Therefore, to love or to hate, to like or contemn, to ply this way or that way to good or to bad, ye shall have as ye use a child in his youth. And one example, whether love or fear doth work more in a child, for virtue and learning, I will gladly report; which may be heard with some pleasure, and followed with more profit. Before I went into Germany, I came to Broadgate in Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholding. Her parents, the Duke and Duchess, with all the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park: I found her in her chamber, reading "Phædon Platonis" in Greek, and that with as much delight as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in Boccace. After salutation, and duty done, with some other talk, I asked her why she would lose such pastime in the park? Smiling she answered me: "I wis, all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure that I find in Plato: alas, good folk, they never felt what true pleasure meant." "And how came you, madame," quoth I, "to this deep knowledge of pleasure, and what did chiefly allure you unto it: seeing, not many women, but very few men, have attained thereunto."-"I will tell you," quoth she, "and tell you a truth, which perchance you will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me is that he sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry, or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly, as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways which I will not name for the honor I bear them, so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because whatsoever I do else but learning is full of grief, trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me and thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringing daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, in very deed, be but trifles and troubles unto me." I remember this talk gladly, both because it is so worthy of memory, and because also it was the last talk that ever I had, and the last time that ever I saw that noble and worthy lady. ON STUDY AND EXERCISE. (From "Toxophilus.") PHILOLOGE. But now to our shooting, Toxophile, again; wherein I suppose you cannot say so much for shooting to be fit for learning, as you have spoken against music for the same. Therefore, as concerning music, I can be content to grant you your mind; but as for shooting, surely I suppose that you cannot persuade me, by no means, that a man can be earnest in it, and earnest at his book too; but rather I think that a man with a bow on his back, and shafts under his girdle, is more fit to wait upon Robin Hood than upon Apollo or the Muses. TOXOPHILE. Over-earnest shooting surely I will not overearnestly defend; for I ever thought shooting should be a waiter upon learning, not a mistress over learning. Yet this I marvel not a little at, that ye think a man with a bow on his back is more like Robin Hood's servant than Apollo's, seeing that Apollo himself, in Alcestis of Euripides, which tragedy you read openly not long ago, in a manner glorieth, saying this verse: "It is my wont always my bow with me to bear." Therefore a learned man ought not too much to be ashamed to bear that sometime, which Apollo, god of learning, himself was not ashamed always to bear. And because ye would have a man wait upon the Muses, and not at all meddle with shooting: I marvel that you do not remember how that the nine Muses their self, as soon as they were born, were put to nurse to a lady called Euphemis, which had a son named Erotus, with whom the nine Muses for his excellent shooting kept evermore company withal, and used daily to shoot together in the Mount Parnassus; and at last it chanced this Erotus to die, whose death the Muses lamented greatly, and fell all upon their knees afore Jupiter their father; and at their request, Erotus, for shooting with the Muses on earth, was made a sign and called Sagittarius in heaven. Therefore you see that if Apollo and the Muses either were examples indeed, or only feigned of wise men to be examples of learning, honest shooting may well enough be companion with honest study. PHILOLOGE. Well, Toxophile, if you have no stronger defence of shooting than poets, I fear if your companions which love shooting heard you, they would think you made it but a trifling and fabling matter, rather than any other man that loveth not shooting could be persuaded by this reason to love it. TOXOPHILE. Even as I am not so fond but I know that these be fables, so I am sure you be not so ignorant but you know what such noble wits as the poets had, meant by such matters; which oftentimes, under the covering of a fable, do hide and wrap in goodly precepts of philosophy, with the true judgment of things. Which to be true, specially in Homer and Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, and Galen plainly do show; when through all their works (in a manner) they determine all controversies by these two poets and such like authorities. Therefore, if in this matter I seem to fable and nothing prove, I am content you judge so on me, seeing the same judgment shall condemn with me Plato, Aristotle, and Galen, whom in that error I am well content to follow. If these old examples prove nothing for shooting, what say you to this, that the best learned and sagest men in this realm which be now alive, both love shooting and use shooting, as the best learned bishops that be? amongst whom, Philologe, you yourself know four or five, which, as in all good learning, virtue, and sageness, they give other men example what thing they should do, even so by their shooting they plainly show what honest pastime other men given to learning may honestly use. That earnest study must be recreated with honest pastime, sufficiently I have proved afore, both by reason and authority of the best learned men that ever wrote. Then seeing pastimes be leful [lawful], the most fittest for learning is to be sought for. A pastime, saith Aristotle, must be like a medicine. Medicines stand by contraries; therefore, the nature of studying considered, the fittest pastime shall soon appear. In study every part of the body is idle, which thing causeth gross and cold humors to gather together and vex scholars very much; the mind is altogether bent and set on work. A pastime then must be had where every part of the body must be labored, to separate and lessen such humors withal; the mind must be unbent, to gather and fetch again his quickness withal. Thus pastimes for the mind only be nothing fit for students, because the body, which is most hurt by study, should take away no profit thereat. This knew Erasmus very well, when he was here in Cambridge; which, when he had been sore at his book (as Garret our book binder had very often told me), for lack of better exercise, would take his horse and ride about the market-hill and come again. If a scholar should use bowls or tennis, the labor is too vehement and unequal, which is condemned of Galen; the example very ill for other men, when by so many acts they be made unlawful. Running, leaping, and quoiting be too vile for scholars, and so not fit by Aristotle's judgment; walking alone into the field hath no token of courage in it, a pastime like a simple man which is neither flesh nor fish. Therefore if a man would have a pastime wholesome and equal for every part of the body, pleasant and full of courage for the mind, not vile and unhonest to give ill example to laymen, not kept in gardens and corners, not lurking on the night and in holes, but evermore in the face of men, either to rebuke it when it doeth ill, or else to testify on it when it doth well, let him seek chiefly of all other for shooting. THE CAPTAIN IN LOVE. "CONDUCT thee wisely, Nicholas, as well becomes a captain, Nor with thy children be at strife, nor venture to insult them; For they an evil plot have laid, resolving they will slay thee." "Who is it with my children talks? who is it tells them stories? Well! when the blooming spring shall come, and when shall come the summer, To Xerolibada I go, and to our ancient quarters, Thither I go to wed my love, to take a fair-haired maiden: With golden coins I'll deck my love, with strings of pearls adorn her." The Pallicars they heard his words, and scornful was their anger; Three shots they gave him all at once, and all the three were fatal. "Down with the weakling fool!" they cried; "shoot down the worthless wanton! From us he took the golden coins to win the fair-haired maiden. Modern Greek. 629 ATHENEUS. ATHENAEUS, an industrious Greek writer of the third century, reputed to have been born at Naucratis in the Nile Delta, and to have lived at Alexandria and afterwards at Rome. He is famous for one work, his "Feast of the Learned," a series of books giving with little connection or little literary art a vast assemblage of quotations from nearly 800 writers and 2400 distinct writings, covering practically every department of ancient learning. It has been valued by scholars of all succeeding times as a treasure-house of quotation and anecdote. HOW TO PRESERVE THE HEALTH. (From the "Deipnosophiste.") ONE ought to avoid thick perfumes, and to drink water that is thin and clear, and that in respect of weight is light, and that has no earthy particles in it. And that water is best which is of moderate heat or coldness, and which, when poured into a brazen or silver vessel, does not produce a blackish sediment. Hippocrates says, "Water which is easily warmed or easily chilled is always lighter." But that water is bad which takes a long time to boil vegetables; and so too is water full of nitre, or brackish. And in his book "On Waters," Hippocrates calls good water drinkable; but stagnant water he calls bad, such as that from ponds or marshes. And most spring-water is rather hard. Erasistratus says that some people test water by weight, and that is a most stupid proceeding. "For just look," says he, "if men compare the water from the fountain Amphiaraus with that from the Eretrian spring, though one of them is good and the other bad, there is absolutely no difference in their respective weights." And Hippocrates, in his book " On Places," says that those waters are the best which flow from high ground, and from dry hills, "for they are white and sweet, and are able to bear very little wine, and are warm in winter and cold in summer." And he praises those most, the springs of which break toward |