THE FIRST BOOK. 23 



proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not 

 entire and ingenuous ; which as in friendship it is want of 

 integrity, so towards princes or superiors is want of duty. 

 For the custom of the Levant, which is, that subjects do for 

 bear to gaze or fix their eyes upon princes, is in the outward 

 ceremony 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 declared to {/ 

 be inscrutable. 



There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude 10 

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

 many times fail to observe decency and discretion 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 judgment of them in greater matters by that 

 which they find wanting in them in smaller. But this con 

 sequence 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, 20 

 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 state. 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 sovereign and 

 precious liquors and confections; acknowledging that to an 

 external report he was not without superficial levities and 30 

 deformities, but was inwardly replenished with excellent 

 virtues and powers. And so much touching the point of 

 manners of learned men. 



But in the mean time I have no purpose to give allow 

 ance to some conditions and courses base and unworthy, 

 wherein divers professors of learning have wronged them- 



