THE FIRST BOOK 179 



Cicero painted out by his own pencil in his epistles to 

 Atticus, and he will fly apace from being irresolute. Let \\j*** 

 him look into the errors of Phocion, and he will beware ' ^ I 

 how he be obstinate or inflexible. Let him but read the 

 fable of Ixion, and it will hold him from being vaporous 

 or imaginative. Let him look into the errors of Cato the 

 second, and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to 

 tread opposite to the present world. fa y accuser^ ~ 



And for the cpncekjia_learning should dispose men to 

 leisure and privateness, and make men slothful ; it were a ^ 

 strange thing if that which accustometh the mind to a i ^ 

 perpetual motion and agitation should induce slothfulness ; 

 whereas contrariwise it may be truly affirmed that no kind 

 of men love business for itself but those that are learned ; 

 for other persons love it for profit, as an hireling that 

 loves the work for the wages ; or for honour, as because it 

 beareth them up in the eyes of men, and refresheth their 

 reputation which otherwise would wear ; or because it 

 putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them 

 occasion to pleasure and displeasure; or because it exer- 

 ciseth some faculty wherein they take pride, and so 

 entertaineth them in good humour and pleasing conceits 

 toward themselves; or because it advanceth any other 

 their ends. So that as it is said of untrue valours that 

 some men's valours are in the eyes of them that look on, 

 so such men's industries are in the eyes of others, or at 

 least in regard of their own designments ; only learned 

 men love business as an action according to nature, as 

 agreeable to health of mind as exercise is to health of 

 body, taking pleasure in thfcJiEt" frgftlfcjynH *** in the 

 purchase : so that of all men they are the most indefatig- 

 able, if it be towards any business which can hold or 

 detain their mind. 



And if any man be laborious in reading and study and 

 yet idle in business and action, it groweth from someJJ 1 ^ 

 weakness of body or softness of spirit, such as Seneca \d/*' 

 speaketh of; Quidam tarn sunt umbratiles, ut putent In turbido 

 esse quicquid in luce est; and. not of learning. Well may it 

 be that such a point of a man's nature may make him give 



