The First Book 2 1 



little and punctual occasions. I refer them also to that 

 which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared 

 to the gaUipots of apothecaries, which on the outside had 

 apes and owls and antiques, but contained within sovereign 

 and precious Uquors and confections; acknowledging that 

 to an external report he was not without superficial levities 

 and deformities, but was inwaidly replenished with excel- 

 lent virtues and powers.^ And so much touching the point 

 of manners of learned men. 



g. But in the mean time I have no purpose to give allowance 

 to some conditions and courses base and unworthy wherein 

 divers professors of learning have wronged themselves and 

 gone too far; such as were those trencher philosophers 

 which in the later age of the Roman state were usually in 

 the houses of great persons, being little better than solemn 

 parasites; of which kind Lucian maketh a merry descrip- 

 tion of the philosopher that the great lady took to ride with 

 her in her coach, and would needs have him carry her little 

 dog, which he doing officiously and yet uncomely, the page 

 scoffed and said, That he doubted, the philosopher of a Stoic 

 would turn to be a Cynic.^ But above all the rest, the gross 

 and palpable flattery, whereunto many not unlearned have 

 abased and abused their wits and pens, turning, as Du 

 Bartas saith,® Hecuba into Helena, and Faustina into 

 Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and estimation of 

 learning. Neither is the moral * dedication of books and 

 writings, as to patrons, to be commended: for that books, 

 such as are worthy the name of books, ought to have no 

 patrons but truth and reason. And the ancient custom 

 was to dedicate them only to private and equal friends, or 

 to entitle the books with their names: or if to kings and 

 great persons, it was to some such as the argument of the 

 book was fit and proper for: but these and the like courses 

 may deserve rather reprehension than defence. 



ID. Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration or appli- 



^ Plat. Symp. iii 215, where the thought is present, though the 

 exact similitude is wanting. 



• Lucian. de Merc. Cond. n, 34. 



• See Bethulian's Rescue, bk. v. 



" Tous ces esprits dont la voix flattereuse 

 Change H6cube en HeI6ne, et Faustine en Lucrfece ' 



• Moral, here customary. 



