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TIMBER:

OR,

DISCOVERIES

MADE UPON MEN AND MATTER, AS THEY HAVE FLOWED OUT
OF HIS DAILY READINGS; OR HAD THEIR REFLUX TO
HIS PECULIAR NOTIONS OF THE TIMES,

BY

BEN JONSON.

Tecum habita, ut noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.

- PERSIUS, Satire iv, 52.

SYLVA

Rerum et sententiarum quasi "rλn dicta a multiplici materia et varietate in iis contenta. Quemadmodum enimvulgo solemus infinitam arborum nascentium indiscriminatim multitudinem Sylvam dicere: ita etiam libros suos in quibus variæ et diversæ materiæ opuscula temere congesta erant, Sylvas appellabant antiqui: Timber

trees.

EXPLORATA:

OR,

DISCOVERIES.

Fortuna.

Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not. I therefore have counselled my friends never to trust to her fairer side, though she seemed to make peace with them; but to place all things she gave them so, as she might ask them again without 5 their trouble; she might take them from them, not pull them to keep always a distance between her and themselves. He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity. Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can happen to a good man. Contraries are 10 not mixed. Yet that which happens to any man may to every man. But it is in his reason, what he accounts it and will make it.

Casus. Change into extremity is very frequent and easy. As when a beggar suddenly grows rich, he com- 15 monly becomes a prodigal; for, to obscure his former. obscurity, he puts on riot and excess.

Consilia.

No man is so foolish but may give another good counsel sometimes; and no man is so wise but may

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easily err, if he will take no others' counsel but his own. But very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own teaching. For he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master.

5 Fama.- A fame that is wounded to the world would be better cured by another's apology than its own: for few can apply medicines well themselves. Besides, the man that is once hated, both his good and his evil deeds oppress him he is not easily emergent.

Negotia.

In great affairs it is a work of difficulty to please all. And oft times we lose the occasion of carrying a business well and thoroughly by our too much haste. For passions are spiritual rebels, and raise sedition against the understanding.

Amor patriæ.-There is a necessity all men should love their country: he that professeth the contrary may be delighted with his words, but his heart is there.

Ingenia. - Natures that are hardened to evil you shall sooner break than make straight; they are like poles 20 that are crooked and dry, there is no attempting them.

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Applausus. We praise the things we hear with much more willingness than those we see, because we envy the present and reverence the past; thinking ourselves instructed by the one, and overlaid by the other.

Opinio. — Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing; settled in the imagination, but never arriving at the understanding, there to obtain the tincture of reason. We labor with it more than truth. There is much more holds us than presseth us. An ill fact is one 30 thing, an ill fortune is another; yet both oftentimes sway us alike, by the error of our thinking.

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Impostura. Many men believe not themselves what they would persuade others; and less do the things which they would impose on others; but least of all 35 know what they themselves most confidently boast. Only

they set the sign of the cross over their outer doors, and sacrifice to their gut and their groin in their inner closets.

Jactura vita.

What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the better part of life in! in scattering 5 compliments, tendering visits, gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little winterlove in a dark corner.

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Hypocrita. — Puritanus Hypocrita est Hæreticus, quem opinio propria perspicaciæ, qua sibi videtur, cum paucis, 10 in Ecclesia dogmatibus errores quosdam animadvertisse, de statu mentis deturbavit: unde sacro furore percitus, phrenetice pugnat contra magistratus, sic ratus obedientiam præstare Deo.

Mutua auxilia. - Learning needs rest: sovereignty 15 gives it. Sovereignty needs counsel: learning affords it. There is such a consociation of offices between the prince and whom his favor breeds, that they may help to sustain his power as he their knowledge. It is the greatest part of his liberality, his favor; and 20 from whom doth he hear discipline more willingly, or the arts discoursed more gladly, than from those whom his own bounty and benefits have made able and faithful?

Cognit[io] universi. In being able to counsel others, 25 a man must be furnished with a universal store in himself, to the knowledge of all nature—that is, the matter and seed-plot: there are the seats of all argument and invention. But especially you must be cunning in the nature of man: there is the variety of things 30 which are as the elements and letters, which his art and wisdom must rank and order to the present occasion. For we see not all letters in single words, nor all places in particular discourses. That cause seldom happens wherein a man will use all arguments.

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