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Which I regard not, but the city's service;
And, if for that same service it seem good,
I will expose thy life to equal hazard.
Van den Bosch. Thou wilt?

Artevelde. I will.

Van den Bosch. Oh, lord! to hear him speak,
What a most mighty emperor of puppets

Is this that I have brought upon the board!
But how if he that made it should unmake?

Artevelde. Unto His sovereignty who truly made me
With infinite humility I bow!

Both, both of us are puppets, Van den Bosch;
Part of the curious clock-work of this world,

We scold, and squeak, and crack each other's crowns;
And if, by twitches moved from wires we see not,

I were to toss thee from this steeple's top,
I should be but the instrument-no more-
The tool of that chastising Providence,
Which doth exalt the lowly, and abase
The violent and proud; but let me hope
Such is not mine appointed task to-day.
Thou passest in the world for worldly-wise:
Then, seeing we must sink or swim together,
What can it profit thee, in this extreme
Of our distress, to wrangle with me thus
For my supremacy and rule? Thy fate,
Is of necessity bound up with mine,
Must needs partake my cares: let that suffice
To put thy pride to rest till better times.
Contest-more reasonably wrong-a prize

More precious than the ordering of a shipwreck.

Van den Bosch. Tush, tush, Van Artevelde, thou talk'st and

talk'st,

And honest burghers think it wondrous fine.

But thou mightst easilier with that tongue of thine
Persuade yon smoke to fly i' the face o' the wind,
Than talk away my wit and understanding.

I say yon herald shall not enter here.

Artevelde. I know, sir, no man better, where my talk

Is serviceable singly, where it needs

To be by acts enforced. I say, beware,

And brave not mine authority too far.

Van den Bosch. Hast thou authority to take What is it else to let yon herald in

To bargain for our blood?

Artevelde. Thy life again!

my

life?

Why, what a very slave of life art thou!
Look round about on this once populous town;
Not one of these numerous house-tops
But hides some spectral form of misery,
Some peevish, pining child and moaning mother,
Some aged man that in his dotage scolds,
Not knowing why he hungers, some cold corse
That lies unstraightened where the spirit left it.
Look round, and answer what thy life can be
To tell upon the balance of such scales.
I too would live-I have a love for life-
But, rather than to live to charge my soul

With one hour's lengthening out of woes like these,
I'd leap this parapet with as free a bound
As e'er was school-boy's o'er a garden wall.
Van den Bosch. I'd like to see thee do it.
Artevelde. I know thou wouldst ;

But for the present be content to see
My less precipitous descent; for, lo!
There comes the herald o'er the hill.

Van den Bosch. Beshrew me;

Thou shalt not have the start of me in this.

[Exit.

[He follows, and the scene closes.

364.-KNOWLEDGE.

LORD BACON.

Ir is an assured truth which is contained in the verses :—

"Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros."

It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men's minds; but indeed the accent had need be upon "fideliter:" for a little superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to accept of nothing but examined and tried. It taketh away vain admiration of anything, which is the root of all weakness: for all things are admired either because they are new, or because they are great. For novelty, no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly, but will find that printed in his heart, "Nil novi super terram."* Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion. And for magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after that he was used to great armies, and the great conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters out of Greece, of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage or a fort or some walled town at the most, he said, "It seemed to him, that he was advertised of the battle of the frogs and the mice, that the old tales went of." So certainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls except) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to-and-fro a little heap of dust. It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death, or adverse fortune; which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue and imperfections of manners. For, if a man's mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken; and went forth the next day and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead and thereupon said, "Heri vidi fragilem frangi, hodie vidi mortalem mori." And therefore Virgil did excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes and the conquest of all fears together, as "concomitantia.'

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* There is nothing new upon the earth.

+ Yesterday I saw the fragile broken, to-day I saw the mortal die.

It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the mind: sometimes purging the ill humours, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping digestion, sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the like; and, therefore, I will conclude with that which hath "rationem totius," which is, that it disposeth. the constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of growth and reformation. For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to call himself to account; nor the pleasure of that "suavissima vita, indies sentire se fieri meliorem." The good parts he hath he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously, but not much to increase them: the faults he hath he will learn how to hide and colour them, but not much to amend them: like an ill mower, that mows on still, and never whets his scythe. Whereas with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof. Nay, further, in general and in sum, certain it is that veritas" and "bonitas "§ differ but as the seal and the print: for truth prints goodness; and they be the clouds of error which descend in the storms of passions and perturbations.

66

From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and commandment, and consider whether in right reason there be any comparable with that wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth man's nature. We see the dignity of the commandment is according to the dignity of the commanded: to have commandment over beasts, as herdsmen have, is a thing contemptible; to have commandment over children, as schoolmasters have, is a matter of small honour; to have commandment over galley-slaves is a disparagement rather than an honour. Neither is the commandment of tyrants much better, over people which have put off the generosity of their minds: and therefore it was ever holden that honours in free monarchies and commonwealths had a sweetness more than in tyrannies; because the commandment extendeth more over the wills of men, and not only over their deeds and services. And therefore, when Virgil putteth himself forth to attribute * The reason of the whole.

The most pleasant life is to feel a consciousness of improvement every day. + Truth.

§ Goodness.

to Augustus Cæsar the best of human honours, he doth it in these words:

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Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo."

But the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment over the will; for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself: for there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of state in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning. And therefore we see the detestable and extreme pleasure that arch-heretics, and false prophets, and impostors are transported with, when they once find in themselves that they have a superiority in the faith and conscience of men; so great, that, if they have once tasted of it, it is seldom seen that any torture or persecution can make them relinquish or abandon it. But as this is that which the author of the Revelation' calleth the depth or profoundness" of Satan;" so, by argument of contraries, the just and lawful sovereignty over men's understanding, by force of truth rightly interpreted, is that which approacheth nearest to the similitude of the divine rule.

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As for fortune and advancement, the beneficence of learning is not so confined to give fortune only to states and commonwealths, as it doth not likewise give fortune to particular persons. For it was well noted long ago, that Homer hath given more men their livings, than either Sylla, or Cæsar, or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding their great largesses and donatives, and distributions of lands to so many legions and no doubt it is hard to say, whether arms or learning have advanced greater numbers. And in case of sovereignty we see that, if arms or descent have carried away the kingdom, yet learning hath carried the priesthood, which ever hath been in some competition with empire.

Again, for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning, it far surpasseth all other in nature; for, shall the pleasures of the affections so exceed the senses, as much as the obtaining of desire or victory exceedeth a song or a dinner; and must not, of consequence, the pleasures of the intellect or understanding exceed the pleasures of the affections? We see in all other pleasures there is satiety, and, after they be used, their verdure departeth; which showeth well they be but

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