ee 
antiquity made this difference: that whereas founders 
and uniters of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of 
tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent persons 
in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of worthies 
or demi-gods; such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minos, 
Romulus, and the like: on the other side, such as were 
inventors and authors of new arts, endowments, and 
commodities towards man’s life, were ever consecrated 
amongst the gods themselves; as was Ceres, Bacchus, 
Mercurius, Apollo, and others; and justly ; for the merit 
of the former is confined within the circle of an age or a 
nation ; and is like fruitful showers, which though they be 
profitable and good, yet serve but for that season, and for — 
a latitude of ground where they fall; but the other is 
indeed like the benefits of heaven, which are permanent 
and universal. The former again is mixed with strife 
and perturbation; but the latter hath the true character of 
Divine Presence, coming in aura lent, without noise or 
agitation. 
2, Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in re- 
pressing the inconveniences which grow from man to man, 
much inferior to the former, of relieving the necessities 
which arise from nature; which merit was lively set forth 
. <_ by the ancients in that feigned relation of Orpheus’ theatre, 
Y where all beasts and birds assembled ; and forgetting their 
| several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of 
quarrel, stood all sociably together listening unto the airs 
' and accords of the harp; the sound whereof no sooner 
| ceased, or was drowned by some louder noise, but every 
| beast returned to his own nature: wherein is aptly de- 
scribed the nature and condition of men, who are full of 
_ savage and unreclaimed desires, of profit, of lust, of re- 
venge; which as long as they give ear to precepts, to laws, 
; 
