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135. THE ANCIENT CRITICS, THEIR EMPLOYMENT. To pass a censure upon all kinds of writings, to shew their several excellencies and defects, and especially to assign each of them to their proper authors, was the chief province and the greatest commendation of the ancient critics. And it appears from those remains of antiquity that are left us, that they never wanted employment. For to forge and counterfeit books, and father them upon great names, has been a practice almost as old as letters. But it was the most of all in fashion when the kings of Pergamus and Alexandria, rivalling one another in the magnificence and copiousness of their libraries, gave great rates for any treatises that carried the names of celebrated authors; which was an invitation to the scribes and copiers of those times to enhance the price of their wares, by ascribing them to men of fame and reputation: and to suppress the true names, that would have yielded less money.

And now

and then even an author that wrote for bread and made a traffic of his labours, would purposely conceal himself and personate some old writer of eminent note; giving the title and credit of his works to the dead, that himself might the better live by them. But what was then done chiefly for lucre was afterwards done out of glory and affectation, as an exercise of style and an ostentation of wit. In this the tribe of sophists are principally concerned; in whose schools it was the ordinary task to compose oroitas, to make speeches and write letters in the name and character of some hero, or great commander, or philosopher; Tívas av eiro λóyous; 'What would Achilles, Medea, or Alexander say in such or such circumstances?' Some of the Greek sophists had the success and satisfaction to see their essays in that kind pass with some readers for the genuine works of those they endeavoured to express: this, no doubt, was great content and joy to them; being as full a testimony of their skill in imitation, as the birds gave to the painter when they pecked at his grapes.

R. BENTLEY

136. SURRENDER OF THE CARTHAGINIANS TO THE ROMAN ARMY. The Carthaginians having given up hostages even before the Roman army did set forth, to perform whatsoever should be enjoined them, with condition that their city might not be destroyed; and having accordingly,

when they were so required, yielded up all their weapons and engines of war, the Romans told them plainly that the city of Carthage, which was the body of the citizens, should be friendly dealt withal; but the town must needs be demolished, and removed into some other place, that should be twelve miles distant from the sea. 'For,' said the Romans, 'this trade of merchandize, by which ye now live, is not so fit for peaceable men, such as ye promise to become hereafter, as is the trade of husbandry, an wholesome kind of life and enduing men with many laudable qualities, which enable their bodies and make them very apt for conversation.' This villanous dealing of the Romans, though sugared with glossing words, plainly shews what good observation the elder Cato had made of the hasty growth of Carthage in riches.

SIR W. RALEIGH

137. JUDGMENTS OF WISE MEN. It is therefore the voice both of God and nature, not of learning only, that especially in matters of action and policy, 'the sentences and judgments of men experienced, aged and wise, yea though they speak without any proof or demonstration, are no less to be hearkened unto, than as being demonstrations in themselves; because such men's long observation is as an eye, wherewith they presently and plainly behold those principles which sway over all actions.' Whereby we are taught both the cause wherefore wise men's judgments should be credited, and the mean how to use their judgments to the increase of our own wisdom. That which sheweth them to be wise, is the gathering of principles out of their own particular experiments. And the framing of our particular experiments according to the rule of their principles shall make us such as they are.

R. HOOKER

138. INTERFERENCE OF LEARNING WITH BUSINESS. And that learning should take up too much time or leisure: I answer; the most active or busy man that hath been or can be hath, no question, many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business (except he be either tedious and of no despatch or lightly and unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be better done by others :) and then the question is but, how those spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent; whether in plea

sures or in studies; as was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary Eschines, that was a man given to pleasure and told him that his orations did smell of the lamp: 'Indeed,' said Demosthenes, 'there is a great difference between the things that you and I do by lamp-light.' So as no man need doubt that learning will expulse business, but rather it will keep and defend the possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise at unawares may enter to the prejudice of both.

LORD BACON

BEES A PATTERN OF GOOD GOVERNMENT.

139. In a lyttel beast whiche of all other is most to be mervayled at, I meane the Bee, is left to man by nature, as it seemeth, a perpetual figure of a juste governaunce or rule: who have among them one principall Bee for theyr governour, which excelleth all other in greatnes, yet hath he no pricke or stinge, but in him is more knowledge thanne in the residue. For if the daye folowynge shall be fayre and dry, and that the bees maye yssue out of theyr stalles without peryll of raine or vehement wynd, in the mornyng erely he calleth them, makyng a noyse, as it were the sowne of a horne or a trumpet, and with that all the residue prepare them to labour and fleeth abrode, gatherynge nothynge but that shall be swete and profitable, althouge they sitte often tymes on herbes and other thynges that be venemous and stynkynge. The capitaine hymselfe laboureth not for his sustynaunce but all the other for him: he only seeth that if any drane or other unprofytable bee entereth into the hyve and consumeth the honey gathered by other that he be immediately expelled from that company. And whanne there is another nombre of bees encreased they semblably have alsoo a capitaine whiche be not suffered to continue with the other. Wherefore this new company gathered in a swarm havynge theyr capitaine among them and environyng him, to preserve him from harme yssue forthe, sekyng a new habitation; whiche they find in some tree, excepte with some pleasaunt noyse they be allured and conveyed into another hyve.

P. HOLLAND

140.

COMPARISON BETWEEN AGATHOCLES AND KING

RICHARD III. Agathocles, in an assembly of the people, (being an eloquent knave) persuaded them that, for the violent

sickness by which the commonwealth was utterly consumed, he found no better than the violent remedies which he had administered; and that he affected no other thing, than the reducing of the state from an oligarchy or the rule of a few tyrannous magistrates to the ancient and indifferent democraty, by which it had been governed from the first institution with so great glory and prosperity. This he did, to have the crown clap'd on his head (as it were) perforce. So as this rabble, his oration ended, proclaimed him king; again and again saluting and adoring him by that name, as if it had been given to him by some lawful election. Hence had our king Richard the Third a piece of his pattern; but the one was of base, the other of kingly parents; the one took liberty from a commonweal, the other sought only to succeed in a monarchy; the one continued his cruelty to the end, the other, after he had obtained the crown sought by making of good laws to recover the love of his people.

SIR W. RALEIGH

141.

OUTDOOR OCCUPATION OF AN ATHENIAN GENTLEMAN. I rise in the morning, about the hour when I may count on finding at home any person on whom I have occasion to call, and to attend to such business as I may have in the city. This affords me as good a morning walk as I require. If there is nothing to detain me in town, I send my horse and groom into the country, and proceed thither myself on foot: which I consider a better walking exercise than I can have in the city porticoes. On reaching my farm, I inspect any planting, ploughing, sowing, or harvest work, in which my people may happen to be engaged, and suggest any change or improvement in their operations that may occur to me. I then commonly mount my horse, and exercise him and myself, as nearly as may be, in the war practice of the cavalry, sparing no kind of pace or passage, in flank or front, over fence or ditch, unless where the nature of the ground might risk the laming of my charger. My ride being ended, the groom, after resting and giving him a roll leads him home, carrying with him anything that may be required for family use from the farm. I return as I went, on foot; and on reaching the city, repose and clean myself and partake of a moderate repast.

W. MURE

142. A DIALOGUE. In the mean time Alciphron and Lysicles, having despatched what they went about, returned to us. Lysicles sat down where he had been before. But Alciphron stood over against us, with his arms folded across and his head reclined on the left shoulder, in the posture of a man meditating. We sat silent, not to disturb his thoughts; and after two or three minutes he uttered these words, 'Oh truth! oh liberty!' after which he remained musing as before. Upon this Euphranor took the freedom to interrupt him. Alciphron, said he, it is not fair to spend your time in soliloquies. The conversation of learned and knowing men is rarely to be met with in this corner, and the opportunity you have put into my hands I value too much not to make the best use of it.

Alc. Are you then in earnest a votary of truth, and is it possible you should bear the liberty of a fair inquiry?

Euph. It is what I desire of all things.

Alc. What! upon every subject? upon the notions you first sucked in with your milk, and which have been ever since nursed by parents, pastors, tutors, religious assemblies, books of devotion, and such methods of prepossessing men's minds?

Euph. I love information upon all subjects that come in my way, and especially upon those that are most impor

tant.

Alc. If then you are in earnest, hold fair and stand firm, while I probe your prejudices and extirpate your principles.

G. BERKELEY

143. MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS-HER DEPARTURE FROM FRANCE. After bidding adieu to her mourning attendants, with a sad heart, and eyes bathed in tears, Mary left that kingdom, the short but only scene of her life in which fortune smiled upon her. While the French coast continued in sight, she intently gazed upon it, and musing, in a thoughtful posture, on that height of fortune whence she had fallen, and presaging perhaps the disasters and calamities which embittered the remainder of her days, she sighed often and cried out, 'Farewell, France! Farewell, beloved country, which I shall never more behold!' Even when the darkness of the night had hid the land from her view, she would neither retire to the cabin, nor taste food, but commanding a couch to be placed on the deck, she

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