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 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 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 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 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 â—acia Strimon of Thracia the Rhene of Germany the Parthians let them be bounded by Euphrates the Sarmatians by Daâ—ubius let the Pirrenean Mountains divide France and Spain the Alps Italy Formicarum isle discursus est in angusto laborantium You chalk out Kingdomes and assign them bounds And measures by the marks of bloud and wounds And yet herein you greatest â—olly show In that by griping much you let all go The whole worlds ev'ry mans and who so cares T' appropriate any part divides and shares What all was his All men one houshold be All 's but one house from th' Center to the Sky And in this house w'have all propriety 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 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 Hic coetus astrorum quibus immensi corporis pulchritudo distinguitur populum non convocat his Clasomeneans scorned him as
to behold those alive which only are able to be Oedipus's to their Aenigma's Yea as once the Generous Macedon to a Forreign Messenger that brought him good News and before he exprest it in words intimated it by the joy in his face What now said he What News bringst thou Is Homer risen from the Dead This alone was the most welcome Intelligence that that great Emperor could receive which yet had a Soul and a desire adequate to the Monarchy of Infinite Worlds At this day also if we did ask a great part of the Wisest Men what thing they desired above the terms of ordinary we should hear them wish some that Plato might return to life and Aristotle some Hyppocrates and Gallen some Archimedes and Ptolomy some Homer and Virgil some Demosthenes and Cicero some Livius and Zenophon some Ulpian and Paulus some Chrysostome and Augustine Their lives were not in respect of the shortnesse of ours so long but that they were to short for the need the World hath of them Therefore the death of those is ever displeasing who cannot die without publick prejudice as also they would not have lived but for publick benefit Mihi autem saith the Consul Pliny very finely videtur acerba semper immatura mors eorum qui immortale aliquid parant Nam qui voluptatibns dediti quasi in diem vivunt vivendi causas quotidie siniunt qui verò posteros cogilant memoriam sui operibus extendunt his nulla mors non repentina est ut quae semper inchoatum aliquid abrumpat These Suns of the World the rayes of whose sublime Sapience enliven the Sciences illuminate the Ages beautifie all the Earth merit they not in honour that place that the Light had in the first formation of things The Light was made by God worthy of the chief praise that he gave with his mouth to any work of his hands And that not so much because it is beautiful in it self as because every thing that it seeth it makes beautiful therefore Tantum sibi praejudicatorem potuit invenire a quo jure prima laudetur quoniam ipsa facit ut etiam caetera mundi membra digna sint laudibus This is the nature and these the merits of those that Seneca adoring the minute in which they were born kissing the earth on which they lived bewailing the hour in which they died calleth Praeceptores generis humani and if this be too little Deorum ritu colendos And why not would Vitruvius say Cum enim tanta munera ab Scriptorum prudentia fuerint hominibus praeparata non solum arbitror palmas coronas his tribui oportere sed etiam decerni triumphos inter Deorum sedes eos dedicandos 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 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 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 It s a received opinion among the vulgar That all Obscurity is an Argument of Wit and the mark of the loftinesse of a great understanding to measure it self by it even as well as heretofore by the nine hundred Stadium's of shadow the Ancients found the height of the Summitie of Mount Atho◠That Nature hath given the Stars to the obscurity of the night and Wisedom to the obscurity of VVits That God himself in his Oracles is all Clouds and that the excessive Light in which he dwels in which he is seen hath the name of darknesse because it in such manner shews him that it in the same instant hides him That the style of the VVisest Ancients was no other whose sublime minds whose high conceited VVits as it were mountains with steep tops have their heads still amidst the Mysts and Clouds That their writings were so much securer from the Fisher the more they were obscured that they were so much the abler to discover Carbuncles and Diamonds the more palpable was the darknesse 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 Alba ligustra cadunt Vaccinia nigra leguntur 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 unknits it They confound their words more then the leaves of Sybilla were disordered by the wind
of Delos Diety 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 Coelum saith he perpetuo conâ—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 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 Phaetoâ— more bold then cautions Ausus aeternos agitare currus Immemor meta juâ—e is paternae Quos polo spaâ—sit furiosus ignos Ipse recepit 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 Flâ—gra did make in the battery they gave to the 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 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 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 eximiâ—s illas pulchritudines aebrietate quadam sobria capta tanquam Corybantes 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 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 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 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
Crows and 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 gray-hairs 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 that with the Prince of Physicians câ—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 sapientâ—am quis accedit 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 Procerum â—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 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 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 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 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 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
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 â—lie all he knows out of his brain and never indent so many letters as a Crane or a Stork accent in their flying It s 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 Foolish was that practice of the Sybarites to teach Horses to dance and to deprave the warlike disposition of that generous Beast 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 Ille apud rupicem sylvicosam monstrorum â—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 conâ—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 attraâ—it But behold in matter of Learning onely four of a thousand that applyed diversly â—â—om that to which the weight of natural Iâ—clination bore them after they had 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 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 oâ— 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 Poâ—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 Ducunt volentem Fata nolentem traâ—unt But if it happen that the interests of honour and profit permit not men to surcease 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 Tuus ô Regina quid optes Explorare labor mihi jussa capescere fas est Otherwise to pretend in despight of ones Genius to prove excellent in any profession 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 Non viribus ullis Vincere nec duro poteris convellere ferro But hitherto I have more evinced the necessity of observing the Genius then the manner of knowing it because it s 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 Little credit to be given to the signs of Ingenuity taken from the Physiognomy THe Ancient Architects more by the Laws of Judgment than Art in building a Temple to any god of three Grecian Orders Dorick Jonick and Corinthian elected that which best agreed to the nature of the Deity to whoÌ„ they erected the Temple Therefore they used the Dorick order being grave and severe for their Martial Deities as Mars Hercules and Pallas The Corinthian soft and lascivious for Venus Flora Proserpina and the Water-Nymphs The Jonick moderate for Juno Diana Bacchus and the like The very same Law as some Platonists and all Physiognomers are of opinion hath Nature rigorously observed in building Bodies which are the Temples of the Soul so that there being some Souls Warlike others Cowardly some vivatious and ingenious others stupid and insensate some servile others imperious born to comand she hath in conformity also to their internal Genius's and tempers delineated the external features of the Face and used such Architecture in the Body as corresponded with the inclination of the Mind From thence hath the Art of Conjectural Physiognomy took its beginnings by which from that which is seen in any one that which is concealed is collected and inferred And look as they gather from the quantity of the Manners whether good or bad many and different and not seldom repugnant Indices of the Wit in such as they find either stupid or apprehensive and acute so likewise do they multiply Signes for the knowing it as if they were to find out a Proteus by the natural features of his face and not a Wit by its Qualities But because many of these Masters of Divining more looking to
the Features and tempers of some few ingenious persons than to the universal occult causes of the Wit have made the faces of a few the common Index of all in so much that Porta as if he were the Alcibiades from whom we must take the features of a true Mercury coppying himself framed from his particular Indices the universal and almost only conjecture of an excellent VVit whence it is that it proves so fallacious to divine from the visage constitution and lineaments of the Body of the immensity subtilty vivacity and profundity of a VVit I will here recite but without much troubling my self with their confutation the more common symptomes given of this matter by the Professors of Physiognomy And first The Platonists deny that Beauty of Mind and deformity of Body can subsist together in one and the same man That Trine of Venus with the Moon which is the seal wherewith the Stars mark the most lovely faces that it may have consonance with numbers they contemper the Mind and accord it to the motion of the first Mind Pythagoras that Soul of Light was so fair in his features that his Scholars some called him others believed him Apollo in the disguise of Pythagoras or Pythagoras coppied from Apollo Nor doth there want a reason for the same For as much as beauty is no other than a certain Flower that is produced by the Soul as a buried seed upon this ground of the Body Likewise the Sun if a Cloud cover it it shineth through it with its more subtle Rayes and renders it so glorious that it no longer resembleth a vapour extracted from the Earth sordid and obscure but flaming Gold and as it were another Sun No otherwise a Soul that is a Sun of light within the Cloud of the Body that covers and conceals it shineth through it with the rayes of its beauty so that it renders that also beyond measure beautiful and this is that which Plotonus calls the Dominion that Form hath over Matter VVhich if it should be granted that Souls come only into Bodies resembling them and onely tye this knot of strict amity there where there is exact similitude who but sees that a beautiful Soul cannot then unite it self to a deformed Body Nor availeth it to tell them of Aesop born if ever any was with the Moon in the Nodes that he was a Thersytes Crates no Citizen of Thebes but a Monster of Affrick of Socrates so ill-furnisht with beauty yea of so grosse a stamp that Sophyrus the Physiognomer gave him for the very Idea of one stupid and blockish whom Alcibiades called a Sylenus thereby declaring him without half Beast within more than Man and Theodorus describing in Theectetus a Youth of most fortunate VVit speaking with the same Socrates could tell him Non est pulcher similis tui est simo naso prominentibus oculis quamvis minus ille quam tu in his modum excedat They deny that such deformity in them was the intention of Nature but the mistake of Chance not the defect of Form but the fault of disobedient Matter But if that be so the Women have therein great advantage to whom Beauty was given for a Dowry and we see that it is Natures continual care to work that soft and morbid Earth so that she may therein plant this flower the more succesfully And yet through the subjection to which they were condemned they have as little Judgment in their heads as they have much of handsomnesse in their faces VVhence Aesops Fox may say of the most of them as he said of the Marble head of a very lovely fac'd Statue O beautiful but brainless head And really if we observe experience it will be obvious that Nature is not oblieged to these Laws of setting Pearls only in Gold and of putting VVits of excellent Sapience only in Bodies of exquisite Beauty Potest ingenium fortissimum ac beatissimum sub qualibet cute latere Potest ex casa vir maguns exire Potest ex deformi vilique corpusculo formosus animus ac magnus Rural Limbs oft-times cover most polite VVits Most amiable Minds lie under rugged skins as He uâ—der the dreadful skin of the Menean Lion Galba the Orator appeared an inform'd lump of stone but within had a Golden vein of precious and shining VVit Whereupon M. Lullius scoffing of him was wont to say Ingenium Galbum malè habitat Thus many others of whom it would be too tedious to speak particularly have been so deform'd but so ingenious that it seem'd that in them as in the Adamant or Magnet beauty of Mind and uncomelinesse of Body went hand in hand Others again there are that measure the grandure of the VVit by the bulk of the Head and believe that that cannot be a great Intelligence that hath not a great Sphere They comprehend not how a small head becometh a womb able to conceive a Great Pallas how a Giant-like Ingenuity can comprise it self within the narrow neich of a little Scul They know not how that the Mind is the Center of the Head and the Center doth not increase by the bignesse of the Circle The eye is it any more than a drop of Chrystal and hath it not in such smalnesse a concave so capacious that by the gate of a pupil it receiveth without confusion of it half a VVold Parvula sic totum pervisit pupula caelum Quoque vident oculi minimum est cum maxima cernant It often happens that as a little Heart naturally includes a great Courage so in a Head of a small bulk a Mind of great understanding is comprised Others argue from the palure of the face as from ashes the fire of a Spiritely VVit and thus Nazianzen calleth Palidness Pulchrum sublimium virorum slorem And reason seemeth to perswade as much for that the very best of the blood is exhausted in the operations of the Mind and the face thereby left ex-sanguate and discoloured Therefore the Star of Saturn the Father of profound thoughts beareth in a half-extinguish'd light his face as it were meagre and palid Many say that by the eyes sparkling in the day and glittering in the night they can tell which are the true Palladian Bats Others there are who in confused Characters seem to read the Velocity of VVits whose fancies whilst the hand with the slight of the Pen cannot follow it comes to passe that it ill makes the letters cuts off the words and confounds the sense Thus the speedest beasts imprint the most informed tracks whilst on the contrary the slow-moving Oxe makes his steps with patience and leasurely formeth his tracks one by one But I undertook not to relate much lesse to refute all the symptoms from which VVit is argued by these subtle Diviners the sholders and neck dry and lean the temper of the â—lesh morbidly moulded the fore-head ample the skin thin and delicate the voice in a mean between
many objects and discerning their dependency without confounding them according as the humours and their qualities are variously tuned and harmoniz'd together whence more or lesse according to the predominancy of hot and cold dry and moist we have abilities more apt to one than to another Science according to the temper of the qualities that the instruments require for the better disposing them to operation And this ability of power well disposed towards such sorts of objects is the foundation of that which they call Genius Because that there being in every one by natural instinct an in-nate desire of knowing and Nature not erring but being conscious of that which she is to apply us to the desire of as our Good a thing which to obtein we have not power sufficient thence it is that she carrieth us to the desire of that to attein which we are sufficently disposed The proportion therefore of the power to the object and the desire which we have to know of which one applyeth the other determineth causeth that sympathy which we may call the Form of the Genius So that it is not the disposition figure colour nor masse of the members of the body that we should observe as immediate or true testimonies of the Wit in applying any to Learning But from the Acts the most natural testimonies of the Powers we may argue their internal Temper thereby to find to which of the Arts it hath most agreeable proportion Thus since the honey cannot be fetch from its Sourse which is the Stars as Pliny speaks at least let them strive to make it as pure as they can by working it out of those slowers which most resemble them in nature Ibi enim optimus semper ros mellis ubi optimorum doliolis florum conditur Since Science can be enjoyed no otherwise than as faln from Heaven into these terene Bodies at least-wise let them apply themselves to gather it of those which with tempers like to Heaven fiery and subtle but withal stable and regular most symbolize and agree with it 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 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 Tenet insanibile multos Scribendi cacoethes agro in corde senescit 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 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 The eye and the hand run with impatience this to turn over and that to read the leaves at cum intraveris Dii Deaeque quà m 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 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 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 Si qua illic poma conantur saith Tertullian oculis tenus caeterum conacta cinerescunt A Learned Man doth indeed deserve great compassioÌ„ 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 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 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 â—uit quà m 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 a Spanish Doctor called a little Desert Isle to which approaching in his Indian Navigation he found neither herb nor any other sustenance therefore he gave it this name Nolite cogitare quid edatis 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 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
them the sight in the delight of reading them others some spirit of good odour to waken the Brain and comfort the Wit There are some that bundle up herbs carelesly gathering what comes first to hand and some that with greater curiosity pick only flowers to weave thereof Crownes and Garlands Some squeeze out the juice others extract the waters Few from a great multitude of Subjects different from one another know how to gather honey of the same tast so applying things that all speak to the same purpose and so that there may be the Delight of Variety without wanting the Union of Sense These diverse manners of election and application submit to the Judgment and the Judgment follows the Genius which every one hath of speaking some in one style and some in another suitable to the Idea of his mind Therefore matters extracted from Books may be said to be like the dew which if it fall into the shell of a Conchylia according as some believe is changed into Pearls if upon a rotten Tree it becomes Toad-stools But in uniting matter to form thereof a Book I hint in the last place that it may be of no lesse prejudice to have too much than to have nothing My SCHOLAR ought not to be so sparing in the gathering as if be would that the Work he is to publish were more meâ—ger than an Aristarchus than a Phyletas than a living Skeleton so that one may count the bones and see all the courses of the veins the ligatures of the nerves the dispositions of the muscles the motions of the arteries and almost the Soul it self Nor ought he to be prodigal as if he were about to form a man so corpulent that he should seem rather a Botle than a Man He that amasseth together superfluous stuffe unlesse he be Magnus Deus as the Ancients called Love as being the methodizer of Chaos is not able to dispose it but that in such a crowd there will be a confusion Further more upon a superfluous Collection it comes to passe that we exceedingly grutch after having cull'd out the most excellent and opposite things to cast away the rest as unprofitable which yet will be far more than those that are pertinent thinking it not the property of a good Judgment but a propension to prodigality to lose together with so many things the toil and time spent in gathering them By this meanes whilst all pleaseth and the Author seeks a place for every thing he stuffs his Books as the GluttoÌ„ doth his belly more for greediness of swallowing than out of any heat he hath to digest and so from the abundance of corrupt humours ariseth the indisposure of the body the consumption of the strength palenesse and a hundred diseases Idem igitur in his quibus aluntur ingenia pestemus ut quecunque hausimus non patiamur integra esse ne aliena sint sed coquamus illa Thus let us be advertised that as to Bodies so to Books we give not so much as they can receive but so much as they can concoct and digest Now the Argument found the Parts methodized the Matter collected and ranged in order let him proceed to Composing The Discouragement of those that meet with difficulties in the beginning IN every Art and Enterprize the beginning is more difficult than all the remainder The first steps require the greatest strength and constancy after which as having mounted the acclivity of a high Rock the way still proves more smooth and easie All Arts may say of their beginnings what Apollo instructing Phaëton said of his journey Ardua prima via est per quam vix mane recentes Enituntur equi So in the gains of Merchandize the hardest is to get out of poverty Pecunia saith the Stoick circa paupertatem plurimam moram habet dum ex illa ereptat Whence Lampis a very rich Man being asked how of a Beggar that he was he was become â—o wealthy My small riches I got said he by watching a nights my great I get now sleeping a dayes I moyled more in the beginning for a Farthing than I did afterwards for a Talent nor did my being now so rich cost me any more than the first pains I took to cease to be poor This not being understood by the unexperienced in the mystery of Composing is the cause that encountring in the first onset with sterile fancies dry veins and an incomprehensive Wit they grow impatient and either condemn themselves as unable to proceed or abandon the Art as too difficult to apprehend They consider not that one cannot immediately passe from Nocturnal Obscurity to Meridian Clarity There precede it the first glimmerings that are a small light mixt with much obfuscation after that the Dawn lesse dusky which also grows white upon the edge of the Horizon next Aurora more rich with light more adorn'd with colours and lastly the Sun and this in its first peeping above our Hemisphere is thick vaporous oblique weak and twinkling but getting at length above the Horizon as he that with great trouble climes a pendent Cliffe by little and little it recovers the Zenith point of Heaven They remember not that a man must first be a child and must creep before he can run carrying his reeling at everystep-stumbling body upon his feeble feet and tender arms Nor that he is not furnished with speech till first he hath been long silent and then he attains a puling cry than a stuttering and stammering tongue and halved and broken words crying with much a-do Dad and Mam and at last learning the syllables and words one by one from others mouthes he repeats them as the Eccho piece-meal more imitating others speech than speaking Great Men are not made by Founding as the Statues of Brasse which in one moment are formed whole and entrie but are wrought like Marbles with the point of the Chizzel by a little and a little The Apelles's the Zeuxis's the Parrhasius's those great Masters of Painting of whose Pictures it could not be said that they wanted Souls to seem living for that they knew how to appear a live even without Souls when they begun to handle their Pencils and to Pourfoil do not you think that they gave one false touch in two and that it needed to be written under their Work what the Pictures were that a Lion might not be taken for a Dog It is the opinion of Pliny that Nature her self notwithstanding she is so great an Artist and Mistresse of the most excellent Works before she set her self to make the Lilly a work of great Art did prepare her self by making as it were the rough draught and model in the Convolvus a white and simple flower therefore called by him veluti naturae rudimentum Lilia facere condiscentis If you have seen the Campidoglio of Rome and in it the Temple of Jupiter enriched with the spoils of all the World would you know it for that
triumph of others virtues in running through the fields of Eternity with the steps of Desert c. expressions usual in subjects of familiar but Plebeian Argument and about things that they engreaten not in the least When its indiscretion to use too Elegant and Polite a Style BUt of Conceits and the manner of using them let every one judg according to his reason and fancy For my part if I be to borrow any of them for the necessity of the Argument I esteem them as Jewels and take their value from their Nature and Use so that they be not counterfeit but real and not disordered at all adventures but put in their proper places The one is the Office of the Wit which is to Invent them and the other of the Judgment which ought to Dispose them The Wit is not to take Chystals for Diamonds the Judgment must not crowd them in where they should not be imitating the Western Barbarians which cut the skins of their faces to enchase therein Jewels never perceiving that they more deform themselves with the Gashes they make than adorn themselves with the Ornaments they wear The face requireth no other ornament than its natural beauty and its more wronged and deform'd by a Pearl although very excellent enchased in a Cheek than by the blemish of a Mole growing there naturally In like manner in the Art of Speaking some things appear the fairer for their plainnesse and resemble Pictures in which saith Pliny Junior very excellently that the Painter Ne errare quidem debet in melius Lysippus cast a Statue of Alexander so to the life that it seemed he had infused into the melted Brasse the veey Soul of that great King Nero that was Cruel even in his Favours and did hurt even there where he pretended to help having it in his power amongst other spoils of Greece would gild it judging that a Statue of so excellent workmanship was not worthily composed of any worse Metal than Gold The Fool considered not that Martial faces were better expressed by the fiercenesse of Brasse than by the sprucenesse of that Womanish and lascivious Metal Therefore the Gilded Statue of Nero lost all the Nobility of Alexander all the Workmanship of Lysippus and that being gilt became a dead Statue which seem'd before a living Image So that he was constrain'd to correct his error and for Nero's fault to flea Alexander taking off with the Fyle that Golden Skin which had been lay'd on with fire and yet so gasht so ill dealt with it remain'd more beautiful than it did before when it was gilded Cum pretio periisset gratia artis said the Stoick detractum est aurum pretiosiorque talis aestimatur etiam cicatricibus operis atque consciscuris in quibus aurum haeserat remanentibus Therefore Imbelishments are not alwayes Ornaments but sometimes transform one into deformity and where Ornari res ipsa negat contenta doceri to be superfluously and sometimes affectedly conceited declares a great plenty of Wit but a small portion of judgment In Affections then either let us betake our selves to imitate or suppresse them which is the hardest point in the Profession of Rhetorick because an exquisite Art of a refined Judgment must lie hid under such Naturalnesse that what is said may not seem a Dictate of Wit but a venting of the heart not studied but born of it self not got by pausing but found in the very act of speaking what use can be made of a Style that 's distilled drop by drop by the dim light of a Candle with words wract in their Metaphors double in their allusions with spiritous and lively senses more able to puzle the brain than to move the heart Mortuum non artifex fistula saith Chrysologus sed simplex plangit affectio For my self when I chance to hear the affections managed in so improper a manner I feel a greater naucity than one who is Sea-sick and my tongue itcheth to be using that saying of a Wise Emperour that said to one of his Servants all perfum'd with Musk as he trust him out of his Chamber banished him the Court Mallem allium oleres How would that great Master of the Stage Polus in expressing the affections suffer the affectatiō of a childish Style who to represent more lively the person of Hecuba lamenting the losse of her Valorous Son dead Hector whose ashes she carried in an Urn dis-interred the Bones of his own Son a little before buried and filled the Urn therewith and with that in his arms appeared on the Stage leaving the Art of Mourning to Nature and expressing the imitation with reality whilst under the mask of Hecuba he represented himself a child-lesse Father and under the name of Hector bewail'd the losse of his Son Thus the Style of the affections is the truer the more natural it is nor is it possible that whilst the Thoughts run to the motions of the Soul the Wit should be so idle as not to be studiously Ingenious nor that whilst it is conveighed from the heart to the tongue of a person impetuous and violent replenished with a thousand different meanings it should have time to select the words to disguise them turning them from the natural to the metaphorical sense and to imbelish them with flourishes and conceits But he that hath a solid judgment if in treating of any matter humerous he see his importunely-fertile Wit to offer and present before him subtleties and nice quirks he will thrust them away with his hand and say unto them Non est hic locus He doth with the eye of his mind as the bodily eyes do when they see too much light they contract the pupils and thereby exclude part of it And is wise in so doing like that famous Ariston that being to expresse in a Statue of Bronzo the Fury Shame Grief of Athamas mixed Iron and Brasse together and darkned the brightnesse of this with the rustinesse of that A wonderful work it was and how much the lesse rich for the matter so much the more precious for the Art by which the rust which is a fault in the Iron became a virtue to the Brasse and made it worth its weight in Gold In fine where he is to speak seriously to convince to reprehend to condemn an act vice or person in using a Style that sings when it should roar that instead of thundring lightens the Periods leaping by salts like the spouts of a Fountain when they should run like a stream every one sees how far he is from obteining what he aimes at Non enim amputata oratio abscissa sed lata magnifica excelsa tonat fulgurat omnia denique perturbat ac miscet It would be nervous and masculine not womanish effeminatly drest all escheated for Levity The looks of the Oratour should not be game-some and laughing but majestick and severe of whom it may be said as the Poet said of Pluto