There is nothing that he desires not to know, but most and first
himself, and not so much his own strength as his weaknesses; neither is
his knowledge reduced to discourse, but practice. He is a skilful
logician, not by nature so much as use; his working mind doth nothing
all his time but make syllogisms and draw out conclusions; everything
that he sees and hears serves for one of the premisses; with these he
cares first to inform himself, then to direct others. Both his eyes are
never at once from home, but one keeps house while the other roves
abroad for intelligence. In material and weighty points he abides not
his mind suspended in uncertainties, but hates doubting where he may,
where he should be resolute: and first he makes sure work for his soul,
accounting it no safety to be unsettled in the foreknowledge of his
small estate. The best is first regarded; and vain is that regard which
endeth not in security. Every care hath his just order; neither is there
any one either neglected or misplaced. He is seldom ever seen with
credulity; for, knowing the falseness of the world, he hath learned to
trust himself always, others so far as he may not be damaged by their
disappointment. He seeks his quietness in secrecy, and is wont both to
hide himself in retiredness, and his tongue in himself. He loves to be
guessed at, not known; and to see the world unseen; and when he is
forced into the light, shows by his actions that his obscurity was
neither from affectation nor weakness. His purposes are neither so
variable as may argue inconstancy, nor obstinately unchangeable, but
framed according to his after-wits, or the strength of new occasions. He
is both an apt scholar and an excellent master; for both everything he
sees informs him, and his mind, enriched with plentiful observation, can
give the best precepts. His free discourse runs back to the ages past,
and recovers events out of memory, and then preventeth time in flying
forward to future things; and comparing one with the other, can give a
verdict well near prophetical, wherein his conjectures are better than
another's judgments. His passions are so many good servants, which stand
in a diligent attendance ready to be commanded by reason, by religion;
and if at any time forgetting their duty, they be miscarried to rebel,
he can first conceal their mutiny, then suppress it. In all his just and
worthy designs he is never at a loss, but hath so projected all his
courses that a second begins where the first failed, and fetcheth
strength from that which succeeded not. There be wrongs which he will
not see, neither doth he always look that way which he meaneth, nor take
notice of his secret smarts, when they come from great ones. In good
turns he loves not to owe more than he must; in evil, to owe and not
pay. Just censures he deserves not, for he lives without the compass of
an adversary; unjust he contemneth, and had rather suffer false infamy
to die alone than lay hands upon it in an open violence. He confineth
himself in the circle of his own affairs, and lists not to thrust his
finger into a needless fire. He stands like a centre unmoved, while the
circumference of his estate is drawn above, beneath, about him. Finally,
his wit hath cost him much, and he can both keep, and value, and employ
it. He is his own lawyer, the treasury of knowledge, the oracle of
counsel; blind in no man's cause, best sighted in his own.