Discoveries and Some Poems | Page 8

cause;
but he meant it not to me as a courtesy. I scaped pirates by being
shipwrecked; was the wreck a benefit therefore? No; the doing of
courtesies aright is the mixing of the respects for his own sake and for
mine. He that doeth them merely for his own sake is like one that feeds
his cattle to sell them; he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield.
Valor rerum.--The price of many things is far above what they are
bought and sold for. Life and health, which are both inestimable, we
have of the physician; as learning and knowledge, the true tillage of the
mind, from our schoolmasters. But the fees of the one or the salary of
the other never answer the value of what we received, but served to
gratify their labours.
Memoria.--Memory, of all the powers of the mind, is the most delicate
and frail; it is the first of our faculties that age invades. Seneca, the
father, the rhetorician, confesseth of himself he had a miraculous one,
not only to receive but to hold. I myself could, in my youth, have
repeated all that ever I had made, and so continued till I was past forty;
since, it is much decayed in me. Yet I can repeat whole books that I
have read, and poems of some selected friends which I have liked to
charge my memory with. It was wont to be faithful to me; but shaken
with age now, and sloth, which weakens the strongest abilities, it may
perform somewhat, but cannot promise much. By exercise it is to be
made better and serviceable. Whatsoever I pawned with it while I was
young and a boy, it offers me readily, and without stops; but what I
trust to it now, or have done of later years, it lays up more negligently,
and oftentimes loses; so that I receive mine own (though frequently
called for) as if it were new and borrowed. Nor do I always find

presently from it what I seek; but while I am doing another thing, that I
laboured for will come; and what I sought with trouble will offer itself
when I am quiet. Now, in some men I have found it as happy as Nature,
who, whatsoever they read or pen, they can say without book presently,
as if they did then write in their mind. And it is more a wonder in such
as have a swift style, for their memories are commonly slowest; such as
torture their writings, and go into council for every word, must needs
fix somewhat, and make it their own at last, though but through their
own vexation.
Comit. suffragia.--Suffrages in Parliament are numbered, not weighed;
nor can it be otherwise in those public councils where nothing is so
unequal as the equality; for there, how odd soever men's brains or
wisdoms are, their power is always even and the same.
Stare a partibus.--Some actions, be they never so beautiful and
generous, are often obscured by base and vile misconstructions, either
out of envy or ill-nature, that judgeth of others as of itself. Nay, the
times are so wholly grown to be either partial or malicious, that if he be
a friend all sits well about him, his very vices shall be virtues; if an
enemy, or of the contrary faction, nothing is good or tolerable in him;
insomuch that we care not to discredit and shame our judgments to
soothe our passions.
Deus in creaturis.--Man is read in his face; God in His creatures; not as
the philosopher, the creature of glory, reads him; but as the divine, the
servant of humility; yet even he must take care not to be too curious.
For to utter truth of God but as he thinks only, may be dangerous, who
is best known by our not knowing. Some things of Him, so much as He
hath revealed or commanded, it is not only lawful but necessary for us
to know; for therein our ignorance was the first cause of our
wickedness.
Veritas proprium hominis.--Truth is man's proper good, and the only
immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christian or
ethnic, if he be honest, can miss it; no statesman or patriot should. For
without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, or what you
will, rather than wisdom. Homer says he hates him worse than
hell-mouth that utters one thing with his tongue and keeps another in
his breast. Which high expression was grounded on divine reason; for a
lying mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with the contagion it venteth.

Beside, nothing is lasting that is feigned; it will have another face than
it had, ere long. {41} As Euripides saith, "No lie ever grows