1. It may be allowed to be a question fit for the determination of
those concerning whom Cato said, Their palates are more sensitive than
their hearts, whether that saying of Philoxenus the poet be true or no.
The most savory flesh is that which is no flesh, and fish that is no
fish. Yet this to me, Marcus Sedatus, is out of question, that those
precepts of philosophy which seem not to be delivered with a designed
gravity, such as becomes philosophers, take most with persons that are
very young, and meet with a more ready acceptance and compliance from
them. Whence it is that they do not only read through Esop’s fables
and the fictions of poets and the Abaris of Heraclides and Ariston’s
Lyco; but they also read such doctrines as relate to the souls of men,
if something fabulous be mixed with them, with an excess of pleasure
that borders on enthusiasm. Wherefore we are not only to govern their
appetites in the delights of eating and drinking, but also (and much
more) to inure them to a like temperance in reading and hearing, that,
while they make use of pleasure as a sauce, they may pursue that which
is wholesome and profitable in those things which they read. For
neither can a city be secure if but one gate be left open to receive
the enemy, though all the rest be shut; nor a young man safe, though he
be sufficiently fortified against the assaults of all other pleasures,
whilst he is without any guard against those of the ear. Yea, the
nearer the commerce is betwixt the delights of that sense and those
of the mind and reason, by so much the more, when he lies open on that
side, is he apt to be debauched and corrupted thereby. Seeing therefore
we cannot (and perhaps would not if we could) debar young men of the
size of my Soclarus and thy Cleander altogether from the reading of
poets, yet let us keep the stricter guard upon them, as those who need
a guide to direct them in their reading more than in their walks. Upon
which consideration, I find myself disposed to send thee at present
in writing that discourse concerning Poetry which I had lately an
occasion to deliver by word of mouth; that, when thou hast read it over
thyself, thou mayst also make such use of it, if thou judgest it may be
serviceable to that purpose, as those which are engaged to drink hard
do of amethysts (or preservatives against drunkenness),—that is, that
thou mayst communicate it to Cleander, to prepossess him therewith;
seeing he is naturally endowed with a brisk, piercing, and daring wit,
and therefore more prone to be inveigled by that sort of study.