No More Learning

We labour with it more than truth. There
is much more holds us than presseth us. An ill fact is one thing, an ill
fortune is another; yet both oftentimes sway us alike, by the error of
our thinking.

_Impostura_. --Many men believe not themselves what they would persuade
others; and less do the things which they would impose on others; but
least of all know what they themselves most confidently boast. Only they
set the sign of the cross over their outer doors, and sacrifice to their
gut and their groin in their inner closets.

_Jactura vitae_. --What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the
better part of life in! in scattering compliments, tendering visits,
gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little
winter-love in a dark corner.

Hypocrita. --_Puritanus Hypocrita est Haereticus_, _quem opinio propriae
perspicaciae_, _qua sibi videtur_, _cum paucis in Ecclesia dogmatibus
errores quosdam animadvertisse_, _de statu mentis deturbavit: unde sacro
furore percitus_, _phrenetice pugnat contra magistratus_, _sic ratus
obedientiam praestare Deo_. {14}

_Mutua auxilia_. --Learning needs rest: sovereignty gives it. Sovereignty
needs counsel: learning affords it. There is such a consociation of
offices between the prince and whom his favour breeds, that they may help
to sustain his power as he their knowledge. It is the greatest part of
his liberality, his favour; and from whom doth he hear discipline more
willingly, or the arts discoursed more gladly, than from those whom his
own bounty and benefits have made able and faithful?

_Cognit. univers_. --In being able to counsel others, a man must be
furnished with a universal store in himself, to the knowledge of all
nature--that is, the matter and seed-plot: there are the seats of all
argument and invention. But especially you must be cunning in the nature
of man: there is the variety of things which are as the elements and
letters, which his art and wisdom must rank and order to the present
occasion. For we see not all letters in single words, nor all places in
particular discourses. That cause seldom happens wherein a man will use
all arguments.

_Consiliarii adjunct_. _Probitas_, _Sapientia_. --The two chief things
that give a man reputation in counsel are the opinion of his honesty and
the opinion of his wisdom: the authority of those two will persuade when
the same counsels uttered by other persons less qualified are of no
efficacy or working.

_Vita recta_. --Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. And
therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten, which cannot be
but by living well. A good life is a main argument.

_Obsequentia_. --_Humanitas_. --_Solicitudo_. --Next a good life, to beget love
in the persons we counsel, by dissembling our knowledge of ability in
ourselves, and avoiding all suspicion of arrogance, ascribing all to
their instruction, as an ambassador to his master, or a subject to his
sovereign; seasoning all with humanity and sweetness, only expressing
care and solicitude. And not to counsel rashly, or on the sudden, but
with advice and meditation. (_Dat nox consilium_. {17a}) For many
foolish things fall from wise men, if they speak in haste or be
extemporal. It therefore behoves the giver of counsel to be circumspect;
especially to beware of those with whom he is not thoroughly acquainted,
lest any spice of rashness, folly, or self-love appear, which will be
marked by new persons and men of experience in affairs.

_Modestia_. --_Parrhesia_. --And to the prince, or his superior, to behave
himself modestly and with respect. Yet free from flattery or empire.
Not with insolence or precept; but as the prince were already furnished
with the parts he should have, especially in affairs of state. For in
other things they will more easily suffer themselves to be taught or
reprehended: they will not willingly contend, but hear, with Alexander,
the answer the musician gave him: _Absit_, _o rex_, _ut tu melius haec
scias_, _quam ego_. {17b}

_Perspicuitas_. --_Elegantia_. --A man should so deliver himself to the
nature of the subject whereof he speaks, that his hearer may take
knowledge of his discipline with some delight; and so apparel fair and
good matter, that the studious of elegancy be not defrauded; redeem arts
from their rough and braky seats, where they lay hid and overgrown with
thorns, to a pure, open, and flowery light, where they may take the eye
and be taken by the hand.

_Natura non effaeta_. --I cannot think Nature is so spent and decayed that
she can bring forth nothing worth her former years. She is always the
same, like herself; and when she collects her strength is abler still.
Men are decayed, and studies: she is not.

_Non nimium credendum antiquitati_. --I know nothing can conduce more to
letters than to examine the writings of the ancients, and not to rest in
their sole authority, or take all upon trust from them, provided the
plagues of judging and pronouncing against them be away; such as are
envy, bitterness, precipitation, impudence, and scurrilous scoffing. For
to all the observations of the ancients we have our own experience, which
if we will use and apply, we have better means to pronounce. It is true
they opened the gates, and made the way that went before us, but as
guides, not commanders: _Non domini nostri_, _sed duces fuere_. {19a}
Truth lies open to all; it is no man's several. _Patet omnibus veritas_;
_nondum est occupata_. _Multum ex illa_, _etiam futuris relicta est_.
{19b}

_Dissentire licet_, _sed cum ratione_. --If in some things I dissent from
others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgment, I look up at and
admire, let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude and rashness.
For I thank those that have taught me, and will ever; but yet dare not
think the scope of their labour and inquiry was to envy their posterity
what they also could add and find out.

_Non mihi credendum sed veritati_. --If I err, pardon me: _Nulla ars simul
et inventa est et absoluta_. {19c} I do not desire to be equal to those
that went before; but to have my reason examined with theirs, and so much
faith to be given them, or me, as those shall evict. I am neither author
nor fautor of any sect. I will have no man addict himself to me; but if
I have anything right, defend it as Truth's, not mine, save as it
conduceth to a common good. It profits not me to have any man fence or
fight for me, to flourish, or take my side. Stand for truth, and 'tis
enough.

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

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

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

_Maritus improbus_. --He hath a delicate wife, a fair fortune, a family to
go to and be welcome; yet he had rather be drunk with mine host and the
fiddlers of such a town, than go home.

_Afflictio pia magistra_. --Affliction teacheth a wicked person some time
to pray: prosperity never.

_Deploratis facilis descensus Averni_. --_The devil take all_. --Many might
go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture
their industry the right way; but "The devil take all! " quoth he that was
choked in the mill-dam, with his four last words in his mouth.

_AEgidius cursu superat_. --A cripple in the way out-travels a footman or a
post out of the way.

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

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

_Debitum deploratum_. --Of this spilt water there is a little to be
gathered up: it is a desperate debt.

_Latro sesquipedalis_. --The thief {22} that had a longing at the gallows
to commit one robbery more before he was hanged.

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

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

_Impertinens_. --A tedious person is one a man would leap a steeple from,
gallop down any steep lull to avoid him; forsake his meat, sleep, nature
itself, with all her benefits, to shun him. A mere impertinent; one that
touched neither heaven nor earth in his discourse. He opened an entry
into a fair room, but shut it again presently. I spoke to him of garlic,
he answered asparagus; consulted him of marriage, he tells me of hanging,
as if they went by one and the same destiny.

_Bellum scribentium_. --What a sight it is to see writers committed
together by the ears for ceremonies, syllables, points, colons, commas,
hyphens, and the like, fighting as for their fires and their altars; and
angry that none are frighted at their noises and loud brayings under
their asses' skins.

There is hope of getting a fortune without digging in these quarries.
_Sed meliore (in omne) ingenio animoque quam fortuna_, _sum usus_. {23}

"Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor. " {24a}

_Differentia inter doctos et sciolos_. --Wits made out their several
expeditions then for the discovery of truth, to find out great and
profitable knowledges; had their several instruments for the disquisition
of arts. Now there are certain scioli or smatterers that are busy in the
skirts and outsides of learning, and have scarce anything of solid
literature to commend them. They may have some edging or trimming of a
scholar, a welt or so; but it is no more.

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

_Icunculorum motio_. --A puppet-play must be shadowed and seen in the dark;
for draw the curtain, _et sordet gesticulatio_. {24b}

_Principes et administri_. --There is a great difference in the
understanding of some princes, as in the quality of their ministers about
them. Some would dress their masters in gold, pearl, and all true jewels
of majesty; others furnish them with feathers, bells, and ribands, and
are therefore esteemed the fitter servants. But they are ever good men
that must make good the times; if the men be naught, the times will be
such. _Finis exspectandus est in unoquoque hominum_; _animali ad
mutationem promptissmo_. {25a}

_Scitum Hispanicum_. --It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, _Artes
inter haeredes non dividi_. {25b} Yet these have inherited their fathers'
lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man that affects a
triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie
themselves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes beyond her
bounds; but Impudence knows none.

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

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

_Jam literae sordent_. --_Pastus hodiern. ingen_. --The time was when men
would learn and study good things, not envy those that had them. Then
men were had in price for learning; now letters only make men vile. He
is upbraidingly called a poet, as if it were a contemptible nick-name:
but the professors, indeed, have made the learning cheap--railing and
tinkling rhymers, whose writings the vulgar more greedily read, as being
taken with the scurrility and petulancy of such wits. He shall not have
a reader now unless he jeer and lie. It is the food of men's natures;
the diet of the times; gallants cannot sleep else. The writer must lie
and the gentle reader rests happy to hear the worthiest works
misinterpreted, the clearest actions obscured, the innocentest life
traduced: and in such a licence of lying, a field so fruitful of
slanders, how can there be matter wanting to his laughter? Hence comes
the epidemical infection; for how can they escape the contagion of the
writings, whom the virulency of the calumnies hath not staved off from
reading?

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

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

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

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

_Lingua sapientis_, _potius quam loquentis_. --A wise tongue should not be
licentious and wandering; but moved and, as it were, governed with
certain reins from the heart and bottom of the breast: and it was
excellently said of that philosopher, that there was a wall or parapet of
teeth set in our mouth, to restrain the petulancy of our words; that the
rashness of talking should not only be retarded by the guard and watch of
our heart, but be fenced in and defended by certain strengths placed in
the mouth itself, and within the lips. But you shall see some so abound
with words, without any seasoning or taste of matter, in so profound a
security, as while they are speaking, for the most part they confess to
speak they know not what.

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

_Optanda_. --_Thersites Homeri_. --Whom the disease of talking still once
possesseth, he can never hold his peace. Nay, rather than he will not
discourse he will hire men to hear him. And so heard, not hearkened
unto, he comes off most times like a mountebank, that when he hath
praised his medicines, finds none will take them, or trust him. He is
like Homer's _Thersites_.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
; 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.