80 ESS A YS CIVIL AND MORAL. 



spend too much time in studies, is sloth: to use them too much for 

 ornament, is affectation; to make judgment only by their rules, is the 

 humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by 

 experence: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need 

 pruning by study ; and studies themselves do give forth directions too 

 much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men 

 contemn studies ; simple men admire them ; and wise men use them : 

 for they teach not their own use : but that is a wisdom without them, 

 and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and 

 confute ; nor to believe and take for granted ; nor to find talk and 

 discourse ; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, 

 others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ; that 

 is, some books are to be read only in parts ; others to be read, but not 

 curiously ; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and 

 attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts 

 made of them by others ; but that would be only in the less important 

 arguments, and the meaner sort of books : else distilled books are like 

 common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; 

 conference a ready man ; and writing an exact man. And therefore if 

 a man write little, he had need have a great memory : if he confer 

 little, he had need have a present wit ; and if he read little, he had 

 need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories 

 make men wise ; poets, witty ; the mathematics, subtile ; natural 

 philosophy, deep ; moral, grave ; logic and rhetoric, able to contend : 

 4i Abcunt studia in mores.&quot; Nay, there is no stond nor impediment in 

 the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies ; like as diseases of the 

 body may have appropriated exercises : bowling is good for the stone 

 and reins ; shooting for the lungs and breast ; gentle walking for the 

 stomach; riding for the head ; and the like. So if a man s wit be 

 wandering, let him study the mathematics ; for in demonstrations, if 

 his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again: if his wit 

 be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the school 

 men ; for they are cymini scctorcs : if he be not apt to beat over 

 matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let 

 him study the lawyers cases : so every defect of the mind may have a 

 special receipt. 



LI. OF FACTION. 



Many have an opinion not wise ; that for a prince to govern his 

 estate, or for a great person to govern his proceedings, according to 

 the respect of factions, is a principal part of policy; whereas, con 

 trariwise, the chicfcst wisdom is, cither in ordering those things which 

 are general, and wherein men of several factions do nevertheless 

 agree, or in dealing with correspondence to particular persons, one by 

 one. But I say not, that the consideration of factions is to be neglected. 

 Mean men, in their rising, must adhere ; but great men, that have 

 strength in themselves, were better to maintain themselves indifferent 

 and neutral. Yet even in beginners, ID adhere so moderately, as he 

 be a man of the one faction, which is most passable with the other, 



