - <i>Dictator.</i> +- <i>Aristoteles.</i> - 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 <i>monte potiri</i>,<i> </i>to get the hill; +for no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level.<br> +<br> +<i>De optimo scriptore.</i> - <i>Cicero.</i> - 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, <i>Dicere +recte nemo potest</i>,<i> nisi qui prudenter intelligit</i>. <a name="citation124a"></a><a href="#footnote124a">{124a}</a> +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?<br> +<br> +<i>De stylo epistolari.</i> - <i>Inventio.</i> - In<i> </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>Modus.</i> - 1<i>. Brevitas.</i> - 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 [<i>not only</i>,<i> but also; +both the one and the other</i>,<i> whereby it cometh to pass</i>] 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Quintilian.</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +2. <i>Perspicuitas.</i> - 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 <i>accommodation</i>,<i> complement</i>,<i> spirit </i>&c., +but use them properly in their place, as others.<br> +<br> +3. <i>Vigor</i> - 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 <i>Courtier</i>,<i> </i>and the second book of Cicero +<i>De Oratore.<br> +<br> +</i>4. <i>Discretio</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>De Poetica</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +That is the state word, the phrase of court (placentia college), which +some call Parasites place, the Inn of Ignorance.<br> +<br> +<i>D. Hieronymus. </i>- 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, <i>Ubi generalis est de vitiis disputatio</i>,<i> +ibi nullius esse personæ injuriam</i>? <a name="citation133a"></a><a href="#footnote133a">{133a}</a> +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 -<br> +<br> +<br> +“Auriculas teneras mordaci rodere vero.” <a name="citation133b"></a><a href="#footnote133b">{133b}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Remedii votum semper verius erat</i>,<i> quam spes. </i><a name="citation133c"></a><a href="#footnote133c">{133c}</a> +<i>- Sexus fæmin</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>What is a Poet?<br> +<br> +<br> +Poeta. </i>- A poet is that which by the Greeks is called κατ +εξοχην, ο ποιητης, +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 ποιειν, 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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>What mean</i>,<i> you by a Poem?<br> +<br> +<br> +Poema</i>. - 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 Æneas hangs up and consecrates the arms of +Abas with this inscription:-<br> +<br> +<br> +“Æneas hæc de Danais victoribus arma.” <a name="citation136a"></a><a href="#footnote136a">{136a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +And calls it a poem or carmen. Such are those in Martial:-<br> +<br> +<br> +“Omnia, Castor, emis: sic fiet, ut omnia vendas.” <a name="citation136b"></a><a href="#footnote136b">{136b}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +And -<br> +<br> +<br> +“Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper.” <a name="citation136c"></a><a href="#footnote136c">{136c}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Horatius. - Lucretius</i>. - So were Horace’s odes called Carmina, +his lyric songs. And Lucretius designs a whole book in his sixth:-<br> +<br> +<br> +“Quod in primo quoque carmine claret.” <a name="citation136d"></a><a href="#footnote136d">{136d}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Epicum. -</i> <i>Dramaticum. -</i> <i>Lyricum. -</i> <i>Elegiacum. +- Epigrammat</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>But how differs a Poem from what we call Poesy?<br> +<br> +<br> +Poesis. - Artium regina. - Poet. differentiæ. - Grammatic. -</i> +<i>Logic. -</i> <i>Rhetoric. -</i> <i>Ethica. -</i> 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.<br> +<br> +1. <i>Ingenium. -</i> <i>Seneca. -</i> <i>Plato. -</i> <i>Aristotle. +-</i> <i>Helicon. -</i> <i>Pegasus. -</i> <i>Parnassus. -</i> <i>Ovid. +-</i> 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, <i>Aliquando secundum Anacreontem insanire +jucundum esse; </i>by which he understands the poetical rapture. +And according to that of Plato, <i>Frustrà poeticas fores sui +compos pulsavit</i>. And of Aristotle, <i>Nullum magnum ingenium +sine mixturâ dementiæ fuit. Nec potest grande aliquid</i>,<i> +et supra cæteros loqui</i>,<i> nisi mota mens</i>. 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,<br> +<br> +<br> +“Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo<br> +Sedibus æthereis spiritus ille venit.” <a name="citation139a"></a><a href="#footnote139a">{139a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Lipsius. - Petron. in. Fragm</i>. - And Lipsius to affirm, <i>Scio</i>,<i> +poetam neminem præstantem fuisse</i>,<i> sine parte quadam uberiore +divinæ auræ</i>. 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 <i>Solus rex</i>,<i> aut poeta</i>,<i> non +quotannis nascitur</i>. To this perfection of nature in our poet +we require exercise of those parts, and frequent.<br> +<br> +2. <i>Exercitatio. -</i> <i>Virgil. -</i> <i>Scaliger. -</i> <i>Valer. +Maximus. - Euripides. - Alcestis</i>. - 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, <i>ex tempore; </i>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.<br> +<br> +3. <i>Imitatio. -</i> <i>Horatius. -</i> <i>Virgil. -</i> <i>Statius. +-</i> <i>Homer. - Horat. - Archil. - Alcæus</i>,<i> </i>&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 Alcæus, and the other lyrics; and so of the rest.<br> +<br> +4. <i>Lectio. -</i> <i>Parnassus. -</i> <i>Helicon. - Arscoron. +- M. T. Cicero. - Simylus. - Stob. - Horat. - Aristot</i>. - 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 Stobæus, &Omicronυτε +φυσις ικανη yινεται +τεχνης ατερ, ουτε +παν τεχνη μη φυσιν +κεκτημενη, 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Virorum schola respub. - Lysippus. - Apelles. - Nævius</i>. +- 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:<br> +<br> +<br> +“Immortales mortales si fas esset fiere,<br> +Flerent divæ Camœnæ Nævium poetam;<br> +Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro,<br> +Obliti sunt Romæ linguâ loqui Latinâ.” <a name="citation146a"></a><a href="#footnote146a">{146a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<i>L. Ælius Stilo. - Plautus. - M. Varro</i>. - Or that modester +testimony given by Lucius Ælius Stilo upon Plautus, who affirmed, +<i>“Musas</i>,<i> si Latinè loqui voluissent</i>,<i> Plautino +sermone fuisse loquuturas</i>.” 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Sophocles</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Demosthenes. -</i> <i>Pericles. -</i> <i>Alcibiades. -</i> 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?<br> +<br> +<i>Aristotle</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Euripides. -</i> <i>Aristophanes. -</i> 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Cens. Scal. in Lil. Germ. - Horace</i>. - To judge of poets is only +the faculty of poets; and not of all poets, but the best. <i>Nemo +infeliciùs de poetis judicavit</i>,<i> quàm qui de poetis +scripsit</i>. <a name="citation148a"></a><a href="#footnote148a">{148a}</a> +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<i> </i>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.<br> +<br> +Cato, the grammarian, a defender of Lucilius. <a name="citation149a"></a><a href="#footnote149a">{149a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +“Cato grammaticus, Latina syren,<br> +Qui solus legit, et facit poetas.”<br> +<br> +<br> +Quintilian of the same heresy, but rejected. <a name="citation149b"></a><a href="#footnote149b">{149b}</a><br> +<br> +Horace, his judgment of Chœrillus defended against Joseph Scaliger. +<a name="citation149c"></a><a href="#footnote149c">{149c}</a> +And of Laberius against Julius. <a name="citation149d"></a><a href="#footnote149d">{149d}</a><br> +<br> +But chiefly his opinion of Plautus <a name="citation149e"></a><a href="#footnote149e">{149e}</a> +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.<br> +<br> +<i>Terence. - Menander</i>. 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.<br> +<br> +Now, let us see what may be said for either, to defend Horace’s +judgment to posterity and not wholly to condemn Plautus.<br> +<br> +<i>The parts of a comedy and tragedy</i>. - 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 διδασκαλοι,<i> +</i>of the Greeks no less than the tragics.<br> +<br> +<i>Aristotle. - Plato. - Homer. - </i>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.<br> +<br> +<i>The wit of the old comedy. </i>- 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Aristophanes. - Plautus</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Socrates. -</i> <i>Theatrical wit. -</i> 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?<br> +<br> +<i>The cart</i>. - This is truly leaping from the stage to the tumbril +again, reducing all wit to the original dung-cart.<br> +<br> +<br> +<i>Of the magnitude and compass of any fable</i>,<i> epic or</i> <i>dramatic.<br> +<br> +What the measure of a fable is. - The fable or plot of a poem defined. +- The epic fable</i>,<i> differing from the dramatic</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>What we understand by whole</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>What is the utmost bounds of a fable</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>What by one and entire</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Hercules. -</i> <i>Theseus. -</i> <i>Achilles. -</i> <i>Ulysses. +-</i> <i>Homer and Virgil. - Æneas. - Venus. -</i> 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 Æneas, 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.<br> +<br> +<i>Theseus. -</i> <i>Hercules. -</i> <i>Juvenal. - Codrus. -</i> <i>Sophocles. +- Ajax. - Ulysses</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +<i>The conclusion concerning the whole</i>,<i> and the parts. - Which +are episodes. - Ajax and Hector. - Homer</i>. - 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.<br> +<br> +You admire no poems but such as run like a brewer’s cart upon +the stones, hobbling:-<br> +<br> +<br> +“Et, quæ per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt,<br> + Accius et quidquid Pacuviusque vomunt.<br> +Attonitusque legis terraï, frugiferaï.” <a name="citation160a"></a><a href="#footnote160a">{160a}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +SOME POEMS.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +TO WILLIAM CAMDEN<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Camden! most reverend head, to whom I owe<br> +All that I am in arts, all that I know -<br> +How nothing’s that! to whom my country owes<br> +The great renown, and name wherewith she goes!<br> +Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave,<br> +More high, more holy, that she more would crave.<br> +What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things!<br> +What sight in searching the most antique springs!<br> +What weight, and what authority in thy speech!<br> +Men scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst teach.<br> +Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty,<br> +Which conquers all, be once o’ercome by thee.<br> +Many of thine, this better could, than I;<br> +But for their powers, accept my piety.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Here lies, to each her parents’ ruth,<br> +Mary, the daughter of their youth;<br> +Yet, all heaven’s gifts, being heaven’s due,<br> +It makes the father less to rue.<br> +At six months’ end, she parted hence,<br> +With safety of her innocence;<br> +Whose soul heaven’s queen, whose name she bears,<br> +In comfort of her mother’s tears,<br> +Hath placed amongst her virgin-train;<br> +Where, while that severed doth remain,<br> +This grave partakes the fleshly birth;<br> +Which cover lightly, gentle earth!<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +ON MY FIRST SON<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;<br> +My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy;<br> +Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,<br> +Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.<br> +Oh! could I lose all father, now! for why,<br> +Will man lament the state he should envy?<br> +To have so soon ’scaped world’s, and flesh’s rage,<br> +And, if no other misery, yet age!<br> +Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie<br> +Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry;<br> +For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such,<br> +As what he loves may never like too much.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +TO FRANCIS BEAUMONT<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +How I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse,<br> +That unto me dost such religion use!<br> +How I do fear myself, that am not worth<br> +The least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth!<br> +At once thou mak’st me happy, and unmak’st;<br> +And giving largely to me, more thou takest!<br> +What fate is mine, that so itself bereaves?<br> +What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives?<br> +When even there, where most thou praisest me,<br> +For writing better, I must envy thee.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +OF LIFE AND DEATH<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds:<br> +Through which our merit leads us to our meeds.<br> +How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray,<br> +And hath it in his powers to make his way!<br> +This world death’s region is, the other life’s:<br> +And here it should be one of our first strifes,<br> +So to front death, as men might judge us past it:<br> +For good men but see death, the wicked taste it.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +INVITING A FRIEND TO SUPPER<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +To-night, grave sir, both my poor house and I<br> +Do equally desire your company;<br> +Not that we think us worthy such a guest,<br> +But that your worth will dignify our feast,<br> +With those that come; whose grace may make that seem<br> +Something, which else could hope for no esteem.<br> +It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates<br> +The entertainment perfect, not the cates.<br> +Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate,<br> +An olive, capers, or some bitter salad<br> +Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen,<br> +If we can get her, full of eggs, and then,<br> +Lemons and wine for sauce: to these, a coney<br> +Is not to be despaired of for our money;<br> +And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,<br> +The sky not falling, think we may have larks.<br> +I’ll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come:<br> +Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which some<br> +May yet be there; and godwit if we can;<br> +Knat, rail, and ruff, too. Howsoe’er, my man<br> +Shall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus,<br> +Livy, or of some better book to us,<br> +Of which we’ll speak our minds, amidst our meat;<br> +And I’ll profess no verses to repeat:<br> +To this if aught appear, which I not know of,<br> +That will the pastry, not my paper, show of.<br> +Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be;<br> +But that which most doth take my muse and me,<br> +Is a pure cup of rich canary wine,<br> +Which is the Mermaid’s now, but shall be mine:<br> +Of which had Horace, or Anacreon tasted,<br> +Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted.<br> +Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring,<br> +Are all but Luther’s beer, to this I sing.<br> +Of this we will sup free, but moderately,<br> +And we will have no Pooly’ or Parrot by;<br> +Nor shall our cups make any guilty men;<br> +But at our parting we will be as when<br> +We innocently met. No simple word<br> +That shall be uttered at our mirthful board,<br> +Shall make us sad next morning; or affright<br> +The liberty that we’ll enjoy to-night.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY,<br> +A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH’S CHAPEL<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Weep with me all you that read<br> + This little story;<br> +And know for whom a tear you shed,<br> + Death’s self is sorry.<br> +’Twas a child that so did thrive<br> + In grace and feature,<br> +As heaven and nature seemed to strive<br> + Which owned the creature.<br> +Years he numbered scarce thirteen<br> + When fates turned cruel;<br> +Yet three filled zodiacs had he been<br> + The stage’s jewel;<br> +And did act, what now we moan,<br> + Old men so duly;<br> +As, sooth, the Parcæ thought him one<br> + He played so truly.<br> +So, by error to his fate<br> + They all consented;<br> +But viewing him since, alas, too late!<br> + They have repented;<br> +And have sought to give new birth,<br> + In baths to steep him;<br> +But, being so much too good for earth,<br> + Heaven vows to keep him.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH, L. H.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Wouldst thou hear what man can say<br> +In a little? Reader, stay.<br> +Underneath this stone doth lie<br> +As much beauty as could die<br> +Which in life did harbour give<br> +To more virtue than doth live.<br> +If, at all, she had a fault<br> +Leave it buried in this vault.<br> +One name was Elizabeth,<br> +The other let it sleep with death.<br> +Fitter, where it died, to tell,<br> +Than that it lived at all. Farewell.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Underneath this sable hearse<br> +Lies the subject of all verse,<br> +Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother:<br> +Death! ere thou hast slain another,<br> +Learned, and fair, and good as she,<br> +Time shall throw a dart at thee.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, AND WHAT HE HATH +LEFT US<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +To draw no envy, Shakspeare, on thy name,<br> +Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;<br> +While I confess thy writings to be such,<br> +As neither man, nor muse can praise too much.<br> +’Tis true, and all men’s suffrage. But these ways<br> +Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise;<br> +For silliest ignorance on these may light,<br> +Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;<br> +Or blind affection, which doth ne’er advance<br> +The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;<br> +Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,<br> +And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise.<br> +These are, as some infamous bawd, or whore,<br> +Should praise a matron; what would hurt her more?<br> +But thou art proof against them, and, indeed,<br> +Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need.<br> +I, therefore, will begin: Soul of the age!<br> +The applause! delight! and wonder of our stage!<br> +My Shakspeare rise! I will not lodge thee by<br> +Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie<br> +A little further off, to make thee room:<br> +Thou art a monument without a tomb,<br> +And art alive still, while thy book doth live<br> +And we have wits to read, and praise to give.<br> +That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses,<br> +I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses;<br> +For if I thought my judgment were of years,<br> +I should commit thee surely with thy peers,<br> +And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine,<br> +Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow’s mighty line.<br> +And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek,<br> +From thence to honour thee, I will not seek<br> +For names: but call forth thundering Eschylus,<br> +Euripides, and Sophocles to us,<br> +Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead,<br> +To live again, to hear thy buskin tread,<br> +And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on,<br> +Leave thee alone for the comparison<br> +Of all that insolent Greece, or haughty Rome<br> +Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.<br> +Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show,<br> +To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe.<br> +He was not of an age, but for all time!<br> +And all the Muses still were in their prime,<br> +When, like Apollo, he came forth to warm<br> +Our ears, or like a Mercury to charm!<br> +Nature herself was proud of his designs,<br> +And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!<br> +Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,<br> +As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.<br> +The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes,<br> +Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;<br> +But antiquated and deserted lie,<br> +As they were not of nature’s family.<br> +Yet must I not give nature all; thy art,<br> +My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part.<br> +For though the poet’s matter nature be,<br> +His heart doth give the fashion: and, that he<br> +Who casts to write a living line, must sweat,<br> +(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat<br> +Upon the Muse’s anvil; turn the same,<br> +And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;<br> +Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;<br> +For a good poet’s made, as well as born.<br> +And such wert thou! Look how the father’s face<br> +Lives in his issue, even so the race<br> +Of Shakspeare’s mind and manners brightly shines<br> +In his well-turnèd, and true filèd lines;<br> +In each of which he seems to shake a lance,<br> +As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.<br> +Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it were<br> +To see thee in our water yet appear,<br> +And make those flights upon the banks of Thames,<br> +That so did take Eliza, and our James!<br> +But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere<br> +Advanced, and made a constellation there!<br> +Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage,<br> +Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage,<br> +Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night,<br> +And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +TO CELIA<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Drink to me only with thine eyes,<br> + And I will pledge with mine;<br> +Or leave a kiss but in the cup,<br> + And I’ll not look for wine.<br> +The thirst that from the soul doth rise<br> + Doth ask a drink divine:<br> +But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,<br> + I would not change for thine.<br> +<br> +I sent thee late a rosy wreath,<br> + Not so much honouring thee,<br> +As giving it a hope that there<br> + It could not withered be.<br> +But thou thereon didst only breathe,<br> + And sent’st it back to me:<br> +Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,<br> + Not of itself, but thee.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE TRIUMPH OF CHARIS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + See the chariot at hand here of Love,<br> + Wherein my lady rideth!<br> + Each that draws is a swan or a dove,<br> + And well the car Love guideth.<br> + As she goes, all hearts do duty<br> + Unto her beauty;<br> + And, enamoured, do wish, so they might<br> + But enjoy such +a sight,<br> + That they still were to run by her side,<br> +Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.<br> +<br> + Do but look on her eyes, they do light<br> + All that Love’s world compriseth!<br> + Do but look on her hair, it is bright<br> + As Love’s star when it riseth!<br> + Do but mark, her forehead’s smoother<br> + Than words that +soothe her!<br> + And from her arched brows, such a grace<br> + Sheds itself through +the face,<br> + As alone there triumphs to the life<br> +All the gain, all the good, of the elements’ strife.<br> +<br> + Have you seen but a bright lily grow<br> + Before rude hands have touched it?<br> + Have you marked but the fall o’ the snow<br> + Before the soil hath smutched it?<br> + Have you felt the wool of beaver?<br> + Or swan’s +down ever?<br> + Or have smelt o’ the bud o’ the brier?<br> + Or the nard in +the fire?<br> + Or have tasted the bag of the bee?<br> +O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +IN THE PERSON OF WOMANKIND<br> +A SONG APOLOGETIC<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Men, if you love us, play no more<br> + The fools or tyrants with your friends,<br> +To make us still sing o’er and o’er<br> + Our own false praises, for your ends:<br> + We have both wits and fancies too,<br> + And, if we must, let’s sing +of you.<br> +<br> +Nor do we doubt but that we can,<br> + If we would search with care and pain,<br> +Find some one good in some one man;<br> + So going thorough all your strain,<br> + We shall, at last, of parcels make<br> + One good enough for a song’s +sake.<br> +<br> +And as a cunning painter takes,<br> + In any curious piece you see,<br> +More pleasure while the thing he makes,<br> + Than when ’tis made - why so will we.<br> + And having pleased our art, we’ll +try<br> + To make a new, and hang that by.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +ODE<br> +<i>To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair</i>,<i> +Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morison.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>I.<br> +<br> +THE TURN.<br> +<br> + Brave infant of Saguntum, clear<br> + Thy coming forth in that great year,<br> +When the prodigious Hannibal did crown<br> +His cage, with razing your immortal town.<br> + Thou, looking then about,<br> + Ere thou wert half got out,<br> + Wise child, didst hastily return,<br> + And mad’st thy mother’s womb thine urn.<br> +How summed a circle didst thou leave mankind<br> +Of deepest lore, could we the centre find!<br> +<br> +THE COUNTER-TURN.<br> +<br> + Did wiser nature draw thee back,<br> + From out the horror of that sack,<br> +Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right,<br> +Lay trampled on? the deeds of death and night,<br> + Urged, hurried forth, and hurled<br> + Upon th’ affrighted world;<br> + Sword, fire, and famine, with fell fury met,<br> + And all on utmost ruin set;<br> +As, could they but life’s miseries foresee,<br> +No doubt all infants would return like thee.<br> +<br> +THE STAND.<br> +<br> +For what is life, if measured by the space<br> + Not by the act?<br> +Or maskèd man, if valued by his face,<br> + Above his fact?<br> + Here’s one outlived his peers,<br> + And told forth fourscore years;<br> + He vexèd time, and busied the whole state;<br> + Troubled both foes and friends;<br> + But ever to no ends:<br> + What did this stirrer but die late?<br> +How well at twenty had he fallen or stood!<br> +For three of his fourscore he did no good.<br> +<br> +II.<br> +<br> +THE TURN<br> +<br> + He entered well, by virtuous parts,<br> + Got up, and thrived with honest arts;<br> +He purchased friends, and fame, and honours then,<br> +And had his noble name advanced with men:<br> + But weary of that flight,<br> + He stooped in all men’s sight<br> + To sordid flatteries, +acts of strife,<br> + And sunk in that +dead sea of life,<br> +So deep, as he did then death’s waters sup,<br> +But that the cork of title buoyed him up.<br> +<br> +THE COUNTER-TURN<br> +<br> + Alas! but Morison fell young:<br> + He never fell, - thou fall’st, my tongue.<br> +He stood a soldier to the last right end,<br> +A perfect patriot, and a noble friend;<br> + But most, a virtuous son.<br> + All offices were done<br> + By him, so ample, full, and round,<br> + In weight, in measure, number, sound,<br> +As, though his age imperfect might appear,<br> +His life was of humanity the sphere.<br> +<br> +THE STAND<br> +<br> +Go now, and tell out days summed up with fears,<br> + And make them years;<br> +Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage,<br> + To swell thine age;<br> + Repeat of things a throng,<br> + To show thou hast been long,<br> +Not lived: for life doth her great actions spell.<br> + By what was done and wrought<br> + In season, and so brought<br> +To light: her measures are, how well<br> +Each syllabe answered, and was formed, how fair;<br> +These make the lines of life, and that’s her air!<br> +<br> +III.<br> +<br> +THE TURN<br> +<br> + It is not growing like a tree<br> + In bulk, doth make men better be;<br> +Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,<br> +To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:<br> + A lily of a day,<br> + Is fairer far in May,<br> + Although it fall and die that night;<br> + It was the plant, and flower of light.<br> +In small proportions we just beauties see;<br> +And in short measures, life may perfect be.<br> +<br> +THE COUNTER-TURN<br> +<br> + Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,<br> + And let thy looks with gladness shine:<br> +Accept this garland, plant it on thy head<br> +And think, nay know, thy Morison’s not dead<br> + He leaped the present age,<br> + Possessed with holy rage<br> + To see that bright eternal day;<br> + Of which we priests and poets say,<br> +Such truths, as we expect for happy men:<br> +And there he lives with memory and Ben.<br> +<br> +THE STAND<br> +<br> +Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went,<br> + Himself to rest,<br> +Or taste a part of that full joy he meant<br> + To have expressed,<br> + In this bright Asterism!<br> + Where it were friendship’s +schism,<br> + Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry,<br> + To separate these twi-<br> + Lights, the Dioscouri;<br> + And keep the one half from his Harry,<br> +But fate doth so alternate the design<br> +Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine.<br> +<br> +IV.<br> +<br> +THE TURN<br> +<br> + And shine as you exalted are;<br> + Two names of friendship, but one star:<br> +Of hearts the union, and those not by chance<br> +Made, or indenture, or leased out t’advance<br> + The profits for a time.<br> + No pleasures vain did chime,<br> + Of rhymes, or riots, at your feasts,<br> + Orgies of drink, or feigned protests:<br> +But simple love of greatness and of good,<br> +That knits brave minds and manners more than blood.<br> +<br> +THE COUNTER-TURN<br> +<br> + This made you first to know the why<br> + You liked, then after, to apply<br> +That liking; and approach so one the t’other,<br> +Till either grew a portion of the other:<br> + Each styled by his end,<br> + The copy of his friend.<br> + You lived to be the great sir-names,<br> + And titles, by which all made claims<br> +Unto the virtue; nothing perfect done,<br> +But as a Cary, or a Morison.<br> +<br> +THE STAND<br> +<br> +And such a force the fair example had,<br> + As they that saw<br> +The good, and durst not practise it, were glad<br> + That such a law<br> + Was left yet to mankind;<br> + Where they might read and find<br> + Friendship, indeed, was written not in words;<br> + And with the heart, not pen,<br> + Of two so early men,<br> + Whose lines her rolls were, and records;<br> +Who, ere the first down bloomed upon the chin,<br> +Had sowed these fruits, and got the harvest in.<br> +<br> +PRÆLUDIUM<br> +<br> +And must I sing? What subject shall I choose!<br> +Or whose great name in poets’ heaven use,<br> +For the more countenance to my active muse?<br> +<br> +Hercules? alas, his bones are yet sore<br> +With his old earthly labours t’ exact more<br> +Of his dull godhead were sin. I’ll implore<br> +<br> +Phœbus. No, tend thy cart still. Envious day<br> +Shall not give out that I have made thee stay,<br> +And foundered thy hot team, to tune my lay.<br> +<br> +Nor will I beg of thee, lord of the vine,<br> +To raise my spirits with thy conjuring wine,<br> +In the green circle of thy ivy twine.<br> +<br> +Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid,<br> +That at thy birth mad’st the poor smith afraid.<br> +Who with his axe thy father’s midwife played.<br> +<br> +Go, cramp dull Mars, light Venus, when he snorts,<br> +Or with thy tribade trine invent new sports;<br> +Thou, nor thy looseness with my making sorts.<br> +<br> +Let the old boy, your son, ply his old task,<br> +Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask;<br> +His absence in my verse is all I ask.<br> +<br> +Hermes, the cheater, shall not mix with us,<br> +Though he would steal his sisters’ Pegasus,<br> +And rifle him; or pawn his petasus.<br> +<br> +Nor all the ladies of the Thespian lake,<br> +Though they were crushed into one form, could make<br> +A beauty of that merit, that should take<br> +<br> +My muse up by commission; no, I bring<br> +My own true fire: now my thought takes wing,<br> +And now an epode to deep ears I sing.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +EPODE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Not to know vice at all, and keep true state,<br> + Is virtue and not fate:<br> +Next to that virtue, is to know vice well,<br> + And her black spite expel.<br> +Which to effect (since no breast is so sure,<br> + Or safe, but she’ll procure<br> +Some way of entrance) we must plant a guard<br> + Of thoughts to watch and ward<br> +At th’ eye and ear, the ports unto the mind,<br> + That no strange, or unkind<br> +Object arrive there, but the heart, our spy,<br> + Give knowledge instantly<br> +To wakeful reason, our affections’ king:<br> + Who, in th’ examining,<br> +Will quickly taste the treason, and commit<br> + Close, the close cause of it.<br> +’Tis the securest policy we have,<br> + To make our sense our slave.<br> +But this true course is not embraced by many:<br> + By many! scarce by any.<br> +For either our affections do rebel,<br> + Or else the sentinel,<br> +That should ring ’larum to the heart, doth sleep:<br> + Or some great thought doth keep<br> +Back the intelligence, and falsely swears<br> + They’re base and idle fears<br> +Whereof the loyal conscience so complains.<br> + Thus, by these subtle trains,<br> +Do several passions invade the mind,<br> + And strike our reason blind:<br> +Of which usurping rank, some have thought love<br> + The first: as prone to move<br> +Most frequent tumults, horrors, and unrests,<br> + In our inflamèd breasts:<br> +But this doth from the cloud of error grow,<br> + Which thus we over-blow.<br> +The thing they here call love is blind desire,<br> + Armed with bow, shafts, and fire;<br> +Inconstant, like the sea, of whence ’tis born,<br> + Rough, swelling, like a storm;<br> +With whom who sails, rides on the surge of fear,<br> + And boils as if he were<br> +In a continual tempest. Now, true love<br> + No such effects doth prove;<br> +That is an essence far more gentle, fine,<br> + Pure, perfect, nay, divine;<br> +It is a golden chain let down from heaven,<br> + Whose links are bright and even;<br> +That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines<br> + The soft and sweetest minds<br> +In equal knots: this bears no brands, nor darts,<br> + To murder different hearts,<br> +But, in a calm and god-like unity,<br> + Preserves community.<br> +O, who is he that, in this peace, enjoys<br> + Th’ elixir of all joys?<br> +A form more fresh than are the Eden bowers,<br> + And lasting as her flowers;<br> +Richer than Time and, as Times’s virtue, rare;<br> + Sober as saddest care;<br> +A fixèd thought, an eye untaught to glance;<br> + Who, blest with such high chance,<br> +Would, at suggestion of a steep desire,<br> + Cast himself from the spire<br> +Of all his happiness? But soft: I hear<br> + Some vicious fool draw near,<br> +That cries, we dream, and swears there’s no such thing,<br> + As this chaste love we sing.<br> +Peace, Luxury! thou art like one of those<br> + Who, being at sea, suppose,<br> +Because they move, the continent doth so:<br> + No, Vice, we let thee know<br> +Though thy wild thoughts with sparrows’ wings do fly,<br> + Turtles can chastely die;<br> +And yet (in this t’ express ourselves more clear)<br> + We do not number here<br> +Such spirits as are only continent,<br> + Because lust’s means are spent;<br> +Or those who doubt the common mouth of fame,<br> + And for their place and name,<br> +Cannot so safely sin: their chastity<br> + Is mere necessity;<br> +Nor mean we those whom vows and conscience<br> + Have filled with abstinence:<br> +Though we acknowledge who can so abstain,<br> + Makes a most blessèd gain;<br> +He that for love of goodness hateth ill,<br> + Is more crown-worthy still<br> +Than he, which for sin’s penalty forbears:<br> + His heart sins, though he fears.<br> +But we propose a person like our Dove,<br> + Graced with a Phœnix’ love;<br> +A beauty of that clear and sparkling light,<br> + Would make a day of night,<br> +And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys:<br> + Whose odorous breath destroys<br> +All taste of bitterness, and makes the air<br> + As sweet as she is fair.<br> +A body so harmoniously composed,<br> + As if natùre disclosed<br> +All her best symmetry in that one feature!<br> + O, so divine a creature<br> +Who could be false to? chiefly, when he knows<br> + How only she bestows<br> +The wealthy treasure of her love on him;<br> + Making his fortunes swim<br> +In the full flood of her admired perfection?<br> + What savage, brute affection,<br> +Would not be fearful to offend a dame<br> + Of this excelling frame?<br> +Much more a noble, and right generous mind,<br> + To virtuous moods inclined,<br> +That knows the weight of guilt: he will refrain<br> + From thoughts of such a strain,<br> +And to his sense object this sentence ever,<br> + “Man may securely sin, but safely never.”<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +AN ELEGY<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Though beauty be the mark of praise,<br> + And yours, of whom I sing, be such<br> + As not the world can praise too much,<br> +Yet is ‘t your virtue now I raise.<br> +<br> +A virtue, like allay, so gone<br> + Throughout your form, as though that move,<br> + And draw, and conquer all men’s love,<br> +This subjects you to love of one,<br> +<br> +Wherein you triumph yet: because<br> + ’Tis of yourself, and that you use<br> + The noblest freedom, not to choose<br> +Against or faith, or honour’s laws.<br> +<br> +But who could less expect from you,<br> + In whom alone Love lives again?<br> + By whom he is restored to men;<br> +And kept, and bred, and brought up true?<br> +<br> +His falling temples you have reared,<br> + The withered garlands ta’en away;<br> + His altars kept from the decay<br> +That envy wished, and nature feared;<br> +<br> +And on them burns so chaste a flame,<br> + With so much loyalty’s expense,<br> + As Love, t’ acquit such excellence,<br> +Is gone himself into your name.<br> +<br> +And you are he: the deity<br> + To whom all lovers are designed,<br> + That would their better objects find;<br> +Among which faithful troop am I;<br> +<br> +Who, as an offering at your shrine,<br> + Have sung this hymn, and here entreat<br> + One spark of your diviner heat<br> +To light upon a love of mine;<br> +<br> +Which, if it kindle not, but scant<br> + Appear, and that to shortest view,<br> + Yet give me leave t’ adore in you<br> +What I, in her, am grieved to want.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Footnotes:<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote11"></a><a href="#citation11">{11}</a> “So +live with yourself that you do not know how ill yow mind is furnished.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote12"></a><a href="#citation12">{12}</a> Αυτοδιδακτος<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote14"></a><a href="#citation14">{14}</a> “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.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote17a"></a><a href="#citation17a">{17a}</a> Night +gives counsel.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote17b"></a><a href="#citation17b">{17b}</a> Plutarch +in Life of Alexander. “Let it not be, O King, that you know +these things better than I.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote19a"></a><a href="#citation19a">{19a}</a> “They +were not our lords, but our leaders.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote19b"></a><a href="#citation19b">{19b}</a> “Much +of it is left also for those who shall be hereafter.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote19c"></a><a href="#citation19c">{19c}</a> “No +art is discovered at once and absolutely.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote22"></a><a href="#citation22">{22}</a> With a +great belly. Comes de Schortenhien.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote23"></a><a href="#citation23">{23}</a> “In +all things I have a better wit and courage than good fortune.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote24a"></a><a href="#citation24a">{24a}</a> “The +rich soil exhausts; but labour itself is an aid.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote24b"></a><a href="#citation24b">{24b}</a> “And +the gesticulation is vile.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote25a"></a><a href="#citation25a">{25a}</a> “An +end is to be looked for in every man, an animal most prompt to change.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote25b"></a><a href="#citation25b">{25b}</a> Arts +are not shared among heirs.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote31a"></a><a href="#citation31a">{31a}</a> “More +loquacious than eloquent; words enough, but little wisdom<i>.” +- Sallust.<br> +<br> +</i><a name="footnote31b"></a><a href="#citation31b">{31b}</a> +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.” - <i>Hesiod.<br> +<br> +</i><a name="footnote31c"></a><a href="#citation31c">{31c}</a> +<i>Vid. </i>Zeuxidis pict. Serm. ad Megabizum<i>.</i> - <i>Plutarch.<br> +<br> +</i><a name="footnote32a"></a><a href="#citation32a">{32a}</a> +“While the unlearned is silent he may be accounted wise, for he +has covered by his silence the diseases of his mind.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote32b"></a><a href="#citation32b">{32b}</a> Taciturnity.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote33a"></a><a href="#citation33a">{33a}</a> “Hold +your tongue above all things, after the example of the gods.” +- <i>See </i>Apuleius.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote33b"></a><a href="#citation33b">{33b}</a> “Press +down the lip with the finger.” - Juvenal.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote33c"></a><a href="#citation33c">{33c}</a> Plautus.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote33d"></a><a href="#citation33d">{33d}</a> Trinummus, +Act 2, Scen. 4.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote34a"></a><a href="#citation34a">{34a}</a> “It +was the lodging of calamity.” - Mart. lib. 1, ep. 85.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote41"></a><a href="#citation41">{41}</a> [“Ficta +omnia celeriter tanquam flosculi decidunt, nec simulatum potest quidquam +esse diuturnum.” - Cicero.]<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote44a"></a><a href="#citation44a">{44a}</a> Let +a Punic sponge go with the book. - Mart. 1. iv. epig. 10.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote47a"></a><a href="#citation47a">{47a}</a> He +had to be repressed.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote49a"></a><a href="#citation49a">{49a}</a> A wit-stand.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote49b"></a><a href="#citation49b">{49b}</a> Martial. +lib. xi. epig. 91. That fall over the rough ways and high rocks.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote59a"></a><a href="#citation59a">{59a}</a> 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.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote62a"></a><a href="#citation62a">{62a}</a> “Which +will secure a long age for the known writer.” - Horat. <i>de Art. +Poetica.<br> +<br> +</i><a name="footnote66a"></a><a href="#citation66a">{66a}</a> +They have poison for their food, even for their dainty.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote74a"></a><a href="#citation74a">{74a}</a> Haud +infima ars in principe, ubi lenitas, ubi severitas - plus polleat in +commune bonum callere.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote74b"></a><a href="#citation74b">{74b}</a> <i>i.e.</i>,<i> +</i>Machiavell.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote81a"></a><a href="#citation81a">{81a}</a> “Censure +pardons the crows and vexes the doves.” - Juvenal.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote81b"></a><a href="#citation81b">{81b}</a> “Does +not spread his net for the hawk or the kite.” - Plautus.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote93"></a><a href="#citation93">{93}</a> 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.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote94"></a><a href="#citation94">{94}</a> Plin. +lib. 35. c. 2, 5, 6, and 7. Vitruv. lib. 8 and 7.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote95"></a><a href="#citation95">{95}</a> Horat. +in “Arte Poet.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote106a"></a><a href="#citation106a">{106a}</a> +Livy, Sallust, Sidney, Donne, Gower, Chaucer, Spenser, Virgil, Ennius, +Homer, Quintilian, Plautus, Terence.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote110a"></a><a href="#citation110a">{110a}</a> +The interpreter of gods and men.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote111a"></a><a href="#citation111a">{111a}</a> +Julius Cæsar. Of words, <i>see</i> Hor. “De Art. Poet.;” +Quintil. 1. 8, “Ludov. Vives,” pp. 6 and 7.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote111b"></a><a href="#citation111b">{111b}</a> +A prudent man conveys nothing rashly.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote114a"></a><a href="#citation114a">{114a}</a> +That jolt as they fall over the rough places and the rocks.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote116a"></a><a href="#citation116a">{116a}</a> +Directness enlightens, obliquity and circumlocution darken.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote117a"></a><a href="#citation117a">{117a}</a> +Ocean trembles as if indignant that you quit the land.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote117b"></a><a href="#citation117b">{117b}</a> +You might believe that the uprooted Cyclades were floating in.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote118a"></a><a href="#citation118a">{118a}</a> +Those armies of the people of Rome that might break through the heavens. +- Cæsar. Comment. circa fin.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote124a"></a><a href="#citation124a">{124a}</a> +No one can speak rightly unless he apprehends wisely.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote133a"></a><a href="#citation133a">{133a}</a> +“Where the discussion of faults is general, no one is injured.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote133b"></a><a href="#citation133b">{133b}</a> +“Gnaw tender little ears with biting truth - <i>Per Sat</i>. 1.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote133c"></a><a href="#citation133c">{133c}</a> +“The wish for remedy is always truer than the hope. - <i>Livius.<br> +<br> +</i><a name="footnote136a"></a><a href="#citation136a">{136a}</a> +“Æneas dedicates these arms concerning the conquering Greeks.” +- <i>Virg. Æn. </i>lib. 3.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote136b"></a><a href="#citation136b">{136b}</a> +“You buy everything, Castor; the time will come when you will +sell everything.” - <i>Martial</i>,<i> </i>lib. 8, epig. 19.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote136c"></a><a href="#citation136c">{136c}</a> +“Cinna wishes to seem poor, and is poor.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote136d"></a><a href="#citation136d">{136d}</a> +“Which is evident in every first song.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote139a"></a><a href="#citation139a">{139a}</a> +“There is a god within us, and when he is stirred we grow warm; +that spirit comes from heavenly realms.”<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote146a"></a><a href="#citation146a">{146a}</a> +“If it were allowable for immortals to weep for mortals, the Muses +would weep for the poet Nævius; since he is handed to the chamber +of Orcus, they have forgotten how to speak Latin at Rome.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote148a"></a><a href="#citation148a">{148a}</a> +“No one has judged poets less happily than he who wrote about +them.”<i> - Senec. de Brev</i>. <i>Vit</i>, cap. 13, et epist. +88.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote149a"></a><a href="#citation149a">{149a}</a> +Heins, de Sat. 265.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote149b"></a><a href="#citation149b">{149b}</a> +Pag. 267.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote149c"></a><a href="#citation149c">{149c}</a> +Pag. 270. 271.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote149d"></a><a href="#citation149d">{149d}</a> +Pag. 273, <i>et seq</i>.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote149e"></a><a href="#citation149e">{149e}</a> +Pag. in comm. 153, <i>et seq.<br> +<br> +</i><a name="footnote160a"></a><a href="#citation160a">{160a}</a> +“And which jolt as they fall over the rough uneven road and high +rocks.” - <i>Martial</i>, lib. xi. epig. 91.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, DISCOVERIES ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named dscv10h.htm or dscv10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, dscv11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, dscv10ah.htm + +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. 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