often clear the passage and current to a man's fortune. But certain it is, whether it be believed or no, that as the most excellent of metals, gold, is of all other the most pliant, and most enduring to be wrought: so of all living and breathing substances, the perfectest man is the most susceptible of help, improvement, impression, and alteration; and not only in his body, but in his mind and spirit; and there again not only in his appetite and affection, but in his powers of wit and reason.

For as to the body of man, we find many and strange experiences, how nature is overwrought by custom, even in actions that seem of most difficulty and least possible. As first in voluntary motion, which though it be termed voluntary, yet the highest degrees of it are not voluntary; for it is in my power and will to run; but to run faster than according to my lightness or disposition of body, is not in my power nor will. We see the industry and practice of tumblers and funambulos what effects of great wonder it bringeth the body of man unto. So for suffering of pain and dolour, which is thought so contrary to the nature of man, there is much example of penances in strict orders of superstition, what they do endure such as may well verify the report of the Spartan boys, which were wont to be scourged upon the altar so bitterly as sometimes they died of it, and yet were never heard to complain. And to pass to those faculties which are reckoned more involuntary, as long fasting and abstinence, and the contrary extreme, voracity. The leaving and forbearing the use of drink for altogether, the enduring vehement cold and the like; there have not wanted, neither do want divers examples of strange victories over the body in every of these. Nay, in respiration, the proof hath been of some, who, by continual use of diving and working under the water, have brought themselves to be able to hold their breath an incredible time; and others that have been able, without suffocation, to endure the stifling breath of an oven or furnace, so heated as, though it did not scald nor burn, yet it was many degrees too hot for any man not made to it to breathe or take in. And some impostors and counterfeits, likewise, have been able to wreath and cast their bodies into strange forms and motions: yea, and others to bring themselves into trances and astonishments. All which examples do demonstrate how variously, and how to high points and degrees, the body of man may be (as it were) moulded and wrought. And if any man conceive that it is some secret propriety of nature that hath been in these persons which have attained to those points, and that it is not open for every man to do the like, though he had been put to it; for which cause such things come but very rarely to pass; it is true, no doubt, but some persons are apter than others; but so as the more aptness causeth perfection, but the less aptness doth not disable; so that, for example, the more apt child, that is taken to be VOL. I.-14

made a funambulo, will prove more excellent in his feats; but the less apt will be gregarius funambulo also. And there is small question, but that these abilities would have been more common, and others of like sort not attempted would likewise have been brought upon the stage, but for two reasons; the one because of men's diffidence in prejudging them as impossibilities; for it holdeth in those things which the poet saith, "possunt quia posse videntur;" for no man shall know how much may be done, except he believe much may be done. The other reason is, because they be but practices, base and inglorious, and of no great use, and therefore sequestered from reward of value; and on the other side, painful; so as the recompense balanceth not with the travel and suffering. And as to the will of man, it is that which is most maniable and obedient; as that which admitteth most medicines to cure and alter it. The most sovereign of all is religion, which is able to change and transform it in the deepest and most inward inclinations and motions: and next to that is opinion and apprehension; whether it be infused by tradition and institution, or wrought in by disputation and persuasion : and the third is example, which transformeth the will of man into the similitude of that which is most observant and familiar towards it; and the fourth is, when one affection is healed and corrected by another; as when cowardice is remedied by shame and dishonour, or sluggishness and backwardness by indignation and emulation; and so of the like; and lastly, when all these means, or any of them, have new framed or formed human will, then doth custom and habit corroborate and confirm all the rest; therefore it is no marvel, though this faculty of the mind (of will and election) which inclineth affection and appetite, being but the inceptions and rudiments of will, may be so well governed and managed, because it admitteth access to so divers remedies to be applied to it and to work upon it, the effects whereof are so many and so known as require no enumeration; but generally they do issue as medicines do, into two kinds of cures, whereof the one is a just or true cure, and the other is called palliation; for either the labour and inten tion is to reform the affections really and truly, restraining them if they be too violent, and raising them if they be too soft and weak, or else it is to cover them; or if occasion be, to pretend them and represent them: of the former sort whereof the examples are plentiful in the schools of philosophers, and in all other institutions of moral virtue; and of the other sort, the examples are more plentiful in the courts of princes, and in all politic traf fic, where it is ordinary to find not only profound dissimulations and suffocating the affections, that no note or mark appear of them outwardly, but also lively simulations and affectations, carrying the tokens of passions which are not, as "risus jussus," and "lachrymæ coacta," and the like

OF HELPS OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.

THE intellectual powers have fewer means to work upon them than the will or body of man; but the one that prevaileth, that is exercise, worketh more forcibly in them than in the rest.

The ancient habit of the philosophers; "Si quis quærat, in utramque partem, de omni scibili." The exercise of scholars making verses extempore; "Stans pede in uno."

The exercise of lawyers in memory narrative. The exercise of sophists, and "Jo. ad oppositum," with manifest effect.

Artificial memory greatly holpen by exercise. The exercise of buffoons, to draw all things to conceits ridiculous.

The means that help the understanding and faculties thereof are :

(Not example, as in the will, by conversation; and here the conceit of imitation already digested, with the confutation, "Obiter, si videbitur," of Tully's opinion, advising a man to take some one to imitate. Similitude of faces analysed.)

"per partes" and "per consequentiam," enable these faculties, which perhaps direct exercise at first would but distort: and these have chiefly place where the faculty is weak, not "per se," but "per accidens;" as if want of memory grow through lightness of wit and want of stayed attention, then the mathematics or the law helpeth; because they are things wherein if the mind once roam it cannot recover.

3. Of the advantages of exercise; as to dance with heavy shoes, to march with heavy armour and carriage; and the contrary advantage (in natures very dull and unapt) of working alacrity by framing an exercise with some delight or affection; "Veluti pueris dant crustula blandi

Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima."

4. Of the cautions of exercise; as to beware, lest by evil doing (as all beginners do weakly) a man grow not and be inveterate in an ill habit; and so take not the advantage of custom in perfection, but in confirming ill. Slubbering on the lute.

5. The marshalling, and sequel of sciences and practices logic and rhetoric should be used to be read after poesy, history, and philosophy. First, exercise to do things well and clean: after, prompt

Qu. If not here of imitation.

Collections preparative. Aristotle's similitude of a shoemaker's shop full of shoes of all sorts; Demosthenes Exordia concionum. Tully's precept, of Theses of all sorts, preparative.

The relying upon exercise, with the difference of using and tempering the instrument; and the similitude of prescribing against the laws of nature and of estate.

FIVE POINTS.

of either of both but most things which we utter are neither verbally premeditate, nor merely extemporal; therefore exercise would be framed to take a little breathing and to consider of heads; and then to fit and form the speech extempore; this would be done in two manners, both with writing and tables, and without: for in most actions it is permitted and passable to use the note; whereunto if a man be not accustomed it will put him

out.

There is no use of a narrative memory in academies, viz. with circumstances of times, persons, and places, and with names; and it is one art to discourse, and another to relate and describe; and herein use and action is most conversant.

Also to sum up and contract is a thing in action

swered, "Five-and-twenty gave me credit: but there were two-and-thirty that gave you no credit, for they had their money beforehand."

21. Many men, especially such as affect gravity, have a manner after other men's speech to shake their heads. Sir Lionel Cranfield would say, “It was as men shake a bottle, to see if there were any wit in their head or no?"

22. Sir Thomas More, who was a man in all his lifetime that had an excellent vein in jesting, at the very instant of his death, having a pretty long beard, after his head was upon the block, lift it up again, and gently drew his beard aside, and said, "This hath not offended the king."

23. Sir Thomas More had sent him by a suitor in chancery two silver flagons. When they were presented by the gentleman's servant, he said to one of his men, "Have him to the cellar, and let him have of my best wine:" and, turning to the servant, said, "Tell thy master, friend, if he like it, let him not spare it."

24. Diogenes, having seen that the kingdom of Macedon, which before was contemptible and low, began to come aloft when he died, was asked how he would be buried? He answered, "With my face downwards; for within a while the world will be turned upside down, and then I shall lie right."

25. Cato the elder was wont to say; that the Romans were like sheep; a man were better drive a flock of them, than one of them.

26. Themistocles in his lower fortune was in love with a young gentleman who scorned him; when he grew to his greatness, which was soon after, he sought to him: Themistocles said, "We are both grown wise, but too late."

27. Demonax the philosopher, when he died, was asked touching his burial. He answered, "Never take care for burying me, for stink will bury me." He that asked him said again: "Why, would you have your body left to dogs and ravens to feed upon?" Demonax answered, "Why, what great hurt is it, if having sought to do good, when I lived, to men; my body do some good to beasts, when I am dead."

people, one day, when he spake to the people, in one part of his speech, was applauded: whereupon he turned to one of his friends, and asked, "What have I said amiss ?"

31. Sir Walter Raleigh was wont to say of the ladies of Queen Elizabeth's privy-chamber and bed-chamber, "that they were like witches, they could do hurt, but they could do no good."

32. Bion, that was an atheist, was showed in a port city, in a temple of Neptune, many tables of pictures, of such as had in tempests made their vows to Neptune, and were saved from shipwreck: and was asked, "How say you now? Do you not acknowledge the power of the gods?" But he said, "Yes, but where are they painted that have been drowned after their vows?"

33. Bias was sailing, and there fell out a great tempest; and the mariners, that were wicked and dissolute fellows, called upon the gods; but Bias said to them, "Peace, let them not know you are here."

34. Bion was wont to say; "That Socrates, of all the lovers of Alcibiades, only held him by the ears."

35. There was a minister deprived for inconformity, who said to some of his friends, “That if they deprived him, it should cost an hundred men's lives." The party understood it, as if, being a turbulent fellow, he would have moved sedition, and complained of him; whereupon being convented and apposed upon that speech, he said his meaning was, "That if he lost his benefice, he would practise physic, and then he thought he should kill an hundred men in time." 36. Michael Angelo, the famous painter, painting in the pope's chapel the portraiture of hell and damned souls, made one of the damned souls so like a cardinal that was his enemy, as everybody at first sight knew it. Whereupon the cardinal complained to Pope Clement, desiring it might be defaced; who said to him, " Why, you know very well, I have power to deliver a soul out of purgatory, but not out of hell."

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29. When Lycurgus was to reform and alter the state of Sparta; in the consultation one advised, that it should be reduced to one absolute popular equality: but Lycurgus said to him; "Sir, begin it in your own house."

30. Phocion, the Athenian, a man of great severity, and noways flexible to the will of the

38. Alcibiades came to Pericles, and stayed a while ere he was admitted. When he came in, Pericles civilly excused it, and said; "I was studying how to give my account." But Alcibiades said to him, "If you will be ruled by me, study rather how to give no account."

39. Cicero was at dinner, where there was an ancient lady that spake of her years, and said, "she was but forty years old." One that sat by Cicero rounded him in the ear, and said; "She talks of forty years old; and she is far more, out of question." Cicero answered him again; "I must believe her, for I have heard her say so any time these ten years."

40. Pope Adrian the Sixth was talking with K