onelie soch, as fall, and rotte, before they be ripe, and so, neuer, or seldome, cum to any good at all. For this ye shall finde most true by experience, that amongest a number of quicke wittes in youthe, fewe be found, in the end, either verie fortunate for them selues, or verie profitable to serue the common wealth, but decay and vanish, men know not which way: except a very fewe, to whom peraduenture blood and happie parentage, may perchance purchace a long standing vpon the stage. The which felicitie, because it commeth by others procuring, not by their owne deseruinge, and stand by other mens feete, and not by their own, what owtward brag so euer is borne by them, is in deed, of it selfe, and in wise mens eyes, of no great estimation. Some wittes, moderate enough by nature, be many tymes Som sci- // marde by ouer moch studie and vse of some ences hurt // sciences, namelie, Musicke, Arithmetick, and mens wits, // Geometrie. Thies sciences, as they sharpen mens and mar // wittes ouer moch, so they change mens maners mens ma- // ouer sore, if they be not moderatlie mingled, & ners. // wiselie applied to som good vse of life. Marke all Mathe- Mathe- // maticall heades, which be onely and wholy bent maticall // to those sciences, how solitarie they be themselues, heades. // how vnfit to liue with others, & how vnapte to serue in the world. This is not onelie knowen now by common experience, but vttered long before by wise mens Iudgement _Galen._ // and sentence. _Galene_ saith, moch Musick marreth _Plato._ // mens maners: and _Plato_ hath a notable place of the same thing in his bookes _de Rep._ well marked also, and excellentlie translated by _Tullie_ himself. Of this matter, I wrote once more at large, XX. yeare a go, in my booke of shoting: now I thought but to touch it, to proue, that ouer moch quicknes of witte, either giuen by nature, or sharpened by studie, doth not commonlie bring forth, eyther greatest learning, best maners, or happiest life in the end. Contrariewise, a witte in youth, that is not ouer dulle, Hard wits // heauie, knottie and lumpishe, but hard, rough, and in learning. // though somwhat staffishe, as _Tullie_ wisheth _otium, quietum, non languidum_: and _negotium cum labore, non cum periculo_, such a witte I say, if it be, at the first well handled by the mother, and rightlie smothed and wrought as it _the brynging vp of youth._ 191