avoid him; forsake his meat, sleep, nature itself, with all her benefits, to shun him. A mere impertinent one that touched neither heaven nor earth in his discourse. He opened 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.

XXXVII.

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 quàm fortuna, sum usus.

Pingue solum lassat; sed juvat ipse labor.

XXXVIII.

Differentia inter Doctos et Sciolos.-Wits made out 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 any thing 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.

XXXIX.

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.

XL.

Icunculorum motio.-A puppet-play must be shadowed, and seen in the dark for draw the curtain, Et sordet gesticulatio.

XLI.

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 ribands; 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 promptissimo.

XLII.

Scitum Hispanicum.-It is a quick saying with the Spaniards, Artes inter hæredes non dividi. Yet these have inherited their father's lying, and they brag of it. He is a narrow-minded man, that affects a triumph in any 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.

XLIII.

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 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 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.

XLIV.

Nil gratius protervo lib.-Indeed nothing is of 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 arts begin where good end.

XLV.

Fam literæ sordent.—Pastus hodiern. Ingen.-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. He is upbraidingly called a poet, as if it were a contemptible nick-name: but the professors, indeed, have made the learning cheap. Railing and tinkling rhymers, 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. 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 inno

centest life traduced and in such a license 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 calumnies hath not staved off from reading?

XLVI.

Sed seculi morbus.-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? but it is the disease of the age: and no wonder if the world, growing old, begin to be infirm old age itself is a disease. It is long since the sick world began to doat and talk idly: would she had but doated still! but her dotage is now broke forth into a madness, and become a mere frenzy.

XLVII.

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 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.

XLVIII.

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 shew deformed and odious, the suiting of it might draw their readers. Some love any strumpet (be she never so shop-like or meretricious) in good clothes

But these, nature could not have formed them better, to destroy their own testimony, and overthrow their calumny.

XLIX.

Hear-say news.-That an elephant, in 1630, 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 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.

L.

Lingua sapientis, potius quàm loquentis.—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 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.

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 Bethlem like, as a vain sound of chosen and excellent words, without any subject of sentence or science mixed?