af Brg 
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Caer ef 
XXIII, 3. THE SECOND BOOK. 21 
9 
is, almost everything becometh; but where that is 
not, it must be supplied by punfos and compliments. 
Again, there is no greater impediment of action than an 
over-curious observance of decency, and the guide of 
decency, which is time and season. For as Salomon 
saith, Que respicit ad ventos, non seminat; et qui respictt 
ad nubes, non metet: a man must make his opportunity, 
as oft as find it. To conclude, behaviour seemeth to me 
as a garment of the mind, and to have the conditions of 
a garment. For it ought to be made in fashion; it © 
ought not to be too curious; it ought to be shaped so as 
to set forth any good making of the mind and hide any 
deformity; and above all, it ought not to be too strait or 
restrained for exercise or motion. But this part of civil 
knowledge hath been elegantly handled, and therefore I 
cannot report it for deficient. 
4. The wisdom touching negotiation or business hath 
not been hitherto collected into writing, to” De negotiis 
the great derogation of learning, and the  s¢rendis. 
professors of learning. For from this root springeth 
chiefly that note or opinion, which by us is expressed in 
adage to this effect, that there is no great concurrence 
between learning and wisdom. For of the three wisdoms 
which we have set down to pertain to civil life, for wisdom 
of behaviour, it is by learned men for the most part de- 
spised, as an inferior to virtue and an enemy to meditation; 
for wisdom of government, they acquit themselves well 
when they are called to it, but that happeneth to few; 
but for the wisdom of business, wherein man’s life is most 
conversant, there be no books of it, except some tew 
scattered advertisements, that have ne proportion to the 
magnitude of this subject. For if books were written of 
this as the other, I doubt not but learned men with mean 
