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AnrANCE&amp;gt;1fENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



or examination of the nature and customs of one person : for it is a 

 speech for a lover, and not for a wise man : &quot;Satis magnum alter alteri 

 thcatrum sumus.&quot; Nevertheless I shall yield, that he that cannot con 

 tract the sight of his mind, as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth 

 great faculty. But there is a second cause, which is no inability, but 

 a rejection upon choice and judgment : for the honest and just bounds 

 of observation, by one person upon another, extend no farthci, but to 

 understand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or whereby 

 to be able to give him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon 

 reasonable guard and caution, in respect of a man s self. But to be 

 speculative into another man, to the end to know how to work him, or 

 wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and 

 cloven, and not entire and ingenuous ; which, as in friendship, it is 

 want of integrity, so towards princes or superiors, is want of duty. 

 For the custom of the Levant, which is, that subjects do forbear to 

 gaze or fix their eyes upon princes, is in the outward ceremony barba 

 rous, but the moral is good : for men ought not, by cunning and bent 

 observations, to pierce and penetrate into the hearts of kings, which 

 the Scripture hath declared to be inscrutable. 



There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude this part) 

 which is often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to 

 observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage, and 

 commit errors in small and ordinary points of actions, so as the vulgar 

 sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters, by 

 that which they find wanting in them in smaller. But this consequence 

 doth often deceive men, for which I do refer them over to that which 

 was said by Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly, being applied to 

 himself out of his own mouth ; but, being applied to the general state 

 of this question, pertinently and justly ; when being invited to touch a 

 lute, he said, &quot;He could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a 

 great state.&quot; So, no doubt, many may be well seen in the passages of 

 government and policy, which are to seek in little and punctual 

 occasions. I refer them also to that which Plato said of his master 

 Socrates, whom he compared to the gallypots of apothecaries, which 

 on the outside had apes and owls, and antiques, but contained within 

 sovereign and precious liquors and confections ; acknowledging, that 

 to an external report, he was not without superficial levities and defor 

 mities, but was inwardly replenished with excellent virtues and 

 powers. And so much touching the point of manners of learned 

 men. 



Hut 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 latter 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 description 

 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, &quot; That he 



