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beware they be not too humble, as Pliny pronounced of Regulus's writings. You would think them written, not on a child, but by a child. Many, out of their own obscene apprehensions, refuse proper and fit words-as 5 occupy, nature, and the like; so the curious industry in some, of having all alike good, hath come nearer a vice than a virtue.

De progress[ione] picturæ. - Picture took her feigning from poetry; from geometry her rule, compass, lines, proportion, and the whole symmetry. Parrhasius was the first wan reputation by adding symmetry to picture; he added subtlety to the countenance, elegancy to the hair, love-lines to the face, and by the public voice of all artificers, deserved honor in the outer lines. Eupompus 15 gave it splendor by numbers and other elegancies. From the optics it drew reasons, by which it considered how things placed at distance and afar off should appear less ; how above or beneath the head should deceive the eye, etc. So from thence it took shadows, recession, light, 20 and heightenings. From moral philosophy it took the soul, the expression of senses, perturbations, manners, when they would paint an angry person, a proud, an inconstant, an ambitious, a brave, a magnanimous, a just, a merciful, a compassionate, an humble, a dejected, a base, and the 25 like. They made all heightenings bright, all shadows dark, all swellings from a plane, all solids from breaking. See where he [Vitruvius] complains of their painting Chimeras, by the vulgar unaptly called grotesque, saying that men who were born truly to study and emulate 30 Nature did nothing but make monsters against Nature, which Horace so laughed at. The art plastic was moulding in clay or potter's earth anciently. This is the parent of statuary, sculpture, graving, and picture; cutting in brass and marble, all serve under her. Socrates taught 35 Parrhasius and Clito, two noble statuaries, first to express

manners by their looks in imagery. Polygnotus and Aglaophon were ancienter. After them Zeuxis, who was the lawgiver to all painters after Parrhasius. They were contemporaries, and lived both about Philip's time, the father of Alexander the Great. There lived in this latter 5 age six famous painters in Italy, who were excellent and emulous of the ancients - Raphael de Urbino, Michael Angelo Buonarotti, Titian, Antony of Correggio, Sebastian of Venice, Julio Romano, and Andrea [del] Sarto.

These are flat

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Parasiti ad mensam, immo serviles. terers for their bread, that praise all my oraculous lord does or says, be it true or false; invent tales that shall please; make baits for his lordship's ears; and if they be not received in what they offer at, they shift a point of the compass, and turn their tale, presently tack about, 15 deny what they confessed, and confess what they denied ; d; fit their discourse to the persons and occasions. What they snatch up and devour at one table, utter at another; and grow suspected of the master, hated of the servants, while they inquire, and reprehend, and compound, and 20 dilate business of the house they have nothing to do with. They praise my lord's wine and the sauce he likes; observe the cook and bottle-man; while they stand in my lord's favor, speak for a pension for them, but pound them to dust upon my lord's least distaste, or change of his palate.

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How much better is it to be silent, or at least to speak sparingly for it is not enough to speak good, but timely things. If a man be asked a question, to answer; but to repeat the question before he answer is well, that he be 30 sure to understand it, to avoid absurdity. For it is less dishonor to hear imperfectly than to speak imperfectly. The ears are excused, the understanding is not. And in things unknown to a man, not to give his opinion, lest by

the affectation of knowing too much he lose the credit he hath by speaking or knowing the wrong way what he utters. Nor seek to get his patron's favor by embarking himself in the factions of the family, to inquire after 5 domestic simulties, their sports or affections. They are an odious and vile kind of creatures, that fly about the house all day, and picking up the filth of the house like pies or swallows, carry it to their nest, the lord's ears, and oftentimes report the lies they have feigned for what they 10 have seen and heard.

These are called instruments of grace and power with great persons, but they are indeed the organs of their impotency, and marks of weakness. For sufficient lords are able to make these discoveries themselves. Neither 15 will an honorable person inquire who eats and drinks together, what that man plays, whom this man loves, with whom such a one walks, what discourse they held, who sleeps with whom. They are base and servile natures that busy themselves about these disquisitions. How 20 often have I seen (and worthily) these censors of the

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family undertaken by some honest rustic and cudgelled thriftily. These are commonly the off-scouring and dregs of men that do these things, or calumniate others; yet I know not truly which is worse, he that maligns all, or that praises all. There is as great a vice in praising, and as frequent, as in detracting.

It pleased your lordship of late to ask my opinion touching the education of your sons, and especially to the advancement of their studies. To which, though I 30 returned somewhat for the present, which rather manifested a will in me than gave any just resolution to the thing propounded, I have upon better cogitation called those aids about me, both of mind and memory, which shall venter my thoughts clearer, if not fuller, to your lord

ship's demand. I confess, my lord, they will seem but petty and minute things I shall offer to you, being writ for children, and of them. But studies have their infancy as well as creatures. We see in men even the strongest compositions had their beginnings from milk and the s cradle; and the wisest tarried sometimes about apting their mouths to letters and syllables. In their education, therefore, the care must be the greater had of their beginnings, to know, examine, and weigh their natures; which, though they be proner in some children to some 10 disciplines, yet are they naturally prompt to taste all by degrees, and with change. For change is a kind of refreshing in studies, and infuseth knowledge by way of recreation. Thence the school itself is called a play or game, and all letters are so best taught to scholars. They 15 should not be affrighted or deterred in their entry, but drawn on with exercise and emulation. A youth should not be made to hate study before he know the causes to love it, or taste the bitterness before the sweet; but called on and allured, entreated and praised: yea, when he 20 deserves it not. For which cause I wish them sent to the best school, and a public, which I think the best. Your lordship, I fear, hardly hears of that, as willing to breed them in your eye and at home, and doubting their manners may be corrupted abroad. They are in more 25 danger in your own family, among ill servants (allowing they be safe in their schoolmaster), than amongst a thousand boys, however immodest. Would we did not spoil our own children, and overthrow their manners ourselves by too much indulgence! To breed them at home 30 is to breed them in a shade, whereas in a school they have the light and heat of the sun. They are used and accustomed to things and men. When they come forth into the commonwealth, they find nothing new, or to seek. They have made their friendships and aids, some to last 35

their age. They hear what is commanded to others as well as themselves, much approved, much corrected; all which they bring to their own store and use, and learn as much as they hear. Eloquence would be but a poor 5 thing if we should only converse with singulars, speak but man and man together. Therefore I like no private breeding. I would send them where their industry should be daily increased by praise, and that kindled by emulation. It is a good thing to inflame the mind; and though ambition itself be a vice, it is often the cause of great virtue. Give me that wit whom praise excites, glory puts on, or disgrace grieves; he is to be nourished. with ambition, pricked forward with honor, checked with reprehension, and never to be suspected of sloth. Though 15 he be given to play, it is a sign of spirit and liveliness, so there be a mean had of their sports and relaxations. And from the rod or ferule I would have them free, as from the menace of them; for it is both deformed and servile. De stilo, et optimo scribendi genere. → F For a man to 20 write well, there are required three necessaries to read the best authors, observe the best speakers, and much exercise of his own style. In style, to consider what ought to be written, and after what manner, he must first think and excogitate his matter, then choose his words, 25 and examine the weight of either. Then take care, in placing and ranking both matter and words, that the composition be comely; and to do this with diligence and often. No matter how slow the style be at first, so it be labored and accurate; seek the best, and be not glad 30 of the forward conceits, or first words, that offer themselves to us; but judge of what we invent, and order what we approve., Repeat often what we have formerly written; which beside that it helps the consequence, and makes the juncture better, it quickens the heat of imagi35 nation, that often cools in the time of setting down, and