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.
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.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
--Nothing doth more invite a greedy reader than an
unlooked-for subject. And what more unlooked-for than to see a person of
an unblamed life made ridiculous or odious by the artifice of lying? But
it is the disease of the age; and no wonder if the world, growing old,
begin to be infirm: old age itself is a disease. It is long since the
sick world began to dote and talk idly: would she had but doted still!
but her dotage is now broke forth into a madness, and become a mere
frenzy.
_Alastoris malitia_. --This Alastor, who hath left nothing unsearched or
unassailed by his impudent and licentious lying in his aguish writings
(for he was in his cold quaking fit all the while), what hath he done
more than a troublesome base cur? barked and made a noise afar off; had a
fool or two to spit in his mouth, and cherish him with a musty bone? But
they are rather enemies of my fame than me, these barkers.
_Mali Choragi fuere_. --It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel
a lie well, to give it a good dressing; that though the nakedness would
show deformed and odious, the suiting of it might draw their readers.
Some love any strumpet, be she never so shop-like or meretricious, in
good clothes. But these, nature could not have formed them better to
destroy their own testimony and overthrow their calumny.
_Hear-say news_. --That an elephant, in 1630, came hither ambassador from
the Great Mogul, who could both write and read, and was every day allowed
twelve cast of bread, twenty quarts of Canary sack, besides nuts and
almonds the citizens' wives sent him. That he had a Spanish boy to his
interpreter, and his chief negociation was to confer or practise with
Archy, the principal fool of state, about stealing hence Windsor Castle
and carrying it away on his back if he can.
_Lingua sapientis_, _potius quam loquentis_. --A wise tongue should not be
licentious and wandering; but moved and, as it were, governed with
certain reins from the heart and bottom of the breast: and it was
excellently said of that philosopher, that there was a wall or parapet of
teeth set in our mouth, to restrain the petulancy of our words; that the
rashness of talking should not only be retarded by the guard and watch of
our heart, but be fenced in and defended by certain strengths placed in
the mouth itself, and within the lips. But you shall see some so abound
with words, without any seasoning or taste of matter, in so profound a
security, as while they are speaking, for the most part they confess to
speak they know not what.
Of the two (if either were to be wished) I would rather have a plain
downright wisdom, than a foolish and affected eloquence. For what is so
furious and Bedlam like as a vain sound of chosen and excellent words,
without any subject of sentence or science mixed?
_Optanda_. --_Thersites Homeri_. --Whom the disease of talking still once
possesseth, he can never hold his peace. Nay, rather than he will not
discourse he will hire men to hear him. And so heard, not hearkened
unto, he comes off most times like a mountebank, that when he hath
praised his medicines, finds none will take them, or trust him. He is
like Homer's _Thersites_.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ; speaking without judgement or measure.
"Loquax magis, quam facundus,
Satis loquentiae, sapientiae parum. {31a}
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . {31b}
Optimus est homini linguae thesaurus, et ingens
Gratia, quae parcis mensurat singula verbis. "
_Homeri Ulysses_. --_Demacatus Plutarchi_. --Ulysses, in Homer, is made a
long-thinking man before he speaks; and Epaminondas is celebrated by
Pindar to be a man that, though he knew much, yet he spoke but little.
Demacatus, when on the bench he was long silent and said nothing, one
asking him if it were folly in him, or want of language, he answered, "A
fool could never hold his peace. " {31c} For too much talking is ever the
index of a fool.
"Dum tacet indoctus, poterit cordatus haberi;
Is morbos animi namque tacendo tegit. " {32a}
Nor is that worthy speech of Zeno the philosopher to be passed over with
the note of ignorance; who being invited to a feast in Athens, where a
great prince's ambassadors were entertained, and was the only person that
said nothing at the table; one of them with courtesy asked him, "What
shall we return from thee, Zeno, to the prince our master, if he asks us
of thee? " "Nothing," he replied, "more but that you found an old man in
Athens that knew to be silent amongst his cups. " It was near a miracle
to see an old man silent, since talking is the disease of age; but
amongst cups makes it fully a wonder.
_Argute dictum_. --It was wittily said upon one that was taken for a great
and grave man so long as he held his peace, "This man might have been a
counsellor of state, till he spoke; but having spoken, not the beadle of
the ward. " ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . {32b} Pytag. quam laudabilis! ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . Linguam cohibe, prae aliis omnibus, ad
deorum exemplum. {33a} Digito compesce labellum. {33b}
_Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes_. --There is almost no man but he
sees clearlier and sharper the vices in a speaker, than the virtues. And
there are many, that with more ease will find fault with what is spoken
foolishly than can give allowance to that wherein you are wise silently.
The treasure of a fool is always in his tongue, said the witty comic
poet; {33c} and it appears not in anything more than in that nation,
whereof one, when he had got the inheritance of an unlucky old grange,
would needs sell it; {33d} and to draw buyers proclaimed the virtues of
it. Nothing ever thrived on it, saith he. No owner of it ever died in
his bed; some hung, some drowned themselves; some were banished, some
starved; the trees were all blasted; the swine died of the measles, the
cattle of the murrain, the sheep of the rot; they that stood were ragged,
bare, and bald as your hand; nothing was ever reared there, not a
duckling, or a goose. _Hospitium fuerat calamitatis_. {34a} Was not
this man like to sell it?
_Vulgi expectatio_. --Expectation of the vulgar is more drawn and held with
newness than goodness; we see it in fencers, in players, in poets, in
preachers, in all where fame promiseth anything; so it be new, though
never so naught and depraved, they run to it, and are taken.
Which
shews, that the only decay or hurt of the best men's reputation with the
people is, their wits have out-lived the people's palates. They have
been too much or too long a feast.
_Claritas patriae_. --Greatness of name in the father oft-times helps not
forth, but overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The
shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more
and oftener to be heir of the first, than doth the second: he dies
between; the possession is the third's.
_Eloquentia_. --Eloquence is a great and diverse thing: nor did she yet
ever favour any man so much as to become wholly his. He is happy that
can arrive to any degree of her grace. Yet there are who prove
themselves masters of her, and absolute lords; but I believe they may
mistake their evidence: for it is one thing to be eloquent in the
schools, or in the hall; another at the bar, or in the pulpit. There is
a difference between mooting and pleading; between fencing and fighting.
To make arguments in my study, and confute them, is easy; where I answer
myself, not an adversary. So I can see whole volumes dispatched by the
umbratical doctors on all sides: but draw these forth into the just
lists: let them appear _sub dio_, and they are changed with the place,
like bodies bred in the shade; they cannot suffer the sun or a shower,
nor bear the open air; they scarce can find themselves, that they were
wont to domineer so among their auditors: but indeed I would no more
choose a rhetorician for reigning in a school, than I would a pilot for
rowing in a pond.
_Amor et odium_. --Love that is ignorant, and hatred, have almost the same
ends: many foolish lovers wish the same to their friends, which their
enemies would: as to wish a friend banished, that they might accompany
him in exile; or some great want, that they might relieve him; or a
disease, that they might sit by him. They make a causeway to their
country by injury, as if it were not honester to do nothing than to seek
a way to do good by a mischief.
_Injuria_. --Injuries do not extinguish courtesies: they only suffer them
not to appear fair. For a man that doth me an injury after a courtesy,
takes not away that courtesy, but defaces it: as he that writes other
verses upon my verses, takes not away the first letters, but hides them.
_Beneficia_. --Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and that
friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our
boats; or winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or meats,
that they be nourishing. For these are what they are necessarily.
Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some
men may receive a courtesy and not know it; but never any man received it
from him that knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by
accidents; but they were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of
an ague by falling into a water; another whipped out of a fever; but no
man would ever use these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the
event, that distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may
offend the judge with his pride and impertinences, and I win my cause;
but he meant it not to me as a courtesy. I scaped pirates by being
shipwrecked; was the wreck a benefit therefore? No; the doing of
courtesies aright is the mixing of the respects for his own sake and for
mine. He that doeth them merely for his own sake is like one that feeds
his cattle to sell them; he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield.
_Valor rerum_. --The price of many things is far above what they are bought
and sold for. Life and health, which are both inestimable, we have of
the physician; as learning and knowledge, the true tillage of the mind,
from our schoolmasters. But the fees of the one or the salary of the
other never answer the value of what we received, but served to gratify
their labours.
_Memoria_. --Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate
and frail; it is the first of our faculties that age invades. Seneca,
the father, the rhetorician, confesseth of himself he had a miraculous
one, not only to receive but to hold. I myself could, in my youth, have
repeated all that ever I had made, and so continued till I was past
forty; since, it is much decayed in me. Yet I can repeat whole books
that I have read, and poems of some selected friends which I have liked
to charge my memory with. It was wont to be faithful to me; but shaken
with age now, and sloth, which weakens the strongest abilities, it may
perform somewhat, but cannot promise much. By exercise it is to be made
better and serviceable. Whatsoever I pawned with it while I was young
and a boy, it offers me readily, and without stops; but what I trust to
it now, or have done of later years, it lays up more negligently, and
oftentimes loses; so that I receive mine own (though frequently called
for) as if it were new and borrowed. Nor do I always find presently from
it what I seek; but while I am doing another thing, that I laboured for
will come; and what I sought with trouble will offer itself when I am
quiet. Now, in some men I have found it as happy as Nature, who,
whatsoever they read or pen, they can say without book presently, as if
they did then write in their mind. And it is more a wonder in such as
have a swift style, for their memories are commonly slowest; such as
torture their writings, and go into council for every word, must needs
fix somewhat, and make it their own at last, though but through their own
vexation.
_Comit. suffragia_. --Suffrages in Parliament are numbered, not weighed;
nor can it be otherwise in those public councils where nothing is so
unequal as the equality; for there, how odd soever men's brains or
wisdoms are, their power is always even and the same.
_Stare a partibus_. --Some actions, be they never so beautiful and
generous, are often obscured by base and vile misconstructions, either
out of envy or ill-nature, that judgeth of others as of itself. Nay, the
times are so wholly grown to be either partial or malicious, that if he
be a friend all sits well about him, his very vices shall be virtues; if
an enemy, or of the contrary faction, nothing is good or tolerable in
him; insomuch that we care not to discredit and shame our judgments to
soothe our passions.
_Deus in creaturis_. --Man is read in his face; God in His creatures; not
as the philosopher, the creature of glory, reads him; but as the divine,
the servant of humility; yet even he must take care not to be too
curious. For to utter truth of God but as he thinks only, may be
dangerous, who is best known by our not knowing. Some things of Him, so
much as He hath revealed or commanded, it is not only lawful but
necessary for us to know; for therein our ignorance was the first cause
of our wickedness.
_Veritas proprium hominis_. --Truth is man's proper good, and the only
immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christian or
ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it; no statesman or patriot should.
For without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, or what
you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says he hates him worse than
hell-mouth that utters one thing with his tongue and keeps another in his
breast. Which high expression was grounded on divine reason; for a lying
mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with the contagion it venteth.
Beside, nothing is lasting that is feigned; it will have another face
than it had, ere long. {41} As Euripides saith, "No lie ever grows old. "
_Nullum vitium sine patrocinio_. --It is strange there should be no vice
without its patronage, that when we have no other excuse we will say, we
love it, we cannot forsake it. As if that made it not more a fault. We
cannot, because we think we cannot, and we love it because we will defend
it. We will rather excuse it than be rid of it. That we cannot is
pretended; but that we will not is the true reason. How many have I
known that would not have their vices hid? nay, and, to be noted, live
like Antipodes to others in the same city? never see the sun rise or set
in so many years, but be as they were watching a corpse by torch-light;
would not sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity; they
would do it new, or contrary, for the infamy; they were ambitious of
living backward; and at last arrived at that, as they would love nothing
but the vices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform
these natures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may say
they desired to leave it, but do not trust them; and they may think they
desire it, but they may lie for all that; they are a little angry with
their follies now and then; marry, they come into grace with them again
quickly. They will confess they are offended with their manner of living
like enough; who is not? When they can put me in security that they are
more than offended, that they hate it, then I will hearken to them, and
perhaps believe them; but many now-a-days love and hate their ill
together.
_De vere argutis_. --I do hear them say often some men are not witty,
because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more
foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore
be all eye or nose! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin,
lip, or any part else are as necessary and natural in the place. But now
nothing is good that is natural; right and natural language seems to have
least of the wit in it; that which is writhed and tortured is counted the
more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no
face were fair that were not powdered or painted! no beauty to be had but
in wresting and writhing our own tongue! Nothing is fashionable till it
be deformed; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be affected
and preposterous as our gallants' clothes, sweet-bags, and
night-dressings, in which you would think our men lay in, like ladies, it
is so curious.
_Censura de poetis_. --Nothing in our age, I have observed, is more
preposterous than the running judgments upon poetry and poets; when we
shall hear those things commended and cried up for the best writings
which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug in; he
would never light his tobacco with them. And those men almost named for
miracles, who yet are so vile that if a man should go about to examine
and correct them, he must make all they have done but one blot. Their
good is so entangled with their bad as forcibly one must draw on the
other's death with it. A sponge dipped in ink will do all:--
"--Comitetur Punica librum
Spongia. --" {44a}
Et paulo post,
"Non possunt . . . multae . . . liturae
. . . una litura potest. "
_Cestius_--_Cicero_--_Heath_--_Taylor_--_Spenser_. --Yet their vices have not
hurt them; nay, a great many they have profited, for they have been loved
for nothing else. And this false opinion grows strong against the best
men, if once it take root with the ignorant. Cestius, in his time, was
preferred to Cicero, so far as the ignorant durst. They learned him
without book, and had him often in their mouths; but a man cannot imagine
that thing so foolish or rude but will find and enjoy an admirer; at
least a reader or spectator. The puppets are seen now in despite of the
players; Heath's epigrams and the Sculler's poems have their applause.
There are never wanting that dare prefer the worst preachers, the worst
pleaders, the worst poets; not that the better have left to write or
speak better, but that they that hear them judge worse; _Non illi pejus
dicunt_, _sed hi corruptius judicant_. Nay, if it were put to the
question of the water-rhymer's works, against Spenser's, I doubt not but
they would find more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out
of a prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments and like that
which is naught.
Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mistress to such as
have wholly addicted themselves to her, or given their names up to her
family. They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then
tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of
their own professions (both the law and the gospel) beyond all they could
have hoped or done for themselves without her favour. Wherein she doth
emulate the judicious but preposterous bounty of the time's grandees, who
accumulate all they can upon the parasite or fresh-man in their
friendship; but think an old client or honest servant bound by his place
to write and starve.
Indeed, the multitude commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers,
who if they come in robustiously and put for it with a deal of violence
are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness
is a cause of their disgrace, and a slight touch of their adversary gives
all that boisterous force the foil. But in these things the unskilful
are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things
greater than polished, and scattered more numerous than composed; nor
think this only to be true in the sordid multitude, but the neater sort
of our gallants; for all are the multitude, only they differ in clothes,
not in judgment or understanding.
_De Shakspeare nostrat_. --_Augustus in Hat_. --I remember the players have
often mentioned it as an honour to Shakspeare, that in his writing
(whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been,
"Would he had blotted a thousand," which they thought a malevolent
speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose
that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and
to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his
memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and
of an open and free nature, had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and
gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes
it was necessary he should be stopped. "_Sufflaminandus erat_," {47a} as
Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule
of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those things, could not
escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to
him, "Caesar, thou dost me wrong. " He replied, "Caesar did never wrong but
with just cause;" and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed
his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised
than to be pardoned.
_Ingeniorum discrimina_. --_Not. _ 1. --In the difference of wits I have
observed there are many notes; and it is a little maistry to know them,
to discern what every nature, every disposition will bear; for before we
sow our land we should plough it. There are no fewer forms of minds than
of bodies amongst us. The variety is incredible, and therefore we must
search. Some are fit to make divines, some poets, some lawyers, some
physicians; some to be sent to the plough, and trades.
There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting. Some wits are
swelling and high; others low and still; some hot and fiery; others cold
and dull; one must have a bridle, the other a spur.
_Not. _ 2. --There be some that are forward and bold; and these will do
every little thing easily. I mean that is hard by and next them, which
they will utter unretarded without any shamefastness. These never
perform much, but quickly. They are what they are on the sudden; they
show presently, like grain that, scattered on the top of the ground,
shoots up, but takes no root; has a yellow blade, but the ear empty.
They are wits of good promise at first, but there is an _ingenistitium_;
{49a} they stand still at sixteen, they get no higher.
_Not. _ 3. --You have others that labour only to ostentation; and are ever
more busy about the colours and surface of a work than in the matter and
foundation, for that is hid, the other is seen.
_Not. _ 4. --Others that in composition are nothing but what is rough and
broken. _Quae per salebras_, _altaque saxa cadunt_. {49b} And if it
would come gently, they trouble it of purpose. They would not have it
run without rubs, as if that style were more strong and manly that struck
the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but
knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by
themselves; have some singularity in a ruff cloak, or hat-band; or their
beards specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon
themselves. They would be reprehended while they are looked on. And
this vice, one that is authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to
them to be imitated; so that ofttimes the faults which be fell into the
others seek for. This is the danger, when vice becomes a precedent.
_Not. _ 5. --Others there are that have no composition at all; but a kind of
tuning and rhyming fall in what they write. It runs and slides, and only
makes a sound. Women's poets they are called, as you have women's
tailors.
"They write a verse as smooth, as soft as cream,
In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream. "
You may sound these wits and find the depth of them with your middle
finger. They are cream-bowl or but puddle-deep.
_Not. _ 6. --Some that turn over all books, and are equally searching in all
papers; that write out of what they presently find or meet, without
choice. By which means it happens that what they have discredited and
impugned in one week, they have before or after extolled the same in
another. Such are all the essayists, even their master Montaigne.
These, in all they write, confess still what books they have read last,
and therein their own folly so much, that they bring it to the stake raw
and undigested; not that the place did need it neither, but that they
thought themselves furnished and would vent it.
_Not. _ 7. --Some, again who, after they have got authority, or, which is
less, opinion, by their writings, to have read much, dare presently to
feign whole books and authors, and lie safely. For what never was, will
not easily be found, not by the most curious.
_Not. _ 8. --And some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and
false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert the sagacity of
their readers from themselves, and cool the scent of their own fox-like
thefts; when yet they are so rank, as a man may find whole pages together
usurped from one author; their necessities compelling them to read for
present use, which could not be in many books; and so come forth more
ridiculously and palpably guilty than those who, because they cannot
trace, they yet would slander their industry.
_Not. _ 9. --But the wretcheder are the obstinate contemners of all helps
and arts; such as presuming on their own naturals (which, perhaps, are
excellent), dare deride all diligence, and seem to mock at the terms when
they understand not the things; thinking that way to get off wittily with
their ignorance. These are imitated often by such as are their peers in
negligence, though they cannot be in nature; and they utter all they can
think with a kind of violence and indisposition, unexamined, without
relation either to person, place, or any fitness else; and the more
wilful and stubborn they are in it the more learned they are esteemed of
the multitude, through their excellent vice of judgment, who think those
things the stronger that have no art; as if to break were better than to
open, or to rend asunder gentler than to loose.
_Not. _ 10. --It cannot but come to pass that these men who commonly seek to
do more than enough may sometimes happen on something that is good and
great; but very seldom: and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest
of their ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and
ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is
sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick
darkness than a faint shadow. Now, because they speak all they can
(however unfitly), they are thought to have the greater copy; where the
learned use ever election and a mean, they look back to what they
intended at first, and make all an even and proportioned body. The true
artificer will not run away from Nature as he were afraid of her, or
depart from life and the likeness of truth, but speak to the capacity of
his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it
shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes and Tamer-chains of
the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting and
furious vociferation to warrant them to the ignorant gapers. He knows it
is his only art so to carry it, as none but artificers perceive it. In
the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or
by what contumelious word can come in their cheeks, by these men who,
without labour, judgment, knowledge, or almost sense, are received or
preferred before him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another
age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his
wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth
inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing,
what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses; how he doth reign in
men's affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes their
minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what
word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what is beautifully
translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, which strong, to show
the composition manly; and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene,
sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate phrase; which is not only praised
of the most, but commended (which is worse), especially for that it is
naught.
_Ignorantia animae_. --I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, not of
the arts and sciences, but of itself; yet relating to those it is a
pernicious evil, the darkener of man's life, the disturber of his reason,
and common confounder of truth, with which a man goes groping in the
dark, no otherwise than if he were blind. Great understandings are most
racked and troubled with it; nay, sometimes they will rather choose to
die than not to know the things they study for. Think, then, what an
evil it is, and what good the contrary.
_Scientia_. --Knowledge is the action of the soul and is perfect without
the senses, as having the seeds of all science and virtue in itself; but
not without the service of the senses; by these organs the soul works:
she is a perpetual agent, prompt and subtle; but often flexible and
erring, entangling herself like a silkworm, but her reason is a weapon
with two edges, and cuts through. In her indagations oft-times new
scents put her by, and she takes in errors into her by the same conduits
she doth truths.
_Otium Studiorum_. --Ease and relaxation are profitable to all studies.
unlooked-for subject. And what more unlooked-for than to see a person of
an unblamed life made ridiculous or odious by the artifice of lying? But
it is the disease of the age; and no wonder if the world, growing old,
begin to be infirm: old age itself is a disease. It is long since the
sick world began to dote and talk idly: would she had but doted still!
but her dotage is now broke forth into a madness, and become a mere
frenzy.
_Alastoris malitia_. --This Alastor, who hath left nothing unsearched or
unassailed by his impudent and licentious lying in his aguish writings
(for he was in his cold quaking fit all the while), what hath he done
more than a troublesome base cur? barked and made a noise afar off; had a
fool or two to spit in his mouth, and cherish him with a musty bone? But
they are rather enemies of my fame than me, these barkers.
_Mali Choragi fuere_. --It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel
a lie well, to give it a good dressing; that though the nakedness would
show deformed and odious, the suiting of it might draw their readers.
Some love any strumpet, be she never so shop-like or meretricious, in
good clothes. But these, nature could not have formed them better to
destroy their own testimony and overthrow their calumny.
_Hear-say news_. --That an elephant, in 1630, came hither ambassador from
the Great Mogul, who could both write and read, and was every day allowed
twelve cast of bread, twenty quarts of Canary sack, besides nuts and
almonds the citizens' wives sent him. That he had a Spanish boy to his
interpreter, and his chief negociation was to confer or practise with
Archy, the principal fool of state, about stealing hence Windsor Castle
and carrying it away on his back if he can.
_Lingua sapientis_, _potius quam loquentis_. --A wise tongue should not be
licentious and wandering; but moved and, as it were, governed with
certain reins from the heart and bottom of the breast: and it was
excellently said of that philosopher, that there was a wall or parapet of
teeth set in our mouth, to restrain the petulancy of our words; that the
rashness of talking should not only be retarded by the guard and watch of
our heart, but be fenced in and defended by certain strengths placed in
the mouth itself, and within the lips. But you shall see some so abound
with words, without any seasoning or taste of matter, in so profound a
security, as while they are speaking, for the most part they confess to
speak they know not what.
Of the two (if either were to be wished) I would rather have a plain
downright wisdom, than a foolish and affected eloquence. For what is so
furious and Bedlam like as a vain sound of chosen and excellent words,
without any subject of sentence or science mixed?
_Optanda_. --_Thersites Homeri_. --Whom the disease of talking still once
possesseth, he can never hold his peace. Nay, rather than he will not
discourse he will hire men to hear him. And so heard, not hearkened
unto, he comes off most times like a mountebank, that when he hath
praised his medicines, finds none will take them, or trust him. He is
like Homer's _Thersites_.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ; speaking without judgement or measure.
"Loquax magis, quam facundus,
Satis loquentiae, sapientiae parum. {31a}
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . {31b}
Optimus est homini linguae thesaurus, et ingens
Gratia, quae parcis mensurat singula verbis. "
_Homeri Ulysses_. --_Demacatus Plutarchi_. --Ulysses, in Homer, is made a
long-thinking man before he speaks; and Epaminondas is celebrated by
Pindar to be a man that, though he knew much, yet he spoke but little.
Demacatus, when on the bench he was long silent and said nothing, one
asking him if it were folly in him, or want of language, he answered, "A
fool could never hold his peace. " {31c} For too much talking is ever the
index of a fool.
"Dum tacet indoctus, poterit cordatus haberi;
Is morbos animi namque tacendo tegit. " {32a}
Nor is that worthy speech of Zeno the philosopher to be passed over with
the note of ignorance; who being invited to a feast in Athens, where a
great prince's ambassadors were entertained, and was the only person that
said nothing at the table; one of them with courtesy asked him, "What
shall we return from thee, Zeno, to the prince our master, if he asks us
of thee? " "Nothing," he replied, "more but that you found an old man in
Athens that knew to be silent amongst his cups. " It was near a miracle
to see an old man silent, since talking is the disease of age; but
amongst cups makes it fully a wonder.
_Argute dictum_. --It was wittily said upon one that was taken for a great
and grave man so long as he held his peace, "This man might have been a
counsellor of state, till he spoke; but having spoken, not the beadle of
the ward. " ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . {32b} Pytag. quam laudabilis! ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . Linguam cohibe, prae aliis omnibus, ad
deorum exemplum. {33a} Digito compesce labellum. {33b}
_Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes_. --There is almost no man but he
sees clearlier and sharper the vices in a speaker, than the virtues. And
there are many, that with more ease will find fault with what is spoken
foolishly than can give allowance to that wherein you are wise silently.
The treasure of a fool is always in his tongue, said the witty comic
poet; {33c} and it appears not in anything more than in that nation,
whereof one, when he had got the inheritance of an unlucky old grange,
would needs sell it; {33d} and to draw buyers proclaimed the virtues of
it. Nothing ever thrived on it, saith he. No owner of it ever died in
his bed; some hung, some drowned themselves; some were banished, some
starved; the trees were all blasted; the swine died of the measles, the
cattle of the murrain, the sheep of the rot; they that stood were ragged,
bare, and bald as your hand; nothing was ever reared there, not a
duckling, or a goose. _Hospitium fuerat calamitatis_. {34a} Was not
this man like to sell it?
_Vulgi expectatio_. --Expectation of the vulgar is more drawn and held with
newness than goodness; we see it in fencers, in players, in poets, in
preachers, in all where fame promiseth anything; so it be new, though
never so naught and depraved, they run to it, and are taken.
Which
shews, that the only decay or hurt of the best men's reputation with the
people is, their wits have out-lived the people's palates. They have
been too much or too long a feast.
_Claritas patriae_. --Greatness of name in the father oft-times helps not
forth, but overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The
shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more
and oftener to be heir of the first, than doth the second: he dies
between; the possession is the third's.
_Eloquentia_. --Eloquence is a great and diverse thing: nor did she yet
ever favour any man so much as to become wholly his. He is happy that
can arrive to any degree of her grace. Yet there are who prove
themselves masters of her, and absolute lords; but I believe they may
mistake their evidence: for it is one thing to be eloquent in the
schools, or in the hall; another at the bar, or in the pulpit. There is
a difference between mooting and pleading; between fencing and fighting.
To make arguments in my study, and confute them, is easy; where I answer
myself, not an adversary. So I can see whole volumes dispatched by the
umbratical doctors on all sides: but draw these forth into the just
lists: let them appear _sub dio_, and they are changed with the place,
like bodies bred in the shade; they cannot suffer the sun or a shower,
nor bear the open air; they scarce can find themselves, that they were
wont to domineer so among their auditors: but indeed I would no more
choose a rhetorician for reigning in a school, than I would a pilot for
rowing in a pond.
_Amor et odium_. --Love that is ignorant, and hatred, have almost the same
ends: many foolish lovers wish the same to their friends, which their
enemies would: as to wish a friend banished, that they might accompany
him in exile; or some great want, that they might relieve him; or a
disease, that they might sit by him. They make a causeway to their
country by injury, as if it were not honester to do nothing than to seek
a way to do good by a mischief.
_Injuria_. --Injuries do not extinguish courtesies: they only suffer them
not to appear fair. For a man that doth me an injury after a courtesy,
takes not away that courtesy, but defaces it: as he that writes other
verses upon my verses, takes not away the first letters, but hides them.
_Beneficia_. --Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and that
friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our
boats; or winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or meats,
that they be nourishing. For these are what they are necessarily.
Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some
men may receive a courtesy and not know it; but never any man received it
from him that knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by
accidents; but they were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of
an ague by falling into a water; another whipped out of a fever; but no
man would ever use these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the
event, that distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may
offend the judge with his pride and impertinences, and I win my cause;
but he meant it not to me as a courtesy. I scaped pirates by being
shipwrecked; was the wreck a benefit therefore? No; the doing of
courtesies aright is the mixing of the respects for his own sake and for
mine. He that doeth them merely for his own sake is like one that feeds
his cattle to sell them; he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield.
_Valor rerum_. --The price of many things is far above what they are bought
and sold for. Life and health, which are both inestimable, we have of
the physician; as learning and knowledge, the true tillage of the mind,
from our schoolmasters. But the fees of the one or the salary of the
other never answer the value of what we received, but served to gratify
their labours.
_Memoria_. --Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate
and frail; it is the first of our faculties that age invades. Seneca,
the father, the rhetorician, confesseth of himself he had a miraculous
one, not only to receive but to hold. I myself could, in my youth, have
repeated all that ever I had made, and so continued till I was past
forty; since, it is much decayed in me. Yet I can repeat whole books
that I have read, and poems of some selected friends which I have liked
to charge my memory with. It was wont to be faithful to me; but shaken
with age now, and sloth, which weakens the strongest abilities, it may
perform somewhat, but cannot promise much. By exercise it is to be made
better and serviceable. Whatsoever I pawned with it while I was young
and a boy, it offers me readily, and without stops; but what I trust to
it now, or have done of later years, it lays up more negligently, and
oftentimes loses; so that I receive mine own (though frequently called
for) as if it were new and borrowed. Nor do I always find presently from
it what I seek; but while I am doing another thing, that I laboured for
will come; and what I sought with trouble will offer itself when I am
quiet. Now, in some men I have found it as happy as Nature, who,
whatsoever they read or pen, they can say without book presently, as if
they did then write in their mind. And it is more a wonder in such as
have a swift style, for their memories are commonly slowest; such as
torture their writings, and go into council for every word, must needs
fix somewhat, and make it their own at last, though but through their own
vexation.
_Comit. suffragia_. --Suffrages in Parliament are numbered, not weighed;
nor can it be otherwise in those public councils where nothing is so
unequal as the equality; for there, how odd soever men's brains or
wisdoms are, their power is always even and the same.
_Stare a partibus_. --Some actions, be they never so beautiful and
generous, are often obscured by base and vile misconstructions, either
out of envy or ill-nature, that judgeth of others as of itself. Nay, the
times are so wholly grown to be either partial or malicious, that if he
be a friend all sits well about him, his very vices shall be virtues; if
an enemy, or of the contrary faction, nothing is good or tolerable in
him; insomuch that we care not to discredit and shame our judgments to
soothe our passions.
_Deus in creaturis_. --Man is read in his face; God in His creatures; not
as the philosopher, the creature of glory, reads him; but as the divine,
the servant of humility; yet even he must take care not to be too
curious. For to utter truth of God but as he thinks only, may be
dangerous, who is best known by our not knowing. Some things of Him, so
much as He hath revealed or commanded, it is not only lawful but
necessary for us to know; for therein our ignorance was the first cause
of our wickedness.
_Veritas proprium hominis_. --Truth is man's proper good, and the only
immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christian or
ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it; no statesman or patriot should.
For without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, or what
you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says he hates him worse than
hell-mouth that utters one thing with his tongue and keeps another in his
breast. Which high expression was grounded on divine reason; for a lying
mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with the contagion it venteth.
Beside, nothing is lasting that is feigned; it will have another face
than it had, ere long. {41} As Euripides saith, "No lie ever grows old. "
_Nullum vitium sine patrocinio_. --It is strange there should be no vice
without its patronage, that when we have no other excuse we will say, we
love it, we cannot forsake it. As if that made it not more a fault. We
cannot, because we think we cannot, and we love it because we will defend
it. We will rather excuse it than be rid of it. That we cannot is
pretended; but that we will not is the true reason. How many have I
known that would not have their vices hid? nay, and, to be noted, live
like Antipodes to others in the same city? never see the sun rise or set
in so many years, but be as they were watching a corpse by torch-light;
would not sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity; they
would do it new, or contrary, for the infamy; they were ambitious of
living backward; and at last arrived at that, as they would love nothing
but the vices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform
these natures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may say
they desired to leave it, but do not trust them; and they may think they
desire it, but they may lie for all that; they are a little angry with
their follies now and then; marry, they come into grace with them again
quickly. They will confess they are offended with their manner of living
like enough; who is not? When they can put me in security that they are
more than offended, that they hate it, then I will hearken to them, and
perhaps believe them; but many now-a-days love and hate their ill
together.
_De vere argutis_. --I do hear them say often some men are not witty,
because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more
foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore
be all eye or nose! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin,
lip, or any part else are as necessary and natural in the place. But now
nothing is good that is natural; right and natural language seems to have
least of the wit in it; that which is writhed and tortured is counted the
more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no
face were fair that were not powdered or painted! no beauty to be had but
in wresting and writhing our own tongue! Nothing is fashionable till it
be deformed; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be affected
and preposterous as our gallants' clothes, sweet-bags, and
night-dressings, in which you would think our men lay in, like ladies, it
is so curious.
_Censura de poetis_. --Nothing in our age, I have observed, is more
preposterous than the running judgments upon poetry and poets; when we
shall hear those things commended and cried up for the best writings
which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug in; he
would never light his tobacco with them. And those men almost named for
miracles, who yet are so vile that if a man should go about to examine
and correct them, he must make all they have done but one blot. Their
good is so entangled with their bad as forcibly one must draw on the
other's death with it. A sponge dipped in ink will do all:--
"--Comitetur Punica librum
Spongia. --" {44a}
Et paulo post,
"Non possunt . . . multae . . . liturae
. . . una litura potest. "
_Cestius_--_Cicero_--_Heath_--_Taylor_--_Spenser_. --Yet their vices have not
hurt them; nay, a great many they have profited, for they have been loved
for nothing else. And this false opinion grows strong against the best
men, if once it take root with the ignorant. Cestius, in his time, was
preferred to Cicero, so far as the ignorant durst. They learned him
without book, and had him often in their mouths; but a man cannot imagine
that thing so foolish or rude but will find and enjoy an admirer; at
least a reader or spectator. The puppets are seen now in despite of the
players; Heath's epigrams and the Sculler's poems have their applause.
There are never wanting that dare prefer the worst preachers, the worst
pleaders, the worst poets; not that the better have left to write or
speak better, but that they that hear them judge worse; _Non illi pejus
dicunt_, _sed hi corruptius judicant_. Nay, if it were put to the
question of the water-rhymer's works, against Spenser's, I doubt not but
they would find more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out
of a prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments and like that
which is naught.
Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mistress to such as
have wholly addicted themselves to her, or given their names up to her
family. They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then
tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of
their own professions (both the law and the gospel) beyond all they could
have hoped or done for themselves without her favour. Wherein she doth
emulate the judicious but preposterous bounty of the time's grandees, who
accumulate all they can upon the parasite or fresh-man in their
friendship; but think an old client or honest servant bound by his place
to write and starve.
Indeed, the multitude commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers,
who if they come in robustiously and put for it with a deal of violence
are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness
is a cause of their disgrace, and a slight touch of their adversary gives
all that boisterous force the foil. But in these things the unskilful
are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things
greater than polished, and scattered more numerous than composed; nor
think this only to be true in the sordid multitude, but the neater sort
of our gallants; for all are the multitude, only they differ in clothes,
not in judgment or understanding.
_De Shakspeare nostrat_. --_Augustus in Hat_. --I remember the players have
often mentioned it as an honour to Shakspeare, that in his writing
(whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been,
"Would he had blotted a thousand," which they thought a malevolent
speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose
that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and
to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his
memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and
of an open and free nature, had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and
gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes
it was necessary he should be stopped. "_Sufflaminandus erat_," {47a} as
Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule
of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those things, could not
escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to
him, "Caesar, thou dost me wrong. " He replied, "Caesar did never wrong but
with just cause;" and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed
his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised
than to be pardoned.
_Ingeniorum discrimina_. --_Not. _ 1. --In the difference of wits I have
observed there are many notes; and it is a little maistry to know them,
to discern what every nature, every disposition will bear; for before we
sow our land we should plough it. There are no fewer forms of minds than
of bodies amongst us. The variety is incredible, and therefore we must
search. Some are fit to make divines, some poets, some lawyers, some
physicians; some to be sent to the plough, and trades.
There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting. Some wits are
swelling and high; others low and still; some hot and fiery; others cold
and dull; one must have a bridle, the other a spur.
_Not. _ 2. --There be some that are forward and bold; and these will do
every little thing easily. I mean that is hard by and next them, which
they will utter unretarded without any shamefastness. These never
perform much, but quickly. They are what they are on the sudden; they
show presently, like grain that, scattered on the top of the ground,
shoots up, but takes no root; has a yellow blade, but the ear empty.
They are wits of good promise at first, but there is an _ingenistitium_;
{49a} they stand still at sixteen, they get no higher.
_Not. _ 3. --You have others that labour only to ostentation; and are ever
more busy about the colours and surface of a work than in the matter and
foundation, for that is hid, the other is seen.
_Not. _ 4. --Others that in composition are nothing but what is rough and
broken. _Quae per salebras_, _altaque saxa cadunt_. {49b} And if it
would come gently, they trouble it of purpose. They would not have it
run without rubs, as if that style were more strong and manly that struck
the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but
knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by
themselves; have some singularity in a ruff cloak, or hat-band; or their
beards specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon
themselves. They would be reprehended while they are looked on. And
this vice, one that is authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to
them to be imitated; so that ofttimes the faults which be fell into the
others seek for. This is the danger, when vice becomes a precedent.
_Not. _ 5. --Others there are that have no composition at all; but a kind of
tuning and rhyming fall in what they write. It runs and slides, and only
makes a sound. Women's poets they are called, as you have women's
tailors.
"They write a verse as smooth, as soft as cream,
In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream. "
You may sound these wits and find the depth of them with your middle
finger. They are cream-bowl or but puddle-deep.
_Not. _ 6. --Some that turn over all books, and are equally searching in all
papers; that write out of what they presently find or meet, without
choice. By which means it happens that what they have discredited and
impugned in one week, they have before or after extolled the same in
another. Such are all the essayists, even their master Montaigne.
These, in all they write, confess still what books they have read last,
and therein their own folly so much, that they bring it to the stake raw
and undigested; not that the place did need it neither, but that they
thought themselves furnished and would vent it.
_Not. _ 7. --Some, again who, after they have got authority, or, which is
less, opinion, by their writings, to have read much, dare presently to
feign whole books and authors, and lie safely. For what never was, will
not easily be found, not by the most curious.
_Not. _ 8. --And some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and
false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert the sagacity of
their readers from themselves, and cool the scent of their own fox-like
thefts; when yet they are so rank, as a man may find whole pages together
usurped from one author; their necessities compelling them to read for
present use, which could not be in many books; and so come forth more
ridiculously and palpably guilty than those who, because they cannot
trace, they yet would slander their industry.
_Not. _ 9. --But the wretcheder are the obstinate contemners of all helps
and arts; such as presuming on their own naturals (which, perhaps, are
excellent), dare deride all diligence, and seem to mock at the terms when
they understand not the things; thinking that way to get off wittily with
their ignorance. These are imitated often by such as are their peers in
negligence, though they cannot be in nature; and they utter all they can
think with a kind of violence and indisposition, unexamined, without
relation either to person, place, or any fitness else; and the more
wilful and stubborn they are in it the more learned they are esteemed of
the multitude, through their excellent vice of judgment, who think those
things the stronger that have no art; as if to break were better than to
open, or to rend asunder gentler than to loose.
_Not. _ 10. --It cannot but come to pass that these men who commonly seek to
do more than enough may sometimes happen on something that is good and
great; but very seldom: and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest
of their ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and
ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is
sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick
darkness than a faint shadow. Now, because they speak all they can
(however unfitly), they are thought to have the greater copy; where the
learned use ever election and a mean, they look back to what they
intended at first, and make all an even and proportioned body. The true
artificer will not run away from Nature as he were afraid of her, or
depart from life and the likeness of truth, but speak to the capacity of
his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it
shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes and Tamer-chains of
the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting and
furious vociferation to warrant them to the ignorant gapers. He knows it
is his only art so to carry it, as none but artificers perceive it. In
the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or
by what contumelious word can come in their cheeks, by these men who,
without labour, judgment, knowledge, or almost sense, are received or
preferred before him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another
age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his
wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth
inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing,
what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses; how he doth reign in
men's affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes their
minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what
word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what is beautifully
translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, which strong, to show
the composition manly; and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene,
sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate phrase; which is not only praised
of the most, but commended (which is worse), especially for that it is
naught.
_Ignorantia animae_. --I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, not of
the arts and sciences, but of itself; yet relating to those it is a
pernicious evil, the darkener of man's life, the disturber of his reason,
and common confounder of truth, with which a man goes groping in the
dark, no otherwise than if he were blind. Great understandings are most
racked and troubled with it; nay, sometimes they will rather choose to
die than not to know the things they study for. Think, then, what an
evil it is, and what good the contrary.
_Scientia_. --Knowledge is the action of the soul and is perfect without
the senses, as having the seeds of all science and virtue in itself; but
not without the service of the senses; by these organs the soul works:
she is a perpetual agent, prompt and subtle; but often flexible and
erring, entangling herself like a silkworm, but her reason is a weapon
with two edges, and cuts through. In her indagations oft-times new
scents put her by, and she takes in errors into her by the same conduits
she doth truths.
_Otium Studiorum_. --Ease and relaxation are profitable to all studies.
