“Imperet bellante prior, jacentem
                    Lenis in hostem.”

     ["In the fight, overthrow your enemy, but be merciful to him when
     fallen.—­“Horace, Carm.  Saec., v. 51.]

’Tis not his profession to know either how to hunt or to dance well;

               “Orabunt causas alii, coelique meatus
               Describent radio, et fulgentia sidera dicent;
               Hic regere imperio populos sciat.”

     ["Let others plead at the bar, or describe the spheres, and point
     out the glittering stars; let this man learn to rule the nations.” 
     —­AEneid, vi. 849.]

Plutarch says, moreover, that to appear so excellent in these less necessary qualities is to produce witness against a man’s self, that he has spent his time and applied his study ill, which ought to have been employed in the acquisition of more necessary and more useful things.  So that Philip, king of Macedon, having heard that great Alexander his son sing once at a feast to the wonder of the best musicians there:  “Art thou not ashamed,” said he to him, “to sing so well?” And to the same Philip a musician, with whom he was disputing about some things concerning his art:  “Heaven forbid, sir,” said he, “that so great a misfortune should ever befall you as to understand these things better than I.”  A king should be able to answer as Iphicrates did the orator, who pressed upon him in his invective after this manner:  “And what art thou that thou bravest it at this rate? art thou a man at arms, art thou an archer, art thou a pikeman?”—­“I am none of all this; but I know how to command all these.”  And Antisthenes took it for an argument of little value in Ismenias that he was commended for playing excellently well upon a flute.

I know very well, that when I hear any one dwell upon the language of my essays, I had rather a great deal he would say nothing:  ’tis not so much to elevate the style as to depress the sense, and so much the more offensively as they do it obliquely; and yet I am much deceived if many other writers deliver more worth noting as to the matter, and, how well or ill soever, if any other writer has sown things much more materials or at all events more downright, upon his paper than myself.  To bring the more in, I only muster up the heads; should I annex the sequel, I should trebly multiply the volume.  And how many stories have I scattered up and down in this book that I only touch upon, which, should any one more curiously search into, they would find matter enough to produce infinite essays.  Neither those stories nor my quotations always serve simply for example, authority, or ornament; I do not only regard them for the use I make of them:  they carry sometimes besides what I apply them to, the seed of a more rich and a bolder matter, and sometimes, collaterally, a more delicate sound both to myself who will say no more about it in this place, and to others who shall be of my humour.