many seeming, and sonburnt ministers as we haue, whose 260 _The second booke teachyng_ learning is gotten in a sommer heat, and washed away, with a Christmas snow againe: who neuerthelesse, are lesse to be blamed, than those blind bussardes, who in late yeares, of wilfull maliciousnes, would neyther learne themselues, nor could teach others, any thing at all. _Paraphrasis_ hath done lesse hurt to learning, than _Epitome_: for no _Paraphrasis_, though there be many, shall neuer take away _Dauids_ Psalter. _Erasmus Paraphrasis_ being neuer so good, shall neuer banishe the new Testament. And in an other schole, the _Paraphrasis_ of _Brocardus_, or _Sambucus_, shal neuer take _Aristotles_ Rhetoricke, nor _Horace de Arte Poetica_, out of learned mens handes. But, as concerning a schole _Epitome_, he that wold haue an example of it, let him read _Lucian_ peri kallous which is the verie _Epitome_ of _Isocrates_ oration _de laudibus Helenæ_, whereby he may learne, at the least, this wise lesson, that a man ought to beware, to be ouer bold, in altering an excellent mans worke. Neuertheles, some kinde of _Epitome_ may be vsed, by men of skilful iudgement, to the great proffet also of others. As if a wise man would take _Halles_ Cronicle, where moch good matter is quite marde with Indenture Englishe, and first change, strange and inkhorne tearmes into proper, and commonlie vsed wordes: next, specially to wede out that, that is superfluous and idle, not onelie where wordes be vainlie heaped one vpon an other, but also where many sentences, of one meaning, be clowted vp together as though _M. Hall_ had bene, not writing the storie of England, but varying a sentence in Hitching schole: surelie a wise learned man, by this way of _Epitome_, in cutting away wordes and sentences, and diminishing nothing at all of the matter, shold leaue to mens vse, a storie, halfe as moch as it was in quantitie, but twise as good as it was, both for pleasure and also commoditie. An other kinde of _Epitome_ may be vsed likewise very well, to moch proffet. Som man either by lustines of nature, or brought by ill teaching, to a wrong iudgement, is ouer full of words, sentences, & matter, & yet all his words be proper, apt & well chosen: all his sentences be rownd and trimlie framed: his whole matter grownded vpon good reason, & stuffed with full arguments, for his intent & purpose. Yet when his talke _the ready way to the Latin tong._ 261