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 work, 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.
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.
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 fox-like thefts,
when yet they are so rank as a man may find whole pages together usurped
from one author.--BEN JONSON. _Timber._