business; for the experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them, but in new things abuseth them.

The errors of young men are the ruin of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this that 25 more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have 30 chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and (that which doubleth all errors) will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse that will neither stop nor turn.

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.

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Certainly it is good to compound employments of 40 both. For that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both; and good for succession, that young men may be learners, while men in age are actors; and, lastly, good for extern accidents, because authority followeth old men, and favour and popularity youth.

But, for the moral part, perhaps, youth will have the pre-eminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain Rabbin, upon the text, Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, inferreth that young men are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream. And, certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth; and age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding, than in the virtues of the will and affections.

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There be some have an over-early ripeness in their years, which fadeth betimes. These are, first, such as have brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned; such 60 as was Hermogenes the rhetorician, whose books are exceeding subtle, who afterwards waxed stupid. A second sort is of those that have some natural dispositions which have better grace in youth than in age; such as is a fluent and luxurious speech, which becomes youth 65 well, but not age. So Tully saith of Hortensius, Idem manebat, neque idem decebat. The third is of such as take too high a strain at the first, and are magnanimous more than tract of years can uphold. As was Scipio Africanus, of whom Livy saith in effect, Ultima primis 70 cedebant.

XLIII

Of Beauty

ΤΟ

VIRTUE is like a rich stone, best plain set; and surely virtue is best in a body that is comely, though not of delicate features, and that hath rather dignity of presence than beauty of aspect. Neither is it almost seen that very beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue; as 5 if nature were rather busy not to err, than in labour to produce excellency. And therefore they prove accomplished, but not of great spirit; and study rather behaviour than virtue. But this holds not always; for Augustus Cæsar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le Bel of France, Edward IV. of England, Alcibiades of Athens, Ismael the Sophy of Persia, were all high and great spirits, and yet the most beautiful men of their times. In beauty, that of favour is more than that of colour, and that of decent and gracious motion more than that of favour. That is the best part of beauty which a picture cannot express, no, nor the first sight of the life. There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A man cannot tell whether Apelles or Albert Durer were the more trifler; whereof 20

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the one would make a personage by geometrical proportions, the other by taking the best parts out of divers faces to make one excellent. Such personages, I think, would please nobody but the painter that made them. 25 Not but I think a painter may make a better face than ever was, but he must do it by a kind of felicity (as a musician that maketh an excellent air in music), and not by rule. A man shall see faces that, if you examine them part by part, you shall find never a good, and yet 30 all together do well. If it be true that the principal part of beauty is in decent motion, certainly it is no marvel though persons in years seem many times more amiable : Pulchrorum autumnus pulcher. For no youth can be comely but by pardon, and considering the youth, as to 35 make up the comeliness. Beauty is as summer-fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and cannot last; and for the most part, it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a little out of countenance; but yet certainly again, if it light well, it maketh virtue shine, and vices blush.

XLIV

Of Deformity

5

DEFORMED persons are commonly even with nature. For as nature hath done ill by them, so do they by nature; being for the most part (as the Scripture saith) void of natural affection. And so they have their revenge of nature. Certainly there is a consent between the body and the mind, and where nature erreth in the one she ventureth in the other. Ubi peccat in uno, periclitatur in altero. But because there is in man an election touching the frame of his mind, and a necessity in the frame of his body, the stars of natural inclination r are sometimes obscured by the sun of discipline and virtue. Therefore it is good to consider of deformity, not as a sign (which is more deceivable) but as a cause which seldom faileth of the effect.

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Whosoever hath anything fixed in his person that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself to rescue and deliver himself from scorn. Therefore, all deformed persons are extreme bold, first, as in their own defence, as being exposed to scorn, but in process of time by a general habit. Also, it stirreth 20