would never light his tobacco with them. And those men almost named for miracles, who yet are so vile that if a man should go about to examine and correct them, he must make all they have done but one blot. Their good is so entangled with their bad as forcibly one must draw on the other's death with it. A sponge dipped in ink will do all :

Yet their vices have not hurt them; nay, a great many they have profited, for they have been loved for nothing else. And this false opinion grows strong against the best men, if once it take root with the ignorant. Cestius, in his time, was preferred to Cicero, so far as the ignorant durst. They learned him without book, and had him often in their mouths; but a man cannot imagine that thing so foolish or rude but will find and enjoy an admirer; at least a reader, or spectator. The puppets are seen now in despite of the players; Heath's2 epigrams and the Sculler's poems have their applause. There are never wanting that dare prefer the worst preachers, the worst pleaders, the worst poets; not that the better have left to write or speak better, but that they that hear them judge worse; Non illi pejus dicunt, sed hi corruptius judicant. Nay, if it were put to the question of the water-rhymer's works, against Spenser's, 1 Let a Punic Sponge go with the book. Many erasures are not enough a single sponging will suffice.-MARTIAL, IV, 10 2 John Heath, author of several collections of epigrams, 1610 and

1619.

3 John Taylor, the Water Poet.

4

4 SENECA THE ELDER, Controv., III, Proem, § 15.

I doubt not but they would find more suffrages; because the most favor common vices, out of a prerogative the vulgar have to lose their judgments and like that which is naught.

Poetry, in this latter age, hath proved but a mean mistress to such as have wholly addicted themselves to her, or given their names up to her family. They who have but saluted her on the by, and now and then tendered their visits, she hath done much for, and advanced in the way of their own professions (both the law and the gospel) beyond all they could have hoped, or done for themselves without her favor. Wherein she doth emulate the judicious but preposterous bounty of the time's grandees, who accumulate all they can upon the parasite or fresh-man in their friendship; but think an old client or honest servant bound by his place to write and starve.

Indeed, the multitude commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers, who if they come in robustiously and put for it with a deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness is a cause of their disgrace, and a slight touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. But in these things the unskilful are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things greater than polished, and scattered more numerous than composed; nor think this only to be true in the sordid multitude, but the neater sort of our gallants; for all are the multitude, only they differ in clothes, not in judgment or understanding.1

De Shakspeare nostrat

I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakspeare, that in his writing (whatsoCf. QUINTILIAN, II, 12, § 1-3.

ever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, "Would he had blotted a thousand,” which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this, but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by wherein he most faulted, and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the man, and do honor his memory on this side idolatry as much as any. He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent fancy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped. "Sufflaminandus erat," as Augustus said of Haterius. His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so, too. Many times he fell into those things, could not escape laughter, as when he said in the person of Cæsar, one speaking to him, "Cæsar, thou dost me wrong." He replied, "Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause;" and such like, which were ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices with his virtues. There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.

[DIFFERENCE OF WITS]

Ingeniorum discrimina 3

IN the difference of wits, I have observed there are many notes; and it is a little maistry to know them, to discern what every nature, every disposition will bear; for before we sow our land we should plough it. There are no fewer forms of minds than of bodies amongst The variety is incredible, and therefore we must Some are fit to make divines, some poets,

us. search.

1 He had to be repressed.

2 Cf. SENECA THE ELDER, Excerpta Controv., IV, Proem, § 7. 3 Cf. QUINTILIAN, II, 8, § 1ff.

- some lawyers, some physicians; some to be sent to the plough and trades.

There is no doctrine will do good where nature is wanting. Some wits are swelling and high; others low and still; some hot and fiery; others cold and dull; one must have a bridle, the other a spur.

There be some that are forward and bold; and these will do every little thing easily: I mean that is hard by and next them, which they will utter unretarded, without any shamefastness. These never perform much, but quickly. They are what they are on the sudden; they show presently, like grain that, scattered on the top of the ground, shoots up, but takes no root; has a yellow blade, but the ear empty. They are wits of good promise at first, but there is an ingenistitium;1 they stand still at sixteen, they get no higher.

You have others that labor only to ostentation; and are ever more busy about the colors and surface of a work than in the matter and foundation; for that is hid, the other is seen.

2

Others, that in composition are nothing but what is rough and broken. Quæ per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt. And if it would come gently, they trouble it of purpose. They would not have it run without rubs, as if that style were more strong and manly that struck the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by themselves; have some singularity in a ruff, cloak, or hat-band; or their beards specially cut to provoke beholders and set a mark upon themselves. They would be reprehended while they are looked on. And this vice, one that is in 1 A wit-stand.

That fall over the rough ways and high rocks.—MARTIAL. XI, 90.

authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to them to be imitated; so that oft-times the faults which he fell into, the others seek for. This is the danger, when vice becomes a precedent.1

Others there are that have no composition at all; but a kind of tuning and rhyming fall in what they write. It runs and slides, and only makes a sound. Women's poets they are called, as you have women's tailors.

They write a verse as smooth, as soft as cream,

In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream.

You may sound these wits and find the depth of them with your middle finger. They are cream-bowl-, or but puddle-deep.

and

Some, that turn over all books, and are equally searching in all papers, that write out of what they presently find or meet, without choice. By which means it happens that what they have discredited impugned in one work, they have before or after extolled the same in another. Such are all the essayists, even their master Montaigne. These, in all they write, confess still what books they have read last, and therein their own folly so much, that they bring it to the stake raw and undigested; not that the place did need it neither, but that they thought themselves furnished and would vent it.

Some, again, who after they have got authority, or, which is less, opinion, by their writings, to have read much, dare presently to feign whole books and authors, and lie safely. For what never was, will not easily be found, not by the most curious.

And some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert the sagacity of their readers from them1 Cf. SENECA, Epistles, 114.