* * * * * Old men object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon. * * * * * To take advice of some few friends is ever honourable; for lookers-on many times see more than gamesters. * * * * * Suspicions that the mind of itself gathers are but buzzes; but suspicions that are artificially nourished and put into men’s heads by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings. * * * * * Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And therefore, if man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that which he doth not. * * * * * Sir John Harington, chiefly remembered for his translation of _Orlando Furioso_, wrote clever humorous verse. _OF A PRECISE TAILOR_ A tailor, thought a man of upright dealing-- True, but for lying, honest, but for stealing-- Did fall one day extremely sick by chance, And on the sudden was in wondrous trance. The fiends of hell, mustering in fearful manner, Of sundry coloured silks displayed a banner Which he had stolen, and wished, as they did tell, That he might find it all one day in hell. The man, affrighted with this apparition, Upon recovery grew a great precisian. He bought a Bible of the best translation, And in his life he showed great reformation; He walked mannerly, he talked meekly, He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly; He vowed to shun all company unruly, And in his speech he used no oath but “truly”; And, zealously to keep the Sabbath’s rest, His meat for that day on the eve was drest; And, lest the custom which he had to steal Might cause him sometimes to forget his zeal, He gives his journeyman a special charge, That if the stuff, allowance being large, He found his fingers were to filch inclined, Bid him to have the banner in his mind. This done--I scant can tell the rest for laughter-- A captain of a ship came three days after, And brought three yards of velvet and three-quarters, To make Venetians down below the garters. He, that precisely knew what was enough, Soon slipt aside three-quarters of the stuff. His man, espying it, said, in derision, “Master, remember how you saw the vision!” “Peace, knave!” quoth he; “I did not see one rag Of such a coloured silk in all the flag.” _OF A CERTAIN MAN_