the prince our master, if he ask 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 5 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 10 ward." 'Exeμvoía. Pythag [ora] quam laudabilis! yλwoσης πρὸ τῶν ἄλλων κράτει, θεοῖς ἑπόμενος. Linguam cohibe, præ aliis omnibus, ad deorum exemplum. Digito compesce labellum.

Acutius cernuntur vitia quam virtutes. There is 15 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 20 tongue, said the witty comic poet; 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; and to draw buyers proclaimed the virtues of it. "Nothing ever thrived on it," saith he. "No owner 25 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 30 reared there, not a duckling, or a goose." Hospitium fuerat calamitatis. 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

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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 s men's reputation with the people is, their wits have outlived the people's palates. They have been too much or too long a feast.

Claritas patriæ. Greatness of name in the father ofttimes helps not forth, but overwhelms the son; they stand 10 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: 15 nor did she yet ever favor 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 20 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 25 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 30 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, 35 have almost the same ends. Many foolish lovers wish

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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 courtesy by injury, as if it were 5 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 the cour- 10 tesy, 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 15 to rivers, that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favoring 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 20 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 25 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 me as a courtesy. I scaped pirates by being shipwracked; 30 was the wrack 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.

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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, 5 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 labors.

Memoria. Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate and frail; it is the first of our faculties 10 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. 15 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 20 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 often times loses ; 25 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 do seek; but while I am doing another thing, that I labored for will come; and what I sought with trouble will offer it self when I am quiet. 30 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 35 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.

Comitiorum] suffragia. - Suffrages in Parliament are numbered, not weighed; nor can it be otherwise in those public councils where nothing is so unequal as the equal- 5 ity; for there, how odd soever men's brains or wisdoms are, their power is always even and the same.

Stare a 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 10 judgeth of others as of it self. 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 15 to discredit and shame our judgments to soothe our passions.

Deus in creaturis. - Man is read in his face; God in His creatures; but not as the philosopher, the creature of glory, reads him; but as the divine, the servant of hu- 20 mility; 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 25. 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 mor tality to use. No good Christian or ethnic, if he be hon- 30 est, 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.

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