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to be of the last impression and full of change. To take advice of some few friends is ever honourable, "for lookers-on many times see more than gamesters, and the vale best discovereth the hill." There is little friendship° in the world, and least of all between 5 equals, which was wont to be magnified. That that is, is between superior and inferior, whose fortunes may comprehend the one the other.

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XLIX. OF SUITORS

MANY ill matters and projects are undertaken, and private suits do putrefy the public good. Many 10 good matters are undertaken with bad minds: I mean not only corrupt minds, but crafty minds, that intend not performance. Some embrace suits, which never mean to deal effectually in them; but if they see there may be life in the matter by some 15 other mean, they will be content to win a thank or take a second reward, or at least to make use in the mean time of the suitor's hopes. Some take hold of suits only for an occasion to cross some other; or to make an information whereof they could not 20 otherwise have apt pretext, without care what become of the suit when that turn is served; or, generally, to make other men's business a kind of entertainment to bring in their own. Nay, some undertake suits with a full purpose to let them fall, to the end to 24 gratify the adverse party or competitor.

Surely there is in some sort a right in every suit. either a right of equity, if it be a suit of controversy; or a right of desert, if it be a suit of petition. If affection lead a man to favour the wrong side in jus5 tice, let him rather use his countenance to compound the matter than to carry it. If affection lead a man to favour the less worthy in desert, let him do it without depraving or disabling the better deserver. In suits which a man doth not well understand, it is 10 good to refer them to some friend of trust and judgment, that may report whether he may deal in them with honour; but let him choose well his referendaries, for else he may be led by the nose.

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Suitors are so distasted with delays and abuses, 15 that plain dealing in denying to deal in suits at first and reporting the success barely, and in challenging no more thanks than one hath deserved, is grown not only honourable, but also gracious. In suits of favour the first coming ought to take little place; 20 so far forth consideration may be had of his trust,° that if intelligence of the matter could not otherwise have been had but by him, advantage be not taken of the note, but the party left to his other means, and in some sort recompensed for his discovery.° To 25 be ignorant of the value of a suit is simplicity, as well as to be ignorant of the right thereof is want of conscience.

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Secrecy in suits is a great mean of obtaining; for voicing them to be in forwardness may discour30 age some kind of suitors, but doth quicken and

awake others. But timing of the suit is the principal. Timing, I say, not only in respect of the person that should grant it, but in respect of those which are like to cross it. Let a man, in the choice of his mean,° rather choose the fittest mean than the greatest 5 mean; and rather them that deal in certain things than those that are general.°

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The reparation of a denial is sometimes equal to the first grant, if a man show himself neither dejected nor discontented. "Iniquum petas, ut 10 æquum feras" is a good rule where a man hath strength of favour; but otherwise a man were better rise in his suit, for he that would have ventured at first to have lost the suitor, will not, in the conclusion, lose both the suitor and his own former favour.° 15

Nothing is thought so easy a request to a great person as his letter°; and yet if it be not in a good cause, it is so much out of his reputation. There are no worse instruments than these general contrivers of suits: for they are but a kind of poison and 20 infection to public proceedings.

L. OF STUDIES

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STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament is in discourse; and for ability is in the judgment and disposition of business. 25 For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge

of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth, to use them too much for 5 ornament is affectation, to make judgment only by their rules is the humour of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience. For natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning by study; and studies themselves do give 10 forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use, but that is a wisdom without them and above them, won by 15 observation.

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Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.° Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to 20 be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; 25 but that would be only in the less important arguments and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And there30 fore if a man write little, he had need have a great

memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not.

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Histories make men wise, poets witty, the mathematics subtile, natural philosophy deep, moral grave, 5 logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia° in mores." Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies, like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins 10 shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for the stomach, riding for the head, and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit 15 be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen, for they are cymini sectores.° If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind 20 may have a special receipt.

LI. OF FACTION

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MANY have an opinion not wise, that for a prince to govern his estate, or for a great person to govern his proceedings, according to the respect of factions, is a principal part of policy; whereas, contrariwise. 25 the chiefest wisdom is, either in ordering those things

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