lata sunt, dum videntur exolvi posse, ubi multum antevenere pro gratia odium redditur (CORN. TACIT. Annal. iv.). Benefits are so long wel-come, as wee thinke they may be requited, but when they much exceede all power of recompence, hate is returned for thankes and good will. And Seneca very stoutly. Nam qui putat esse turpe non reddere, non vult esse cui reddat (SEN. Epist. lxxxi. f.). For he that thinkes it a shame not to requite, could wish, he were not whom he should requite. Q. Cicero with a looser byas Qui se non putat satisfacere, amicus esse nullo modo potest (CICERO). He that thinkes he doth not satisfie, can by no meanes be a friend. The subject according as it is, may make a man be judged learned, wise and memorious but to judge in him the parts most his owne and best worthy, together with the force and beautie of his minde; 'tis very requisite we know first what is his owne, and what not: and in what is not his owne, what we are beholding to him for, in consideration of his choise, disposition, ornament, and language he hath thereunto furnished. What if he have borrowed the matter and empaired the forme? as many times it commeth to passe. Wee others that have little practise with bookes, are troubled with this, that when wee meet with any rare or quaint invention in a new Poet, or forcible argument in a Preacher, we dare not yet commend them, untill we have taken instruction of some wise man, whether that part be their owne or another bodies. And untill then I ever stand upon mine owne guard. I come lately from reading over, (and that without any intermission) the story of Tacitus (a matter not usuall with me; it is now twenty yeares, I never spent one whole houre together upon a booke) and I have now done it, at the instant request of a gentleman, whom France holdeth in high esteeme; as well for his owne worth and valour as for a constant forme of sufficiencie and goodnes, apparantly seene in divers brethren of his. I know no author, that in a publike register entermixeth so many considerations of manners, and particular inclinations. And I deeme cleane contrary, to what hee thinketh: who being especially to follow the lives of the Emperours of his time, so divers and extreme in all manner of forme, so many notable and great actions, which, namely their cruelty produced in their subjects: he

He

had a more powerfull and attractive matter, to discourse and relate, then if hee had beene to speake or treat of battels and universall agitations. So that I often find him barren, sleightlie running-over those glorious deaths, as if he feared to attediate and molest us with their multitude and continuance. This forme of historie is much more profitable: Publike innovations, depend more on the conduct of fortune: private on ours. It is rather a judgement, then a deduction of an history: therein are more precepts, then narrations: It is not a booke to reade, but a volume to study and to learne: It is so fraught with sentences, that right or wrong they are hudled up: It is a seminary of morall, and a magazine of pollitique discourses, for the provision and ornament of those, that possesse some place in the managing of the world. He ever pleadeth with solid and forcible reasons; after a sharpe and witty fashion: following affected and laboured stile of his age: They so much loved to raise and puffe themselves up, that where they found neither sharpenesse nor subtility in things, they would borrow it of wordes. draweth somewhat neare to Senecas writing. I deeme Tacitus, more sinnowy, Seneca more sharpe. His service is more proper to a crazed troubled state, as is ours at this present you would often say, he pourtrayeth and toucheth us to the quicke. Such as doubt of his faith, doe manyfestly accuse themselves to hate him for somewhat else. His opinions be sound, and enclining to the better side of the Romane affaires. I am neverthelesse something greeved, that he hath more bitterly judged of Pompey, then honest mens opinions, who lived and conversed with him, doe well allow off to have esteemed him altogether equall to Marius and Silla, saving that he was more close and secret. His intention and canvasing for the government of affaires, hath not beene exempted from ambition, nor cleared from revenge: and his owne friends have feared, that had he gotten the victory, it would have transported him beyond the limits of reason; but not unto an unbridled and raging measure. There is nothing in his life that hath threatned us with so manyfest a cruelty, and expresse tyranny. Yet must not the suspition be counterpoised to the evidence: So doe not I beleeve him.

That his narrations are naturall and right, might hap

pily be argued by this: That they doe not alwaies exactly apply themselves to the conclusions of his judgement; which hee pursueth according to the course he hath taken, often beyond the matter he sheweth us; which he hath dained to stoope unto with one onely glance. He needeth no excuse to have approoved the religion of his times, according to the lawes which commanded him, and beene ignorant of the true and perfect worship of God. That's his ill fortune, not his defect. I have principally considered his judgement, whereof I am not every where throughly resolved. As namely these words contayned in the letter, which Tiberius being sicke and aged, sent to the Senate. What shall I write to you my masters, or how shall I write to you, or what shall I not write to you in these times? May the gods and goddesses loose me worse, then I dayly feele my selfe to perish, if I can tell. I cannot perceive why he should so certainly apply them unto a stinging remorse, tormenting the conscience of Tiberius: At least when my selfe was in the same plight, I saw it not. That hath likewise seemed somwhat demisse and base unto me, that having said, how he had exercised a certaine honourable magistracy in Rome, he goeth about to excuse himselfe, that it is not for ostentation, he spake it: This one tricke, namely in a minde of his quality, seemeth but base and course unto me: For, not to dare speake roundly of himselfe, accuseth some want of courage: A constant, resolute and high judgement, and which judgeth soundly and surely, every hand while useth his owne examples, as well as of any strange thing; and witnesseth as freely of himselfe as of a third person: A man must overgoe these populare reasons of civility, in favour of truth and liberty. I dare not onely speake of my selfe: but speake alone of my selfe. I stragle when I write of any other matter, and digresse from my subject. I doe not so [in]discreetly love my selfe, and am [not] so tied and commixt to my selfe, as that I can not distinguish and consider my selfe a part: as a neighbour, as a tree; it is an equall error, either not to see how farre a mans worth stretcheth, or to say more of it then one seeth good cause. We owe more love to God, then to our selves, and know him lesse, and yet we talke our fill of him. If his writings relate any thing of his conditions he was a notable man, upright and courag

ious, not with a superstitious vertue, but Philosophicall and generous: He may be found over-hardy in his testimonies. As where he holdeth, that a souldier carrying a burden of wood, his hands were so stifly benummed with cold that they stucke to his wood, and remained so fast unto it, that as dead flesh they were divided from his armes. In such cases I am wont to yeeld unto the authority of so great testimonies. Where he also saith, that Vespasian by the favour of the God Serapis, healed in the citie of Alexandria a blinde woman, with the rubbing and anointing her eyes with fasting spettle, and some other miracles, which I remember not well now, he doth it by the example and devoire of all good historians. They keepe a register of important events: among publike accidents, are allso popular reports and vulgar opinions. It is their part to relate common conceits, but not to sway them. This part belongeth to Divines and Philosophers, directors of consciences. Therefore that companion of his, and as great a man as hee, said most wisely: Equidem plura transcribo quam credo: Nam nec affirmare sustineo, de quibus dubito, nec sub ducere quæ accepi: I write out more then I beleeve: for neither can I abide to affirm what I doubt of, nor to withdrawe what I have heard: And that other: Hæc neque affirmare neque refellere operæ precium est: famæ rerum standum est. It is not worth the talke, or to avouch, or to refuse these things wee must stand to report. And writing in an age, wherein the beliefe of prodigies began to decline, he saith, he would notwithstanding not omit to insert in his Annals, and give footing to a thing received and allowed of so many honest men, and with so great reverence by antiquity. It is very well said: That they yeelde us the history, more according as they receave, then according as they esteeme it. I who am king of the matter I treat of, and am not to give accompt of it to any creature living, doe neverthelesse not altogether beleeve my selfe for it. I often hazard upon certaine outslips of my minde, for which I distrust my selfe; and certaine verball wilie-beguilies, whereat I shake mine eares but I let them runne at hab or nab; I see some honour them selves with such like things: 'Tis not for me alone to judge of them. I present my selfe standing and lying, before and behinde, on the right and left side, and

in all by naturall motions. Spirits alike in force, are not ever alike in application and taste. Loe here what my memory doth in grose, and yet very uncertainely present unto me of it. In breefe, all judgments are weake, demisse and imperfect.

CHAPTER IX

OF VANITIE

THERE is peradventure no vanity more manyfest, then so vainely to write of it. What Divinity hath so divinely expressed thereof unto us, ought of all men of understanding to be diligently and continually meditated upon. Who seeth not, that I have entred so large a field, and undertaken so high a pitch, wherein so long as there is either Inke or Paper in the world, I may uncessantly wander and fly without encombrance? I can keepe no

register of my life by my actions; fortune placeth them too lowe: I hould them of my fantasies. Yet have I seen a gentleman, who never communicated his life, but by the operations of his belly: you might have seene in his house, set out for a show, a row of basins for seaven or eight dayes: It was all his study, it was all his talke: All other discourses were unsavory to him. These are somewhat more civile, the excrements of an ould spirit, sometimes hard, sometimes laxative; but ever indigested. And when shall I come unto an end of representing a continuall agitation or uncessant alteration of my thoughts, what subject soever they happen upon; since Diomedes filled six thousand bookes only with the subject of Grammar? What is idle babling like to produce, since the faltring and liberty of the tongue hath stuft the world with so horrible a multitude of volumes? So many words onely for words. Oh Pythagoras, why didst not thou conjure this tempest? One Galba of former ages, being accused for living idlie; answered, that all men ought to give an account of their actions, but not of their abiding. He was deceived for justice hath also knowledge and animadversion over such as gather stubble (as the common saying is) or looke about for gape-seed. But there should be some correction appointed by the lawes, against foolish