XXI 11. .s.J THE SECOND BOOK. 219 



is, almost everything becometh ; but where that is 

 not, it must be supplied by puntos 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, Qui respicit ad ventos, non seminal; d qui respicit 

 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 gerendis. 

 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 few 

 scattered advertisements, that have no 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 



