Hi. 7.] THE FIRST BOOK. 1*5 



barbarous, but the moral is good : for men ought not by 

 cunning and bent observations to pierce and penetrate 

 into the hearts of kings, which the scripture hath de 

 clared to be inscrutable. 



8. There is yet another fault (with which I will con 

 clude this part) which is often noted in learned men, that 

 they do many times fail to observe decency and discre 

 tion in their behaviour and carriage, and commit errors 

 in small and ordinary points of action, so as the vulgar 

 sort of capacities do make a judgement of them in greater 

 matters by that which they find wanting in them in 

 smaller. But this consequence doth oft deceive men, 

 for which I do refer them over to that which was said by 

 Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to 

 himself out of his own mouth, but, being applied to the 

 general state of this question, pertinently and justly; 

 when being invited to touch a lute he said He could 

 not fiddle, but he could make a small town a great slate. 

 So no doubt many may be well seen in the passages of 

 government and policy, which are to seek in little and 

 punctual occasions. I refer them also to that which 

 Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared 

 to the gallipots of apothecaries, which on the outside had 

 apes and owls and antiques but contained within so 

 vereign and precious liquors and confections ; acknow 

 ledging that to an external report he was not without 

 superficial levities and deformities, but was inwardly re 

 plenished with excellent virtues and powers. And so 

 much touching the point of manners of learned men. 



9. But in the mean time I have no purpose to give 

 allowance to some conditions and courses base and 

 unworthy, wherein divers professors of learning have 

 wronged themselves and gone too far ; such as were 



