5 ΙΟ an entry into a fair room, but shut it again presently. I spake 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 quam fortuna sum usus. Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor. Wits made out Differentia inter doctos et sciolos. 15 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. 20 25 30 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. Icuncularum motio. A puppet-play must be shadowed and seen in the dark; for draw the curtain, et sordet gesticulatio. 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 ribbons, 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 5 promptissimo. Scitum Hispanicum. It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, Artes inter hæredes non dividi. Yet these have inherited their fathers' lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man that affects a triumph in any 10 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. 15 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 relicta 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 20 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 a new but a foolish way you have found out, that whom you cannot equal or come near in doing, you 25 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[ro]. Indeed nothing is of 30 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 5 arts begin where good end. 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. Jam literæ sordent. He is upbraidingly called a poet, as if it were a most contemptible nick-name: but the professors, indeed, have made the learning cheap-railing and tinkling rimers, 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. Pastus hodier[ni] ingen[ii]. 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 cal20 umnies hath not staved off from reading? 15 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? Sed seculi morbus. But it 25 is the disease of the age; and no wonder if the world, growing old, begin to be infirm: old age itself is a disease. began to dote and talk It is long since the sick world : idly would she had but doted still! but her dotage is now broke forth into a madness, and become a mere 30 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 35 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. 5 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 shoplike or meretricious, in good clothes. But these, nature could not have formed them better to destroy their own 10 testimony and to overthrow their calumny. Hear-say news. - That an elephant, [in 1]630, 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 15 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 quam loquentis optanda. — 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 25 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. 30 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? 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 10 mountebank, that when he hath praised his medicines, finds none will take them, or trust him. He is like Homer's Thersites αμετροεπής, ἀκριτόμυθος, speaking without judgment or measure. Loquax magis, quam facundus; satis loquentiæ, sapientiæ parum. 15 Γλώσσης τοι θησαυρὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἄριστος Ulysses, in Homer, is made a long-thinking man 20 before he speaks; and Epaminondas is celebrated by Spintharus to be a man that, though he knew much, yet he spoke but little. Demaratus, 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." For too much 25 talking is ever the index of a fool. Dum tacet indoctus, poterit cordatus haberi; Is morbos animi namque tacendo tegit. Nor is that worthy speech of Zeno the philosopher to be 30 passed over without 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 had said nothing at the table; one of them with courtesy asked him: "What shall we return from thee, Zeno, to |