We covet
superfluous
things, when it were more
honour for us if we would contemn necessary.
honour for us if we would contemn necessary.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
In his counsels and deliberations he foresees the future times:
in the equity of his judgment he hath remembrance of the past, and
knowledge of what is to be done or avoided for the present. Hence the
Persians gave out their Cyrus to have been nursed by a bitch, a creature
to encounter it, as of sagacity to seek out good; showing that wisdom may
accompany fortitude, or it leaves to be, and puts on the name of
rashness.
_De malign. studentium_. --There be some men are born only to suck out the
poison of books: _Habent venenum pro victu_; _imo_, _pro deliciis_. {66a}
And such are they that only relish the obscene and foul things in poets,
which makes the profession taxed. But by whom? Men that watch for it;
and, had they not had this hint, are so unjust valuers of letters as they
think no learning good but what brings in gain. It shows they themselves
would never have been of the professions they are but for the profits and
fees. But if another learning, well used, can instruct to good life,
inform manners, no less persuade and lead men than they threaten and
compel, and have no reward, is it therefore the worst study? I could
never think the study of wisdom confined only to the philosopher, or of
piety to the divine, or of state to the politic; but that he which can
feign a commonwealth (which is the poet) can govern it with counsels,
strengthen it with laws, correct it with judgments, inform it with
religion and morals, is all these. We do not require in him mere
elocution, or an excellent faculty in verse, but the exact knowledge of
all virtues and their contraries, with ability to render the one loved,
the other hated, by his proper embattling them. The philosophers did
insolently, to challenge only to themselves that which the greatest
generals and gravest counsellors never durst. For such had rather do
than promise the best things.
_Controvers. scriptores_. --_More Andabatarum qui clausis oculis
pugnant_. --Some controverters in divinity are like swaggerers in a tavern
that catch that which stands next them, the candlestick or pots; turn
everything into a weapon: ofttimes they fight blindfold, and both beat
the air. The one milks a he-goat, the other holds under a sieve. Their
arguments are as fluxive as liquor spilt upon a table, which with your
finger you may drain as you will. Such controversies or disputations
(carried with more labour than profit) are odious; where most times the
truth is lost in the midst or left untouched. And the fruit of their
fight is, that they spit one upon another, and are both defiled. These
fencers in religion I like not.
_Morbi_. --The body hath certain diseases that are with less evil tolerated
than removed. As if to cure a leprosy a man should bathe himself with
the warm blood of a murdered child, so in the Church some errors may be
dissimuled with less inconvenience than they can be discovered.
_Jactantia intempestiva_. --Men that talk of their own benefits are not
believed to talk of them because they have done them; but to have done
them because they might talk of them. That which had been great, if
another had reported it of them, vanisheth, and is nothing, if he that
did it speak of it. For men, when they cannot destroy the deed, will yet
be glad to take advantage of the boasting, and lessen it.
_Adulatio_. --I have seen that poverty makes me do unfit things; but honest
men should not do them; they should gain otherwise. Though a man be
hungry, he should not play the parasite. That hour wherein I would
repent me to be honest, there were ways enough open for me to be rich.
But flattery is a fine pick-lock of tender ears; especially of those whom
fortune hath borne high upon their wings, that submit their dignity and
authority to it, by a soothing of themselves. For, indeed, men could
never be taken in that abundance with the springes of others' flattery,
if they began not there; if they did but remember how much more
profitable the bitterness of truth were, than all the honey distilling
from a whorish voice, which is not praise, but poison. But now it is
come to that extreme folly, or rather madness, with some, that he that
flatters them modestly or sparingly is thought to malign them. If their
friend consent not to their vices, though he do not contradict them, he
is nevertheless an enemy. When they do all things the worst way, even
then they look for praise. Nay, they will hire fellows to flatter them
with suits and suppers, and to prostitute their judgments. They have
livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the spit, that wait their
turns, as my lord has his feasts and guests.
_De vita humana_. --I have considered our whole life is like a play:
wherein every man forgetful of himself, is in travail with expression of
another. Nay, we so insist in imitating others, as we cannot when it is
necessary return to ourselves; like children, that imitate the vices of
stammerers so long, till at last they become such; and make the habit to
another nature, as it is never forgotten.
_De piis et probis_. --Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages
wherein they live and illustrate the times. God did never let them be
wanting to the world: as Abel, for an example of innocency, Enoch of
purity, Noah of trust in God's mercies, Abraham of faith, and so of the
rest. These, sensual men thought mad because they would not be partakers
or practisers of their madness. But they, placed high on the top of all
virtue, looked down on the stage of the world and contemned the play of
fortune. For though the most be players, some must be spectators.
_Mores aulici_. --I have discovered that a feigned familiarity in great
ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less. For great and popular
men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to
them. So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, dace, &c. , that
they may be food to him.
_Impiorum querela_. --_Augusties_. --_Varus_. --_Tiberius_. --The complaint of
Caligula was most wicked of the condition of his times, when he said they
were not famous for any public calamity, as the reign of Augustus was, by
the defeat of Varus and the legions; and that of Tiberius, by the falling
of the theatre at Fidenae; whilst his oblivion was eminent through the
prosperity of his affairs. As that other voice of his was worthier a
headsman than a head when he wished the people of Rome had but one neck.
But he found when he fell they had many hands. A tyrant, how great and
mighty soever he may seem to cowards and sluggards, is but one creature,
one animal.
_Nobilium ingenia_. --I have marked among the nobility some are so addicted
to the service of the prince and commonwealth, as they look not for
spoil; such are to be honoured and loved. There are others which no
obligation will fasten on; and they are of two sorts. The first are such
as love their own ease; or, out of vice, of nature, or self-direction,
avoid business and care. Yet these the prince may use with safety. The
other remove themselves upon craft and design, as the architects say,
with a premeditated thought, to their own rather than their prince's
profit. Such let the prince take heed of, and not doubt to reckon in the
list of his open enemies.
_Principum. varia_. --_Firmissima vero omnium basis jus haereditarium
Principis_. --There is a great variation between him that is raised to the
sovereignty by the favour of his peers and him that comes to it by the
suffrage of the people. The first holds with more difficulty, because he
hath to do with many that think themselves his equals, and raised him for
their own greatness and oppression of the rest. The latter hath no
upbraiders, but was raised by them that sought to be defended from
oppression: whose end is both easier and the honester to satisfy.
Beside, while he hath the people to friend, who are a multitude, he hath
the less fear of the nobility, who are but few. Nor let the common
proverb (of he that builds on the people builds on the dirt) discredit my
opinion: for that hath only place where an ambitious and private person,
for some popular end, trusts in them against the public justice and
magistrate. There they will leave him. But when a prince governs them,
so as they have still need of his administrations (for that is his art),
he shall ever make and hold them faithful.
_Clementia_. --_Machiavell_. --A prince should exercise his cruelty not by
himself but by his ministers; so he may save himself and his dignity with
his people by sacrificing those when he list, saith the great doctor of
state, Machiavell. But I say he puts off man and goes into a beast, that
is cruel. No virtue is a prince's own, or becomes him more, than this
clemency: and no glory is greater than to be able to save with his power.
Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a
prince, as many funerals a physician. The state of things is secured by
clemency; severity represseth a few, but irritates more. {74a} The
lopping of trees makes the boughs shoot out thicker; and the taking away
of some kind of enemies increaseth the number. It is then most gracious
in a prince to pardon when many about him would make him cruel; to think
then how much he can save when others tell him how much he can destroy;
not to consider what the impotence of others hath demolished, but what
his own greatness can sustain. These are a prince's virtues: and they
that give him other counsels are but the hangman's factors.
_Clementia tutela optima_. --He that is cruel to halves (saith the said St.
Nicholas {74b}) loseth no less the opportunity of his cruelty than of his
benefits: for then to use his cruelty is too late; and to use his favours
will be interpreted fear and necessity, and so he loseth the thanks.
Still the counsel is cruelty. But princes, by hearkening to cruel
counsels, become in time obnoxious to the authors, their flatterers, and
ministers; and are brought to that, that when they would, they dare not
change them; they must go on and defend cruelty with cruelty; they cannot
alter the habit. It is then grown necessary, they must be as ill as
those have made them: and in the end they will grow more hateful to
themselves than to their subjects. Whereas, on the contrary, the
merciful prince is safe in love, not in fear. He needs no emissaries,
spies, intelligencers to entrap true subjects. He fears no libels, no
treasons. His people speak what they think, and talk openly what they do
in secret. They have nothing in their breasts that they need a cypher
for. He is guarded with his own benefits.
_Religio_. _Palladium Homeri_. --_Euripides_. --The strength of empire is in
religion. What else is the Palladium (with Homer) that kept Troy so long
from sacking? Nothing more commends the Sovereign to the subject than
it. For he that is religious must be merciful and just necessarily: and
they are two strong ties upon mankind. Justice the virtue that innocence
rejoiceth in. Yet even that is not always so safe, but it may love to
stand in the sight of mercy. For sometimes misfortune is made a crime,
and then innocence is succoured no less than virtue. Nay, oftentimes
virtue is made capital; and through the condition of the times it may
happen that that may be punished with our praise. Let no man therefore
murmur at the actions of the prince, who is placed so far above him. If
he offend, he hath his discoverer. God hath a height beyond him. But
where the prince is good, Euripides saith, "God is a guest in a human
body. "
_Tyranni_. --_Sejanus_. --There is nothing with some princes sacred above
their majesty, or profane, but what violates their sceptres. But a
prince, with such a council, is like the god Terminus, of stone, his own
landmark, or (as it is in the fable) a crowned lion. It is dangerous
offending such a one, who, being angry, knows not how to forgive; that
cares not to do anything for maintaining or enlarging of empire; kills
not men or subjects, but destroyeth whole countries, armies, mankind,
male and female, guilty or not guilty, holy or profane; yea, some that
have not seen the light. All is under the law of their spoil and
licence. But princes that neglect their proper office thus their fortune
is oftentimes to draw a Sejanus to be near about them, who at last affect
to get above them, and put them in a worthy fear of rooting both them out
and their family. For no men hate an evil prince more than they that
helped to make him such. And none more boastingly weep his ruin than
they that procured and practised it. The same path leads to ruin which
did to rule when men profess a licence in government. A good king is a
public servant.
_Illiteratus princeps_. --A prince without letters is a pilot without eyes.
All his government is groping. In sovereignty it is a most happy thing
not to be compelled; but so it is the most miserable not to be
counselled. And how can he be counselled that cannot see to read the
best counsellors (which are books), for they neither flatter us nor hide
from us? He may hear, you will say; but how shall he always be sure to
hear truth, or be counselled the best things, not the sweetest? They say
princes learn no art truly but the art of horsemanship. The reason is
the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his
groom. Which is an argument that the good counsellors to princes are the
best instruments of a good age. For though the prince himself be of a
most prompt inclination to all virtue, yet the best pilots have needs of
mariners besides sails, anchor, and other tackle.
_Character principis_. --_Alexander magnus_. --If men did know what shining
fetters, gilded miseries, and painted happiness thrones and sceptres were
there would not be so frequent strife about the getting or holding of
them; there would be more principalities than princes; for a prince is
the pastor of the people. He ought to shear, not to flay his sheep; to
take their fleeces, not their the soul of the commonwealth, and ought to
cherish it as his own body. Alexander the Great was wont to say, "He
hated that gardener that plucked his herbs or flowers up by the roots. "
A man may milk a beast till the blood come; churn milk and it yieldeth
butter, but wring the nose and the blood followeth. He is an ill prince
that so pulls his subjects' feathers as he would not have them grow
again; that makes his exchequer a receipt for the spoils of those he
governs. No, let him keep his own, not affect his subjects'; strive
rather to be called just than powerful. Not, like the Roman tyrants,
affect the surnames that grow by human slaughters; neither to seek war in
peace, nor peace in war, but to observe faith given, though to an enemy.
Study piety toward the subject; show care to defend him. Be slow to
punish in divers cases, but be a sharp and severe revenger of open
crimes. Break no decrees or dissolve no orders to slacken the strength
of laws. Choose neither magistrates, civil or ecclesiastical, by favour
or price; but with long disquisition and report of their worth by all
suffrages. Sell no honours, nor give them hastily, but bestow them with
counsel and for reward; if he do, acknowledge it (though late), and mend
it. For princes are easy to be deceived; and what wisdom can escape
where so many court-arts are studied? But, above all, the prince is to
remember that when the great day of account comes, which neither
magistrate nor prince can shun, there will be required of him a reckoning
for those whom he hath trusted, as for himself, which he must provide.
And if piety be wanting in the priests, equity in the judges, or the
magistrates be found rated at a price, what justice or religion is to be
expected? which are the only two attributes make kings akin to God, and
is the Delphic sword, both to kill sacrifices and to chastise offenders.
_De gratiosis_. --When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his
friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity. Nay, his
honours are a great part of the honour of the times; when by this means
he is grown to active men an example, to the slothful a spur, to the
envious a punishment.
_Divites_. --_Heredes ex asse_. He which is sole heir to many rich men,
having (besides his father's and uncle's) the estates of divers his
kindred come to him by accession, must needs be richer than father or
grandfather; so they which are left heirs _ex asse_ of all their
ancestors' vices, and by their good husbandry improve the old and daily
purchase new, must needs be wealthier in vice, and have a greater revenue
or stock of ill to spend on.
_Fures publici_. --The great thieves of a state are lightly the officers of
the crown; they hang the less still, play the pikes in the pond, eat whom
they list. The net was never spread for the hawk or buzzard that hurt
us, but the harmless birds; they are good meat:--
"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. " {81a}
"Non rete accipitri tenditur, neque milvio. " {81b}
_Lewis XI_. --But they are not always safe though, especially when they
meet with wise masters. They can take down all the huff and swelling of
their looks, and like dexterous auditors place the counter where he shall
value nothing. Let them but remember Lewis XI. , who to a Clerk of the
Exchequer that came to be Lord Treasurer, and had (for his device)
represented himself sitting on fortune's wheel, told him he might do well
to fasten it with a good strong nail, lest, turning about, it might bring
him where he was again. As indeed it did.
_De bonis et malis_. --_De innocentia_. --A good man will avoid the spot of
any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way
in his life as he would in his journey. The ill man rides through all
confidently; he is coated and booted for it. The oftener he offends, the
more openly, and the fouler, the fitter in fashion. His modesty, like a
riding-coat, the more it is worn is the less cared for. It is good
enough for the dirt still, and the ways he travels in. An innocent man
needs no eloquence, his innocence is instead of it, else I had never come
off so many times from these precipices, whither men's malice hath
pursued me. It is true I have been accused to the lords, to the king,
and by great ones, but it happened my accusers had not thought of the
accusation with themselves, and so were driven, for want of crimes, to
use invention, which was found slander, or too late (being entered so
fair) to seek starting-holes for their rashness, which were not given
them. And then they may think what accusation that was like to prove,
when they that were the engineers feared to be the authors. Nor were
they content to feign things against me, but to urge things, feigned by
the ignorant, against my profession, which though, from their hired and
mercenary impudence, I might have passed by as granted to a nation of
barkers that let out their tongues to lick others' sores; yet I durst not
leave myself undefended, having a pair of ears unskilful to hear lies, or
have those things said of me which I could truly prove of them. They
objected making of verses to me, when I could object to most of them,
their not being able to read them, but as worthy of scorn. Nay, they
would offer to urge mine own writings against me, but by pieces (which
was an excellent way of malice), as if any man's context might not seem
dangerous and offensive, if that which was knit to what went before were
defrauded of his beginning; or that things by themselves uttered might
not seem subject to calumny, which read entire would appear most free.
At last they upbraided my poverty: I confess she is my domestic; sober of
diet, simple of habit, frugal, painful, a good counseller to me, that
keeps me from cruelty, pride, or other more delicate impertinences, which
are the nurse-children of riches. But let them look over all the great
and monstrous wickednesses, they shall never find those in poor families.
They are the issue of the wealthy giants and the mighty hunters, whereas
no great work, or worthy of praise or memory, but came out of poor
cradles. It was the ancient poverty that founded commonweals, built
cities, invented arts, made wholesome laws, armed men against vices,
rewarded them with their own virtues, and preserved the honour and state
of nations, till they betrayed themselves to riches.
_Amor nummi_. --Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can
order himself to the law of Nature is not only without the sense but the
fear of poverty. O! but to strike blind the people with our wealth and
pomp is the thing! What a wretchedness is this, to thrust all our riches
outward, and be beggars within; to contemplate nothing but the little,
vile, and sordid things of the world; not the great, noble, and precious!
We serve our avarice, and, not content with the good of the earth that is
offered us, we search and dig for the evil that is hidden. God offered
us those things, and placed them at hand, and near us, that He knew were
profitable for us, but the hurtful He laid deep and hid. Yet do we seek
only the things whereby we may perish, and bring them forth, when God and
Nature hath buried them.
We covet superfluous things, when it were more
honour for us if we would contemn necessary. What need hath Nature of
silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins?
She requires meat only, and hunger is not ambitious. Can we think no
wealth enough but such a state for which a man may be brought into a
premunire, begged, proscribed, or poisoned? O! if a man could restrain
the fury of his gullet and groin, and think how many fires, how many
kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews,
ponds and parks, coops and garners, he could spare; what velvets,
tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how short and
uncertain his life is; he were in a better way to happiness than to live
the emperor of these delights, and be the dictator of fashions; but we
make ourselves slaves to our pleasures, and we serve fame and ambition,
which is an equal slavery. Have not I seen the pomp of a whole kingdom,
and what a foreign king could bring hither? Also to make himself gazed
and wondered at--laid forth, as it were, to the show--and vanish all away
in a day? And shall that which could not fill the expectation of few
hours, entertain and take up our whole lives, when even it appeared as
superfluous to the possessors as to me that was a spectator? The bravery
was shown, it was not possessed; while it boasted itself it perished. It
is vile, and a poor thing to place our happiness on these desires. Say
we wanted them all. Famine ends famine.
_De mollibus et effoeminatis_. --There is nothing valiant or solid to be
hoped for from such as are always kempt and perfumed, and every day smell
of the tailor; the exceedingly curious that are wholly in mending such an
imperfection in the face, in taking away the morphew in the neck, or
bleaching their hands at midnight, gumming and bridling their beards, or
making the waist small, binding it with hoops, while the mind runs at
waste; too much pickedness is not manly. Not from those that will jest
at their own outward imperfections, but hide their ulcers within, their
pride, lust, envy, ill-nature, with all the art and authority they can.
These persons are in danger, for whilst they think to justify their
ignorance by impudence, and their persons by clothes and outward
ornaments, they use but a commission to deceive themselves: where, if we
will look with our understanding, and not our senses, we may behold
virtue and beauty (though covered with rags) in their brightness; and
vice and deformity so much the fouler, in having all the splendour of
riches to gild them, or the false light of honour and power to help them.
Yet this is that wherewith the world is taken, and runs mad to gaze
on--clothes and titles, the birdlime of fools.
_De stultitia_. --What petty things they are we wonder at, like children
that esteem every trifle, and prefer a fairing before their fathers!
What difference is between us and them but that we are dearer fools,
coxcombs at a higher rate? They are pleased with cockleshells, whistles,
hobby-horses, and such like; we with statues, marble pillars, pictures,
gilded roofs, where underneath is lath and lime, perhaps loam. Yet we
take pleasure in the lie, and are glad we can cozen ourselves. Nor is it
only in our walls and ceilings, but all that we call happiness is mere
painting and gilt, and all for money. What a thin membrane of honour
that is! and how hath all true reputation fallen, since money began to
have any! Yet the great herd, the multitude, that in all other things
are divided, in this alone conspire and agree--to love money. They wish
for it, they embrace it, they adore it, while yet it is possessed with
greater stir and torment than it is gotten.
_De sibi molestis_. --Some men what losses soever they have they make them
greater, and if they have none, even all that is not gotten is a loss.
Can there be creatures of more wretched condition than these, that
continually labour under their own misery and others' envy? A man should
study other things, not to covet, not to fear, not to repent him; to make
his base such as no tempest shall shake him; to be secure of all opinion,
and pleasing to himself, even for that wherein he displeaseth others; for
the worst opinion gotten for doing well, should delight us. Wouldst not
thou be just but for fame, thou oughtest to be it with infamy; he that
would have his virtue published is not the servant of virtue, but glory.
_Periculosa melancholia_. --It is a dangerous thing when men's minds come
to sojourn with their affections, and their diseases eat into their
strength; that when too much desire and greediness of vice hath made the
body unfit, or unprofitable, it is yet gladded with the sight and
spectacle of it in others; and for want of ability to be an actor, is
content to be a witness. It enjoys the pleasure of sinning in beholding
others sin, as in dining, drinking, drabbing, &c. Nay, when it cannot do
all these, it is offended with his own narrowness, that excludes it from
the universal delights of mankind, and oftentimes dies of a melancholy,
that it cannot be vicious enough.
_Falsae species fugiendae_. --I am glad when I see any man avoid the infamy
of a vice; but to shun the vice itself were better. Till he do that he
is but like the 'pientice, who, being loth to be spied by his master
coming forth of Black Lucy's, went in again; to whom his master cried,
"The more thou runnest that way to hide thyself, the more thou art in the
place. " So are those that keep a tavern all day, that they may not be
seen at night. I have known lawyers, divines--yea, great ones--of this
heresy.
_Decipimur specie_. --There is a greater reverence had of things remote or
strange to us than of much better if they be nearer and fall under our
sense. Men, and almost all sorts of creatures, have their reputation by
distance. Rivers, the farther they run, and more from their spring, the
broader they are, and greater. And where our original is known, we are
less the confident; among strangers we trust fortune. Yet a man may live
as renowned at home, in his own country, or a private village, as in the
whole world. For it is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a
man everywhere. It is only that can naturalise him. A native, if he be
vicious, deserves to be a stranger, and cast out of the commonwealth as
an alien.
_Dejectio Aulic_. --A dejected countenance and mean clothes beget often a
contempt, but it is with the shallowest creatures; courtiers commonly:
look up even with them in a new suit, you get above them straight.
Nothing is more short-lived than pride; it is but while their clothes
last: stay but while these are worn out, you cannot wish the thing more
wretched or dejected.
_Poesis_, _et pictura_. --_Plutarch_. Poetry and picture are arts of a
like nature, and both are busy about imitation. It was excellently said
of Plutarch, poetry was a speaking picture, and picture a mute poesy.
For they both invent, feign and devise many things, and accommodate all
they invent to the use and service of Nature. Yet of the two, the pen is
more noble than the pencil; for that can speak to the understanding, the
other but to the sense. They both behold pleasure and profit as their
common object; but should abstain from all base pleasures, lest they
should err from their end, and, while they seek to better men's minds,
destroy their manners. They both are born artificers, not made. Nature
is more powerful in them than study.
_De pictura_. --Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth and all
the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most
ancient and most akin to Nature. It is itself a silent work, and always
of one and the same habit; yet it doth so enter and penetrate the inmost
affection (being done by an excellent artificer) as sometimes it
overcomes the power of speech and oratory. There are divers graces in
it, so are there in the artificers. One excels in care, another in
reason, a third in easiness, a fourth in nature and grace. Some have
diligence and comeliness, but they want majesty. They can express a
human form in all the graces, sweetness, and elegancy, but, they miss the
authority. They can hit nothing but smooth cheeks; they cannot express
roughness or gravity. Others aspire to truth so much as they are rather
lovers of likeness than beauty. Zeuxis and Parrhasius are said to be
contemporaries; the first found out the reason of lights and shadows in
picture, the other more subtlely examined the line.
_De stylo_. --_Pliny_. --In picture light is required no less than shadow; so
in style, height as well as humbleness. But beware they be not too
humble, as Pliny pronounced of Regulus's writings. You would think them
written, not on a child, but by a child. Many, out of their own obscene
apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words--as occupy, Nature, and the
like; so the curious industry in some, of having all alike good, hath
come nearer a vice than a virtue.
_De progres. picturae_. {93} Picture took her feigning from poetry; from
geometry her rule, compass, lines, proportion, and the whole symmetry.
Parrhasius was the first won reputation by adding symmetry to picture; he
added subtlety to the countenance, elegancy to the hair, love-lines to
the face, and by the public voice of all artificers, deserved honour in
the outer lines. Eupompus gave it splendour by numbers and other
elegancies. From the optics it drew reasons, by which it considered how
things placed at distance and afar off should appear less; how above or
beneath the head should deceive the eye, &c. So from thence it took
shadows, recessor, light, and heightnings. From moral philosophy it took
the soul, the expression of senses, perturbations, manners, when they
would paint an angry person, a proud, an inconstant, an ambitious, a
brave, a magnanimous, a just, a merciful, a compassionate, an humble, a
dejected, a base, and the like; they made all heightnings bright, all
shadows dark, all swellings from a plane, all solids from breaking. See
where he complains of their painting Chimaeras {94} (by the vulgar unaptly
called grotesque) saying that men who were born truly to study and
emulate Nature did nothing but make monsters against Nature, which Horace
so laughed at. {95} The art plastic was moulding in clay, or potter's
earth anciently. This is the parent of statuary, sculpture, graving, and
picture; cutting in brass and marble, all serve under her. Socrates
taught Parrhasius and Clito (two noble statuaries) first to express
manners by their looks in imagery. Polygnotus and Aglaophon were
ancienter. After them Zeuxis, who was the lawgiver to all painters;
after, Parrhasius. They were contemporaries, and lived both about
Philip's time, the father of Alexander the Great. There lived in this
latter age six famous painters in Italy, who were excellent and emulous
of the ancients--Raphael de Urbino, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Titian,
Antony of Correggio, Sebastian of Venice, Julio Romano, and Andrea
Sartorio.
_Parasiti ad mensam_. --These are flatterers for their bread, that praise
all my oraculous lord does or says, be it true or false; invent tales
that shall please; make baits for his lordship's ears; and if they be not
received in what they offer at, they shift a point of the compass, and
turn their tale, presently tack about, deny what they confessed, and
confess what they denied; fit their discourse to the persons and
occasions. What they snatch up and devour at one table, utter at
another; and grow suspected of the master, hated of the servants, while
they inquire, and reprehend, and compound, and dilate business of the
house they have nothing to do with. They praise my lord's wine and the
sauce he likes; observe the cook and bottle-man; while they stand in my
lord's favour, speak for a pension for them, but pound them to dust upon
my lord's least distaste, or change of his palate.
How much better is it to be silent, or at least to speak sparingly! for
it is not enough to speak good, but timely things. If a man be asked a
question, to answer; but to repeat the question before he answer is well,
that he be sure to understand it, to avoid absurdity; for it is less
dishonour to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are
excused, the understanding is not. And in things unknown to a man, not
to give his opinion, lest by the affectation of knowing too much he lose
the credit he hath, by speaking or knowing the wrong way what he utters.
Nor seek to get his patron's favour by embarking himself in the factions
of the family, to inquire after domestic simulties, their sports or
affections. They are an odious and vile kind of creatures, that fly
about the house all day, and picking up the filth of the house like pies
or swallows, carry it to their nest (the lord's ears), and oftentimes
report the lies they have feigned for what they have seen and heard.
_Imo serviles_. --These are called instruments of grace and power with
great persons, but they are indeed the organs of their impotency, and
marks of weakness. For sufficient lords are able to make these
discoveries themselves. Neither will an honourable person inquire who
eats and drinks together, what that man plays, whom this man loves, with
whom such a one walks, what discourse they hold, who sleeps with whom.
They are base and servile natures that busy themselves about these
disquisitions. How often have I seen (and worthily) these censors of the
family undertaken by some honest rustic and cudgelled thriftily! These
are commonly the off-scouring and dregs of men that do these things, or
calumniate others; yet I know not truly which is worse--he that maligns
all, or that praises all. There is as a vice in praising, and as
frequent, as in detracting.
It pleased your lordship of late to ask my opinion touching the education
of your sons, and especially to the advancement of their studies. To
which, though I returned somewhat for the present, which rather
manifested a will in me than gave any just resolution to the thing
propounded, I have upon better cogitation called those aids about me,
both of mind and memory, which shall venture my thoughts clearer, if not
fuller, to your lordship's demand. I confess, my lord, they will seem
but petty and minute things I shall offer to you, being writ for
children, and of them. But studies have their infancy as well as
creatures. We see in men even the strongest compositions had their
beginnings from milk and the cradle; and the wisest tarried sometimes
about apting their mouths to letters and syllables. In their education,
therefore, the care must be the greater had of their beginnings, to know,
examine, and weigh their natures; which, though they be proner in some
children to some disciplines, yet are they naturally prompt to taste all
by degrees, and with change. For change is a kind of refreshing in
studies, and infuseth knowledge by way of recreation. Thence the school
itself is called a play or game, and all letters are so best taught to
scholars. They should not be affrighted or deterred in their entry, but
drawn on with exercise and emulation. A youth should not be made to hate
study before he know the causes to love it, or taste the bitterness
before the sweet; but called on and allured, entreated and praised--yea,
when he deserves it not. For which cause I wish them sent to the best
school, and a public, which I think the best. Your lordship, I fear,
hardly hears of that, as willing to breed them in your eye and at home,
and doubting their manners may be corrupted abroad. They are in more
danger in your own family, among ill servants (allowing they be safe in
their schoolmaster), than amongst a thousand boys, however immodest.
Would we did not spoil our own children, and overthrow their manners
ourselves by too much indulgence! To breed them at home is to breed them
in a shade, whereas in a school they have the light and heat of the sun.
They are used and accustomed to things and men. When they come forth
into the common-wealth, they find nothing new, or to seek. They have
made their friendships and aids, some to last their age. They hear what
is commanded to others as well as themselves; much approved, much
corrected; all which they bring to their own store and use, and learn as
much as they hear. Eloquence would be but a poor thing if we should only
converse with singulars, speak but man and man together. Therefore I
like no private breeding. I would send them where their industry should
be daily increased by praise, and that kindled by emulation. It is a
good thing to inflame the mind; and though ambition itself be a vice, it
is often the cause of great virtue. Give me that wit whom praise
excites, glory puts on, or disgrace grieves; he is to be nourished with
ambition, pricked forward with honour, checked with reprehension, and
never to be suspected of sloth. Though he be given to play, it is a sign
of spirit and liveliness, so there be a mean had of their sports and
relaxations. And from the rod or ferule I would have them free, as from
the menace of them; for it is both deformed and servile.
_De stylo_, _et optimo scribendi genere_. --For a man to write well, there
are required three necessaries--to read the best authors, observe the best
speakers, and much exercise of his own style; in style to consider what
ought to be written, and after what manner. He must first think and
excogitate his matter, then choose his words, and examine the weight of
either. Then take care, in placing and ranking both matter and words,
that the composition be comely; and to do this with diligence and often.
No matter how slow the style be at first, so it be laboured and accurate;
seek the best, and be not glad of the froward conceits, or first words,
that offer themselves to us; but judge of what we invent, and order what
we approve. Repeat often what we have formerly written; which beside
that it helps the consequence, and makes the juncture better, it quickens
the heat of imagination, that often cools in the time of setting down,
and gives it new strength, as if it grew lustier by the going back; as we
see in the contention of leaping, they jump farthest that fetch their
race largest; or, as in throwing a dart or javelin, we force back our
arms to make our loose the stronger. Yet, if we have a fair gale of
wind, I forbid not the steering out of our sail, so the favour of the
gale deceive us not. For all that we invent doth please us in conception
of birth, else we would never set it down. But the safest is to return
to our judgment, and handle over again those things the easiness of which
might make them justly suspected. So did the best writers in their
beginnings; they imposed upon themselves care and industry; they did
nothing rashly: they obtained first to write well, and then custom made
it easy and a habit. By little and little their matter showed itself to
them more plentifully; their words answered, their composition followed;
and all, as in a well-ordered family, presented itself in the place. So
that the sum of all is, ready writing makes not good writing, but good
writing brings on ready writing yet, when we think we have got the
faculty, it is even then good to resist it, as to give a horse a check
sometimes with a bit, which doth not so much stop his course as stir his
mettle. Again, whether a man's genius is best able to reach thither, it
should more and more contend, lift and dilate itself, as men of low
stature raise themselves on their toes, and so ofttimes get even, if not
eminent. Besides, as it is fit for grown and able writers to stand of
themselves, and work with their own strength, to trust and endeavour by
their own faculties, so it is fit for the beginner and learner to study
others and the best. For the mind and memory are more sharply exercised
in comprehending another man's things than our own; and such as accustom
themselves and are familiar with the best authors shall ever and anon
find somewhat of them in themselves, and in the expression of their
minds, even when they feel it not, be able to utter something like
theirs, which hath an authority above their own. Nay, sometimes it is
the reward of a man's study, the praise of quoting another man fitly; and
though a man be more prone and able for one kind of writing than another,
yet he must exercise all. For as in an instrument, so in style, there
must be a harmony and consent of parts.
_Praecipiendi modi_. --I take this labour in teaching others, that they
should not be always to be taught, and I would bring my precepts into
practice, for rules are ever of less force and value than experiments;
yet with this purpose, rather to show the right way to those that come
after, than to detect any that have slipped before by error, and I hope
it will be more profitable. For men do more willingly listen, and with
more favour, to precept, than reprehension. Among divers opinions of an
art, and most of them contrary in themselves, it is hard to make
election; and, therefore, though a man cannot invent new things after so
many, he may do a welcome work yet to help posterity to judge rightly of
the old. But arts and precepts avail nothing, except Nature be
beneficial and aiding. And therefore these things are no more written to
a dull disposition, than rules of husbandry to a soil. No precepts will
profit a fool, no more than beauty will the blind, or music the deaf. As
we should take care that our style in writing be neither dry nor empty,
we should look again it be not winding, or wanton with far-fetched
descriptions; either is a vice. But that is worse which proceeds out of
want, than that which riots out of plenty. The remedy of fruitfulness is
easy, but no labour will help the contrary; I will like and praise some
things in a young writer which yet, if he continue in, I cannot but
justly hate him for the same. There is a time to be given all things for
maturity, and that even your country husband-man can teach, who to a
young plant will not put the pruning-knife, because it seems to fear the
iron, as not able to admit the scar. No more would I tell a green writer
all his faults, lest I should make him grieve and faint, and at last
despair; for nothing doth more hurt than to make him so afraid of all
things as he can endeavour nothing. Therefore youth ought to be
instructed betimes, and in the best things; for we hold those longest we
take soonest, as the first scent of a vessel lasts, and the tint the wool
first receives; therefore a master should temper his own powers, and
descend to the other's infirmity. If you pour a glut of water upon a
bottle, it receives little of it; but with a funnel, and by degrees, you
shall fill many of them, and spill little of your own; to their capacity
they will all receive and be full. And as it is fit to read the best
authors to youth first, so let them be of the openest and clearest.
{106a} As Livy before Sallust, Sidney before Donne; and beware of
letting them taste Gower or Chaucer at first, lest, falling too much in
love with antiquity, and not apprehending the weight, they grow rough and
barren in language only. When their judgments are firm, and out of
danger, let them read both the old and the new; but no less take heed
that their new flowers and sweetness do not as much corrupt as the
others' dryness and squalor, if they choose not carefully. Spenser, in
affecting the ancients, writ no language; yet I would have him read for
his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius. The reading of Homer and Virgil
is counselled by Quintilian as the best way of informing youth and
confirming man. For, besides that the mind is raised with the height and
sublimity of such a verse, it takes spirit from the greatness of the
matter, and is tinctured with the best things. Tragic and lyric poetry
is good, too, and comic with the best, if the manners of the reader be
once in safety. In the Greek poets, as also in Plautus, we shall see the
economy and disposition of poems better observed than in Terence; and the
latter, who thought the sole grace and virtue of their fable the sticking
in of sentences, as ours do the forcing in of jests.
_Fals. querel. fugiend. Platonis peregrinatio in Italiam_. --We should not
protect our sloth with the patronage of difficulty. It is a false
quarrel against Nature, that she helps understanding but in a few, when
the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if they would take
the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run, &c. , which if they
lose, it is through their own sluggishness, and by that means become her
prodigies, not her children. I confess, Nature in children is more
patient of labour in study than in age; for the sense of the pain, the
judgment of the labour is absent; they do not measure what they have
done. And it is the thought and consideration that affects us more than
the weariness itself. Plato was not content with the learning that
Athens could give him, but sailed into Italy, for Pythagoras' knowledge:
and yet not thinking himself sufficiently informed, went into Egypt, to
the priests, and learned their mysteries. He laboured, so must we. Many
things may be learned together, and performed in one point of time; as
musicians exercise their memory, their voice, their fingers, and
sometimes their head and feet at once. And so a preacher, in the
invention of matter, election of words, composition of gesture, look,
pronunciation, motion, useth all these faculties at once: and if we can
express this variety together, why should not divers studies, at divers
hours, delight, when the variety is able alone to refresh and repair us?
As, when a man is weary of writing, to read; and then again of reading,
to write. Wherein, howsoever we do many things, yet are we (in a sort)
still fresh to what we begin; we are recreated with change, as the
stomach is with meats. But some will say this variety breeds confusion,
and makes, that either we lose all, or hold no more than the last. Why
do we not then persuade husbandmen that they should not till land, help
it with marl, lime, and compost? plant hop-gardens, prune trees, look to
bee-hives, rear sheep, and all other cattle at once? It is easier to do
many things and continue, than to do one thing long.
_Praecept. element_.
in the equity of his judgment he hath remembrance of the past, and
knowledge of what is to be done or avoided for the present. Hence the
Persians gave out their Cyrus to have been nursed by a bitch, a creature
to encounter it, as of sagacity to seek out good; showing that wisdom may
accompany fortitude, or it leaves to be, and puts on the name of
rashness.
_De malign. studentium_. --There be some men are born only to suck out the
poison of books: _Habent venenum pro victu_; _imo_, _pro deliciis_. {66a}
And such are they that only relish the obscene and foul things in poets,
which makes the profession taxed. But by whom? Men that watch for it;
and, had they not had this hint, are so unjust valuers of letters as they
think no learning good but what brings in gain. It shows they themselves
would never have been of the professions they are but for the profits and
fees. But if another learning, well used, can instruct to good life,
inform manners, no less persuade and lead men than they threaten and
compel, and have no reward, is it therefore the worst study? I could
never think the study of wisdom confined only to the philosopher, or of
piety to the divine, or of state to the politic; but that he which can
feign a commonwealth (which is the poet) can govern it with counsels,
strengthen it with laws, correct it with judgments, inform it with
religion and morals, is all these. We do not require in him mere
elocution, or an excellent faculty in verse, but the exact knowledge of
all virtues and their contraries, with ability to render the one loved,
the other hated, by his proper embattling them. The philosophers did
insolently, to challenge only to themselves that which the greatest
generals and gravest counsellors never durst. For such had rather do
than promise the best things.
_Controvers. scriptores_. --_More Andabatarum qui clausis oculis
pugnant_. --Some controverters in divinity are like swaggerers in a tavern
that catch that which stands next them, the candlestick or pots; turn
everything into a weapon: ofttimes they fight blindfold, and both beat
the air. The one milks a he-goat, the other holds under a sieve. Their
arguments are as fluxive as liquor spilt upon a table, which with your
finger you may drain as you will. Such controversies or disputations
(carried with more labour than profit) are odious; where most times the
truth is lost in the midst or left untouched. And the fruit of their
fight is, that they spit one upon another, and are both defiled. These
fencers in religion I like not.
_Morbi_. --The body hath certain diseases that are with less evil tolerated
than removed. As if to cure a leprosy a man should bathe himself with
the warm blood of a murdered child, so in the Church some errors may be
dissimuled with less inconvenience than they can be discovered.
_Jactantia intempestiva_. --Men that talk of their own benefits are not
believed to talk of them because they have done them; but to have done
them because they might talk of them. That which had been great, if
another had reported it of them, vanisheth, and is nothing, if he that
did it speak of it. For men, when they cannot destroy the deed, will yet
be glad to take advantage of the boasting, and lessen it.
_Adulatio_. --I have seen that poverty makes me do unfit things; but honest
men should not do them; they should gain otherwise. Though a man be
hungry, he should not play the parasite. That hour wherein I would
repent me to be honest, there were ways enough open for me to be rich.
But flattery is a fine pick-lock of tender ears; especially of those whom
fortune hath borne high upon their wings, that submit their dignity and
authority to it, by a soothing of themselves. For, indeed, men could
never be taken in that abundance with the springes of others' flattery,
if they began not there; if they did but remember how much more
profitable the bitterness of truth were, than all the honey distilling
from a whorish voice, which is not praise, but poison. But now it is
come to that extreme folly, or rather madness, with some, that he that
flatters them modestly or sparingly is thought to malign them. If their
friend consent not to their vices, though he do not contradict them, he
is nevertheless an enemy. When they do all things the worst way, even
then they look for praise. Nay, they will hire fellows to flatter them
with suits and suppers, and to prostitute their judgments. They have
livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the spit, that wait their
turns, as my lord has his feasts and guests.
_De vita humana_. --I have considered our whole life is like a play:
wherein every man forgetful of himself, is in travail with expression of
another. Nay, we so insist in imitating others, as we cannot when it is
necessary return to ourselves; like children, that imitate the vices of
stammerers so long, till at last they become such; and make the habit to
another nature, as it is never forgotten.
_De piis et probis_. --Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages
wherein they live and illustrate the times. God did never let them be
wanting to the world: as Abel, for an example of innocency, Enoch of
purity, Noah of trust in God's mercies, Abraham of faith, and so of the
rest. These, sensual men thought mad because they would not be partakers
or practisers of their madness. But they, placed high on the top of all
virtue, looked down on the stage of the world and contemned the play of
fortune. For though the most be players, some must be spectators.
_Mores aulici_. --I have discovered that a feigned familiarity in great
ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less. For great and popular
men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to
them. So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, dace, &c. , that
they may be food to him.
_Impiorum querela_. --_Augusties_. --_Varus_. --_Tiberius_. --The complaint of
Caligula was most wicked of the condition of his times, when he said they
were not famous for any public calamity, as the reign of Augustus was, by
the defeat of Varus and the legions; and that of Tiberius, by the falling
of the theatre at Fidenae; whilst his oblivion was eminent through the
prosperity of his affairs. As that other voice of his was worthier a
headsman than a head when he wished the people of Rome had but one neck.
But he found when he fell they had many hands. A tyrant, how great and
mighty soever he may seem to cowards and sluggards, is but one creature,
one animal.
_Nobilium ingenia_. --I have marked among the nobility some are so addicted
to the service of the prince and commonwealth, as they look not for
spoil; such are to be honoured and loved. There are others which no
obligation will fasten on; and they are of two sorts. The first are such
as love their own ease; or, out of vice, of nature, or self-direction,
avoid business and care. Yet these the prince may use with safety. The
other remove themselves upon craft and design, as the architects say,
with a premeditated thought, to their own rather than their prince's
profit. Such let the prince take heed of, and not doubt to reckon in the
list of his open enemies.
_Principum. varia_. --_Firmissima vero omnium basis jus haereditarium
Principis_. --There is a great variation between him that is raised to the
sovereignty by the favour of his peers and him that comes to it by the
suffrage of the people. The first holds with more difficulty, because he
hath to do with many that think themselves his equals, and raised him for
their own greatness and oppression of the rest. The latter hath no
upbraiders, but was raised by them that sought to be defended from
oppression: whose end is both easier and the honester to satisfy.
Beside, while he hath the people to friend, who are a multitude, he hath
the less fear of the nobility, who are but few. Nor let the common
proverb (of he that builds on the people builds on the dirt) discredit my
opinion: for that hath only place where an ambitious and private person,
for some popular end, trusts in them against the public justice and
magistrate. There they will leave him. But when a prince governs them,
so as they have still need of his administrations (for that is his art),
he shall ever make and hold them faithful.
_Clementia_. --_Machiavell_. --A prince should exercise his cruelty not by
himself but by his ministers; so he may save himself and his dignity with
his people by sacrificing those when he list, saith the great doctor of
state, Machiavell. But I say he puts off man and goes into a beast, that
is cruel. No virtue is a prince's own, or becomes him more, than this
clemency: and no glory is greater than to be able to save with his power.
Many punishments sometimes, and in some cases, as much discredit a
prince, as many funerals a physician. The state of things is secured by
clemency; severity represseth a few, but irritates more. {74a} The
lopping of trees makes the boughs shoot out thicker; and the taking away
of some kind of enemies increaseth the number. It is then most gracious
in a prince to pardon when many about him would make him cruel; to think
then how much he can save when others tell him how much he can destroy;
not to consider what the impotence of others hath demolished, but what
his own greatness can sustain. These are a prince's virtues: and they
that give him other counsels are but the hangman's factors.
_Clementia tutela optima_. --He that is cruel to halves (saith the said St.
Nicholas {74b}) loseth no less the opportunity of his cruelty than of his
benefits: for then to use his cruelty is too late; and to use his favours
will be interpreted fear and necessity, and so he loseth the thanks.
Still the counsel is cruelty. But princes, by hearkening to cruel
counsels, become in time obnoxious to the authors, their flatterers, and
ministers; and are brought to that, that when they would, they dare not
change them; they must go on and defend cruelty with cruelty; they cannot
alter the habit. It is then grown necessary, they must be as ill as
those have made them: and in the end they will grow more hateful to
themselves than to their subjects. Whereas, on the contrary, the
merciful prince is safe in love, not in fear. He needs no emissaries,
spies, intelligencers to entrap true subjects. He fears no libels, no
treasons. His people speak what they think, and talk openly what they do
in secret. They have nothing in their breasts that they need a cypher
for. He is guarded with his own benefits.
_Religio_. _Palladium Homeri_. --_Euripides_. --The strength of empire is in
religion. What else is the Palladium (with Homer) that kept Troy so long
from sacking? Nothing more commends the Sovereign to the subject than
it. For he that is religious must be merciful and just necessarily: and
they are two strong ties upon mankind. Justice the virtue that innocence
rejoiceth in. Yet even that is not always so safe, but it may love to
stand in the sight of mercy. For sometimes misfortune is made a crime,
and then innocence is succoured no less than virtue. Nay, oftentimes
virtue is made capital; and through the condition of the times it may
happen that that may be punished with our praise. Let no man therefore
murmur at the actions of the prince, who is placed so far above him. If
he offend, he hath his discoverer. God hath a height beyond him. But
where the prince is good, Euripides saith, "God is a guest in a human
body. "
_Tyranni_. --_Sejanus_. --There is nothing with some princes sacred above
their majesty, or profane, but what violates their sceptres. But a
prince, with such a council, is like the god Terminus, of stone, his own
landmark, or (as it is in the fable) a crowned lion. It is dangerous
offending such a one, who, being angry, knows not how to forgive; that
cares not to do anything for maintaining or enlarging of empire; kills
not men or subjects, but destroyeth whole countries, armies, mankind,
male and female, guilty or not guilty, holy or profane; yea, some that
have not seen the light. All is under the law of their spoil and
licence. But princes that neglect their proper office thus their fortune
is oftentimes to draw a Sejanus to be near about them, who at last affect
to get above them, and put them in a worthy fear of rooting both them out
and their family. For no men hate an evil prince more than they that
helped to make him such. And none more boastingly weep his ruin than
they that procured and practised it. The same path leads to ruin which
did to rule when men profess a licence in government. A good king is a
public servant.
_Illiteratus princeps_. --A prince without letters is a pilot without eyes.
All his government is groping. In sovereignty it is a most happy thing
not to be compelled; but so it is the most miserable not to be
counselled. And how can he be counselled that cannot see to read the
best counsellors (which are books), for they neither flatter us nor hide
from us? He may hear, you will say; but how shall he always be sure to
hear truth, or be counselled the best things, not the sweetest? They say
princes learn no art truly but the art of horsemanship. The reason is
the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his
groom. Which is an argument that the good counsellors to princes are the
best instruments of a good age. For though the prince himself be of a
most prompt inclination to all virtue, yet the best pilots have needs of
mariners besides sails, anchor, and other tackle.
_Character principis_. --_Alexander magnus_. --If men did know what shining
fetters, gilded miseries, and painted happiness thrones and sceptres were
there would not be so frequent strife about the getting or holding of
them; there would be more principalities than princes; for a prince is
the pastor of the people. He ought to shear, not to flay his sheep; to
take their fleeces, not their the soul of the commonwealth, and ought to
cherish it as his own body. Alexander the Great was wont to say, "He
hated that gardener that plucked his herbs or flowers up by the roots. "
A man may milk a beast till the blood come; churn milk and it yieldeth
butter, but wring the nose and the blood followeth. He is an ill prince
that so pulls his subjects' feathers as he would not have them grow
again; that makes his exchequer a receipt for the spoils of those he
governs. No, let him keep his own, not affect his subjects'; strive
rather to be called just than powerful. Not, like the Roman tyrants,
affect the surnames that grow by human slaughters; neither to seek war in
peace, nor peace in war, but to observe faith given, though to an enemy.
Study piety toward the subject; show care to defend him. Be slow to
punish in divers cases, but be a sharp and severe revenger of open
crimes. Break no decrees or dissolve no orders to slacken the strength
of laws. Choose neither magistrates, civil or ecclesiastical, by favour
or price; but with long disquisition and report of their worth by all
suffrages. Sell no honours, nor give them hastily, but bestow them with
counsel and for reward; if he do, acknowledge it (though late), and mend
it. For princes are easy to be deceived; and what wisdom can escape
where so many court-arts are studied? But, above all, the prince is to
remember that when the great day of account comes, which neither
magistrate nor prince can shun, there will be required of him a reckoning
for those whom he hath trusted, as for himself, which he must provide.
And if piety be wanting in the priests, equity in the judges, or the
magistrates be found rated at a price, what justice or religion is to be
expected? which are the only two attributes make kings akin to God, and
is the Delphic sword, both to kill sacrifices and to chastise offenders.
_De gratiosis_. --When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness to his
friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity. Nay, his
honours are a great part of the honour of the times; when by this means
he is grown to active men an example, to the slothful a spur, to the
envious a punishment.
_Divites_. --_Heredes ex asse_. He which is sole heir to many rich men,
having (besides his father's and uncle's) the estates of divers his
kindred come to him by accession, must needs be richer than father or
grandfather; so they which are left heirs _ex asse_ of all their
ancestors' vices, and by their good husbandry improve the old and daily
purchase new, must needs be wealthier in vice, and have a greater revenue
or stock of ill to spend on.
_Fures publici_. --The great thieves of a state are lightly the officers of
the crown; they hang the less still, play the pikes in the pond, eat whom
they list. The net was never spread for the hawk or buzzard that hurt
us, but the harmless birds; they are good meat:--
"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. " {81a}
"Non rete accipitri tenditur, neque milvio. " {81b}
_Lewis XI_. --But they are not always safe though, especially when they
meet with wise masters. They can take down all the huff and swelling of
their looks, and like dexterous auditors place the counter where he shall
value nothing. Let them but remember Lewis XI. , who to a Clerk of the
Exchequer that came to be Lord Treasurer, and had (for his device)
represented himself sitting on fortune's wheel, told him he might do well
to fasten it with a good strong nail, lest, turning about, it might bring
him where he was again. As indeed it did.
_De bonis et malis_. --_De innocentia_. --A good man will avoid the spot of
any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way
in his life as he would in his journey. The ill man rides through all
confidently; he is coated and booted for it. The oftener he offends, the
more openly, and the fouler, the fitter in fashion. His modesty, like a
riding-coat, the more it is worn is the less cared for. It is good
enough for the dirt still, and the ways he travels in. An innocent man
needs no eloquence, his innocence is instead of it, else I had never come
off so many times from these precipices, whither men's malice hath
pursued me. It is true I have been accused to the lords, to the king,
and by great ones, but it happened my accusers had not thought of the
accusation with themselves, and so were driven, for want of crimes, to
use invention, which was found slander, or too late (being entered so
fair) to seek starting-holes for their rashness, which were not given
them. And then they may think what accusation that was like to prove,
when they that were the engineers feared to be the authors. Nor were
they content to feign things against me, but to urge things, feigned by
the ignorant, against my profession, which though, from their hired and
mercenary impudence, I might have passed by as granted to a nation of
barkers that let out their tongues to lick others' sores; yet I durst not
leave myself undefended, having a pair of ears unskilful to hear lies, or
have those things said of me which I could truly prove of them. They
objected making of verses to me, when I could object to most of them,
their not being able to read them, but as worthy of scorn. Nay, they
would offer to urge mine own writings against me, but by pieces (which
was an excellent way of malice), as if any man's context might not seem
dangerous and offensive, if that which was knit to what went before were
defrauded of his beginning; or that things by themselves uttered might
not seem subject to calumny, which read entire would appear most free.
At last they upbraided my poverty: I confess she is my domestic; sober of
diet, simple of habit, frugal, painful, a good counseller to me, that
keeps me from cruelty, pride, or other more delicate impertinences, which
are the nurse-children of riches. But let them look over all the great
and monstrous wickednesses, they shall never find those in poor families.
They are the issue of the wealthy giants and the mighty hunters, whereas
no great work, or worthy of praise or memory, but came out of poor
cradles. It was the ancient poverty that founded commonweals, built
cities, invented arts, made wholesome laws, armed men against vices,
rewarded them with their own virtues, and preserved the honour and state
of nations, till they betrayed themselves to riches.
_Amor nummi_. --Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He that can
order himself to the law of Nature is not only without the sense but the
fear of poverty. O! but to strike blind the people with our wealth and
pomp is the thing! What a wretchedness is this, to thrust all our riches
outward, and be beggars within; to contemplate nothing but the little,
vile, and sordid things of the world; not the great, noble, and precious!
We serve our avarice, and, not content with the good of the earth that is
offered us, we search and dig for the evil that is hidden. God offered
us those things, and placed them at hand, and near us, that He knew were
profitable for us, but the hurtful He laid deep and hid. Yet do we seek
only the things whereby we may perish, and bring them forth, when God and
Nature hath buried them.
We covet superfluous things, when it were more
honour for us if we would contemn necessary. What need hath Nature of
silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins?
She requires meat only, and hunger is not ambitious. Can we think no
wealth enough but such a state for which a man may be brought into a
premunire, begged, proscribed, or poisoned? O! if a man could restrain
the fury of his gullet and groin, and think how many fires, how many
kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews,
ponds and parks, coops and garners, he could spare; what velvets,
tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how short and
uncertain his life is; he were in a better way to happiness than to live
the emperor of these delights, and be the dictator of fashions; but we
make ourselves slaves to our pleasures, and we serve fame and ambition,
which is an equal slavery. Have not I seen the pomp of a whole kingdom,
and what a foreign king could bring hither? Also to make himself gazed
and wondered at--laid forth, as it were, to the show--and vanish all away
in a day? And shall that which could not fill the expectation of few
hours, entertain and take up our whole lives, when even it appeared as
superfluous to the possessors as to me that was a spectator? The bravery
was shown, it was not possessed; while it boasted itself it perished. It
is vile, and a poor thing to place our happiness on these desires. Say
we wanted them all. Famine ends famine.
_De mollibus et effoeminatis_. --There is nothing valiant or solid to be
hoped for from such as are always kempt and perfumed, and every day smell
of the tailor; the exceedingly curious that are wholly in mending such an
imperfection in the face, in taking away the morphew in the neck, or
bleaching their hands at midnight, gumming and bridling their beards, or
making the waist small, binding it with hoops, while the mind runs at
waste; too much pickedness is not manly. Not from those that will jest
at their own outward imperfections, but hide their ulcers within, their
pride, lust, envy, ill-nature, with all the art and authority they can.
These persons are in danger, for whilst they think to justify their
ignorance by impudence, and their persons by clothes and outward
ornaments, they use but a commission to deceive themselves: where, if we
will look with our understanding, and not our senses, we may behold
virtue and beauty (though covered with rags) in their brightness; and
vice and deformity so much the fouler, in having all the splendour of
riches to gild them, or the false light of honour and power to help them.
Yet this is that wherewith the world is taken, and runs mad to gaze
on--clothes and titles, the birdlime of fools.
_De stultitia_. --What petty things they are we wonder at, like children
that esteem every trifle, and prefer a fairing before their fathers!
What difference is between us and them but that we are dearer fools,
coxcombs at a higher rate? They are pleased with cockleshells, whistles,
hobby-horses, and such like; we with statues, marble pillars, pictures,
gilded roofs, where underneath is lath and lime, perhaps loam. Yet we
take pleasure in the lie, and are glad we can cozen ourselves. Nor is it
only in our walls and ceilings, but all that we call happiness is mere
painting and gilt, and all for money. What a thin membrane of honour
that is! and how hath all true reputation fallen, since money began to
have any! Yet the great herd, the multitude, that in all other things
are divided, in this alone conspire and agree--to love money. They wish
for it, they embrace it, they adore it, while yet it is possessed with
greater stir and torment than it is gotten.
_De sibi molestis_. --Some men what losses soever they have they make them
greater, and if they have none, even all that is not gotten is a loss.
Can there be creatures of more wretched condition than these, that
continually labour under their own misery and others' envy? A man should
study other things, not to covet, not to fear, not to repent him; to make
his base such as no tempest shall shake him; to be secure of all opinion,
and pleasing to himself, even for that wherein he displeaseth others; for
the worst opinion gotten for doing well, should delight us. Wouldst not
thou be just but for fame, thou oughtest to be it with infamy; he that
would have his virtue published is not the servant of virtue, but glory.
_Periculosa melancholia_. --It is a dangerous thing when men's minds come
to sojourn with their affections, and their diseases eat into their
strength; that when too much desire and greediness of vice hath made the
body unfit, or unprofitable, it is yet gladded with the sight and
spectacle of it in others; and for want of ability to be an actor, is
content to be a witness. It enjoys the pleasure of sinning in beholding
others sin, as in dining, drinking, drabbing, &c. Nay, when it cannot do
all these, it is offended with his own narrowness, that excludes it from
the universal delights of mankind, and oftentimes dies of a melancholy,
that it cannot be vicious enough.
_Falsae species fugiendae_. --I am glad when I see any man avoid the infamy
of a vice; but to shun the vice itself were better. Till he do that he
is but like the 'pientice, who, being loth to be spied by his master
coming forth of Black Lucy's, went in again; to whom his master cried,
"The more thou runnest that way to hide thyself, the more thou art in the
place. " So are those that keep a tavern all day, that they may not be
seen at night. I have known lawyers, divines--yea, great ones--of this
heresy.
_Decipimur specie_. --There is a greater reverence had of things remote or
strange to us than of much better if they be nearer and fall under our
sense. Men, and almost all sorts of creatures, have their reputation by
distance. Rivers, the farther they run, and more from their spring, the
broader they are, and greater. And where our original is known, we are
less the confident; among strangers we trust fortune. Yet a man may live
as renowned at home, in his own country, or a private village, as in the
whole world. For it is virtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a
man everywhere. It is only that can naturalise him. A native, if he be
vicious, deserves to be a stranger, and cast out of the commonwealth as
an alien.
_Dejectio Aulic_. --A dejected countenance and mean clothes beget often a
contempt, but it is with the shallowest creatures; courtiers commonly:
look up even with them in a new suit, you get above them straight.
Nothing is more short-lived than pride; it is but while their clothes
last: stay but while these are worn out, you cannot wish the thing more
wretched or dejected.
_Poesis_, _et pictura_. --_Plutarch_. Poetry and picture are arts of a
like nature, and both are busy about imitation. It was excellently said
of Plutarch, poetry was a speaking picture, and picture a mute poesy.
For they both invent, feign and devise many things, and accommodate all
they invent to the use and service of Nature. Yet of the two, the pen is
more noble than the pencil; for that can speak to the understanding, the
other but to the sense. They both behold pleasure and profit as their
common object; but should abstain from all base pleasures, lest they
should err from their end, and, while they seek to better men's minds,
destroy their manners. They both are born artificers, not made. Nature
is more powerful in them than study.
_De pictura_. --Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth and all
the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, the most
ancient and most akin to Nature. It is itself a silent work, and always
of one and the same habit; yet it doth so enter and penetrate the inmost
affection (being done by an excellent artificer) as sometimes it
overcomes the power of speech and oratory. There are divers graces in
it, so are there in the artificers. One excels in care, another in
reason, a third in easiness, a fourth in nature and grace. Some have
diligence and comeliness, but they want majesty. They can express a
human form in all the graces, sweetness, and elegancy, but, they miss the
authority. They can hit nothing but smooth cheeks; they cannot express
roughness or gravity. Others aspire to truth so much as they are rather
lovers of likeness than beauty. Zeuxis and Parrhasius are said to be
contemporaries; the first found out the reason of lights and shadows in
picture, the other more subtlely examined the line.
_De stylo_. --_Pliny_. --In picture light is required no less than shadow; so
in style, height as well as humbleness. But beware they be not too
humble, as Pliny pronounced of Regulus's writings. You would think them
written, not on a child, but by a child. Many, out of their own obscene
apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words--as occupy, Nature, and the
like; so the curious industry in some, of having all alike good, hath
come nearer a vice than a virtue.
_De progres. picturae_. {93} Picture took her feigning from poetry; from
geometry her rule, compass, lines, proportion, and the whole symmetry.
Parrhasius was the first won reputation by adding symmetry to picture; he
added subtlety to the countenance, elegancy to the hair, love-lines to
the face, and by the public voice of all artificers, deserved honour in
the outer lines. Eupompus gave it splendour by numbers and other
elegancies. From the optics it drew reasons, by which it considered how
things placed at distance and afar off should appear less; how above or
beneath the head should deceive the eye, &c. So from thence it took
shadows, recessor, light, and heightnings. From moral philosophy it took
the soul, the expression of senses, perturbations, manners, when they
would paint an angry person, a proud, an inconstant, an ambitious, a
brave, a magnanimous, a just, a merciful, a compassionate, an humble, a
dejected, a base, and the like; they made all heightnings bright, all
shadows dark, all swellings from a plane, all solids from breaking. See
where he complains of their painting Chimaeras {94} (by the vulgar unaptly
called grotesque) saying that men who were born truly to study and
emulate Nature did nothing but make monsters against Nature, which Horace
so laughed at. {95} The art plastic was moulding in clay, or potter's
earth anciently. This is the parent of statuary, sculpture, graving, and
picture; cutting in brass and marble, all serve under her. Socrates
taught Parrhasius and Clito (two noble statuaries) first to express
manners by their looks in imagery. Polygnotus and Aglaophon were
ancienter. After them Zeuxis, who was the lawgiver to all painters;
after, Parrhasius. They were contemporaries, and lived both about
Philip's time, the father of Alexander the Great. There lived in this
latter age six famous painters in Italy, who were excellent and emulous
of the ancients--Raphael de Urbino, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Titian,
Antony of Correggio, Sebastian of Venice, Julio Romano, and Andrea
Sartorio.
_Parasiti ad mensam_. --These are flatterers for their bread, that praise
all my oraculous lord does or says, be it true or false; invent tales
that shall please; make baits for his lordship's ears; and if they be not
received in what they offer at, they shift a point of the compass, and
turn their tale, presently tack about, deny what they confessed, and
confess what they denied; fit their discourse to the persons and
occasions. What they snatch up and devour at one table, utter at
another; and grow suspected of the master, hated of the servants, while
they inquire, and reprehend, and compound, and dilate business of the
house they have nothing to do with. They praise my lord's wine and the
sauce he likes; observe the cook and bottle-man; while they stand in my
lord's favour, speak for a pension for them, but pound them to dust upon
my lord's least distaste, or change of his palate.
How much better is it to be silent, or at least to speak sparingly! for
it is not enough to speak good, but timely things. If a man be asked a
question, to answer; but to repeat the question before he answer is well,
that he be sure to understand it, to avoid absurdity; for it is less
dishonour to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are
excused, the understanding is not. And in things unknown to a man, not
to give his opinion, lest by the affectation of knowing too much he lose
the credit he hath, by speaking or knowing the wrong way what he utters.
Nor seek to get his patron's favour by embarking himself in the factions
of the family, to inquire after domestic simulties, their sports or
affections. They are an odious and vile kind of creatures, that fly
about the house all day, and picking up the filth of the house like pies
or swallows, carry it to their nest (the lord's ears), and oftentimes
report the lies they have feigned for what they have seen and heard.
_Imo serviles_. --These are called instruments of grace and power with
great persons, but they are indeed the organs of their impotency, and
marks of weakness. For sufficient lords are able to make these
discoveries themselves. Neither will an honourable person inquire who
eats and drinks together, what that man plays, whom this man loves, with
whom such a one walks, what discourse they hold, who sleeps with whom.
They are base and servile natures that busy themselves about these
disquisitions. How often have I seen (and worthily) these censors of the
family undertaken by some honest rustic and cudgelled thriftily! These
are commonly the off-scouring and dregs of men that do these things, or
calumniate others; yet I know not truly which is worse--he that maligns
all, or that praises all. There is as a vice in praising, and as
frequent, as in detracting.
It pleased your lordship of late to ask my opinion touching the education
of your sons, and especially to the advancement of their studies. To
which, though I returned somewhat for the present, which rather
manifested a will in me than gave any just resolution to the thing
propounded, I have upon better cogitation called those aids about me,
both of mind and memory, which shall venture my thoughts clearer, if not
fuller, to your lordship's demand. I confess, my lord, they will seem
but petty and minute things I shall offer to you, being writ for
children, and of them. But studies have their infancy as well as
creatures. We see in men even the strongest compositions had their
beginnings from milk and the cradle; and the wisest tarried sometimes
about apting their mouths to letters and syllables. In their education,
therefore, the care must be the greater had of their beginnings, to know,
examine, and weigh their natures; which, though they be proner in some
children to some disciplines, yet are they naturally prompt to taste all
by degrees, and with change. For change is a kind of refreshing in
studies, and infuseth knowledge by way of recreation. Thence the school
itself is called a play or game, and all letters are so best taught to
scholars. They should not be affrighted or deterred in their entry, but
drawn on with exercise and emulation. A youth should not be made to hate
study before he know the causes to love it, or taste the bitterness
before the sweet; but called on and allured, entreated and praised--yea,
when he deserves it not. For which cause I wish them sent to the best
school, and a public, which I think the best. Your lordship, I fear,
hardly hears of that, as willing to breed them in your eye and at home,
and doubting their manners may be corrupted abroad. They are in more
danger in your own family, among ill servants (allowing they be safe in
their schoolmaster), than amongst a thousand boys, however immodest.
Would we did not spoil our own children, and overthrow their manners
ourselves by too much indulgence! To breed them at home is to breed them
in a shade, whereas in a school they have the light and heat of the sun.
They are used and accustomed to things and men. When they come forth
into the common-wealth, they find nothing new, or to seek. They have
made their friendships and aids, some to last their age. They hear what
is commanded to others as well as themselves; much approved, much
corrected; all which they bring to their own store and use, and learn as
much as they hear. Eloquence would be but a poor thing if we should only
converse with singulars, speak but man and man together. Therefore I
like no private breeding. I would send them where their industry should
be daily increased by praise, and that kindled by emulation. It is a
good thing to inflame the mind; and though ambition itself be a vice, it
is often the cause of great virtue. Give me that wit whom praise
excites, glory puts on, or disgrace grieves; he is to be nourished with
ambition, pricked forward with honour, checked with reprehension, and
never to be suspected of sloth. Though he be given to play, it is a sign
of spirit and liveliness, so there be a mean had of their sports and
relaxations. And from the rod or ferule I would have them free, as from
the menace of them; for it is both deformed and servile.
_De stylo_, _et optimo scribendi genere_. --For a man to write well, there
are required three necessaries--to read the best authors, observe the best
speakers, and much exercise of his own style; in style to consider what
ought to be written, and after what manner. He must first think and
excogitate his matter, then choose his words, and examine the weight of
either. Then take care, in placing and ranking both matter and words,
that the composition be comely; and to do this with diligence and often.
No matter how slow the style be at first, so it be laboured and accurate;
seek the best, and be not glad of the froward conceits, or first words,
that offer themselves to us; but judge of what we invent, and order what
we approve. Repeat often what we have formerly written; which beside
that it helps the consequence, and makes the juncture better, it quickens
the heat of imagination, that often cools in the time of setting down,
and gives it new strength, as if it grew lustier by the going back; as we
see in the contention of leaping, they jump farthest that fetch their
race largest; or, as in throwing a dart or javelin, we force back our
arms to make our loose the stronger. Yet, if we have a fair gale of
wind, I forbid not the steering out of our sail, so the favour of the
gale deceive us not. For all that we invent doth please us in conception
of birth, else we would never set it down. But the safest is to return
to our judgment, and handle over again those things the easiness of which
might make them justly suspected. So did the best writers in their
beginnings; they imposed upon themselves care and industry; they did
nothing rashly: they obtained first to write well, and then custom made
it easy and a habit. By little and little their matter showed itself to
them more plentifully; their words answered, their composition followed;
and all, as in a well-ordered family, presented itself in the place. So
that the sum of all is, ready writing makes not good writing, but good
writing brings on ready writing yet, when we think we have got the
faculty, it is even then good to resist it, as to give a horse a check
sometimes with a bit, which doth not so much stop his course as stir his
mettle. Again, whether a man's genius is best able to reach thither, it
should more and more contend, lift and dilate itself, as men of low
stature raise themselves on their toes, and so ofttimes get even, if not
eminent. Besides, as it is fit for grown and able writers to stand of
themselves, and work with their own strength, to trust and endeavour by
their own faculties, so it is fit for the beginner and learner to study
others and the best. For the mind and memory are more sharply exercised
in comprehending another man's things than our own; and such as accustom
themselves and are familiar with the best authors shall ever and anon
find somewhat of them in themselves, and in the expression of their
minds, even when they feel it not, be able to utter something like
theirs, which hath an authority above their own. Nay, sometimes it is
the reward of a man's study, the praise of quoting another man fitly; and
though a man be more prone and able for one kind of writing than another,
yet he must exercise all. For as in an instrument, so in style, there
must be a harmony and consent of parts.
_Praecipiendi modi_. --I take this labour in teaching others, that they
should not be always to be taught, and I would bring my precepts into
practice, for rules are ever of less force and value than experiments;
yet with this purpose, rather to show the right way to those that come
after, than to detect any that have slipped before by error, and I hope
it will be more profitable. For men do more willingly listen, and with
more favour, to precept, than reprehension. Among divers opinions of an
art, and most of them contrary in themselves, it is hard to make
election; and, therefore, though a man cannot invent new things after so
many, he may do a welcome work yet to help posterity to judge rightly of
the old. But arts and precepts avail nothing, except Nature be
beneficial and aiding. And therefore these things are no more written to
a dull disposition, than rules of husbandry to a soil. No precepts will
profit a fool, no more than beauty will the blind, or music the deaf. As
we should take care that our style in writing be neither dry nor empty,
we should look again it be not winding, or wanton with far-fetched
descriptions; either is a vice. But that is worse which proceeds out of
want, than that which riots out of plenty. The remedy of fruitfulness is
easy, but no labour will help the contrary; I will like and praise some
things in a young writer which yet, if he continue in, I cannot but
justly hate him for the same. There is a time to be given all things for
maturity, and that even your country husband-man can teach, who to a
young plant will not put the pruning-knife, because it seems to fear the
iron, as not able to admit the scar. No more would I tell a green writer
all his faults, lest I should make him grieve and faint, and at last
despair; for nothing doth more hurt than to make him so afraid of all
things as he can endeavour nothing. Therefore youth ought to be
instructed betimes, and in the best things; for we hold those longest we
take soonest, as the first scent of a vessel lasts, and the tint the wool
first receives; therefore a master should temper his own powers, and
descend to the other's infirmity. If you pour a glut of water upon a
bottle, it receives little of it; but with a funnel, and by degrees, you
shall fill many of them, and spill little of your own; to their capacity
they will all receive and be full. And as it is fit to read the best
authors to youth first, so let them be of the openest and clearest.
{106a} As Livy before Sallust, Sidney before Donne; and beware of
letting them taste Gower or Chaucer at first, lest, falling too much in
love with antiquity, and not apprehending the weight, they grow rough and
barren in language only. When their judgments are firm, and out of
danger, let them read both the old and the new; but no less take heed
that their new flowers and sweetness do not as much corrupt as the
others' dryness and squalor, if they choose not carefully. Spenser, in
affecting the ancients, writ no language; yet I would have him read for
his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius. The reading of Homer and Virgil
is counselled by Quintilian as the best way of informing youth and
confirming man. For, besides that the mind is raised with the height and
sublimity of such a verse, it takes spirit from the greatness of the
matter, and is tinctured with the best things. Tragic and lyric poetry
is good, too, and comic with the best, if the manners of the reader be
once in safety. In the Greek poets, as also in Plautus, we shall see the
economy and disposition of poems better observed than in Terence; and the
latter, who thought the sole grace and virtue of their fable the sticking
in of sentences, as ours do the forcing in of jests.
_Fals. querel. fugiend. Platonis peregrinatio in Italiam_. --We should not
protect our sloth with the patronage of difficulty. It is a false
quarrel against Nature, that she helps understanding but in a few, when
the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if they would take
the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run, &c. , which if they
lose, it is through their own sluggishness, and by that means become her
prodigies, not her children. I confess, Nature in children is more
patient of labour in study than in age; for the sense of the pain, the
judgment of the labour is absent; they do not measure what they have
done. And it is the thought and consideration that affects us more than
the weariness itself. Plato was not content with the learning that
Athens could give him, but sailed into Italy, for Pythagoras' knowledge:
and yet not thinking himself sufficiently informed, went into Egypt, to
the priests, and learned their mysteries. He laboured, so must we. Many
things may be learned together, and performed in one point of time; as
musicians exercise their memory, their voice, their fingers, and
sometimes their head and feet at once. And so a preacher, in the
invention of matter, election of words, composition of gesture, look,
pronunciation, motion, useth all these faculties at once: and if we can
express this variety together, why should not divers studies, at divers
hours, delight, when the variety is able alone to refresh and repair us?
As, when a man is weary of writing, to read; and then again of reading,
to write. Wherein, howsoever we do many things, yet are we (in a sort)
still fresh to what we begin; we are recreated with change, as the
stomach is with meats. But some will say this variety breeds confusion,
and makes, that either we lose all, or hold no more than the last. Why
do we not then persuade husbandmen that they should not till land, help
it with marl, lime, and compost? plant hop-gardens, prune trees, look to
bee-hives, rear sheep, and all other cattle at once? It is easier to do
many things and continue, than to do one thing long.
_Praecept. element_.
