BOOK I.] THE BENEFIT OF READING. 35 



ciples and rules. If it misleads, by the unsuitableness of 

 examples, it shows the force of circumstances, the errors of 

 comparisons, and the cautions of application ; so that in all 

 cases, it rectifies more effectually than it perverts : and these 

 remedies it conveys into the mind much more effectually by 

 the force and variety of examples. Let a man look into the 

 errors of Clement the Seventh, so livelily described liy 

 Guicciardini ; or into those of Cicero, described by himself 

 in his epistles to Atticus, and he will fly from being irre 

 solute : let him look into the errors of Phocion, and he will 

 beware of obstinacy or inflexibility : let him read the fable 

 of Ixion/ and it will keep him from conceitedness : let him 

 look into the errors of the second Cato, and he will never 

 tread opposite to the world. 2 



4. For the pretence that learning disposes to retirement, 

 privacy, and sloth ; it were strange if what accustoms the 

 mind to perpetual motion and agitation should induce in 

 dolence ; whereas no kind of men love business, for its own 

 sake, but the learned ; whilst others love it for profit, as 

 hirelings for the wages ; others for honour ; others because 

 it bears them up in the eyes of men, and refreshes their 

 reputations, which would otherwise fade ; or because it re 

 minds them of their fortune, and gives them opportunities of 

 revenging and obliging ; or because it exercises some faculty, 

 wherein they delight, and so keeps them in good humour 

 with themselves. Whence, as false valour lies in the eyes 

 of the beholders, such men s industry lies in the eyes of 

 others, or is exercised with a view to their own designs ; 

 whilst the learned love business, as an action according to 

 nature, and agreeable to the health of the mind, as exercise 

 is to that of the body : so that, of all men, they are the 

 most indefatigable in such business as may deservedly fill and 

 employ the mind. And if there are any laborious in study, 

 yet idle in business, this proceeds either from a weakness of 

 body, or a softness of disposition, and not from learning itself, 

 as Seneca remarks, &quot; Quidam tarn sunt umbratiles ut putent 

 in turbido esse, quicquid in luce est.&quot; a The consciousness ol 

 Biich a disposition may indeed incline a man to learning, but 

 learning does not breed any such temper in him. 



r Find. Pyth. ii. 21. Cic. ad Ait _. 1. 



Seneca s Epistles, iii. near the end. 

 D2 



