116 THE HERMIT S SPEECH IN THE PRESENCE. 



so many books of truth and knowledge, better worthy the 

 revolving ; and not fix his view only upon a picture in a 

 little table, when there be so many tables of histories, yea, 

 to life, excellent to behold and admire. Whether he believe 

 me or no, there is no prison to the prison of the thoughts, 

 which are free under the greatest tyrants. Shall any man 

 make his conceit, as an anchor, mured up with the compass 

 of one beauty or person, that may have the liberty of all 

 contemplation? Shall he exchange the sweet travelling 

 through the universal variety, for one wearisome and end 

 less round or labyrinth ? Let thy master, squire, offer his 

 service to the muses. It is long since they received any 

 into their court. They give alms continually at their gate, 

 that many come to live upon ; but few they have ever ad 

 mitted into their palace. There shall he find secrets not 

 dangerous to know ; sides and parties not factious to hold ; 

 precepts and commandments not penal to disobey. The 

 gardens of love, wherein he now placeth himself, are fresh 

 to-day, and fading to-morrow, as the sun comforts them, or 

 is turned from them. But the gardens of the muses keep 

 the privilege of the golden age ; they ever flourish, and are 

 in league with time. The monuments of wit survive the 

 monuments of power. The verses of a poet endure without 

 a syllable lost, while states and empires pass many periods, 

 Let him not think he shall descend ; for he is now upon a 

 hill, as a ship is mounted upon the ridge of a wave ; but 

 that hill of the muses is above tempests, always clear and 

 calm ; a hill of the goodliest discovery that man can have, 

 being a prospect upon all the errors and wanderings of the 

 present and former times. Yea, in some cliff it leadeth the 

 eye beyond the horizon of time, and giveth no obscure 

 divinations of times to come. So that if he will indeed lead 

 vitam vitalem, a life, that unites safety and dignity, pleasure 

 and merit ; if he will win admiration without envy ; if he 

 will be in the feast, and not in the throng ; in the light, and 

 not in the heat ; let him embrace the life of study and con 

 templation. And if he will accept of no other reason, yet 

 because the gift of the muses will enworthy him in love, 

 and where he now looks on his mistress s outside with the 

 eyes of sense, which are dazzled and amazed, he shall then 

 behold her high perfections and heavenly mind with the 

 eyes of judgment, which grow stronger by more nearly and 

 more directly viewing such an object. 



