beside. Infinite shall be made cold in religion by your example, that never were hurt by reading of books. : And in meaner matters, if three or four great ones in court will needs outrage in apparel, Example in in huge hose, in monstrous hats, in ga- apparel. rish colours; let the prince proclaim, make laws. order, punish, command every gate in London daily to be watched; let all good men beside do every where what they can; surely the misorder of apparel in mean men abroad shall never be amended, except the greatest in court will order and mend themselves first. I know some great and good ones in court were authors, that honest citizens of London should watch at every gate to take misordered persons in apparel: I know that honest Londoners did so; and I saw (which I saw then, and report now with some grief) that some courtly men were offended with these good men of London and (that which grieved me most of all) I saw the very same time, for all these good orders commanded from the court and executed in London; I saw, I say, come out of London even unto the presence of the prince, a great rabble of mean and light persons in apparel, for matter against law, for making against order, for fashion, namely hose, so without all order, as he thought himself most brave, that durst do most in breaking order, and was most monstrous in misorder. And for all the great commandments that came out of the court, yet this bold misorder was winked at, and borne withal in the court. I thought it was not well, that some great ones of the court durst declare themselves offended with good men of London for doing their duty, and the good ones of the court would not show themselves offended with ill men of London for breaking good III. Masters, ushers and scholars' offence. 10 order. I found thereby a saying of Socrates to be most true, "That ill men be more hasty, than good men be forward, to prosecute their purposes;" even as Christ himself saith of the children of light and darkness. Beside apparel, in all other things too, not so much good laws and strait commandments, as the example and manner of living of great men, doth carry all mean men every where to like, and love, and do, as they do. For if but two or three noblemen in the court would but begin to shoot, all young gentlemen, the whole court, all London, the whole realm, would straightway exercise shooting. Example in shooting. What praise should they win to themselves? what commodity should they bring to their country, that would thus deserve to be pointed at, "Behold, there goeth the author of good order, the guide of good men?" I could say more, and yet not over-much. But perchance some will say I have stept too far out of my school into the commonwealth, from teaching a young scholar, to monish great and noble men: yet I trust good and wise men will think and judge of me, * Men of true worth and excellency, as they justly challenge all due respect, so they draw the eyes of the world after them wherever they go. Demosthenes never appeared in public, but he was marked out by the admiring multitude as he passed along, one crying to another, Ouros ékeivos. To this Lucian alludes in his Dream : Τοιαῦτά σοι περιθήσω τὰ γνωρίσματα, ὥστε τῶν ὁρώντων ἕκαστος τὸν πλησίον κινήσας, δείξει σε τῷ δακτύλῳ, Οὗτος ἐκεῖνος, λέγων. This Horace expresses with some satisfaction, as being his own case: "Totum muneris hoc tui est, Quòd monstror digito prætereuntium . great men, but for great men's children. that my mind was not so much to be busy and bold with them that be great now, as to give Written not for true advice to them that may be great hereafter; who, if they do as I wish them to do, how great soever they be now by blood and other men's means, they shall become a great deal greater hereafter by learning, virtue, and their own deserts; "which is true praise, right worthiness, andvery nobility indeed." Yet, if some will needs press me that I am too bold with great men, and stray too far from my matter, I will answer them with St. Paul, Sive per contentionem, sive quocunque modo, modo Christus prædicetur, &c. Even so, whether in place or out of place, with my matter or beside my matter, if I can hereby either provoke the good or stay the ill, I shall think my writing herein well employed. But to come down from great men and higher matters, to my little children and poor schoolhouse again; I will, God willing, go forward orderly, as I purposed, to instruct children and young men both for learning and manners. Hitherto I have showed what harm over-much fear bringeth to children; and what hurt ill company and, over-much liberty breedeth in youth; meaning thereby, that from seven year old to seventeen, love is the best allurement to learning; from seventeen to seven-andtwenty, that wise men should carefully see the steps of youth surely stayed by good order, in that most slippery time, and especially in the court, a place most dangerous for youth to live in, without great grace, good regard, and diligent looking to. Sir Richard Sackville, that worthy Travelling into gentleman of worthy memory, as I said Italy. in the beginning, in the queen's privy chamber at Windsor, after he had talked with me for the right choice of a good wit in a child for learning, and of the true difference betwixt quick and hard wits, of alluring young children by gentleness to love learning, and of the special care that was to be had to keep young men from licentious living; he was most earnest with me, to have me say my mind also, what I thought concerning the fancy that many young gentlemen of England have to travel abroad, and namely to lead a long life in Italy. His request, both for his authority and good will toward me, was a sufficient commandment unto me, to satisfy his pleasure with uttering plainly my opinion in that matter. "Sir," quoth I, "I take going thither, and living there, for a young gentleman that doth not go under the keep and guarḍ of such a man, as both by wisdom can, and authority dare rule him, to be marvellous dangerous." The Italian tongue. And why I said so then, I will declare at large now, which I said then privately, and write now openly; not because I do contemn either the knowledge of strange and divers tongues, and namely the Italian tongue (which, next the Greek and Latin tongue, I like and love above all other), or else because I do despise the learning that is gotten, or the experience that is gathered in strange countries; or for any private malice that I bear to Italy; which country, and in it namely Rome, I have always specially honoured; because time was, when Italy and Rome have been to the great good of us that now live, the best breeders and bringers up of the worthiest men, not only for wise speaking, but also for well doing, in all civil affairs, that ever was in the world. But now that time is gone; and though the place remain, yet the old and present manners do differ as far as black and white, as virtue and vice. Virtue once made that country mistress over all the world; vice now maketh that country slave to them that before were glad to serve it. All men seeth it; they themselves confess it, namely such as be best and wisest amongst them. For sin, by lust and vanity, hath and doth breed up every where, common contempt of God's word, private contention in many families, open factions in every city; and so making themselves bond to vanity and vice at home, they are content to bear the yoke of serving strangers abroad. Italy now, is not that Italy that it was wont to be ;) and therefore now not so fit a place as some do count it, for young men to fetch either wisdom or honesty from thence. For surely they will make others but bad scholars, that be so ill masters to themselves. Yet, if a gentleman will needs travel into Italy, he shall do well to look on the life of the wisest traveller that ever travelled thither, set out by the wisest writer that ever spake with tongue, God's doctrine only excepted; and that is Ulysses in Homer. Ulysses and his travel I wish our travellers to look upon, not so much to fear them with the great dangers that he many times suffered, as to instruct them with his excellent wisdom, which he always and every where used. Yea, even those that be learned and witty travellers, when they be disposed to praise travelling, as a great commendation, and the best scripture they have for it, they gladly recite the third * The first three verses of Homer's Odyssey: * *Ανδρά μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ |