No More Learning

Yet, if we have a fair gale of
wind, I forbid not the steering out of our sail, so the favour of the
gale deceive us not. For all that we invent doth please us in conception
of birth, else we would never set it down. But the safest is to return
to our judgment, and handle over again those things the easiness of which
might make them justly suspected. So did the best writers in their
beginnings; they imposed upon themselves care and industry; they did
nothing rashly: they obtained first to write well, and then custom made
it easy and a habit. By little and little their matter showed itself to
them more plentifully; their words answered, their composition followed;
and all, as in a well-ordered family, presented itself in the place. So
that the sum of all is, ready writing makes not good writing, but good
writing brings on ready writing yet, when we think we have got the
faculty, it is even then good to resist it, as to give a horse a check
sometimes with a bit, which doth not so much stop his course as stir his
mettle. Again, whether a man's genius is best able to reach thither, it
should more and more contend, lift and dilate itself, as men of low
stature raise themselves on their toes, and so ofttimes get even, if not
eminent. Besides, as it is fit for grown and able writers to stand of
themselves, and work with their own strength, to trust and endeavour by
their own faculties, so it is fit for the beginner and learner to study
others and the best. For the mind and memory are more sharply exercised
in comprehending another man's things than our own; and such as accustom
themselves and are familiar with the best authors shall ever and anon
find somewhat of them in themselves, and in the expression of their
minds, even when they feel it not, be able to utter something like
theirs, which hath an authority above their own. Nay, sometimes it is
the reward of a man's study, the praise of quoting another man fitly; and
though a man be more prone and able for one kind of writing than another,
yet he must exercise all. For as in an instrument, so in style, there
must be a harmony and consent of parts.

_Praecipiendi modi_. --I take this labour in teaching others, that they
should not be always to be taught, and I would bring my precepts into
practice, for rules are ever of less force and value than experiments;
yet with this purpose, rather to show the right way to those that come
after, than to detect any that have slipped before by error, and I hope
it will be more profitable. For men do more willingly listen, and with
more favour, to precept, than reprehension. 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.