_Rerum et sententiarum quasi Ὕλη dicta a multiplici materia et varietate
in iis contentá_. _Quemadmodùm enim vulgò solemus infinitam arborum
nascentium indiscriminatim multitudinem Sylvam dicere: ità etiam libros
suos in quibus variæ et diversæ materiæ opuscula temere congesta erant_,
Sylvas _appellabant antiqui_: Timber-trees.
TIMBER;
OR,
DISCOVERIES MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER,
AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT OF HIS DAILY READINGS,
OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO HIS PECULIAR
NOTION OF THE TIMES.
_Tecum habita_, _ut nôris quam sit tibi curta supellex_ {11}
PERS. Sat. 4.
_Fortuna_.—Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived
not. I therefore have counselled my friends never to trust to her fairer
side, though she seemed to make peace with them; but to place all things
she gave them, so as she might ask them again without their trouble, she
might take them from them, not pull them: to keep always a distance
between her and themselves. He knows not his own strength that hath not
met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can
happen to a good man. Contraries are not mixed. Yet that which happens
to any man may to every man. But it is in his reason, what he accounts
it and will make it.
_Casus_.—Change into extremity is very frequent and easy. As when a
beggar suddenly grows rich, he commonly becomes a prodigal; for, to
obscure his former obscurity, he puts on riot and excess.
_Consilia_.—No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel
sometimes; and no man is so wise but may easily err, if he will take no
others’ counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own
counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught
by himself {12} had a fool to his master.
_Fama_.—A Fame that is wounded to the world would be better cured by
another’s apology than its own: for few can apply medicines well
themselves. Besides, the man that is once hated, both his good and his
evil deeds oppress him. He is not easily emergent.
_Negotia_.—In great affairs it is a work of difficulty to please all.
And ofttimes we lose the occasions of carrying a business well and
thoroughly by our too much haste. For passions are spiritual rebels, and
raise sedition against the understanding.
_Amor patriæ_.—There is a necessity all men should love their country: he
that professeth the contrary may be delighted with his words, but his
heart is there.
_Ingenia_.—Natures that are hardened to evil you shall sooner break than
make straight; they are like poles that are crooked and dry, there is no
attempting them.
_Applausus_.—We praise the things we hear with much more willingness than
those we see, because we envy the present and reverence the past;
thinking ourselves instructed by the one, and overlaid by the other.
_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 than truth. There
is much more holds us than presseth us. An ill fact is one thing, an ill
fortune is another; yet both oftentimes sway us alike, by the error of
our thinking.
_Impostura_.—Many men believe not themselves what they would persuade
others; and less do the things which they would impose on others; but
least of all know what they themselves most confidently boast. Only they
set the sign of the cross over their outer doors, and sacrifice to their
gut and their groin in their inner closets.
_Jactura vitæ_.—What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the
better part of life in! in scattering compliments, tendering visits,
gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little
winter-love in a dark corner.
Hypocrita.—_Puritanus Hypocrita est Hæreticus_, _quem opinio propriæ
perspicaciæ_, _quâ sibi videtur_, _cum paucis in Ecclesiâ dogmatibus
errores quosdam animadvertisse_, _de statu mentis deturbavit: unde sacro
furore percitus_, _phrenetice pugnat contra magistratus_, _sic ratus
obedientiam præstare Deo_. {14}
_Mutua auxilia_.—Learning needs rest: sovereignty gives it. Sovereignty
needs counsel: learning affords it. There is such a consociation of
offices between the prince and whom his favour breeds, that they may help
to sustain his power as he their knowledge. It is the greatest part of
his liberality, his favour; and from whom doth he hear discipline more
willingly, or the arts discoursed more gladly, than from those whom his
own bounty and benefits have made able and faithful?
_Cognit. univers_.—In being able to counsel others, a man must be
furnished with a universal store in himself, to the knowledge of all
nature—that is, the matter and seed-plot: there are the seats of all
argument and invention. But especially you must be cunning in the nature
of man: there is the variety of things which are as the elements and
letters, which his art and wisdom must rank and order to the present
occasion. For we see not all letters in single words, nor all places in
particular discourses. That cause seldom happens wherein a man will use
all arguments.
_Consiliarii adjunct_. _Probitas_, _Sapientia_.—The two chief things
that give a man reputation in counsel are the opinion of his honesty and
the opinion of his wisdom: the authority of those two will persuade when
the same counsels uttered by other persons less qualified are of no
efficacy or working.
_Vita recta_.—Wisdom without honesty is mere craft and cozenage. And
therefore the reputation of honesty must first be gotten, which cannot be
but by living well. A good life is a main argument.
_Obsequentia_.—_Humanitas_.—_Solicitudo_.—Next a good life, to beget love
in the persons we counsel, by dissembling our knowledge of ability in
ourselves, and avoiding all suspicion of arrogance, ascribing all to
their instruction, as an ambassador to his master, or a subject to his
sovereign; seasoning all with humanity and sweetness, only expressing
care and solicitude. And not to counsel rashly, or on the sudden, but
with advice and meditation. (_Dat nox consilium_. {17a}) For many
foolish things fall from wise men, if they speak in haste or be
extemporal. It therefore behoves the giver of counsel to be circumspect;
especially to beware of those with whom he is not thoroughly acquainted,
lest any spice of rashness, folly, or self-love appear, which will be
marked by new persons and men of experience in affairs.
_Modestia_.—_Parrhesia_.—And to the prince, or his superior, to behave
himself modestly and with respect. Yet free from flattery or empire.
Not with insolence or precept; but as the prince were already furnished
with the parts he should have, especially in affairs of state. For in
other things they will more easily suffer themselves to be taught or
reprehended: they will not willingly contend, but hear, with Alexander,
the answer the musician gave him: _Absit_, _o rex_, _ut tu meliùs hæc
scias_, _quàm ego_. {17b}
_Perspicuitas_.—_Elegantia_.—A man should so deliver himself to the
nature of the subject whereof he speaks, that his hearer may take
knowledge of his discipline with some delight; and so apparel fair and
good matter, that the studious of elegancy be not defrauded; redeem arts
from their rough and braky seats, where they lay hid and overgrown with
thorns, to a pure, open, and flowery light, where they may take the eye
and be taken by the hand.
_Natura non effæta_.—I cannot think Nature is so spent and decayed that
she can bring forth nothing worth her former years. She is always the
same, like herself; and when she collects her strength is abler still.
Men are decayed, and studies: she is not.
_Non nimiùm credendum antiquitati_.—I know nothing can conduce more to
letters than to examine the writings of the ancients, and not to rest in
their sole authority, or take all upon trust from them, provided the
plagues of judging and pronouncing against them be away; such as are
envy, bitterness, precipitation, impudence, and scurrilous scoffing. For
to all the observations of the ancients we have our own experience, which
if we will use and apply, we have better means to pronounce. It is true
they opened the gates, and made the way that went before us, but as
guides, not commanders: _Non domini nostri_, _sed duces fuêre_. {19a}
Truth lies open to all; it is no man’s several. _Patet omnibus veritas_;
_nondum est occupata_. _Multum ex illâ_, _etiam futuris relicta est_.
{19b}
_Dissentire licet_, _sed cum ratione_.—If in some things I dissent from
others, whose wit, industry, diligence, and judgment, I look up at and
admire, let me not therefore hear presently of ingratitude and rashness.
For I thank those that have taught me, and will ever; but yet dare not
think the scope of their labour and inquiry was to envy their posterity
what they also could add and find out.
_Non mihi credendum sed veritati_.—If I err, pardon me: _Nulla ars simul
et inventa est et absoluta_. {19c} I do not desire to be equal to those
that went before; but to have my reason examined with theirs, and so much
faith to be given them, or me, as those shall evict. I am neither author
nor fautor of any sect. I will have no man addict himself to me; but if
I have anything right, defend it as Truth’s, not mine, save as it
conduceth to a common good. It profits not me to have any man fence or
fight for me, to flourish, or take my side. Stand for truth, and ’tis
enough.
_Scientiæ liberales_.—Arts that respect the mind were ever reputed nobler
than those that serve the body, though we less can be without them, as
tillage, spinning, weaving, building, &c., without which we could scarce
sustain life a day. But these were the works of every hand; the other of
the brain only, and those the most generous and exalted wits and spirits,
that cannot rest or acquiesce. The mind of man is still fed with labour:
_Opere pascitur_.
_Non vulgi sunt_.—There is a more secret cause, and the power of liberal
studies lies more hid than that it can be wrought out by profane wits.
It is not every man’s way to hit. There are men, I confess, that set the
carat and value upon things as they love them; but science is not every
man’s mistress. It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place,
and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.
_Honesta ambitio_.—If divers men seek fame or honour by divers ways, so
both be honest, neither is to be blamed; but they that seek immortality
are not only worthy of love, but of praise.
_Maritus improbus_.—He hath a delicate wife, a fair fortune, a family to
go to and be welcome; yet he had rather be drunk with mine host and the
fiddlers of such a town, than go home.
_Afflictio pia magistra_.—Affliction teacheth a wicked person some time
to pray: prosperity never.
_Deploratis facilis descensus Averni_.—_The devil take all_.—Many might
go to heaven with half the labour they go to hell, if they would venture
their industry the right way; but “The devil take all!” quoth he that was
choked in the mill-dam, with his four last words in his mouth.
_Ægidius cursu superat_.—A cripple in the way out-travels a footman or a
post out of the way.
_Prodigo nummi nauci_.—Bags of money to a prodigal person are the same
that cherry-stones are with some boys, and so thrown away.
_Munda et sordida_.—A woman, the more curious she is about her face is
commonly the more careless about her house.
_Debitum deploratum_.—Of this spilt water there is a little to be
gathered up: it is a desperate debt.
_Latro sesquipedalis_.—The thief {22} that had a longing at the gallows
to commit one robbery more before he was hanged.
And like the German lord, when he went out of Newgate into the cart, took
order to have his arms set up in his last herborough: said was he taken
and committed upon suspicion of treason, no witness appearing against
him; but the judges entertained him most civilly, discoursed with him,
offered him the courtesy of the rack; but he confessed, &c.
_Calumniæ fructus_.—I am beholden to calumny, that she hath so
endeavoured and taken pains to belie me. It shall make me set a surer
guard on myself, and keep a better watch upon my actions.
_Impertinens_.—A tedious person is one a man would leap a steeple from,
gallop down any steep lull to avoid him; forsake his meat, sleep, nature
itself, with all her benefits, to shun him. A mere impertinent; one that
touched neither heaven nor earth in his discourse. He opened an entry
into a fair room, but shut it again presently. I spoke to him of garlic,
he answered asparagus; consulted him of marriage, he tells me of hanging,
as if they went by one and the same destiny.
_Bellum scribentium_.—What a sight it is to see writers committed
together by the ears for ceremonies, syllables, points, colons, commas,
hyphens, and the like, fighting as for their fires and their altars; and
angry that none are frighted at their noises and loud brayings under
their asses’ skins.
There is hope of getting a fortune without digging in these quarries.
_Sed meliore (in omne) ingenio animoque quàm fortunâ_, _sum usus_. {23}
“Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor.” {24a}
_Differentia inter doctos et sciolos_.—Wits made out their several
expeditions then for the discovery of truth, to find out great and
profitable knowledges; had their several instruments for the disquisition
of arts. Now there are certain scioli or smatterers that are busy in the
skirts and outsides of learning, and have scarce anything of solid
literature to commend them. They may have some edging or trimming of a
scholar, a welt or so; but it is no more.
_Impostorum fucus_.—Imposture is a specious thing, yet never worse than
when it feigns to be best, and to none discovered sooner than the
simplest. For truth and goodness are plain and open; but imposture is
ever ashamed of the light.
_Icunculorum motio_.—A puppet-play must be shadowed and seen in the dark;
for draw the curtain, _et sordet gesticulatio_. {24b}
_Principes et administri_.—There is a great difference in the
understanding of some princes, as in the quality of their ministers about
them. Some would dress their masters in gold, pearl, and all true jewels
of majesty; others furnish them with feathers, bells, and ribands, and
are therefore esteemed the fitter servants. But they are ever good men
that must make good the times; if the men be naught, the times will be
such. _Finis exspectandus est in unoquoque hominum_; _animali ad
mutationem promptissmo_. {25a}
_Scitum Hispanicum_.—It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, _Artes
inter hæredes non dividi_. {25b} Yet these have inherited their fathers’
lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man that affects a
triumph in any glorious study; but to triumph in a lie, and a lie
themselves have forged, is frontless. Folly often goes beyond her
bounds; but Impudence knows none.
_Non nova res livor_.—Envy is no new thing, nor was it born only in our
times. The ages past have brought it forth, and the coming ages will.
So long as there are men fit for it, _quorum odium virtute relictâ
placet_, it will never be wanting. It is a barbarous envy, to take from
those men’s virtues which, because thou canst not arrive at, thou
impotently despairest to imitate. Is it a crime in me that I know that
which others had not yet known but from me? or that I am the author of
many things which never would have come in thy thought but that I taught
them? It is new but a foolish way you have found out, that whom you
cannot equal or come near in doing, you would destroy or ruin with evil
speaking; as if you had bound both your wits and natures ’prentices to
slander, and then came forth the best artificers when you could form the
foulest calumnies.
_Nil gratius protervo lib_.—Indeed nothing is of more credit or request
now than a petulant paper, or scoffing verses; and it is but convenient
to the times and manners we live with, to have then the worst writings
and studies flourish when the best begin to be despised. Ill arts begin
where good end.
_Jam literæ sordent_.—_Pastus hodiern. ingen_.—The time was when men
would learn and study good things, not envy those that had them. Then
men were had in price for learning; now letters only make men vile. He
is upbraidingly called a poet, as if it were a contemptible nick-name:
but the professors, indeed, have made the learning cheap—railing and
tinkling rhymers, whose writings the vulgar more greedily read, as being
taken with the scurrility and petulancy of such wits. He shall not have
a reader now unless he jeer and lie. It is the food of men’s natures;
the diet of the times; gallants cannot sleep else. The writer must lie
and the gentle reader rests happy to hear the worthiest works
misinterpreted, the clearest actions obscured, the innocentest life
traduced: and in such a licence of lying, a field so fruitful of
slanders, how can there be matter wanting to his laughter? Hence comes
the epidemical infection; for how can they escape the contagion of the
writings, whom the virulency of the calumnies hath not staved off from
reading?
_Sed seculi morbus_.—Nothing doth more invite a greedy reader than an
unlooked-for subject. And what more unlooked-for than to see a person of
an unblamed life made ridiculous or odious by the artifice of lying? But
it is the disease of the age; and no wonder if the world, growing old,
begin to be infirm: old age itself is a disease. It is long since the
sick world began to dote and talk idly: would she had but doted still!
but her dotage is now broke forth into a madness, and become a mere
frenzy.
_Alastoris malitia_.—This Alastor, who hath left nothing unsearched or
unassailed by his impudent and licentious lying in his aguish writings
(for he was in his cold quaking fit all the while), what hath he done
more than a troublesome base cur? barked and made a noise afar off; had a
fool or two to spit in his mouth, and cherish him with a musty bone? But
they are rather enemies of my fame than me, these barkers.
_Mali Choragi fuere_.—It is an art to have so much judgment as to apparel
a lie well, to give it a good dressing; that though the nakedness would
show deformed and odious, the suiting of it might draw their readers.
Some love any strumpet, be she never so shop-like or meretricious, in
good clothes. But these, nature could not have formed them better to
destroy their own testimony and overthrow their calumny.
_Hear-say news_.—That an elephant, in 1630, came hither ambassador from
the Great Mogul, who could both write and read, and was every day allowed
twelve cast of bread, twenty quarts of Canary sack, besides nuts and
almonds the citizens’ wives sent him. That he had a Spanish boy to his
interpreter, and his chief negociation was to confer or practise with
Archy, the principal fool of state, about stealing hence Windsor Castle
and carrying it away on his back if he can.
_Lingua sapientis_, _potius quâm loquentis_.—A wise tongue should not be
licentious and wandering; but moved and, as it were, governed with
certain reins from the heart and bottom of the breast: and it was
excellently said of that philosopher, that there was a wall or parapet of
teeth set in our mouth, to restrain the petulancy of our words; that the
rashness of talking should not only be retarded by the guard and watch of
our heart, but be fenced in and defended by certain strengths placed in
the mouth itself, and within the lips. But you shall see some so abound
with words, without any seasoning or taste of matter, in so profound a
security, as while they are speaking, for the most part they confess to
speak they know not what.
Of the two (if either were to be wished) I would rather have a plain
downright wisdom, than a foolish and affected eloquence. For what is so
furious and Bedlam like as a vain sound of chosen and excellent words,
without any subject of sentence or science mixed?
_Optanda_.—_Thersites Homeri_.—Whom the disease of talking still once
possesseth, he can never hold his peace. Nay, rather than he will not
discourse he will hire men to hear him. And so heard, not hearkened
unto, he comes off most times like a mountebank, that when he hath
praised his medicines, finds none will take them, or trust him. He is
like Homer’s _Thersites_.
Άμετροεπης, ακριτόμυθος; speaking without judgement or measure.
“Loquax magis, quàm facundus,
Satis loquentiæ, sapientiæ parum.{31a}
Γλωσσης τοι θησαυρος εν ανθρωποισιν αριστος
φειδωλης, πλειστη δε χαρις κατα μετρον ιουσης. {31b}
Optimus est homini linguæ thesaurus, et ingens
Gratia, quæ parcis mensurat singula verbis.”
_Homeri Ulysses_.—_Demacatus Plutarchi_.—Ulysses, in Homer, is made a
long-thinking man before he speaks; and Epaminondas is celebrated by
Pindar to be a man that, though he knew much, yet he spoke but little.
Demacatus, when on the bench he was long silent and said nothing, one
asking him if it were folly in him, or want of language, he answered, “A
fool could never hold his peace.” {31c} For too much talking is ever the
index of a fool.
“Dum tacet indoctus, poterit cordatus haberi;
Is morbos animi namque tacendo tegit.” {32a}
Nor is that worthy speech of Zeno the philosopher to be passed over with
the note of ignorance; who being invited to a feast in Athens, where a
great prince’s ambassadors were entertained, and was the only person that
said nothing at the table; one of them with courtesy asked him, “What
shall we return from thee, Zeno, to the prince our master, if he asks us
of thee?” “Nothing,” he replied, “more but that you found an old man in
Athens that knew to be silent amongst his cups.” It was near a miracle
to see an old man silent, since talking is the disease of age; but
amongst cups makes it fully a wonder.
_Argute dictum_.—It was wittily said upon one that was taken for a great
and grave man so long as he held his peace, “This man might have been a
counsellor of state, till he spoke; but having spoken, not the beadle of
the ward.” Εχεμυθια. {32b} Pytag. quàm laudabilis! γλωσσης προ των
αλλων κρατει, θεοις επομενος. Linguam cohibe, præ aliis omnibus, ad
deorum exemplum. {33a} Digito compesce labellum. {33b}
_Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes_.—There is almost no man but he
sees clearlier and sharper the vices in a speaker, than the virtues. And
there are many, that with more ease will find fault with what is spoken
foolishly than can give allowance to that wherein you are wise silently.
The treasure of a fool is always in his tongue, said the witty comic
poet; {33c} and it appears not in anything more than in that nation,
whereof one, when he had got the inheritance of an unlucky old grange,
would needs sell it; {33d} and to draw buyers proclaimed the virtues of
it. Nothing ever thrived on it, saith he. No owner of it ever died in
his bed; some hung, some drowned themselves; some were banished, some
starved; the trees were all blasted; the swine died of the measles, the
cattle of the murrain, the sheep of the rot; they that stood were ragged,
bare, and bald as your hand; nothing was ever reared there, not a
duckling, or a goose. _Hospitium fuerat calamitatis_. {34a} Was not
this man like to sell it?
_Vulgi expectatio_.—Expectation of the vulgar is more drawn and held with
newness than goodness; we see it in fencers, in players, in poets, in
preachers, in all where fame promiseth anything; so it be new, though
never so naught and depraved, they run to it, and are taken. Which
shews, that the only decay or hurt of the best men’s reputation with the
people is, their wits have out-lived the people’s palates. They have
been too much or too long a feast.
_Claritas patriæ_.—Greatness of name in the father oft-times helps not
forth, but overwhelms the son; they stand too near one another. The
shadow kills the growth: so much, that we see the grandchild come more
and oftener to be heir of the first, than doth the second: he dies
between; the possession is the third’s.
_Eloquentia_.—Eloquence is a great and diverse thing: nor did she yet
ever favour any man so much as to become wholly his. He is happy that
can arrive to any degree of her grace. Yet there are who prove
themselves masters of her, and absolute lords; but I believe they may
mistake their evidence: for it is one thing to be eloquent in the
schools, or in the hall; another at the bar, or in the pulpit. There is
a difference between mooting and pleading; between fencing and fighting.
To make arguments in my study, and confute them, is easy; where I answer
myself, not an adversary. So I can see whole volumes dispatched by the
umbratical doctors on all sides: but draw these forth into the just
lists: let them appear _sub dio_, and they are changed with the place,
like bodies bred in the shade; they cannot suffer the sun or a shower,
nor bear the open air; they scarce can find themselves, that they were
wont to domineer so among their auditors: but indeed I would no more
choose a rhetorician for reigning in a school, than I would a pilot for
rowing in a pond.
_Amor et odium_.—Love that is ignorant, and hatred, have almost the same
ends: many foolish lovers wish the same to their friends, which their
enemies would: as to wish a friend banished, that they might accompany
him in exile; or some great want, that they might relieve him; or a
disease, that they might sit by him. They make a causeway to their
country by injury, as if it were not honester to do nothing than to seek
a way to do good by a mischief.
_Injuria_.—Injuries do not extinguish courtesies: they only suffer them
not to appear fair. For a man that doth me an injury after a courtesy,
takes not away that courtesy, but defaces it: as he that writes other
verses upon my verses, takes not away the first letters, but hides them.
_Beneficia_.—Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and that
friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our
boats; or winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or meats,
that they be nourishing. For these are what they are necessarily.
Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some
men may receive a courtesy and not know it; but never any man received it
from him that knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by
accidents; but they were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of
an ague by falling into a water; another whipped out of a fever; but no
man would ever use these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the
event, that distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may
offend the judge with his pride and impertinences, and I win my cause;
but he meant it not to me as a courtesy. I scaped pirates by being
shipwrecked; was the wreck a benefit therefore? No; the doing of
courtesies aright is the mixing of the respects for his own sake and for
mine. He that doeth them merely for his own sake is like one that feeds
his cattle to sell them; he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield.
_Valor rerum_.—The price of many things is far above what they are bought
and sold for. Life and health, which are both inestimable, we have of
the physician; as learning and knowledge, the true tillage of the mind,
from our schoolmasters. But the fees of the one or the salary of the
other never answer the value of what we received, but served to gratify
their labours.
_Memoria_.—Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate
and frail; it is the first of our faculties that age invades. Seneca,
the father, the rhetorician, confesseth of himself he had a miraculous
one, not only to receive but to hold. I myself could, in my youth, have
repeated all that ever I had made, and so continued till I was past
forty; since, it is much decayed in me. Yet I can repeat whole books
that I have read, and poems of some selected friends which I have liked
to charge my memory with. It was wont to be faithful to me; but shaken
with age now, and sloth, which weakens the strongest abilities, it may
perform somewhat, but cannot promise much. By exercise it is to be made
better and serviceable. Whatsoever I pawned with it while I was young
and a boy, it offers me readily, and without stops; but what I trust to
it now, or have done of later years, it lays up more negligently, and
oftentimes loses; so that I receive mine own (though frequently called
for) as if it were new and borrowed. Nor do I always find presently from
it what I seek; but while I am doing another thing, that I laboured for
will come; and what I sought with trouble will offer itself when I am
quiet. Now, in some men I have found it as happy as Nature, who,
whatsoever they read or pen, they can say without book presently, as if
they did then write in their mind. And it is more a wonder in such as
have a swift style, for their memories are commonly slowest; such as
torture their writings, and go into council for every word, must needs
fix somewhat, and make it their own at last, though but through their own
vexation.
_Comit. suffragia_.—Suffrages in Parliament are numbered, not weighed;
nor can it be otherwise in those public councils where nothing is so
unequal as the equality; for there, how odd soever men’s brains or
wisdoms are, their power is always even and the same.
_Stare à partibus_.—Some actions, be they never so beautiful and
generous, are often obscured by base and vile misconstructions, either
out of envy or ill-nature, that judgeth of others as of itself. Nay, the
times are so wholly grown to be either partial or malicious, that if he
be a friend all sits well about him, his very vices shall be virtues; if
an enemy, or of the contrary faction, nothing is good or tolerable in
him; insomuch that we care not to discredit and shame our judgments to
soothe our passions.
_Deus in creaturis_.—Man is read in his face; God in His creatures; not
as the philosopher, the creature of glory, reads him; but as the divine,
the servant of humility; yet even he must take care not to be too
curious. For to utter truth of God but as he thinks only, may be
dangerous, who is best known by our not knowing. Some things of Him, so
much as He hath revealed or commanded, it is not only lawful but
necessary for us to know; for therein our ignorance was the first cause
of our wickedness.
_Veritas proprium hominis_.—Truth is man’s proper good, and the only
immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christian or
ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it; no statesman or patriot should.
For without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, or what
you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says he hates him worse than
hell-mouth that utters one thing with his tongue and keeps another in his
breast. Which high expression was grounded on divine reason; for a lying
mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with the contagion it venteth.
Beside, nothing is lasting that is feigned; it will have another face
than it had, ere long. {41} As Euripides saith, “No lie ever grows old.”
_Nullum vitium sine patrocinio_.—It is strange there should be no vice
without its patronage, that when we have no other excuse we will say, we
love it, we cannot forsake it. As if that made it not more a fault. We
cannot, because we think we cannot, and we love it because we will defend
it. We will rather excuse it than be rid of it. That we cannot is
pretended; but that we will not is the true reason. How many have I
known that would not have their vices hid? nay, and, to be noted, live
like Antipodes to others in the same city? never see the sun rise or set
in so many years, but be as they were watching a corpse by torch-light;
would not sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity; they
would do it new, or contrary, for the infamy; they were ambitious of
living backward; and at last arrived at that, as they would love nothing
but the vices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform
these natures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may say
they desired to leave it, but do not trust them; and they may think they
desire it, but they may lie for all that; they are a little angry with
their follies now and then; marry, they come into grace with them again
quickly. They will confess they are offended with their manner of living
like enough; who is not? When they can put me in security that they are
more than offended, that they hate it, then I will hearken to them, and
perhaps believe them; but many now-a-days love and hate their ill
together.
_De vere argutis_.—I do hear them say often some men are not witty,
because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more
foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore
be all eye or nose! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin,
lip, or any part else are as necessary and natural in the place. But now
nothing is good that is natural; right and natural language seems to have
least of the wit in it; that which is writhed and tortured is counted the
more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no
face were fair that were not powdered or painted! no beauty to be had but
in wresting and writhing our own tongue! Nothing is fashionable till it
be deformed; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be affected
and preposterous as our gallants’ clothes, sweet-bags, and
night-dressings, in which you would think our men lay in, like ladies, it
is so curious.
_Censura de poetis_.—Nothing in our age, I have observed, is more
preposterous than the running judgments upon poetry and poets; when we
shall hear those things commended and cried up for the best writings
which a man would scarce vouchsafe to wrap any wholesome drug in; he
would never light his tobacco with them. And those men almost named for
miracles, who yet are so vile that if a man should go about to examine
and correct them, he must make all they have done but one blot. Their
good is so entangled with their bad as forcibly one must draw on the
other’s death with it. A sponge dipped in ink will do all:—
“—Comitetur Punica librum
Spongia.—” {44a}
Et paulò post,
“Non possunt . . . multæ . . . lituræ
. . . una litura potest.”
_Cestius_—_Cicero_—_Heath_—_Taylor_—_Spenser_.—Yet their vices have not
hurt them; nay, a great many they have profited, for they have been loved
for nothing else. And this false opinion grows strong against the best
men, if once it take root with the ignorant. Cestius, in his time, was
preferred to Cicero, so far as the ignorant durst. They learned him
without book, and had him often in their mouths; but a man cannot imagine
that thing so foolish or rude but will find and enjoy an admirer; at
least a reader or spectator. The puppets are seen now in despite of the
players; Heath’s epigrams and the Sculler’s poems have their applause.
There are never wanting that dare prefer the worst preachers, the worst
pleaders, the worst poets; not that the better have left to write or
speak better, but that they that hear them judge worse; _Non illi pejus
dicunt_, _sed hi corruptius judicant_. Nay, if it were put to the
question of the water-rhymer’s works, against Spenser’s, I doubt not but
they would find more suffrages; because the most favour common vices, out
of a prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments and like that
which is naught.
Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mistress to such as
have wholly addicted themselves to her, or given their names up to her
family. They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then
tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of
their own professions (both the law and the gospel) beyond all they could
have hoped or done for themselves without her favour. Wherein she doth
emulate the judicious but preposterous bounty of the time’s grandees, who
accumulate all they can upon the parasite or fresh-man in their
friendship; but think an old client or honest servant bound by his place
to write and starve.
Indeed, the multitude commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers,
who if they come in robustiously and put for it with a deal of violence
are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness
is a cause of their disgrace, and a slight touch of their adversary gives
all that boisterous force the foil. But in these things the unskilful
are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things
greater than polished, and scattered more numerous than composed; nor
think this only to be true in the sordid multitude, but the neater sort
of our gallants; for all are the multitude, only they differ in clothes,
not in judgment or understanding.
_De Shakspeare nostrat_.—_Augustus in Hat_.—I remember the players have
often mentioned it as an honour to Shakspeare, that in his writing
(whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been,
“Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent
speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance who chose
that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted; and
to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his
memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and
of an open and free nature, had an excellent phantasy, brave notions, and
gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometimes
it was necessary he should be stopped. “_Sufflaminandus erat_,” {47a} as
Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule
of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those things, could not
escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to
him, “Cæsar, thou dost me wrong.” He replied, “Cæsar did never wrong but
with just cause;” and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed
his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised
than to be pardoned.
_Ingeniorum discrimina_.—_Not._ 1.—In the difference of wits I have
observed there are many notes; and it is a little maistry to know them,
to discern what every nature, every disposition will bear; for before we
sow our land we should plough it. There are no fewer forms of minds than
of bodies amongst us. The variety is incredible, and therefore we must
search. Some are fit to make divines, some poets, some lawyers, some
physicians; some to be sent to the plough, and trades.
There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting. Some wits are
swelling and high; others low and still; some hot and fiery; others cold
and dull; one must have a bridle, the other a spur.
_Not._ 2.—There be some that are forward and bold; and these will do
every little thing easily. I mean that is hard by and next them, which
they will utter unretarded without any shamefastness. These never
perform much, but quickly. They are what they are on the sudden; they
show presently, like grain that, scattered on the top of the ground,
shoots up, but takes no root; has a yellow blade, but the ear empty.
They are wits of good promise at first, but there is an _ingenistitium_;
{49a} they stand still at sixteen, they get no higher.
_Not._ 3.—You have others that labour only to ostentation; and are ever
more busy about the colours and surface of a work than in the matter and
foundation, for that is hid, the other is seen.
_Not._ 4.—Others that in composition are nothing but what is rough and
broken. _Quæ per salebras_, _altaque saxa cadunt_. {49b} And if it
would come gently, they trouble it of purpose. They would not have it
run without rubs, as if that style were more strong and manly that struck
the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but
knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by
themselves; have some singularity in a ruff cloak, or hat-band; or their
beards specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon
themselves. They would be reprehended while they are looked on. And
this vice, one that is authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to
them to be imitated; so that ofttimes the faults which be fell into the
others seek for. This is the danger, when vice becomes a precedent.
_Not._ 5.—Others there are that have no composition at all; but a kind of
tuning and rhyming fall in what they write. It runs and slides, and only
makes a sound. Women’s poets they are called, as you have women’s
tailors.
“They write a verse as smooth, as soft as cream,
In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream.”
You may sound these wits and find the depth of them with your middle
finger. They are cream-bowl or but puddle-deep.
_Not._ 6.—Some that turn over all books, and are equally searching in all
papers; that write out of what they presently find or meet, without
choice. By which means it happens that what they have discredited and
impugned in one week, they have before or after extolled the same in
another. Such are all the essayists, even their master Montaigne.
These, in all they write, confess still what books they have read last,
and therein their own folly so much, that they bring it to the stake raw
and undigested; not that the place did need it neither, but that they
thought themselves furnished and would vent it.
_Not._ 7.—Some, again who, after they have got authority, or, which is
less, opinion, by their writings, to have read much, dare presently to
feign whole books and authors, and lie safely. For what never was, will
not easily be found, not by the most curious.
_Not._ 8.—And some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and
false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert the sagacity of
their readers from themselves, and cool the scent of their own fox-like
thefts; when yet they are so rank, as a man may find whole pages together
usurped from one author; their necessities compelling them to read for
present use, which could not be in many books; and so come forth more
ridiculously and palpably guilty than those who, because they cannot
trace, they yet would slander their industry.
_Not._ 9.—But the wretcheder are the obstinate contemners of all helps
and arts; such as presuming on their own naturals (which, perhaps, are
excellent), dare deride all diligence, and seem to mock at the terms when
they understand not the things; thinking that way to get off wittily with
their ignorance. These are imitated often by such as are their peers in
negligence, though they cannot be in nature; and they utter all they can
think with a kind of violence and indisposition, unexamined, without
relation either to person, place, or any fitness else; and the more
wilful and stubborn they are in it the more learned they are esteemed of
the multitude, through their excellent vice of judgment, who think those
things the stronger that have no art; as if to break were better than to
open, or to rend asunder gentler than to loose.
_Not._ 10.—It cannot but come to pass that these men who commonly seek to
do more than enough may sometimes happen on something that is good and
great; but very seldom: and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest
of their ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and
ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is
sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick
darkness than a faint shadow. Now, because they speak all they can
(however unfitly), they are thought to have the greater copy; where the
learned use ever election and a mean, they look back to what they
intended at first, and make all an even and proportioned body. The true
artificer will not run away from Nature as he were afraid of her, or
depart from life and the likeness of truth, but speak to the capacity of
his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it
shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes and Tamer-chains of
the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting and
furious vociferation to warrant them to the ignorant gapers. He knows it
is his only art so to carry it, as none but artificers perceive it. In
the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or
by what contumelious word can come in their cheeks, by these men who,
without labour, judgment, knowledge, or almost sense, are received or
preferred before him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another
age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his
wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth
inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing,
what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses; how he doth reign in
men’s affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes their
minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what
word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what is beautifully
translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, which strong, to show
the composition manly; and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene,
sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate phrase; which is not only praised
of the most, but commended (which is worse), especially for that it is
naught.
_Ignorantia animæ_.—I know no disease of the soul but ignorance, not of
the arts and sciences, but of itself; yet relating to those it is a
pernicious evil, the darkener of man’s life, the disturber of his reason,
and common confounder of truth, with which a man goes groping in the
dark, no otherwise than if he were blind. Great understandings are most
racked and troubled with it; nay, sometimes they will rather choose to
die than not to know the things they study for. Think, then, what an
evil it is, and what good the contrary.
_Scientia_.—Knowledge is the action of the soul and is perfect without
the senses, as having the seeds of all science and virtue in itself; but
not without the service of the senses; by these organs the soul works:
she is a perpetual agent, prompt and subtle; but often flexible and
erring, entangling herself like a silkworm, but her reason is a weapon
with two edges, and cuts through. In her indagations oft-times new
scents put her by, and she takes in errors into her by the same conduits
she doth truths.
_Otium Studiorum_.—Ease and relaxation are profitable to all studies.
The mind is like a bow, the stronger by being unbent. But the temper in
spirits is all, when to command a man’s wit, when to favour it. I have
known a man vehement on both sides, that knew no mean, either to intermit
his studies or call upon them again. When he hath set himself to writing
he would join night to day, press upon himself without release, not
minding it, till he fainted; and when he left off, resolve himself into
all sports and looseness again, that it was almost a despair to draw him
to his book; but once got to it, he grew stronger and more earnest by the
ease. His whole powers were renewed; he would work out of himself what
he desired, but with such excess as his study could not be ruled; he knew
not how to dispose his own abilities, or husband them; he was of that
immoderate power against himself. Nor was he only a strong, but an
absolute speaker and writer; but his subtlety did not show itself; his
judgment thought that a vice; for the ambush hurts more that is hid. He
never forced his language, nor went out of the highway of speaking but
for some great necessity or apparent profit; for he denied figures to be
invented for ornament, but for aid; and still thought it an extreme
madness to bind or wrest that which ought to be right.
_Stili eminentia_.—_Virgil_.—_Tully_.—_Sallust_.—It is no wonder men’s
eminence appears but in their own way. Virgil’s felicity left him in
prose, as Tully’s forsook him in verse. Sallust’s orations are read in
the honour of story, yet the most eloquent. Plato’s speech, which he
made for Socrates, is neither worthy of the patron nor the person
defended. Nay, in the same kind of oratory, and where the matter is one,
you shall have him that reasons strongly, open negligently; another that
prepares well, not fit so well. And this happens not only to brains, but
to bodies. One can wrestle well, another run well, a third leap or throw
the bar, a fourth lift or stop a cart going; each hath his way of
strength. So in other creatures—some dogs are for the deer, some for the
wild boar, some are fox-hounds, some otter-hounds. Nor are all horses
for the coach or saddle, some are for the cart and paniers.
_De Claris Oratoribus_.—I have known many excellent men that would speak
suddenly to the admiration of their hearers, who upon study and
premeditation have been forsaken by their own wits, and no way answered
their fame; their eloquence was greater than their reading, and the
things they uttered better than those they knew; their fortune deserved
better of them than their care. For men of present spirits, and of
greater wits than study, do please more in the things they invent than in
those they bring. And I have heard some of them compelled to speak, out
of necessity, that have so infinitely exceeded themselves, as it was
better both for them and their auditory that they were so surprised, not
prepared. Nor was it safe then to cross them, for their adversary, their
anger made them more eloquent. Yet these men I could not but love and
admire, that they returned to their studies. They left not diligence (as
many do) when their rashness prospered; for diligence is a great aid,
even to an indifferent wit; when we are not contented with the examples
of our own age, but would know the face of the former. Indeed, the more
we confer with the more we profit by, if the persons be chosen.
_Dominus Verulamius_.—One, though he be excellent and the chief, is not
to be imitated alone; for no imitator ever grew up to his author;
likeness is always on this side truth. Yet there happened in my time one
noble speaker who was full of gravity in his speaking; his language
(where he could spare or pass by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man
ever spake more neatly, more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less
emptiness, less idleness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech
but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could not cough, or look
aside from him, without loss. He commanded where he spoke, and had his
judges angry and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections
more in his power. The fear of every man that heard him was lest he
should make an end.
_Scriptorum catalogus_. {59a} Cicero is said to be the only wit that the
people of Rome had equalled to their empire. _Ingenium par imperio_. We
have had many, and in their several ages (to take in but the former
_seculum_) Sir Thomas More, the elder Wiat, Henry Earl of Surrey,
Chaloner, Smith, Eliot, B. Gardiner, were for their times admirable; and
the more, because they began eloquence with us. Sir Nicolas Bacon was
singular, and almost alone, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s time.
Sir Philip Sidney and Mr. Hooker (in different matter) grew great masters
of wit and language, and in whom all vigour of invention and strength of
judgment met. The Earl of Essex, noble and high; and Sir Walter Raleigh,
not to be contemned, either for judgment or style. Sir Henry Savile,
grave, and truly lettered; Sir Edwin Sandys, excellent in both; Lord
Egerton, the Chancellor, a grave and great orator, and best when he was
provoked; but his learned and able (though unfortunate) successor is he
who hath filled up all numbers, and performed that in our tongue which
may be compared or preferred either to insolent Greece or haughty Rome.
In short, within his view, and about his times, were all the wits born
that could honour a language or help study. Now things daily fall, wits
grow downward, and eloquence grows backward; so that he may be named and
stand as the mark and ακμη of our language.
_De augmentis scientiarum_.—_Julius Cæsar_.—_Lord St. Alban_.—I have ever
observed it to have been the office of a wise patriot, among the greatest
affairs of the State, to take care of the commonwealth of learning. For
schools, they are the seminaries of State; and nothing is worthier the
study of a statesman than that part of the republic which we call the
advancement of letters. Witness the care of Julius Cæsar, who, in the
heat of the civil war, writ his books of Analogy, and dedicated them to
Tully. This made the late Lord St. Alban entitle his work _Novum
Organum_; which, though by the most of superficial men, who cannot get
beyond the title of nominals, it is not penetrated nor understood, it
really openeth all defects of learning whatsoever, and is a book
“Qui longum note scriptori proroget ævum.” {62a}
My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place or
honours; but I have and do reverence him for the greatness that was only
proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the
greatest men, and most worthy of admiration, that had been in many ages.
In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for
greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or
syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but
rather help to make it manifest.
_De corruptela morum_.—There cannot be one colour of the mind, another of
the wit. If the mind be staid, grave, and composed, the wit is so; that
vitiated, the other is blown and deflowered. Do we not see, if the mind
languish, the members are dull? Look upon an effeminate person, his very
gait confesseth him. If a man be fiery, his motion is so; if angry, it
is troubled and violent. So that we may conclude wheresoever manners and
fashions are corrupted, language is. It imitates the public riot. The
excess of feasts and apparel are the notes of a sick state, and the
wantonness of language of a sick mind.
_De rebus mundanis_.—If we would consider what our affairs are indeed,
not what they are called, we should find more evils belonging to us than
happen to us. How often doth that which was called a calamity prove the
beginning and cause of a man’s happiness? and, on the contrary, that
which happened or came to another with great gratulation and applause,
how it hath lifted him but a step higher to his ruin? as if he stood
before where he might fall safely.
_Vulgi mores_.—_Morbus comitialis_.—The vulgar are commonly ill-natured,
and always grudging against their governors: which makes that a prince
has more business and trouble with them than ever Hercules had with the
bull or any other beast; by how much they have more heads than will be
reined with one bridle. There was not that variety of beasts in the ark,
as is of beastly natures in the multitude; especially when they come to
that iniquity to censure their sovereign’s actions. Then all the
counsels are made good or bad by the events; and it falleth out that the
same facts receive from them the names, now of diligence, now of vanity,
now of majesty, now of fury; where they ought wholly to hang on his
mouth, as he to consist of himself, and not others’ counsels.
_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 when he hath
put on the care of the public good and common safety, I am a wretch, and
put off man, if I do not reverence and honour him, in whose charge all
things divine and human are placed. Do but ask of Nature why all living
creatures are less delighted with meat and drink that sustains them than
with venery that wastes them? and she will tell thee, the first respects
but a private, the other a common good, propagation.
_De eodem_.—_Orpheus’ Hymn_.—He is the arbiter of life and death: when he
finds no other subject for his mercy, he should spare himself. All his
punishments are rather to correct than to destroy. Why are prayers with
Orpheus said to be the daughters of Jupiter, but that princes are thereby
admonished that the petitions of the wretched ought to have more weight
with them than the laws themselves.
_De opt. Rege Jacobo_.—It was a great accumulation to His Majesty’s
deserved praise that men might openly visit and pity those whom his
greatest prisons had at any time received or his laws condemned.
_De Princ. adjunctis_.—_Sed verè prudens haud concipi possit Princeps_,
_nisi simul et bonus_.—_Lycurgus_.—_Sylla_.—_Lysander_.—_Cyrus_.—Wise is
rather the attribute of a prince than learned or good. The learned man
profits others rather than himself; the good man rather himself than
others; but the prince commands others, and doth himself.
The wise Lycurgus gave no law but what himself kept. Sylla and Lysander
did not so; the one living extremely dissolute himself, enforced
frugality by the laws; the other permitted those licenses to others which
himself abstained from. But the prince’s prudence is his chief art and
safety. In his counsels and deliberations he foresees the future times:
in the equity of his judgment he hath remembrance of the past, and
knowledge of what is to be done or avoided for the present. Hence the
Persians gave out their Cyrus to have been nursed by a bitch, a creature
to encounter it, as of sagacity to seek out good; showing that wisdom may
accompany fortitude, or it leaves to be, and puts on the name of
rashness.
_De malign. studentium_.—There be some men are born only to suck out the
poison of books: _Habent venenum pro victu_; _imô_, _pro deliciis_. {66a}
And such are they that only relish the obscene and foul things in poets,
which makes the profession taxed. But by whom? Men that watch for it;
and, had they not had this hint, are so unjust valuers of letters as they
think no learning good but what brings in gain. It shows they themselves
would never have been of the professions they are but for the profits and
fees. But if another learning, well used, can instruct to good life,
inform manners, no less persuade and lead men than they threaten and
compel, and have no reward, is it therefore the worst study? I could
never think the study of wisdom confined only to the philosopher, or of
piety to the divine, or of state to the politic; but that he which can
feign a commonwealth (which is the poet) can govern it with counsels,
strengthen it with laws, correct it with judgments, inform it with
religion and morals, is all these. We do not require in him mere
elocution, or an excellent faculty in verse, but the exact knowledge of
all virtues and their contraries, with ability to render the one loved,
the other hated, by his proper embattling them. The philosophers did
insolently, to challenge only to themselves that which the greatest
generals and gravest counsellors never durst. For such had rather do
than promise the best things.
_Controvers. scriptores_.—_More Andabatarum qui clausis oculis
pugnant_.—Some controverters in divinity are like swaggerers in a tavern
that catch that which stands next them, the candlestick or pots; turn
everything into a weapon: ofttimes they fight blindfold, and both beat
the air. The one milks a he-goat, the other holds under a sieve. Their
arguments are as fluxive as liquor spilt upon a table, which with your
finger you may drain as you will. Such controversies or disputations
(carried with more labour than profit) are odious; where most times the
truth is lost in the midst or left untouched. And the fruit of their
fight is, that they spit one upon another, and are both defiled. These
fencers in religion I like not.
_Morbi_.—The body hath certain diseases that are with less evil tolerated
than removed. As if to cure a leprosy a man should bathe himself with
the warm blood of a murdered child, so in the Church some errors may be
dissimuled with less inconvenience than they can be discovered.
_Jactantia intempestiva_.—Men that talk of their own benefits are not
believed to talk of them because they have done them; but to have done
them because they might talk of them. That which had been great, if
another had reported it of them, vanisheth, and is nothing, if he that
did it speak of it. For men, when they cannot destroy the deed, will yet
be glad to take advantage of the boasting, and lessen it.
_Adulatio_.—I have seen that poverty makes me do unfit things; but honest
men should not do them; they should gain otherwise. Though a man be
hungry, he should not play the parasite. That hour wherein I would
repent me to be honest, there were ways enough open for me to be rich.
But flattery is a fine pick-lock of tender ears; especially of those whom
fortune hath borne high upon their wings, that submit their dignity and
authority to it, by a soothing of themselves. For, indeed, men could
never be taken in that abundance with the springes of others’ flattery,
if they began not there; if they did but remember how much more
profitable the bitterness of truth were, than all the honey distilling
from a whorish voice, which is not praise, but poison. But now it is
come to that extreme folly, or rather madness, with some, that he that
flatters them modestly or sparingly is thought to malign them. If their
friend consent not to their vices, though he do not contradict them, he
is nevertheless an enemy. When they do all things the worst way, even
then they look for praise. Nay, they will hire fellows to flatter them
with suits and suppers, and to prostitute their judgments. They have
livery-friends, friends of the dish, and of the spit, that wait their
turns, as my lord has his feasts and guests.
_De vitâ humanâ_.—I have considered our whole life is like a play:
wherein every man forgetful of himself, is in travail with expression of
another. Nay, we so insist in imitating others, as we cannot when it is
necessary return to ourselves; like children, that imitate the vices of
stammerers so long, till at last they become such; and make the habit to
another nature, as it is never forgotten.
_De piis et probis_.—Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages
wherein they live and illustrate the times. God did never let them be
wanting to the world: as Abel, for an example of innocency, Enoch of
purity, Noah of trust in God’s mercies, Abraham of faith, and so of the
rest. These, sensual men thought mad because they would not be partakers
or practisers of their madness. But they, placed high on the top of all
virtue, looked down on the stage of the world and contemned the play of
fortune. For though the most be players, some must be spectators.
_Mores aulici_.—I have discovered that a feigned familiarity in great
ones is a note of certain usurpation on the less. For great and popular
men feign themselves to be servants to others to make those slaves to
them. So the fisher provides bait for the trout, roach, dace, &c., that
they may be food to him.
_Impiorum querela_.—_Augusties_.—_Varus_.—_Tiberius_.—The complaint of
Caligula was most wicked of the condition of his times, when he said they
were not famous for any public calamity, as the reign of Augustus was, by
the defeat of Varus and the legions; and that of Tiberius, by the falling
of the theatre at Fidenæ; whilst his oblivion was eminent through the
prosperity of his affairs. As that other voice of his was worthier a
headsman than a head when he wished the people of Rome had but one neck.
But he found when he fell they had many hands. A tyrant, how great and
mighty soever he may seem to cowards and sluggards, is but one creature,
one animal.