cause why it is not esteemed in Englande is the fault of Poet-apes not Poets; sith, lastly, our tongue is most fit to honor Poesie, and to bee honored by Poesie, I conjure you all that have had the evill lucke to reade this incke-wasting toy of mine, even in the name of the nyne Muses no more to scorne the sacred misteries of Poesie; no more to laugh at the name of Poets, as though they were next inheritours to Fooles; no more to jest at the reverent title of Rymer: but to beleeve with Aristotle that they were the auncient Treasurers of the Græcians Divinity; to beleeve with Bembus that they were first bringers in of all civilitie; to beleeve with Scaliger that no Philosophers precepts can sooner make you an honest man, then the reading of Virgill; to beleeve with Clauserus that it pleased the heavenly Deitie, by Hesiod and Homer, under the vayle of fables, to give us all knowledge, Logick, Rethorick, Philosophy, naturall and morall; to beleeve with me that there are many misteries contained in Poetrie, which of purpose were written darkely, lest by prophane wits it should bee abused; to beleeve with Landin that they are so beloved of the Gods that whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury; lastly, to beleeve themselves when they tell you they will make you immortall by their verses.

2

Thus doing, your name shal florish in the Printers shoppes; thus doing, you shall bee of kinne to many a poeticall Preface; thus doing, you shall be most fayre, most ritch, most wise, most all, you shall dwell upon Superlatives; thus doing, though you be Libertino patre natus, you shall suddenly grow Hercules proles; thus doing, your soule shal be placed with Dantes Beatrix or Virgils Anchises. But if (fie of such a but) you be borne so neere the dull making Cataphract of Nilus that you cannot heare the Plannet-like Musick of Poetric; if you have so earth-creeping a mind that it cannot lift it selfe up to looke to the sky of Poetry; or rather, by a certaine rustical disdaine will become such a Mome1 as to be a Momus5 of Poetry; then, though I will not wish unto you the Asses eares of Midas, nor to bee driven by a Poets verses (as Bubonax was) to hang himselfe, nor to be rimed to death, as is sayd to be doone in Ireland; yet thus much curse I must send you in the behalfe of all Poets, that, while you live, you live in love and never get favour for lacking skill of a Sonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an Epitaph.

1 Of a father who was a freedman. 2 Of the race of Hercules (son of Jupiter). 3 There were three celebrated cataracts of the Nile. 4 A dolt. 5 God of raillery. • Ears lengthened for holding Pan's reed to be superior to Apollo's lyre.

From Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.

The stateliness of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them, delighteth the eye; but that foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministereth to the other nourishment and life are in the bosom of the earth concealed; and, if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labor is then more necessary than pleasant both to them which undertake it and for the lookers on. In like manner, the use and benefit of good laws all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort; albeit the grounds and first original causes from which they have sprung be unknown, as to the greater part of men they But when they who withdraw their obedience pretend that the laws which they should obey are corrupt and vicious, for better examination of their quality it behoveth the very foundation and root, the highest well-spring and fountain of them, to be discovered.

are.

All things that are have some operation not violent or casual. Neither doth anything ever begin to exercise the same without some fore-conceived end for which it worketh. And the end which it worketh for is not obtained unless the work be also fit to obtain it by. For unto every end every operation will not serve. That which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the form and measure of working, the same we term a Law. So that no certain end could ever be obtained unless the actions whereby it is obtained were regular, that is to say, made suitable, fit, and correspondent with their end by some canon, rule, or law. As it cometh to pass in a kingdom rightly ordered that after a law is once published it presently takes effect far and wide, all states framing themselves thereunto, even so let us think it fareth in the natural course of the world; since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts of his law upon it, heaven and earth have hearkened unto his voice, and their labor hath been to do his will. "He made a law for the rain; he gave his decree unto the sea, that the waters should not pass his commandment." Now, if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubilities? turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now

as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were through a languishing faintness, begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way; the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture; the winds breathe out their last gasp; the clouds yield no rain; the earth be defeated of heavenly influence; the fruits of the earth pine away as children at the withered breasts of their mother, no longer able to yield them relief; what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly that obedience of creatures1 unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world?

Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. All things in heaven and earth do her homage; the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.

From Bacon's Essays.

Of Great Place.-Men in great place are thrice servants-servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons nor in their actions nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty, or to seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self. The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing. Nay, men cannot retire when they would, neither will they when it were reason,3 but are impatient of privateness, even in age and sickness, which require the shadow; like old townsmen that will be still sitting at their street door, though thereby they offer age to scorn. Certainly great persons had need to borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy, for, if they judge by their own feeling, they cannot find it; but, if they think with themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report, when, perhaps, they find the contrary within; for they are the first that find their own griefs, though they be the last that find their own faults.

Certainly men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves; and, while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time to tend their health either of body or mind. In place there is license to do good and evil, whereof the latter is a curse; for, in evil, the best condition is not to will, the second not to can. But power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring; for good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams except they be put in act, and that cannot be without power and place as the vantage and commanding ground. Merit and good works are the end of man's motion, and conscience3 of the same is the accomplishment of man's rest; for if a man can be partaker of God's theatre, he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest.

4

Of Youth and Age.-Young men are fitter to invent than to judge, fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than for settled business; for the experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them, but in new things abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin of business, but the errors of aged men amount but to this-that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon, absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and that, which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them, like an unready horse that will neither stop nor turn.

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period," but content themselves with the mediocrity of success. Certainly it is good to compound employments of both; for that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both; and good for succession, that young men may be learners while men in age are actors; and, lastly, good for extern' accidents, because authority followeth old men, and favor and popularity youth; but, for the moral part, perhaps, youth will have the preeminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain rabbin, upon the text, "Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams," inferreth that young men are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream; and, certainly, the more a man drink

1 Desire.

2 Be able. Are not cautious.

3 Consciousness.
7 Extent.

4 Work. 5 Management. 8 The other.

9 Outward.

eth of the world, the more it intoxicateth; and age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding than in the virtues of the will and affections.

From Bacon's Advancement of Learning.

For the conceit1 that learning should dispose men to leisure and privateness and make men slothful, it were a strange thing if that which accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation should induce slothfulness; whereas, contrariwise, it may be truly affirmed that no kind of men love business for itself but those that are learned; for other persons love it for profit, as an hireling, that loves the work for the wages; or for honor, as because it beareth them up in the eyes of men, and refresheth their reputation, which otherwise would wear; or because it putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them occasion to pleasure or displeasure; or because it exerciseth some faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in good humor and pleasing conceits toward themselves; or because it advanceth any other their ends.

So that as it is said of untrue valors, that some men's valors are in the eyes of them that look on; so such men's industries are in the eyes of others, or at least in regard of their own designments:3 only learned men love business as an action according to nature, as agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to health of body, taking pleasure in the action itself and not in the purchase; so that of all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards any business which can hold or detain their mind. And if any man be laborious in reading and study and yet idle in business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body or softness of spirit and not of learning. Well may it be that such a point of a man's nature may make him give himself to learning, but it is not learning that breedeth any such point in his nature.

And that learning should take up too much time or leisure, I answer, the most active or busy man that hath been or can be hath (no question) many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business, and then the question is but how those spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent, whether in pleasures or in studies; as was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary, Æschines, that was a man given to pleasure and told him that his orations did smell of the lamp. "Indeed," said Demosthenes, there is a great difference between the things that you and I do by lamp-light." So as no man need doubt that learning will expulse business, but rather it will keep

1 Conception. Privacy. Designs. Acquisition. 3

Fear. Drive out.