80 would have succeeded better with him; at least, he had perish'd with greater decency and reputation. There is nothing so little to be expected, or hop'd for from this many-headed monster, when so incens'd, as humanity and good nature; it is much more capable of reverence and fear. I should also reproach him, that having taken a resolution (in my judgment rather brave than rash) to expose himself weak and naked in this tempestuous sea of enraged franticks; he ought boldly to have stem'd the current, and to have born himself bravely aloft; whereas coming to discover his danger nearer hand, and his nose thereupon happning to bleed, he again chang'd that demiss and fawning countenance he had at first put on, into another of fear and amazement, and filling both his voice and eyes with entreaties and tears, and in that posture endeavouring to withdraw and secure his person, that carriage more enflam'd their fury, and soon brought the effects of it upon him. It was upon a time in a certain place order'd by some, who had no very good meaning in it, that there should be a general muster of several troops in arms (for that is the most proper scene of secret revenges, and there is no place where they can be executed with greater safety) and there were publick and manifest appearances, that there was no safe coming for some, whose principal and necessary office it was to view them. Whereupon a consultation was call'd, and several counsels were propos'd, as in a case that was very nice, and of great difficulty; and moreover, of important consequence. Mine, amongst the rest, was, that they should by all means avoid giving any sign of suspicion, but that the officers who were most in danger should boldly go, and with cheerful and erect countenances ride boldly and confidently thorough the files and divisions, and that instead of sparing fire (which the counsels of the major part tended to) they should entreat the captains to command the souldiers to give round and full volleys in honour of the spectators, and not to spare their powder which was accordingly done, and serv'd to so good use, as to please and gratifie the suspected troops, and thenceforward to beget a mutual and wholesome confidence and intelligence amongst them. I look upon Julius Cæsar's way of winning men to him as the best, and most plausible, that can possibly be put in practice. First, he try'd by clemency to make himself belov'd even by his very enemies, contenting himself in detected conspiracies, only publickly to declare, that he was pre-acquainted with them; which being done, he took a noble resolution to expect, without solicitude or fear, whatever might be the event, wholly resigning up himself to the protection of the gods and fortune for questionless in this very estate he was at the time when he was kill'd. A stranger having publickly said, that he could teach Dionysius the tyrant of Syracusa an infallible way to find out and discover all the conspiracies his subjects should contrive against him, if he would give him a good sum of money for his pains: Dionysius, hearing of it, caus'd the man to be brought to him, that he might learn an art so necessary to his preservation; and having ask'd him by what art he might make such discoveries, the fellow made answer, That all the art he knew, was, that he should give him a talent, and afterwards boast that he had obtain'd a singular secret from him. Dionysius lik'd the invention, and accordingly caus'd six hundred crowns to

JULIUS CÆSAR'S WAY OF WINNING MEN EXCELLENT.

be counted out to him. It was not likely he should give so great a sum to a person unknown, but upon the account of some extraordinary discovery, the belief of which serv'd to keep his enemies in awe. I remember, I have formerly read a story of some Roman of great quality, who, flying the tyranny of the Triumvirate, had a thousand times, by the subtilty of as many inventions, escap'd from falling into the hands of those that pursu'd him. It hap'ned one day, that a troop of horse which was sent out to take him, pass'd close by a brake where he was squat, and miss'd very narrowly of spying him; but he considering, upon the instant, the pains and difficulties wherein he had so long continued, to evade the strict and continual searches were every day made for him, the little pleasure he could hope for in such a kind of life, and how much better it was for him to die once for all, than to be perpetually at this pass, he started from his seat himself, call'd them back, shew'd them his form, and voluntarily deliver'd himself up to their cruelty, by that means to free both himself and them from further trouble. To invite a man's enemies to come and cut his throat, was a resolution that appears a little extravagant and odd; and yet I think he did better to take that course, than to live in a Quotidian ague; and for which there was no cure. But seeing all the remedies a man can apply to such a disease, are full of unquietness, and uncertain, 'tis better with a manly courage to prepare one's self for the worst that can happen, and to extract some consolation from this, that we are not certain the thing we fear will ever come to pass.

CHAP. XIX.-OF PEDANTRY.

I WAS often, when a boy, wonderfully concern'd to see in the Italian farces a Pedant always brought in for the fool of the play, and that the title of Magister was in no greater reverence amongst us, for being delivered up to their tuition, what could I do less than be jealous of their honour and reputation? I sought, I confess, to excuse them by the natural incompatibility betwixt the vulgar sort, and men of a finer thread, both in judgment and knowledge, for as much as they go a quite contrary way to one another: but in this, the thing I most stumbled at was, that the bravest men were those who most despis'd them; witness our famous poet du Bellay.

Mais je hay par sur tout un scavoir pedantesque.-Du Bellay. But of all sorts of learning, that Of the pedant I most do hate. And they us'd to do so in former times; for Plutarch says, that Grecian, and Scholar, were names of reproach and contempt amongst the Romans. But since, with the better experience of age, I find they had very great reason so to do, and that "magis magnos clericos non sunt magis magnos sapientes." Rabelais. "The greatest clerks are not the wisest men." But whence it should come to pass, that a mind enrich'd with the knowledge of so many things, should not become more quick and spritely, and that a gross and vulgar understanding should yet inhabit there without correcting and improving it self, where all the discourses, and judgments of the greatest wits the world ever had, are

F

82

THE SOUL DILATES PROPORTIONABLY AS IT FILLS.

collected, and stor❜d up, I am yet to seek. To admit so many strange conceptions, so great and so high fancies, it is necessary, (as a young lady, and one of the greatest princesses of the kingdom, said to me once) that a man's own be crowded, and squeez'd together into a less compass, to make room for the other. I should be apt to conclude, that as plants are suffocated, and drown'd with too much nourishment, and lamps with too much oyl, so is the active part of the understanding with too much study and matter, which being embarass'd, and confounded with the diversity of things, is depriv'd of the force and power to disengage it self; and that by the pressure of this weight, it is bow'd, subjected, and rendred of no use. But it is quite otherwise, for a soul stretches and dilates it self proportionably as it fills. And in the examples of elder times, we see quite contrary, men very proper for publick business, great captains, and great statesmen, very learned withall; whereas the philosophers, a sort of men retir'd from all publick affairs, have been, sometimes also despis'd, and render'd contemptible by the comical liberty of their own times; their opinions, and singularity of manners, making them appear to men of another method of living, ridiculous and absurd. Would you make them judges of a controversie of common right, or of the actions of men? they are ready to take it upon them, and straight begin to examine, if he has life, if he has motion, if man be any other than an oxe ? What it is to do, and to suffer? and what animals law and justice are? Do they speak of the magistrates, 'tis with a rude, irreverent, and indecent liberty. Do they hear a prince or a king commended for his vertue, they make no more of him, than of a shepherd, goat-herd, or neat-herd; a lazy Corydon, that busies himself only about milking, and shearing his herds and flocks, and that after the rudest manner. Do you repute any man the greater for being lord of two thousand acres of land? they laugh at such a pitiful pittance, as laying claim themselves to the whole world for their possession. Do you boast of your nobility and blood, for being descended from seven rich successive ancestors? they will look upon you with an eye of contempt, as men who have not a right idea of the universal image of nature, and that do not consider how many predecessors every one of us has had, rich, poor, kings, slaves, Greeks, and barbarians. And though you were the fiftieth descent from Hercules, they look upon it as a great vanity, so highly to value this, which is only a gift of fortune. And even so did the vulgar sort of men nauseate them, as men ignorant of the beginning of things, where all things were common, accusing them of presumption and insolence. But this platonick picture is far different from that these pedants are presented by: for those are envied for raising themselves above the common sort of men, for despising the ordinary actions and offices of life, for having assum'd a particular and inimitable way of living, and for using a certain method of bombaste and obsolete language, quite different from the ordinary way of speaking: but these are contemn'd for being as much below the usual form, as incapable of publick employment, for leading a life, and conforming themselves to the mean and vile manners of the vulgar. "Odi homines, ignava opera, philosophica sententia."-Pacuvius. "I hate men who talk like philosophers, but do worse than the most slothful of men." For what concerns those true philosophers, I must needs say, that if they

were great in science, they were yet much greater in action. And as it is said of Archimedes, the geometrician of Syracusa, who having been disturb'd from his contemplation, to put some of his skill in practice for the defence of his country, that he suddenly set on foot dreadful and prodigious engines, and that wrought effects beyond all human expectation; himself notwithstanding disdain'd his own handy-work, thinking in this he had play'd the mechanick, and violated the dignity of his art, of which these performances of his, (though so highly cry'd up by the publick voice) he accounted but trivial experiments, and inferiour models: so they, whenever they have been put upon the proof of action, have been seen to fly to so high a pitch, as made it very well appear, their souls were strangely elevated, and enrich'd with the knowledge of things. But some of them, seeing the reins of government in the hands of ignorant and unskilful men, have avoided all places and interest in the management affairs; and he who demanded of Crates, How long it was necessary to philosophize, receiv'd this answer, "Till our armies (said he) are no more commanded by fools and coxcombs." Heraclitus resign'd the royalty to his brother; and to the Ephesians, who reproach'd him that he spent his time in playing with boys before the temple; "Is it not better," said he, "to do so, than to sit at the helm of affairs in your company?" Others having their imagination advanc'd above the thoughts of the world and fortune, have look'd upon the tribunals of justice, and even the thrones of kings, with an eye of contempt and scorn; insomuch, that Empedocles refus'd the royalty that the Agrigentines offer'd to him. Thales, once inveighing in discourse against the pains and care men put themselves to, to become rich; was answer'd by one in the company, that he did like the fox, who found fault with what he could not obtain. Whereupon, he had a mind, for the jest's sake, to shew them to the contrary; and having upon this occasion for once made a muster of all his wits, wholly to employ them in the service of profit, he set a traffick on foot, which in one year brought him in so great riches, that the most experienc'd in that trade could hardly in their whole lives, with all their industry, have rak'd so much together. That which Aristotle reports of some who said of him, Anaxagoras, and others of their profession, that they were wise but not prudent, in not applying their study to more profitable things (though I do not well digest this nice distinction) that will not however serve to excuse my pedantick sort of men, for to see the low and necessitous fortune wherewith they are content, we have rather reason to pronounce that they are neither wise, nor prudent. But letting this first reason alone, I think it better to say, that this inconvenience proceeds from their applying themselves the wrong way to the study of sciences; and that after the manner we are instructed, it is no wonder if neither the scholars nor the masters become, though more learned, ever the wiser, or more fit for business. In plain truth, the cares and expence our parents are at in our education, point at nothing, but to furnish our heads with knowledge; but not a word of judgment or vertue. Cry out of one that passes by, to the people, “O, what a learned!" and of another, "O what a good man goes there!" they will not fail to turn their eyes, and address their respect to the former. There should then be a third cryer, "O the puppies and coxcombs !" Men are

84 NATURE OFTEN RIVALS THE GREATEST EFFECTS OF ART.

apt presently to enquire, Does such a one understand Greek? Is he a critick in Latine? Is he a poet? or does he pretend to prose? But whether he be grown better or more discreet, which are qualities of greater value and concern, those are never enquir'd into; whereas, we should rather examine, who is better learned, than who is more learned. We only toil and labour to stuff the memory, and in the meantime leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnish'd and void. And, like birds who fly abroad to forage for grain, bring it home in the beak, without tasting it themselves, to feed their young; so our pedants go picking knowledge here and there, out of several authors, and hold it at the tongues end, only to spit it out, and distribute it amongst their pupils. And here I cannot but smile to think how I have paid my self in shewing the foppery of this kind of learning, who my self am so manifest an example; for, do I not the same thing throughout almost this whole treatise? I go here and there, culling out of several books the sentences that best please me, not to keep them (for I have no memory to retain them in) but to transplant them into this; where, to say the truth, they are no more mine than in their first places. We are, I conceive, knowing only in present knowledge, and not at all in what is past, no more than in that which is to come. But the worst on't is, their scholars and pupils are no better nourish'd by this kind of inspiration, nor it makes no deeper impression upon them, than the other, but passes from hand to hand, only to make a shew, to be tolerable company, and to tell pretty stories, like a counterfeit coyn in counters, of no other use nor value, but to reckon with, or to set up at cards. "Apud alios loqui didicerunt, non ipsi secum. Non est loquendum, sed gubernandum.”—Seneca Epist. 109. They have learn'd to speak from others, not from themselves. Speaking is not so necessary as governing. Nature, to shew that there is nothing barbarous where she has the sole command, does oftentimes, in nations, where art has the least to do, cause productions of wit, such as may rival the greatest effects of art whatever. As in relation to what I am now speaking of, the Gascon proverb, deriv'd from a corn-pipe, is very quaint and subtle. "Bouba prou bouba, mas a remuda lous dits qu'em." "You may blow till your eyes start out; but if once you offer to stir your fingers, you will be at the end of your lesson." We can say, Cicero says thus ; that these were the manners of Plato, and that these are the very words of Aristotle: but what do we say ourselves that is our own? What do we do? What do we judge? A parrot would say as much as that. And this kind of talking puts me in mind of that rich gentleman of Rome, who had been sollicitous, with very great expence, to procure men that were excellent in all sorts of science, which he had always attending his person, to the end, that when amongst his friends any occasion fell out of speaking of any subject whatsoever, they might supply his place, and be ready to prompt him, one with a sentence of Seneca, another with a verse of Homer, and so forth, every one according to his talent; and he fansied this knowledge to be his own, because in the heads of those who liv'd upon his bounty. As they also do whose learning consists in having noble libraries. I know one, who, when I question him about his reading, he presently calls for a book to shew me, and dare not venture to tell me so much. We take other mens knowledge and