ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 13 



than of a wise man, " Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum 

 sumus."* Nevertheless he who cannot contract the sight of his 

 mind, as well as dilate it, wants a great talent in life. The sec- 

 ond cause is, no inability, but a rejection upon choice and judg- 

 ment ; for the honest and just limits of observation in one per- 

 son upon another extend no further than to understand him 

 sufficiently, so as to give him no offence, or be able to counsel 

 him, or to stand upon reasonable guard and caution with re- 

 spect to one's self ; but to pry deep into another man, to learn 

 to work, wind, or govern him, proceeds from a double heart, 

 which in friendship is want of integrity, and towards princes or 

 superiors want of duty. The eastern custom which forbids sub- 

 jects to gaze upon princes, though in the outward ceremony 

 barbarous, has a good moral ; for men ought not, by cunning 

 and studied observations, to penetrate and search into the 

 hearts of kings, which the Scripture declares inscrutable./* 



Another fault noted in learned men is, " That they often fail 

 in point of discretion and decency of behavior, and commit 

 errors in ordinary actions, whence vulgar capacities judge of 

 them in greater matters by what they find them in small." But 

 this consequence often deceives ; for we may here justly apply 

 the saying of Themistocles, who being asked to touch a lute, 

 replied, " He could not fiddle, but he could make a little village 

 a great city."? Accordingly many may be well skilled in gov- 

 ernment and policy, who are defective in little punctilios. So 

 Plato compared his master Socrates to the shop-pots of apothe- 

 caries painted on the outside with apes and owls and antiques, 

 but contained within sovereign and precious remedies.** 



But we have nothing to offer in excuse of those unworthy 

 practices, whereby some professors have debased both them- 

 selves and learning, as the trencher philosophers, who, in the 

 decline of the Roman state, were but a kind of solemn para- 

 sites. Lucian makes merry with this kind of gentry, in the 

 person of a philosopher riding in a coach with a great lady, who 

 would needs have him carry her lapdog, which he doing with 

 an awkward officiousness, the page said, " He feared the Stoic 

 would turn Cynic." But above all, the gross flattery wherein 

 many abuse their wit, by turning Hecuba into Hellena, and 

 Faustina into Lucretia, has most diminished the value and 

 esteem of learning.* Neither is the modern practice of dedica- 

 tions commendable ; for books should have no patrons but truth 



