The extravagant humour of our country is not to be altogether commended, that all men fhould aspire to book-learning. There is not a fimpler animal, and a more fuperfluous member of ftate, than a mere fcholar, than only a felfpleasing student; he is Telluris inutile pondus.

The Goths forbore to destroy the libraries of the Greeks and Italians, becaufe books fhould keep them ftill foft, fimple, or too cautious in warlike affairs. Archimedes, though an excellent engi. neer, when Syracufe was loft, was found at his book in his study, intoxicated with fpeculations. Who would not have thought another great learned philofopher to be a fool or frantic, when being in a bath he leaped out naked among the people, and cried, "I have found it! "I have found it!" having hit then upon an extraordinary conclufion in geometry? There is a famous tale of Tho mas Aquinas, the Angelical Doctor, and of Bonadventure, the Seraphical Doctor, of whom Alexander Hales (our countryman and his master) reports, that it appeared not in him whether Adam had finned. Both thefe great clerks being invited to dinner by the French King, of purpose to obferve their humours, and being brought to the room where the table was laid, the first fell a-eating of bread as hard as he could drive; at laft, breaking out of a brown ftudy, he cried out, "Conclufum eft contra Manichæos." The other fell a-gazing upon the Queen, and the King afking him how he liked her, he answered, "Oh, Sir, if an earthly "Queen be fo beautiful, what shall we "think of the Queen of Heaven?" The latter was the better courtier of the two. Hence we may infer, that your mere book men, your deep clerks, whom we call the only learned men, are not always the civilest or the best moral men; nor is too great a number of them convenient for any state, leading a foft fedentary life, efpecially thofe who feed their own fancies only upon the public ftock. Therefore it were to be wished that there reigned not among the people of this land fuch a general itching after book-learning, and I believe fo many freeschools do rather hurt than good. Nor did the art of printing much avail the Chriftian commonwealth, but may be faid to be well near as fatal as gunpowder,

re

which came up in the fame age; for, under correction, to this may be partly afcribed that fpiritual pride, that variety of dogmatifts which fwarm among us. Add hereunto, that the exceffive number of those who converfe only with books, and whofe profeffion confifts in them, is fuch, that one cannot live for another, according to the dignity of the calling: a phyfician cannot live for the phyficians, a lawyer (civil and common) cannot live for lawyers; nor a divine for divines. Moreover, the multitudes that profefs thefe three beft vocations, especially the laft, make them of far less esteem. There is an odd opinion among us, that he who is a contemplative man, a man who weds himself to his study, and fwallows many books, muft needs be a profound scholar, and a great learned man, though ality he be fuch a dolt, that he hath neither a retentive faculty to keep what he hath read, nor wit to make any ufeful application of it in common difcourfe: what he draws in lieth upon dead lees, and never grows fit to be broached. Befides, he may want judgment in the choice of his authors, and knows not how to turn his hand either in weighing or winnowing the foundeft opinions. There are divers who are cried up for great clerks, who want difcretion. Others, though they wade deep into the caufes and knowledge of things, yet they are fubject to fcrew up their wits, and foar fo high. that they lofe themselves in their own fpeculations; for thinking to tranfcend the ordinary pitch of reafon, they come to involve the common principles of phi lofophy in a mist: instead of illuftrating things, they render them more obfcure inftead of a plainer and shorter way to the palace of knowledge, they lead us through briery odd uncouth paths, and fo fall into the fallacy called notum per ignotius. Som have the hap to be termed learned men though they have gathered up but th fcraps of knowledge here and there though they be but fmatterers, and mer fciolifts, fcarce knowing the boties o things; yet, like empty cafks, if the can make a found, and have a gift t vent with confidence what they hav fucked in, they are accounted grea fcholars. Among all book-learned men except the divine, to whom all learne men fhould be lacqueys, the philofo pher who hath waded through all th

mathema

I

Sir,

29th Aug. 1649. HAD two of yours lately, one in Italian, the other in French (which were anfwered in the fame dialect), and as I read them with fingular delight, fo I must tell you, they truck an admiration into me, that in fo fhort a revolution of time you should come to be fo great a matter of thofe languages both for the pen and parly. I have known divers, and thofe of pregnant and ripe capacities, who had fpent more oil and time in thofe countries, yet could they not arrive to that double perfection which you have; for if they got one, they were commonly defective in the other. Therefore I may fay, that you have not Spartam nactus, which was but a petty republic, fed italiam Galliam nactus es, bes orna; you have got all Italy and France: adorn thefe.

Nor is it language that you have only brought home with you; but I find that you have studied the men and the manners of thofe nations you have converfed withal. Neither have you courted only all their fair cities, caftles, houfes of pleafure, and other places of curiofity, but you have pried into the very myfteries of their government, as I find by thofe choice manufcripts and obfervations you have brought with you. In all thefe things you have been fo curious, as if the foul of your great uncle, who was cmployed Ambaftador in the Imperial Court, and who held correfpondence with the greatest men of Christendom in their own language, had tranfmigrated into you.

The frethet news here is, that thofe

heart-burnings and fires of civil commotions which you have left behind you in France, covered over with thin afhes for the time, are broken out again; and I believe they will be never quite extin guifhed till there be a peace or truce with Spain, for till then there is no hope of abatement of taxes. And it is feared the Spanish will out-weary the French at laft in fighting; for the earth herself, I mean his mines of Mexico and Peru, afford him a conftant and yearly treafure to fupport his armies; whereas the French King digs his treafure out of the bowels and vitalipirits of his own fubjects.

I pray let me hear from you by the next opportunity, for I fhall hold my time well employed to correfpond with a gentleman of fuch choice and gallant parts; in which defires I reft your mott affectionate and faithful fervitor.

LETTER XCIII.

From the fame to Sir K. D. at Paris.
Sir,
Fleet, 5th May 1647.

NOW that you are returned, and fixed

a while in France, an old fervant of yours takes leave to kifs your hands, and falute you in an intenfe degree of heat and height of paffion. It is well you fhook hands with this unfortunate le when you did, and got your liberty by fuch a royal mediation as the Queen's Regents; for had you flayed, you would have taken but little comfort in your life, in regard that ever fince there have been the fearfulleft diftractions here that ever happened upon any part of the earth; a belluine kind of immanity never ranged fo among men, infomuch that the whole country might have taken its appellation from the fmalleft part thereof, and be called the Ifle of Dogs; for all humanity, common honefly, and that manfuetude, with other moral civilities which thould diftinguifh the rational creature from other animals, have been loft here a good while. Nay, befides this cynical, there is a kind of wolfish humour hath feized upon most of this people, a true lycanthropy, they fo worry and feek to devour one an other; fo that the wild Arab and fiercell Tartar may be called civil men in compari fon of us: therefore he is the happiett who is the furtheft off from this woful iflard. The King is ftraitened of that liberty he for

merly

I HAVE often partaken of that pleasure which letters ufe to carry along with

found a greater proportion of delight than yours afford me Your laft of the fourth current came to fafe hand, wherein methought each line, each word, each fliable breathed out the paffions of a clear and candid fcal, of a virtuous and gende fpirit. Truly, Sir, as I might perceive by your ingenuous and pathetical expretions therein, that you were tranfported with the heat of true affection towards me in the writing, fo was I in the reading, which wrought upon me With fuch an energy, that a kind of exbir puffed me for the time. I pray, Siry go on in this corripondence, and We all fod that your libes will not be I betowed upon me, for I love and rebeat von derly wel: or is this love grounded upon umar principles, bet fotole extraord am parte of vinue tive duhovered in E: and fact a the *** DA DEPT 2ts, & vor fi fide your mot afec.

Sir,

the Hague.

Fiest, 20th March 164,

THAT black tragedy which was litely

acted here, as it hath filled mot hearts among us with confernation and horror, fo I believe it hath been no lís refented abroad. For my own potica, lar, the more I ruminate upon it, the more it aftonifheth my imagination, and fhaketh all the cells of my bain; fo that fometimes I fraggle with my faith, and have much ado to waliove it yet, 1 6.49 give over wondering at a y tong here. after; nothing fal ferm ftra yo weng me; only 1 will attend with padeice pow bogland will move, wow that the i, iet blood in the batical vein, and cured, as they fay, of the ding/send

I had one of yours by Mo the Boems, and I miss mand account you pihale to prve me of what I fest you by in conveyance. may now be proud, for mom the yo