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hominum cogitationes (quæ in capite vigent) pennatas et veluti æthereas faciat. Sola Sirenum mater pedestris, et sine alis mansit; ea proculdubio nil aliud est, quam doctrinæ leves et ad jucunditatem inventæ et adhibita; quales videntur Petronio illi in pretio fuisse, qui postquam sententiam mortis accepisset, in ipsis atriis mortis delicias quæsivit, cumque etiam literas in solatium adhibere vellet, nil (inquit Tacitus) legit eorum quæ ad constantiam faciunt; sed leves versus. Ex hoc genere est illud:

Et illud:

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Rumoresque senum severiorum

Omnes unius æstimemus assis.

Jura senes norint, et quid sit fasque nefasque
Inquirant tristes, legumque examina servent.

Hujusmodi enim doctrinæ alas Musarum coronis rursus detrahere, et Sirenibus restituere velle videntur. Habitare autem perhibentur Sirenes in insulis, quia voluptates fere secessus quærunt, atque hominum cœtus sæpe vitant. Sirenum autem cantus omnibus decantatus est, ejusque pernicies et artificium varium: itaque interprete hæc non egent. Illud magis acutum de ossibus veluti clivis albentibus e longinquo visis: ex quo illud significatur, exempla calamitatum, licet clara et conspicua, contra voluptatum corruptelas non multum proficere. Restat de remediis parabola, non abstrusa ea quidem, sed tamen prudens et nobilis. Proponuntur enim mali tam callidi et tam violenti remedia tria. Duo a philosophia; tertium a religione. Atque primus effugii modus est, ut quis principiis obstet, atque omnes occasiones quæ animum tentare et sollicitare possint, sedulo devitet: id quod obturatio illa aurium denotat; atque hoc remedium ad animos mediocres et plebeios necessario adhibetur, tanquam ad comites Ulyssis. Animi autem celsiores etiam versari inter medias voluptates possunt, si decreti constantia se muniant: quin et per hoc virtutis suæ experimentum magis exquisitum capere gaudent; etiam voluptatum ineptias et insanias perdiscunt, potius contemplantes quam obsequentes: quod et Salomon de se professus est, cum enumerationem voluptatum quibus diffluebat, ea sententia claudat: Sapientia quoque perseveravit mecum. Itaque hujusmodi heroës inter maximas voluptatum illecebras se immobiles præstare, atque in

ipsis earum præcipitiis se sustinere queant; tantum, ad Ulyssis exemplum, interdictis perniciosis suorum consiliis et obsequiis, quæ animam maxime omnium labefactare et solvere possint. Præstantissimum autem in omni genere est remedium Orphei; qui laudes Deorum cantans et reboans, Sirenum voces confudit et summovit. Meditationes enim Rerum Divinarum, Voluptates Sensus non tantum potestate, sed etiam suavitate superant.

FINIS.

OF THE

WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS.

DEDICATED TO

THE FAMOUS UNIVERSITY

OF

CAMBRIDGE.

TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS

THE EARL OF SALISBURY,

LORD HIGH TREASURER OF ENGLAND, AND CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

THINGS dedicated to the University of Cambridge accrue to you as Chancellor; to all that proceeds from me you have a personal title. The question is, whether as these things are yours, so they are worthy of you. Now for that which is least worth in them (the wit of the author), your kindness towards me will let that pass; and there is nothing else in the matter to disgrace you. For if time be regarded, — primæval antiquity is an object of the highest veneration; if the form of exposition,-parable has ever been a kind of arc, in which the most precious portions of the sciences were deposited; if the matter of the work,-it is philosophy, the second grace and ornament of life and the human soul. For be it said, that however philosophy in this our age, falling as it were into a second childhood, be left to young men and almost to boys, yet I hold it to be of all things, next to religion, the most important and most worthy of human nature. Even the art of politics, wherein you are so well approved both by faculty and by merits, and by the judgment of a most wise king, springs from the same fountain, and is a great part thereof. And if any man think these things of mine to be common and vulgar, it is not for me of course to say what I have effected; but my aim has been, passing by things obvious and obsolete and commonplace, to give some help towards the difficulties

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