LETTERS FROM THE CABALA. 87 



issues of their actions, devices, and studies, are not to be 

 expected than is apparent by records, were in former times 

 observed. I remember here a note which Patercnlus made 

 of the incomparable wits of the Grecians and Romans, 

 in their flourishing state ; that there mi^ht be this reason of 

 their notable downfall, in their issue that came after, because 

 by nature, &quot; Quod summo studio petitum est, ascendit in 

 summum, difficilisque in perfecto mora est ;&quot; insomuch that 

 men perceiving that they could not go farther, being come 

 to the stop, they turned back again of their own accord, for 

 saking those studies that are most in request, and betaking 

 themselves to new endeavours, as if the thing they sought 

 had been by prevention fore-prized by others. So it fared 

 in particular with the eloquence of that age, that when 

 their successors found that hardly they could equal, by no 

 means excel their predecessors, they began to neglect the 

 study thereof, and speak for many hundred years in a rustical 

 manner, till this later resolution brought the wheel about 

 again, by inflaming gallant spirits to give the onset a fresh, 

 with straining and striving to climb unto the top and height 

 of perfection, not in that gift alone, but in every other skill in 

 any part of learning. For I do not hold it any erroneous 

 conceit to think of every science, that as now they are pro 

 fessed, so they have been before in all precedent ages, 

 though not alike in all places, nor at all times alike in one 

 and the same ; but according to the changes and turning of 

 times with a more exact and plain, or with a more rude and 

 obscure kind of teaching. 



And if the question should be asked, what proof I have 

 of it ; I have the doctrine of Aristotle, and of the deepest 

 learned clerks, of whom we have any means to take any 

 notice ; that as there is of other things, so there is of 

 sciences, &quot; ortus et interitus :&quot; which is also the meaning 

 (if I should expound it) of &quot; nihil novum sub sole,&quot; and is as 

 well to be applied &quot; ad facta,&quot; as &quot; ad dicta ; ut nihil neque 



