Some think to bear it by speaking a great word, and being peremptory; and go on, and take by admittance that which they cannot make good. Some, whatsoever is beyond their reach, will seem to despise or make light of it, as impertinent or curious1, and so would have their ignorance seem judgment. Some are never without a difference, and commonly by amusing men with a subtilty, blanch 2 the matter; of whom A. Gellius saith; Hominem delirum, qui verborum minutiis rerum frangit pondera.3 Of which kind also Plato, in his Protagoras, bringeth in Prodicus in scorn and maketh him make a speech that consisteth of distinctions from the beginning to the end. Generally, such men in all deliberations find ease to be of the negative side, and affect a credit to object and foretell difficulties: for when propositions are denied there is an end of them; but if they be allowed, it requireth a new work: which false point of wisdom is the bane of business. To conclude, there is no decaying merchant or inward beggar 4 hath so many tricks to uphold the credit of their wealth as these empty persons have to maintain the credit of their sufficiency. Seeming wise men may make shift to get opinion: but let no man choose them for employment; for certainly you were better take for business a man somewhat absurd 5 than over formal 6.

II. OF STUDIES.

TUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.

STUDI

Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in

8 The quotation is not from Gellius, but from Quintilian on Seneca, iv. 1. (Whately).

4 one secretly a bankrupt (Whately).

6 too pretentious.

5 defective in judgment.

the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study: and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously1; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others: but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books: else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy 2 things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth

1 1 attentively.

2 Bacon uses the word in the sense of 'tasteless'. In his Nat. Hist. he remarks that the most offensive tastes are "bitter, sour, harsh, waterish, or flashy ".

(M 249)

E

not.

Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend: Abeunt studia in mores. Nay, there is no stond1 or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; a gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So, if a man's wits be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again: if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the school-men; for they are Cymini sectores2. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyer's cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

ABRAHAM COWLEY.

(1618-1667.)

III. OF MYSELF.

T is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of

IT

himself; it grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement and the reader's ears to hear anything of praise from him. There is no danger from me of offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune allow me any materials for that vanity. It is

1 obstacle.

2 hair-splitters: lit. "dividers of cummin seed, which is one of the least seeds" (Bacon).

3 Cf. Spectator, No. 562, where Addison discourses on Egotism, and misquotes this sentence from Cowley.

sufficient for my own contentment that they have preserved me from being scandalous, or remarkable on the defective side. But besides that, I shall here speak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedent discourses,1 and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt than rise up to the estimation of most people. As far as my memory can return back into my past life, before I knew or was capable of guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themselves and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school,2 instead of running about on holidays and playing with my fellows, I was wont to steal from them and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. I was then, too, so much an enemy to all constraint, that my masters could never prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn without book the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensed with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the same mind as I am now (which I confess I wonder at myself) may appear by the latter end of an ode3 which I made when I was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed with many other verses. The beginning of it is boyish, but of this part which I here set down, if a very little were corrected, I should hardly now be much ashamed.

1" Of Myself" is the last of eleven essays comprised under the title, "Several Discourses by way of Essays in Prose and Verse".

2 Cowley entered Westminster School when about ten years old. In 1636 he became a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge.

3 The stanzas quoted form the conclusion of a poem entitled “A Vote", which appeared in Sylva of 1636.

IX.

This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honour I would have,

Not from great deeds, but good alone.
The unknown are better than ill known.

Rumour can ope the grave;

Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.

X.

Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
My house a cottage, more

Than palace, and should fitting be

For all my use, no luxury.

My garden painted o'er

With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield,
Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

XI.

Thus would I double my life's fading space,
For he that runs it well, twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,

These unbought sports, this happy state,
I would not fear, nor wish my fate,

But boldly say each night,

To-morrow let my sun his beams display,

Or in clouds hide them-I have lived to-day.

You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the poets (for the conclusion is taken out of Horace1), and perhaps it was the immature and immoderate love of them which stamped first, or rather engraved, these characters in me. They were like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which with the tree still grow proportionably. But how this love came to be produced in me so early is a hard question. I believe I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such 1 Odes, III. xxix. 41.