An Essay of Ʋnderstanding Dis­splayed for a taste of the other Sciences, in the onely Contem­plation of the Heavens.

THe common Assertion of the two most renowmed Schools of Pithagoras and Plato is, Plutarc. de Mu­sica. That the Celestial Spheres increasing one above another with measures of Harmonical proportion; in the revolutions tbat they make, compose the Con [...]ort of a most perfect Musick. Macrobius renderth the reason drawn from the natural principles of Sound; Lib. 2. de Sam. and thence he concludes: Ex his inexpugnabili ratione collectum est Musicos sonos de Sphaerarum Coelestium conversione procedere, Scip. ca. 1. quia & So­num ex motu fieri necesse est, & Ratio quae di­vinis in est; fit sono causa modulaminis. Nor because that our eares are not Judges of such Musick, ought we therefore to doubt, or to deny it; forasmuch as that melodi­ous sound in its arrival at the Elements, is by the noise of their discordant jarring, [Page 16] lost and drown'd, and there most, where the noise is loudest. And well was it said elswhere:

If it were not as Philo advertiseth, that God reserving for us to a better time, so sweet a gust of Musick, had with a parti­cular Providence, in such manner by it deafned, and dislocated our audible facul­ties, otherwise suspended, extacis'd, and ravished out of our selves by the harmony of those most Regular Bodies, we should not only grow carelesse of cultivating the earth, and remisse in the affairs of civil life, but in the end forget our selves: Philo. Coe­lum (saith he) perpetuo con [...]entu suorum mo­tuum reddit harmoniam suavissimam; quae si posset ad nostras aures pervenire in nobis exita­ret in sanos sui amores, & desideria, quibus stimulati rerum ad victum necessariarum obli­visceremur, non pasti cibo potuque, sed velut immortalitatis candidati.

[Page 17] But to say the truth, to comprehend in the Heavens, the melody of a ravishing har­mony, and to enjoy therewith above: a delight able to make one almost Angeli­cal, it is not necessary to desire that the Musick of those harmonical Spheres (Spheres they are called by them who will not grant that they be, as notwith­standing they are all one sole and liquid Heaven) do approach the ears. Never­thelesse our mind may be thereby blessed, following with the flight of its thoughts, not as some do Poetry, a lying inventor of fables, which leading us through the vasts of Heaven, saith to us, here Phaeto [...] more bold then cautions.

Here fell Vulcan, and the measuring with one irregular step all the voyage from heaven to earth, by great chance, cost him no more then the wrenching of a foot. This slippery part of Heaven, is the great breach which the Giants of Fl [...]gra did make in the battery they gave to the [Page 18] stars, when the earth of thunder-stricken became thunder-striker. Here is Hercules, here Prometheus, here Bellerophon, and I know not who: But that part of the more Noble Sciences, (which is the true Inter­preter of mysteries, and Secretary of the most hidden things of the heavens;) which doth unvail the eyes, and make them see how they be in a masse so vast, and yet so light in motion; in influences so discor­dant, and yet in the maintenance of na­ture so united; in the revolutions they make some so slow, and others so swift, and yet all to the time, and almost in one and the same dance accord, in obedience to the first mover so strict, and in the li­berty of their proper motions so free, so splendid, and so profound; so uniform, and so various; so majestick, and so a­miable. Violent with so many Laws, bu­sied with so much quietnesse; in the mea­sure of times, in the succession of daies, in the changes of seasons, so consortial, He who hath eyes to see so much, he it is that knows how to make a Ladder to climb to the sight of much more; He who by the long chain of these coelestial na­tures (of which the last link is fastned to the foot of the Throne of Jove) can climb [Page 19] even to the Archetype forms, and to the I­dea's of the first mind, from whose inva­riable design are took the weights, num­bers and measures, as instruments of the work of this great order of Nature: He which knows how to understand the high Wisdom of him, who in such variety of mutations, keeps stedfast the course of an immutable Providence, while he knew how to give an occult order to the mani­fest disorder of so many effects, concati­nating them with indissoluble knots to his intended ends: So that those which seem casual events of chance, are executions of a most regular Providence; he that hath a sight for objects of so high a cognition, is he not with it alone more blessed then others in all their sensual enjoyments? That great Platonick Philo Alexandrinus gave credit to it, when he said for proof of it. In Cos­mopaeia. Vagata (meus) circa stellarum turn sixarum, tum erraticarum cursus, & choreas juxta Mu­sicae praecepta absolutissimas, trahitur amore sa­pientiae se deducentis, atque ita emergens super omnem sensibilem essentiam, demum intelligi­bilis desiderio corripitur. Illic conspicata ex­emplaria, ideas que rerum, quas vidit, sensibi­lium, ad eximi [...]s illas pulchritudines, aebrieta­te quadam sobria capta, tanquam Corybantes [Page 20] lymphatur, alio plena amore longe meliore, quo ad summum fastigium ad ducta rerum intelligibili­um, ad ipsum Magnum Regem tendere videtur.

To whom these shall seem rather flou­rishes of art, then real verity, and being un-experienced, should be so much the lesse credible. I know not how to give a better answer then that which was me­rited from Nicostratus, by a man little knowing, and lesse credulous of the beau­ty of a picture. Aelian. Zeuxis that Son of Pain­ters, which did not give so much light to the picture illustrating it, as shadow to the picturers his emulators, obscuring them, drew in a thin vail the face of an Helen, with so noble workmanship, that the ex­emplar was out-done by the copy, and true Helen seemed to yeild to her self painted; for if the real one drew a Paris from Troy to ravish her, the counterfeit drew all Greece to admire her. Nicostratus meeting with this picture (he himself also being a Painter of no mean rank) at the first look as if he had beheld not the head of Helen, but of Medusa, was metamor­phiz'd into a stone, and with mutual de­ceit, Helen seemed to be as much alive in her picture, as Nicostratus seemed dead in his amazement; insomuch as a simple [Page 21] clown, a blunt dolt, a man wanting eyes looking upon Nicostratus, which ingraven in an act of astonishment seemed a Statue looking on a picture, accosted him, and almost shaking him out of his dumps, ask­ed him, Quid tantum in Helena illa stuperet. He asked too many questions in one word. But as he had not good eyes to see Helen, so he had no docile ears to hear Nicostra­tus: Therefore the Painter turning him­self, and between compassionating it, and disdaining him, looking on him; This saith he, Is not a picture for Owls. Pluck out those ignorant eyes you have, and I will lend you mine; and if now you be an Owl without eyes, you will then desire to be an Argus all eyes. Non in terrogares me, si meos oculos haberes.

Behold, the very same falls out to him who wondereth, how in beholding that goodly face of Nature, the Heavens, in which God, as much as the matter was capable, did design, (copying them from himself,) lineaments of so rare beauties; we can find matter of such delight, as to swallow our wits, extacise our thoughts, and blesse our minds. All behold Hea­ven, but all understand it not; and be­tween him that understandeth it, and him [Page 22] that doth not, there is the same difference that is between two, of which one, in a writing in Arabick, ruled with gold, and written with azure, sees nothing but the workmanship of well-composed chara­cters; the other moreover doth read the periods, and understand the sense, so that the least of the pleasure that he enjoyes, is that of the eyes.

But although the gust of the under­standing is as the sweetnesse of honey, which to perswade, the endeavours of a long discourse are not so efficacious, as the simple proof of tasting one drop; ne­verthelesse, I think good to make you hear most moral Seneca, where he declareth, what was the content which he found in contemplating the Heavens, whilst he conceiveth there above spirits, contem­ners of the world; spirits more than hu­mane. Hear him:

Imagine (saith he) that you were as­cended to the highest sphere of the Hea­vens, Prae [...]at. l. 1. nat. quaest. so that you saw Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, turn themselves in their several Re­volutions, and under them each of the o­ther Planets to run their periods. There you behold the immensurable masse of bodies, the unparallel'd velocity of their [Page 23] course, the numberlesse number of the stars, which here scarce seems sparks to you; and there, are worlds of light, and no lesse then so many Suns. Thence with eyes sated with the greatnesse of those spaces, and of the mass of those vast bo­dies, look down to this center of the World, and seek about it for the earth. If you were able to see it, it would appear so little to one that looks upon it from the stars, that it would be necessary that you sharpen your quickest eye, and you would desire that some Syderial Nuntio would help your sight. What from hence be­low seemed the smallest of the starres, so that the dubious eye knew not if he saw it, or thought he saw it: such from thence above the earth appeareth to you; so that at such a sight you would say, That then below, which I scarce perceive, which I scarce discern with my eye, is that the earth? Is that that point divided into so many Provinces, subdivided into so ma­ny Kingdomes, for which we rob one ano­ther, for to get which, are invented in so great abundance, both Arts and Arms to kill one another? sieges, assaults, confla­grations, batteries, pitcht fields, subversi­ons of whole Nations made in a little [Page 24] time, which so oft hath made Widow'd Nature weep, infecting the ayr with the stench of the putrified carkasses, and sometimes damming up rivers, sometimes vermiliating the Sea with great numbers of dead men, with great abundance of humane bloud.

Hear ye the incredible wonders of hu­mane madnesse? Our vastest desires are lost in a point. What, said I in a point? in the least particle of a point. What would the Ants do more if they had reason? Would not also they sub-divide a handful of earth into many Provinces? Would they not set their obstinate bounds so, that they would not yield in the least to thundring Jupiter himself? Would they not found in a spot of ground a Kingdome, in a lit­tle field a great Monarchy; a little rivolet of water would be to them a Nile, a ditch they would call an Ocean, a stone as big as ones hand, they would stile a great rock, a Farm would be no lesse than a World: They would also raise Bulwarks and Curtains to secure their States, they would leavy Armies in hopes of new con­quests, and we should see in the space of two foot of ground, squadrons march in order, with colours display'd against the [Page 25] black Ants, as enemies, charging them with boldnesse, justling them, routing them, and some to return, the day being won, victorious; others either to surren­der upon articles, or flying, hide them­selves, or dying, bide the fury of their in­raged enemies, and become booty. Such a war between twenty or more thousands of Ants, undertaken to dispute the pre­tentions to a handful of earth, only to think of it would make us laugh; and we, what other do, we do, sub-dividing a point into so many Kingdomes, and destroying one another to inlarge them? Let the Ister be the confines of [...]acia, Strimon of Thracia, the Rhene of Germany, the Parthians, let them be bounded by Euphrates, the Sarmati­ans by Da [...]ubius, let the Pirrenean Mountains divide France and Spain, the Alps Italy. For­micarum isle discursus est in angusto labo­rantium.

Come and see from hence above your earth, look out for your Kingdomes, and measure how much that is from whence you take the titles of Grandees. See you your small particle of a point, if a point may admit of being seen? And is this that which makes you go so stately? Come up to the starres, not to see only, but to possesse, if you will, a Kingdome e­qual to your desire of raigning: Nor shall you have any to strive with about bounds, possessing all; nor shall you need to fear that any will thrust you out of it, since that being possest by many, yet it can be taken from none. Thus, Juvat inter sydera vagantem divitum pavimenta ridere, & totum cum auro suo terram. What greater enjoy­ment, then to gain so generous spirits, and so noble intelligences? Alexander accu­stomed to the great victories of Asia, when he received advice from Greece of some Martial act, or conquest, (which was at most of a Castle, or of some petty City) he was wont to say, That he thought he heard the news of the military successes between the frogs and the mice of Homer. [Page 27] O how much lesse do things appear that are beheld from a high place! How do they abate, which here below seem so great, if they be beheld from the starres! And how much do we enjoy, perceiving the thoughts to inlarge, and the mind en­crease, even to make us contemn that, which others like slaves adore!

That which the good Seneca teacheth us to do, the great Anaxagoras had done long before, who desiring only to see the heavens, for the contemplation of which he was said to be born, left his country, as a Sepulchre of living men; and because the earth should not take away the sight of the heavens, he lived in the fields poor, and without covert. What said he, Poor and Harbourlesse? He enjoyed more, in seeing over his head the beautiful Canopy of the serene Azures of heaven, in seeing himself crowned with a world of starres, which did revolve about him, and in that the Sun gilded with his light, the rag­gednesse of his poor garments; and in that the heavens sent him advice of all news, than if he had been clad in purple, and his head crowned, and he attended with the vassalage of all the earth. And therefore: Seneca. Ibid. Hic coetus astrorum, quibus im­mensi [Page 28] corporis, pulchritudo distinguitur, popu­lum non convocat, his Clasomeneans scorned him, as ridiculous, and rejected him, as savage; but he opposed the honours of the heavens to the derisions of the vulgar, he cared not so much to be seen in the earth by men, as he did rejoyce to see the sta [...]res in heaven, and to be inter­changeably seen by them, with that cour­teous eye, with which Sinesius said of him­self; Epis. 100 a l. 101. Me stellae etiam ipse benigne, identidem de spectare videntur, Phyle­mon. quem in vastissima regi­one solum cum scientia sui inspectorem intuen­tur.

That which I have hitherto spoke of the contemplation of heaven, an object of a part of the Natural Sciences, to prove that Understanding is a certain be atitude of so excellent a tast, that it inchanteth the senses, and takes away what ever de­sires are of an order inferiour to the mind; I would have to be understood of the o­ther so numerous, so noble, and so vast sub­jects, of most pleasant cognitions, of which the ingenuity of the learned is capable, brought into the world (saith Pythagoras re­cited by Sinesius) as Spectators in a Thea­ter of alwayes new, Sine [...] Pro­vi subin. and wholly noble wonders. Ita Pathagoras Samius, Sapientem [Page 29] nihil aliud esse ait, quàm eorum, quae sunt, si­ [...]ntque spectatorem. Proinde enim in Mundum, ac in sacrum quoddam certamen introductum esse, ut iis quae ibidem fiunt, spectator intersit.

But if from the gust of speculation the use of learning be called back to the pra­ctice of living, Scholars would be much more severe and grave; and I confesse (as all the wise are of opinion) to tearm that learned man wise, whose mind a long and right understanding hath refined, and whose reason it hath purged from the filth of those sensual basenesses, and terrene vilenesses of those affections which in us savour of bruitish, so that prosperous or adverse that occurrences be, he weigheth them in the balance of reason for what they are; it would be no hard matter for me, leading you through some of the more dreaded miseries, to make you see such a man superiour to them, then to shew the loftiest starres to be as far from eclipses, as they are distant from the shadows of the earth.

Sapience happy, although in mise­ry. The Wise poor man.

POverty is a single name, but not a single misery, and one that's un­derstanding in cyphers, in this only word knows how to read a whole Iliad of evils. The Poet with the title of Turpis E­gestus, placed it together with other mon­sters at the gate of hell; nor did he any injury to it, forasmuch as it brings with it sufficient matter for a whole hell of mi­sery, to those houses of which it keepeth the door. Famine within, earts the bowels alive; Nakednesse without, ignomini­ously discovers the flesh; Shame suffers it not to appear in publique; Necessity permits it not to keep in secret: if bash­fulnesse makes it silent, it endureth a thou­sand hardships; if it beg an almes, as vile, it finds no credit. The evils it suffer­eth are so much the greater, by how much the lesse others commiserate them. But of as many griefs as this complicated mi­sery is pregnant with, there is not a worse [Page 31] specially to a man of sublime wit, or no­ble extraction, than the becoming Subjects of scorn and derision.

This is the blackest shadow that fol­lows it, this is the heaviest chain it drags after it: And how many which appear­ed as trees without leaves, un-beseeming­ly naked, have made choice of obscurity, judging death lesse insufferable than igno­miny?

Now this tormenting and deformed Hangman, (that might there be so many Furies in hell, would make the fourth) who would believe it, when its joyned with Learning and Sapience; The 4, which with the 5 makes an 8. like a disso­nant Diatesseron, which united to the Diapence, rendereth the sweetest of all harmonies, becomes lovely and pleasing beyond measure.

Poverty with Sapience (saith the Stoick Philosophying, is a divine composition, which hath all, and hath nothing, yea, can only give that, without which nothing is possest, therefore alone is all things, I mean Sapience. And is not this the conditi­on of the gods?

What can he desire more in the world, who phylosophying, better than possessing, hath made the world his patrimony? The things which are so much ours as For­tune and chance left them us, are more others than our own, more lent than possest, and make us no more happy than the image of a man makes the Statue. To know the world, saith Manilius, this is to possesse it: in such sort, that to every Deme­trius which shall ask us, Quid capta Patria superfuerit nobis? We may with the same Megarensis answer, Nullum vidi qui res meas anferret.

To Pilgrims, not only a little sufficeth, but much is troublesome. To a man whose thoughts are not confined between his own walls, as the center is included in the circumference, but alwayes with the Wings of the Mind displayed, and ad­dressed thither where the desire of know­ing new things calls him, whereby he be­comes a stranger, not only to his home, but also to himself, and is rather where he is not, than where he dwells; Can it be [Page 33] a dishonour or prejudice to him to want that, which, as a Pilgrim, would be as well of impediment, as of weight? From whence Seneca formeth the Aphorism: Epist. 17 Si vis vacare animo, aut pauper sis oportet, aut pauperi similis.

But behold an Eloquent Platonick, who, Apuleius whether by way of reproof or deri­sion, I know not, Apol. 1 [...] prose. was opposed with a pub­lique accusation, how that Poverty was either dishonourable, or culpable. If thou (answered he to the Accuser) wert as much a Phylosopher as thou art a rich man, thou wouldest understand that I being poor am the rich man, and thou be­ing rich art the poor man. Nam (que) is pluri­mum habet qui minimum desiderat: habet enim q [...] antum vult qui vult minimum, & idcirco divitiae non melius in su [...]do, & in [...]oenore, quàm in ipso hominis aes [...]imantur animo. In the Sea of this life the tempests and bil­lows contrast not those that are full fraight, to keep them from their Port, but them that sail unladen. This simple coat that covers me, or this plain staff I lean on, render they me contemptible? Tell me what more had Hercules, son of Jove, Conquerour of the World, and a Demi­god? Ipse Hercules illustrator; Orbis, pur­gator [...]erar [...]m, gentium domit [...]r▪ is idquam [Page 34] Deus cum terras peragraret, paulò prius quam in Coelum ob virtutes adscitus est, ne que una pelle uestitior fuit, neque uno baculo comitatior. Yea, even the Supreme Gods themselves, what have they in their Kingdome, with which they are rich? Large veins of mettals from which they extract gold and silver? Oceans in which they fish for pearls, Couchyla's, out of which they presse pur­ple? Kingdomes, vassals, and liege peo­ple, from whom they extract tribute? Or else without having other than them­selves, but being in themselves alone bles­sed, do they not seem poor, because they have nothing, Ibid. and are rich, forasmuch as they have need of nothing? Igitur ex nobis cui quam minimis opus sit, is erit Deo simi­lior.

Let therefore Socrates the poor, but So­crates the Learned, go through all the Marts and Ports of the World, beholding particularly the immense abundance of those goods, of which riches and honours make vaunt, [...]ertius in Socre. blessed with that which he knoweth, not careful for what he hath not; and let him say, and all his Com­peers repeat it with him, Quam multo ipse non egeo!

Alexander lamented with brinish tears, [Page 35] when he heard the Phylosopher Anaxago­ras assert, that Nature, either as avariti­ous, would not, or as sterril, could not produce more then one VVorld, it having neither measure to its power, nor [...] to its will; so that in the spaces of its im­mensity, it hath not produced the num­bers of infinite, and equalled its being to its utmost power, and answered to the [...] ­dea's of immensurable VVorlds, with the workmanship of each of them. Alexander possest not one alone of so many [...] was, and therefore exclaimed [...] Immanium ferarum modo, quae [...] git fames, mordent. [...] Yet [...] Grecia, Persia, of the India's ( [...] Regnum multa Regna conjecit) but [...] his poverty by his want, and so much he wanted as he did desire. [...] Quid euim in­terest quot cripuerit Regna, quot dederit? Quantum terrarum tributo premat? Tantum illi de [...]st quantum cupit. Alexander therefore is poor, and in the riches of half the World hath nothing, because half the World is nothing in comparison of the infinite Worlds which he desired. But in the mean-time, Crates, a learned man, which had no more but himself, and a tat­tered Phylosophical mantle, with which [Page 36] he covered himself, more to conceal his nakednesse, then to reveal himself to be a Phylosopher, lived in the earth like a Jupiter in heaven, more rich with the much he had not, then Alexander with that all which he possest. Plutar. de tran­quill. a­nimi. Flet Alexander pro­pter insinitos mundos ab Anaxagoras auditos, cum Crates, pera, & palliolo instructus vitam ta, quam festivitatem quandam per jocum, & risum ageret.

Would you know justly how to de­scribe that famous Diogenes, which drew to him (not so much to visit as to admire him) Alexander, by whom he was sought to, and for whom he did not care. Sanecae de benef. l. 5. c. q. Supra enim eminere visus est, infra quem omnia jacebant, You shall take from Claudian a symbolical image, but which more livelily will defi­gure him, then if Apelles himself had drawn him.

His hispid beard, uncombed hair, his [Page 37] deformed visage, his ragged cloaths, his rude and clownish manners, his extreme poverty, did they not make him seem like a naked, black, heavy, ill-shapt piece of stone? More over, a Tub was his house; yea, was to him as if he had all the world, because of all the world he would have no more then that. He turned it at his plea­sure, scoffing at the celestial Sp [...]eres, and Fortunes wheel, became neither these with their periods, nor this with its praeci­pices could oppose the revolutions o [...] his Tub, nor either the heavens give any good to him that covers nothing, or fortune take it from him that being naked can be spoil­ed of nothing. But in a man so ill accou­tred, and so ill lodged, whence such vir­tue, and one so potent, (I will say) mag­netisme, that he, obscure and be [...]garly, cou [...]d draw to him the most illu [...]trious and most wealthy Monarch of the World, thanks Phylosophy, that in Diogenes, as a Sun covered with a cloud, or a Venus clothed like a Satyre, shined [...]orth so, as to be able to allure such a King, and wrap him into admiration, and obsequ [...]e of a ragged beggar.

What though [...] be a beggar? Let his riches be put in balance to counter poise [Page 38] that of the richest Alexander. Diogenes of all that the Macedon offered him, accepted nothing, because he needed nothing. A­lexander, who wanted even that which he had, because he wanted what he would, desired to be transformed into, and to be­come Diogenes. Therefore Diogenes, Multo potentior multo lucupletior fuit, [...]eca [...]b. omniae tunc pos­sidente Alexandro. Plus enim erat quod hic no [...]et accipere quam quod hic posset dare.

Therefore Learning and contented po­verty, in whom they do unite, compose that happy temper of the Golden Age, when free from all fear of losse, every one lived pleased with that which was his; namely, content with himself, and so far rich as he needed nothing; namely, desi­red not riches. Thus Palemon and Crates, two friends, two Phylosophers, two beg­gars, were by Archesilaus for their honour called Reliques of the Golden Age. And be­tween others riches and their own pover­ty, they lived like that friend of Seneca: Non tanquam contempsissent omnia, sed tan­quam aliis habenda, permisissent.

The rich are not so blinded with the splendor of their gold, that they see not at least in part the worth of these goods. A poor learned man appeareth among rich [Page 39] ideots, as rags among silks, frieze amongst purple, the meagernesse of a face consu­med by study, and made pale with looks, amongst plump and ruddy faces; Those look on themselves as sheep covered with golden wooll, and the other as a great god among the ancients, graven in a homely stone, or imprinted in clay; but therefore no lesse honourable, than if they were cast in gold, and in-laid with pearl.

That adventurous Ship, which first of all past the large Straights of Megallanes, which steered it, environed all the earth, whence it was called Victory: returning into Europe, and drawn into the Port, was beheld by all as the second Argo of the World. Those ribs which had been of proof against the batteries of storms, of till-then-unseen Oceans, those faithful sails at the encounter of strange winds, that rudder, that mast, those sail-yards, in fine, all its parts were judged worthy of the noblest stars in heaven: since she had overcome the elements, and made con­quest not of a fleece, but world of gold. Nor did her being in part defaced with weakned mast, dislocated yards, disarm­ed sides, tattered sails, faln poup, render her lesse valuable and beautiful.

[Page 40] The other ships well rigg'd, beheld her with a certain envy, and those impressions which the tempests and the long voyage had made in her, as scars in a Martial Captain, they esteemed more honourable, then that beauty with which they were adorned. To her they struck sail, vailed yards, bowed Ancients, they full of mer­chandise, and rich with gold, the Victory empty, shattered, disfigured, they adored as their Mistresse. Behold, the condition of a poor Scholar in the midst of many rich Ignorants; they have, although ma­ny times they know not that they have it, an Envie of the internal riches, of which they are wholly wanting, and do look on that poor man as rich. Ullanè au­tem tam ingentium opum, tam magnae Potentiae voluptas, quam spectare homines veteres, & senes, & totius orbis gratia subnixos, in summa omnium rerum abundantia confitentes, id quod optimum sit, se non habere? Now if the rich be trees, with a great grove of branches dispersed in every part, comely, and lea [...]ie: a poor learned man is a leafless trunk, and half naked; but what then?

The Wise Exile.

THose Ancient Sages, Masters of Sapience, which alive, had Greece dead, had all the World for Au­ditors, left us for an infallible maxime, to the end the mind learn to Phylosophate, and not erre; it's needful, the feet go wandring through many Lands: We may attein to the riches of Sapience, but no o­ther way but by going to the Sages, in ma­ny places, and begging it. Truth (said they) a Native of Heaven, is a Pilgrim on Earth, and is found no way but by Pere­grination: He that seeks it, doth as the rivers, which encrease the more, the fur­ther they go; so that they which at their fountains were scarce little brooks, in di­lating themselves, become little lesse than Seas. The vapours of the earth, would they ever assume the form of starres, if leaving the country where they were all dirt, they should not run after the Sun, and make themselves much more happy in being Pilgrims in heaven, than if they [Page 43] were Citizens on earth? Men are not as Planets, which have the greatest virtue then, when they are in their own houses; yea, it happens many times, that ones own country proveth a step-mother, and a forraign land the mother, in fashion of certain plants, which from their Native Soil, where they were nourished with ve­nomous humours, transported to a strange climate, in the remove they lose their power of hurting, and find together with a harmlesse relish, the virtue of whole­some aliment. A mans own country ought to be to a wise man, as the Horizon to the stars, for birth, not for Sepulchre; to take thence the first light, and as the Aurora of Sapience, after to climb to other places, even to find the most high and splendid noon-tide which it makes on earth.

Thus those Sages understood it, and ac­cording to their knowledge practising, seemed just of the nature of the Heavens, which have rest in motion: whence with tedious voyages, they ran where in some new Academy of the learned they might discover the gain of Wisdome. Their life was, as Sinesius speaks, a perpetual going a hunting, sometimes in Greece, sometimes [Page 44] in Aegypt, sometimes in Persia, sometimes in the Indies, where the hope of the best prey inviting drew them. Thus Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Democritus, Dioge [...]es, Anaxa­goras, and a hundred others came through un-frequented climates, and gathered the quintessence of every one like to certain fortunate fountains, which in the pere­grination they make through the bowels of the earth, passe through the middle of precious veins, some of gold, or silver; some of Emeralds or Saphyres, & imbibe, and carry away the best of their whole­some qualities.

And see how the relish of Learning rendereth absence from ones country, not only sufferable, but beyond measure sweet, whence to him who wisheth it, when ba­nishment cometh, Exile hath no other pain then the name. To him who hath not, to him who knows not other goods, then those which the ignorant vulgar call gifts of Fortune, leaving his country, I deny not is to him as to a scarce imfea­thered fowl to be thrown from his nest, whose going out is his fall, and his fall his ruine, but he that hath strong feathers, and expert wings, changeth a nest of straw in which he lived buried, for the ample [Page 45] spaces, and open ayr of all the heavens, which is so much his, as is the liberty of flight which brought him thither.

Who took thee from thy country? (saith a Shepherd to Tytirus) Who made thee turn Pilgrim, and live a stranger in for­reign parts?

Wearinesse of servitude, replied Tytirus, thrust me out of my native nest; love of liberty brought me to live in strange pla­ces.

Ille (Petrach sagely replyeth) in Sermone Pastorio ut libertatem inveniret, Patriam se re­liquisse gloriatur, tu Phylosophos defles?

Let the Moors of Spain weep, Boter. in relat. whilst they are thrust from thence to their Afri­ca, a Land fit for such monsters; let them go not as such as change places, but as such who are thrown down from heaven; and turning their eyes behind them at e­very step, let them weeping behold Gra­nada, and swear, that Paradise stands per­pendicular [Page 46] over that Kingdome. This is the language either of Sibarites, which love their country as a stable, because they lead the lives of animals, or of fools; like to that simple Athenian, which said the Moon of Athens was fuller then that of Corinth: Whereas it was not that the Moon was more full, but his head more empty. Et hoc idem (I shall say with Plu­tarch) accidit nobis, De exi­lio. cum extra Patriam consti­tuti mare, aërem, coelum dubii consideramus, quasi aliquid eis desit eorum, quibus, in Patria fruebamur.

Ruine the country of Stilpone, in com­mon tears he alone is merry, and in a uni­versall losse secure: And going thence a­lone, and naked, carrieth with him all that's his, because he carrieth himself; but himself wise and learned. Sapie autem, Laert. in Antist. saith Antisthenes, etiam si omnia de­sint; solus sufficit sibi.

Let the Clasomeneans, as we said above, banish the great Anaxagoras, and as un­worthy of the name of Citizen, forbid him the City. He grieves not, as if his departure were from his country, but his prison, and excluded from a corner of the earth, which was too narrow for his great soul, he pointed at heaven for his coun­try, [Page 47] and the stars for his Fellow-Citizens. Where ever he goeth he is covered with the same roof of heaven, so that he seems not to have lost his house, but to have on­ly changed rooms. Quid enim re [...]ert quam diversa parte consistat? Petrarch ibid. Valles quidem, & la­cus, & flumina, & colles alios videt. Coelum unum est. Illuc aninum exigit, eo cogitationes suas ex omni mundi parte transmittit; nec ali­ud quam sub tecti unius amplexu ex alio in ali­um thalamum transivisse cogitat. Let the A­thenians mock Antisthenes, because he hath never a house in the World, but all the World is his Inne, and he shall laugh at them: Quia quasi cochleae sine domibus nun­quam sunt. He shall live in the champain, as the Semi-gods in the Elizium fields, in which ‘Nulli certa domus.’

Let Diogenes be thrust out of Sinope, he will be as thankful to his banishers, as Theseus to Hercules his Deliverer, when he fetcht him by force from that unhappy stone, on which his punishment was in­graven: ‘Sedet, aeternum (que) Sedebit.’

[Page 48] And from that loathsome idlenesse, which alone sufficed to him for a great Hell, instating him in his Primitive Li­berty: Let the scoffers jeer his Exile, he will answer, My Citizens have condemn­ed me to go out of Sinope, and I have con­demned them to stay there. The Wise man knew, that they were more Exiles, because banished from all the rest of the World, they were confined to one City, then he, which excluded from one City, had all the World for his country. Being far from Sinope, he beheld it as he that cast away in a sudden tempest at Sea, and driven by the waves to a rock, sees from those cliffs, others shipwracks, and cal­ing his misfortunes felicities, desireth not the Ocean which tosseth them, but abhor­reth it; nor doth he envie such who perish in it, but pittieth them.

Would you see a picture, or rather on­ly a rough draught of the hand of the worthiest Seneca, which sets out to the life the state, the imployments, the ordi­nary pastimes of the greatest part of men in their Cities?

Behold, a world of people, which though they be continually busied, yet do­ing nothing, and that are lesse idle while [Page 49] they sleep then while they labour. De tran­quilit a­nimi c. 12 Horum si aliquem exeuntem domo interrogaveris, Quò tu? Quid cogitas? Respondebit tibi; Non in [...]ae Herculè, scio. Si aliquos videbo aliquid agum. Sine proposito & agantur quaerentes negotia, nec quae destina verunt agunt, sed in quae incurre­runt. Did you never observe a long rabble of Ants, one after another busily clime up a stump, till they got to the top, as if they would have toucht the very heavens, and saluted the stars, and then dismount them­selves by the other part, and so return to the earth? Ibid. His plerumque similem vitam a­gunt, quorum non immeritò quis inquietum in­ertiam dixerit. Hi deinde d [...]mum tum super­vacua redeuntes Lassitudine, jurant, nescisse se ipsos quare exierint, ubi fuerint: postero dic erraturi per eadem illa vestigia. And can it be matter of grief or sorrow to one who hath eyes of Sapience in his head, just esteemers of truth, to be excluded from such a place [...] And would not he rather say to those that stay there behind, that which Stratonicus, (lodging in Zerif) said to his Host; who asking, what crimes they punished with banishment, and understanding that false dealers were punished with exile: And why, said he, doe not you all turn Cheats, to be delivered from hence?

But when afterwards in leaving ones [Page 52] a mattock, his rams into plows, horses into oxen, trenches into fences, ditches into furrows, the ranging of squadrons, to martialling of trees, to routing of armies, to rooting up of thorns: in fine, combats into labours, and victory into harvest. Yet he made not the fences about his farme so thick, but that the troubles of Rome might penetrate them. Nor did his rusticity so di [...]guise him, that publicke cares knew him not, to torment him. The voluntary banishment which he took against his will, from his ingrateful Country, going thence that he might not be thrust from thence, so reteined against them, in-kindled in his heart ever after a disdain, that it extin­guisht not with the expiration of his life, but the flame perpetualliz'd it self in his ashes, buried far from his ingrateful Country.

Behold, here the advantage of a great mind above a great heart. A man of high knowledg: and of as hardy a wit, as Scipio was of his hands, abandoned and bereft of Rome, would have said as Socrates, when turned out of Athens. Mihi omnis terra eadem mater, omne coelum idem tectum, totus mundus est patria. Apud Stob. de exil. He would have cheerfully left the City of Romulus, and entered (as [Page 53] Musonius said) that of Jove, not environed with a circle of wals, but inclosed with the vast convex of the Heavens; so ample that there all Languages are spoken, be­cause it comprehends all the Nations of every Climate; and so noble that its Se­nators are the gods of Heaven, and its peo­ple are even the Senators of the Earth. He would have got out of Rome, as the little Rivolets which from the narrow banks, between whose confines they ran miserably straightned through the earth: in their falling into the Sea (were they lose not themselves as the Vulgars believe) of rillets that they were before, scarce having one small stream of water, they them­selves become Seas, and distending as far as it inlargeth, may be said to touch the ends of the one and the other World. But vertue will have us possess a great Mind, that should eface the sordidness of loving more the servitude of one corner of the earth, than the libertie of thoughts and affects, which makes it Mistriss of tho World.

He that is separated from his Country, let him imitate the Moon, which the farther it is from the Sun, the fuller it is of light: and seeing the increasements and [Page 54] acquist's of new knowledg, w ^ch he makes in the Domestick use of Men greater than himself; he can doe no lesse than say as Alcibiades, cast out his Country, and re­ceived by a forreign King, with the offer of three great Cities at his first reception, Perieramus, nisi periissemus. Oh how much is Wisedom obliged to voluntary and compulsive exilements! Pallas with this hath made other manner of acquist's, than when she sailed in the Argonautick ship to the conquest of the Golden Fleece.

Before the Art of Navigation was in use, the World was half unknown, half un-cultivated, all barbarous.

Who then had, or knew what it was to have all the World? The Sea was idle, the Winds unprofitable; Heaven, few were there that did behold it, none that made use of it.

[Page 55] Now all the World is made one only Kingdome, whereas before every King­dom seemed a World. Each place is nei­ther deprived of others, nor covetous of her own; whilst that each transporteth into another, that wherein it self abounds: ma­king all the earth but one body, where one part readily succoureth the necessities of an other. Now the whole heaven is but one Roofe, and all Men doe know themselves to be but one and the same Family, and may with more verity, than he that they were said by, Lib. 4. Astr. sing, the verses of Manilius

What would the Gymnosophists, the Greeks, the Chaldeans have had, if content with that only, which they were born with, they had not gone out of their Country to seek, as Ulisses in his fortu­nate wandrings, that Sapience from o­thers, which they themselves did want? [Page 56] Look how much better a seeing eye is, than a blind, Lib. de Abra­ham. saith Philo Alexandrinus, so much more excellent is a man whom desire of knowledge had led, a Pilgrim and volun­tary exile, Epicte­tus. through many Nations: then he who is like a tree, that where it first sproutes, there it takes root, there it lives, and there in the end it rots.

The Wise Prisoner.

THe Soules of Philosophers (said a Wise Ancient) have their bodies for houses: those of the ignorant, for prisons. Because the first are retired in the body as in Temples of sleep and repose, and goe out freely at their plea­sure wheresoever their fancies carry them: and the second, shut up in the narrow wals of their body, are tied with as many chaines as they have members, without seeing any other light then what comes to them through the little holes of two pu­pils: and rest there shut up, in as much as they have no thoughts but what their bodily necessities infuse. Thence it is that if the ignorant chance to be prisoners they are double prisoners: The Sages not at all; the better part of whom can no more be confined, than the wind may be im­prisoned in a Net; or the light shut up in Christal. The Tullianum of Rome: the Cave of Syracuse, the Lethe of Persia, the Ceramo of Cyprus, and of as many as there were, or [Page 58] there are now a-dayes famous, or infa­mous prisons of the World, none are so deep, that they bury, or so obscure that they blind, so narrow as to bind, so strong with double wals, that they confine a mind truly Phylosophical. Thanks to Sapience, which Plato cals the wing of the Soul, that carries it not only out of its prison, but beares it up in its flight out of the World. Nam cogitatio ejus (saith the Stoick) circa omne coelum, & in omne praeteritum, futurum­que tempus emittitur. Corpusculum hoc custodia, ac vinculum animi, huc, atque illuc jactatur. In hoc supplicia, in hoc latrocinia, in hoc morbi ex­ercentur. Animis quidem ipse sacer, & aeternus est, & cui non possit injici manus. Therefore a prison to a wise man is no prison, but a house, since he is at liberty to go out when he will. Totum autem hominem animus, cir­cumfert (saith Tertullian) & quo velit trans­fert. Ad mar­tyros c. 2.

It is of little importance to the Soule what becomes of the body, whilst its thoughts are out of the body. Plinius lib. 27. cap. 52. Thus Ermo­timus, whose soule left his body at pleasure: and went travaling in divers places, even into the remotest Climes, to see what was done in the World, felt so little, that he knew not in the least if he suffered, so [Page 59] that he used to burn his body alive in one place, and his soul insensible of what was done, enjoyed it in another.

A light remedy was that of Socrates, against the heavy vexations of the always fastidious Zantippe, to get up to the top of the house, when she made the bottome ring with her brawling. How much bet­ter would it be to avoid the sight of the darkness, the feeling of the narrowness, the anoyance of the solitude of a prison, to clime with the mind to the stars, to make it self splendid with their light, and tra­cing out their periods, and measuring their magnitudes, to make himself a com­panion of the intelligences which so ex­pertly reveal them? Tertull. Nihil crus sentit in nervo, ibid. cum animus in Coelo est.

A pleasant folly was that related by Ho­race of a Greek fool, who for many hours of the day thought himself in a full Thea­ter, and to see persons appear in Scaenes, and to hear excellent Tragoedies recited by the bravest Actors! There was not a man in all Argos more content then he.

[Page 60] His friends, going about, to comiserate him, were, without knowing it cruel to him: for by the power of Helebore re-setling the brains in his head, they took the joy from his heart: whereupon he, that would not have exchanged his folly for all the wisdome in the World, being cured, con­doled his unfortunate discretion▪ and en­vied his fortunate folly; and to his friends, because depriving him of an innocent con­tent, they had restored him to the anoy­ance of his former perplexities, and of a fained Spectator, had made him a real Actor of Tragoedies, he makes grievous complaint.

Thus far a foolish imagination of an ir­regular fancy can co-operate to other mens content, whilest ravishing them out of themselves, it fixeth them upon some plea­sing object. And cannot Sapience doe that in a head full of noble and sublime notions, which folly can doe in one devoid of un­derstanding? Knows she not how to pre­sent the mind with spectacles, the pleasure [Page 61] whereof may make a man forget the place where he is; so that being confined in a Prison, he may conceit himself, one while in the bowels of the earth, another, in the watery abysse; sometimes on the Ocean, sometimes in the air, tost too and fro by the winds; now neer the Sun, anon among the Stars; by and by in the utmost regions, and even also in the immense vacuities above the World? These are the speculati­ons that transport our minds out of them­selves, and make us happy in their contem­plation. True dreams of waking eyes, which at the same instant give both rest, and delight. Serm. 6. Scis enim Philosophi spectaculum (saith that excellent Platonick Maximus Tyrius) cui maximè simile dico? In somnio ni­mirnm manifesto, & circumquaque volitanti, cujus, integro corpore manente, animus tamen in universam terram excurrit. Ex terra effertur in Coelum universum, mare pertransit, universum pervolat aërem. Terram ambit cum Sole, cum Luna circumfertur, caetero (que) astrorum jungitur Choro, minimum (que) abest, quin unà cum Jove u­niversa gubernet, & ordinet. O operationem bea­tam! O spectacula pulchra! O insomnia verissi­ma!

He that can enter a Prison with such con­templation, may well say with Tertullian, [Page 62] Auferamus carceris nomen, secessum vocemus. He changeth place, Supra. but not fortune; he al­ters the entertainment of his body, but not the imployment of his mind: and as the Poet saith of the Demi-gods, That they doe the very same things below in the Elisian fields, which we doe living here above.

Thus the wise prisoner, hath the same noble exercise of mind, and that either sole, or principal care of soaring higher to new degrees of sublimer speculations, which he had when free, eadem sequitur tel­lure repostum. Wherewith he entred into prison, not to receive from thence obscu­rity and infamy, but to bring thither light and glory; De con­solat. ad Helu. cap. 13. he enters it as the great Socrates, Ignominiam ipsi loco detracturus, saith Seneca; Neque etiam poterat carcer videri, in quo So­crates.

But this is not the only fruit of Learning in the Wise Prisoner, far greater is that (which very often succeeds) of converting the Prison into a Lyceum, and with feet fettered in shackles, to use the liberty of his [Page 63] hands in managing a pen. So that he who lives in a Cell, known only to himself, like Silk-wormes in their shels, Jam mutatus in alitem, flies with his books through every place, becoming in the school of a prison, one of the Worlds Sages. Just like the Sun, which when it hath left our Hemisphere, and is sepultur'd under ground, giveth to the World a World of Stars, so that its losse is with gain, his absenting himself is with honour. And what else do the Pearl­fishes which imprisoned in the bottome of the Sea, fettered and chained to a Rock, deprived of light, yea, of eyes, work pearls, which released from that dungeon, and brought out of darkness, into the light of the Sun, and inchased with gold, are put for the ornaments of Crowns, upon Royal Temples, to the veneration of the World? Thus Anaxagoras between the four walls of a narrow prison, Plut. de exilio. invested the Quadrature of a Circle. Gell. l. 3. c. 2. Thus Nevius the Poet, found in the bottome of a Tower, the top of Par­nassus, there composing a great part of his Poems. Id. l. 15. c. 20. And because no-body would im­prison Euripides, he shut up himself in the deep dungeon of a Cave, and there wrote those Tragoedies, which afterwards had the world for their Theater & applauder. [Page 64] The Prisons wherein these famous men were confined, hindred them not from being famous: But their writings more displayed them to the world, then their faces could have done. And as of the ima­ges of Brutus and Cassius which were not seen at a publick funeral, Tacitus said. Eo ipso praefulgebant, quod non visebantur. So likewise these emitted more refulgent rayes of glory, whilst obtenebrated by the obscurity of a prison, then if they had been publiquely manifested.

How aptly may that be applied to them which Tertullian speaks of the light of the day, which taken hence by the Western Ocean, and as it were interr'd: Rursus cum siuo cultu, De Re­sur. car. c. 12. cum dote, cum Sole, eadem & integra, & tota universo orbi reviciscit; intersiciens mortem suam noctem; rescindens sepulturam suam tenebras. These Wise men went into prison, as seed fals among the clods, which buried, but not dead; without comming out, fruitfully shoot out through the fertil mould, and by the Eares it sends forth, makes it appear that where they appeared dead, their they laboured for the lives of many. They were shut up in Towers, & there revolving their thoughts with indefatigable speculations, they [Page 65] became of universal utility: just as the Town-clock imprisoned in some Tower with a finger pointing without, to the hours, gives a rule to all the peoples acti­ons. They were hid in Caves of stone, but like that fabulous Eccho of the Poets, having lost all their other essence, they became all voice, which re-sounded, and reverbe­rated, by the stones of their prison, they made themselves heard through all the World: so that it may be affirmed of one of them, what the Author of Metamorpho­sis said of Eccho.

Solitude, and silence the indivisible companions of Study; which to find, o­thers have buried themselves in the most private retirements of their houses, woods, & caves; these have for their companions in prison, & are thereby the less solitary, & with the mind contracted within itself, their wits are as cleer sighted in their pro­founditudes, to deserve the cleerer lights of all the Sciences, as from the bottom of that famous well, the eyes were able to discern the Stars at mid-day.

The Wise Infirme.

POetry had a Deucalion that of Stones could make men; Phyloso­phy had a Zeno that of men could make Stones.

Deucalion, restorer of the World, from the naked top of mount Parnassus, the only Port of all the World submerg'd in a De­luge, and made one intire Sea; cast over his head-stones, the bones of our Grand­mother, and according to the Oracle,

On the other hand Zeno, transfused a vein of stone into those men that were his Scholars, and made them become obdu­rate and insensible, by extirpating all affe­ctions out of their hearts. So that his school was rather an Ingravers shop where he wrought Statues than an Academy of Philosophy, where he moulded Phylo­sophers. His first and last lesson was to learn to get the mind to the pitch of Royal [Page 67] fortitude; so that neither the surprizals of Love, nor the assaults of Malice, nor the seiges of Hope, nor the batteries of Despe­ration, nor the scalado's Audacity: fi­nally, that neither the arms nor arts of any Affection should be able to force the heart to surrender it self, or yeild either at dis­cretion, or upon articles. In the tempest of bodily insirmity, of disturbed humours, of sickly constitutions, he would have the heart stand Velut pelagi rupes immota, which assaulted but not moved by the waves, breaks them at his feet, and makes them recoile in a foam. All the tortures of the World, though with a painful wracke our members should be torn off, one by one, have not in them any thing worthy to cause a fainting of paleness in our faces, or feebleness of courage in our brests: have not power to extort one interjection from our mouthes, nor one bare tear from our eyes. Yea, rather the more torments in­crease, the more of cheerfulness should appear in the fore-head; like the Heavens which are then fullest of serenity when Boreas blows with greatest frigidity & im­petuosity. But what talke I of Zeno and the Stoicks? Epicurus himself, that animal, whose soul only served him for salt, to the [Page 68] end he might not stink alive in pleasures; taught, not how to turn thorns into flow­ers, to extract hony out of gall, to change his miseries into Jubilees, and to convert misfortunes into felicities. Delight there­fore being the fountain of beatitude (saith he) and that man not being able to call himself blessed, who is not alwayes so, it is necessary that he knew as well how to re­joyce in torments as in contents. Quare Sa­piens (saith Epicurus cited by Seneca) [...]i in Phalaridis tauro peruratur, exclamabit: Dulce est, ad me nihil pertinet.

But they desire too much, who will not infuse Wisdom into men, without depri­ving them of humanity. Other Schools more prudently taught, that the affections should not be pull'd up by the roots as ve­nemous plants, but as wild and un-culti­vated trees they should better themselves by transplanting and grafting. Many sound, witout a skilful Artist to accord them, make a displeasing discord; but if from Proportion they receive Time and Measure, they compose the melody of a perfect Harmony. But those rigid Schools by the imposition of so strict an injunction, of extirpating the passions from the heart, have taught us thus much; that right [Page 69] Philosophy can give us such an empire over our affections, that if it inchant not the senses at the undergoing of affliction, nor yet render us so stupid as to be insen­sible of them; yet it permits us not to be transported with desperation, not provo­ked with impatience; nor in the many tempests arising from the miseries of the body, to lose the tranquility of the mind.

Now therefore behold a Wise Sick man: Behold him I say, not extended on a bed, but imbarqued in a ship; not among the feavers and anguishes of a violent infirmi­ty, but amidst the waves and billows of a long and tedious tempest. See how he lower sail, how the planks flye asunder, how the mast trembles, how each part from poop to prow shivers, and the ship resents all this, as no peril of wrack, but as the nature of the tide. The judgment of the Pilot, and dexterity of the Marmers, steere it, I will not say quietly through so many tumults, but securely through so many dangers. Sapience sits at the stern, to manage the mind, and govern the affe­ctions, that in one, (though it may be vio­lent) tempest, wherein another would have sunk, a Wise sick man will sail, if not with [Page 70] the serenity of a calm, yet with the securi­ty of a Port.

Yea, shall see in a body tottering, a mind so firm, in a body disordered a mind so composed, that you would think you saw two persons in one man, one of a Phyloso­pher another of an Infirm. This like the sides of Olympus obnubulated with clouds, bathed with mysts, and transfixed with thunder; that, like its lofty top, alwayes enjoyes the Heavens serene, alwayes be­holds either the Sun or the Stars; That like a cloud which is melted and dissolved into rain; this like a Rain-bow, merry in me­lancholy, and laughing in the midst of tears.

Now if you would know how this comes to passe: tell me: Tranquility of mind, doth it avail to the sanity of body? They are so united together, that the one sympathi­zeth with the other, and (as it happens in the chords set to unison) that the one be­ing struck the other moves. The affections of the mind are the winds, the humours of the body the sea; whilst the winds rore, the Sea grows rough and tempestuous. On the contrary. Quidquid animum evexit, saith S [...]neca, etiam corpore prodest. So that if Phylosophy did no other but only teach us [Page 71] to esteem death to be that which it is (of which it hath so noble, and so generous ex­pressions) how many and how violent pa­roxismes of fear, (assailants sometimes more mortal than Feavers themselves) doth it thereby expel from the heart? How many, half-sound, wholly secure, at the least shocke of calamity die onely out of fear of death, and miserably expire for nothing: Epigr. in like manner as Dyaphantes that hang'd himself in a halter made of a Spi­ders-web? Graec.

Aeneas coming to Hel-gates, had a terri­ble incounter of Centaures, Harpyes, Chyme­ra's, Gorgons, Hydra's, at which sight his bloud retired to his heart for fear, and his hand to his sword for defence.

Just in the same manner doth the Wise Infirm. The feares of death which in sun­dry frightful shapes, doth make towards him from the gates of Hell, he knows what they are. Ex epist. 24. Tenues sine corpore vitae, and re­membreth that which that Roman Sage writ, that Non hominibus tantum, sed & rebus [Page 72] personae demenda est, & reddenda facies sua. Tolle istam pompam sub qua lates, & stultos ter­ritas. Mors es quam nuper servus meus, quam ancilla contempsit, &c. In so much that the fools which seeking medicines for diseases, have no remedy for this of fear, in which they freeze more than they burn in their feavers; will neither see any thing, nor permit themselves to be seen of any thing, which may awaken in their memories the remembrance of death. So that they imi­tate the simple Fellow, who to hide himself from the fleas that bit him, put out the light; and ‘Non me, Epigr. inquit, Graec. cernent amplius hi pulices.’

The fearful and timerous have but too good eyes, being accustomed to see better in the dark than light.

If therefore the dispositions of the mind be of such efficacy in the impressions of the body, what great advantage hath the Wise Infirm, that he maintains the soul in serenity, and the mind in tranquility; that fear is not able to cause the least trans­portment or palpitation of heart, and the acerbitude it self of the disease, is thereby qualified, and remits of his fury? [Page 73] Levem morbum (saith Seneca) dum putas fa­cies. Omnia ad opinionem suspensa sunt. Non ambitio tantùm ad illam respicit, aut luxuria, aut avaritia. Ad opinionem dolemus. Tam miser est quisque quàm credit.

But the misery is small if we doe not augment it, and make it greater by impa­tience, and so much the lesse, by how much the mind being otherwayes occupied, (a thing easie to the studious) is diverted from the sense of the present pain, and takes its flight as the Hearn in time of a storm of Hail or Rain, surmounting the clouds to enjoy the Heavens in their sere­nity.

Siracusa being taken by Marcellus, and full of the shouts of the victors, and shrieks of the vanquished, whilst those over-ran, and these ran through the streets, only Archimedes had his mind so intent upon the lines of certain Mathematical figures which he was describing, that he neither saw, knew, nor heard any thing, of all that past abroad, but had lost himself in his contemplations, so that being slain by an impatient Souldier he perceived himself dead before he was aware of his dying, and was more aggrieved that he could not finish his Demonstration, than at the [Page 74] finishing of his life. And Solon groning in his last pangs, whilst he lay a dying, over-hearing some Phylosophers, which accidentally began a Dispute, neer his bed, he forgot he was a dying, and re-cal­ling his fugitive soul to his head, as if he had awak't, or risen from the dead, opened his eyes, and eares; nor did he end his live, till they had finished their Dispute. Seneca, did not he once (as him­self relateth) run from the ague that sought him, flying in the hour of its accession to hide himself in the most secret speculati­ons of Phylosophy? Angelical St. Thomas was not moved with the smart of a burn which he had received casually, in that he prudently reflected with profound study, upon his wonted lucubrations.

Your body is confined to a bed, let your mind preserve its liberty, and you shall be the less present to your sufferings, by how much by this you are absent. Seneca Ep. 78. Illud est quod imperitos in vexatione corporis male habet. Non assueverunt animo esse contenti. Multum illis cum corpore fuit. Ideò vir magnus, ac prudens animum deducit à cor pore, & multum cum me­liore, ac divina parte versatur: cum hac que­rula, ac fragili quantum necesse est. He would say (and he speaketh there of the Wise [Page 75] Infirm) that he is as a Compass, which if it hath one of his feet immoveably fixed, it with the other moves about, describing greater or lesser Circles, according as it is more or less distant from the Center.

But, behold, in one only man the precepts of all these. In the beholding of Possidonius a Wise sick-man, you will find what I have said to be authenticke, that Learning and Wisedom, bear up the sick-bed in an inundation of infirmities, as the Crocodiles their nests upon that of Nilus.

This was a Phylosopher, a long time un-healthy and laden with more diseases than members, for in every part of the body he had many ails; and had he been sub-divided into many men, he could have made a compleat Hospital of all Diseases, whereas being all summ'd up in him alone, they hardly made one sick man. Thanks to the fortitude of his mind which sup­plied the imbecility of his body; and the anguish of his crazy limbs did no more pe­netrate his heart, than the dart transfixeth the bowels of an Eliphant, which is repulsed by his skin: so that;

[Page 76] That grand proof of Roman valour which Mutius Scevola gave to King Porsenna, when more resenting the errour he had commit­ted than the burning of his hand, beheld it un-dauntedly to burn in the fire, when as he could not endure without impatience to erre in his body, to the so great astonish­ment of the king his enemy, that he was constrained not only to commend his mur­therer, in the middest of his repentance for not having slain him; but to be also his champion against himself, taking the fire from under that hand which merited light, and was more worthy of a palm for his error than he would have been for his blow; This I say, was one, only act, upon one only hand, for a short time, in a man worthy of death, in a man bitterly offended with himself. Posidonius so many years in his bed, as Anaxarchus in a morter, tormen­ted in one part after another, and con­sumed by his dolours, surviveth the con­tinual death, which he endured only to be the longer dying, and beheld himself and his miseries, with not only dry, but cheer­ful eyes; and took those very pains as sub­jects to Phylosophate upon, methamor­phosing his Chamber into a Schoole, and his Bed into a Chair. In a word, he did as [Page 77] the Moon, which though it be in eclips & lose his light, yet it loseth not the course of its revolution, but prosecuteth its mo­tion, although shee be not so full of light as before.

Men flockt from all parts about Rhodes, to hear and see a man, which from his own wounds took Balsome for others; and more admirers had he lying upon a bed, than that famous Colossus of brass, erected upon the entrance of the Port, for the glory of Rhodes, and miracle of the World. Pompey the Great passed into Greece, and drawn by the Fame of Posidonius, desired to see him; and he came just at the instant, when he was more than ever, under the anxions pangs of his dolours. He came, he saw, and he was overcome. Pompey seemed the patient, compassionating the torments of Posidonius; Posidonius seemed the healthful man, discoursing amply with Pompey, and proving the verity of this argu­ment. Nihil bonum est, nisi quod honestum sit; and with such cheerfulness of face, and constancy of mind did he doe it, that lace­rated with torments, instead of groning, he smiled, and when others would have plaid the beast, he said. Nihil agis dolor, quamvis sis molestus nunquam te esse confitebor malum.

[Page 78] Thus Sapience which is the quintes­cence, of the noblest learning, can better than the Stygian Lake did Achilles, render the mind impenetrable to the wounds of the body, and hold it so far alienated from all sense of its sufferings, by how much it knows how to employ the thoughts about more pleasing objects.

So that be the Wiseman poor, be he in prison, be he banished, be he sick; behold, in two words, the remedy for each of these diseases. Pauper siā? inter plures ero. Exul fiam? Ibi me natum putabo quò mittar. Seneca epist. 24. Aligabor? Quid enim? Nunc solutus sum? ad hoc me natura grave corporis mei pondus abstrinxit. Moriar? Hoec dicis: Desinam aegrotare posse, desinam alligari posse, desinam mori posse.

Thus have I glanced at the happiness of a Learned man, by what may be taken from himself, but because this little light which I have been able to give to so illu­strious a matter, may appeare yet cleerer. I will draw its shadow neer it: and if I have made you see Wisdom to be happy though in misery; now I will prove Igno­rance to be miserable though in felicity.

Ignorance miserable, although in Felicity.
Ignorance and Sanctity.

SAnctity is a pearl of so great a value & of so inestimable a price, that then when it is not set in Gold, when it shines not among the lights of the under­standing, among the rayes of the Sciences, it diminisheth not at all in worth nor is it lesse esteemed by that great Merchant, which gave all he had for it.

In Gods ballance is weighed, not the goodliness of the understanding, but the goodness of the Will; nor is he taken with acute fancies, but with ardent affections. Wretched Lucifer knows this, who ha­ving the flames and splendor of Wit, but wanting the ardor of Love, ambitious to become the Sun of Paradise, became the Prince of infernal darkness; and praecipi­tating with the other Stars which fell from Heaven, manifested how far deeds excel [Page 80] knowledge, whilst the ignorant men of the earth climbe thither from whence the learned Angels from Heaven fell.

God never desired any mans head, yet he desires every mans heart, nor doth he, dictating to the pen of the great Chronó­loger Moses, the Creation of the world, take care to teach how many are the number of the Stars, how great is the masse of the Heavens, what the vertue of their aspects; and whether they derive their light from the Sun, or have the fountain of it in them­selves; By what wayes the Planets move, whence come the spots of the Moon, and the causes of Eclipses; If the Heavens be solid, if the Sun be hot; how the Rain­bow is painted, how the winds run through the air; Who moveth the Sea with fluxes, and re-fluxes; who makes the earth to quake. Lib. 6. Henam. cap. 2. Quae nihil ad nos, saith St. Ambrose, quasi nihil profutura praeteriit. He said only so much as sufficed to infuse into the judg­ment the fundamentals of Faith; he di­ctated onely so much as was necessary to be known for the accomplishment of his Law: the rest he omitted, as if, Marces­centis sapientiae vanitates. Ibidem.

And the Wisdom of the Father, his li­ving Word, the great exemplar of all the [Page 81] Idea's, came he in the School of a stable, upon the chair of a Manger, in the assem­bly of Oxen and Asses, to teach in the si­lence of mid-night, with the voice of his groanes, the occult verities of humane Phylosophy? Liv'd he in the Licëum, a Professor of Learning, a Maintainer of Disputes, a Writer of Sciences? Or yet did he discover the least letter, that may be pronounced, did he in this (as said St. Augustin very finely) make so much as Jotaunum, which is the least letter; yea or Unus apex, that is, lesse than the least of all the Letters?

He came, its true, to convince the Phy­losophy of the Academi's and Licëum's of Ignorance; and to make the Wisdom of the World to appear foolishness: but he used not therefore, sublimness of stile, nor quaintnesse of pelligrine discourses. With the simple word of his mouth, Fecit latum de sputo, using parables, and a manner of speech not only vulgar, but rude, and with this restored sight to our but dim-sighted eyes.

And for Apostles, the Legislators of the World, the Oracles of true answers, who did he elect? who did he call? The rude and ignorant, taught with no other voices [Page 82] than of hoist the sailes, weigh anchor, make to shoare; learnt them in the Mari­ners school; Yet, saith Theodoret, with the Solecismes of these illitrates he confound­ed the Syllogismes of the Phylosophers. Vide S. Bernard. serm. 36. in Cant.

Thus God honoured Sanctity without Learning, by how much the purer, by so much the fairer: By how much the lesse exhal'd by speculations, so much the more plentiful, and abundant in affections.

He knows much, yea, knows all that knows no other than onely God. He that knows not this, howbeit he knows every thing else, knows nothing: whereupon ac­cording to Origen, that bad Politician and worse Priest Caiphas spoke the truth to the Hebrew Senators sworn enemies of Christ. Vos nescitis quidquam: Verè enim nihil noverant, qui Jesum veritatem ignorabant.

Lord, give me the merits of so great a glory as that wherewith St. Gregory ho­noureth that good Monk Steven, of whom he saith, Erat hujus lingua rustica, sed docta vita. Lord, teach me, and discover to me thy self, I desire to know no other, and I will leave with the Samaritan the Well of humane Wisdom, that springs from the earth, and also the pitcher of desire of ever any more thirsting for it.

[Page 83] Hitherto I have spoken in others lan­guage, not with my own; and said that, not which is absolutely true, but which some preach as true: some I say, qui ad inscitiae praetextum, Orat. 27 faith Nazienzen, in al­leding themselves to be the disciples of Fishermen, condemn the Sciences in others, which they desire not, or indeed rather know not how to have in themselves.

An Ecclesiastick that could read no o­ther Books, understand no other Phyloso­phy then that of his revenue, and defen­ded himself with this shield of the Apo­stle, which saith, 1. Corint. Learning is a venom and p [...]st; litter a enim occidit (thus he interpreted that text) moved Sir. Thom as Moore, either in derision, or for his correction to write upon him this Epigram: but in him alone to how many doth he speak?

That Sanc [...]ity without Learning is very precious and excellent, there is none will deny. That its better to be a holy man than a wise man, who doubts? but that [Page 84] its not better to be a Saint and a Scholar than a Saint alone, I know no man that can with reason question it.

To be, as Christ said of the great Baptist, Lucerna ardens, & lucens, in whom the light is united with the fire, and the heat with the splendor; which is that very Perfectum of S. Bernard, in whom both parts concurre; Lucere, & ardere. To have as the Holy A­nimals of Ezekiel, Manus sub pennis, namely, the works of the hands, and the desires of the mind. To carry in the mouth as the Spouse, the Hony combes, cultivated by Heaven, and of the Earth, with the Ho­ney of eternal life for himself, and with the Wax tapers of Sciences, Illuminators of others. To unite as in the Ark the Law, and the Manna; as in Paradise the Tree of Life, with that of Wisedom; finally, to Love and to Know: is not this upon earth the type of the Beatitudes of Heaven? is it not worthy to be the Throne of that great Monarch, and God, which sits upon the Cherubims, and rides upon the Wings of the Wind?

One of the most signal honours God doth bestow upon his favourites is the gift of the Sciences. For if by giving to Abraham one letter of his name, he did him so [Page 85] extraordinary a favours, Ut quemadmodum reges (saith Chrysostome) praefectis suis tabellas aureas tr adunt, signum videlicet principatus sic Deus justo illi, in honor is argumentum, unam li­teram deder it: What shall we say, of him, to whom Gods adds, not onely a letter to the name, but great Sciences to the mind, making him the liker to himself the perfe­cter he is in understanding? The Spouse craved nothing before this beginning the Canticles with demanding a kiss, which was in effect to require, that her Husband would be her Master, and with his Love to give also Learning; that, in the union of the lips: this, in the impressions of the speech; Petit osculum, saith the Interpre­ter St. Bernard, id est, Spiritum Sanctum in­vocat, per quem accipiat simul & scientiae gu­stum, & gratiae condimentum. Et benè scientiae quae in osculo datur, cum amore recipitur; quia amoris indicium osculum est. Those that are thus priviledged, are the [...]ilii Lucis, called, as Beda interpreteth it, by the illustrious name of Day, In Ps. 19 in that place where the Pro­phet saith, Dies Dei eructat verbum, per diem enim accipimus limpidissimum, & lucidissi­mum ingenium ad divina contemplanda haben­tes. And as according to the saying of St. Ambrose, Ser. ult. Ipse est Dies filius, cui pater Dies [Page 86] Divinitates suae eructat arcanum, so to these the said Dies filius principal fountain of all knowledg imparts his splendors, inriching them with wisdom. These, saith Origen, are the Golden Candlesticks, by whose light the Ark is inlightned, and the San­ctuary illuminated. These are Lillies; in the Truths they understand, Candid, and in the Charity with which they love, Vermil­lion, These are the Grandees of the king­dom of God that add the Docere to the Fa­cere. The Stars splendid in perpetuas eternita­tes; the precious stones, foundation of the Jerusalem of Gold: For this title of honour the great Augustine gave to the most elo­quent St. Cyprian; And both these merited it, and with them the Areopagite, Athana­sius, Basil, Nazienzen, Chrysostome, Jerome, Ambrose, Gregory, and many others no lesse admirable in understanding than in con­versation.

The Theologer cals one indowed with Sanctity, Orat. 20 and devoid of Learning, a man deprived of one eye; for even to know God, whereby to be the more ingaged to love him, the Sciences, to him who knows how to use them as Guides, give a great light.

And here see under the type of a Sole­cism a secret mystery hinted by S. Ambrose, [Page 87] glanced at by David; In Psal. 119. Defecerunt (saith he oculi mei in eloquium tuum, dicentes, Quando consolaber is me? How will you accord this with the laws of Grammar, OCULI dicentes, in the plural number, with the other sin­gular Consolaber is ME? if Perspective do not teach you, that the Centrick lines of both the eyes, called the Axis's, doe concurre to turn to one point, wherein both the eyes serve but for one, for they see not the ob­ject doubly represented, but singly, as if there was no more but one eye howbeit it must be confessed, that the sight as double is more strong, more distinct and able to judg of distant objects. If to the knowledg and vision of God the eyes of Faith and Science concurre, (which happily is that which the kingly Saint desired,) can any one doubt if such a sight be more distinct and discerning? Therefore the Sciences are not prejudicial to Sanctity, but rather assi­stant as companions, or at least subservi­ent as hand-maids.

As (again) to the example of Christ, to see how little he favoured the ignorant Saint in comparison of the Wise; it suf­ficeth to remember, that where he in re­counting the list of our miseries, so gene­rously extends his armes, he only debarres [Page 88] ignorance, nor would he suffer her dark­ness to have any place in the Light of the World. In poverty necessitous, in weak­nesse drooping, in sollitude abandoned, in contempts neglected, in nakednesse a­bashed, in pains tormented, on the cross murthered: satiated with opprobries, and from the crown of the head to the soal of the foot abounding with dolours: amongst such a multitude of maladies, he would not admit of Ignorance. Under the hairy skin of the salvage Esau was re­teined the voice of Jacob, so that as being the Wisedome of the Father he was not, and Master of the World, he would not be Ignorant. For if that he spake not more highly of what he did, it was because he would not be a Sun to the eyes of Batts; condescending too much in being a Lamp. But if he then was silent, he hath spo­ken ever since for these sixteen Golden Ages, which the Church hath hitherto seen; he had spoke I say with tongues and pens of so many and so illustrious Do­ctors of the World, that from him, as the fountains from the Sea, have took all the splendor and all the profusion of that Doctrine, wherewith, to the profit of [Page 89] Posterity, they have so copiously. fill'd their voluminous labours.

Laudate igitur pueri Dominum, Psal. 113 hoc est ( saith St. Augustine) sit senectus vestra puerilis, & [...]it queritia senilis, ut nec Sapientia vestra sit cum superbia, nec humilitas sine Sapientia: ut laudetis Dominum ex hoc nunc & usque in saecu­lum.

Ignorance, and Dignity.

MIserably simple are those Sta­tuaries who know not how to form a Giant of Terrible aspect, if in the posture of a mad man they make him not to distend his armes, and il-fa­vouredly stradle with his legs, as if he would measure the World at a stride. The same, saith Plutarch, befals to those Princes, who believe themselves to be most majestical, when they make them­selves appear most terrible. And there­fore they assume an austere life, with an artificial severity contracting their brows, and elevating their looks, so that behold­ing them, you may properly apply to them what the Poet saith of Pluto;

How aptly would it evene, if we might whisper into their eares, what a most [Page 91] prudent Emperour told the Senate of Rome, when he understood the designe they had to degrade him, because being troubled with the Gout, he could not come abroad in person to manage the publick affaires; He caused himself to be brought into the Senate-house, shewing with a long Oration, that he had as free a mind, as deficient feet, and left them in a confusion with these words: Nescitis caput imperare, non pedes?

The repute of being a man of great judg­ment: and not a frowning countenance, makes the Grandees esteemed; nor is he the most Majestical thats the most stately; He that knows most, and can do most; he who is all Eye and all Scepter (which was the Hierogliphick, and Character with which the Egyptians exprest the Idea of a King) he is most a Prince, he hath most of Divine.

Nor can he be said to know sufficiently, who being an Arbitrator of publique and private interests, hath not wit, and conse­quently a judgment informed by those Sciences, which dictate to him what he ought, and what he may doe as a Prince, as a Judg, and as a Father. On the con­trary a Prince loseth so much of his [Page 92] Dignity, as he wants of his Knowledge, being thereby necessitated to see with an­others eyes, or to put others eyes into his head to see.

For if you have some, who not to prosti­tute their most worthy part, their Under­standing, and therein become subject to their servants; will by themselves alone resolve that, which requireth another balance, and other weights then those of their defective discretions. Tum vero, saith Xerxes, ignorantia Principis, regninavim agit in syrtes. Therefore he that hath not an understanding of his own sufficient, is con­strained either to erre to the ruine of him­self and others; or else to avoid errours, he is compelled to share his office and be­come a Demi-Prince, and the Property for to father the mis-government of a cor­rupt and mercenary Counsel: whereas those only are compleat and absolute, in whom the scales of Power, and Policy, proportionably to the State they govern, are suspended in aequilibrium.

John the Emperor therefore chose ra­ther to die, than let his hand be cut off, wounded by an envenomed dart, and gives this reason. Because having but one hand we shall be no more than half an [Page 93] Emperour, nor can wee by our self hold the reigns of Sovereignity, to which both our hands are little enough; and he, who to­gether with prudence wants the half of the draught of a perfect Prince, doth not he seem, in being ignorant, to be but half a Prince?

What strange Capricio came into a certain mans head, to write and teach to the World: That the most necessary qua­lity of a Prince is Ignorance: that only line sufficing him for an intire Encyclopaedia, which Lewis the XI, desired that Charles the VIII, his sonne should onely learn, Qui nescit dissimilare, nescit regnare.

He held it for an insallible Maxime, that one man cannot be both Learned and Pru­dent, opposing the speculation of Sciences to the practice of Government. And thus into the hand of a King he puts the Scepter, to his side the Sword, and to his Head the ears of King Midas. Mctam. Aures lentè gradientis aselli: Aures aptas grandioribus fabulis.

Thus Agrippina educated her Son, Tertul. de Pallio 2. Hus­band, and Paricide Nero, taking him from his graver studies, lest that turning Phy­losopher, he should lose the beastly life he led. Thus Licinius the Emperour moulded himself, who condemned [Page 94] Learning as guilty of high treason in a high degree, although it never offended him, as having never entered into his head, never come within his comprehension: having begun to be a beast from the instant, he began to be a man.

Let us set up in opposition to this un­worthy errour, or folly, amongst an hun­dred others, an Augustus, a Germanicus, a Titus, an Adrian, an Antoninus Phylosophus, an Alexander, a Constantine, a Theodosius, an crowned with a double Lawrel, as Sages, and as Emperours. Let us range Augustus in the front of this Celebrious Troop, who (upon the credit of Suetonius and Dion,) every day though in the height of the im­portunate affairs of Warre, and under a pavillion in the field, did set apart some time for his study; that so no day might pass in the which he had not done some act of a man; and yet neverthelesse he reigned fourty years, so wisely and happi­ly over the whole World. And against him let us ranck the most illiterate Domi­tian, whose imployment for some hours of the day was to stick Flyes, and for every one that he slew, he boasted, as if he had been an Apollo, against a Python.

Compare Alexander Severus, reverenced [Page 95] as Terren Jupiter, not so much for the Thunder which he held in his hand as Emperor, as for the Pallas he had in his head as a Phylosopher: with the simple Caligula, exposed to publick view, attired like Bacchus, crowned with Lawrel, and a Tygers skin for a Mantle, which represented him to be more like a beast than a god, and let us hear him de­liver his ebrious Oracles with a ridicu­lousness conformable to his garbe.

Who taught that Thracian Consinga, Polyan. Stratag. 7. to erect ladders towards Heaven upon the towring top of a mountain, feigning to take on those acclivities from the mouth of Juno, the answers, which he gave in the interests of the publick good; but only Prudence; for that the laws and edicts of great men are so much the more willingly accepted, when they are presumed to come from a mind of more sublime Sapi­ence, and more noble understanding? Therefore in my judgment, the most Ce­lebrious Schools of the Phylosophers did not assign the Heavens an Intelligible Mover, so much out of the necessity of revolving them, being of themselves move­able, or if you will not so, at least, mu­table Spheres; as because the World [Page 96] should rest the better satisfied with his Government, whilst they believed these to be most noble spirits; that revolving the Stars, dispose the principles, and temper the influences, upon which to their thinking the felicities and calamities of both publick and private fortunes de­pend.

Little Alexander whilst he spoke with the tongue of Aristotle, his Tutor, in a so­lemn audience, which in the place of his Father Philip he gave to the Embassadors of the Persian King, satisfying to the curious demands, which they put to him to try him; wan to himself the name and title of Great King, whilst he was as yet but a little Prince, Iste puer (said the Embassa­dors) Magnus est Rex, noster autem Dives: by which act he begat in the Persian as great desire to have him for their King, Plutar. Or. 2. de fort. Alexan. as an extraordinary opinion of his wisdom. And doubtless, take from this Great Monarch some few errours of youth, and excesses proceeding from his too violent and Mar­tial temper, if that part of his actions be considerably weighed (not with the ma­lice of Seneca (for in this he is rather a Cy­nick than Stoick) libet with Sage Plutarch, Orat. 1. de fort. Alex. ad singulis ejus actiones exclamare, Phylosophice.

[Page 97] But seing that the Prince and his Court are like the Satue and its Neech which mu­tually take one from the other, value and ornament, now what Neech hath a learned Prince? what Court? Nero was a Musician amongst Fidlers, like an Apollo amongst the Muses. Elius Verus was Emperour of the Wind, int he habit of Aeolus amongst his Courtiers, who were clothed white like Auster, another like Zephyrus, another like Boreas; A grave and prudent Prince amongst Sage Courtiers, resembles the Sun amongst the Syrenes, that with their songs ravish the Planets, called by Cleanthes their fidlestick, because the Harmony of their Scepters ac­cord with the rules of his beck.

For if Manilius of Heaven, as of a Court, finging said; Astron. [...] Sunt stellae Procerum similes, &c. And to the Emperour Julian the Sun seemed to be a King, Orat. 4. about which the Pla­nets obsequiously mov'd; why may not I call the Court a Heaven, a Prince in whom there is the light of understanding, and the heat of power, a Sun in the midst of so many Stars, as he hath about him Learned Men; that from his wise discourses derive light, & that to him with semblable illumination communicate it. Of a higher value, and nobler alloy is this than the samed and [Page 98] Material Heaven of Cosroes the King of Per­sia, which painted in the arched roof of a spacious Chamber, as in the serenity of a pure azure bespangled with Stars of Gold, and distinguished with certain moveable Spheres, orderly revolving one within an­other; and resembled the whole vast mass of the universe; in the midst of which the Barbarian, more like a Spider in the center of her self-spun-web, than like a Monarch in the midst of the World, did idely sit.

Seneca had not a more lively conceit wherewith to express the Beatitude of his Jupiter, than the placing him in the midst of the Gods of his Court, as a Sun in a Circle of Mirrours of splendid Diamonds, therewith the mutual transfusion of rayes from him into all, and from all into him, the light of the private knowledge of each became publick to all, and that of all, be­came appropriate to each. But if Jove should from on high cast his eyes down here be­low to the discreet Court of a Learned Prince, he would say either out of the trans­ports of stupor, or pleasure; as he did when he saw all the World exprest in the little Sphere of the Great Archimedes; where

The Syracusan Dionysius had a desire of studing Phylosophy, and making himself as prosperously a Tyrant over soules with his tongue, as he had preposterously over bodies by his sword. He invited Plat [...] therefore and conducted him from Athens to Syracusa. There need no other Master, to polish that stone, on which neverthelesse he could not grave a Mercury: for as much as Plato might easily make men Phylosophers, but could not make beast men. He came with his mouth full of his Attick hony, but that spunge steep't in humane blood could not im-bibe a drop. Yet, notwithstanding, whilest Dionysius heard him, all the Court changed Scene, as so many inchanted Ca­stles, which at the shake of a magick rod, are changed from one thing to another. The Royal Palace, Shambles of Syracusa, and rather a Caucuses Den than a Princes Palace, suddenly was transformed into a I yceum, or rather a Temple of Sapience in which not the men only, but even the scenes of the [Page 100] pavement seemed to phylosophate; since there was not so much as a Palm on the wall, which shewed not the design of Geometrical Demonstrations, or the com­putation of Phylosophical numbers. Now Dionysius had buried the name of a publick Carnifex in that of a Philosopher; and those which till then had abhorr'd him as a Hellish Fury, began to respect him as a Demi-God amongst Princes. So much can Learning doe in a Prince, so much can a Prince professing Learning doe in a Court!

Ignorance and Profession of Arms.

I May possibly find some difficulty in my undertaking to demonstrate, that lear­ning in a Souldier, is not to hang a Chain of pearl about his neck, and to make him liker a Bridegroom than a Warriour. Some are of an opinion, that Learning wea­kens the courage, exhaling the spirits, from the heart, and consuming them in the head, whereupon as it is profitable to such as use the pen, so it becomes incommodious to such as manage the sword.

The most ingenious animals, say they; are the most timerous: and the most sal­vage, and indomable, are the most strong and couragious. Philosophy, the Laws, [Page 102] and Poetry, are no greater ornaments to a Souldier, than for a Poet to handle his sword, for a Civilian to order a Musket, for a Phylosopher to trail a Pike. Hercules per­ceived this, and stands recorded as an exam­ple to others in that act of his, when he broke his Lute upon the head of his master Linus, and ran out of School; the fidle-stick not becoming that hand, which should use the Club, nor the harmonious melody of Musick suting with him that was to wont himself to the bellowing of Buls, the roar­ing of Lions, the hissing of Hydra's and cries of Tyrants, for whose punishment he was born.

Its true, I pretend not to perswade, that a man of war ought to be a Plato, an Archi­medes, or a Homer: but that the splendor of some laudable study should have a refle­xion upon the Genius, like the luster that darts from armes, or the picture upon the shield, I see not who can with reason doubt.

An Eagle who hath eyes so acute in the Sun, and tallons so strong for the prey; An Hercules, which knows how to tame monsters with his hand, and to beare the Heavens on his head; An Apollo, who hung at his side both his Harp and Quiver; A [Page 103] Pallas, with a Pen in one hand, and a Pike in the other: Lastly, a Souldier with a cer­tain mixture of Learning; what indecorum is there in these? Is the rustinesse of the wit a lustre and beauty, when its so dishono­rable, on the sword and armes? Is there such enmity, between the Pike and the Pen; the strength, and the judgment; the com­bating of a Souldier, and the discourse of a Scholar?

It is controverced amongst Criticks whe­ther is the more preheminent felicity, Facere scribenda, or else, Scribere facienda. Let every one please his fancy in this, but there is none will question, but that they are Feli­cissimi quibus contingit utrumque. That your hand with the sword know how to attempt works meriting immortal memory, and the self-same hand to know how to trans­mit them to eternity, faithfully writing, what it hath couragiously atchieved, a hi­story of it self, doubly glorious, and like to the Sun, which to the appearing in its true grandure, needs not the assistance of any other light: is not this the summity of that glory to which humane merit may at­tein?

So much the more, in regard that the re­lations of Historians, are slighted if prolix, [Page 104] and suspected if short: there be some men found in our dayes, that in writing others Battails, have their eye only upon the vi­ctory of their own profit. I say, there are certain men that to keep themselves from starving of famine, expose the immortality of fame to who gives most. Rapacious Ravens that sing Victor Caesar, not to him that conquers, but to him that feeds them; So did Glow-wormes, which by their bodies gives light to others, and seek food for themselves; and like the flatterer of the Warriour Pirgopolinices in Plautus, Artro. in Mi­lite glor. they make the stories by the smell of the Table, and bestow applauds in proportion to their hunger. How much better is it to be a mans own Historian, and to imploy the pen as best suites with the Honor of Loyalty, that admits of no spurious additions of fiction; and with the Love of Glory, which suffers no injurious detractions from Truth?

Julius Caesar is more obliged to his pen than to his Sword; for that slue his ene­mies, this preserves him alive in the World to this day, and preserved in its flourish­ing verdure, the double glory he had pur­chased of an Historian and of a Conqueror. Collenuc. And if that brave Rogiero King of Cicily, Histor. as if he would expresse himself a debtor to his Neap. [Page 105] sword, or manifest his gratitude to it; as ha­ving opened him the way to more than one Kingdom, cut thereon this ingenious in­scription.

Caesar might write upon his stile, rather than on his sword the Victories of so many Battails, the glories of so many Triumphs; since that if his sword made him victorious in the Fields where he did fight, the stile he did write, gave him all the people of all the World for a Theater, and the applauds of all succeeding ages for Triumphs.

Who will not laugh at the vanity of that Grecian Statuary, that presented himself in the habit of Hercules before Alexander. Plutarc. ‘My Liege, Stasicrat. saith he, Vitruvio Dino­crat. the vertue of your heart, the valour of your sword have changed the World for you into a Temple of Honour. It onely remains that we have a Statue for you, which ought to exceed the vulgar pro­portion of those erected for others. Your Giantlike Virtue, which warreth with the Gods, ought not to be ranked among Mortals. I being desirous to eternize my labours with your name, and not so much [Page 106] to render you immortal in the sculpture, as to render the sculpture it self honoured in you; here I offer my self to grave you in the highest Mountain of the World, and make you equal to Heaven, since you are already greater than the Earth. Behold, hi­ther as far as Thessaly, Athos King of Moun­tains, inclines his stately top, and sueth to be transformed into You; I will so con­trive to cut it, that you shall set one foot on the Sea and the other on the Land, and these two great Elements shall serve for your basis. I will make it, that in one hand you shall pour out a falling River out of a great Vessel, in the other you shall hold a City. Nor will it be any such great mat­ter for you to hold a City and a River, that have all the World in your hand.’

Alexander with one and the same smile accepted & refused the profuse offer of the Sculptor. He had, its true, as many more may, a passionate desire of being Great in the World, and to eternize himself to the memory of posterity; but he desired to be known by the World for a mighty War­riour, and not for a huge Colossus. Where­upon refusing the tools of Stasicrates, he desired the pen of Homer, and called Achil­les fortunate, because from himself he had [Page 107] Valour; and from Homer Encomiums: from himself merit, and from Homer glory. Alas, wherefore was is not better, for one that [...]bounding in innumerable Heroick enter­prize needed not the help of speech for his [...]ngrandment, rather to have an Historian, than a Poet? And if so, why should I envy [...]n others the glory of making me happy with making me immortal, if it be in my own power to obtein it, making my self as famous by my pen, as my hand had made me by my sword?

I will omit the necessity of eloquence in the profession of Arms, to animate to re­prehend, and to reclaim the Souldiers: and of a perfect practice in ancient and mo­dern Stories, and of those parts of Geome­try which pertein to the Mechanicks and to Fortification, and somtimes of Astorno­my; that so he may not lose a march, or cast away an army, as it hath more than once unluckily even'd, through the ter­rour of a sudden Eclips of the Sun; so that he be forced to alledg Ignorance for his ex­cuse, and say as one of Romulus, who made the year but of ten Months onely.

[Page 108] Of all this I speak not, as being a business belonging only to the Commanders of War; It shall suffice me only to remember them for a conclusion:

That they are not to be alwayes in the Field, and in armes, but that one while times of Peace, and another while the ne­cessity of repose may call them to a Civil life, wherein ought they not to have some of the rudiments of Learning, at least he that is necessitated to the honourable con­versation with persons of quality, and of parts: ought he to resemble the Drums which in times of quietnesse quite lost the sound with which they ratled in times of War? or in imitation of the ancient cu­stom of those good Roman Knights, the War being at an end ought they not to fall to cul­tivating their Fields, as if a man of War were a beast of rapine, which having gotten his prey in the populated Campagne, re­turneth to the forrest and takes covert?

Paulus Aemilius having vanquished King Persius and subdued Macedonia, he resolved with the Barons of that Kingdom to cele­brate the Feast of Victory with sumptuous Banquets, in which he used so ingenious a method in martialling the Dishes that the Table seemed a pitcht Field, in which the [Page 109] [...]anks of Dishes marched up against the Guests, who first began the skirmage, and gave the first assault; making in time the empty and discharged to retreat, and gi­ving way to fresh recruits, which marched up to their succour; there were rarities, which still kept their first postures on the Table; and there were some that seemed to give orders who should retreat faster, and who more leasurely. Some came up co­vertly, and in Ambascado's as if they were trecherous, others openly discovered them­selves: to conclude, the matter was no less delightful than the manner of ranking the Napery: and all the invited bestowing their applauds on Paulus Aemilius, he replied, Plutarc. Ejusdem viri esse & armatam aciem quàm ma­ximè terribilem, Sympos. 11. & convivium quam jucundis­simum instruere.

But if the Knowledge of a Souldier ex­tend no farther, so that the conversion of War into Peace, is onely a mutation of the annoyes of the Campe into the delights of the City, and to becomes as Aiax, to day a great Warriour, to morrow a Flower, this is a very mean Sapience, and even such that perhaps it would be better being with­out it. How much more honourable and delightful entertainment of the wit doth [Page 110] Learning afford a part; moreover, to dul­corate the ferocity of the nature, and to civilize that I know not what of salvage, which is contracted in the sanguinous pro­fession of Armes?

Arms are, Lib. 7. serm. 18. saith Cassiodorus, In bello neces­saria, in pace decora. Of Learning it may with much more Justice be affirmed, if only the times be changed and you say, In pace neces­sariae, in bello decorae. Achilles who every day learnt two Lessons, one in the Desart where he grapled with Lions, another in the Cell of Chiron, where he harmoniously plaid upon the Harp, and learnt the Secrets of Natural Phylosophy, instructed himself how to live both in Peace and War: in Peace amiable to his friends, in War terri­ble to his foes. This also was the glory of that Roman Achilles, Scipio Major, that in War was like Lightning all fire with gene­rous resolutions; and in Peace was all light with splendid wit; nor was there lesse ad­miration to see him manage arms, than to hear him discourse. Paterc. lib. 1. hi­stor. Semper enim, aut belli, aut pacis serviit artibus (saith Velleius) semper inter arma, ac studia versatus, aut corpus periculis, aut animum disciplinis, exercuit.

These are very rare to be seen, & its almost a miracle to find eares, accustomed to the [Page 111] sound of Trumpet, and noise of Drum, and yet not so deafned, but that Wisdoms voice may by them be distinctly under­stood, Rare are the Martial Hercules's that having consummated their labours, conse­crate to Mercury the Olive-club taken from Pallas; but the merit of those few that there are, be inhanced by their rarity having those two incomparable qualities that question­lesse render the person divine in whom they are united, Terrorem pariter, & decorem, which aggrees with what Cassiodorus saith of a Squadron of armed Gallies, that whether they sported they could not be more good­ly, or whether they fought they could not be more terrible.

Ignorance and Riches.

HE that useth Learning for gain, and makes use of Mercury, as the Gold-smiths do of Quick-silver, to separate Gold from others, and atract it to himself; understands not what a malady Ignorance is in a Rich man. For so the hand be full, they never empty their head, nor limbick their brains, since they have al­ready found the quintescense of Fortune, which they say is Money. Doth it suffice to be of Gold? then it matters not if they afterwards be as that beastial Phylosopher, Golden Asse.

Now a-dayes, money is that which pur­chased Love and Honour: therefore you have not betet letters of recommendation than letters of exchange, nor can you tell how to write with better ink than that of Bankers.

And again; to what end serves such Phy­losophy & such Sciences in the head, if they [Page 113] are only a means to break it, and let out the brains? Behold, the ancient Phylosophers and you will rather desire the hand of Midas to make Gold, than the heads of these fools to make you such. Who shut their eyes to see better in the dark, and to make themselves Eagles become Owles: Who threw their wealth into the Sea, and made themselves Beggars, that they might not become poor: Who chose to live in places shaking with continual totterings, and con­ceited they lived best, when they were every hour in danger of death, and that they lived most secure; whilst their house was continually ready to become their grave: Who lived in Tubs more like to Dogs in their Kennels, than to men in their houses: Who flung themselves into the Sea, & threw themselves into Aetna; the one because he understood not the causes of those fluctua­tions, the other because he could not trace out the original of those flames. Pythagoras transform'd himself into twenty Beasts; Socrates standing all a whole day in one thought, and resting upon one leg, resem­bled a Crane; Anaxagoras stedfastly behold­ing the Sun as an Eagle; Zenocrates was a marble without sense; Zeno a stock with­out passion; Diogenes a Dog; Epicurus, a [Page 114] bruit; Democritus a fool, that alwayes laught; Heraclitus a diserted fellow, that alwayes wept. O curas hominum! Is it not beter to have no head, than to have one with all these fooleries? Is this to be a Phy­losopher? with this doe the learned ac­quire credit? The pearles that are round and plump (two properties of Rich Ideots) are the most precious and most esteemed things of the World. Make me of Gold, for then being but a Calf I shall be adored as a God: begun to be Canonized of old by the Israelites in the Desart, and followed even to these our dayes, as it also shall be to the end of the world.

This is the Phylosophy of many Divise's which they broach in contempt of the Learned, especially if they see them poor; illfurnished to resist hunger, and ragged, or it may be naked.

But I wish on the other side that I had so good a faculty with my pen, that I knew how to expresse to the life the deformed features of an Ignorant Miser: and he should appear with the same Horror that Orgogna a famous Limner of his times, occasioned in many friends of his, by discovering unto them a most mishapen Medusa's head; for delineating which, he had sought and [Page 115] collected all of hideous, and monstrous that he could find dispersed in a hundred ugly and dreadful animals, that he had as­sembled together for that purpose.

The Spartans to represent abominable the vices of Idlenesse and Luxury; the enemies of that severe Republick; called all the peo­ple to a general assembly, and made them to see Nauclides, from a high place; a man so fat, that from head to foot, he seemed all paunch. Aelian. lib. 4. var. hist. Other examination, other processe they made not against him. His corpulency convinced him of Idlenesse: whereupon he was banished that City as unprofitable; in whō they punished as prejudicial to all; him that was only profitable to himself. Now set before your eyes a Wealthy Ilitterate, you shall see in him, not a man, but in the resemblance of a man, a living piece of Touch-stone, which knows how to distin­guish Gold and Silver, and at the only tact knows and discernes them; but yet after all is a stone: you shall see a Spunge, that for what he can suck is all eyes; but for the rest is void of sense; yea, is not to be accounted animal.

Clothe him with the subtilest webs, with the whitest linnens, with the noblest silkes; vest him with the purest wooll that [Page 116] ever blusht with its double scarlet dye; if he be accosted by a Demonax, you shall hear the blunt Phylosopher tell him as he did such another: ‘Sir, this Wooll a Sheep wore before you, Lucian. in De­mon. therefore doth it sit so well, and so voluntarily fit and become you; because it is not of opinion it hath lost, but only exchanged masters. And as the colour into which it is dyde, hinders not but that it contin [...]es Wool, although more glorious, so the shape of Man that you have, hinders not but that you are a Sheep, howbeit of a fairer skin, and good­lier presence.’

Put him into a house ornified with the best garnishes, with all the noblest furnitures, and what have you done? Who so passeth by, and understands the conditions of its master, that inhabits it, will say as the ac­quaintance of a certain slothful Vatia, retired unto a country seat, passing by, Vatia hic situs est. Seneca epist. 55. ld. ep. 60 Hear Seneca give a reason of the same: Vivit is, qui se utitur; not he who makes his belly a slave to his head, but that consumes the thoughts of that, to find means to cram this: the belly being bound to serve the head, by providing it with spi­rits; necessary instruments for humane ope­rations: otherwise (pursues he) qui latitent, [Page 117] & torpent, sic in domo sunt tanquam in condi­tivo. Horum licet in lumine ipso, nomen mar­mori inscribas, mortem suam antecesserunt.

These conditions of men ignorant, and rich Themistocles that Sapient Athenian knew very well; that seeking a Husband for his Daughter poor as himself; and one offering to have her; rich its true; but that knew not any thing more than to tell money: where­as others would have run to this Golden hook, and have exprest their gratitude to Fortune, with the Hecatombes of Pythagoras: he retir'd with that Golden sentence, which was worth more than all the wealth of that Illiterate; Quaero virum qui indigeat Pecunia, non Pecuniam, quae indigeat viro.

And here, before I conclude this particu­lar, I can doe no lesse than suffer my self to be transported and to bestow my congratu­lations upon certain happy Families, in which not so much the riches or the patri­mony of their Ancestors, as Learning hath been transmitted from Father to Son in con­tinual succession, as to Feoffees; so that like as amongst the Chickins of the Eagle, Dege­ner est qui luminatorsit, he that cannot endure the sight of the Sun, his extraction is suspe­cted amongst them, and he that at his birth produceth not signes of the same vivacity of [Page 118] wit, and love of Learning, is accounted spu­rious. Oh! Stock of families truly happy; in whom there is always some Golden branch; nor only uno avulso non deficit alter Aureus, but in them there is in every age, such who bud, who flourish, and who germinate, an­swering with the degrees of age those of wisdom, which are, to Learn, to Possesse, and to Teach.

Excellent was that custome of the Spar­tans, Plutarc. which divided into three Quiers, ac­cording to the three ages of Man; Old, Viril, and Youthful; went singing in certain publick processive solemnities. The Aged, Nos fuimus fortes; those of Midle-age an­swered, Et nos modò sumus; to which the Young replyed; Et nos erimus aliquando. What Melody like to this? when it fals out that in one house the Grandfather, Son, and Grandchild, the first, deserving well for his Learning, recounting the degrees of his Honours, pronounceth that glorious Fui; The second displaying his Colours, and enjoying his splendors, saith Sum; the last giving hopes, and assuring himself in his promising towardlinesse, saith Ero; to be able one day himself also to say Sum, and at last Fui? This is to concatinate a pre­tious discent of Children, as Jewels with [Page 119] a Ring of Gold: This is to make an in­cession of Heires, like to a rich vein of Diamonds, of which every one by it self is a Patrimony; all together are an Ex­chequer.

The confusion of the Ignorant, being silenced in the presence of better Speakers.

TO the Gust which wee have above said to be proved by the Learned in the exercise of inge­nuity, and detection of verity, I will now oppose in the last place the Disgust of Igno­rance, condemned to silence where any man of Learning is present; for as much as he that knows not, either how to keep si­lence, or to speak, findes matter of shame in both, as being for his silence accused, and for his speech condemned for a Novice. Thus Alexander, Pluta [...]c. megabi. which ill instructed in Lim­ning; in the School of Apelles, praising faults for pieces of Art, spots for shadows, and errours for beautie; was by the Scholars themselves derided. O miserable Ignorants put to a non plus at the meeting of the Learned, and either stand like Consonants amongst Vowels mute, and with out any sound, of their own; or the false amongst the strings of a Gittern, which can reverberate none but discordant sounds. Thanks, that they [Page 121] have not their eares on their heads, but as the Tyrant Dionysius in their heels; & capa­ble onely of base and sordid things, weare not in their heads fancies proportionate to a matter of noble intelligence.

And because it naturally evenes, that as vessels, the emptier they be, they are the more sonorous; so he that hath his brain worst furnished hath the greatest verbo­sity: hence it is, that these more ambi­tious to seem Learned, than cautelous of discovering themselves Ignorant; whilst they talke freely upon that which they un­derstand not; gaine in the opinion of their Auditors the very same reward with that ambitious Neanthes; which perswading himself to be a Son of Urania, thievishly filcht from the Temple of Apollo the Harp of Orpheus; and getting into an open place, at the dead time of night, to have the grea­ter attention; there began to finger that luckless Instrument, which had not a chord, which at the touch of so rude a hand sent not forth in answer a dolorous Groan; as if it bewailed in its own dialect, its being ra­ther tormented, than plaid upon: So that if ever it was true that the Harp of Orpheus merited to move Trees and Stones, it was at this time, when it was so unskilfully [Page 122] fingred by Neanthes. But what was not done by them, was done by beasts; for the dis­cordant jarring rousing some brave ma­stiffs, and they judging of the Harper more by his Musick than by his counte­nance, Asinumad Lyram, tore him in pieces. Whereby if he resembled not Orpheus in the grace of his harmony; yet at least to his ill fortune, he followed him in his tragical kind of dying.

More mildly, its true, but withall more publiquely, & by more mouthes is lacerated the Ignorance of the discrepant divulger of impertinencies; recounting in derision the fooleries he spoke, the security wherewith he defined them, the confidence wherewith he defended them.

Have you ever heard two of these, more round than the Circle of A famous Painter who being required to doe some­thing to manisest his skill; only with his pen made an O so exactly round as gave suffi­cient testi­mony of his rare com­mand of hand; and occasion of this pro­verbial spèech. Giotto; dispute a Question amongst themselves, or (as sometimes they will) resolve a Pro­blem? Lucian in Dae­mon. It will bring to mind the words, and into the mouth the laughter of Demonax; which over-hearing two dispute aloud, one propounding, and the other answering things to no purpose. Thou (saith he to one of them) milkest a Goat, (and to the other) thou instead of a Pale holdest a Sieve.

[Page 123] It is a thing really, that moveth, I know not whether more to compassion or laugh­ter, accidentally sometimes to hear read, or recited by such people, upon subjects, al­though of noble argument, tedious discour­ses, and yet not one of so many lines touch the center, or hit the mark, that the argu­ment prefixed. So that the matter that there is treated off might doe to these, Laert. as Diogenes did to an Ignorant Archer; who seeing in a hundred shoots he never so much as once hit the white; ran and placed himself just be­fore the But, assured, that he would hit every thing, but what he aimed at.

If at least you will not grant, that it was the character of a singular wit to be able to talke away the time, and speaking of every thing else, not so much as once lightly to touch upon what he would have said. Thus judged the Emperour Gallien in a solemn hunting; awarding the victory to one, that flinging against a Bull from a little distance ten Darts, never touch him with any of them: And presently sent him the Crown; saying, to such as wondered at the sentence; This man is expert above you all. For to cast ten Darts so little a way, against so great a mark and not to hit it, is a thing which none knows how to doe besides himself. [Page 124] And these are the merits, these the rewards of the sons of Ignorance, when they affect Theaters, and beg applauds.

But if by misfortune they doe incounter with deserved scorn, instead of applause, you shall presently hear some of the most pertenatious assume these bitter complaints. Envy is fatal to Virtue. From the splendors of glory arise the shadows of malice. Detraction makes it self partner in the merits of the worthy, like a slave intruding into the Chariot of his Tri­umphant Conquerour.

Again, from the more modest are heard those ordinary excuses, applied upon the slightest occasions: That the diffi­culty of the matter, and the sublimity of the argu­ment (fit only for an Atlas' es wit) is above their abilities. And sometimes their comes into their heads the excuse of that famous Faustu­lus which dismounted by an Ant upon which be rode, and seeing the by-standers laugh; remembred them, that he had Phaëton for his companion in that fatal disgrace. Hear the story.

The disgraces of such who not knowing how to speak, yet, as a fruit of their igno­rance attract to themselves others laughter ought not to go disjunct from the scorns, which certain mutes also demerit that have the garb of Scholars, but are indeed with­out any habit of true Litterature: with titles somtimes òf more than Scholars, but vox praetereaque nihil.

The skin of the Nemean Lion honoured by the shoulders of the great Hercules, that did weare it, never was more undervalued than when it covered a Woman. Credo & jubas pectinem passas, ne cervicem enervem in­ureret stiria leonina; Hiatus crinibus infartos, genuinos inter antias adumbratos. Tota oris, con­tumelia mugiret si posset. Nemea certè (si quis loci Genius) ingemebat: Tertul. de Pallio. tunc enim se circum­spexit leonem perdidisse. No otherwise doe the dresses and the titles; the ensignes and characters proper to the Learned, born by people without Learning or Civility, be­wail their Mishap, seeing themselves con­demned to be liars perpetually, in that they proclaim to as many as see them; him to be a Lion who was but an Asse; him to be a [Page 126] Doctor, who is like certain Books (as Lu­cian told such another) guilded gloriously and painted curiously without, and with­in void of all Learning, being blank paper.

How many of these are seen to stalke along so proud and stately, that they resem­ble that perfect Globe of the Mathemati­cians, that toucheth not the Earth but only with one foot? Looking on what they seem, they forget what they are; and like Buce­phalus in his trappings, they vouchsafe that none shall touch or behold them but the greatest King of the World.

Such was that Demi-man, Adver­sus In­doctum. against whom Lucian so bravely whets his wits. He, as many also now a-dayes, measured his know­ledge by the Learning, that he had not in his head, but in other mens writings; As if the Wisdom of Phylosophers, shut up in their Books, as it were in a glasse, were like that of Orlando; and they could with only smelling to it, draw it all into their brain; and thereby make themselves living Libra­ries of as many Authors, as they have Books in their studies. Sic apud desidiosissimos vide­bis (saith Seneca) quidquid orationum, De tran­quil. an. 5. 9. histo­ri arumqne est; & tecto tenus extructa loculamen­ta. But to multiply Books in this manner, and to wipe the dust off of them every day, [Page 127] not imploying them to take the rust from their brains; this is in the judgment of Sydo­nius, Lib. 4. Membranas potiùs amare quàm literas. This is to make the house more considera­ble, Epist. than its Master, as succeeded to that Ar­chelaus, Aelian. lib. 12. var. hist to see whose Palace (in regard it was painted by Zeuxis) people slocked from all parts; whilst in the mean space (saith So­crates) there was not any man that stirr'd a foot to see the owner of it. At quid dulcius libero, Quint. in Dialog. & ingenuo animo, & ad voluptates hone­stas nato, quàm videre plenam semper, & frequen­tem domum concursu splendidissimo hominum, idque scire non pecuniae, non orbitati, neque officii alicujus administrationi, sed sibi ipsi dari.

PLAGIANISME.
Plagiaries that in several manners appropriate the fruits of others Studies.

THe ancient Art of Thievery Na­tural Daughter of Necessity, al­though since become the Adoptive of profit, is as well committed upon Learn­ing as upon Money. Clemens Alexandrinus speakes of the original of those ancient times, when it might be said, that the trea­sures of the Ingenious, no sooner were made publick to the eye of the World, than they became subject to the purloinings of Plagiaries; and the Hellens of excellent Composures no sooner came to light, than they found a hundred Menelaus's, a hundred Paris's to ravish them.

[Page 131] Some think (I will in a way of mirth wrest to my purpose the sense of that An­cient saying of the Comick) that onely, Homo trium litterarum makes Fur; name­ly, that its only the Vice of the Illite­rate to steal the labours of the Learned, and with them to appeare brave, and be­come rich. Howbeit the noblest wits, and accutest pens have honoured this Art, im­ping their own fancies with the wings of others Muses: whereupon it holds true no lesse of the majestick Lion, than of the feeble Ant, that ‘Convictare juvat praedas, & vivere rapto.’

The Writings of the great Aristotle, are fam'd to be a beautiful piece of Marquetry, whereof the design is his own, but the mat­ter for the most part borrowed from others: And if Speusippus in the purchase of whose Books he disburst three Tallents; if Demo­critus, if others like them, the labours of whose Wits Alexander collected together for him, every one should challenge his own, he that appeared a Phoenix in others Plumes, would appear but a Ja [...]k-daw in his own.

Plato was taxed by a railing Fellow for a Thiefe, with an indictment made in the [Page 132] name of Philolaus, as if he had (I will not say transcribed from him a great part of his Ti­meus) but replenished it with subline juice sucked out of Writings of that second Pytha­goras; behold how Timon accuseth him.

And, doubtless, were there but an Archime­des, Ʋltr. that knew how to distinguish of Books, praef fat. lib. 7. as of mixtures of two metals, between the legitimate and the borowed; Were there but an Aristophanes, a Judg that could under­stand the language of the dead when they speak by the mouthes of the living; Were there but a Cratinus that could put Books to the torture, and form the processe of their thefts, Gyrald. histor. as he did of the Poems of Menander, of whose thieveries he composed six Books; Poet. you should see how true it is that Mercury god of the Learned is also god of Thieves.

But in my judgment, the whole crew of such, who in their Books under their own names publish the labours of others, may be distinguish'd into three orders, one worse than another. The first are those who ga­thering from one, one thing; and from ano­ther, another; and altering their titles, and inverting their order, compose Books as [Page 133] they make Garlands, wherein many litles make a mickle, many flowers make a Coro­net. They have this discretion to steal from every one a little, that so few should perceive and none complain of the theft; and (as I may say) they do not embase, but only clip the Coyne.

The names of these Authors sumptuously writ in Capital letters in the Frontispice of their Books, stupifie them to behold them­selves fathers of so prodigious an issue; when as they are conscious that they were devoid of productive virtue, or seed, that might inable them to the generation of so admirable Births.

He perceiveth himself indow'd with such riches, and yet knows that he had neither stock nor revenues equivalent to so great a purchase.

They hold it amongst them for a Law, never to mention the Authors out of which they had filtch'd, least they should be de­tected for Plagiaries. Nor care they for Pliny, In Pra oper. that said, Obnoxii dnimi, & infelicis in­genii esse deprehend [...] in furto malle, quàm mutud reddere; cumpraesertim sors fiat ex usura. Nor [Page 134] that ancient custome related by M. Varro, to crown their Conduits once a year with oderiferous Garlands of flowers, in grate­ful acknowledgement of the clear, and wholesome water, that they drew from them.

But it happens many times (and this is the final end of all the Art of such lik thieve­ries) that they take upon them to censure as Ignorant, and condemn as shallow and su­perficial, those very persons from whom they borrowed all that they had of good, insomuch as declaring themselves nice and critical in their opinions, they are unsuspe­cted of felonious filching. Just like to tor­rents, which where they break down their banks with a high tide, diradiat, teare up, and beare before them, all that stands in their way, but of that which their impetuosity carries away, they ingorge the most solid, and shew only the stumps, sedg, and mud. This is an act proper to Harpies, to stisfie their hunger at anothers Table, not con­tenting themselves with devouring that which they carry away, unlesse, moreover, they spoil that which they leave behind. This is to doe with worthy Writers as the Caitiffe Dionysius did to his friends, Laert. in Diogen. which saith, Diogenes, as vessels of preciou liquour [Page 135] he suckt and dreined till he was full, and then broke them as being empty. This is to resemble the two infamous Monsters in the Straights of Sicilia neer to Pharos, Scilla, and Carybdis, of which the first splits the ship, and wrecks the merchandize, the other with his circulations devoureth them, and in a great gulf swallowes them. Te [...]tul. de Pal. c. 2. They under­value not others with an intent to reject them, but to ingorge them; nec expuunt nau­fragia, sed devorant.

Wherefore let them hear as spoken to them alone what upon another subject the Moral Plutarch records. In praec. ergoreip. Non debemus suffu­rari gloriam eorum, qui nos in altum extulerunt, necesse ut Regulis Aesopi, qui deseruit Aquilam cùmea lassa ulteriùs non potuit volare.

Worse than these are the second, who finding, I know not how, the imperfect works of Acute Doctors, charitably col­lecting them as the Ospray the unplum'd Eaglets faln from their Nests, take them home, and as Orphan and destitute adopt them for their own legitimate issue. The shame of appearing Ignorant, overcomes in them the infamy of being thieves, nor re­gard they Sinesius, Epist. 14 that said, Magis impium esse mortuorum lucubrationes, quam vestes furari, quod sepulchra perfodere dicitur. Oh how [Page 136] many, if they might come forth of their Graves, or but draw their heads out of their Tombs to see their labours inherited by such as had no right to succeed them ab intestato, they would say with that for­lorn Mantuan Sheapherd.

It was a most modest Law of those no lesse brave than discreet Painters of Greece, observed in all ages, to honour the memo­ry of the worthy Masters in that Art; by not putting the pensil to the pieces, which they, overtaken by death, should have left either without the finishing touches, or else im­perfect; whereby they in effect would tell us, that those relicks thus diminished; and unfinished were more excellent, than if they had been by their hands exactly completed. Of this the Historian speaking, Plinius l. 23. c. 11. Illud per quam raram, (saith he) ac memoria dignum, etiam suprema opera Artisicum, imperfectasque tabulas, sicut Irin Aristidis, Tyndaridas Nicho­machi, Medeam Timomachi, & Venerem Apel­lis in majori admiratione esse, quam perfecta.

Now in Letters, amongst so many Laws there is not one of so good determination, or so great fidelity, by reason every one [Page 137] hath to great an avidity to the applause of a man of ingenuity: therefore they put their hands to another mans works, not to com­pleat them for the Author, but to ingrosse, against all the rules of equity, anothers Prin­cipal to their Ʋse.

He that found a treasure in his field had it all to himself, Spart. in Adr. as was enacted by Adrian the Emperour; but if in anothers, he divi­ded it, and the owner of the field had half: A law, if in monyes just, in the riches of wit most just.

But the third sort are intolerable; name­ly, those who to anothers work prefix their own names; Men of impudent Fronts, which having in a Book no more than a Frontispice; as the Asse in the Fable that had nothing of a Lion but his skin; appro­priate all the rest to themselves. Just as if the patrozining of a Book were the dedi­cating of a Temple to some god, wherein it was sufficient to Grave his Name on the Front. What else did Caligula that Beast shrouded in an Emperour, when he behead­ed the Satue of Jupiter Olympius, and erected his own in the place to beadored as Jupiter? Plutar. de vitan­do aere a­lieno. The Persians beleived that the greatest of all sins was to be Indebted, and next to this, to be a Liar. These are both; for, what they [Page 138] are indebted for to others, and they have nothing otherwise, than by the patroniza­tion of shamelesse lies.

One of these being convicted of such a like theft, whilest it was expected, that not being able to cover the fact with lies; he should at least wise have covered his face with shame; he as impudent of fore-head, as dexterous of hand, put himself on his guard; and pleading in his defence the Sympathy, about which some, called Phylosophers, keep such a stir; boldly retorted: None could prove him a violator of the writings of any man, till first he proved that there was a disimi­litude in their minds; in regard that two Wits, uniform and consentaneous of genius, have by vir­tue of sympathetick union, and identity in the mo­tion of their minds, and order of their thoughts.

Now Keplerus, Kepler. lib. 3. har. prop. Mersen. in Gen. Galileus in dial. nov. phil. Mersenius, and Galileus go about to investigate the mysterious reason, why two Chords tuned to an Ʋnison, a Diapason, or a Diatessaron, so accord the one with the other in sound, that the one touch'd the other not touch't trembles, and moves. But see here a Problem of more difficult solution, (if haply in uniform wits there be, as they say there is in Musical Chords, those regular vibratious, which in­countring the Harmonical numbers of per­fect [Page 139] consonants, doe occasion the like mo­tions) how it can be, that two braines by way of sympathetick consent should accord to select one and the same argument, to dis­play it with the same form of speech; never differing a word, no nor a syllable: Yea, with so exact resemblance of stature, voice, and features, In Prol. that they are taken for the Menec­mi of Plautus, howbeit.

From the dexterity, that many use in filching others writings; is occasioned, the Jealousie for the preserving them; and the quarrels when they happen to be felonious­ly stoln.

Even Nature herself hath taught two ani­mals, that produce two the preciousest, and sweetest things; so much the more inge­niously to defend them from Thieves, the more greedily they seek them. Thus the Cockles that gender the Pearles, when the mornings light discovereth them, close themselves; and if any one chance some­times to surprize them, whilst as yet they are open, though otherwise blind; Cum [Page 140] manum videt, Plinius li. 9. c. 35 comprimit sese, operitque opes, gnara propter illas se peti; manumque, si praeve­niat, acie sua adscindit, nulla justiore poen [...]. Thus the Bees, with bitterest combs, like a Dedalian Labyrinth, fill their hives, contra alia­rum bestiolarum aviditates: Id se facturas con­sciae, quod concupisci possit, Plinius li. 11. c. 6 But because ‘Nill est deterius latrone nudo;’

and against these Thieves, Mart. it is not sufficient for Mercury himself to stand Sentinel, with Argus's hundred eyes: hence it is, that with the accusations of many Authors, so many Books are cramm'd.

And doubtlesse in this case, patience is very difficult; and passion very excusable. Even the Dead Statues of brasse, saith Casio­dorus, if in the night time they be strucke by Thieves with an intent to break them; though they have not sense to afflict them­selves; yet they have voice to lament them­selves, Lib. 7. with which; Nec in toto mutaesunt, quan­do a furibus percussae, Ser. 22. custodes videnture tinitibus admonere.

But, behold, in two short receipts, the remedy against the vicious avidity after others labours. The first is, to perswade your selves that the VVorld is not a Judge of so litle judgment, that it cannot from [Page 141] publick fame, or rather infamy; from in­dictments, and witnesses; when so thou art; find thee to be guilty of felony: and by this meanes thou wilt never be got to do it, (although occultly,) out of a hope that none can detect thee. You invert the order of things; so that the method of those things seem yours, which you transferre from o­thers to your own use: yet howsoever though you should be a Cacus; subtile in in­verting upside down the traces of the feet of the prey, that you filcht into your house; dragging them by the taile: there will not want a Hercules; that by those very trails, will trace out the theft, and fraud; and punish the Author. Yea, you your selves, will let slip from your mouth, or pen, something; that may advert the discreet of the fact: and you shall in this resemble the Raven; which never steals so subtlely, but with the sanguin'd beak; and even with the prey in his mouth; he croaks: whereby, afore he is aware, he charms up the stones, that flye about his [...]ares.

Nay, when you your selves are silent▪ your [Page 142] papers shall speak against you, and your own Books shall form the processe. In this confidence Martial; with whose Epigrams many made themselves passe for Wits, and Poets, divulging them for their own; spent no words in the accusation of Thieves, and the defence of his own,

The second is; that you perswade your selves, that its a far lesse evil, not to appeare Learned; than to be proved Ignorant; ha­ving nothing of your own, and yet fallaci­ously filching from others. If your head be bald for want of hairs (the Emblem of the thoughts, the riches of the mind;) you will not take those of the dead, and make of them an ill-shapt Perriwig.

Better is it to be poor with my own, than rich in other mens speeches. To be able to say, This is mine, although it be little; is much better: than to say; This is much, but it is not mine.

The preciousest Verses that Manilius could read in his Poems, were those two:

So write, that upon all your labours you may ingrave that Distich, that the Poet A­risto writ over the Portal of his Gate.

LASCIVIOUSNESSE.
The unworthy Profession of Lasci­vious Poetry.

SAint Jerome, that brave Lion; that from the Cave of Bethlehem made the roarings of his voice to be heard through all the World; to the terrour of Heresie, and astonishment of Vice; omitted not to give a shake to the licenti­ous Lasciviousnesse of Poets; that masking the Stars with unchast Images; envious ca­lumniators; and a thousand times worse than the Giants of Phlegra: they have as­saulted Heaven not with stones, but with [Page 173] the wickedness of the Earth. In cap. 5 Amos. Non debemus sequi fabulas Poëtarum, ridicula, ac portentosa mendacia, quibus etiam coelum infamare conan­tur, & mercedem stupori inter sydera collocare.

And to say the truth; those are worthy of the anger of Heaven, and Earth, ‘Quorum carminibus nihil est, Man. nisi fabula coelum.’

Were not the Lascivious thefts of Jupiter sufficiently manifested to the World with other Lights; but that they must shine among the Stars? Did it not suffice that they were published to all the Earth: in Marble, in Brasse, in Pictures, in publick Scenes, unlesse also moreover they had gi­ven them the Heavens for a Theater, the Stars for Representors, and the World for Auditors: And afterwards to tell you that Jupiter from Heaven sent his Thunder-bolts against the Earth, guilty of those vices, of which Heaven was the Master? An Adul­terous Calista hath the Stars of the Pole; and makes a double guide, because in directs by Sea, and shipwracks by Land; whilest shi­ning from thence above; it seemes to teach the Chast to be happily Lascivious; there being a Jupiter sound, that remunerates A­dultery with Stars.

From such Constellations of obscenity, what other influences, then Lascivious; can redound to the Earth?

Architas, desiring to speak in publick a word none of the modestest; in calling it to his lips, it appeareth so unworthy to be in­graven by the tongue of a Man; that not to defile himself with it, he took for tongue a Cole: as more agreeable to the matter, worthy of fire; and with it not so much writing, as blotting, upon the surface of a wall; either exprest, or hinted it. Oh! the golden Tongues of the Stars: whilest the night charms all the World to silence, the better to attend: of what speak they? and what teach they? They publish those mis­deeds with the language of light in Heaven, which for shame would conceal themselves with darknesse on Earth.

But I wish that only the Ancient Poetry of Gentilisme was guilty of this; and not exceeded by the modern of Christians; that not in depainting the Stars, with imaginary figures, of dishonest memorials; but in ex­pressing [Page 175] in paper and which is worse, im­printing in the mind, the Acts themselves; so happily or rather unhappily busieth it self.

There wants not to the Poetry of these times its Ovids; that subjecting Parnassus to Ida; the Lawrels to the Mirtles, the the Swans to the Doves; and Apollo to Cupid: make the Virgin Muses publick strumpets. So to these Ovids, there should not want Augustus's for Mecaenas's; and for a refri­geration of their too burning Loves; the Snows of Scythia, and the Ice of Pontus. And herein now a-dayes the evil is so epi­demical: that from the antecedent of being a Poet, this consequence seemes to follow of being Lascivious: as Antisthenes from the profession of Ismenia, took that conse­quence; Si bonus Tibicen est, ergo, malus homo est.

Who would not have sworn, that Poe­try coming from the Gentiles, to Christi­ans; should have done, as the Spartan Venus; which passing the Eurotas, said to them, that if they would have her company, they must break their Looking-glasses, deface their Bracelets, divest the Whores; and not only clothed herself with modesty; but armed herself with bravery: and seemed rather a Warlick Pallas, than a Lascivious Venus? Yet, [Page 176] that which is yet worse; to that liberty of Lascivious writing; to which here­tofore was given banishment for a punish­ment: honours are now conferr'd for a re­ward.

We advance as high as Heaven, and amongst the Stars adore those Lyres, of the modern Orpheusses; that have opened Hell; not to draw thence a condemned Euridice; but to couduct thither a world of innocents. Their Books go through all the Earth: spread through every Climate; become Citizens of every place; and are with great diligence translated, that they may speak in all Languages: as if for fear the Virgin VVorld should want Ravishers, they wonld disperse through every Climate, incentives of Lust.

They bear in their Frontispices, the titles of the Grandees, to whose name they were by the Authors dedicated: and by that means passe so much the more freely; by how much the more they are defended. Thus many times, those come to be the Protectors of Impurity, that should be its Judges; Ter. con­tra Marc. li. 1. c. 2. prostrating their names, and au­thorities to unworthy Uses: as the Barba­rians of Scythia; that whilst they are Lasci­viously imployed in their Carts, Suspendunt de [Page 177] jugo pharaetras indices, ne quis intercedat: Ita nec armis erubescunt.

VVere Hyppocrates now living, that com­plained of the Publick Laws, which assign­ing no punishment to Ignorant Physicians; In lege. permitted them to be Homicides: Discunt enim (said that other) periculis nostris, & ex­perimenta per mortes agunt. Pinius li. 19. c. 2 Medicoque tan­tùm hominum occidisse impunitas summa est. VVhat would he say, where the being a publick compounder of poison; so much the more dangerous by how much the more pleasant; makes him not to forfeit his head, but to merit a Crown?

But if in like manner as Lucian, made the infamous tongue of the Pseudologist, re­count with anger and regret, the sordid offices, in which he was basely imployed; we might hear the murtherous Pens of so many Lascivious VVriters, to relate one by one, the obscenities, by committing of w ^ch they were insentives, in the hearts of such, who with too great an intensenesse read their venemous writings: would there be a man that would inrich them with costly rewards; that would honor them with these applauds; fit only for a super-humane ex­cellence? Sen. qu. nat.

Lesse criminal was that libidinous Hostius [Page 178] that using his Mirrours in abominable spe­culations, ea sibi osten [...]abat, quibus abscon­dendis nulla satis alta nox est. But to conclude; Sibi osten [...]abat. The Dragons that being poisonous, keep themselves secluded in their subteranean Dens, are not judged so faulty; that we should therefore go hunt them out, and slay them. VVhen they come abroad, to infest the Air with their breath: there is none that being able to slay them, will suffer them to live. To publish to the eyes of all the VVorld Ea, quibus abscondendis nulla satis alta nox est; and that so much the worse, by how much the more exquisite is the Pen, that delineates it: and the art seems of grea­ter perfection, Plinius li. 34. c. 5 whilest according to the An­cient painting of the Greeks it is wrought, Nihil velando: and to [...]ind a reward of that, to which there cannot be found a chastise­ment grievous enough; is not this a miracle of humane, (I know not which to call the least evil) folly; or with more reason, malignity?

It is still infamous for a man to assume the habit and face of a woman? and to trans­form a mans self, not into the habit, but into the profession of an over-grown Hagge; Bawde to all the most closely contrived ob­scenities: is this honorable? is this a life worthy of Statues, and Lawrels?

DETRACTION.
The inclination of the Genius, and abusive imployment of the Wit to the defaming of others.

WHo would ever imagine that De­traction should be so sweet, that he that had once tasted it should ever after desire it; & as the Lions, which if they have once licked the blood from their pawes, are alwayes after that greedy for it; so likewise he that tasteth the first rellish of slander, hath ordinarily so longing a desire after it, that they become like those that had rather be without a tongue, than without their Jests; and cease to live sooner than to leave jeering. Old age, (when they arrive at it) though it oft­times bereaves the head of wisdom, yet it deprives not the bitter tongue of it stings▪ like as the old thorns, which Winter makes to lose their leaves not their pricks; their ornament, but not their sharpnesse.

These, for the most part, acute of wit, but only to sting; never speak better than [Page 212] when they spake worst; never shine more than when most they burn. All the proofs of their Wits are jeers, and pungent jests: & to become the smarter in biting, they tēter their wits, more than that famous Oratour strove in despight of his lisping tongue to pronounce and expresse the canicular and snarling letter R.

To hear them, how a Menippus, a Zoilus, a Momns will play upon one another, (so inge­niously they do it) it is as if you heard a Mu­sick, but such Musick as that, which Pytha­goras observed to be made, by the blows, and percussions of great Hammers. Their Pens, Plutarc. taken from a Vulture, not from a Swan, like that of the famous Demosthenes, have the ink at one end, and poison at the other: yea, the ink it self is a venom, that impoisons the names which it writeth; whereupon as those that die of poison, they appear wan and black. The sparklings of the wit, which in others are wont to be innocent Lamps of light, not of fire; for delight, not for offence; in them are lightnings, that carry flames on their wings, and death on their points.

There is transfused into their heads the Genius of Lucilius, Plinius qui primus condidit styli nasum. [...] They have in their mouthes the [Page 213] proper tongue of the Ancient Epigramma­tists; namely, Praefat. l. 2. epig. (as Martial defineth it) Ma­lam linguam: nor though their speech be sweet, and copious, can it ever be said, of them, as of the Sweetest Plato, that the Bees put hony in their mouthes; but instead of it a Scorpions egge, or a Spiders venom. In sum; they accustom their hands to the cauterizing instruments like an Anatomist; rather than to the Pen like a Writer; and the more sub­tilly they cut, the more excellent they seem; wounding the living, and tearing in pieces the death.

These detracting Buffoons, unworthy of living amongst Men, as partaking of Beasts; (as was said of Cicero) to gain the applause of a jest, care not to lose the favour of a friend.

Whereupon they may well be called with the Comick Vulturii; since that Hostesne an Cives comedant parvipendunt. To expresse one of their conceits, they care not though they torment that innocent party upon which it lights. They onely use their eyes to strike their blows home; nor do they care, when it sometimes falls out that they speed as the Eagle; that let a Tortoise fall [Page 214] upon the bald head of a Poet, to break the shell. Thus they take pleasure, in others sufferings; and honour, from others dis­grace: imitating (if he did such a thing) Buonaroti, that crucified a man, thereby to depaint to the life a Crucified Christ. Or rather Nero, that set fire on Rome, to chaunt upon the Tower of Mecaenas, to the sound of his Gittern, in the real wrack of his Coun­try, the feigned conflagration of Troy.

Ah las! too barbarous is that desire of theirs, to appear at others cost, quick-wits; of an acute and nimble brain. Its the cruel custom of the people of Jappoan, to prove the temper of their Scymitars, & the strength of their armes, upon the Carcasses of the condemned. How much worse is it under pretence of a sportive skirmish, to thrust in ones breast a Daggar, no lesse mortal to the reputation of him that receives it, than the wound of a Sword would be to his life; which, as saith Vegetius, Duas uncias adactae mortales sunt. Yet you must know, that the Satyres, Lib. 1. cap. 12. Fathers and Masters of Satyre, are more ugly for being Semi-beasts, than beautiful for being Demi-gods: and in your mordant taunts, that which is ingenious, doth not so much please; but that which is malicious, doth more displease.

[Page 215] Be these the sublime uses, the divine im­ployments, for which Wit was given you? To make it of a King that it is a Tyrant; and of a Conservator of Civil life, a Homi­cide, and Hangman? You appropriate that to your selves, which an Ancient writ a­gainst the cruel Perillus; justly complaining, that he had debased the innocent Art of forming in brasse the Images of gods, and Hero [...]s; unto the making of a Murthering Bull, to be the Executor, or Instrument of the mercilesse sentences of Phalaris. In hoc a simulachris Deorum, Plinius li. 34. c. 8 hominumque de [...]ocaverat, humanissimam artem. Ideo tot conditores ejus elaboraverant ut ex ea tormenta sierent? Itaque una de causa servantur opera ejus, ut quisquis illa videat, oderit manus.

The ordinary punishment of these is to be beloved by none, shunned by many, hated by all: To bring upon themselves the in­famous title of a Satyrist, a Detractor, a Buffoon; who might bear in their fore-heads that ancient Distich, extracted from a Greek Epigram,

Diogenes, the Band-dog of Cynick Phylo­sophers; [Page 216] had his palace, rather kennel, in a Tub. This was the Heaven, which he re­volved: An Intelligence really worthy of such a Sphere: This the Cave from which he delivered his Oracles, that smelt more of Wine than Truth: This the Chair, where teaching, he undertook to correct others uncomely customes, with a miracle (if he had succeeded so,) that a Butt should re­duce others to themselves, that is wont to make them run besides themselves. What­soever was the doctrine that he taught (which yet was such, that Plato called him, Aelian. lib. 14. cap. 33. var. hist. alterum Socratem sed insanam) nevertheless, because in that nasty and filthy Butt, he mingled the Wine of syncere Phylosophy with the sharp Vineger of a continual male­diction, he had more Scoffers than Scho­lars; and all Athens, lookt upon him as a Dog, and shunn'd him as a mad Man.

And who is there that will hug a Porcupine, since he cannot touch it so warily, but that it will prick him? who would keep com­pany with one, to whom as to the Scorpion, Semper cauda inictu est? Plin. l. 11 cap. 25. VVo would make a friend of a Lion; which then when it neither useth paws nor teeth; hath so sharp a tongue, that even when it licketh it fetcheth blood? Better is it to honour them, that they may [Page 217] not become enemies; sacrificing to them, as the Romans did to the Goddesse Febris; for then they obliege you when they come not neer you; and when they only so far re­member you, as never to think of you.

But it would be so slight a punishment for Detractors, to be onely shunned and avoided; if also they were not persecuted. For although sometimes they are subtle in the interests of their lives, as to know how much it behoves them not to irritate those, that can answer to the Pen with the Sword; and to words, with deeds: but that in the affairs of such they ought to be dumbe, if not blind; taking thereof an example, from certain Northern Cranes, that being to passe Mount Taurus take a stone in their mouthes, to the end they may not with their chatte­ring wake the Eagles there nested: yet its seldom seen, that they are so cunning; but that one time or other, they do that un­awares; which they continually do, either out of a habit, or nature: whereby either they make to themselves [...], as the Silk-worms, a prison with their own mouthes; or pro­voke them in whose power it is to crush the Scorpion, upon the sore it made: bring­ing to mind by their example the truth of that, which Pollio said of Augustus▪ That [Page 218] we ought not Scribere in eum, Macr. li. 2. Sat. cap. 4. qui potest pro­scriber [...].

They will not alwayes meet with such as will give them money to hold their peace; nor such as (following the advice of Alphonsus King of Aragon) will throw to the Cur medicatis frugibus offam, to keep him from barking, or at least from biting.

It was the singular fortune of that Advo­cate in Martial:

Many times accipiunt, ut taceant: but they receive something, but what I know not, upon which they cease to snarle, so that they are never heard to speake more: which was the reward of that notorious Zoilus; who whether he were burnt alive, or stoned; or crucified, Vitru. in one of these sorts of coyn, he was paid the wages, praef. li. 7 of his aspersions against the Prince of Poets.

SELF-CONCEIT.
The esteem of a mans own knowledg with dispraise of others.

THe head of a man is not so incapa­cious, but that, better than the fa­bulous Budget of Ulysses, it can contein as many Winds as Pride and Lofti­nesse inspire; nothing lesse forceable to turn upside-down the Sea, and Land, than are the Whirle-winds to raise Tempests; and the exalations, imprisoned in subterre­nean Cavernes, to shake it with Earthquakes. Those unfortunate Scholars know this to their cost; which (I know not if I should say, in, or rather besides their Wits,) go so stately, that they think they are riding in their Triumphant Chariot. They are the Saules, that are above others Ab humcro & sursum, not by the head so much, as by the brain, and opinion of themselves. These are the Olympus'es, of whom, the loftiest summities of Mountains, the most elevated ingenuities, and wisest Soules, scarce attein to the basis, and to kisse their feet. They [Page 244] are the Suns, that alone have light to illu­minate all obscurity, and to obscure all clarity.

These, I know not whether they should more move tears in Heraclitus, for compas­sion; or laughter in Democritus, for derision. And howbeit you esteem that Alexarchus the Grammarian, is worthy of the pity of a Phylosopher rather than the scorn of the Vulgar; to whom his School seeming an Heaven; Clement. Alex. in Pro. the ranks of Forms that stood about him, circulations of Spheres; the Boyes he read to, Stars; his Documents, Light; the Nowns, Pronowns, Verbs, Articles, &c, Signes of the Zodiack; him­self made a Sun; nor would he be any other way depainted, or called: and it was a crime to behold him without a certain suf­fering of the eyes, as when they are fixed on the Sun: Yet that Title would better have fitted him, which Tyberius used to give to Appion, Plinius praef. ope­ris. a Grammarian as himself, and no lesse a Bragadocchio then he, being empty of understanding, and full of Wind, and therefore aptly called Cymbalum mundi.

What think you of that other Remnius, (rather Pallon than Pollemon;) that went up and down bewailing the misfortune of the VVorld, that should remain after him, as it [Page 245] had done before him ignorant: in regard learning, that was born with him, with him also should die? And upon the matter it seemed true; for he being dead, there was not one letter left to make his Epitaph.

But the proud conceit that the tenth Al­phonsus King of Castile, had of his Wit and Knowledg, surpast the bounds of common, yea, rather of humane opinionativenesse; a man by profession an Astronomer, (of whom now a dayes those Tables of his called Alphonsine take their denomination) not yet of so sublime intelligence, nor of such knowledg in this Art, that Atlas might have trusted Heaven to his shoulders, with­out endangering a ruine; but of so high esteem of his own brain, Roderir. Sanctius histor. Hisp. li. 4 cap. 5. that he used to say, That had he been permitted Gods ear when he composed the Heavens, and assigned the periods to the Stars: he would have contrived this work with more order, and with rules of more exact proportion. Chap. 38 Now God interrogated Job as of a thing transcending the capacity of our wits; Numquid nosti ordinem Coeli? & pones rationem ejus in terra? If God would go to School to Alphonsus, he offereth himself to be his Master in Astronomy; And if he would bring him the Volumne of his eter­nal Idea's, he would blot out, he would [Page 246] adjust the Model of the Heavens, and the Pattern of the World to a more methodical contrivance.

Only madnesse could defend this blas­phemy from the fulminations of the Hea­vens, where posuit ossuum: and indeed God imputed it to his folly, using him with more compassion than anger, and by letting him blood as a frantick person in the vein in the middle of his fore-head, took away his Crown. He would give him to understand, that he would not have known how to ad­just the Revolutions of Heaven to a better form; and therefore sent him a Revolution in his Kingdom: which he, with all the Ca­nons and Rules of his Calculations, never knew how to adjust; whereupon he came to be deposed by his Son and died an exile in a forreign Countrey.

Men distracted as Alexarchus, as Remnius, although perhaps lesse known, I doubt not but (as in all times,) so also such there are now a-dayes in the World. He that would pourtray them to the life, may depaint a great Smoak, (that advanceth it self even to the Clouds, and the more it exalts, the more do those its great Volumnes swell and di­late; In Ps. 36) thereto affixing the Motto of Augustine Quantò grandior, tantò vanior.

[Page 247] Hearing them some times speak in their own praise, and in under-valuing of others, we may know how justly they merit the salute that Philip of Macedon returned to his proud Physician that writ to him, Menecra­tes Jupiter Philippo salutem: The answer was, Philippus Menecrati sanitatem: which was to make himself the Doctor of his Doctor; and to send him for the health of his brain, a dose of Helibor in a salute. You may hear them brag, ‘That under their Caps and Gowns the most lofty, & most profound Sciences are touched as the Pearls are confined to the shels of the Cachilae. Pearl Cockle. That their Dictions are the Charts of se­cure Navigation, without which in the Sciences, we incurre, naufrage or peril. That their Documents are at the ultimate extent of Truth, as the Stars at their ex­tremity of the Worlds confines:’ so that ‘Altiùs his nihil est, Manil. 1 haec confinia mundi.’

[Page 248] And if not so, at least let them attempt to open the door to let out the wind, with which the wretches have their heads so puft up; and this may be done by bringing their eyes into the light of some perspicuous ve­rities; Such as these;

1 Every one fancies his own things, being little, to be great. Self-love is a concave­glasse that represents an Hair to be a Tree, and a Gnat to be a Pegasus. He that takes Love for a Judg, esteemes his matters as that Clitus esteemed a Naval fight, in which bat­tering and sinking onely three Grecian Gal­lies, Plut. Or. 2. de fort. Alex. as if he had either routed Xerxes, or imposed fetters upon the Ocean, from thence-forward he alwayes made himself to be called by the majestick title of Nep­tune.

Whence is it that the Moon being forty times lesse than the Earth, seemeth to the judgment of the eye equal to the Sun, which yet is greater than the Earth almost an hun­dred and forty times? But only because the vicinity of the Moon to the Earth, re­presenteth it so much greater; as the Sun appears lesser, by being more remote. But there is nothing so neer to any one, as is his own composures; thence it is that they seem to them immensurably great, and [Page 249] more vast than those of other men, which by being besides us, and therefore remote from us, are much diminished in their ap­pearance.

2 Compare a Grass-hopper to an Ant, and who doubt but that it would seem a Giant? He that measures what he knoweth, though very little, with what he knoweth who knoweth nothing; believes himself to be absolutely, when as he is only compara­tively, most Learned. Those that went to study at Athens, said Menedemus, went thither Doctors, continued there Scholars, and came away Ignorants. Plutare quomodo prof. &c Not only because, the more they understood that which they knew, the more they came to know what they did not understand; but also because, they met, in that most Celebrious Con­course of the Noblest Wits of the World, with such to confront their understandings, that compared to them, they believed they knew nothing. ‘This was the Art by which most prudent Socrates corrected the presumption of his Alcibiades, who being rich by paternal inheritance, and by his acquist of much wealth, became so state­ly, as if he had been a Monarch of the World not a private Citizen of Athens. He brought him to the knowledg of him­self, [Page 250] self, by a Map of the World, in which he found Europe, and in it Greece, and in Greece with much a-do Athens; Now (saith he) shew me here thy House, and thy Fields; which having, as thou seest, no place in the World: how comes it, that thy head is filled with such contemptible thoughts of the World?’ He that believeth himself to be in Ingenuity and Wit a Star of the first magnitude, let him compare himself not with the lesser, but with the Suns of the World; and in one and the same instant, he shall see his ambi­tion to wane, and his light to vanish.

3 That one, where as he is great among others, should desire to be greater than others; where as he is one of the first, he should desire to be alone; is that which may not be suffered in any one, more then heretofore it was tolerated in that proud Pompey; Velleius Tom. 2. hist. Qui, ut primùm Rempublicam aggressus est, quemquam animo parem non tulit, & in quibus rebus primus esse debebat, solus esse cupiebat. For though you be excellent in every profession of literature, yet are you not a Phoenix, alone, and singular in the World: nor a Primum Mobile, that without receiving impression or motion from a Superiour Heaven, giveth the mo­tion, and revolution to the lesser Spheres. Who is there, that knows so much, that [Page 251] [...]thers before him knew nothing; so that [...] may assume the insolent words of Prince [...]alphas, Vos nescitis quidquam? Nature was [...]ot so sterile, that you being made, she had not the like Molds again to make others: Nor so poor, that to make you rich in knowledg, she should leave others Beggars. Wherefore then look you round about you, and thinking you see none in the World that may stand in competition with you for knowledge, say you foolishly to your selves, as Deucalion said to his Companion, Nos duo turba sumus? Wherefore make you your wit a Procrustes, and desire that every one equallize the stature of your Judgment as the Standard of Truth; and therefore cut off the feet of those that surpasse you, and wrack the feet of those that did not reach to your length?

But admit you were for ingenuity the first amongst the foremost, is it a very infe­riour and unworthy thing to be our own Panegyrist, and a despiser of others? Hear how the Brooks roare and accosting with stones how they rumble, that they seem to carry not a Rivolet of water, but a Sea; & yet many times though their channel be a mile, their depth is not a palm. On the other side the real Rivers, no lesse deep than vast, with [Page 252] how much, I will say, modesty, do they go to the Sea? There is not heard from them the least murmuration that might in­timate the profoundity of their bottoms, the amplitude of their shores, the clarity of their streams, or the impetuosity of their currents; they move silently and quietly. They that carry but a small depth (in wit many times it is true, but in the judgment alwayes) are most intolerably clamorous; & with their own applauds, and the villifyings of others, deafen the world: whereby, be­fore they are aware, they make themselves the more contemptible, by how much the more they extol themselves: for according to the Aphorisin of Symoniacus, ‘In magnos animos non cadit affectaia jactatio. Lib. 10. epist. 22.’

But because it is the property of Opiniona­tive Wits, to use not only Pride on Earth, but to exercise Curiosity in respect of Hea­ven; in the first, unjust to men, to whom they would be undeservedly superiour; in the second, impious to God, whose being, whose actions they weigh by the weight, and measure by the pole of their short un­derstanding: take therefore upon this occa­sion the subsequent consideration.

SELF-DECEIT.
The folly of such as pretend to study little and know much.

IT is not the opinion of Hyppocrates only, nor of Aristotle, Sen. de br. vit. cap. 1. and Theophrastus; but it is the common vogue and concor­dant complaint of all the World, That hea­ven hath been sparing to us of that time, Laert. in Theoph. whereof it hath been so prodigal to Stags, Crows and [Page 262] Cypresses. We have alotted us too short a life for so long a Lesson; too short a Viati­cum for so tedious a Voyage. There is no such virtue now to be found in steel, to strengthen those Elixir vitae, that inbalmed Men alive; so that seeing themselves to ap­roach their thousanth year, they resolved to leave the World more out of satiety with so long a life, than out of any necessity of death. We, like Flowers that yesterday sprung up, to day are old, and to morrow dead, have so short life, as if we were born only to die. That which in the Ancients was but their Child-hood, is in us old Age; their tythes are our excessive riches, their overpluss's, our treasures: so that of horinesse and gray­hairs, the Alexandrian Tertullian saith, with as much Truth, as Learning, hec est aeternitas nostra.

If our knowing in this manner, the short­nesse of our life, could but perswade us to spend it according to its brevity; that would be a favour, which we think a punish­ment. Is an unreasonable thing to accuse Heaven as niggardly of time to us, and we like prodigals profusely to wast it; using our life, as if we were to measure it with the long pace of many Ages; not with the short palm of a few years. Who is there [Page 263] that with the Prince of Physicians c [...]yes not out, Ars longa, vita brevis? but in the mean­time, who is there, that is solicitous to get quickly, to the mark which the most di­ligent reach to, but too late? Ad sapient [...]am quis accedit? Sen. nat. quest. lib. 7. cap. ult. Quis dignam judicat, nisi quam in transitu noverit? Quis phylosophiam, aut ullum liberale respicit studium, nisi cum ludi interca­lantur, cum aliquis pluvius intervenit dies, quem perdere licet.

Nature with good advice hath placed Man in the middle of the World, as in the Center of an immense Theater, De anim cap. 16. Procerum [...]uimal (saith Cassiodorus) & in essigiem pul­cherrimae speculationis erectum, to be there not as an otious Inhabitor, but a curious Specta­tor of this her incomparable work: in so much union, so various; in so much variety sounited; with more miracles, that adorn it, than parts, which compose it. Howbeit, to those that rightly behold it, it is not the design of nature, to put us in the VVorld, so much in a Theater, that we should ad­mire; as in a School that we should learn. Therefore she hath enkindled in our hearts an inextinguishable desire of knowledge; and setting open before our eyes, as many Volumnes, as the Heavens and Elements contein natures; with shewing us in them [Page 264] manifest effects, inviteth us to trace out their hidden causes. What strengh what force of intelligence of the assistant, or ra­ther intrinsick form is that, which revolves the great masse of the Elements with inde­fatigable motion? Are the Spheres of the Planets many Heavens, that contracted in the concave of each others lap interchange­ably surround one another: or serves only Heaven to all that great family of Stars for Mansion? Of what substance composed? Corruptible or incorruptible? Liquid as Air; or consollidate, and firm, as a Dia­mond? Whence proceed the Maculae, and whence the Faculae about the Sun? VVhence the obscurity in the face of the Moon? Of what matter are the new Stars and Comets composed, and with what fire enkindled, that appear unexpectedly? Are they For­reigners, or Citizens of Heaven? Natives of that Countrey, or Aspirers from here below? The irregular errours of the Pla­nets, how may they be reduced to regula­rity without errour? How may we know, how may we fore-see Eclipses? How great is the profoundity of the Heavens? How great the number of the Stars? How great the velocity of their motions? How great the moles of their bodies? The Winds, whence [Page 265] take they their wings to slie; the spaces of their course, the force of their blasts, the qualities of their operation, and the set measure of time for their rising, duration, departure? Who holdeth so many ponde­rous Clouds suspended in the Air? How drop by drop do they squeeze out Rain? How from their pregnant watery wombs, are Thunders begotten, which be fire? Who congeals them into Snow? Who harden­eth them into Hail? With what Ultama­rine is the Rain-bow depainted with al­wayes one order of Colours, and one pro­portionate measure of Diameter? Whence again, comes the source of Springs on the highest tops of Mountains? Whence comes it, that there should be in Hils of one & the same Earth, Marbles of so various mixtures, Mettals of so different tempers. Who as­signs the Sea its periods, of flux and reflux. Who replenisheth the Rivers with waters, so that their Channels are alwayes full, though they be alwayes emptying? The imbroidery of Flowers and Herbs; the working of so various bodies in Beasts, in Birds, in Fishes; the temper of the mixt, the harmony of the common and occult quali­ties: In fine, what ever is, what ever is made: what being hath it, and how is it produced?

[Page 266] To know all this in comparison of what might be known, is to know nothing: And yet who is there that knoweth this No­thing? Is there then so much to be known, and have we so little time of life to learn it, and do we think that the onely surplussages, and shreds of time sufficeth us for study? Hear now what I have told you, expressed in the conclusion of that precious little Trea­tise of Seneca, Sen. lib. de Otio Sapientis De otio Sapientis. Curiosum no­bis Natura ingenium dedit, & artis sibi, ac pul­chritudinis suae conscia, spectatores nos tantis re­rum spectaculis genuit; perditura fructum sui, si tam magna, tam clara, tam subtiliter ducta, tam nitida, & non uno genere formosa, solitu­dini ostenderet. Vt scias illam spectari voluisse, non tantum aspici: vide quem nobis locum dedit. Ad haec quaerenda natus, aestima quam non mul­tum acceperis temporis, etiam si illud totum tibi vindices. Licet nihil facilitate eripi, nihil ne­gligentia patiatur excidere, Tamen homo ad im­mortalium cognitionem, nimis mortalis est.

Those Sages, Masters of the World: some whereof have left their Memories, and others the productions of their Wit eter­nized to us; knowing this, as we esteem little Diamonds, so they held precious the least minute of that time, of which alone it is commendable to be covetous. It was a [Page 267] miracle to see them in Publick: and they resembled, as in the love of VVisdom, so also in this, the Planet Mercury, which is placed very neer the Sun, and which, by that means very hardly is discerned: as if he cared not for terrene eyes, who alwayes was in the eye of the Sun: and beheld by him, not with an unprofitable look, but with a large communication of light. In perpetuity of study, they were like those Falcons neer the North-Pole; which when the dayes are shorrest, when the Sun ap­proacheth Capricorn, are so much more soli­citous in seeking, so much the more rapid in following, so much the more couragious in assaulting, and over-comming their prey. Men, as white in their thoughts, as hair, were not ashamed to sit in the open streets, where they found matter of new cogni­tions: and as Diogenes to him that repre­hended him for eating in the Market-place, Cum in foro esuriam, Laert. said he, quare in foro non edam? thus to them, the not knowing of some object, was a sufficient excuse to take it where it offered it self to them. Farther more that which by the Law of Nature they were bound to allow the body to preserve life, they allowed themselves for necessity not for delight, and many times it fell out, [Page 268] that, either with a voluntary abstinence, they in part deprived themselves of it, or immer­ged in the profound thoughts of their stu­dies, for some time forgot it. Thus Carnea­des, (unmindful of his being a Man, while he was all mind, and all thought, and fated with the sweetest Nectar of those noble cognitions, with which he banqueted his VVit,) had let his body die of famine, if others by force had not revived him with food. Thus Archimedes seemed alwayes out of himself, whilst he was more than ever wholly in himself: An seni gerenda resp. whence, abstractus à tabula, à familis, (said Plutarch) spoliatus, unctus, super ipsa pelle sua Mathematica Sche­mata exarabat. Thus, to omit a hundred others, Demosthenes, knowing himself in­debted to his noble VVit for a more than ordinary successe, took his house for a pri­son: and, shaving his head, oblieged him­self from going abroad, till he saw his hair grown on his head, and his mind improved in VVisdom, which he wanted. VVe, that ought to be so much the more studious than these, by how much the more ignorant, do we conceit, we do not only enough, but more than we need, if reserving one, or at most two hours in a day frō the dulcities of sleep, from the urgency of negotiation, from [Page 269] the invitation of profit, we dedicate them to study? To so little study a Noahs age would be requisite: Sym. ep. 11. Aus. Parvis nutrimentis quan­quam à morte defendimus, nihil tamen ad robu­stam valetudinem promovemur. Drops of wa­ter, continually falling become chizels, and wear away marble its true, but because this is marble and they drops of water, they re­quire a hundred years time before they can cut a fingers depth. Did you never hear a certain Parasite in an Ancient Comoedy (be it of Aquilius, or be it of Plautus) intitled Boeotia, complain of him, that being witty to the detriment of others stomacks, had invented the Art of making Sun-dials: which becomming the measure of hours, and time, do govern publick and private actions, so that now we must no more eat when we are a hungry, but when it pleaseth the Dial? Hear some of the Verses recited by Gellius.

So great a desire should ye have also, to feed your mind with the sweet honey of VVisdom: that your sleeping hours should seem ages, and the most necessary actions for the maintenance of life torments. That same Demosthenes, of whom a little above I told you, had so great an appetite thereto that to feed the mind he made his eyes abstein from sleep, and his belly from food: where­upon, Plus olei, S. Hier. Ap. 1. contra Ruff. quàm vini expendisse dicitur, & omnes Artifices nocturnis semper vigiliis praevenisse.

And this ought also to be a Law to you, not to give to that most avaritious Publican (as Clement Alexandrinus calleth Somnus) the half of your life for Custome. 2 paedag. cap. 93. Athon. It was permitted the Sybarites, humane Animals, that by publick edict they should expulse all Cocks from their City; that they might not with their crowing break the thread of sleep, in the sweeter hours: you, that are to use your beds, not to bury your selves in them, but to repose your selves upon them: keep as Pythagoras did a Faithful Chanticleere, that in [Page 271] the morning may wake you, and call you from feathers to the Pen; from the dreams of the Fancy, to the contemplations of the Mind.

It will not succeed to you, Ael. li. 2 c. 10. var. hist. as to that ad­venturous VVarriour Timotheus, to whom Fortune with a great net drew Cities, Ca­stles, Provinces and cast them into his lap, whilst he in the mean-time lay savourily sleeping. In Learning, he that sleeps arriveth not to his end, because Wisdom is not the gift of Fortune, but the fruit of Industry. Imagine that Cassiodorus saith to you, Lib. 7. form. that with which he advertiseth others, of the duty of their office: Vigila impiger cum no­cturnis avibus, nox tibi pandat aspectus, & sicut illae reperiunt in obscuris cibum, ita tu possis in­venire praeconium. These are the most pre­cious hours of the day; whether it be, as Ficinus teacheth, the priviledge of particular influences of Heaven; or for that the thoughts, impressed on the purest of the Spirits, whose drossy and gross parts either dispersed, or digested with sleep, present themselves to the glass of the mind without interception, & in it most apparently discern the reflexies of those first Idea's, that are forms of the Truth. Howsoever it be, the experi­ence of those that practice it, teacheth, that [Page 272] Aurora is the mother of honey; and that in the early Morning Pearls do fall upon the paper of such as write, as the dew distils it self into the Conchylia, to engender Pearls.

To him that sleeps in this manner, sleep becomes not only what Tertullian calls it, Recreatorem corporum, Cap. 43. de anim. redentigratorem virium, probatorem valetudinum, peccatorem operum, medicum laborum, cui legitimè fovendo dies cedit, nox legem facit, auserens rerum etiam co­lorem; but as he in an other case addeth, Master of the Resurrection for the more blessed use of Life.

A speech of an Angel in the mouth of a Beast, esteem I that excellent saying of Apol­lonius, Qui aiebat (relates Phylostratus) oppor­tere rectè Phylosophantes, Li. 1. c. 12 vit. A­pol. adveniente aurora cum Deo versari; procedente die, de Deo loqui, reli­quum tempus humanis rebus, & sermonibus dare. For the imployments of the Mind, in what­soever matter it is exercised, there is not a better time, than the first Dawn of day; in which it seems, that by certain or occult consent, the light dawns to the VVit, as the day breaks to the World. Clem. Alex. ib. Therefore Beati qui seipsos assimilant Angelis it a vigilando.

And this ought not to hold in force for a few dayes only, but to be the ordinary Law of our lives, That in the division of the hours of [Page 273] the day, we dedicate the first, and commonly the most to study. Plinius l. 35. c. 10 in Apell. At least we should be able to say as that Great Master of Ancient Paint­ing, that there had not past us one day, in which we have not, if not fully depainted a Face, yet at least drawn some line. Light and flame where it is kindled, is kept with a little fuel; but if it be suffered to extinguish and die, it will require much to re-kindle it. Let us not be like the Nyle, the Nigris, and other Rivers; which before they fall into the Sea bury themselves several times under ground, and as many times rise again. They lose themselves in abstruse wayes, rather whirl-pols, and thence disgorging, they are found a new. They have a hundred heads, they spring a hundred times, and are alwayes, and yet never the same. To inter­rupt the studies with certain long pauses, made more by inconstancy of Genius, then necessity of great affairs; this is to undertake much, to prosecute little, and to complete nothing.

IMPRUDENCE.
The unprofitable endeavours of him that studieth against the inclina­tion of his Genius.

TO set out with successe upon our journey, in Arts, Sciences, and every profession of Learning, it is neces­sary to consult the Genius, and from its in­clinations to take directions; as for him that goes to Sea, to observe the wind that blows, to fit the sails, & turn the rudder ac­cordingly. Nature is like the Planets; that where they go retrograde, make but small progresse. They get not most from her, that most presse and force her; but they that most please and observe her: whereupon, she, which freely working in every, though difficult enterprize, succeeds with no lesse facility than felicity; (as the Coelestial Syrens revolve their great Spheres with their melody,) if violence be offered her, she not only not increaseth the virtue by the force, but rather loseth her former vigour and strength: as water, that by cold freezeth; [Page 275] and if before it had motion, now all strength is extinct, and it becomes immoveable, and as it were dead.

He, that in the labours of the brain, is to contrast, not so much with the difficulty, that is incident in the acquist of the Scien­ces: as with his own Genius; and with that which the Masters of Arts calleth Invita Minerva: is like to him that swims against the stream in a place where some torrent precipitates; that toils much, but advan­ceth little; till such time as over-come by wearinesse, and losing together with his little power the remainder of his will, he prove by experience the truth of that natu­ral Axiome, That things violent are not perma­nent.

By this is evinced the errour of such as apply themselves to studies, and amongst them, to the speculative, or practical, or mixt: when the Inclination, when the Ge­nius, when the Nature admits it not: which is just as if you would strive to make Rivers leave their currents, to go climb and ascend the tops of hils.

The Wise Athenians esteemed it a foun­dation of never knowing any thing, not to know from the beginning to apply our selves to that, for which Nature design'd [Page 276] us. Thence it was that before they applyed their children to any profession, they cu­riously inquired into their Inclinations; of which the Desires commonly are Truth-telling-Interpreters: and that they did, by laying before them the implements of all Arts: Ut qua quisque delectabatur (saith Na­zianzen) & ad quam sponte currebant, Ep. 227. apud Ba­sil. Eu­doxio. eam do­ceretur.

They believed that Heaven called them whether their Inclinations carried them. And in that, they accord with the opinion of the mysterious Cebes, who at the first turn of her Table shewed you Genius, who calling, directs men the course they should steer through the whole series of this life; Mandabat quideis, ubi in vitam venerint, faci­endum sit, & cui vitae se committere debeant, si salvi esse in vita velint, ostendebant.

God, Dial. de just. 3. de Rep. sub sinem. said Plato (concerning the honey of a very excellent Truth under the comb of a Fable) hath cemented the minds of men together with Mettals. Into the Peasants Iron, into those of Princes Gold, and into every one else comprehended between these, he hath infused their Mettals propor­tionately to their States. From this ariseth the difference of Inclinations, and variety of Genuis's. I would counsel every man [Page 277] therefore, by the test of a good Touch-stone to learn what sort his Mettal is of; and ac­cordingly to extract there-from what he may. Let him observe (say the Platonists) in the descent of his Genius from the Stars, whilst it was passing through the lesser Spheres, from the Seal of what Planet it took Im­pression: whether from a speculative Sa­turn; or from a Lordly Jupiter; or a Warlike Mars; and accordingly let him confidently betake himself to the Pen, to the Scepter, or to the Sword.

It is doubtlesse a most unhandsome thing to see some times in the Schools certain heads, better able to crack Lobsters, than to study. Heads that have a Mind so stupid, and so ill adapted to the mysteries of Learn­ing, that they seem like a reverted Jove, to carry Bacchus in his brain, and Pallas in his belly. Their Intellectuals, fat, and grosse, (as the water of the Lake Asphaltites, in which nothing sinks to the bottom) creep with a slower pace than the Pygritia, a notable creature of India, that when it is at the speediest moves half a pace at a hundred steps, and in a hundred dayes travails a mile. No file can be found of temper hard enough to fetch the rust off their Sculs. Let us make use (as the Bears do to their unform'd Cubs) [Page 278] of all the expert Tongues in the World, they will never be able to ingrave upon them the least feature of a Learned Man. Ammonius would sooner make his Asse a Phylosopher, than one of them a Gramma­rian.

To what purpose do you send such peo­ple to School, as if it were to a Carvers shop, if after all their hewing and carving, they retein more of a Block than of a Mer­cury? To what end would you break that mans brain with Learning, out of which, if Vulcan should open it, you should see an Owl issue, rather than a Pallas? To what purpose doe you seek out a Master that is an Eagle, if it be to teach a Tortoise to slie? That is an Oracle of Wisdom, if it be to en­terprize the imprinting Learning in a head of one which lets [...]lie all he knows out of his brain, and never indent so many letters, as a Crane, or a Stork accent in their flying?

Its not enough to Wish, that Pumices be­come Sponges; that Mastiffs become Ha­riers; and that Oaks bear Honey instead of Acorns: which can never be done with all the Art that you can use about its plants. Aelian. var. hist. l. 14. c. 20 Foolish was that practice of the Sybarites to teach Horses to dance, and to deprave the warlike disposition of that generous Beast, [Page 279] by that effeminate exercise. The same er­rour do they commit, who would have him apply himself to his Book, who was born for War; and make him an Archimedes who would be a Marcellus.

What then? We may contrast with, we cannot conquer Nature. Sooner, or later, when she is left to her liberty, she returns thither from whence with violence she was taken. Achilles may be for sometime concealed under a womans apparel. Tertul. de pall [...] cap. 4. Ille apud rupicem, & sylvicosam, & monstrorum [...]ru­ditorem scrupea schola eruditus, patiens jam ustri­culas, sustinens stolam fundere, comam struere, cutum singere, speculum cousulere, colum demul­cere, aurem quoque fora tu effaeminatus: But all this was the lesse likely to be permanent in Achilles by how much the employments of a Warriour were more con [...]ortial with the spirit of Achilles than those of a woman. Therefore Necessitas, not of the Trojan war, but of his Genius manifested at the sight of a Sword, reddidit sexum: De praelio sonuerat, necarma longè. Ipsum, inquit, ferrum virrum at­tra [...]it.

But behold in matter of Learning onely four of a thousand that applyed diversly [...]om that to which the weight of natural I [...]clination bore them, after they had [Page 280] contended in vain, yeilded for overcome.

Socrates, applyed to Sculpture, having graven the three Graces, (but, I suppose, so ungracefully, that Hell would have received them for Furies,) perceiving, that at working Marbles he himself was a stone; he broke the edge of his Chizel, and sharpned that of his Wit; giving himself the Moral Phyloso­phy, to which his Genius led him: and he, which working, knew not how to make of stones, Statues of men; phylosophating, made through admiration, of men Statues.

Plato gave himself to Painting, and seeing himself turn a painted Painter, and his pi­ctures only meriting the name of shadows; transferr'd himself from the unsuccesful, designing of Corni, which I read Cor­pi. Bodies, to the noble pictu­ring of Souls: he left the lies of the Pencils, and gave himself to the truth of Idea's, of which he first depainted the Features, and discovered to the World the Image.

Augustus, ambitious to in-occulate the Lawrel of a Poet, upon that of Emperour; and of being aswel an Apollo with the Harp, as he was a Jupiter with thunderbolts, com­posed his Ajax; a Tragaedy, which for the laughter that it merited, became rather a Comaedy, so ill was it composed. However he would have it a Tragoedy in despight o [...] [Page 281] Art, and so it proved; for he gave it a mourn­ful Exit by tearing it in pieces. Capricorn, which he had in his Ascendent, called him to Ruling, not to Rhiming, not to the Pen, but to the Scepter; not to private Scaenes, but to the publick Theater of the VVorld.

On the contrary, Ovid applyed by his Fa­ther to the Law, litigated more with him­self than others; for as much as his Po [...]tick Genius, and the tranquil influence of Gemini, called him from the bawlings of the Forum, to the repose of the Muses; and from the Sword of Astrea, to the Phletrum of Apollo: whereupon in the end, commencing from himself, the Work of his Metamorphosis; one day transform'd him from an Advocate to a Poet.

See how the Genius is a faithful Loadstone, which may possibly by force be turn'd to any other point, besides its North; but never rests, so, as to stand without con­straint, till such time as it hath also gently done that in us, which the Poet speaks of Fate.

But if it happen, that the interests of ho­nour, and profit permit not men to surcease [Page 282] that which they badly began; you shall see as many Monsters in a Learned Accademy, as in an Affrican Lybia: A Poetical Physi­cian, A Phylosophical Historian, a Mathe­matical Civilian; in which, those in-nate Seeds which are derived from the Womb, into the Instinct of the Mind, confounding and in-termingling themselves with those, that are acquired by Study; whilst neither those nor these wholly prevail; by being the one and the other; they are neither the one nor the other.

There is therefore a necessity, if we will speed, to apply our selves not only to Learn­ing, but to this more than that other Pro­fession of Learning; and consult our own Genius, which is wont, to make it self un­derstood to such as have good Eares by the language of frequent Desires, when they have not that which they would; and by the pleasure they have when they obtein it. Also it behoveth them to say to their Will, as Aeöolus to Juno:

Otherwise, to pretend in despight of ones Genius to prove excellent in any profession, [Page 283] is just as if one would to open the way to the Elyzian fields, lop that golden branch from its stock, which Nature her self denied him.

But hitherto I have more evinced the ne­cessity of observing the Genius, then the manner of knowing it: because its my opi­nion, that it hath so knowable a voice, that it needs no interpreters to declare it, but cares to hear it. It only rests that we speak something for others information in this discovery; and it shall be of the counter­signs from whence VVit is conjectured: and the knowledge thereof will be useful to the end that in employing such as depend upon us, we erre not, as others use to do, who, not knowing their Genius's, through mistake force them to contrast with their own Inclinations.

AMBITION.
The folly of many who desirous to seem Learned, doe publish them­selves in Print to be Ignorant.

THat insatiate, I will not say desire, but madnesse, which we have of publishing our selves to the World for men of Learning, I could wish, that it would whet the Wit, as well as it sharpens the Pen; that so the Sciences might in­crease in weight, as Books increase in num­ber.

Scarce have we got in the nest of a School the down of the first feathers upon the brain, but we already think our selves, not only Eagles, but Mercuries with Wings on our heads. Scarce is there enkindled in us a spark of Wit, but presently we desire in Print to shine as Suns, and make our selves, with a strange Ambition, Masters before we be compleatly Scholars. Every thought that the mind conceives, we think worthy of the light; and although many times it is no more than Ridiculus Mus, we by all means [Page 306] will call the Press, to be Lucina; and collect it, and keep it not only alive but immortal. The Gnats, Moths and Flyes of our own brains, seem to us worthy to be embalmed, as that Bee, in Electer, and exposed to the sight, and admiration of the World. Thus

Happy would Learning be, if Books also should have their Winter, and the leaves of the greatest part of them should fall, as the leaves of trees fall every year after Au­tumn. The World would be thereby so much the more wise by how much fewer the number would be of the Masters of Errours, and Oracles of Lies.

How many Books come to hand which bear in their frontispices Inscriptiones propter quas vadimonium deseri possit? Plin. in praef. o­per. In perusing the proud promises of their Titles, you will ccall to mind either that Verse of Horace, ‘Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?’ or that scoffe with which Diogenes mocked at the great Gate of a little City, saying: Shut this gate or else the Town will run out at it, and leave you without house or home.

[Page 307] The eye, Plin. ibi. and the hand run with impa­tience, this to turn over, and that to read the leaves, at cum intraveris (Dii Deaeque) quàm nihil in medio invenies! Affrick, which is in­compassed with such delightful shoares, is within most of it barren sands, and naked deserts of gravel. The first leaf, like that fa­mous Sheet of Parrhasius, seems so painted, as if it covered a Picture, whereupon Zeuxis deceived, Plinius lib. 55. cap. 10. flagitavit, tandem remoto linteo osten­di picturam; but in reality there was no o­ther picture than the sheet, deluder of the eyes, with the lies of the pencil. Thus, in this, is that saying of Seneca verified, Epist. 66. Speciosa & magna contra visentibus, cum ad pondus re­vocata sunt fallunt. Books many times de­ceive as the Apples of Sodom, that being fair to look upon, have nothing but the hypo­crisie of appearance; for within they are ashes and smoak; and in opening they va­nish into nothing: Apolog: Si qua illic poma conantur (saith Tertullian) oculis tenus caeterum conacta cinerescunt.

A Learned Man doth indeed deserve great compassiō, that setting himself earnest­ly to one of these Books, which hath no­thing but Perspective, and appearance, findeth that to be a painted Cloud, which he believed to be a rich Juno; and instead [Page 308] of extracting thence the treasures which he expected, he sees, that the Book costs him more in regard of the time he unprofitably spends in reading it, than it stood him in, by reason of the money he gave for it. He sisheth therein day, and night, till that with a Nihil coepimus he casts it away. He soares with a curious Wit, to the apparance of some singular conceit, of some Master-piece of Art; but as the Birds that slew to the painted Grapes of Zeuxis; Plinius lib. 35. cap. 10. if he came with appetite, he departs hungry.

O! to how many Writers, which more than once have made the Presse to groan, may we repeat that Verse of Ausonius, ‘Utiliùs dormire [...]uit, quàm perdere somnum Atque oleum.—’

The wretches have watched many a night to compasse a Book, which shall lay a sleep all that read it, if their resentments of Choler against the Author keep them not awake. To how many Books, under the Title they bear in their Frontispiece, may we write the name with which Zuazo, Ovi [...]do in S [...]or. a Spanish Doctor called a little Desert Isle, to which approaching in his Indian Navi­gation, he found neither herb nor any other [Page 309] sustenance; therefore he gave it this name, Nolite cogitare quid edatis. Proem. lib. 4. And yet (as Saint Ambrose ingeniously calls them) Books are the Ports wherein the Soul not only reco­vereth rest from storms; in Lucam. but plenty from poverty. Three rea­sons of the great num­ber o [...] [...] Books. But take three Reasons only a­mongst many, whence it comes, that so many unprofitable Books, and devoid of all goodnesse are printed.

1 Some think they do nothing if they make only one Book. They alone would make a Library.

A hundred Volumnes, of a thousand pa­ges a piece, Children of one sole VVit, Births of one only Mind; VVorks of one only Pen; this makes one go high and stately: And yet the Glory and Fame is not to be given to the number but to the worth of Books. For how many times in a River of words, there is not a drop of VVit; in a Sea of Ink, there is not one Pearl; in a Forest of Paper there is not one branch of Gold? All the VVork, be it a hundred Volumns, may say as the Echo of Ausonius:

So that its a rare miracle of patience in the Reader, if slinging away the Book, he say not to the Author of it, that of Mar­tial;

Books, In praef. oper. as saith Domi [...]ius Piso, cited by Pliny, Thesaurus oportet esse, non libros. Every word should be a Pearl, every leaf a Jewel: so that he which reads them, should in one hour enrich himself, with that, which we have been ten years in gathering.

Aelas! what is become of that precious custome, and fortunate age, when the Honey of the Sciences was put into the Wax, on which it was then the custome to write with a Style? with how much the slower hand the words were indented by the style, the tenacity of the wax retarding it; the more were they fixed on the thoughts, and came to be better examined. Now a-dayes the Pen carries the words in a slight from the hand, and the conceits from the head; [Page 311] and those and these the lighter by how much the lesse weighed. That ostentatious Soul­dier in the Comick, which said

Lively expresseth the itch many have to Write, and write much, as it were to com­fort their Pens, that complain they stand Idle in their Ink-horns; without wearing blunt with writing at the least one Book.

It is not the muchnesse, but the goodness that is valued. Books are the Souls, whose grandure is not measured by the bulk of the body, but by the nobility of the Spirit. And most true is the Aphorism of great Au­gustine In iis quae non mole magna a sunt, 6 de Tri. idem est esse majus quà melius. The stones of moun­tains are [...] bignesse, yet a Diamond, which is only (saith Manilius) Punctum la­pidis, Lib. 4. after. as far surpasseth them in worth, as they exceed it in magnitude.

If you were to speak to an assembly of a hundred of the most ingenious, and Learned Men of the World, would you say what came next to the tongues end, without de­liberation, without refining, and many times [Page 312] without substance, and order? Or rather would you not study to speak not onely Roses, as they said of old, but Pearls and Gold? and do not you know that by the Presse you speak not to a hundred or a thousand, but to all the Wisemen in the World that will read, and hear you? Therefore, why do you not as Phocion, that being asked why he stood upon a time so pro­foundly pensive, answered; That being to speak in publick to the Athenians, he was picking his words one by one, and exami­ning them, if there was any that he should omit? Laudato ingentia rura, saith the Poet, Exiguum colito. Honour the Gygantical Vo­lumnes of others; but strive not so much to imitate them in bulk, as to surpasse them in worth. Write one only good one, but one that may be more worth than many. One, but one of which you may say as Ceres of her onely Daughter, ‘Numeri damnum Proserpi [...]a pensat. Claud.’

2 The other reason of the unfortunate success of Books, is, the undertaking to handle a matter, and wanting a Wit proportionable. I chanced to write an Octave, or Epigram, and pre­sently [Page 313] I conceited that they called them He­roick Poems, or Tragoedies.

That Hercules doth enterprize the con­quest of the Heavens, and desire to do it by his strength never wonder: Hercul. Since he hath already tride them, Furt. and knows their weight.

Do ye likewise measure the strength of your shoulders, by the weight of the bur­den, and where you can say, Jerom. cont. Vig. Par oner [...] cervix, take up the same, and go on. Prudentia ho­minis est, saith St. Jerome, nosse mensuram suam, nec imperitiae suae [...]orbem testem facere. Yee should unite Argus and Briareus, so that ye should not have a hundred hands ready to write, if ye have not also in the Intellect, an hundred eyes open to understand. Let not a spacious field of noble Argument so tran­sport and hurry your Spirits, that the desire of running through it, make you forget that you have neither wings nor ability to doe it.

[Page 314] Vale your too venturous plumes, that would sooner make you fall than flie, and do.

But of this I am to speak upon another accasion by and by.

3 The third cause why there is more abortives than births, is from the impatient desire to bring them forth, before they be perfectly formed. They hear not the precept of Horace

It is no wonder if Mushrums that grow up in one hour, rot in the next; and our works prove, saith Plato, like those famous Gardens of Adonis, Qui subito, & die uno nati celerrimè pereunt.

Agatharchus was a Painter, for whom all the Cloth of Greece, all the Colours of the East sufficed not. He compiled the draughts of his Tables with more expedition, than the Sun draws the Rain-bow in the Clouds. [Page 315] But what then? They were pictures that hung in every sordid place, and, exposed without regard, lived no longer than the men sown by Cadmus.

On the contrary Zeuxis, who in bringing forth his works was more tedious than the Elephant, and gave not a touch with his Pencil, which he recall'd not to a critical examination merited that eternity of glory, for which alone he painted. The wisest men are ever the most severe with the works of their own Wits: knowing that they ought to be not only read but examined by men of great judgment w ^ch made them say with young Plinius, Nil est curae meae satis. Lib. 7. epist. Ce­leri. Cogito quam sit magnum dare aliquid in manus homi­num: nec persuadere mihi possum, non & cum multis, & saepè tractandum, quod placere, & sem­per, & omnibus cupias.

And so much sufficeth to have said of those, that being but ill furnished with Wit, undertake to write of things above their ca­pacities. Now I ought not to omit certain others, which misusing the Wit wherein they are rich, consume themselves, & spend their studies about certain unprofitable mat­ters, Quas neque scire compendium (saith Arno­bius) neque ignorare detrimentum est ullum.

AVARICE.
That he is guilty of the Ignorance of many, who might benefit many by the Presse, and neglects it.

THere are not any men for whose maintenance the World more un­willingly Labours, and Nature takes pains, than those, who regardlesse of others, would live only to themselves. These are Pilgrims even in their own Coun­try, and Solitary in the midst of Society; These have the countenance of men, but are Beasts amongst Men; that deserve no more to have been born by others, then they care to live for any but themselves.

[Page 326] Amongst these, none will scruple to enu­merate certain Avaritious Wits, which would bury the Golden Talents of Scien­ces and Arts, (with which they are endow­ed) in their Sepulchers, rather than become beneficial to posterity by the Presss.

When, if there was no other inducement moving him thereto then the great reward of that honoured Memory, with which after death he lives immortally,

But, there is not only this allurement which can, there is stronger reason which should perswade him to do it; and it is the publick interest, which may not be neglect­ed under pretence that he is carelesse of his own. So much the more in regard that Wisedom is not received from Heaven as a Gift, which may be lost with our selves, but as a Lone, to be transmitted to our suc­cessors; so that the doing it is not, in some sense, so much Liberality, a [...] Justice: It is to be received, as the Air receives the Light from the Sun, to transmit it to the Earth; [Page 327] and not to retein it concealed from others, and with little profit to our selves.

Therefore our solitary, pale, shriveled Ancestors have in the course of so many ages spent the Vigils of slow-pac't Nights, and consumed not so much the hours of the Day, as the dayes of their Lives, to fetch with the blows of hard Studie, from the rich Mines of their Wits, golden Ve [...]s of truth, and new discoveries in knowledge; and expounding them freely, have made their private patrimony a publick inheri­tance: wherefore then do we, (ingrateful to our Predecessors, and envious to our Successors,) avariciously bury both theirs and our own?

He that puts himself between our Ance­stors, and those that are to come after us; and beholds the Example of the one, and the Necessity of the other: I see not how he can have a heart to deny, either imitation to those, or assistance to these. For if the only beholding the dead Images of those, who in publick managements of Peace, and War, have acquired the name of Grandees, can do no lesse than move the heart, and involve the desires in the like enterprises; in seeing in Books the lively and breathing Images of the Wit of those Great Souls exprest to the [Page 328] life, that therein still survive, still speak, still teach, to the benefit of the VVorld; can the rudest man choose but desire to understand, and can the intelligible choose but blush to keep that covetously concealed which others have collected onely for Common Benefit? Sume in manus indicem Philosophorum. Sen [...] epist. 39. Haec ipsa res expergiscite coget: Si videris quàm mul­ti tibi laboraverint, concupisces, & ipse ex illis unus esse.

Yet saith Phylo, De in­somniis. Sapience is a Sun, from which we cannot take the Splendor without destroying it. And many Platonicks make Souls of loftiest intelligence to be of the na­ture of fire, Plin. li. 2. cap. 107. Cujus unius ratio faecunda; seque ipse paret, & minimis crescit scintillis.

So that if the Examples of our Ancestors is not sufficient to perswade us, let us behold the Necessity of Posterity, to whom it is double cruelty to deny that, which we ought to bequeath them with Interest, and they would receive with profit. Abolish this inviolable Law, which is not written in Marble, but imprinted on the heart of Man, of bequeathing our Goods aswell as our Love to our Posterity, and what other do you do but destroy the VVorld, and make it barbarous, and brutish? But if those seem fortunate, who transmit to their [Page 329] Legitimate Issue, ample yearly Revenues, and entail with the riches that they have, a happy Fortune to their Family; what more precious and durable Inheritance can we leave them than the Endowments of the mind, and the golden Tallents of our own Wit? These are Revenues that diminish not with use, that consume not with time; that survive both publick & private Ruines: Are alwayes living, alwayes entire, alwayes in the same esteem, and equally beneficial. And hence drew the second Pliny that forceable motive, wherewith he perswades a Friend to leave for publick benefit some fruit of his long and tedious studies. Lib. 1. Effinge aliquid, Epist 3. & excude, quod sit perpetuò tuum. Nam reliqua rerum tuarum, Ruffin. post te alium atque alium dominum fortientur. Hoc nunquam tuum desinet esse, si semel coeperit.

But hear what those sordid Misers have to say for themselves. I am debtor to no man for whats my own. Let others take pains as I have done; let them find of themselves, that, which its unhandsome to beg of others. This is pitty not rigor; love to Learning, not hatred of the Learn­ed; for it breeds up Wits in slothfulnesse when they find that in others, which they should draw from themselves. Necessity renders Ingenious; and makes him that would be alwayes a Scholar, [Page 330] studying the labours of others, to become Master, inventing new of his own. Thus we make A­chillis's, giving them whole, the bones of Lions, that they may break them, and pick out the Marow: thus brave Swimmers give way to the Course of the Stream where it is most impetuous: because it is not so much Art as Necessity in such a case that teachetb them to come out.

And do not these consider, that if this should be, Learning would alwayes continue in its infancy? If he that spends many years in study, teacheth no man what he hath dis­covered; he that comes after him, when he also hath been equally solicitous in seek­ing, and equally fortunate in finding, shall know nothing more than the former: and when will they this way advance Learning? Yea the knowledge of that which others have found, helps one to find that which others did not know. Those will serve us for Prin­ciples, which were to others but Conse­quences, and there we begin our search where others left seeking. Wisedom is gi­ven, S. Aug. said Augustine, not for a Slave but for a Spouse, and requires from us Successors and Sons: hoc est ingenii fructus, & quosdam mentis partus, quos non tam libros, quam liberos dicimus; and when she obteineth not that, she laments, I will not say like her that said, [Page 331] saltem mihi parvulus aula luderet Aeneas, but like the innocent Daughter of Jeptah, that more bewailed the Virginity, than her Death; It being the true and only death to die without leaving an Issue wherein to live. But if a wilful abortive makes the Mother a Ho­micide, In Octa­vio. Et que originem futuri hominis extin­guunt (saith Minuti [...]s) parricidium faciunt antequam pariant; to stifle in Wisedoms Womb that which she (as it were preg­nant with our Conceits) conceives, to kill it that it should not be brought forth, is not this Parricide? Is it not homicidii festinatio prohibere nasci?

Others their are that defend themselves with years, Tertul. Apolog. cap. 19. and excuse themselves with old age, That being scarce able to live them­selves, how can they toil for others? To him that hath done his part in activity, it is cru­elty to deny him to gather his wings into his Nest, and to strike sail in the Port. Other times, other cares. The eyes inclined to the sleep of death, more than to the wakings of study, can go no far­ther without danger of errors, and mistakes.

But if I misunderstand not, these are not the words of one that would live out the few years that he wants of his full time, but of them that would anticipate their death some years before they die: and to die I [Page 332] call the doing nothing but live. Pli. praef. operis. The studies of his extream old age were the sweeter to M. Varro, the nearer he was to his death, because not knowing any other life more like a man, than to understand, he lengthned his life, as he did his study, and said to him­self, Dum haec musinamur pluribus horis vivi­mus. Yea Seneca that noble Wit, taking mo­tives to Labour from his Age; whence o­thers seek pretences to rest, in the ultimate years of his not-compleated-life, applied himself to investigate the occult secrets of Natural Phylosophy, and therewith, as if he was more than himself, he said with his Poet;

Thereupon, Praefat. lib. 2. quaest. nat. as it were pricking and spur­ring on the slothfulnesse of his Old age, Festinemus, said he, & opus, nescio an supera­bile, magnum cer [...]e, sine aetatis excusatione tra­ctemus.

VVho ever seeth (saith Plutarch) Bees for age to grow lazie, An seni gerenda Respub. slothful and idle in their Hives, and not flye to the flowers and ga­ther Honey, as they did when they were young? ‘Take from me the power of [Page 333] writing, In fine noctium Attic. said Gellius, and you take away my life. So much onely of life I ask for my self, as may be serviceable to others. Neque longiora mihi dari spatia vivendi volo, quam dum ero ad hanc facultatem scribendi, commentandique idoneus.’

Let the division of the life of him that professeth Learning be such as that of the Ancient Vestals of Rome, Plut. ib. which was divided into three equal parts, ‘In the first they learnt the Rites, and Ceremonies, as Scholars to the Eldest; In the second they practised them, as Companions of the midle sort; In the last they taught them, as Mistresses of the Younger. Thus the leaves usher in the blossomes, and the blossomes falling, with a happy end, do knit in fruit.’

OBSCURITY.
Ambition and Confusion, two prin­ciples of Obscurity, Affected, and Natural.

WEre it not for the Opinion, wholly against truth, which an­ciently has so general credit with the vulgar: That the fixed Stars were mothers, and keepers of Souls; and that every one whilst he lived had above in Heaven his, of the first, middle, or greatest magnitude, and splendor, adjusted to the degrees of Fortune which rendered him more or lesse considerable on earth. Certain Obscure Souls, certain Chymmerian Minds, whence would they be able to derive themselves, but only from the nu­bilous, and duske Stars, that have so much light mixed with so much darknesse, that they seem amongst their fellows, rather Spots than Stars.

[Page 342] These are those unfortunate Aethiopian Soules, that extract Obscurity from the Sun, the Father of Clarity; that learn con­fusion from Wisdom, the Mother of Or­der. From the fire of the Sacred Palace, whereby the Wits become so much the more luminous, by how much the more in­flamed, they take only the darknesse, and blacknesse of Coals; and rejecting the pu­pils of the Eagle, for the eyes of a Bat, esteem themselves more the Birds of Pallas, when they be most Nocturnals.

In vain would Prudent Socrates experi­ment his wonted conjecture upon them, that knowing, the speech to be a lively Image of the Mind, to come to the knowledg of what was in any one, would say to him, Loquere ut te videam. Their speech, their writing, is as if one should design in plano certain Monstrous figures of Faces, but so miscoloured; and of features, but so coun­terfeited; that no eye can discern in them the lineaments of humane resemblances, but only looking through a Cylinder of po­lished steel, and seeing them by reflexion. O, Ingenuities, unfortunately ingenious! Dedalus's, contrivers only of Labyrinths so crooked, so confused, that they themselves can scarce find Clues, to dis-ingage them.

[Page 343] But all Obscurity is not of the self-same nature; not hath all one only beginning and fountain. For there is one made by Art, and another had by Nature: This, being the defect of the Wit, that the effect of Ambi­tion: the one, worthy of compassion, the other of reprehension.

Thus the vulgar deluded by a false appa­rance of truth, always most admire what they least understand. The splendid, the clear, though profound stream of VVit, because they reach it with their eye they esteem not; one foot of muddy water, be­cause they cannot dive into the depth of it with their sight, they judg to be an abysse of VVisdom. So likewise in Learning.

Thereupon some take through their am­bition of Wit, an affectation of Obscurity, and with the Art of not making themselves understood, they seek to make themselves adored. They transform themselves into more shapes than Proteus, to get out of the hands of such as hold them, that so they may not know what they are. They invent more Hieroglyphicks than Egupt knew, be­cause therein they fancy a kernel of solid truth, under a shell of feigned mystery. Every one of their Periods is a Gordian knot, that promiseth an Empire to him that [Page 345] unknits it. They confound their words, more then the leaves of Sybilla were disor­dered by the wind; and leave credulous wretches to pore into their Oracles, and to wrest them to senses, which never came into the Authors thought.

Other times, they expose their conceits, as the Deities in a Theater, wrapt in a knot of Clouds. They shew a small Sentence of some well composed Discourse, thereby to win credit to the rest, which is lost in a croud of confused thoughts. The Reader of their Books, one would think was fishing for the Cuttle a most crafty Fish, which mali­ciously frees it self from the eye, and hand of others, muddying the clearnesse of the water, by disgorging up a Cloud of certain black humours, of which it is full. Thus they with their Pens like that Fish

Oh! how oft is there just nothing found there where some beleive great mysteries to lye hid? Since it is an ordinary custom with these to cover that with a veil, Plin. lib. 35. c. 10. as Ty­manthes, which they have neither Wit, nor Art sufficient to expresse.

[Page 346] By which means they seem to be new Heraclitus's (cui cognomen Scoti non fecit ora­tionis obscuritas) if of them also we may say, Sencea epist. 12. what Pythagoras saith of the writings of the other; Laert. in Pyth. Opus ibi esse Delio natatore. They con­test with the Delphian Apollo in authority, & credit, if like him, Neque dicant, neque ab­scondant, Heracl, apud Sto. 5. sed indicent solùm.

But the other Obscurity more unfortunate than faulty, is a defect of nature not a vice of the will: And this in some is an effect of paucity and poverty of Wit, in whom the formative virtue, as in too narrow a womb, cannot unite without confounding, cannot place the parts without misplacing the whole. In others it is occasioned by too fervid a mind, in whose fiery thoughts, as in sudden constagrations, there is much more smoak than flame.

These are those VVits truly fiery, active and prompt of understanding; so that in one only cast of the eye, (sparkling with most velocious thoughts, according to the nature of lightning,) they reflect upon a thousand things, they make a thousand new discoveries. It would be happy for them if they could infuse gravity into their flame, and put a bridle of restraint upon their fire: but as the [...]leetest Beasts make the obscurest [Page 347] foot-steps, so they being wholly bent on the things they see, see nothing, of the manner how to expresse that, which the mind some­times▪ with most abstracted Species, as it were in a moment, understands: And more­over, (being so much lesse able to metho­dize, the more fruitful they are of inventi­on;) they expose, whether speaking, or writing, not a Birth, but many seeds; and they themselves being afterwards cooled again, and quiet, (when the jugdment is more adapted to discern) are not able to re­form that, for which the Wit is defective of both heat and light.

And these are, in my judgment the two Vicious Obscurities, the one the crime of the ambitious Genius, the other the defect of the poor, or muddy Wit. There is a third sort which they call Obscurity, and is truly so, but it is an Obscurity of the Wit of him that doth not understand, not of the Author; who doth not write or speak so but that he may be easily understood by men of mean understandings.

If we discourse with certain principal universal Maxims, from whence as from their true Principles we draw other Coro­laries, till that we descend to some parti­cular matter: which is the noblest and [Page 348] sublimest of all other kindes of grave dis­course:) imitating the Falcons, which with great windings & circulations mount on hing, frō whence to stoop to the quarry: If we trace out Wisdom, with feigned, but apt inventions, which like a garment we so dispose and put on, as neither to discover what we ought to conceal, not to hid what we would reveal; a custome which Sinesius calleth, Lib. de insomniis Per antiquum atque Platonicum: if we sometimes exempt the Pen from a particu­lar touch upon each circumstance by it self, and abreviate some, so that all is seen, in a small room: If we write as Tymanthes paint­ed. Lib. 35. cap. 10. In cujus omnibus operibus, saith Pliny, in­telegitur semper plus quàm pingitur & cum ars summa sit ingenium tamen ultra artem est: These Pseudo Vitilitigators condemn us of Obscurity, and say that to understand, & pe­netrate such things, Non lucernae spiculo lu­mine, sed totius Solis lancea opus est; Never considering, that our Writings want not light, but their eyes need Eye-bright; in as much as they are like that Dunce Arpastes in Seneca, who being insensibly become blind, not doubting but that he saw aswel as ever, ajebat domum tenebrosum esse.

But because, for the remedy of that Obscu­rity, which is capable of cure there cannot be [Page 349] better advice prescribed then to observe Distinction and Order, that are the Father and Mother of Perspicuity, I have laid it down in the subsequent Sections; howbeit per­haps with too frequent trips of the Pen, in regard of what this matter requireth: yet is it not besides the purpose, or without profit; I being to lay down some adver­tisements, which from the Choice of the argument even unto the last Correction, seemed to me conducible to the more or­derly, easily, and succesfully Composing.