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and therefore seldom either honest of life, or rich in living when they be old. For quick in wit, and light in manners, be either seldom troubled, or very soon weary in carrying a very heavy purse. Quick wits also be in most part of all their doings over quick, hasty, rash, heady, and brainsick. These two last words, heady and brainsick, be fit and proper words, rising uaturally of the matter, and termed aptly by the condition of overmuch quickness of wit. In youth also they be ready scoffers, privy mockers, and ever over light and merry : in age, soon testy, very waspish, and always over miserable. And yet few of them come to any great age, by. reason of their misordered life when they were young; but a great deal fewer of them come to show any great countenance, or bear any great authority abroad in the world; but either live obscurely, men know not how, or die obscurely, men mark not when.

"They be like trees, that show forth fair blossom and broad leaves in spring time, but bring out small and not long-lasting fruit in harvest time; and that only such as fall and rot before they be ripe, and so never or seldom come to any good at all. For this you shall find most true by experience, that amongst a number of quick wits in youth, few be found in the end either very fortunate for themselves, or very profitable to serve the commonwealth, but decay and vanish, men know not which way; except a very few, to whom peradventure blood and happy parentage may perchance purchase a long standing upon the stage. The which felicity, because it cometh by others' procuring, not by their own deserving, and stands by other men's feet, and not by their own, what outward brag soever is borne by them, is indeed of itself, and in wise men's eyes, of no great estimation." D 3

The author here gives it as his opinion, that there are certain sciences by the over-much study and use of which "some wits, moderate enough by nature, be many times marred." The sciences against which he thus warns moderate wits are music (in which he is said to have been himself a proficient), arithmetic, and geometry. "These sciences," he says, "as they sharpen men's wits overmuch, so they change men's manners over sore, if they be not moderately mingled, and wisely applied to some good use of life. Mark all mathematical heads, which be only and wholly bent to those sciences, how solitary they be themselves, how unfit to live with others, and how unapt to serve in the world." In support of this notion he quotes Galen, Plato, and Cicero, as all condemning much music, on the ground that it "marreth men's manners;" and he refers to what he had himself written more at large on the matter, twenty years ago, in his BOOK OF SHOOTING. The passage in the Toxophilus is curious as giving the grounds on which Ascham appears to have taken up these opinions. He there observes that "lutes, harps, barbitons, sambukes, with other instruments, every one which standeth by fine and quick fingering, be condemned of Aristotle, as not to be brought in and used among them which study for learning and virtue." Music, he thinks, doth to a man's mind, "as honey doth to a man's stomach, which at the first receiveth it well, but afterward it maketh it unfit to abide any strong nourishing meat, or else any wholesome, sharp, and quick drink. And even so in a manner these instruments make a man's wit so soft and smooth, so tender and quaisy, that they be less able to brook strong and tough study. Wits be not sharpened, but rather dulled,

and made blunt with such sweet softness, even as good edges be blunted, which men whet upon soft chalk stones."

In the present work he contends, generally, that "overmuch quickness of wit, either given by nature, or sharpened by study, doth not commonly bring forth either greatest learning, best manners, or happiest life in the end." The sense in which he makes this proposition, as well as the reasons by which he defends it, will be understood from the passage that follows:

"Contrarywise, a wit in youth that is not over dull, heavy, knotty, and lumpish; but hard, tough, and though somewhat staffish, (as Tully wisheth olium quietum non languidum, and negotium cum labore, non cum periculo,)* such a wit, I say, if it be at the first well handled by the mother, and rightly smoothed and wrought as it should, not overthwartly and against the wood by the schoolmaster, both for learning and whole course of living, proveth always the best. In wood and stone, not the softest, but hardest, be always aptest for portraiture, both fairest for pleasure, and most durable for profit. Hard wits be hard to receive, but sure to keep; painful without weariness, heedful without wavering, constant without newfangleness; bearing heavy things, though not, lightly, yet willingly; entering hard things, though not easily, yet deeply; and so come to that perfectness of learning in the end, that quick wits seem in hope, but do not in deed, or else very seldom, ever attain unto.

"Also for manners and life, hard wits commonly are hardly carried, either to desire every new thing, or else

i. c. leisure which is quiet, but not languid; and business attended with exertion, but not with danger.

to marvel at every strange thing. And therefore they be careful and diligent in their own matters, not curious and busy in other men's affairs; and so they become wise themselves, and also are counted honest by others. They be grave, steadfast, silent of tongue, secret of heart; not hasty in making, but constant in keeping any promise; not rash in uttering, but wary in considering every matter; and thereby not quick in speaking, but deep of judgment, whether they write or give counsel in all weighty affairs. And these be the men that become in the end both most happy for themselves, and also always best esteemed abroad in the world.

"I have been longer in describing the nature, the good or ill success of the quick and hard wits, than perchance some will think this place and matter doth require. But my purpose was hereby plainly to utter what injury is offered to all learning, and to the commonwealth also, first by the fond father in choosing, but chiefly by the lewd* schoolmaster in beating and driving away the best natures from learning. A child that is still, silent, constant, and somewhat hard of wit, is either never chosen by the father to be made a scholar, or else when he cometh to the school, he is smally regarded, little looked unto; he lacketh teaching, he lacketh encouraging, he lacketh all things; only he never lacketh beating, nor any word that may move him to hate learning, nor any deed that may drive him from learning to any other kind of living.

"And when this sad-natured, and hard-witted child is beat from his book, and becometh after either student of the common law, or page in the court, or servingman, or bound prentice to a merchant, or to some han

* i. e. the intemperate.

dicraft, he proveth in the end wiser, happier, and many times honester too, than many of these quick wits do by their learning.

"Learning is both hindered and injured too by the ill choice of them that send young scholars to the Universities, of whom must needs come all our divines, lawyers, and physicians.

"These young scholars be chosen commonly, as young apples be chosen by children in a fair garden, about St. James tide. A child will choose a sweeting, because it is presently fair and pleasant, and refuse a runnet, because it is then green, hard, and sour; when the one, if it be eaten, doth breed both worms and ill humours; the other, if it stand his time, be ordered and kept as it should, is wholesome of itself, and helpeth to the good digestion of other meats. Sweetings will receive worms, rot, and die on the tree, and rever or seldom come to the gathering for good and lasting

store.

"For very grief of heart I will not apply the similitude; but hereby is plainly seen, how learning is robbed of the best wits, first, by the great beating, and after by the ill choosing of scholars to go to the Universities whereof cometh partly that lewd and spiteful proverb, sounding to the great hurt of learning, and shame of learned men, that the greatest clerks be not the wisest men.'

"And though I, in all this discourse, seem plainly to prefer hard and rough wits, before quick and light wits, both for learning and manners; yet I am not ignorant that some quickness of wit is a singular gift of God, and so most rare among men: and, namely, such a wit as is quick without lightness, sharp without brittleness,

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