Condemn the days of elders great or small, And then blur out the course of present time; Cast one age down, and so do overthrow all, And burn the books of printed prose or rhyme: Who shall believe he rules, or she doth reign, In time to come, if writers loose their pain? The pen records time past and present both: Skill brings forth books, and books is nurse to truth. T. CHURCHYARD. _Worthiness of Wales._ FOR WISDOM, PIETY, DELIGHT, OR USE In vain that husbandman his seed doth sow, If he his crop not in due season mow. A general sets his army in array In vain, unless he fight, and win the day. 'Tis virtuous action that must praise bring forth, Without which slow advice is little worth. Yet they who give good counsel, praise deserve, Though in the active part they cannot serve: In action, learnéd counsellors their age, Profession, or disease, forbids to engage. Nor to philosophers is praise denied, Whose wise instructions after-ages guide; Yet vainly most their age in study spend; No end of writing books, and to no end: Beating their brains for strange and hidden things, Whose knowledge nor delight nor profit brings: Themselves with doubt both day and night perplex, No gentle reader please, or teach, but vex. Books should to one of these four ends conduce For wisdom, piety, delight, or use. What need we gaze upon the spangled sky Or into matter's hidden causes pry?... If we were wise these things we should not mind But more delight in easy matters find.... Learn to live well that thou mayst die so too, To live and die is all we have to do. SIR J. DENHAM. _Translation of Mancini._ OF THE ENTERTAINMENT OF BOOKS The diversions of reading, though they are not always of the strongest kind, yet they generally leave a better effect than the grosser satisfactions of sense: for, if they are well chosen, they neither dull the appetite nor strain the capacity. On the contrary, they refresh the inclinations, and strengthen the power, and improve under experiment: and, which is best of all, they entertain and perfect at the same time; and convey wisdom and knowledge through pleasure. By reading a man does as it were antedate his life, and makes himself contemporary with the ages past. And this way of running up beyond one's nativity is much better than Plato's pre-existence; because here a man knows something of the state and is the wiser for it; which he is not in the other.