The reading of Homer and Virgil
is counselled by Quintilian as the best way of informing youth and
confirming man.
is counselled by Quintilian as the best way of informing youth and
confirming man.
Ben Jonson - Discoveries Made Upon Men, and Some Poems
Among divers opinions of an
art, and most of them contrary in themselves, it is hard to make
election; and, therefore, though a man cannot invent new things after so
many, he may do a welcome work yet to help posterity to judge rightly of
the old. But arts and precepts avail nothing, except Nature be
beneficial and aiding. And therefore these things are no more written to
a dull disposition, than rules of husbandry to a soil. No precepts will
profit a fool, no more than beauty will the blind, or music the deaf. As
we should take care that our style in writing be neither dry nor empty,
we should look again it be not winding, or wanton with far-fetched
descriptions; either is a vice. But that is worse which proceeds out of
want, than that which riots out of plenty. The remedy of fruitfulness is
easy, but no labour will help the contrary; I will like and praise some
things in a young writer which yet, if he continue in, I cannot but
justly hate him for the same. There is a time to be given all things for
maturity, and that even your country husband-man can teach, who to a
young plant will not put the pruning-knife, because it seems to fear the
iron, as not able to admit the scar. No more would I tell a green writer
all his faults, lest I should make him grieve and faint, and at last
despair; for nothing doth more hurt than to make him so afraid of all
things as he can endeavour nothing. Therefore youth ought to be
instructed betimes, and in the best things; for we hold those longest we
take soonest, as the first scent of a vessel lasts, and the tint the wool
first receives; therefore a master should temper his own powers, and
descend to the other's infirmity. If you pour a glut of water upon a
bottle, it receives little of it; but with a funnel, and by degrees, you
shall fill many of them, and spill little of your own; to their capacity
they will all receive and be full. And as it is fit to read the best
authors to youth first, so let them be of the openest and clearest.
{106a} As Livy before Sallust, Sidney before Donne; and beware of
letting them taste Gower or Chaucer at first, lest, falling too much in
love with antiquity, and not apprehending the weight, they grow rough and
barren in language only. When their judgments are firm, and out of
danger, let them read both the old and the new; but no less take heed
that their new flowers and sweetness do not as much corrupt as the
others' dryness and squalor, if they choose not carefully. Spenser, in
affecting the ancients, writ no language; yet I would have him read for
his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius.
The reading of Homer and Virgil
is counselled by Quintilian as the best way of informing youth and
confirming man. For, besides that the mind is raised with the height and
sublimity of such a verse, it takes spirit from the greatness of the
matter, and is tinctured with the best things. Tragic and lyric poetry
is good, too, and comic with the best, if the manners of the reader be
once in safety. In the Greek poets, as also in Plautus, we shall see the
economy and disposition of poems better observed than in Terence; and the
latter, who thought the sole grace and virtue of their fable the sticking
in of sentences, as ours do the forcing in of jests.
_Fals. querel. fugiend. Platonis peregrinatio in Italiam_. --We should not
protect our sloth with the patronage of difficulty. It is a false
quarrel against Nature, that she helps understanding but in a few, when
the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if they would take
the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run, &c. , which if they
lose, it is through their own sluggishness, and by that means become her
prodigies, not her children. I confess, Nature in children is more
patient of labour in study than in age; for the sense of the pain, the
judgment of the labour is absent; they do not measure what they have
done. And it is the thought and consideration that affects us more than
the weariness itself. Plato was not content with the learning that
Athens could give him, but sailed into Italy, for Pythagoras' knowledge:
and yet not thinking himself sufficiently informed, went into Egypt, to
the priests, and learned their mysteries. He laboured, so must we. Many
things may be learned together, and performed in one point of time; as
musicians exercise their memory, their voice, their fingers, and
sometimes their head and feet at once.
art, and most of them contrary in themselves, it is hard to make
election; and, therefore, though a man cannot invent new things after so
many, he may do a welcome work yet to help posterity to judge rightly of
the old. But arts and precepts avail nothing, except Nature be
beneficial and aiding. And therefore these things are no more written to
a dull disposition, than rules of husbandry to a soil. No precepts will
profit a fool, no more than beauty will the blind, or music the deaf. As
we should take care that our style in writing be neither dry nor empty,
we should look again it be not winding, or wanton with far-fetched
descriptions; either is a vice. But that is worse which proceeds out of
want, than that which riots out of plenty. The remedy of fruitfulness is
easy, but no labour will help the contrary; I will like and praise some
things in a young writer which yet, if he continue in, I cannot but
justly hate him for the same. There is a time to be given all things for
maturity, and that even your country husband-man can teach, who to a
young plant will not put the pruning-knife, because it seems to fear the
iron, as not able to admit the scar. No more would I tell a green writer
all his faults, lest I should make him grieve and faint, and at last
despair; for nothing doth more hurt than to make him so afraid of all
things as he can endeavour nothing. Therefore youth ought to be
instructed betimes, and in the best things; for we hold those longest we
take soonest, as the first scent of a vessel lasts, and the tint the wool
first receives; therefore a master should temper his own powers, and
descend to the other's infirmity. If you pour a glut of water upon a
bottle, it receives little of it; but with a funnel, and by degrees, you
shall fill many of them, and spill little of your own; to their capacity
they will all receive and be full. And as it is fit to read the best
authors to youth first, so let them be of the openest and clearest.
{106a} As Livy before Sallust, Sidney before Donne; and beware of
letting them taste Gower or Chaucer at first, lest, falling too much in
love with antiquity, and not apprehending the weight, they grow rough and
barren in language only. When their judgments are firm, and out of
danger, let them read both the old and the new; but no less take heed
that their new flowers and sweetness do not as much corrupt as the
others' dryness and squalor, if they choose not carefully. Spenser, in
affecting the ancients, writ no language; yet I would have him read for
his matter, but as Virgil read Ennius.
The reading of Homer and Virgil
is counselled by Quintilian as the best way of informing youth and
confirming man. For, besides that the mind is raised with the height and
sublimity of such a verse, it takes spirit from the greatness of the
matter, and is tinctured with the best things. Tragic and lyric poetry
is good, too, and comic with the best, if the manners of the reader be
once in safety. In the Greek poets, as also in Plautus, we shall see the
economy and disposition of poems better observed than in Terence; and the
latter, who thought the sole grace and virtue of their fable the sticking
in of sentences, as ours do the forcing in of jests.
_Fals. querel. fugiend. Platonis peregrinatio in Italiam_. --We should not
protect our sloth with the patronage of difficulty. It is a false
quarrel against Nature, that she helps understanding but in a few, when
the most part of mankind are inclined by her thither, if they would take
the pains; no less than birds to fly, horses to run, &c. , which if they
lose, it is through their own sluggishness, and by that means become her
prodigies, not her children. I confess, Nature in children is more
patient of labour in study than in age; for the sense of the pain, the
judgment of the labour is absent; they do not measure what they have
done. And it is the thought and consideration that affects us more than
the weariness itself. Plato was not content with the learning that
Athens could give him, but sailed into Italy, for Pythagoras' knowledge:
and yet not thinking himself sufficiently informed, went into Egypt, to
the priests, and learned their mysteries. He laboured, so must we. Many
things may be learned together, and performed in one point of time; as
musicians exercise their memory, their voice, their fingers, and
sometimes their head and feet at once.
