[A GOOD MAN'S INNOCENCE]

De bonis et malis- -De innocentiâ1

A GOOD man will avoid the spot of any sin. The very aspersion is grievous, which makes him choose his way in his life as he would in his journey. The ill man rides through all confidently; he is coated and booted for it. The oftener he offends, the more openly, and the fouler, the fitter in fashion. His modesty, like a riding-coat, the more it is worn is the less cared for. It is good enough for the dirt still, and the ways he travels in. An innocent man needs no eloquence, his innocence is instead of it, else I had never come off so many times from these precipices, whither men's malice hath pursued me. It is true I have been accused to the lords, to the king, and by great ones, but it happened my accusers had not thought of the accusation with themselves, and so were driven, for want of crimes, to use invention, which was found slander, or too late (being entered so far) to seek starting-holes for their rashness, which were not given them. And then they may think what accusation that was like to prove, when they that were engineers feared to be the authors. Nor were they content to feign things against me, but to urge things, feigned by the ignorant, against my profession, which though, from their hired and mercenary impudence, I might have passed by as granted to a nation of barkers that let out their tongues to lick others' sores; yet I durst not leave myself undefended, having a pair of ears unskilful to hear lies, or have those things said of me which I could truly prove of them. They objected making of verses to me, when I could object to most of them their not being able to read them, but as worthy of scorn. Nay, they would 1 Cf. APULEIUS, Apologia, in the beginning.

offer to urge mine own writings against me, but by pieces (which was an excellent way of malice), as if any man's context might not seem dangerous and offensive, if that which was knit to what went before were defrauded of his beginning; or that things by themselves uttered might not seem subject to calumny, which read entire would appear most free. At last they upbraided my poverty: I confess she is my domestic; sober of diet, simple of habit, frugal, painful, a good counseller to me, that keeps me from cruelty, pride, or other more delicate impertinences, which are the nurse-children of riches. But let them look over all the great and monstrous wickedness, they shall never find those in poor families. They are the issue of the wealthy giants and the mighty hunters, whereas no great work, or worthy of praise or memory, but came out of poor cradles. It was the ancient poverty that founded commonwealths, built cities, invented arts, made wholesome laws, armed men against vices, rewarded them with their own virtues, and preserved the honor and state of nations, till they betrayed themselves to riches.

THAT THE VISITING OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES IS GOOD AND

PROFITABLE: BUT TO WHOM, AND HOW FAR?

(From An Itinerary, etc. Part III, Bk. 1, Chap. 1)

SINCE the best and most generous wits most affect the seeing of foreign countries, and there can hardly be found a man so blockish, so idle, or so malicious as to discourage those that thirst after knowledge from so doing, I might seem to undertake a vain and needless task if I should persuade thereunto. Wherefore I pass over the abundant fruits it yieldeth. I will not speak of the experience thereby attained, which instructeth the most dull and simple, as the sun by his beams coloreth the passenger intending nothing else than to be so colored, and which neither by hearing nor any sense can so easily be gained as by the eyes. For since nothing is in the understanding which hath not first been in some of the senses, surely among the senses, which are as it were our sentinels and watchmen to spy out all dangers and conduct us through the thorny labyrinth of this life's pilgrimage, not any one is so vigilant, so nimble, so wary, nor by many degrees so trusty as the sight, according to the saying of the poet:

Segnius irritant animos delapsa per aures,
Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, etc.1
Less doth it move the mind that beats the ears,
Than what before the faithful eye appears.

1 HORACE, Ars Poetica, 180.

This ground of my discourse being granted, yet I am not so blindly affected to this course of traveling as I will thrust all into this warfare without difference or choice. First, women for suspicion of chastity are most unfit for this course, howsoever the masculine women of the Low Countries use to make voyages for traffic, not only to their own cities but even to Hamburg in Germany and more remote places; neither would I advise Angelica, if she were alive in these days, to trust herself alone and in desert places to the protection of wandering knights, lest she should meet with more strong encounters than was that of the weak hermit.

Nor yet will I herein give unlimited liberty to married men, holding Alexius unexcusable who left his bride upon the very marriage day. Yet after a due time of conversation to combine love, why should he not in summer season follow the wars at his prince's command, yea upon his free will, since we owe ourselves to our country as to our wives? Yea, why should he not search after politic wisdom by short excursions into foreign parts, since we permit merchants and mariners, though married, to take long voyages for gain, neither can gentlemen more enrich themselves than by the knowledge of military and political affairs? And indeed the civil law permits men to travel after the espousals. Always provided that this industry rather increase than diminish our estates, except our country be in question, in which case all respects to our private family, whether of love, of frugality, or whatsoever private good, must be cast behind our backs, since the commonwealth contains each private man's estate and a part must be put to hazard for the preservation of the whole body.

Let Plato the divine philosopher have patience with me though I be not of his opinion, who in his twelfth

THE UNIVERSIT OF MIUNIGAN LIDRANİLƏ

book of Laws1 assigneth to this course the last period of life, from the age of fifty years to threescore. It is true which he saith of that age, to be most able to discern between good and unprofitable laws and that it is less subject to infection from corrupt customs. Yet as some young men once freed of the tutor's awe be prone and apt to run into vices, so many old men (always comparing like dispositions), having forcibly restrained themselves from natural inclinations for fear of shame, this cause of restraint once taken away (while among strangers they are at more liberty), do often return to their own nature even in vices most improper to that age, and in that case their dotages are more slanderous both to themselves and their countries. Now that old men may dote in this sort, one example of Tiberius the Emperor may serve for plain proof thereof, who in his youth and the years of his strength having dissembled his wicked inclination, at last in his old age gave his nature the reins, and retiring himself, as it were out of the sight of the Senate and people of Rome, into the island of Caprea, there he shamelessly gave himself over to all beastly lust, thinking himself safe from the censure of the Romans though his wickedness was no less known in Rome than if it had been done in their marketplaces, according to the Italian proverb,

L'Amor e cieco e vede niente

Ma non son cieche l'altre gente.

Love is stark blind and sees nought done amiss,
But other people are not blind ywiss.

And though we should grant that which Plato attributes to old men, yet they whose custom is grown to another nature shall never be able to endure the frequent changes of diet and air, which young men cannot 1 § 951.