both in Terence and Horace, yet will I set them here in one place together, that with more pleasure they may be compared together. Terentius in Eunucho. Quid igitur faciam? non eam? ne nunc quidem Exclusit, revocat; redeam? non si me obsecret. Parmeno a little after: Here, quæ res in se neque consilium neque modum Bellum, pax rursum. Incerta hæc si tu postules Quàm si des operam, ut cum ratione insanias. Horatius, Serm. Lib. 2. Sat. 3. Nec nunc cum me vocet ultro, Accedam? an potius mediter finire dolores? Nec modum habet, neque consilium, ratione modoque, This exercise may bring much profit to ripe heads and staid judgements; because, in travelling in it, the mind must needs be very attentive, and busily occupied in turning and tossing itself many ways, and conferring with great pleasure the variety of worthy wits and judgements together. But this harm may soon come thereby, and namely to young scholars, lest, in seeking other words and new form of sentences, they chance upon the worse; for the which only cause Cicero thinketh this exercise not to be fit for young men. EPITOME. This is a way of study belonging rather to matter, than to words; to memory, than to utterance; to those that be learned already: and hath small place at all among young scholars in grammar schools. It may profit privately some learned men, but it hath hurt generally learning itself very much. For by it we have lost whole Trogus, the best part of T. Livius, the goodly Dictionary of * Pompeius Festus, a great deal of the civil law, and other many notable books: for the which cause I do the more mislike this exercise both in old and young. Epitome is good privately for himself that doth work it, but ill commonly for all others that use other men's labour therein. A silly poor kind of study, not unlike to the doing of those poor folk, which neither till, nor sow, nor reap themselves, but glean by stealth upon other men's grounds. Such have empty barns for dear years. . Grammar schools have few Epitomes to hurt them, except Epitheta Textoris, and such beggarly gatherings, as ↑ Horman, Whittington, and other like vulgars for making of Latin. Yea, I do wish that all rules for young scholars were shorter than they be. For without doubt grammatica itself *This Dictionary of Festus, as it was a learned, so was it a voluminous work; for it contained no less than twenty large books, as we may see from Paulus Diaconus's words, who epitomized it. "Festus Pompeius Romanis studiis affatim eruditus, tam sermonum abditorum, quàm etiam quarundam causarum origines aperiens, opus suum ad viginti usque prolixa volumina extendit." † See p. 196. I have now in my hands Mr. Horman's book. The title of it is, Vulgaria Viri doctissimi, Gul. Hormanni Cæsarisburgensis. And it is dedicated to his friend and patron William Atwater, bishop of Lincoln. It consists, as I said before, of single sentences; one of which, being in honour of our royal founder, (who was designed to have been canonized, had not the charges at Rome proved excessive,) I shall give the reader, as a specimen, King Henry doth many divers miracles. Divus Henricus non una miraculorum specie inclarescit. Rob. Whittington was born în Litchfield, and educated in Oxford. He was thought by some little inferior to the ablest schoolmasters of the age, not excepting even Lilly; with whom and Horman he could not agree; they resenting the title of Proto-vates Anglia, which Whittington had vainly assumed. He published a great deal; and amongst the rest, his Vulgaria likewise to which titles Mr. Ascham alludes in the next words, and other like vulgars for making of Latin. is sooner and surer learned by examples of good authors than by the naked rules of grammarians. Epitome hurteth more in the universities, and study of philosophy; but mos of all in divinity itself. Indeed books of common places be very necessary to induce a man into an orderly general knowledge, how to refer orderly all that he readeth, ad certa rerum capita, and not wander in study. And to that end did Pet. Lombardus, the master of sentences, and Phil. Melancthon in our days, write two notable books of common places. But to dwell in Epitomes, and books of common places, and not to bind himself daily by orderly study, to read with all diligence principally the holiest Scripture, and withal the best doctors, and so to learn to make true difference betwixt the authority of the one and the counsel of the other, maketh so many seeming and sun-burnt ministers as we have; whose learning is gotten in a summer heat, and washed away with a Christmas snow again. Who, nevertheless, are less to be blamed, than those blind buzzards, who in late years, of wilful maliciousness, would neither learn themselves, nor could teach others any thing at all. Paraphrasis hath done less hurt to learning than Epitome. For no Paraphrasis, though there be many, shall ever take away David's Psalter. Erasmus's Paraphrasis, being never so good, shall never banish the New Testament. And in another school, the Paraphrasis of Bocardus, or Sambucus, shall never take Aristotle's Rhetorick, nor Horace de Arte Poetica, out of learned men's hands. But as concerning a school Epitome, he that would have an example of it, let him read* Lucian Epì Káλλous, which is the very Epitome of Isocrates' Oration de Laudibus Helena: whereby he may learn, at the least, this wise lesson; "That a man ought to beware to be over bold in altering an excellent man's work." Nevertheless, some kind of Epitome may be used by men of skilful judgement, to the great profit also of others. As if a wise man would take +Hall's Chronicle, where much *What treatise of Lucian's we are here directed to, I cannot tell, unless it is his Eixoves, where Panthea, the Smyrna beauty, is described with so much ostentation of wit and learning. + Mr. Edw. Hall was counsellor in the law, and writ his Chronicle of the union of the two houses of York and Lancaster in the time of Edward the Sixth. good matter is quite marred with indenture English: and first, change strange and inkhorn terms into proper and commonly used words; next, specially to weed out that that is superfluous and idle, not only where words be vainly heaped one upon another, but also where many sentences of one meaning be so clouted up together, as though Mr. Hall had been not writing the story of England, but varying a sentence in Hitching school. Surely a wise learned man by this way of Epitome, in cutting away words and sentences, and diminishing nothing at all of the matter, should leave to men's use a story, half as much as it was in quantity, but twice as good as it was, both for pleasure and also commodity. Another kind of Epitome may be used likewise very well to much profit. Some man, either by lustiness of nature, or brought by ill teaching to a wrong judgement, is over full of words and sentences and matter: and yet all his words be proper, apt, and well chosen; all his sentences be round and trimly framed; his whole matter grounded upon good reason, and stuffed with full arguments for his intent and purpose: yet, when his talk shall be heard, or his writing be read of such one, as is either of my two dearest friends, Mr. Haddon at home, or Joh. Sturmius in Germany: that nimium in him, which fools and unlearned will most commend, shall either of these two bite his lip or shake his head at it. This fulness, as it is not to be misliked * in a young man, * This fulness and exuberancy is what both Tully and Quintilian desire in youth. "Audeat hæc ætas plura, et inveniat, et inventis gaudeat, sint licet illa non satis interim sicca et severa. Facile remedium est ubertatis, sterilia nullo labore vincuntur. Illa mihi in pueris natura minimum spei dabit, in qua ingenium judicio præsumitur. Materiam esse primùm volo vel abundantiorem, atque ultra quàm oporteat fusam.- -Quod me de his ætatibus sentire minus mirabitur, qui apud Ciceronem legerit, 'Volo enim se efferat in adolescente fœcunditas." Quint. de Inst. Orat. lib. 2. This sentence is taken by Quintilian out of Tully's second book de Oratore. "Volo enim se efferat in adolescente fœcunditas. Nam facilius, sicut in vitibus, revocantur ea, quæ sese nimium profuderunt, quàm si nihil valet materies, nova sarmenta cultura excitantur: ita volo esse in adolescente, unde aliquid amputem. Non enim potest in eo esse succus diuturnus, quod nimis celeriter est maturitatem assecutum." so in further age, in greater skill, and weightier affairs, is to be temperated, or else discretion and judgement shall seem to be wanting in him. But if his style be still over rank and lusty; as some men being never so old, and spent by years, will still be full of youthful conditions (as was Sir Francis Brian, and evermore would have been); such a rank and full writer must use, if he will do wisely, the exercise of a very good kind of Epitome, and do, as certain wise men do, that be over fat and fleshy; who, leaving their own full and plentiful table, go to sojourn abroad from home for a while, at the temperate diet of some sober man; and so by little and little, cut away the grossness that is in them. As for an example: If Osorius would leave off his lustiness in striving against St. Austin, and his over rank railing against poor Luther, and the truth of God's doctrine; and give his whole study, not to write any thing of his own for a while, but to translate Demosthenes with so strait, fast, and temperate a style in Latin, as he is in Greek; he would become so perfect and pure a writer, I believe, as have been few or none since Cicero's days. And so by doing himself and all learned men much good, do others less harm, and Christ's doctrine less injury than he doth ; and withal, win unto himself many worthy friends, who agreeing with him gladly in the love and liking of excellent learning, are sorry to see so worthy a wit, so rare eloquence, wholly spent and consumed in striving with God and good men. Among the rest, no man doth lament him more than I; not only for the excellent learning that I see in him, but also because there hath passed privately betwixt him and me, sure tokens of much good will and friendly opinion, the one toward the other. And surely the distance betwixt London and Lisbon should not stop any kind of friendly duty that I could either show to him or do to his, if the greatest matter of all did not in certain points separate our minds. And yet for my part, both toward him and divers others here at home, for like cause of excellent learning, great wisdom, and gentle humanity, which I have seen in them, and felt at their hands myself, where the matter of difference is mere conscience in a quiet mind inwardly, and not contentious malice with spiteful railing openly, I can be content to follow this rule, in misliking some one thing, not to hate for any thing else." But as for all the bloody beasts, as that "fat boar of the |