DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTERAND SOME POEMS

Contents: Introduction by Henry Morley Sylva Timber, or Discoveries . . . Some Poems To William Camden On My First Daughter On My First Son To Francis Beaumont Of Life and Death Inviting a Friend to Supper Epitaph on Salathiel Pavy Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H. Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke To the Memory of my Beloved Master William Shakespeare To Celia The Triumph of Charis In the Person of Womankind Ode Praeludium Epode An Elegy

INTRODUCTION

Ben Jonson's "Discoveries" are, as he says in the few Latin wordsprefixed to them, "A wood--Sylva--of things and thoughts, in Greek"[Greek text]" [which has for its first meaning material, but is also appliedpeculiarly to kinds of wood, and to a wood], "from the multiplicityand variety of the material contained in it. For, as we arecommonly used to call the infinite mixed multitude of growing treesa wood, so the ancients gave the name of Sylvae--Timber Trees--tobooks of theirs in which small works of various and diverse matterwere promiscuously brought together. "

In this little book we have some of the best thoughts of one of themost vigorous minds that ever added to the strength of Englishliterature. The songs added are a part of what Ben Jonson calledhis "Underwoods. "

Ben Jonson was of a north-country family from the Annan districtthat produced Thomas Carlyle. His father was ruined by religiouspersecution in the reign of Mary, became a preacher in Elizabeth'sreign, and died a month before the poet's birth in 1573. BenJonson, therefore, was about nine years younger than Shakespeare, and he survived Shakespeare about twenty-one years, dying in August, 1637. Next to Shakespeare Ben Jonson was, in his own different way, the man of most mark in the story of the English drama. His mother, left poor, married again. Her second husband was a bricklayer, orsmall builder, and they lived for a time near Charing Cross inHartshorn Lane. Ben Jonson was taught at the parish school of St. Martin's till he was discovered by William Camden, the historian. Camden was then second master in Westminster School. He procuredfor young Ben an admission into his school, and there laid firmfoundations for that scholarship which the poet extended afterwardsby private study until his learning grew to be sworn-brother to hiswit. 

Ben Jonson began the world poor. He worked for a very short time inhis step-father's business. He volunteered to the wars in the LowCountries. He came home again, and joined the players. Before theend of Elizabeth's reign he had written three or four plays, inwhich he showed a young and ardent zeal for setting the world torights, together with that high sense of the poet's calling whichput lasting force into his work. He poured contempt on those whofrittered life away. He urged on the poetasters and the mincingcourtiers, who set their hearts on top-knots and affected movementsof their lips and legs:-

"That these vain joys in which their wills consumeSuch powers of wit and soul as are of forceTo raise their beings to eternity, May be converted on works fitting men;And for the practice of a forced look, An antic gesture, or a fustian phrase, Study the native frame of a true heart, An inward comeliness of bounty, knowledge, And spirit that may conform them actuallyTo God's high figures, which they have in power. "

Ben Jonson's genius was producing its best work in the earlier yearsof the reign of James I. His Volpone, the Silent Woman, and theAlchemist first appeared side by side with some of the ripest worksof Shakespeare in the years from 1605 to 1610. In the latter partof James's reign he produced masques for the Court, and turned withdistaste from the public stage. When Charles I. Became king, BenJonson was weakened in health by a paralytic stroke. He returned tothe stage for a short time through necessity, but found his bestfriends in the best of the young poets of the day. These looked upto him as their father and their guide. Their own best effortsseemed best to them when they had won Ben Jonson's praise. Theyvalued above all passing honours man could give the words, "My son, "in the old poet's greeting, which, as they said, "sealed them of thetribe of Ben. "

H. M. 

SYLVA

Rerum et sententiarum quasi "[Greek text] dicta a multiplici materia etvarietate in iis contenta. Quemadmodum enim vulgo solemus infinitamarborum nascentium indiscriminatim multitudinem Sylvam dicere: itaetiam libros suos in quibus variae et diversae materiae opusculatemere congesta erant, Sylvas appellabant antiqui: Timber-trees. 

TIMBER;OR, DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER, AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS, OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIARNOTION OF THE TIMES. 

Tecum habita, ut noris quam sit tibi curta supellex {11}PERS. Sat. 4. 

Fortuna. --Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortunedeceived not. I therefore have counselled my friends never to trustto her fairer side, though she seemed to make peace with them; butto place all things she gave them, so as she might ask them againwithout their trouble, she might take them from them, not pull them:to keep always a distance between her and themselves. He knows nothis own strength that hath not met adversity. Heaven prepares goodmen with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man. Contrariesare not mixed. Yet that which happens to any man may to every man. But it is in his reason, what he accounts it and will make it. 

Casus. --Change into extremity is very frequent and easy. As when abeggar suddenly grows rich, he commonly becomes a prodigal; for, toobscure his former obscurity, he puts on riot and excess. 

Consilia. --No man is so foolish but may give another good counselsometimes; and no man is so wise but may easily err, if he will takeno others' counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by theirown counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was onlytaught by himself {12} had a fool to his master. 

Fama. --A Fame that is wounded to the world would be better cured byanother's apology than its own: for few can apply medicines wellthemselves. Besides, the man that is once hated, both his good andhis evil deeds oppress him. He is not easily emergent. 

Negotia. --In great affairs it is a work of difficulty to please all. And ofttimes we lose the occasions of carrying a business well andthoroughly by our too much haste. For passions are spiritualrebels, and raise sedition against the understanding. 

Amor patriae. --There is a necessity all men should love theircountry: he that professeth the contrary may be delighted with hiswords, but his heart is there. 

Ingenia. --Natures that are hardened to evil you shall sooner breakthan make straight; they are like poles that are crooked and dry, there is no attempting them. 

Applausus. --We praise the things we hear with much more willingnessthan those we see, because we envy the present and reverence thepast; thinking ourselves instructed by the one, and overlaid by theother. 

Opinio. --Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing;settled in the imagination, but never arriving at the understanding, there to obtain the tincture of reason. We labour with it more thantruth. There is much more holds us than presseth us. An ill factis one thing, an ill fortune is another; yet both oftentimes sway usalike, by the error of our thinking. 

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

Jactura vitae. --What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend thebetter part of life in! in scattering compliments, tendering visits, gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making alittle winter-love in a dark corner. 

Hypocrita. --Puritanus Hypocrita est Haereticus, quem opinio propriaeperspicaciae, qua sibi videtur, cum paucis in Ecclesia dogmatibuserrores quosdam animadvertisse, de statu mentis deturbavit: undesacro furore percitus, phrenetice pugnat contra magistratus, sicratus obedientiam praestare Deo. {14}

Mutua auxilia. --Learning needs rest: sovereignty gives it. Sovereignty needs counsel: learning affords it. There is such aconsociation of offices between the prince and whom his favourbreeds, that they may help to sustain his power as he theirknowledge. It is the greatest part of his liberality, his favour;and from whom doth he hear discipline more willingly, or the artsdiscoursed more gladly, than from those whom his own bounty andbenefits have made able and faithful?

Cognit. Univers. --In being able to counsel others, a man must befurnished with a universal store in himself, to the knowledge of allnature--that is, the matter and seed-plot: there are the seats ofall argument and invention. But especially you must be cunning inthe nature of man: there is the variety of things which are as theelements and letters, which his art and wisdom must rank and orderto the present occasion. For we see not all letters in singlewords, nor all places in particular discourses. That cause seldomhappens wherein a man will use all arguments. 

Consiliarii adjunct. Probitas, Sapientia. --The two chief thingsthat give a man reputation in counsel are the opinion of his honestyand the opinion of his wisdom: the authority of those two willpersuade when the same counsels uttered by other persons lessqualified are of no efficacy or working. 

Vita recta. --Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. Andtherefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten, whichcannot be but by living well. A good life is a main argument. 

Obsequentia. --Humanitas. --Solicitudo. --Next a good life, to begetlove in the persons we counsel, by dissembling our knowledge ofability in ourselves, and avoiding all suspicion of arrogance, ascribing all to their instruction, as an ambassador to his master, or a subject to his sovereign; seasoning all with humanity andsweetness, only expressing care and solicitude. And not to counselrashly, or on the sudden, but with advice and meditation. (Dat noxconsilium. {17a}) For many foolish things fall from wise men, ifthey speak in haste or be extemporal. It therefore behoves thegiver of counsel to be circumspect; especially to beware of thosewith whom he is not thoroughly acquainted, lest any spice ofrashness, folly, or self-love appear, which will be marked by newpersons and men of experience in affairs. 

Modestia. --Parrhesia. --And to the prince, or his superior, to behavehimself modestly and with respect. Yet free from flattery orempire. Not with insolence or precept; but as the prince werealready furnished with the parts he should have, especially inaffairs of state. For in other things they will more easily sufferthemselves to be taught or reprehended: they will not willinglycontend, but hear, with Alexander, the answer the musician gave him:Absit, o rex, ut tu melius haec scias, quam ego. {17b}

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

Natura non effaeta. --I cannot think Nature is so spent and decayedthat she can bring forth nothing worth her former years. She isalways the same, like herself; and when she collects her strength isabler still. Men are decayed, and studies: she is not. 

Non nimium credendum antiquitati. --I know nothing can conduce moreto letters than to examine the writings of the ancients, and not torest in their sole authority, or take all upon trust from them, provided the plagues of judging and pronouncing against them beaway; such as are envy, bitterness, precipitation, impudence, andscurrilous scoffing. For to all the observations of the ancients wehave our own experience, which if we will use and apply, we havebetter means to pronounce. It is true they opened the gates, andmade the way that went before us, but as guides, not commanders:Non domini nostri, sed duces fuere. {19a} Truth lies open to all;it is no man's several. Patet omnibus veritas; nondum est occupata. Multum ex illa, etiam futuris relicta est. {19b}

Dissentire licet, sed cum ratione. --If in some things I dissent fromothers, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgment, I look up atand admire, let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude andrashness. For I thank those that have taught me, and will ever; butyet dare not think the scope of their labour and inquiry was to envytheir posterity what they also could add and find out. 

Non mihi credendum sed veritati. --If I err, pardon me: Nulla arssimul et inventa est et absoluta. {19c} I do not desire to be equalto those that went before; but to have my reason examined withtheirs, and so much faith to be given them, or me, as those shallevict. I am neither author nor fautor of any sect. I will have noman addict himself to me; but if I have anything right, defend it asTruth's, not mine, save as it conduceth to a common good. Itprofits not me to have any man fence or fight for me, to flourish, or take my side. Stand for truth, and 'tis enough. 

Scientiae liberales. --Arts that respect the mind were ever reputednobler than those that serve the body, though we less can be withoutthem, as tillage, spinning, weaving, building, &c. , without which wecould scarce sustain life a day. But these were the works of everyhand; the other of the brain only, and those the most generous andexalted wits and spirits, that cannot rest or acquiesce. The mindof man is still fed with labour: Opere pascitur. 

Non vulgi sunt. --There is a more secret cause, and the power ofliberal studies lies more hid than that it can be wrought out byprofane wits. It is not every man's way to hit. There are men, Iconfess, that set the carat and value upon things as they love them;but science is not every man's mistress. It is as great a spite tobe praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be doneto a noble nature. 

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

Maritus improbus. --He hath a delicate wife, a fair fortune, a familyto go to and be welcome; yet he had rather be drunk with mine hostand the fiddlers of such a town, than go home. 

Afflictio pia magistra. --Affliction teacheth a wicked person sometime to pray: prosperity never. 

Deploratis facilis descensus Averni. --The devil take all. --Manymight go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if theywould venture their industry the right way; but "The devil takeall!" quoth he that was choked in the mill-dam, with his four lastwords in his mouth. 

AEgidius cursu superat. --A cripple in the way out-travels a footmanor a post out of the way. 

Prodigo nummi nauci. --Bags of money to a prodigal person are thesame that cherry-stones are with some boys, and so thrown away. 

Munda et sordida. --A woman, the more curious she is about her faceis commonly the more careless about her house. 

Debitum deploratum. --Of this spilt water there is a little to begathered up: it is a desperate debt. 

Latro sesquipedalis. --The thief {22} that had a longing at thegallows to commit one robbery more before he was hanged. 

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

Calumniae fructus. --I am beholden to calumny, that she hath soendeavoured and taken pains to belie me. It shall make me set asurer guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions. 

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

Bellum scribentium. --What a sight it is to see writers committedtogether by the ears for ceremonies, syllables, points, colons, commas, hyphens, and the like, fighting as for their fires and theiraltars; and angry that none are frighted at their noises and loudbrayings under their asses' skins. 

There is hope of getting a fortune without digging in thesequarries. Sed meliore (in omne) ingenio animoque quam fortuna, sumusus. {23}

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

Differentia inter doctos et sciolos. --Wits made out their severalexpeditions then for the discovery of truth, to find out great andprofitable knowledges; had their several instruments for thedisquisition of arts. Now there are certain scioli or smatterersthat are busy in the skirts and outsides of learning, and havescarce anything of solid literature to commend them. They may havesome edging or trimming of a scholar, a welt or so; but it is nomore. 

Impostorum fucus. --Imposture is a specious thing, yet never worsethan when it feigns to be best, and to none discovered sooner thanthe simplest. For truth and goodness are plain and open; butimposture is ever ashamed of the light. 

Icunculorum motio. --A puppet-play must be shadowed and seen in thedark; for draw the curtain, et sordet gesticulatio. {24b}

Principes et administri. --There is a great difference in theunderstanding of some princes, as in the quality of their ministersabout them. Some would dress their masters in gold, pearl, and alltrue jewels of majesty; others furnish them with feathers, bells, and ribands, and are therefore esteemed the fitter servants. Butthey are ever good men that must make good the times; if the men benaught, the times will be such. Finis exspectandus est in unoquoquehominum; animali ad mutationem promptissmo. {25a}

Scitum Hispanicum. --It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, Artesinter haeredes non dividi. {25b} Yet these have inherited theirfathers' lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man thataffects a triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie themselves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goesbeyond her bounds; but Impudence knows none. 

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

Nil gratius protervo lib. --Indeed nothing is of more credit orrequest now than a petulant paper, or scoffing verses; and it is butconvenient to the times and manners we live with, to have then theworst writings and studies flourish when the best begin to bedespised. Ill arts begin where good end. 

Jam literae sordent. --Pastus hodiern. Ingen. --The time was when menwould learn and study good things, not envy those that had them. Then men were had in price for learning; now letters only make menvile. He is upbraidingly called a poet, as if it were acontemptible nick-name: but the professors, indeed, have made thelearning cheap--railing and tinkling rhymers, whose writings thevulgar more greedily read, as being taken with the scurrility andpetulancy of such wits. He shall not have a reader now unless hejeer and lie. It is the food of men's natures; the diet of thetimes; gallants cannot sleep else. The writer must lie and thegentle reader rests happy to hear the worthiest worksmisinterpreted, the clearest actions obscured, the innocentest lifetraduced: and in such a licence of lying, a field so fruitful ofslanders, how can there be matter wanting to his laughter? Hencecomes the epidemical infection; for how can they escape thecontagion of the writings, whom the virulency of the calumnies hathnot staved off from reading?

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

Alastoris malitia. --This Alastor, who hath left nothing unsearchedor unassailed by his impudent and licentious lying in his aguishwritings (for he was in his cold quaking fit all the while), whathath he done more than a troublesome base cur? barked and made anoise afar off; had a fool or two to spit in his mouth, and cherishhim with a musty bone? But they are rather enemies of my fame thanme, these barkers. 

Mali Choragi fuere. --It is an art to have so much judgment as toapparel a lie well, to give it a good dressing; that though thenakedness would show deformed and odious, the suiting of it mightdraw their readers. Some love any strumpet, be she never so shop-like or meretricious, in good clothes. But these, nature could nothave formed them better to destroy their own testimony and overthrowtheir calumny. 

Hear-say news. --That an elephant, in 1630, came hither ambassadorfrom the Great Mogul, who could both write and read, and was everyday allowed twelve cast of bread, twenty quarts of Canary sack, besides nuts and almonds the citizens' wives sent him. That he hada Spanish boy to his interpreter, and his chief negociation was toconfer or practise with Archy, the principal fool of state, aboutstealing hence Windsor Castle and carrying it away on his back if hecan. 

Lingua sapientis, potius quam loquentis. --A wise tongue should notbe licentious and wandering; but moved and, as it were, governedwith certain reins from the heart and bottom of the breast: and itwas excellently said of that philosopher, that there was a wall orparapet of teeth set in our mouth, to restrain the petulancy of ourwords; that the rashness of talking should not only be retarded bythe guard and watch of our heart, but be fenced in and defended bycertain strengths placed in the mouth itself, and within the lips. But you shall see some so abound with words, without any seasoningor taste of matter, in so profound a security, as while they arespeaking, for the most part they confess to speak they know notwhat. 

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

Optanda. --Thersites Homeri. --Whom the disease of talking still oncepossesseth, he can never hold his peace. Nay, rather than he willnot discourse he will hire men to hear him. And so heard, nothearkened unto, he comes off most times like a mountebank, that whenhe hath praised his medicines, finds none will take them, or trusthim. He is like Homer's Thersites. 

[Greek text]; speaking without judgement or measure. 

"Loquax magis, quam facundus, Satis loquentiae, sapientiae parum. {31a}[Greek verse]. {31b}Optimus est homini linguae thesaurus, et ingensGratia, quae parcis mensurat singula verbis. "

Homeri Ulysses. --Demacatus Plutarchi. --Ulysses, in Homer, is made along-thinking man before he speaks; and Epaminondas is celebrated byPindar to be a man that, though he knew much, yet he spoke butlittle. Demacatus, when on the bench he was long silent and saidnothing, one asking him if it were folly in him, or want oflanguage, he answered, "A fool could never hold his peace. " {31c}For too much talking is ever the index of a fool. 

"Dum tacet indoctus, poterit cordatus haberi;Is morbos animi namque tacendo tegit. " {32a}

Nor is that worthy speech of Zeno the philosopher to be passed overwith the note of ignorance; who being invited to a feast in Athens, where a great prince's ambassadors were entertained, and was theonly person that said nothing at the table; one of them withcourtesy asked him, "What shall we return from thee, Zeno, to theprince our master, if he asks us of thee?" "Nothing, " he replied, "more but that you found an old man in Athens that knew to be silentamongst his cups. " It was near a miracle to see an old man silent, since talking is the disease of age; but amongst cups makes it fullya wonder. 

Argute dictum. --It was wittily said upon one that was taken for agreat and grave man so long as he held his peace, "This man mighthave been a counsellor of state, till he spoke; but having spoken, not the beadle of the ward. " [Greek text]. {32b} Pytag. Quamlaudabilis! [Greek text]. Linguam cohibe, prae aliis omnibus, addeorum exemplum. {33a} Digito compesce labellum. {33b}

Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes. --There is almost no man buthe sees clearlier and sharper the vices in a speaker, than thevirtues. And there are many, that with more ease will find faultwith what is spoken foolishly than can give allowance to thatwherein you are wise silently. The treasure of a fool is always inhis tongue, said the witty comic poet; {33c} and it appears not inanything more than in that nation, whereof one, when he had got theinheritance of an unlucky old grange, would needs sell it; {33d} andto draw buyers proclaimed the virtues of it. Nothing ever thrivedon it, saith he. No owner of it ever died in his bed; some hung, some drowned themselves; some were banished, some starved; the treeswere all blasted; the swine died of the measles, the cattle of themurrain, the sheep of the rot; they that stood were ragged, bare, and bald as your hand; nothing was ever reared there, not aduckling, or a goose. Hospitium fuerat calamitatis. {34a} Was notthis man like to sell it?

Vulgi expectatio. --Expectation of the vulgar is more drawn and heldwith newness than goodness; we see it in fencers, in players, inpoets, in preachers, in all where fame promiseth anything; so it benew, though never so naught and depraved, they run to it, and aretaken. Which shews, that the only decay or hurt of the best men'sreputation with the people is, their wits have out-lived thepeople's palates. They have been too much or too long a feast. 

Claritas patriae. --Greatness of name in the father oft-times helpsnot forth, but overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchildcome more and oftener to be heir of the first, than doth the second:he dies between; the possession is the third's. 

Eloquentia. --Eloquence is a great and diverse thing: nor did sheyet ever favour any man so much as to become wholly his. He ishappy that can arrive to any degree of her grace. Yet there are whoprove themselves masters of her, and absolute lords; but I believethey may mistake their evidence: for it is one thing to be eloquentin the schools, or in the hall; another at the bar, or in thepulpit. There is a difference between mooting and pleading; betweenfencing and fighting. To make arguments in my study, and confutethem, is easy; where I answer myself, not an adversary. So I cansee whole volumes dispatched by the umbratical doctors on all sides:but draw these forth into the just lists: let them appear sub dio, and they are changed with the place, like bodies bred in the shade;they cannot suffer the sun or a shower, nor bear the open air; theyscarce can find themselves, that they were wont to domineer so amongtheir auditors: but indeed I would no more choose a rhetorician forreigning in a school, than I would a pilot for rowing in a pond. 

Amor et odium. --Love that is ignorant, and hatred, have almost thesame ends: many foolish lovers wish the same to their friends, which their enemies would: as to wish a friend banished, that theymight accompany him in exile; or some great want, that they mightrelieve him; or a disease, that they might sit by him. They make acauseway to their country by injury, as if it were not honester todo nothing than to seek a way to do good by a mischief. 

Injuria. --Injuries do not extinguish courtesies: they only sufferthem not to appear fair. For a man that doth me an injury after acourtesy, takes not away that courtesy, but defaces it: as he thatwrites other verses upon my verses, takes not away the firstletters, but hides them. 

Beneficia. --Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and thatfriendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carryour boats; or winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; ormeats, that they be nourishing. For these are what they arenecessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some men may receive a courtesy and not know it; butnever any man received it from him that knew it not. Many men havebeen cured of diseases by accidents; but they were not remedies. Imyself have known one helped of an ague by falling into a water;another whipped out of a fever; but no man would ever use these formedicines. It is the mind, and not the event, that distinguisheththe courtesy from wrong. My adversary may offend the judge with hispride and impertinences, and I win my cause; but he meant it not tome as a courtesy. I scaped pirates by being shipwrecked; was thewreck a benefit therefore? No; the doing of courtesies aright isthe mixing of the respects for his own sake and for mine. He thatdoeth them merely for his own sake is like one that feeds his cattleto sell them; he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield. 

Valor rerum. --The price of many things is far above what they arebought and sold for. Life and health, which are both inestimable, we have of the physician; as learning and knowledge, the truetillage of the mind, from our schoolmasters. But the fees of theone or the salary of the other never answer the value of what wereceived, but served to gratify their labours. 

Memoria. --Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the mostdelicate and frail; it is the first of our faculties that ageinvades. Seneca, the father, the rhetorician, confesseth of himselfhe had a miraculous one, not only to receive but to hold. I myselfcould, in my youth, have repeated all that ever I had made, and socontinued till I was past forty; since, it is much decayed in me. Yet I can repeat whole books that I have read, and poems of someselected friends which I have liked to charge my memory with. Itwas wont to be faithful to me; but shaken with age now, and sloth, which weakens the strongest abilities, it may perform somewhat, butcannot promise much. By exercise it is to be made better andserviceable. Whatsoever I pawned with it while I was young and aboy, it offers me readily, and without stops; but what I trust to itnow, or have done of later years, it lays up more negligently, andoftentimes loses; so that I receive mine own (though frequentlycalled for) as if it were new and borrowed. Nor do I always findpresently from it what I seek; but while I am doing another thing, that I laboured for will come; and what I sought with trouble willoffer itself when I am quiet. Now, in some men I have found it ashappy as Nature, who, whatsoever they read or pen, they can saywithout book presently, as if they did then write in their mind. And it is more a wonder in such as have a swift style, for theirmemories are commonly slowest; such as torture their writings, andgo into council for every word, must needs fix somewhat, and make ittheir own at last, though but through their own vexation. 

Comit. Suffragia. --Suffrages in Parliament are numbered, notweighed; nor can it be otherwise in those public councils wherenothing is so unequal as the equality; for there, how odd soevermen's brains or wisdoms are, their power is always even and thesame. 

Stare a partibus. --Some actions, be they never so beautiful andgenerous, are often obscured by base and vile misconstructions, either out of envy or ill-nature, that judgeth of others as ofitself. Nay, the times are so wholly grown to be either partial ormalicious, that if he be a friend all sits well about him, his veryvices shall be virtues; if an enemy, or of the contrary faction, nothing is good or tolerable in him; insomuch that we care not todiscredit and shame our judgments to soothe our passions. 

Deus in creaturis. --Man is read in his face; God in His creatures;not as the philosopher, the creature of glory, reads him; but as thedivine, the servant of humility; yet even he must take care not tobe too curious. For to utter truth of God but as he thinks only, may be dangerous, who is best known by our not knowing. Some thingsof Him, so much as He hath revealed or commanded, it is not onlylawful but necessary for us to know; for therein our ignorance wasthe first cause of our wickedness. 

Veritas proprium hominis. --Truth is man's proper good, and the onlyimmortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christianor ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it; no statesman or patriotshould. For without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, or what you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says he hateshim worse than hell-mouth that utters one thing with his tongue andkeeps another in his breast. Which high expression was grounded ondivine reason; for a lying mouth is a stinking pit, and murders withthe contagion it venteth. Beside, nothing is lasting that isfeigned; it will have another face than it had, ere long. {41} AsEuripides saith, "No lie ever grows old. "

Nullum vitium sine patrocinio. --It is strange there should be novice without its patronage, that when we have no other excuse wewill say, we love it, we cannot forsake it. As if that made it notmore a fault. We cannot, because we think we cannot, and we love itbecause we will defend it. We will rather excuse it than be rid ofit. That we cannot is pretended; but that we will not is the truereason. How many have I known that would not have their vices hid?nay, and, to be noted, live like Antipodes to others in the samecity? never see the sun rise or set in so many years, but be as theywere watching a corpse by torch-light; would not sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity; they would do it new, orcontrary, for the infamy; they were ambitious of living backward;and at last arrived at that, as they would love nothing but thevices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform thesenatures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may saythey desired to leave it, but do not trust them; and they may thinkthey desire it, but they may lie for all that; they are a littleangry with their follies now and then; marry, they come into gracewith them again quickly. They will confess they are offended withtheir manner of living like enough; who is not? When they can putme in security that they are more than offended, that they hate it, then I will hearken to them, and perhaps believe them; but many now-a-days love and hate their ill together. 

De vere argutis. --I do hear them say often some men are not witty, because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is morefoolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore be all eye or nose! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin, lip, or any part else are as necessary and naturalin the place. But now nothing is good that is natural; right andnatural language seems to have least of the wit in it; that which iswrithed and tortured is counted the more exquisite. Cloth of bodkinor tissue must be embroidered; as if no face were fair that were notpowdered or painted! no beauty to be had but in wresting andwrithing our own tongue! Nothing is fashionable till it bedeformed; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must beaffected and preposterous as our gallants' clothes, sweet-bags, andnight-dressings, in which you would think our men lay in, likeladies, it is so curious. 

Censura de poetis. --Nothing in our age, I have observed, is morepreposterous than the running judgments upon poetry and poets; whenwe shall hear those things commended and cried up for the bestwritings which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesomedrug in; he would never light his tobacco with them. And those menalmost named for miracles, who yet are so vile that if a man shouldgo about to examine and correct them, he must make all they havedone but one blot. Their good is so entangled with their bad asforcibly one must draw on the other's death with it. A spongedipped in ink will do all:-

"--Comitetur Punica librumSpongia. --" {44a}

Et paulo post, "Non possunt . . . Multae . . . Liturae. . . Una litura potest. "

Cestius--Cicero--Heath--Taylor--Spenser. --Yet their vices have nothurt them; nay, a great many they have profited, for they have beenloved for nothing else. And this false opinion grows strong againstthe best men, if once it take root with the ignorant. Cestius, inhis time, was preferred to Cicero, so far as the ignorant durst. They learned him without book, and had him often in their mouths;but a man cannot imagine that thing so foolish or rude but will findand enjoy an admirer; at least a reader or spectator. The puppetsare seen now in despite of the players; Heath's epigrams and theSculler's poems have their applause. There are never wanting thatdare prefer the worst preachers, the worst pleaders, the worstpoets; not that the better have left to write or speak better, butthat they that hear them judge worse; Non illi pejus dicunt, sed hicorruptius judicant. Nay, if it were put to the question of thewater-rhymer's works, against Spenser's, I doubt not but they wouldfind more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out of aprerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments and like thatwhich is naught. 

Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mistress to suchas have wholly addicted themselves to her, or given their names upto her family. They who have but saluted her on the by, and now andthen tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced inthe way of their own professions (both the law and the gospel)beyond all they could have hoped or done for themselves without herfavour. Wherein she doth emulate the judicious but preposterousbounty of the time's grandees, who accumulate all they can upon theparasite or fresh-man in their friendship; but think an old clientor honest servant bound by his place to write and starve. 

Indeed, the multitude commend writers as they do fencers orwrestlers, who if they come in robustiously and put for it with adeal of violence are received for the braver fellows; when manytimes their own rudeness is a cause of their disgrace, and a slighttouch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. But in these things the unskilful are naturally deceived, andjudging wholly by the bulk, think rude things greater than polished, and scattered more numerous than composed; nor think this only to betrue in the sordid multitude, but the neater sort of our gallants;for all are the multitude, only they differ in clothes, not injudgment or understanding. 

De Shakspeare nostrat. --Augustus in Hat. --I remember the playershave often mentioned it as an honour to Shakspeare, that in hiswriting (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. Myanswer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand, " which theythought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but fortheir ignorance who chose that circumstance to commend their friendby wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour, for Iloved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry asmuch as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and freenature, had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentleexpressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes itwas necessary he should be stopped. "Sufflaminandus erat, " {47a} asAugustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would therule of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Caesar, one speaking to him, "Caesar, thou dost me wrong. " He replied, "Caesar did never wrong but with just cause;" and such like, whichwere ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. Therewas ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned. 

Ingeniorum discrimina. --Not. 1. --In the difference of wits I haveobserved there are many notes; and it is a little maistry to knowthem, to discern what every nature, every disposition will bear; forbefore we sow our land we should plough it. There are no fewerforms of minds than of bodies amongst us. The variety isincredible, and therefore we must search. Some are fit to makedivines, some poets, some lawyers, some physicians; some to be sentto the plough, and trades. 

There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting. Somewits are swelling and high; others low and still; some hot andfiery; others cold and dull; one must have a bridle, the other aspur. 

Not. 2. --There be some that are forward and bold; and these will doevery little thing easily. I mean that is hard by and next them, which they will utter unretarded without any shamefastness. Thesenever perform much, but quickly. They are what they are on thesudden; they show presently, like grain that, scattered on the topof the ground, shoots up, but takes no root; has a yellow blade, butthe ear empty. They are wits of good promise at first, but there isan ingenistitium; {49a} they stand still at sixteen, they get nohigher. 

Not. 3. --You have others that labour only to ostentation; and areever more busy about the colours and surface of a work than in thematter and foundation, for that is hid, the other is seen. 

Not. 4. --Others that in composition are nothing but what is roughand broken. Quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt. {49b} And ifit would come gently, they trouble it of purpose. They would nothave it run without rubs, as if that style were more strong andmanly that struck the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men errnot by chance, but knowingly and willingly; they are like men thataffect a fashion by themselves; have some singularity in a ruffcloak, or hat-band; or their beards specially cut to provokebeholders, and set a mark upon themselves. They would bereprehended while they are looked on. And this vice, one that isauthority with the rest, loving, delivers over to them to beimitated; so that ofttimes the faults which be fell into the othersseek for. This is the danger, when vice becomes a precedent. 

Not. 5. --Others there are that have no composition at all; but akind of tuning and rhyming fall in what they write. It runs andslides, and only makes a sound. Women's poets they are called, asyou have women's tailors. 

"They write a verse as smooth, as soft as cream, In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream. "

You may sound these wits and find the depth of them with your middlefinger. They are cream-bowl or but puddle-deep. 

Not. 6. --Some that turn over all books, and are equally searching inall papers; that write out of what they presently find or meet, without choice. By which means it happens that what they havediscredited and impugned in one week, they have before or afterextolled the same in another. Such are all the essayists, eventheir master Montaigne. These, in all they write, confess stillwhat books they have read last, and therein their own folly so much, that they bring it to the stake raw and undigested; not that theplace did need it neither, but that they thought themselvesfurnished and would vent it

Not. 7. --Some, again who, after they have got authority, or, whichis less, opinion, by their writings, to have read much, darepresently to feign whole books and authors, and lie safely. Forwhat never was, will not easily be found, not by the most curious. 

Not. 8. --And some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert thesagacity of their readers from themselves, and cool the scent oftheir own fox-like thefts; when yet they are so rank, as a man mayfind whole pages together usurped from one author; their necessitiescompelling them to read for present use, which could not be in manybooks; and so come forth more ridiculously and palpably guilty thanthose who, because they cannot trace, they yet would slander theirindustry. 

Not. 9. --But the wretcheder are the obstinate contemners of allhelps and arts; such as presuming on their own naturals (which, perhaps, are excellent), dare deride all diligence, and seem to mockat the terms when they understand not the things; thinking that wayto get off wittily with their ignorance. These are imitated oftenby such as are their peers in negligence, though they cannot be innature; and they utter all they can think with a kind of violenceand indisposition, unexamined, without relation either to person, place, or any fitness else; and the more wilful and stubborn theyare in it the more learned they are esteemed of the multitude, through their excellent vice of judgment, who think those things thestronger that have no art; as if to break were better than to open, or to rend asunder gentler than to loose. 

Not. 10. --It cannot but come to pass that these men who commonlyseek to do more than enough may sometimes happen on something thatis good and great; but very seldom: and when it comes it doth notrecompense the rest of their ill. For their jests, and theirsentences (which they only and ambitiously seek for) stick out, andare more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about them; aslights are more discerned in a thick darkness than a faint shadow. Now, because they speak all they can (however unfitly), they arethought to have the greater copy; where the learned use everelection and a mean, they look back to what they intended at first, and make all an even and proportioned body. The true artificer willnot run away from Nature as he were afraid of her, or depart fromlife and the likeness of truth, but speak to the capacity of hishearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes and Tamer-chains of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenicalstrutting and furious vociferation to warrant them to the ignorantgapers. He knows it is his only art so to carry it, as none butartificers perceive it. In the meantime, perhaps, he is calledbarren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or by what contumelious word cancome in their cheeks, by these men who, without labour, judgment, knowledge, or almost sense, are received or preferred before him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth inspire hisreaders, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing, whatsharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses; how he doth reign inmen's affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes theirminds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to beholdwhat word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what isbeautifully translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, whichstrong, to show the composition manly; and how he hath avoidedfaint, obscure, obscene, sordid, humble, improper, or effeminatephrase; which is not only praised of the most, but commended (whichis worse), especially for that it is naught. 

Ignorantia animae. --I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, notof the arts and sciences, but of itself; yet relating to those it isa pernicious evil, the darkener of man's life, the disturber of hisreason, and common confounder of truth, with which a man goesgroping in the dark, no otherwise than if he were blind. Greatunderstandings are most racked and troubled with it; nay, sometimesthey will rather choose to die than not to know the things theystudy for. Think, then, what an evil it is, and what good thecontrary. 

Scientia. --Knowledge is the action of the soul and is perfectwithout the senses, as having the seeds of all science and virtue initself; but not without the service of the senses; by these organsthe soul works: she is a perpetual agent, prompt and subtle; butoften flexible and erring, entangling herself like a silkworm, buther reason is a weapon with two edges, and cuts through. In herindagations oft-times new scents put her by, and she takes in errorsinto her by the same conduits she doth truths. 

Otium Studiorum. --Ease and relaxation are profitable to all studies. The mind is like a bow, the stronger by being unbent. But thetemper in spirits is all, when to command a man's wit, when tofavour it. I have known a man vehement on both sides, that knew nomean, either to intermit his studies or call upon them again. Whenhe hath set himself to writing he would join night to day, pressupon himself without release, not minding it, till he fainted; andwhen he left off, resolve himself into all sports and loosenessagain, that it was almost a despair to draw him to his book; butonce got to it, he grew stronger and more earnest by the ease. Hiswhole powers were renewed; he would work out of himself what hedesired, but with such excess as his study could not be ruled; heknew not how to dispose his own abilities, or husband them; he wasof that immoderate power against himself. Nor was he only a strong, but an absolute speaker and writer; but his subtlety did not showitself; his judgment thought that a vice; for the ambush hurts morethat is hid. He never forced his language, nor went out of thehighway of speaking but for some great necessity or apparent profit;for he denied figures to be invented for ornament, but for aid; andstill thought it an extreme madness to bind or wrest that whichought to be right. 

Stili eminentia. --Virgil. --Tully. --Sallust. --It is no wonder men'seminence appears but in their own way. Virgil's felicity left himin prose, as Tully's forsook him in verse. Sallust's orations areread in the honour of story, yet the most eloquent. Plato's speech, which he made for Socrates, is neither worthy of the patron nor theperson defended. Nay, in the same kind of oratory, and where thematter is one, you shall have him that reasons strongly, opennegligently; another that prepares well, not fit so well. And thishappens not only to brains, but to bodies. One can wrestle well, another run well, a third leap or throw the bar, a fourth lift orstop a cart going; each hath his way of strength. So in othercreatures--some dogs are for the deer, some for the wild boar, someare fox-hounds, some otter-hounds. Nor are all horses for the coachor saddle, some are for the cart and paniers. 

De Claris Oratoribus. --I have known many excellent men that wouldspeak suddenly to the admiration of their hearers, who upon studyand premeditation have been forsaken by their own wits, and no wayanswered their fame; their eloquence was greater than their reading, and the things they uttered better than those they knew; theirfortune deserved better of them than their care. For men of presentspirits, and of greater wits than study, do please more in thethings they invent than in those they bring. And I have heard someof them compelled to speak, out of necessity, that have soinfinitely exceeded themselves, as it was better both for them andtheir auditory that they were so surprised, not prepared. Nor wasit safe then to cross them, for their adversary, their anger madethem more eloquent. Yet these men I could not but love and admire, that they returned to their studies. They left not diligence (asmany do) when their rashness prospered; for diligence is a greataid, even to an indifferent wit; when we are not contented with theexamples of our own age, but would know the face of the former. Indeed, the more we confer with the more we profit by, if thepersons be chosen. 

Dominus Verulamius. --One, though he be excellent and the chief, isnot to be imitated alone; for no imitator ever grew up to hisauthor; likeness is always on this side truth. Yet there happenedin my time one noble speaker who was full of gravity in hisspeaking; his language (where he could spare or pass by a jest) wasnobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, moreweightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what heuttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his judges angry and pleased athis devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. Thefear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end. 

Scriptorum catalogus. {59a} Cicero is said to be the only wit thatthe people of Rome had equalled to their empire. Ingenium parimperio. We have had many, and in their several ages (to take inbut the former seculum) Sir Thomas More, the elder Wiat, Henry Earlof Surrey, Chaloner, Smith, Eliot, B. Gardiner, were for their timesadmirable; and the more, because they began eloquence with us. SirNicolas Bacon was singular, and almost alone, in the beginning ofQueen Elizabeth's time. Sir Philip Sidney and Mr. Hooker (indifferent matter) grew great masters of wit and language, and inwhom all vigour of invention and strength of judgment met. The Earlof Essex, noble and high; and Sir Walter Raleigh, not to becontemned, either for judgment or style. Sir Henry Savile, grave, and truly lettered; Sir Edwin Sandys, excellent in both; LordEgerton, the Chancellor, a grave and great orator, and best when hewas provoked; but his learned and able (though unfortunate)successor is he who hath filled up all numbers, and performed thatin our tongue which may be compared or preferred either to insolentGreece or haughty Rome. In short, within his view, and about histimes, were all the wits born that could honour a language or helpstudy. Now things daily fall, wits grow downward, and eloquencegrows backward; so that he may be named and stand as the mark and[Greek text] of our language. 

De augmentis scientiarum. --Julius Caesar. --Lord St. Alban. --I haveever observed it to have been the office of a wise patriot, amongthe greatest affairs of the State, to take care of the commonwealthof learning. For schools, they are the seminaries of State; andnothing is worthier the study of a statesman than that part of therepublic which we call the advancement of letters. Witness the careof Julius Caesar, who, in the heat of the civil war, writ his booksof Analogy, and dedicated them to Tully. This made the late LordSt. Alban entitle his work Novum Organum; which, though by the mostof superficial men, who cannot get beyond the title of nominals, itis not penetrated nor understood, it really openeth all defects oflearning whatsoever, and is a book

"Qui longum note scriptori proroget aevum. " {62a}

My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his placeor honours; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness thatwas only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by hiswork, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, thathad been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that Godwould give him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neithercould I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing noaccident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make itmanifest. 

De corruptela morum. --There cannot be one colour of the mind, another of the wit. If the mind be staid, grave, and composed, thewit is so; that vitiated, the other is blown and deflowered. Do wenot see, if the mind languish, the members are dull? Look upon aneffeminate person, his very gait confesseth him. If a man be fiery, his motion is so; if angry, it is troubled and violent. So that wemay conclude wheresoever manners and fashions are corrupted, language is. It imitates the public riot. The excess of feasts andapparel are the notes of a sick state, and the wantonness oflanguage of a sick mind. 

De rebus mundanis. --If we would consider what our affairs areindeed, not what they are called, we should find more evilsbelonging to us than happen to us. How often doth that which wascalled a calamity prove the beginning and cause of a man'shappiness? and, on the contrary, that which happened or came toanother with great gratulation and applause, how it hath lifted himbut a step higher to his ruin? as if he stood before where he mightfall safely. 

Vulgi mores. --Morbus comitialis. --The vulgar are commonly ill-natured, and always grudging against their governors: which makesthat a prince has more business and trouble with them than everHercules had with the bull or any other beast; by how much they havemore heads than will be reined with one bridle. There was not thatvariety of beasts in the ark, as is of beastly natures in themultitude; especially when they come to that iniquity to censuretheir sovereign's actions. Then all the counsels are made good orbad by the events; and it falleth out that the same facts receivefrom them the names, now of diligence, now of vanity, now ofmajesty, now of fury; where they ought wholly to hang on his mouth, as he to consist of himself, and not others' counsels. 

Princeps. --After God, nothing is to be loved of man like the prince;he violates Nature that doth it not with his whole heart. For whenhe hath put on the care of the public good and common safety, I am awretch, and put off man, if I do not reverence and honour him, inwhose charge all things divine and human are placed. Do but ask ofNature why all living creatures are less delighted with meat anddrink that sustains them than with venery that wastes them? and shewill tell thee, the first respects but a private, the other a commongood, propagation. 

De eodem. --Orpheus' Hymn. --He is the arbiter of life and death:when he finds no other subject for his mercy, he should sparehimself. All his punishments are rather to correct than to destroy. Why are prayers with Orpheus said to be the daughters of Jupiter, but that princes are thereby admonished that the petitions of thewretched ought to have more weight with them than the lawsthemselves. 

De opt. Rege Jacobo. --It was a great accumulation to His Majesty'sdeserved praise that men might openly visit and pity those whom hisgreatest prisons had at any time received or his laws condemned. 

De Princ. Adjunctis. --Sed vere prudens haud concipi possit Princeps, nisi simul et bonus. --Lycurgus. --Sylla. --Lysander. --Cyrus. --Wise israther the attribute of a prince than learned or good. The learnedman profits others rather than himself; the good man rather himselfthan others; but the prince commands others, and doth himself. 

The wise Lycurgus gave no law but what himself kept. Sylla andLysander did not so; the one living extremely dissolute himself, enforced frugality by the laws; the other permitted those licensesto others which himself abstained from. But the prince's prudenceis his chief art and safety. In his counsels and deliberations heforesees the future times: in the equity of his judgment he hathremembrance of the past, and knowledge of what is to be done oravoided for the present. Hence the Persians gave out their Cyrus tohave been nursed by a bitch, a creature to encounter it, as ofsagacity to seek out good; showing that wisdom may accompanyfortitude, or it leaves to be, and puts on the name of rashness. 

De malign. Studentium. --There be some men are born only to suck outthe poison of books: Habent venenum pro victu; imo, pro deliciis. {66a} And such are they that only relish the obscene and foulthings in poets, which makes the profession taxed. But by whom?Men that watch for it; and, had they not had this hint, are sounjust valuers of letters as they think no learning good but whatbrings in gain. It shows they themselves would never have been ofthe professions they are but for the profits and fees. But ifanother learning, well used, can instruct to good life, informmanners, no less persuade and lead men than they threaten andcompel, and have no reward, is it therefore the worst study? Icould never think the study of wisdom confined only to thephilosopher, or of piety to the divine, or of state to the politic;but that he which can feign a commonwealth (which is the poet) cangovern it with counsels, strengthen it with laws, correct it withjudgments, inform it with religion and morals, is all these. We donot require in him mere elocution, or an excellent faculty in verse, but the exact knowledge of all virtues and their contraries, withability to render the one loved, the other hated, by his properembattling them. The philosophers did insolently, to challenge onlyto themselves that which the greatest generals and gravestcounsellors never durst. For such had rather do than promise thebest things. 

Controvers. Scriptores. --More Andabatarum qui clausis oculispugnant. --Some controverters in divinity are like swaggerers in atavern that catch that which stands next them, the candlestick orpots; turn everything into a weapon: ofttimes they fight blindfold, and both beat the air. The one milks a he-goat, the other holdsunder a sieve. Their arguments are as fluxive as liquor spilt upona table, which with your finger you may drain as you will. Suchcontroversies or disputations (carried with more labour than profit)are odious; where most times the truth is lost in the midst or leftuntouched. And the fruit of their fight is, that they spit one uponanother, and are both defiled. These fencers in religion I likenot. 

Morbi. --The body hath certain diseases that are with less eviltolerated than removed. As if to cure a leprosy a man should bathehimself with the warm blood of a murdered child, so in the Churchsome errors may be dissimuled with less inconvenience than they canbe discovered. 

Jactantia intempestiva. --Men that talk of their own benefits are notbelieved to talk of them because they have done them; but to havedone them because they might talk of them. That which had beengreat, if another had reported it of them, vanisheth, and isnothing, if he that did it speak of it. For men, when they cannotdestroy the deed, will yet be glad to take advantage of theboasting, and lessen it. 

Adulatio. --I have seen that poverty makes me do unfit things; buthonest men should not do them; they should gain otherwise. Though aman be hungry, he should not play the parasite. That hour wherein Iwould repent me to be honest, there were ways enough open for me tobe 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 ofthemselves. For, indeed, men could never be taken in that abundancewith the springes of others' flattery, if they began not there; ifthey did but remember how much more profitable the bitterness oftruth were, than all the honey distilling from a whorish voice, which is not praise, but poison. But now it is come to that extremefolly, or rather madness, with some, that he that flatters themmodestly or sparingly is thought to malign them. If their friendconsent not to their vices, though he do not contradict them, he isnevertheless an enemy. When they do all things the worst way, eventhen they look for praise. Nay, they will hire fellows to flatterthem with suits and suppers, and to prostitute their judgments. They have livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the spit, thatwait 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 withexpression of another. Nay, we so insist in imitating others, as wecannot when it is necessary return to ourselves; like children, thatimitate the vices of stammerers so long, till at last they becomesuch; and make the habit to another nature, as it is neverforgotten. 

De piis et probis. --Good men are the stars, the planets of the ageswherein they live and illustrate the times. God did never let thembe 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 theywould not be partakers or practisers of their madness. But they, placed high on the top of all virtue, looked down on the stage ofthe world and contemned the play of fortune. For though the most beplayers, some must be spectators. 

Mores aulici. --I have discovered that a feigned familiarity in greatones is a note of certain usurpation on the less. For great andpopular men feign themselves to be servants to others to make thoseslaves 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 ofCaligula was most wicked of the condition of his times, when he saidthey were not famous for any public calamity, as the reign ofAugustus was, by the defeat of Varus and the legions; and that ofTiberius, by the falling of the theatre at Fidenae; whilst hisoblivion was eminent through the prosperity of his affairs. As thatother voice of his was worthier a headsman than a head when hewished the people of Rome had but one neck. But he found when hefell they had many hands. A tyrant, how great and mighty soever hemay seem to cowards and sluggards, is but one creature, one animal. 

Nobilium ingenia. --I have marked among the nobility some are soaddicted to the service of the prince and commonwealth, as they looknot for spoil; such are to be honoured and loved. There are otherswhich no obligation will fasten on; and they are of two sorts. Thefirst are such as love their own ease; or, out of vice, of nature, or self-direction, avoid business and care. Yet these the princemay use with safety. The other remove themselves upon craft anddesign, as the architects say, with a premeditated thought, to theirown rather than their prince's profit. Such let the prince takeheed of, and not doubt to reckon in the list of his open enemies. 

Principum. Varia. --Firmissima vero omnium basis jus haereditariumPrincipis. --There is a great variation between him that is raised tothe sovereignty by the favour of his peers and him that comes to itby the suffrage of the people. The first holds with moredifficulty, because he hath to do with many that think themselveshis equals, and raised him for their own greatness and oppression ofthe rest. The latter hath no upbraiders, but was raised by themthat sought to be defended from oppression: whose end is botheasier and the honester to satisfy. Beside, while he hath thepeople to friend, who are a multitude, he hath the less fear of thenobility, who are but few. Nor let the common proverb (of he thatbuilds on the people builds on the dirt) discredit my opinion: forthat hath only place where an ambitious and private person, for somepopular end, trusts in them against the public justice andmagistrate. There they will leave him. But when a prince governsthem, so as they have still need of his administrations (for that ishis art), he shall ever make and hold them faithful. 

Clementia. --Machiavell. --A prince should exercise his cruelty not byhimself but by his ministers; so he may save himself and his dignitywith his people by sacrificing those when he list, saith the greatdoctor of state, Machiavell. But I say he puts off man and goesinto a beast, that is cruel. No virtue is a prince's own, orbecomes him more, than this clemency: and no glory is greater thanto be able to save with his power. Many punishments sometimes, andin some cases, as much discredit a prince, as many funerals aphysician. The state of things is secured by clemency; severityrepresseth a few, but irritates more. {74a} The lopping of treesmakes the boughs shoot out thicker; and the taking away of some kindof enemies increaseth the number. It is then most gracious in aprince to pardon when many about him would make him cruel; to thinkthen how much he can save when others tell him how much he candestroy; not to consider what the impotence of others hathdemolished, but what his own greatness can sustain. These are aprince's virtues: and they that give him other counsels are but thehangman's factors. 

Clementia tutela optima. --He that is cruel to halves (saith the saidSt. Nicholas {74b}) loseth no less the opportunity of his crueltythan of his benefits: for then to use his cruelty is too late; andto use his favours will be interpreted fear and necessity, and so heloseth the thanks. Still the counsel is cruelty. But princes, byhearkening to cruel counsels, become in time obnoxious to theauthors, their flatterers, and ministers; and are brought to that, that when they would, they dare not change them; they must go on anddefend cruelty with cruelty; they cannot alter the habit. It isthen grown necessary, they must be as ill as those have made them:and in the end they will grow more hateful to themselves than totheir subjects. Whereas, on the contrary, the merciful prince issafe in love, not in fear. He needs no emissaries, spies, intelligencers to entrap true subjects. He fears no libels, notreasons. His people speak what they think, and talk openly whatthey do in secret. They have nothing in their breasts that theyneed a cypher for. He is guarded with his own benefits. 

Religio. Palladium Homeri. --Euripides. --The strength of empire isin religion. What else is the Palladium (with Homer) that kept Troyso long from sacking? Nothing more commends the Sovereign to thesubject than it. For he that is religious must be merciful and justnecessarily: and they are two strong ties upon mankind. Justicethe virtue that innocence rejoiceth in. Yet even that is not alwaysso safe, but it may love to stand in the sight of mercy. Forsometimes misfortune is made a crime, and then innocence issuccoured no less than virtue. Nay, oftentimes virtue is madecapital; and through the condition of the times it may happen thatthat may be punished with our praise. Let no man therefore murmurat the actions of the prince, who is placed so far above him. If heoffend, he hath his discoverer. God hath a height beyond him. Butwhere the prince is good, Euripides saith, "God is a guest in ahuman body. "

Tyranni. --Sejanus. --There is nothing with some princes sacred abovetheir majesty, or profane, but what violates their sceptres. But aprince, with such a council, is like the god Terminus, of stone, hisown landmark, or (as it is in the fable) a crowned lion. It isdangerous offending such a one, who, being angry, knows not how toforgive; that cares not to do anything for maintaining or enlargingof empire; kills not men or subjects, but destroyeth wholecountries, armies, mankind, male and female, guilty or not guilty, holy or profane; yea, some that have not seen the light. All isunder the law of their spoil and licence. But princes that neglecttheir proper office thus their fortune is oftentimes to draw aSejanus 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 theirfamily. For no men hate an evil prince more than they that helpedto make him such. And none more boastingly weep his ruin than theythat procured and practised it. The same path leads to ruin whichdid to rule when men profess a licence in government. A good kingis a public servant. 

Illiteratus princeps. --A prince without letters is a pilot withouteyes. All his government is groping. In sovereignty it is a mosthappy thing not to be compelled; but so it is the most miserable notto be counselled. And how can he be counselled that cannot see toread the best counsellors (which are books), for they neitherflatter us nor hide from us? He may hear, you will say; but howshall he always be sure to hear truth, or be counselled the bestthings, not the sweetest? They say princes learn no art truly butthe art of horsemanship. The reason is the brave beast is noflatterer. He will throw a prince as soon as his groom. Which isan argument that the good counsellors to princes are the bestinstruments of a good age. For though the prince himself be of amost prompt inclination to all virtue, yet the best pilots haveneeds of mariners besides sails, anchor, and other tackle. 

Character principis. --Alexander magnus. --If men did know whatshining fetters, gilded miseries, and painted happiness thrones andsceptres were there would not be so frequent strife about thegetting or holding of them; there would be more principalities thanprinces; for a prince is the pastor of the people. He ought toshear, not to flay his sheep; to take their fleeces, not their thesoul of the commonwealth, and ought to cherish it as his own body. Alexander the Great was wont to say, "He hated that gardener thatplucked his herbs or flowers up by the roots. " A man may milk abeast till the blood come; churn milk and it yieldeth butter, butwring the nose and the blood followeth. He is an ill prince that sopulls his subjects' feathers as he would not have them grow again;that makes his exchequer a receipt for the spoils of those hegoverns. No, let him keep his own, not affect his subjects'; striverather to be called just than powerful. Not, like the Romantyrants, affect the surnames that grow by human slaughters; neitherto seek war in peace, nor peace in war, but to observe faith given, though to an enemy. Study piety toward the subject; show care todefend him. Be slow to punish in divers cases, but be a sharp andsevere revenger of open crimes. Break no decrees or dissolve noorders to slacken the strength of laws. Choose neither magistrates, civil or ecclesiastical, by favour or price; but with longdisquisition and report of their worth by all suffrages. Sell nohonours, nor give them hastily, but bestow them with counsel and forreward; if he do, acknowledge it (though late), and mend it. Forprinces are easy to be deceived; and what wisdom can escape where somany court-arts are studied? But, above all, the prince is toremember that when the great day of account comes, which neithermagistrate nor prince can shun, there will be required of him areckoning for those whom he hath trusted, as for himself, which hemust provide. And if piety be wanting in the priests, equity in thejudges, or the magistrates be found rated at a price, what justiceor religion is to be expected? which are the only two attributesmake kings akin to God, and is the Delphic sword, both to killsacrifices and to chastise offenders. 

De gratiosis. --When a virtuous man is raised, it brings gladness tohis friends, grief to his enemies, and glory to his posterity. Nay, his honours are a great part of the honour of the times; when bythis means he is grown to active men an example, to the slothful aspur, 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 hiskindred come to him by accession, must needs be richer than fatheror grandfather; so they which are left heirs ex asse of all theirancestors' vices, and by their good husbandry improve the old anddaily purchase new, must needs be wealthier in vice, and have agreater revenue or stock of ill to spend on. 

Fures publici. --The great thieves of a state are lightly theofficers of the crown; they hang the less still, play the pikes inthe pond, eat whom they list. The net was never spread for the hawkor buzzard that hurt us, but the harmless birds; they are goodmeat:-

"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 theymeet with wise masters. They can take down all the huff andswelling of their looks, and like dexterous auditors place thecounter where he shall value nothing. Let them but remember LewisXI. , who to a Clerk of the Exchequer that came to be Lord Treasurer, and had (for his device) represented himself sitting on fortune'swheel, told him he might do well to fasten it with a good strongnail, 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 spotof any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choosehis way in his life as he would in his journey. The ill man ridesthrough all confidently; he is coated and booted for it. Theoftener he offends, the more openly, and the fouler, the fitter infashion. His modesty, like a riding-coat, the more it is worn isthe less cared for. It is good enough for the dirt still, and theways he travels in. An innocent man needs no eloquence, hisinnocence is instead of it, else I had never come off so many timesfrom these precipices, whither men's malice hath pursued me. It istrue I have been accused to the lords, to the king, and by greatones, but it happened my accusers had not thought of the accusationwith themselves, and so were driven, for want of crimes, to useinvention, which was found slander, or too late (being entered sofair) to seek starting-holes for their rashness, which were notgiven them. And then they may think what accusation that was liketo prove, when they that were the engineers feared to be theauthors. Nor were they content to feign things against me, but tourge things, feigned by the ignorant, against my profession, whichthough, from their hired and mercenary impudence, I might havepassed by as granted to a nation of barkers that let out theirtongues to lick others' sores; yet I durst not leave myselfundefended, having a pair of ears unskilful to hear lies, or havethose things said of me which I could truly prove of them. Theyobjected making of verses to me, when I could object to most ofthem, their not being able to read them, but as worthy of scorn. Nay, they would offer to urge mine own writings against me, but bypieces (which was an excellent way of malice), as if any man'scontext might not seem dangerous and offensive, if that which wasknit to what went before were defrauded of his beginning; or thatthings by themselves uttered might not seem subject to calumny, which read entire would appear most free. At last they upbraided mypoverty: I confess she is my domestic; sober of diet, simple ofhabit, frugal, painful, a good counseller to me, that keeps me fromcruelty, pride, or other more delicate impertinences, which are thenurse-children of riches. But let them look over all the great andmonstrous wickednesses, they shall never find those in poorfamilies. They are the issue of the wealthy giants and the mightyhunters, whereas no great work, or worthy of praise or memory, butcame out of poor cradles. It was the ancient poverty that foundedcommonweals, built cities, invented arts, made wholesome laws, armedmen against vices, rewarded them with their own virtues, andpreserved the honour and state of nations, till they betrayedthemselves to riches. 

Amor nummi. --Money never made any man rich, but his mind. He thatcan order himself to the law of Nature is not only without the sensebut the fear of poverty. O! but to strike blind the people with ourwealth and pomp is the thing! What a wretchedness is this, tothrust all our riches outward, and be beggars within; to contemplatenothing but the little, vile, and sordid things of the world; notthe great, noble, and precious! We serve our avarice, and, notcontent with the good of the earth that is offered us, we search anddig for the evil that is hidden. God offered us those things, andplaced them at hand, and near us, that He knew were profitable forus, but the hurtful He laid deep and hid. Yet do we seek only thethings whereby we may perish, and bring them forth, when God andNature hath buried them. We covet superfluous things, when it weremore honour for us if we would contemn necessary. What need hathNature of silver dishes, multitudes of waiters, delicate pages, perfumed napkins? She requires meat only, and hunger is notambitious. Can we think no wealth enough but such a state for whicha man may be brought into a premunire, begged, proscribed, orpoisoned? O! if a man could restrain the fury of his gullet andgroin, and think how many fires, how many kitchens, cooks, pastures, and ploughed lands; what orchards, stews, ponds and parks, coops andgarners, he could spare; what velvets, tissues, embroideries, laces, he could lack; and then how short and uncertain his life is; he werein a better way to happiness than to live the emperor of thesedelights, and be the dictator of fashions; but we make ourselvesslaves to our pleasures, and we serve fame and ambition, which is anequal slavery. Have not I seen the pomp of a whole kingdom, andwhat a foreign king could bring hither? Also to make himself gazedand wondered at--laid forth, as it were, to the show--and vanish allaway in a day? And shall that which could not fill the expectationof few hours, entertain and take up our whole lives, when even itappeared as superfluous to the possessors as to me that was aspectator? The bravery was shown, it was not possessed; while itboasted itself it perished. It is vile, and a poor thing to placeour happiness on these desires. Say we wanted them all. Famineends famine. 

De mollibus et effoeminatis. --There is nothing valiant or solid tobe hoped for from such as are always kempt and perfumed, and everyday smell of the tailor; the exceedingly curious that are wholly inmending such an imperfection in the face, in taking away the morphewin the neck, or bleaching their hands at midnight, gumming andbridling their beards, or making the waist small, binding it withhoops, while the mind runs at waste; too much pickedness is notmanly. Not from those that will jest at their own outwardimperfections, but hide their ulcers within, their pride, lust, envy, ill-nature, with all the art and authority they can. Thesepersons are in danger, for whilst they think to justify theirignorance by impudence, and their persons by clothes and outwardornaments, they use but a commission to deceive themselves: where, if we will look with our understanding, and not our senses, we maybehold virtue and beauty (though covered with rags) in theirbrightness; and vice and deformity so much the fouler, in having allthe splendour of riches to gild them, or the false light of honourand power to help them. Yet this is that wherewith the world istaken, and runs mad to gaze on--clothes and titles, the birdlime offools. 

De stultitia. --What petty things they are we wonder at, likechildren that esteem every trifle, and prefer a fairing before theirfathers! What difference is between us and them but that we aredearer fools, coxcombs at a higher rate? They are pleased withcockleshells, whistles, hobby-horses, and such like; we withstatues, marble pillars, pictures, gilded roofs, where underneath islath and lime, perhaps loam. Yet we take pleasure in the lie, andare glad we can cozen ourselves. Nor is it only in our walls andceilings, but all that we call happiness is mere painting and gilt, and all for money. What a thin membrane of honour that is! and howhath all true reputation fallen, since money began to have any! Yetthe 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 withgreater stir and torment than it is gotten. 

De sibi molestis. --Some men what losses soever they have they makethem greater, and if they have none, even all that is not gotten isa loss. Can there be creatures of more wretched condition thanthese, 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 shakehim; to be secure of all opinion, and pleasing to himself, even forthat wherein he displeaseth others; for the worst opinion gotten fordoing well, should delight us. Wouldst not thou be just but forfame, thou oughtest to be it with infamy; he that would have hisvirtue published is not the servant of virtue, but glory. 

Periculosa melancholia. --It is a dangerous thing when men's mindscome to sojourn with their affections, and their diseases eat intotheir strength; that when too much desire and greediness of vicehath made the body unfit, or unprofitable, it is yet gladded withthe sight and spectacle of it in others; and for want of ability tobe an actor, is content to be a witness. It enjoys the pleasure ofsinning in beholding others sin, as in dining, drinking, drabbing, &c. Nay, when it cannot do all these, it is offended with his ownnarrowness, that excludes it from the universal delights of mankind, and oftentimes dies of a melancholy, that it cannot be viciousenough. 

Falsae species fugiendae. --I am glad when I see any man avoid theinfamy of a vice; but to shun the vice itself were better. Till hedo that he is but like the 'pientice, who, being loth to be spied byhis master coming forth of Black Lucy's, went in again; to whom hismaster cried, "The more thou runnest that way to hide thyself, themore thou art in the place. " So are those that keep a tavern allday, 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 remoteor strange to us than of much better if they be nearer and fallunder our sense. Men, and almost all sorts of creatures, have theirreputation by distance. Rivers, the farther they run, and more fromtheir spring, the broader they are, and greater. And where ouroriginal is known, we are less the confident; among strangers wetrust fortune. Yet a man may live as renowned at home, in his owncountry, or a private village, as in the whole world. For it isvirtue that gives glory; that will endenizen a man everywhere. Itis only that can naturalise him. A native, if he be vicious, deserves to be a stranger, and cast out of the commonwealth as analien. 

Dejectio Aulic. --A dejected countenance and mean clothes beget oftena contempt, but it is with the shallowest creatures; courtierscommonly: look up even with them in a new suit, you get above themstraight. Nothing is more short-lived than pride; it is but whiletheir clothes last: stay but while these are worn out, you cannotwish the thing more wretched or dejected. 

Poesis, et pictura. --Plutarch. Poetry and picture are arts of alike nature, and both are busy about imitation. It was excellentlysaid of Plutarch, poetry was a speaking picture, and picture a mutepoesy. For they both invent, feign and devise many things, andaccommodate all they invent to the use and service of Nature. Yetof the two, the pen is more noble than the pencil; for that canspeak to the understanding, the other but to the sense. They bothbehold pleasure and profit as their common object; but shouldabstain from all base pleasures, lest they should err from theirend, and, while they seek to better men's minds, destroy theirmanners. They both are born artificers, not made. Nature is morepowerful in them than study. 

De pictura. --Whosoever loves not picture is injurious to truth andall the wisdom of poetry. Picture is the invention of heaven, themost 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 andpenetrate the inmost affection (being done by an excellentartificer) as sometimes it overcomes the power of speech andoratory. There are divers graces in it, so are there in theartificers. One excels in care, another in reason, a third ineasiness, a fourth in nature and grace. Some have diligence andcomeliness, but they want majesty. They can express a human form inall the graces, sweetness, and elegancy, but, they miss theauthority. They can hit nothing but smooth cheeks; they cannotexpress roughness or gravity. Others aspire to truth so much asthey are rather lovers of likeness than beauty. Zeuxis andParrhasius are said to be contemporaries; the first found out thereason of lights and shadows in picture, the other more subtlelyexamined 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 nottoo humble, as Pliny pronounced of Regulus's writings. You wouldthink them written, not on a child, but by a child. Many, out oftheir own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words--asoccupy, Nature, and the like; so the curious industry in some, ofhaving 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 wholesymmetry. Parrhasius was the first won reputation by addingsymmetry to picture; he added subtlety to the countenance, elegancyto the hair, love-lines to the face, and by the public voice of allartificers, deserved honour in the outer lines. Eupompus gave itsplendour by numbers and other elegancies. From the optics it drewreasons, by which it considered how things placed at distance andafar off should appear less; how above or beneath the head shoulddeceive the eye, &c. So from thence it took shadows, recessor, light, and heightnings. From moral philosophy it took the soul, theexpression of senses, perturbations, manners, when they would paintan angry person, a proud, an inconstant, an ambitious, a brave, amagnanimous, a just, a merciful, a compassionate, an humble, adejected, a base, and the like; they made all heightnings bright, all shadows dark, all swellings from a plane, all solids frombreaking. See where he complains of their painting Chimaeras {94}(by the vulgar unaptly called grotesque) saying that men who wereborn truly to study and emulate Nature did nothing but make monstersagainst Nature, which Horace so laughed at. {95} The art plastic wasmoulding in clay, or potter's earth anciently. This is the parentof statuary, sculpture, graving, and picture; cutting in brass andmarble, all serve under her. Socrates taught Parrhasius and Clito(two noble statuaries) first to express manners by their looks inimagery. Polygnotus and Aglaophon were ancienter. After themZeuxis, who was the lawgiver to all painters; after, Parrhasius. They were contemporaries, and lived both about Philip's time, thefather of Alexander the Great. There lived in this latter age sixfamous painters in Italy, who were excellent and emulous of theancients--Raphael de Urbino, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Titian, Antony of Correggio, Sebastian of Venice, Julio Romano, and AndreaSartorio. 

Parasiti ad mensam. --These are flatterers for their bread, thatpraise 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 apoint of the compass, and turn their tale, presently tack about, deny what they confessed, and confess what they denied; fit theirdiscourse to the persons and occasions. What they snatch up anddevour at one table, utter at another; and grow suspected of themaster, hated of the servants, while they inquire, and reprehend, and compound, and dilate business of the house they have nothing todo with. They praise my lord's wine and the sauce he likes; observethe cook and bottle-man; while they stand in my lord's favour, speakfor a pension for them, but pound them to dust upon my lord's leastdistaste, 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 beasked a question, to answer; but to repeat the question before heanswer is well, that he be sure to understand it, to avoidabsurdity; for it is less dishonour to hear imperfectly than tospeak imperfectly. The ears are excused, the understanding is not. And in things unknown to a man, not to give his opinion, lest by theaffectation of knowing too much he lose the credit he hath, byspeaking or knowing the wrong way what he utters. Nor seek to gethis patron's favour by embarking himself in the factions of thefamily, to inquire after domestic simulties, their sports oraffections. They are an odious and vile kind of creatures, that flyabout the house all day, and picking up the filth of the house likepies or swallows, carry it to their nest (the lord's ears), andoftentimes report the lies they have feigned for what they have seenand heard, Imo serviles. --These are called instruments of grace and power withgreat persons, but they are indeed the organs of their impotency, and marks of weakness. For sufficient lords are able to make thesediscoveries themselves. Neither will an honourable person inquirewho eats and drinks together, what that man plays, whom this manloves, with whom such a one walks, what discourse they hold, whosleeps with whom. They are base and servile natures that busythemselves about these disquisitions. How often have I seen (andworthily) these censors of the family undertaken by some honestrustic and cudgelled thriftily! These are commonly the off-scouringand dregs of men that do these things, or calumniate others; yet Iknow not truly which is worse--he that maligns all, or that praisesall. There is as a vice in praising, and as frequent, as indetracting. 

It pleased your lordship of late to ask my opinion touching theeducation of your sons, and especially to the advancement of theirstudies. To which, though I returned somewhat for the present, which rather manifested a will in me than gave any just resolutionto the thing propounded, I have upon better cogitation called thoseaids about me, both of mind and memory, which shall venture mythoughts clearer, if not fuller, to your lordship's demand. Iconfess, my lord, they will seem but petty and minute things I shalloffer to you, being writ for children, and of them. But studieshave their infancy as well as creatures. We see in men even thestrongest compositions had their beginnings from milk and thecradle; and the wisest tarried sometimes about apting their mouthsto letters and syllables. In their education, therefore, the caremust be the greater had of their beginnings, to know, examine, andweigh their natures; which, though they be proner in some childrento some disciplines, yet are they naturally prompt to taste all bydegrees, and with change. For change is a kind of refreshing instudies, and infuseth knowledge by way of recreation. Thence theschool itself is called a play or game, and all letters are so besttaught to scholars. They should not be affrighted or deterred intheir entry, but drawn on with exercise and emulation. A youthshould not be made to hate study before he know the causes to loveit, or taste the bitterness before the sweet; but called on andallured, entreated and praised--yea, when he deserves it not. Forwhich cause I wish them sent to the best school, and a public, whichI think the best. Your lordship, I fear, hardly hears of that, aswilling to breed them in your eye and at home, and doubting theirmanners may be corrupted abroad. They are in more danger in yourown family, among ill servants (allowing they be safe in theirschoolmaster), than amongst a thousand boys, however immodest. Would we did not spoil our own children, and overthrow their mannersourselves by too much indulgence! To breed them at home is to breedthem in a shade, whereas in a school they have the light and heat ofthe sun. They are used and accustomed to things and men. When theycome forth into the common-wealth, they find nothing new, or toseek. They have made their friendships and aids, some to last theirage. They hear what is commanded to others as well as themselves;much approved, much corrected; all which they bring to their ownstore and use, and learn as much as they hear. Eloquence would bebut a poor thing if we should only converse with singulars, speakbut man and man together. Therefore I like no private breeding. Iwould send them where their industry should be daily increased bypraise, and that kindled by emulation. It is a good thing toinflame the mind; and though ambition itself be a vice, it is oftenthe cause of great virtue. Give me that wit whom praise excites, glory puts on, or disgrace grieves; he is to be nourished withambition, pricked forward with honour, checked with reprehension, and never to be suspected of sloth. Though he be given to play, itis a sign of spirit and liveliness, so there be a mean had of theirsports and relaxations. And from the rod or ferule I would havethem free, as from the menace of them; for it is both deformed andservile. 

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; instyle to consider what ought to be written, and after what manner. He must first think and excogitate his matter, then choose hiswords, and examine the weight of either. Then take care, in placingand ranking both matter and words, that the composition be comely;and to do this with diligence and often. No matter how slow thestyle be at first, so it be laboured and accurate; seek the best, and be not glad of the froward conceits, or first words, that offerthemselves to us; but judge of what we invent, and order what weapprove. Repeat often what we have formerly written; which besidethat it helps the consequence, and makes the juncture better, itquickens the heat of imagination, that often cools in the time ofsetting down, and gives it new strength, as if it grew lustier bythe going back; as we see in the contention of leaping, they jumpfarthest that fetch their race largest; or, as in throwing a dart orjavelin, 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 outof our sail, so the favour of the gale deceive us not. For all thatwe invent doth please us in conception of birth, else we would neverset it down. But the safest is to return to our judgment, andhandle over again those things the easiness of which might make themjustly suspected. So did the best writers in their beginnings; theyimposed upon themselves care and industry; they did nothing rashly:they obtained first to write well, and then custom made it easy anda habit. By little and little their matter showed itself to themmore 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, butgood writing brings on ready writing yet, when we think we have gotthe faculty, it is even then good to resist it, as to give a horse acheck sometimes with a bit, which doth not so much stop his courseas stir his mettle. Again, whether a man's genius is best able toreach thither, it should more and more contend, lift and dilateitself, as men of low stature raise themselves on their toes, and soofttimes get even, if not eminent. Besides, as it is fit for grownand able writers to stand of themselves, and work with their ownstrength, to trust and endeavour by their own faculties, so it isfit for the beginner and learner to study others and the best. Forthe mind and memory are more sharply exercised in comprehendinganother man's things than our own; and such as accustom themselvesand are familiar with the best authors shall ever and anon findsomewhat of them in themselves, and in the expression of theirminds, even when they feel it not, be able to utter something liketheirs, which hath an authority above their own. Nay, sometimes itis the reward of a man's study, the praise of quoting another manfitly; and though a man be more prone and able for one kind ofwriting than another, yet he must exercise all. For as in aninstrument, so in style, there must be a harmony and consent ofparts. 

Praecipiendi modi. --I take this labour in teaching others, that theyshould not be always to be taught, and I would bring my preceptsinto practice, for rules are ever of less force and value thanexperiments; yet with this purpose, rather to show the right way tothose that come after, than to detect any that have slipped beforeby error, and I hope it will be more profitable. For men do morewillingly listen, and with more favour, to precept, thanreprehension. Among divers opinions of an art, and most of themcontrary in themselves, it is hard to make election; and, therefore, though a man cannot invent new things after so many, he may do awelcome work yet to help posterity to judge rightly of the old. Butarts and precepts avail nothing, except Nature be beneficial andaiding. And therefore these things are no more written to a dulldisposition, than rules of husbandry to a soil. No precepts willprofit a fool, no more than beauty will the blind, or music thedeaf. As we should take care that our style in writing be neitherdry nor empty, we should look again it be not winding, or wantonwith far-fetched descriptions; either is a vice. But that is worsewhich proceeds out of want, than that which riots out of plenty. The remedy of fruitfulness is easy, but no labour will help thecontrary; I will like and praise some things in a young writer whichyet, 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 evenyour country husband-man can teach, who to a young plant will notput the pruning-knife, because it seems to fear the iron, as notable to admit the scar. No more would I tell a green writer all hisfaults, lest I should make him grieve and faint, and at lastdespair; for nothing doth more hurt than to make him so afraid ofall things as he can endeavour nothing. Therefore youth ought to beinstructed betimes, and in the best things; for we hold thoselongest we take soonest, as the first scent of a vessel lasts, andthe tint the wool first receives; therefore a master should temperhis own powers, and descend to the other's infirmity. If you pour aglut of water upon a bottle, it receives little of it; but with afunnel, and by degrees, you shall fill many of them, and spilllittle of your own; to their capacity they will all receive and befull. And as it is fit to read the best authors to youth first, solet them be of the openest and clearest. {106a} As Livy beforeSallust, Sidney before Donne; and beware of letting them taste Goweror Chaucer at first, lest, falling too much in love with antiquity, and not apprehending the weight, they grow rough and barren inlanguage only. When their judgments are firm, and out of danger, let them read both the old and the new; but no less take heed thattheir new flowers and sweetness do not as much corrupt as theothers' dryness and squalor, if they choose not carefully. Spenser, in affecting the ancients, writ no language; yet I would have himread for his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius. The reading ofHomer and Virgil is counselled by Quintilian as the best way ofinforming youth and confirming man. For, besides that the mind israised with the height and sublimity of such a verse, it takesspirit from the greatness of the matter, and is tinctured with thebest things. Tragic and lyric poetry is good, too, and comic withthe best, if the manners of the reader be once in safety. In theGreek poets, as also in Plautus, we shall see the economy anddisposition of poems better observed than in Terence; and thelatter, who thought the sole grace and virtue of their fable thesticking in of sentences, as ours do the forcing in of jests. 

Fals. Querel. Fugiend. Platonis peregrinatio in Italiam. --We shouldnot protect our sloth with the patronage of difficulty. It is afalse quarrel against Nature, that she helps understanding but in afew, when the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, ifthey would take the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run, &c. , which if they lose, it is through their own sluggishness, andby 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 andconsideration that affects us more than the weariness itself. Platowas not content with the learning that Athens could give him, butsailed into Italy, for Pythagoras' knowledge: and yet not thinkinghimself sufficiently informed, went into Egypt, to the priests, andlearned their mysteries. He laboured, so must we. Many things maybe learned together, and performed in one point of time; asmusicians exercise their memory, their voice, their fingers, andsometimes their head and feet at once. And so a preacher, in theinvention of matter, election of words, composition of gesture, look, pronunciation, motion, useth all these faculties at once: andif we can express this variety together, why should not diversstudies, at divers hours, delight, when the variety is able alone torefresh and repair us? As, when a man is weary of writing, to read;and then again of reading, to write. Wherein, howsoever we do manythings, yet are we (in a sort) still fresh to what we begin; we arerecreated with change, as the stomach is with meats. But some willsay this variety breeds confusion, and makes, that either we loseall, or hold no more than the last. Why do we not then persuadehusbandmen that they should not till land, help it with marl, lime, and compost? plant hop-gardens, prune trees, look to bee-hives, rearsheep, and all other cattle at once? It is easier to do many thingsand continue, than to do one thing long. 

Praecept. Element. --It is not the passing through these learningsthat hurts us, but the dwelling and sticking about them. To descendto those extreme anxieties and foolish cavils of grammarians, isable to break a wit in pieces, being a work of manifold misery andvainness, to be elementarii senes. Yet even letters are, as itwere, the bank of words, and restore themselves to an author as thepawns of language: but talking and eloquence are not the same: tospeak, and to speak well, are two things. A fool may talk, but awise man speaks; and out of the observation, knowledge, and the useof things, many writers perplex their readers and hearers with merenonsense. Their writings need sunshine. Pure and neat language Ilove, yet plain and customary. A barbarous phrase has often made meout of love with a good sense, and doubtful writing hath wracked mebeyond my patience. The reason why a poet is said that he ought tohave all knowledges is, that he should not be ignorant of the most, especially of those he will handle. And indeed, when the attainingof them is possible, it were a sluggish and base thing to despair;for frequent imitation of anything becomes a habit quickly. If aman should prosecute as much as could be said of everything, hiswork would find no end. 

De orationis dignitate. [Greek text]. --Metaphora. Speech is theonly benefit man hath to express his excellency of mind above othercreatures. It is the instrument of society; therefore Mercury, whois the president of language, is called deorum hominumque interpres. {110a} In all speech, words and sense are as the body and the soul. The sense is as the life and soul of language, without which allwords are dead. Sense is wrought out of experience, the knowledgeof human life and actions, or of the liberal arts, which the Greekscalled [Greek text]. Words are the people's, yet there is a choiceof them to be made; for verborum delectus origo est eloquentiae. {111a} They are to be chosen according to the persons we makespeak, or the things we speak of. Some are of the camp, some of thecouncil-board, some of the shop, some of the sheepcote, some of thepulpit, some of the Bar, &c. And herein is seen their elegance andpropriety, when we use them fitly and draw them forth to their juststrength and nature by way of translation or metaphor. But in thistranslation we must only serve necessity (nam temere nihiltransfertur a prudenti) {111b} or commodity, which is a kind ofnecessity: that is, when we either absolutely want a word toexpress by, and that is necessity; or when we have not so fit aword, and that is commodity; as when we avoid loss by it, and escapeobsceneness, and gain in the grace and property which helpssignificance. Metaphors far-fetched hinder to be understood; andaffected, lose their grace. Or when the person fetcheth histranslations from a wrong place as if a privy councillor should atthe table take his metaphor from a dicing-house, or ordinary, or avintner's vault; or a justice of peace draw his similitudes from themathematics, or a divine from a bawdy house, or taverns; or agentleman of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, or the Midland, shouldfetch all the illustrations to his country neighbours from shipping, and tell them of the main-sheet and the bowline. Metaphors are thusmany times deformed, as in him that said, Castratam morte Africanirempublicam; and another, Stercus curiae Glauciam, and Cana niveconspuit Alpes. All attempts that are new in this kind, aredangerous, and somewhat hard, before they be softened with use. Aman coins not a new word without some peril and less fruit; for ifit happen to be received, the praise is but moderate; if refused, the scorn is assured. Yet we must adventure; for things at firsthard and rough are by use made tender and gentle. It is an honesterror that is committed, following great chiefs. 

Consuetudo. --Perspicuitas, Venustas. --Authoritas. --Virgil. --Lucretius. --Chaucerism. --Paronomasia. --Custom is the most certainmistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money. But we must not be too frequent with the mint, every day coining, nor fetch words from the extreme and utmost ages; since the chiefvirtue of a style is perspicuity, and nothing so vicious in it as toneed an interpreter. Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind ofmajesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes; forthey have the authority of years, and out of their intermission dowin themselves a kind of grace like newness. But the eldest of thepresent, and newness of the past language, is the best. For whatwas the ancient language, which some men so dote upon, but theancient custom? Yet when I name custom, I understand not the vulgarcustom; for that were a precept no less dangerous to language thanlife, if we should speak or live after the manners of the vulgar:but that I call custom of speech, which is the consent of thelearned; as custom of life, which is the consent of the good. Virgil was most loving of antiquity; yet how rarely doth he insertaquai and pictai! Lucretius is scabrous and rough in these; heseeks them: as some do Chaucerisms with us, which were betterexpunged and banished. Some words are to be culled out for ornamentand colour, as we gather flowers to strew houses or make garlands;but they are better when they grow to our style; as in a meadow, where, though the mere grass and greenness delight, yet the varietyof flowers doth heighten and beautify. Marry, we must not play orriot too much with them, as in Paronomasies; nor use too swelling orill-sounding words! Quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt. {114a}It is true, there is no sound but shall find some lovers, as thebitterest confections are grateful to some palates. Our compositionmust be more accurate in the beginning and end than in the midst, and in the end more than in the beginning; for through the midst thestream bears us. And this is attained by custom, more than care ofdiligence. We must express readily and fully, not profusely. Thereis difference between a liberal and prodigal hand. As it is a greatpoint of art, when our matter requires it, to enlarge and veer outall sail, so to take it in and contract it, is of no less praise, when the argument doth ask it. Either of them hath their fitness inthe place. A good man always profits by his endeavour, by his help, yea, when he is absent; nay, when he is dead, by his example andmemory. So good authors in their style: a strict and succinctstyle is that where you can take away nothing without loss, and thatloss to be manifest. 

De Stylo. --Tracitus. --The Laconic. --Suetonius. --Seneca andFabianus. --The brief style is that which expresseth much in little;the concise style, which expresseth not enough, but leaves somewhatto be understood; the abrupt style, which hath many breaches, anddoth not seem to end, but fall. The congruent and harmoniousfitting of parts in a sentence hath almost the fastening and forceof knitting and connection; as in stones well squared, which willrise strong a great way without mortar. 

Periodi. --Obscuritas offundit tenebras. --Superlatio. --Periods arebeautiful when they are not too long; for so they have theirstrength too, as in a pike or javelin. As we must take the carethat our words and sense be clear, so if the obscurity happenthrough the hearer's or reader's want of understanding, I am not toanswer for them, no more than for their not listening or marking; Imust neither find them ears nor mind. But a man cannot put a wordso in sense but something about it will illustrate it, if the writerunderstand himself; for order helps much to perspicuity, asconfusion hurts. (Rectitudo lucem adfert; obliquitas etcircumductio offuscat. {116a}) We should therefore speak what wecan the nearest way, so as we keep our gait, not leap; for too shortmay as well be not let into the memory, as too long not kept in. Whatsoever loseth the grace and clearness, converts into a riddle;the obscurity is marked, but not the value. That perisheth, and ispassed by, like the pearl in the fable. Our style should be like askein of silk, to be carried and found by the right thread, notravelled and perplexed; then all is a knot, a heap. There are wordsthat do as much raise a style as others can depress it. Superlationand over-muchness amplifies; it may be above faith, but never abovea mean. It was ridiculous in Cestius, when he said of Alexander:

"Fremit oceanus, quasi indignetur, quod terras relinquas. " {117a}

But propitiously from Virgil:

"Credas innare revulsasCycladas. " {117b}

He doth not say it was so, but seemed to be so. Although it besomewhat incredible, that is excused before it be spoken. But thereare hyperboles which will become one language, that will by no meansadmit another. As Eos esse P. R. Exercitus, qui caelum possintperrumpere, {118a} who would say with us, but a madman? Thereforewe must consider in every tongue what is used, what received. Quintilian warns us, that in no kind of translation, or metaphor, orallegory, we make a turn from what we began; as if we fetch theoriginal of our metaphor from sea and billows, we end not in flamesand ashes: it is a most foul inconsequence. Neither must we drawout our allegory too long, lest either we make ourselves obscure, orfall into affectation, which is childish. But why do men depart atall from the right and natural ways of speaking? sometimes fornecessity, when we are driven, or think it fitter, to speak that inobscure words, or by circumstance, which uttered plainly wouldoffend the hearers. Or to avoid obsceneness, or sometimes forpleasure, and variety, as travellers turn out of the highway, drawneither by the commodity of a footpath, or the delicacy or freshnessof the fields. And all this is called [Greek text] or figuredlanguage. 

Oratio imago animi. --Language most shows a man: Speak, that I maysee thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts ofus, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glassrenders a man's form or likeness so true as his speech. Nay, it islikened to a man; and as we consider feature and composition in aman, so words in language; in the greatness, aptness, soundstructure, and harmony of it. 

Structura et statura, sublimis, humilis, pumila. --Some men are talland big, so some language is high and great. Then the words arechosen, their sound ample, the composition full, the absolutionplenteous, and poured out, all grave, sinewy, and strong. Some arelittle and dwarfs; so of speech, it is humble and low, the wordspoor and flat, the members and periods thin and weak, withoutknitting or number. 

Mediocris plana et placida. --The middle are of a just stature. There the language is plain and pleasing; even without stopping, round without swelling: all well-turned, composed, elegant, andaccurate. 

Vitiosa oratio, vasta--tumens--enormis--affectata--abjecta. --Thevicious language is vast and gaping, swelling and irregular: whenit contends to be high, full of rock, mountain, and pointedness; asit affects to be low, it is abject, and creeps, full of bogs andholes. And according to their subject these styles vary, and losetheir names: for that which is high and lofty, declaring excellentmatter, becomes vast and tumorous, speaking of petty and inferiorthings; so that which was even and apt in a mean and plain subject, will appear most poor and humble in a high argument. Would you notlaugh to meet a great councillor of State in a flat cap, with histrunk hose, and a hobbyhorse cloak, his gloves under his girdle, andyond haberdasher in a velvet gown, furred with sables? There is acertain latitude in these things, by which we find the degrees. 

Figura. --The next thing to the stature, is the figure and feature inlanguage--that is, whether it be round and straight, which consistsof short and succinct periods, numerous and polished; or square andfirm, which is to have equal and strong parts everywhere answerable, and weighed. 

Cutis sive cortex. Compositio. --The third is the skin and coat, which rests in the well-joining, cementing, and coagmentation ofwords; whenas it is smooth, gentle, and sweet, like a table uponwhich you may run your finger without rubs, and your nail cannotfind a joint; not horrid, rough, wrinkled, gaping, or chapped:after these, the flesh, blood, and bones come in question. 

Carnosa--adipata--redundans. --We say it is a fleshy style, whenthere is much periphrasis, and circuit of words; and when with morethan enough, it grows fat and corpulent: arvina orationis, full ofsuet and tallow. It hath blood and juice when the words are properand apt, their sound sweet, and the phrase neat and picked--oratiouncta, et bene pasta. But where there is redundancy, both the bloodand juice are faulty and vicious:- Redundat sanguine, quia multoplus dicit, quam necesse est. Juice in language is somewhat lessthan blood; for if the words be but becoming and signifying, and thesense gentle, there is juice; but where that wanteth, the languageis thin, flagging, poor, starved, scarce covering the bone, andshows like stones in a sack. 

Jejuna, macilenta, strigosa. --Ossea, et nervosa. --Some men, to avoidredundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no illblood or juice, they lose their good. There be some styles, again, that have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence. These arebony and sinewy; Ossa habent, et nervos. 

Notae domini Sti. Albani de doctrin. Intemper. --Dictator. --Aristoteles. --It was well noted by the late Lord St. Albans, thatthe study of words is the first distemper of learning; vain matterthe second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness oftruth: imposture held up by credulity. All these are the cobwebsof learning, and to let them grow in us is either sluttish orfoolish. Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author adictator, as the schools have done Aristotle. The damage isinfinite knowledge receives by it; for to many things a man shouldowe but a temporary belief, and suspension of his own judgment, notan absolute resignation of himself, or a perpetual captivity. LetAristotle and others have their dues; but if we can make fartherdiscoveries of truth and fitness than they, why are we envied? Letus beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish or deface; wemay improve, but not augment. By discrediting falsehood, truthgrows in request. We must not go about, like men anguished andperplexed, for vicious affectation of praise, but calmly study theseparation of opinions, find the errors have intervened, awakeantiquity, call former times into question; but make no parties withthe present, nor follow any fierce undertakers, mingle no matter ofdoubtful credit with the simplicity of truth, but gently stir themould about the root of the question, and avoid all digladiations, facility of credit, or superstitious simplicity, seek the consonancyand concatenation of truth; stoop only to point of necessity, andwhat leads to convenience. Then make exact animadversion wherestyle hath degenerated, where flourished and thrived in choicenessof phrase, round and clean composition of sentence, sweet falling ofthe clause, varying an illustration by tropes and figures, weight ofmatter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, and depth of judgment. This is monte potiri, to get the hill; forno perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or a level. 

De optimo scriptore. --Cicero. --Now that I have informed you in theknowing of these things, let me lead you by the hand a littlefarther, in the direction of the use, and make you an able writer bypractice. The conceits of the mind are pictures of things, and thetongue is the interpreter of those pictures. The order of God'screatures in themselves is not only admirable and glorious, buteloquent: then he who could apprehend the consequence of things intheir truth, and utter his apprehensions as truly, were the bestwriter or speaker. Therefore Cicero said much, when he said, Dicererecte nemo potest, nisi qui prudenter intelligit. {124a} The shameof speaking unskilfully were small if the tongue only thereby weredisgraced; but as the image of a king in his seal ill-represented isnot so much a blemish to the wax, or the signet that sealed it, asto the prince it representeth, so disordered speech is not so muchinjury to the lips that give it forth, as to the disproportion andincoherence of things in themselves, so negligently expressed. Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune, whose words do jar;nor his reason in frame, whose sentence is preposterous; nor hiselocution clear and perfect, whose utterance breaks itself intofragments and uncertainties. Were it not a dishonour to a mightyprince, to have the majesty of his embassage spoiled by a carelessambassador? and is it not as great an indignity, that an excellentconceit and capacity, by the indiligence of an idle tongue, shouldbe disgraced? Negligent speech doth not only discredit the personof the speaker, but it discrediteth the opinion of his reason andjudgment; it discrediteth the force and uniformity of the matter andsubstance. If it be so then in words, which fly and escape censure, and where one good phrase begs pardon for many incongruities andfaults, how shall he then be thought wise whose penning is thin andshallow? how shall you look for wit from him whose leisure and head, assisted with the examination of his eyes, yield you no life orsharpness in his writing?

De stylo epistolari. --Inventio. --In writing there is to be regardedthe invention and the fashion. For the invention, that ariseth uponyour business, whereof there can be no rules of more certainty, orprecepts of better direction given, than conjecture can lay downfrom the several occasions of men's particular lives and vocations:but sometimes men make baseness of kindness: As "I could notsatisfy myself till I had discharged my remembrance, and charged myletters with commendation to you;" or, "My business is no other thanto testify my love to you, and to put you in mind of my willingnessto do you all kind offices;" or, "Sir, have you leisure to descendto the remembering of that assurance you have long possessed in yourservant, and upon your next opportunity make him happy with somecommands from you?" or the like; that go a-begging for some meaning, and labour to be delivered of the great burden of nothing. When youhave invented, and that your business be matter, and not bare form, or mere ceremony, but some earnest, then are you to proceed to theordering of it, and digesting the parts, which is had out of twocircumstances. One is the understanding of the persons to whom youare to write; the other is the coherence of your sentence; for men'scapacity to weigh what will be apprehended with greatest attentionor leisure; what next regarded and longed for especially, and whatlast will leave satisfaction, and (as it were) the sweetest memorialand belief of all that is passed in his understanding whom you writeto. For the consequence of sentences, you must be sure that everyclause do give the cue one to the other, and be bespoken ere itcome. So much for invention and order. 

Modus. --1. Brevitas. --Now for fashion: it consists in four things, which are qualities of your style. The first is brevity; for theymust not be treatises or discourses (your letters) except it be tolearned men. And even among them there is a kind of thrift andsaving of words. Therefore you are to examine the clearest passagesof your understanding, and through them to convey the sweetest andmost significant words you can devise, that you may the easier teachthem the readiest way to another man's apprehension, and open theirmeaning fully, roundly, and distinctly, so as the reader may notthink a second view cast away upon your letter. And though respectbe a part following this, yet now here, and still I must rememberit, if you write to a man, whose estate and sense, as senses, youare familiar with, you may the bolder (to set a task to his brain)venture on a knot. But if to your superior, you are bound tomeasure him in three farther points: first, with interest in him;secondly, his capacity in your letters; thirdly, his leisure toperuse them. For your interest or favour with him, you are to bethe shorter or longer, more familiar or submiss, as he will affordyou time. For his capacity, you are to be quicker and fuller ofthose reaches and glances of wit or learning, as he is able toentertain them. For his leisure, you are commanded to the greaterbriefness, as his place is of greater discharges and cares. Butwith your betters, you are not to put riddles of wit, by being tooscarce of words; not to cause the trouble of making breviates bywriting too riotous and wastingly. Brevity is attained in matter byavoiding idle compliments, prefaces, protestations, parentheses, superfluous circuit of figures and digressions: in the composition, by omitting conjunctions [not only, but also; both the one and theother, whereby it cometh to pass] and such like idle particles, thathave no great business in a serious letter but breaking ofsentences, as oftentimes a short journey is made long by unnessarybaits. 

Quintilian. --But, as Quintilian saith, there is a briefness of theparts sometimes that makes the whole long: "As I came to thestairs, I took a pair of oars, they launched out, rowed apace, Ilanded at the court gate, I paid my fare, went up to the presence, asked for my lord, I was admitted. " All this is but, "I went to thecourt and spake with my lord. " This is the fault of some Latinwriters within these last hundred years of my reading, and perhapsSeneca may be appeached of it; I accuse him not. 

2. Perspicuitas. --The next property of epistolary style isperspicuity, and is oftentimes by affectation of some wit ill angledfor, or ostentation of some hidden terms of art. Few words theydarken speech, and so do too many; as well too much light hurteththe eyes, as too little; and a long bill of chancery confounds theunderstanding as much as the shortest note; therefore, let not yourletters be penned like English statutes, and this is obtained. These vices are eschewed by pondering your business well anddistinctly concerning yourself, which is much furthered by utteringyour thoughts, and letting them as well come forth to the light andjudgment of your own outward senses as to the censure of other men'sears; for that is the reason why many good scholars speak butfumblingly; like a rich man, that for want of particular note anddifference can bring you no certain ware readily out of his shop. Hence it is that talkative shallow men do often content the hearersmore than the wise. But this may find a speedier redress inwriting, where all comes under the last examination of the eyes. First, mind it well, then pen it, then examine it, then amend it, and you may be in the better hope of doing reasonably well. Underthis virtue may come plainness, which is not to be curious in theorder as to answer a letter, as if you were to answer tointerrogatories. As to the first, first; and to the second, secondly, &c. But both in method to use (as ladies do in theirattire) a diligent kind of negligence, and their sportive freedom;though with some men you are not to jest, or practise tricks; yetthe delivery of the most important things may be carried with such agrace, as that it may yield a pleasure to the conceit of the reader. There must be store, though no excess of terms; as if you are toname store, sometimes you may call it choice, sometimes plenty, sometimes copiousness, or variety; but ever so, that the word whichcomes in lieu have not such difference of meaning as that it may putthe sense of the first in hazard to be mistaken. You are not tocast a ring for the perfumed terms of the time, as accommodation, complement, spirit &c. , but use them properly in their place, asothers. 

3. Vigor--There followeth life and quickness, which is the strengthand sinews, as it were, of your penning by pretty sayings, similitudes, and conceits; allusions from known history, or othercommon-place, such as are in the Courtier, and the second book ofCicero De Oratore. 

4. Discretio. --The last is, respect to discern what fits yourself, him to whom you write, and that which you handle, which is a qualityfit to conclude the rest, because it doth include all. And thatmust proceed from ripeness of judgment, which, as one truly saith, is gotten by four means, God, nature, diligence, and conversation. Serve the first well, and the rest will serve you. 

De Poetica. --We have spoken sufficiently of oratory, let us now makea diversion to poetry. Poetry, in the primogeniture, had manypeccant humours, and is made to have more now, through the levityand inconstancy of men's judgments. Whereas, indeed, it is the mostprevailing eloquence, and of the most exalted caract. Now thediscredits and disgraces are many it hath received through men'sstudy of depravation or calumny; their practice being to give itdiminution of credit, by lessening the professor's estimation, andmaking the age afraid of their liberty; and the age is grown sotender of her fame, as she calls all writings aspersions. 

That is the state word, the phrase of court (placentia college), which some call Parasites place, the Inn of Ignorance. 

D. Hieronymus. --Whilst I name no persons, but deride follies, whyshould any man confess or betray himself why doth not that of S. Hierome come into their mind, Ubi generalis est de vitiisdisputatio, ibi nullius esse personae injuriam? {133a} Is it suchan inexpiable crime in poets to tax vices generally, and no offencein them, who, by their exception confess they have committed themparticularly? Are we fallen into those times that we must not -

"Auriculas teneras mordaci rodere vero. " {133b}

Remedii votum semper verius erat, quam spes. {133c}--Sexus faemin. --If men may by no means write freely, or speak truth, but when itoffends not, why do physicians cure with sharp medicines, orcorrosives? is not the same equally lawful in the cure of the mindthat is in the cure of the body? Some vices, you will say, are sofoul that it is better they should be done than spoken. But theythat take offence where no name, character, or signature doth blazonthem seem to me like affected as women, who if they hear anythingill spoken of the ill of their sex, are presently moved, as if thecontumely respected their particular; and on the contrary, when theyhear good of good women, conclude that it belongs to them all. If Isee anything that toucheth me, shall I come forth a betrayer ofmyself presently? No, if I be wise, I'll dissemble it; if honest, I'll avoid it, lest I publish that on my own forehead which I sawthere noted without a title. A man that is on the mending hand willeither ingenuously confess or wisely dissemble his disease. And thewise and virtuous will never think anything belongs to themselvesthat is written, but rejoice that the good are warned not to besuch; and the ill to leave to be such. The person offended hath noreason to be offended with the writer, but with himself; and so todeclare that properly to belong to him which was so spoken of allmen, as it could be no man's several, but his that would wilfullyand desperately claim it. It sufficeth I know what kind of personsI displease, men bred in the declining and decay of virtue, betrothed to their own vices; that have abandoned or prostitutedtheir good names; hungry and ambitious of infamy, invested in alldeformity, enthralled to ignorance and malice, of a hidden andconcealed malignity, and that hold a concomitancy with all evil. 

What is a Poet?

Poeta. --A poet is that which by the Greeks is called [Greek text], amaker, or a feigner: his art, an art of imitation or feigning;expressing the life of man in fit measure, numbers, and harmony, according to Aristotle; from the word [Greek text], which signifiesto make or feign. Hence he is called a poet, not he which writethin measure only, but that feigneth and formeth a fable, and writesthings like the truth. For the fable and fiction is, as it were, the form and soul of any poetical work or poem. 

What mean, you by a Poem?

Poema. --A poem is not alone any work or composition of the poet's inmany or few verses; but even one verse alone sometimes makes aperfect poem. As when AEneas hangs up and consecrates the arms ofAbas with this inscription:-

"AEneas haec de Danais victoribus arma. " {136a}

And calls it a poem or carmen. Such are those in Martial:-

"Omnia, Castor, emis: sic fiet, ut omnia vendas. " {136b}

And -

"Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper. " {136c}

Horatius. --Lucretius. --So were Horace's odes called Carmina, hislyric songs. And Lucretius designs a whole book in his sixth:-

"Quod in primo quoque carmine claret. " {136d}

Epicum. --Dramaticum. --Lyricum. --Elegiacum. --Epigrammat. --Andanciently all the oracles were called Carmina; or whatever sentencewas expressed, were it much or little, it was called an Epic, Dramatic, Lyric, Elegiac, or Epigrammatic poem. 

But how differs a Poem from what we call Poesy?

Poesis. --Artium regina. --Poet. Differentiae. --Grammatic. --Logic. --Rhetoric. --Ethica. --A poem, as I have told you, is the work of thepoet; the end and fruit of his labour and study. Poesy is his skillor craft of making; the very fiction itself, the reason or form ofthe work. And these three voices differ, as the thing done, thedoing, and the doer; the thing feigned, the feigning, and thefeigner; so the poem, the poesy, and the poet. Now the poesy is thehabit or the art; nay, rather the queen of arts, which had heroriginal from heaven, received thence from the Hebrews, and had inprime estimation with the Greeks transmitted to the Latins and allnations that professed civility. The study of it (if we will trustAristotle) offers to mankind a certain rule and pattern of livingwell and happily, disposing us to all civil offices of society. Ifwe will believe Tully, it nourisheth and instructeth our youth, delights our age, adorns our prosperity, comforts our adversity, entertains us at home, keeps us company abroad, travels with us, watches, divides the times of our earnest and sports, shares in ourcountry recesses and recreations; insomuch as the wisest and bestlearned have thought her the absolute mistress of manners andnearest of kin to virtue. And whereas they entitle philosophy to bea rigid and austere poesy, they have, on the contrary, styled poesya dulcet and gentle philosophy, which leads on and guides us by thehand to action with a ravishing delight and incredible sweetness. But before we handle the kinds of poems, with their specialdifferences, or make court to the art itself, as a mistress, I wouldlead you to the knowledge of our poet by a perfect information whathe is or should be by nature, by exercise, by imitation, by study, and so bring him down through the disciplines of grammar, logic, rhetoric, and the ethics, adding somewhat out of all, peculiar tohimself, and worthy of your admittance or reception. 

1. Ingenium. --Seneca. --Plato. --Aristotle. --Helicon. --Pegasus. --Parnassus. --Ovid. --First, we require in our poet or maker (for thattitle our language affords him elegantly with the Greek) a goodnessof natural wit. For whereas all other arts consist of doctrine andprecepts, the poet must be able by nature and instinct to pour outthe treasure of his mind, and as Seneca saith, Aliquando secundumAnacreontem insanire jucundum esse; by which he understands thepoetical rapture. And according to that of Plato, Frustra poeticasfores sui compos pulsavit. And of Aristotle, Nullum magnum ingeniumsine mixtura dementiae fuit. Nec potest grande aliquid, et supracaeteros loqui, nisi mota mens. Then it riseth higher, as by adivine instinct, when it contemns common and known conceptions. Itutters somewhat above a mortal mouth. Then it gets aloft and fliesaway with his rider, whither before it was doubtful to ascend. Thisthe poets understood by their Helicon, Pegasus, or Parnassus; andthis made Ovid to boast, "Est deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illoSedibus aethereis spiritus ille venit. " {139a}

Lipsius. --Petron. In. Fragm. --And Lipsius to affirm, Scio, poetamneminem praestantem fuisse, sine parte quadam uberiore divinaeaurae. And hence it is that the coming up of good poets (for I mindnot mediocres or imos) is so thin and rare among us. Every beggarlycorporation affords the State a mayor or two bailiffs yearly; butSolus rex, aut poeta, non quotannis nascitur. To this perfection ofnature in our poet we require exercise of those parts, and frequent. 

2. Exercitatio. --Virgil. --Scaliger. --Valer. Maximus. --Euripides. --Alcestis. --If his wit will not arrive suddenly at the dignity of theancients, let him not yet fall out with it, quarrel, or be overhastily angry; offer to turn it away from study in a humour, butcome to it again upon better cogitation; try another time withlabour. If then it succeed not, cast not away the quills yet, norscratch the wainscot, beat not the poor desk, but bring all to theforge and file again; torn it anew. There is no statute law of thekingdom bids you be a poet against your will or the first quarter;if it comes in a year or two, it is well. The common rhymers pourforth verses, such as they are, ex tempore; but there never comesfrom them one sense worth the life of a day. A rhymer and a poetare two things. It is said of the incomparable Virgil that hebrought forth his verses like a bear, and after formed them withlicking. Scaliger the father writes it of him, that he made aquantity of verses in the morning, which afore night he reduced to aless number. But that which Valerius Maximus hath left recorded ofEuripides, the tragic poet, his answer to Alcestis, another poet, isas memorable as modest; who, when it was told to Alcestis thatEuripides had in three days brought forth but three verses, andthose with some difficulty and throes, Alcestis, glorying he couldwith ease have sent forth a hundred in the space, Euripides roundlyreplied, "Like enough; but here is the difference: thy verses willnot last these three days, mine will to all time. " Which was asmuch as to tell him he could not write a verse. I have met many ofthese rattles that made a noise and buzzed. They had their hum, andno more. Indeed, things wrote with labour deserve to be so read, and will last their age. 

3. Imitatio. --Horatius. --Virgil. --Statius. --Homer. --Horat. --Archil. --Alcaeus, &c. --The third requisite in our poet or maker isimitation, to be able to convert the substance or riches of anotherpoet to his own use. To make choice of one excellent man above therest, and so to follow him till he grow very he, or so like him asthe copy may be mistaken for the principal. Not as a creature thatswallows what it takes in crude, raw, or undigested, but that feedswith an appetite, and hath a stomach to concoct, divide, and turnall into nourishment. Not to imitate servilely, as Horace saith, and catch at vices for virtue, but to draw forth out of the best andchoicest flowers, with the bee, and turn all into honey, work itinto one relish and savour; make our imitation sweet; observe howthe best writers have imitated, and follow them. How Virgil andStatius have imitated Homer; how Horace, Archilochus; how Alcaeus, and the other lyrics; and so of the rest. 

4. Lectio. --Parnassus. --Helicon. --Arscoron. --M. T. Cicero. --Simylus. --Stob. --Horat. --Aristot. --But that which we especiallyrequire in him is an exactness of study and multiplicity of reading, which maketh a full man, not alone enabling him to know the historyor argument of a poem and to report it, but so to master the matterand style, as to show he knows how to handle, place, or dispose ofeither with elegancy when need shall be. And not think he can leapforth suddenly a poet by dreaming he hath been in Parnassus, orhaving washed his lips, as they say, in Helicon. There goes more tohis making than so; for to nature, exercise, imitation, and studyart must be added to make all these perfect. And though thesechallenge to themselves much in the making up of our maker, it isArt only can lead him to perfection, and leave him there inpossession, as planted by her hand. It is the assertion of Tully, if to an excellent nature there happen an accession or conformationof learning and discipline, there will then remain somewhat nobleand singular. For, as Simylus saith in Stobaeus, [Greek text], without art nature can never be perfect; and without nature art canclaim no being. But our poet must beware that his study be not onlyto learn of himself; for he that shall affect to do that confessethhis ever having a fool to his master. He must read many, but everthe best and choicest; those that can teach him anything he mustever account his masters, and reverence. Among whom Horace and (hethat taught him) Aristotle deserved to be the first in estimation. Aristotle was the first accurate critic and truest judge--nay, thegreatest philosopher the world ever had--for he noted the vices ofall knowledges in all creatures, and out of many men's perfectionsin a science he formed still one art. So he taught us two officestogether, how we ought to judge rightly of others, and what we oughtto imitate specially in ourselves. But all this in vain without anatural wit and a poetical nature in chief. For no man, so soon ashe knows this or reads it, shall be able to write the better; but ashe is adapted to it by nature, he shall grow the perfecter writer. He must have civil prudence and eloquence, and that whole; not takenup by snatches or pieces in sentences or remnants when he willhandle business or carry counsels, as if he came then out of thedeclaimer's gallery, or shadow furnished but out of the body of theState, which commonly is the school of men. 

Virorum schola respub. --Lysippus. --Apelles. --Naevius. --The poet isthe nearest borderer upon the orator, and expresseth all hisvirtues, though he be tied more to numbers, is his equal inornament, and above him in his strengths. And (of the kind) thecomic comes nearest; because in moving the minds of men, andstirring of affections (in which oratory shows, and especiallyapproves her eminence), he chiefly excels. What figure of a bodywas Lysippus ever able to form with his graver, or Apelles to paintwith his pencil, as the comedy to life expresseth so many andvarious affections of the mind? There shall the spectator see someinsulting with joy, others fretting with melancholy, raging withanger, mad with love, boiling with avarice, undone with riot, tortured with expectation, consumed with fear; no perturbation incommon life but the orator finds an example of it in the scene. Andthen for the elegancy of language, read but this inscription on thegrave of a comic poet:

"Immortales mortales si fas esset fiere, Flerent divae Camoenae Naevium poetam;Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro, Obliti sunt Romae lingua loqui Latina. " {146a}

L. AElius Stilo. --Plautus. --M. Varro. --Or that modester testimonygiven by Lucius AElius Stilo upon Plautus, who affirmed, "Musas, siLatine loqui voluissent, Plautino sermone fuisse loquuturas. " Andthat illustrious judgment by the most learned M. Varro of him, whopronounced him the prince of letters and elegancy in the Romanlanguage. 

Sophocles. --I am not of that opinion to conclude a poet's libertywithin the narrow limits of laws which either the grammarians orphilosophers prescribe. For before they found out those laws therewere many excellent poets that fulfilled them, amongst whom nonemore perfect than Sophocles, who lived a little before Aristotle. 

Demosthenes. --Pericles. --Alcibiades. --Which of the Greeklings durstever give precepts to Demosthenes? or to Pericles, whom the agesurnamed Heavenly, because he seemed to thunder and lighten with hislanguage? or to Alcibiades, who had rather Nature for his guide thanArt for his master?

Aristotle. --But whatsoever nature at any time dictated to the mosthappy, or long exercise to the most laborious, that the wisdom andlearning of Aristotle hath brought into an art, because heunderstood the causes of things; and what other men did by chance orcustom he doth by reason; and not only found out the way not to err, but the short way we should take not to err. 

Euripides. --Aristophanes. --Many things in Euripides hathAristophanes wittily reprehended, not out of art, but out of truth. For Euripides is sometimes peccant, as he is most times perfect. But judgment when it is greatest, if reason doth not accompany it, is not ever absolute. 

Cens. Scal. In Lil. Germ. --Horace. --To judge of poets is only thefaculty of poets; and not of all poets, but the best. Nemoinfelicius de poetis judicavit, quam qui de poetis scripsit. {148a}But some will say critics are a kind of tinkers, that make morefaults than they mend ordinarily. See their diseases and those ofgrammarians. It is true, many bodies are the worse for the meddlingwith; and the multitude of physicians hath destroyed many soundpatients with their wrong practice. But the office of a true criticor censor is, not to throw by a letter anywhere, or damn an innocentsyllable, but lay the words together, and amend them; judgesincerely of the author and his matter, which is the sign of solidand perfect learning in a man. Such was Horace, an author of muchcivility, and (if any one among the heathen can be) the best masterboth of virtue and wisdom; an excellent and true judge upon causeand reason, not because he thought so, but because he knew so out ofuse and experience. 

Cato, the grammarian, a defender of Lucilius. {149a}

"Cato grammaticus, Latina syren, Qui solus legit, et facit poetas. "

Quintilian of the same heresy, but rejected. {149b}

Horace, his judgment of Choerillus defended against Joseph Scaliger. {149c} And of Laberius against Julius. {149d}

But chiefly his opinion of Plautus {149e} vindicated against manythat are offended, and say it is a hard censure upon the parent ofall conceit and sharpness. And they wish it had not fallen from sogreat a master and censor in the art, whose bondmen knew better howto judge of Plautus than any that dare patronise the family oflearning in this age; who could not be ignorant of the judgment ofthe times in which he lived, when poetry and the Latin language wereat the height; especially being a man so conversant and inwardlyfamiliar with the censures of great men that did discourse of thesethings daily amongst themselves. Again, a man so gracious and inhigh favour with the Emperor, as Augustus often called him his wittymanling (for the littleness of his stature), and, if we may trustantiquity, had designed him for a secretary of estate, and invitedhim to the palace, which he modestly prayed off and refused. 

Terence. --Menander. Horace did so highly esteem Terence's comedies, as he ascribes the art in comedy to him alone among the Latins, andjoins him with Menander. 

Now, let us see what may be said for either, to defend Horace'sjudgment to posterity and not wholly to condemn Plautus. 

The parts of a comedy and tragedy. --The parts of a comedy are thesame with a tragedy, and the end is partly the same, for they bothdelight and teach; the comics are called [Greek text], of the Greeksno less than the tragics. 

Aristotle. --Plato. --Homer. --Nor is the moving of laughter always theend of comedy; that is rather a fowling for the people's delight, ortheir fooling. For, as Aristotle says rightly, the moving oflaughter is a fault in comedy, a kind of turpitude that depravessome part of a man's nature without a disease. As a wry facewithout pain moves laughter, or a deformed vizard, or a rude clowndressed in a lady's habit and using her actions; we dislike andscorn such representations which made the ancient philosophers everthink laughter unfitting in a wise man. And this induced Plato toesteem of Homer as a sacrilegious person, because he presented thegods sometimes laughing. As also it is divinely said of Aristotle, that to seen ridiculous is a part of dishonesty, and foolish. 

The wit of the old comedy. --So that what either in the words orsense of an author, or in the language or actions of men, is awry ordepraved does strangely stir mean affections, and provoke for themost part to laughter. And therefore it was clear that all insolentand obscene speeches, jests upon the best men, injuries toparticular persons, perverse and sinister sayings (and the ratherunexpected) in the old comedy did move laughter, especially where itdid imitate any dishonesty, and scurrility came forth in the placeof wit, which, who understands the nature and genius of laughtercannot but perfectly know. 

Aristophanes. --Plautus. --Of which Aristophanes affords an ampleharvest, having not only outgone Plautus or any other in that kind, but expressed all the moods and figures of what is ridiculous oddly. In short, as vinegar is not accounted good until the wine becorrupted, so jests that are true and natural seldom raise laughterwith the beast the multitude. They love nothing that is right andproper. The farther it runs from reason or possibility with themthe better it is. 

Socrates. --Theatrical wit. --What could have made them laugh, like tosee Socrates presented, that example of all good life, honesty, andvirtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play thephilosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a flea could skipgeometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from theengine. This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishinga playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it hadsavoured of equity, truth, perspicuity, and candour, to have tastena wise or a learned palate, --spit it out presently! this is bitterand profitable: this instructs and would inform us: what need weknow any thing, that are nobly born, more than a horse-race, or ahunting-match, our day to break with citizens, and such innatemysteries?

The cart. --This is truly leaping from the stage to the tumbrilagain, reducing all wit to the original dung-cart. 

Of the magnitude and compass of any fable, epic or dramatic. 

What the measure of a fable is. --The fable or plot of a poemdefined. --The epic fable, differing from the dramatic. --To theresolving of this question we must first agree in the definition ofthe fable. The fable is called the imitation of one entire andperfect action, whose parts are so joined and knit together, asnothing in the structure can be changed, or taken away, withoutimpairing or troubling the whole, of which there is a proportionablemagnitude in the members. As for example: if a man would build ahouse, he would first appoint a place to build it in, which he woulddefine within certain bounds; so in the constitution of a poem, theaction is aimed at by the poet, which answers place in a building, and that action hath his largeness, compass, and proportion. But asa court or king's palace requires other dimensions than a privatehouse, so the epic asks a magnitude from other poems, since what isplace in the one is action in the other; the difference is an space. So that by this definition we conclude the fable to be the imitationof one perfect and entire action, as one perfect and entire place isrequired to a building. By perfect, we understand that to whichnothing is wanting, as place to the building that is raised, andaction to the fable that is formed. It is perfect, perhaps not fora court or king's palace, which requires a greater ground, but forthe structure he would raise; so the space of the action may notprove large enough for the epic fable, yet be perfect for thedramatic, and whole. 

What we understand by whole. --Whole we call that, and perfect, whichhath a beginning, a midst, and an end. So the place of any buildingmay be whole and entire for that work, though too little for apalace. As to a tragedy or a comedy, the action may be convenientand perfect that would not fit an epic poem in magnitude. So a lionis a perfect creature in himself, though it be less than that of abuffalo or a rhinocerote. They differ but in specie: either in thekind is absolute; both have their parts, and either the whole. Therefore, as in every body so in every action, which is the subjectof a just work, there is required a certain proportionablegreatness, neither too vast nor too minute. For that which happensto the eyes when we behold a body, the same happens to the memorywhen we contemplate an action. I look upon a monstrous giant, asTityus, whose body covered nine acres of land, and mine eye sticksupon every part; the whole that consists of those parts will neverbe taken in at one entire view. So in a fable, if the action be toogreat, we can never comprehend the whole together in ourimagination. Again, if it be too little, there ariseth no pleasureout of the object; it affords the view no stay; it is beheld, andvanisheth at once. As if we should look upon an ant or pismire, theparts fly the sight, and the whole considered is almost nothing. The same happens in action, which is the object of memory, as thebody is of sight. Too vast oppresseth the eyes, and exceeds thememory; too little scarce admits either. 

What is the utmost bounds of a fable. --Now in every action itbehoves the poet to know which is his utmost bound, how far withfitness and a necessary proportion he may produce and determine it;that is, till either good fortune change into the worse, or theworse into the better. For as a body without proportion cannot begoodly, no more can the action, either in comedy or tragedy, withouthis fit bounds: and every bound, for the nature of the subject, isesteemed the best that is largest, till it can increase no more; soit behoves the action in tragedy or comedy to be let grow till thenecessity ask a conclusion; wherein two things are to be considered:first, that it exceed not the compass of one day; next, that therebe place left for digression and art. For the episodes anddigressions in a fable are the same that household stuff and otherfurniture are in a house. And so far from the measure and extent ofa fable dramatic. 

What by one and entire. --Now that it should be one and entire. Oneis considerable two ways; either as it is only separate, and byitself, or as being composed of many parts, it begins to be one asthose parts grow or are wrought together. That it should be one thefirst away alone, and by itself, no man that hath tasted lettersever would say, especially having required before a just magnitudeand equal proportion of the parts in themselves. Neither of whichcan possibly be, if the action be single and separate, not composedof parts, which laid together in themselves, with an equal andfitting proportion, tend to the same end; which thing out ofantiquity itself hath deceived many, and more this day it dothdeceive. 

Hercules. --Theseus. --Achilles. --Ulysses. --Homer and Virgil. --AEneas. --Venus. --So many there be of old that have thought theaction of one man to be one, as of Hercules, Theseus, Achilles, Ulysses, and other heroes; which is both foolish and false, since byone and the same person many things may be severally done whichcannot fitly be referred or joined to the same end: which not onlythe excellent tragic poets, but the best masters of the epic, Homerand Virgil, saw. For though the argument of an epic poem be farmore diffused and poured out than that of tragedy, yet Virgil, writing of AEneas, hath pretermitted many things. He neither tellshow he was born, how brought up, how he fought with Achilles, how hewas snatched out of the battle by Venus; but that one thing, how hecame into Italy, he prosecutes in twelve books. The rest of hisjourney, his error by sea, the sack of Troy, are put not as theargument of the work, but episodes of the argument. So Homer laidby many things of Ulysses, and handled no more than he saw tended toone and the same end. 

Theseus. --Hercules. --Juvenal. --Codrus. --Sophocles. --Ajax. --Ulysses. --Contrary to which, and foolishly, those poets did, whom thephilosopher taxeth, of whom one gathered all the actions of Theseus, another put all the labours of Hercules in one work. So did he whomJuvenal mentions in the beginning, "hoarse Codrus, " that recited avolume compiled, which he called his Theseide, not yet finished, tothe great trouble both of his hearers and himself; amongst whichthere were many parts had no coherence nor kindred one with another, so far they were from being one action, one fable. For as a house, consisting of divers materials, becomes one structure and onedwelling, so an action, composed of divers parts, may become onefable, epic or dramatic. For example, in a tragedy, look uponSophocles, his Ajax: Ajax, deprived of Achilles' armour, which hehoped from the suffrage of the Greeks, disdains; and, growingimpatient of the injury, rageth, and runs mad. In that humour hedoth many senseless things, and at last falls upon the Grecian flockand kills a great ram for Ulysses: returning to his senses, hegrows ashamed of the scorn, and kills himself; and is by the chiefsof the Greeks forbidden burial. These things agree and hangtogether, not as they were done, but as seeming to be done, whichmade the action whole, entire, and absolute. 

The conclusion concerning the whole, and the parts. --Which areepisodes. --Ajax and Hector. --Homer. --For the whole, as it consistethof parts, so without all the parts it is not the whole; and to makeit absolute is required not only the parts, but such parts as aretrue. For a part of the whole was true; which, if you take away, you either change the whole or it is not the whole. For if it besuch a part, as, being present or absent, nothing concerns thewhole, it cannot be called a part of the whole; and such are theepisodes, of which hereafter. For the present here is one example:the single combat of Ajax with Hector, as it is at large describedin Homer, nothing belongs to this Ajax of Sophocles. 

You admire no poems but such as run like a brewer's cart upon thestones, hobbling:-

"Et, quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt, Accius et quidquid Pacuviusque vomunt. Attonitusque legis terrai, frugiferai. " {160a}

SOME POEMS. 

TO WILLIAM CAMDEN

Camden! most reverend head, to whom I oweAll that I am in arts, all that I know -How nothing's that! to whom my country owesThe great renown, and name wherewith she goes!Than thee the age sees not that thing more grave, More high, more holy, that she more would crave. What name, what skill, what faith hast thou in things!What sight in searching the most antique springs!What weight, and what authority in thy speech!Men scarce can make that doubt, but thou canst teach. Pardon free truth, and let thy modesty, Which conquers all, be once o'ercome by thee. Many of thine, this better could, than I;But for their powers, accept my piety. 

ON MY FIRST DAUGHTER

Here lies, to each her parents' ruth, Mary, the daughter of their youth;Yet, all heaven's gifts, being heaven's due, It makes the father less to rue. At six months' end, she parted hence, With safety of her innocence;Whose soul heaven's queen, whose name she bears, In comfort of her mother's tears, Hath placed amongst her virgin-train;Where, while that severed doth remain, This grave partakes the fleshly birth;Which cover lightly, gentle earth!

ON MY FIRST SON

Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy;Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. Oh! could I lose all father, now! for why, Will man lament the state he should envy?To have so soon 'scaped world's, and flesh's rage, And, if no other misery, yet age!Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lieBen Jonson his best piece of poetry;For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such, As what he loves may never like too much. 

TO FRANCIS BEAUMONT

How I do love thee, Beaumont, and thy muse, That unto me dost such religion use!How I do fear myself, that am not worthThe least indulgent thought thy pen drops forth!At once thou mak'st me happy, and unmak'st;And giving largely to me, more thou takest!What fate is mine, that so itself bereaves?What art is thine, that so thy friend deceives?When even there, where most thou praisest me, For writing better, I must envy thee. 

OF LIFE AND DEATH

The ports of death are sins; of life, good deeds:Through which our merit leads us to our meeds. How wilful blind is he, then, that would stray, And hath it in his powers to make his way!This world death's region is, the other life's:And here it should be one of our first strifes, So to front death, as men might judge us past it:For good men but see death, the wicked taste it. 

INVITING A FRIEND TO SUPPER

To-night, grave sir, both my poor house and IDo equally desire your company;Not that we think us worthy such a guest, But that your worth will dignify our feast, With those that come; whose grace may make that seemSomething, which else could hope for no esteem. It is the fair acceptance, sir, createsThe entertainment perfect, not the cates. Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate, An olive, capers, or some bitter saladUshering the mutton; with a short-legged hen, If we can get her, full of eggs, and then, Lemons and wine for sauce: to these, a coneyIs not to be despaired of for our money;And though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks, The sky not falling, think we may have larks. I'll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come:Of partridge, pheasant, woodcock, of which someMay yet be there; and godwit if we can;Knat, rail, and ruff, too. Howsoe'er, my manShall read a piece of Virgil, Tacitus, Livy, or of some better book to us, Of which we'll speak our minds, amidst our meat;And I'll profess no verses to repeat:To this if aught appear, which I not know of, That will the pastry, not my paper, show of. Digestive cheese, and fruit there sure will be;But that which most doth take my muse and me, Is a pure cup of rich canary wine, Which is the Mermaid's now, but shall be mine:Of which had Horace, or Anacreon tasted, Their lives, as do their lines, till now had lasted. Tobacco, nectar, or the Thespian spring, Are all but Luther's beer, to this I sing. Of this we will sup free, but moderately, And we will have no Pooly' or Parrot by;Nor shall our cups make any guilty men;But at our parting we will be as whenWe innocently met. No simple wordThat shall be uttered at our mirthful board, Shall make us sad next morning; or affrightThe liberty that we'll enjoy to-night. 

EPITAPH ON SALATHIEL PAVY, A CHILD OF QUEEN ELIZABETH'S CHAPEL

Weep with me all you that read This little story;And know for whom a tear you shed, Death's self is sorry. 'Twas a child that so did thrive In grace and feature, As heaven and nature seemed to strive Which owned the creature. Years he numbered scarce thirteen When fates turned cruel;Yet three filled zodiacs had he been The stage's jewel;And did act, what now we moan, Old men so duly;As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one He played so truly. So, by error to his fate They all consented;But viewing him since, alas, too late! They have repented;And have sought to give new birth, In baths to steep him;But, being so much too good for earth, Heaven vows to keep him. 

EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH, L. H. 

Wouldst thou hear what man can sayIn a little? Reader, stay. Underneath this stone doth lieAs much beauty as could dieWhich in life did harbour giveTo more virtue than doth live. If, at all, she had a faultLeave it buried in this vault. One name was Elizabeth, The other let it sleep with death. Fitter, where it died, to tell, Than that it lived at all. Farewell. 

EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE

Underneath this sable hearseLies the subject of all verse, Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother:Death! ere thou hast slain another, Learned, and fair, and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee. 

TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, AND WHAT HEHATH LEFT US

To draw no envy, Shakspeare, on thy name, Am I thus ample to thy book and fame;While I confess thy writings to be such, As neither man, nor muse can praise too much. 'Tis true, and all men's suffrage. But these waysWere not the paths I meant unto thy praise;For silliest ignorance on these may light, Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;Or blind affection, which doth ne'er advanceThe truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;Or crafty malice might pretend this praise, And think to ruin, where it seemed to raise. These are, as some infamous bawd, or whore, Should praise a matron; what would hurt her more?But thou art proof against them, and, indeed, Above the ill-fortune of them, or the need. I, therefore, will begin: Soul of the age!The applause! delight! and wonder of our stage!My Shakspeare rise! I will not lodge thee byChaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lieA little further off, to make thee room:Thou art a monument without a tomb, And art alive still, while thy book doth liveAnd we have wits to read, and praise to give. That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses, I mean with great, but disproportioned Muses;For if I thought my judgment were of years, I should commit thee surely with thy peers, And tell how far thou didst our Lily outshine, Or sporting Kyd, or Marlow's mighty line. And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek, From thence to honour thee, I will not seekFor names: but call forth thundering Eschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles to us, Pacuvius, Accius, him of Cordoua dead, To live again, to hear thy buskin tread, And shake a stage; or, when thy socks were on, Leave thee alone for the comparisonOf all that insolent Greece, or haughty RomeSent forth, or since did from their ashes come. Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show, To whom all scenes of Europe homage owe. He was not of an age, but for all time!And all the Muses still were in their prime, When, like Apollo, he came forth to warmOur ears, or like a Mercury to charm!Nature herself was proud of his designs, And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines!Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, As, since, she will vouchsafe no other wit. The merry Greek, tart Aristophanes, Neat Terence, witty Plautus, now not please;But antiquated and deserted lie, As they were not of nature's family. Yet must I not give nature all; thy art, My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part. For though the poet's matter nature be, His heart doth give the fashion: and, that heWho casts to write a living line, must sweat, (Such as thine are) and strike the second heatUpon the Muse's anvil; turn the same, And himself with it, that he thinks to frame;Or for the laurel, he may gain a scorn;For a good poet's made, as well as born. And such wert thou! Look how the father's faceLives in his issue, even so the raceOf Shakspeare's mind and manners brightly shinesIn his well-turned, and true filed lines;In each of which he seems to shake a lance, As brandished at the eyes of ignorance. Sweet Swan of Avon! what a sight it wereTo see thee in our water yet appear, And make those flights upon the banks of Thames, That so did take Eliza, and our James!But stay, I see thee in the hemisphereAdvanced, and made a constellation there!Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage, Or influence, chide, or cheer the drooping stage, Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night, And despairs day, but for thy volume's light. 

TO CELIA

Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine;Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine:But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine. 

I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee, As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be. But thou thereon didst only breathe, And sent'st it back to me:Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee. 

THE TRIUMPH OF CHARIS

 See the chariot at hand here of Love, Wherein my lady rideth! Each that draws is a swan or a dove, And well the car Love guideth. As she goes, all hearts do duty Unto her beauty; And, enamoured, do wish, so they might But enjoy such a sight, That they still were to run by her side, Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride. 

 Do but look on her eyes, they do light All that Love's world compriseth! Do but look on her hair, it is bright As Love's star when it riseth! Do but mark, her forehead's smoother Than words that soothe her! And from her arched brows, such a grace Sheds itself through the face, As alone there triumphs to the lifeAll the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife. 

 Have you seen but a bright lily grow Before rude hands have touched it? Have you marked but the fall o' the snow Before the soil hath smutched it? Have you felt the wool of beaver? Or swan's down ever? Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier? Or the nard in the fire? Or have tasted the bag of the bee?O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!

IN THE PERSON OF WOMANKINDA SONG APOLOGETIC

Men, if you love us, play no more The fools or tyrants with your friends, To make us still sing o'er and o'er Our own false praises, for your ends: We have both wits and fancies too, And, if we must, let's sing of you. 

Nor do we doubt but that we can, If we would search with care and pain, Find some one good in some one man; So going thorough all your strain, We shall, at last, of parcels make One good enough for a song's sake. 

And as a cunning painter takes, In any curious piece you see, More pleasure while the thing he makes, Than when 'tis made--why so will we. And having pleased our art, we'll try To make a new, and hang that by. 

ODETo the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair, Sir LuciusCary and Sir Henry Morison. 

I. 

THE TURN. 

 Brave infant of Saguntum, clear Thy coming forth in that great year, When the prodigious Hannibal did crownHis cage, with razing your immortal town. Thou, looking then about, Ere thou wert half got out, Wise child, didst hastily return, And mad'st thy mother's womb thine urn. How summed a circle didst thou leave mankindOf deepest lore, could we the centre find!

THE COUNTER-TURN. 

 Did wiser nature draw thee back, From out the horror of that sack, Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right, Lay trampled on? the deeds of death and night, Urged, hurried forth, and hurled Upon th' affrighted world; Sword, fire, and famine, with fell fury met, And all on utmost ruin set;As, could they but life's miseries foresee, No doubt all infants would return like thee. 

THE STAND. 

For what is life, if measured by the space Not by the act?Or masked man, if valued by his face, Above his fact? Here's one outlived his peers, And told forth fourscore years; He vexed time, and busied the whole state; Troubled both foes and friends; But ever to no ends: What did this stirrer but die late?How well at twenty had he fallen or stood!For three of his fourscore he did no good. 

II. 

THE TURN

 He entered well, by virtuous parts, Got up, and thrived with honest arts;He purchased friends, and fame, and honours then, And had his noble name advanced with men: But weary of that flight, He stooped in all men's sight To sordid flatteries, acts of strife, And sunk in that dead sea of life, So deep, as he did then death's waters sup, But that the cork of title buoyed him up. 

THE COUNTER-TURN

 Alas! but Morison fell young: He never fell, --thou fall'st, my tongue. He stood a soldier to the last right end, A perfect patriot, and a noble friend; But most, a virtuous son. All offices were done By him, so ample, full, and round, In weight, in measure, number, sound, As, though his age imperfect might appear, His life was of humanity the sphere. 

THE STAND

Go now, and tell out days summed up with fears, And make them years;Produce thy mass of miseries on the stage, To swell thine age; Repeat of things a throng, To show thou hast been long, Not lived: for life doth her great actions spell. By what was done and wrought In season, and so broughtTo light: her measures are, how wellEach syllabe answered, and was formed, how fair;These make the lines of life, and that's her air!

III. 

THE TURN

 It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make men better be;Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear: A lily of a day, Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night; It was the plant, and flower of light. In small proportions we just beauties see;And in short measures, life may perfect be. 

THE COUNTER-TURN

 Call, noble Lucius, then for wine, And let thy looks with gladness shine:Accept this garland, plant it on thy headAnd think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead He leaped the present age, Possessed with holy rage To see that bright eternal day; Of which we priests and poets say, Such truths, as we expect for happy men:And there he lives with memory and Ben. 

THE STAND

Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went, Himself to rest, Or taste a part of that full joy he meant To have expressed, In this bright Asterism! Where it were friendship's schism, Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry, To separate these twi- Lights, the Dioscouri; And keep the one half from his Harry, But fate doth so alternate the designWhilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine. 

IV. 

THE TURN

 And shine as you exalted are; Two names of friendship, but one star:Of hearts the union, and those not by chanceMade, or indenture, or leased out t'advance The profits for a time. No pleasures vain did chime, Of rhymes, or riots, at your feasts, Orgies of drink, or feigned protests:But simple love of greatness and of good, That knits brave minds and manners more than blood. 

THE COUNTER-TURN

 This made you first to know the why You liked, then after, to applyThat liking; and approach so one the t'other, Till either grew a portion of the other: Each styled by his end, The copy of his friend. You lived to be the great sir-names, And titles, by which all made claimsUnto the virtue; nothing perfect done, But as a Cary, or a Morison. 

THE STAND

And such a force the fair example had, As they that sawThe good, and durst not practise it, were glad That such a law Was left yet to mankind; Where they might read and find Friendship, indeed, was written not in words; And with the heart, not pen, Of two so early men, Whose lines her rolls were, and records;Who, ere the first down bloomed upon the chin, Had sowed these fruits, and got the harvest in. 

PRAELUDIUM

And must I sing? What subject shall I choose!Or whose great name in poets' heaven use, For the more countenance to my active muse?

Hercules? alas, his bones are yet soreWith his old earthly labours t' exact moreOf his dull godhead were sin. I'll implore

Phoebus. No, tend thy cart still. Envious dayShall not give out that I have made thee stay, And foundered thy hot team, to tune my lay. 

Nor will I beg of thee, lord of the vine, To raise my spirits with thy conjuring wine, In the green circle of thy ivy twine. 

Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid, That at thy birth mad'st the poor smith afraid. Who with his axe thy father's midwife played. 

Go, cramp dull Mars, light Venus, when he snorts, Or with thy tribade trine invent new sports;Thou, nor thy looseness with my making sorts. 

Let the old boy, your son, ply his old task, Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask;His absence in my verse is all I ask. 

Hermes, the cheater, shall not mix with us, Though he would steal his sisters' Pegasus, And rifle him; or pawn his petasus. 

Nor all the ladies of the Thespian lake, Though they were crushed into one form, could makeA beauty of that merit, that should take

My muse up by commission; no, I bringMy own true fire: now my thought takes wing, And now an epode to deep ears I sing. 

EPODE

Not to know vice at all, and keep true state, Is virtue and not fate:Next to that virtue, is to know vice well, And her black spite expel. Which to effect (since no breast is so sure, Or safe, but she'll procureSome way of entrance) we must plant a guard Of thoughts to watch and wardAt th' eye and ear, the ports unto the mind, That no strange, or unkindObject arrive there, but the heart, our spy, Give knowledge instantlyTo wakeful reason, our affections' king: Who, in th' examining, Will quickly taste the treason, and commit Close, the close cause of it. 'Tis the securest policy we have, To make our sense our slave. But this true course is not embraced by many: By many! scarce by any. For either our affections do rebel, Or else the sentinel, That should ring 'larum to the heart, doth sleep: Or some great thought doth keepBack the intelligence, and falsely swears They're base and idle fearsWhereof the loyal conscience so complains. Thus, by these subtle trains, Do several passions invade the mind, And strike our reason blind:Of which usurping rank, some have thought love The first: as prone to moveMost frequent tumults, horrors, and unrests, In our inflamed breasts:But this doth from the cloud of error grow, Which thus we over-blow. The thing they here call love is blind desire, Armed with bow, shafts, and fire;Inconstant, like the sea, of whence 'tis born, Rough, swelling, like a storm;With whom who sails, rides on the surge of fear, And boils as if he wereIn a continual tempest. Now, true love No such effects doth prove;That is an essence far more gentle, fine, Pure, perfect, nay, divine;It is a golden chain let down from heaven, Whose links are bright and even;That falls like sleep on lovers, and combines The soft and sweetest mindsIn equal knots: this bears no brands, nor darts, To murder different hearts, But, in a calm and god-like unity, Preserves community. O, who is he that, in this peace, enjoys Th' elixir of all joys?A form more fresh than are the Eden bowers, And lasting as her flowers;Richer than Time and, as Times's virtue, rare; Sober as saddest care;A fixed thought, an eye untaught to glance; Who, blest with such high chance, Would, at suggestion of a steep desire, Cast himself from the spireOf all his happiness? But soft: I hear Some vicious fool draw near, That cries, we dream, and swears there's no such thing, As this chaste love we sing. Peace, Luxury! thou art like one of those Who, being at sea, suppose, Because they move, the continent doth so: No, Vice, we let thee knowThough thy wild thoughts with sparrows' wings do fly, Turtles can chastely die;And yet (in this t' express ourselves more clear) We do not number hereSuch spirits as are only continent, Because lust's means are spent;Or those who doubt the common mouth of fame, And for their place and name, Cannot so safely sin: their chastity Is mere necessity;Nor mean we those whom vows and conscience Have filled with abstinence:Though we acknowledge who can so abstain, Makes a most blessed gain;He that for love of goodness hateth ill, Is more crown-worthy stillThan he, which for sin's penalty forbears: His heart sins, though he fears. But we propose a person like our Dove, Graced with a Phoenix' love;A beauty of that clear and sparkling light, Would make a day of night, And turn the blackest sorrows to bright joys: Whose odorous breath destroysAll taste of bitterness, and makes the air As sweet as she is fair. A body so harmoniously composed, As if nature disclosedAll her best symmetry in that one feature! O, so divine a creatureWho could be false to? chiefly, when he knows How only she bestowsThe wealthy treasure of her love on him; Making his fortunes swimIn the full flood of her admired perfection? What savage, brute affection, Would not be fearful to offend a dame Of this excelling frame?Much more a noble, and right generous mind, To virtuous moods inclined, That knows the weight of guilt: he will refrain From thoughts of such a strain, And to his sense object this sentence ever, "Man may securely sin, but safely never. "

AN ELEGY

Though beauty be the mark of praise, And yours, of whom I sing, be such As not the world can praise too much, Yet is 't your virtue now I raise. 

A virtue, like allay, so gone Throughout your form, as though that move, And draw, and conquer all men's love, This subjects you to love of one, Wherein you triumph yet: because 'Tis of yourself, and that you use The noblest freedom, not to chooseAgainst or faith, or honour's laws. 

But who could less expect from you, In whom alone Love lives again? By whom he is restored to men;And kept, and bred, and brought up true?

His falling temples you have reared, The withered garlands ta'en away; His altars kept from the decayThat envy wished, and nature feared;

And on them burns so chaste a flame, With so much loyalty's expense, As Love, t' acquit such excellence, Is gone himself into your name. 

And you are he: the deity To whom all lovers are designed, That would their better objects find;Among which faithful troop am I;

Who, as an offering at your shrine, Have sung this hymn, and here entreat One spark of your diviner heatTo light upon a love of mine;

Which, if it kindle not, but scant Appear, and that to shortest view, Yet give me leave t' adore in youWhat I, in her, am grieved to want. 

Footnotes:

{11} "So live with yourself that you do not know how ill yow mindis furnished. "

{12} [Greek text]

{14} "A Puritan is a Heretical Hypocrite, in whom the conceit ofhis own perspicacity, by which he seems to himself to have observedcertain errors in a few Church dogmas, has disturbed the balance ofhis mind, so that, excited vehemently by a sacred fury, he fightsfrenzied against civil authority, in the belief that he so paysobedience to God. "

{17a} Night gives counsel. 

{17b} Plutarch in Life of Alexander. "Let it not be, O King, thatyou know these things better than I. "

{19a} "They were not our lords, but our leaders. "

{19b} "Much of it is left also for those who shall be hereafter. "

{19c} "No art is discovered at once and absolutely. "

{22} With a great belly. Comes de Schortenhien. 

{23} "In all things I have a better wit and courage than goodfortune. "

{24a} "The rich soil exhausts; but labour itself is an aid. "

{24b} "And the gesticulation is vile. "

{25a} "An end is to be looked for in every man, an animal mostprompt to change. "

{25b} Arts are not shared among heirs. 

{31a} "More loquacious than eloquent; words enough, but littlewisdom. "--Sallust. 

{31b} Repeated in the following Latin. "The best treasure is inthat man's tongue, and he has mighty thanks, who metes out eachthing in a few words. "--Hesiod. 

{31c} Vid. Zeuxidis pict. Serm. Ad Megabizum. --Plutarch. 

{32a} "While the unlearned is silent he may be accounted wise, forhe has covered by his silence the diseases of his mind. "

{32b} Taciturnity. 

{33a} "Hold your tongue above all things, after the example of thegods. "--See Apuleius. 

{33b} "Press down the lip with the finger. "--Juvenal. 

{33c} Plautus. 

{33d} Trinummus, Act 2, Scen. 4. 

{34a} "It was the lodging of calamity. "--Mart. Lib. 1, ep. 85. 

{41} ["Ficta omnia celeriter tanquam flosculi decidunt, necsimulatum potest quidquam esse diuturnum. "--Cicero. ]

{44a} Let a Punic sponge go with the book. --Mart. 1. Iv. Epig. 10. 

{47a} He had to be repressed. 

{49a} A wit-stand. 

{49b} Martial. Lib. Xi. Epig. 91. That fall over the rough waysand high rocks. 

{59a} Sir Thomas More. Sir Thomas Wiat. Henry Earl of Surrey. Sir Thomas Chaloner. Sir Thomas Smith. Sir Thomas Eliot. BishopGardiner. Sir Nicolas Bacon, L. K. Sir Philip Sidney. MasterRichard Hooker. Robert Earl of Essex. Sir Walter Raleigh. SirHenry Savile. Sir Edwin Sandys. Sir Thomas Egerton, L. C. SirFrancis Bacon, L. C. 

{62a} "Which will secure a long age for the known writer. "--Horat. De Art. Poetica. 

{66a} They have poison for their food, even for their dainty. 

{74a} Haud infima ars in principe, ubi lenitas, ubi severitas--pluspolleat in commune bonum callere. 

{74b} i. E. , Machiavell. 

{81a} "Censure pardons the crows and vexes the doves. "--Juvenal. 

{81b} "Does not spread his net for the hawk or the kite. "--Plautus. 

{93} Parrhasius. Eupompus. Socrates. Parrhasius. Clito. Polygnotus. Aglaophon. Zeuxis. Parrhasius. Raphael de Urbino. Mich. Angelo Buonarotti. Titian. Antony de Correg. Sebast. DeVenet. Julio Romano. Andrea Sartorio. 

{94} Plin. Lib. 35. C. 2, 5, 6, and 7. Vitruv. Lib. 8 and 7. 

{95} Horat. In "Arte Poet. "

{106a} Livy, Sallust, Sidney, Donne, Gower, Chaucer, Spenser, Virgil, Ennius, Homer, Quintilian, Plautus, Terence. 

{110a} The interpreter of gods and men. 

{111a} Julius Caesar. Of words, see Hor. "De Art. Poet. ;" Quintil. 1. 8, "Ludov. Vives, " pp. 6 and 7. 

{111b} A prudent man conveys nothing rashly. 

{114a} That jolt as they fall over the rough places and the rocks. 

{116a} Directness enlightens, obliquity and circumlocution darken. 

{117a} Ocean trembles as if indignant that you quit the land. 

{117b} You might believe that the uprooted Cyclades were floatingin. 

{118a} Those armies of the people of Rome that might break throughthe heavens. --Caesar. Comment. Circa fin. 

{124a} No one can speak rightly unless he apprehends wisely. 

{133a} "Where the discussion of faults is general, no one isinjured. "

{133b} "Gnaw tender little ears with biting truth--Per Sat. 1. 

{133c} "The wish for remedy is always truer than the hope. --Livius. 

{136a} "AEneas dedicates these arms concerning the conqueringGreeks. "--Virg. AEn. Lib. 3. 

{136b} "You buy everything, Castor; the time will come when youwill sell everything. "--Martial, lib. 8, epig. 19. 

{136c} "Cinna wishes to seem poor, and is poor. "

{136d} "Which is evident in every first song. "

{139a} "There is a god within us, and when he is stirred we growwarm; that spirit comes from heavenly realms. "

{146a} "If it were allowable for immortals to weep for mortals, theMuses would weep for the poet Naevius; since he is handed to thechamber of Orcus, they have forgotten how to speak Latin at Rome. 

{148a} "No one has judged poets less happily than he who wroteabout them. "--Senec. De Brev. Vit, cap. 13, et epist. 88. 

{149a} Heins, de Sat. 265. 

{149b} Pag. 267. 

{149c} Pag. 270. 271. 

{149d} Pag. 273, et seq. 

{149e} Pag. In comm. 153, et seq. 

{160a} "And which jolt as they fall over the rough uneven road andhigh rocks. "--Martial, lib. Xi. Epig. 91.