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commodious and successful application. For clothes cannot 

 be made to fit, unless the measure of the body be first taken. 



The first article, therefore, of the culture of the mind, will 

 regard the different natures or dispositions of men. But here 

 we speak not of the vulgar propensities to virtues and vices, or 

 perturbations and passions, but of such as are more internal 

 and radical. And I cannot sometimes but wonder that this par- 

 ticular should be so generally neglected by the writers both of 

 morality and politics; whereas it might afford great light to 

 both these sciences. In astrological traditions, the natures and 

 dispositions of men are tolerably distinguished according to the 

 influences of the planets ; whence some are said to be by nature 

 formed for contemplation, others for politics, others for war, 

 etc. So, likewise, among the poets of all kinds, we everywhere 

 find characters ot natures, though commonly drawn with ex- 

 cess, and exceeding the limits of nature. And this subject of 

 the different characters of dispositions is one of those things 

 wherein the common discourse of men is wiser than books a 

 thing which seldom happens. But much the best matter of all 

 for such a treatise may be derived from the more prudent his- 

 torians ; and not so well from eulogies or panegyrics, which are 

 usually written soon after the death of an illustrious person, but 

 much rather from a whole body of history, as often as such a 

 person appears : for such an interwoven account gives a better 

 description than panegyric. And such examples we have in 

 Livy, of Africanus and Cato ; in Tacitus, of Tiberius, Claudius, 

 and Nero; in Herodian, of Septimius Severus; in Philip de 

 Comines, of Louis XI. ; in Guicciardine, of Ferdinand of Spain, 

 the Emperor Maximilian, Pope Leo, and Pope Clement. 

 For these writers having the image of the person to be de- 

 scribed constantly before them, scarce ever mention any of 

 their acts, but at the same time introduce something of their 

 natures. So, likewise, some relations which we have seen of 

 the conclaves at Rome give very exact characters of the cardi- 

 nals: as the letters of ambassadors do of the counsellors of 

 princes. Let, therefore, an accurate and full treatise be wrote 

 upon this fertile and copious subject. But we do not mean, 

 that these characters should be received in ethics as perfect civil 

 images, but rather as outlines, and first draughts of the images 

 themselves, which, being variously compounded and mixnl 

 one among another, afford all kinds of portraits. So that an 

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