This exercise may bring moch profite to ripe heads, and stayd iudgementes: bicause, in traueling in it, the mynde must nedes be verie attentiue, and busilie occupide, in turning and tossing it selfe many wayes: and conferryng with great pleasure, the varietie of worthie wittes and iudgementes togither: But this harme may sone cum therby, and namelie to yong Scholers, lesse, in seeking other wordes, and new forme of sentences, they chance vpon the worse: for the which onelie cause, _Cicero_ thinketh this exercise not to be fit for yong men. _the ready way to the Latin tong._ 259 _Epitome._ This is a way of studie, belonging, rather to matter, than to wordes: to memorie, than to vtterance: to those that be learned alreadie, and hath small place at all amonges yong scholers in Grammer scholes. It may proffet priuately some learned men, but it hath hurt generallie learning it selfe, very moch. For by it haue we lost whole _Trogus_, the best part of _T. Liuius_, the goodlie Dictionarie of _Pompeius festus_, a great deale of the Ciuill lawe, and other many notable bookes, for the which cause, I do the more mislike this exercise, both in old and yong. _Epitome_, is good priuatelie for himselfe that doth worke it, but ill commonlie for all other that vse other mens labor therein: a silie poore kinde of studie, not vnlike to the doing of those poore folke, which neyther till, nor sowe, nor reape themselues, but gleane by stelth, vpon other mens growndes. Soch, haue emptie barnes, for deare yeares. Grammer scholes haue fewe _Epitomes_ to hurt them, except _Epitheta Textoris_, and such beggarlie gatheringes, as _Horman, whittington_, and other like vulgares for making of latines: yea I do wishe, that all rules for yong scholers, were shorter than they be. For without doute, _Grammatica_ it selfe, is sooner and surer learned by examples of good authors, than by the naked rewles of _Grammarians_. _Epitome_ hurteth more, in the vni- uersities and studie of Philosophie: but most of all, in diuinitie it selfe. In deede bookes of common places be verie necessarie, to induce a man, into an orderlie generall knowledge, how to referre orderlie all that he readeth, _ad certa rerum Capita_, and not wander in studie. And to that end did _P. Lombardus_ the master of sentences and _Ph. Melancthon_ in our daies, write two notable bookes of common places. But to dwell in _Epitomes_ and bookes of common places, and not to binde himselfe dailie by orderlie studie, to reade with all diligence, principallie the holyest scripture and withall, the best Doctors, and so to learne to make trewe difference betwixt, the authoritie of the one, and the Counsell of the other, maketh so