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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 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 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.

LVIII.

Amor et Odium.-Love that is ignorant, and hatred have almost the same ends: many foolish lovers wish 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 country by injury, as if it were not honester to do nothing, than to seek a way to do good by a mischief.

LIX.

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 that courtesy, but defaces it: as he that writes other verses upon my verses, takes not away the first letters, but hides them.

LX.

Beneficia.-Nothing is a courtesy, unless it be meant us; and that friendly and lovingly. We owe

no thanks to rivers, that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring 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 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 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 shipwrecked, was the wreck 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 drest for Smithfield.

LXI.

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, from our school-masters. 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 labours.

LXII.

Memoria.-Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate, and frail: it is the first of our faculties 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. 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 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 oftentimes loses; 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 seek; but while I am doing another thing, that I laboured for will come and what I sought with trouble, will offer itself when I am quiet. Now in some men L 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 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.

LXIII.

Comit. suffragia.-Suffrages in parliament are numbered, not weighed: nor can it be otherwise in those public councils, where nothing is so unequal as the equality for there, how odd soever men's brains or wisdoms are, their power is always even and the

same.

LXIV.

Stare à partibus.-Some actions, be they never so beautiful and generous, are often obscured by base and vile misconstructions, either out of envy, or illnature, that judgeth of others as of itself. 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 to discredit and shame our judgments, to sooth our passions.

LXV.

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 humility: 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 know: for therein our ignorance was the first cause of our wickedness..

LXVI.

Veritas proprium hominis.-Truth is man's proper good; and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christian or ethnic, if he be honest, 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 hellmouth, that utters one thing with his tongue, and keeps another in his breast. Which high expression was grounded on divine reason: for a lying mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with the contagion it venteth. Beside, nothing is lasting that is feigned;

it will have another face than it had, ere long. Euripides saith, "No lie ever grows old."

LXVII.

As

Nullum vitium sine patrocinio.-It is strange there should be no vice without its patronage, that, when we have no other excuse, we will say, we love it; we cannot forsake it. As if that made it not more a fault. We cannot, because we think we cannot, and we love it, because we will defend it. We will rather excuse it, than be rid of it. That we cannot, is pretended; but that we will not, is the true reason. How many have I known, that would not have their vices hid? nay, and to be noted, live like Antipodes to others in the same city? never see the sun rise or set, in so many years; but be as they were watching a corps by torch light; would not sin the common way, but held that a kind of rusticity; they would do it new, or contrary, for the infamy; they were ambitious of living backward; and at last arrived at that, as they would love nothing but the vices, not the vicious customs. It was impossible to reform these natures; they were dried and hardened in their ill. They may say they desired to leave it; but do not trust them: and they may think they desire it, but they may lie for all that: they are a little angry with their follies now and then; marry they come into grace with them again quickly. They will confess they are offended with their manner of living: like enough; who is not? When they can put me in security that they are more than offended, that they hate it, then I will hearken to them; and perhaps believe them but many now a days love and hate their ill together.

LXVIII.

De vere argutis.-I do hear them say often, some

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