Praecept. element.—­It is not the passing through these learnings that hurts us, but the dwelling and sticking about them.  To descend to those extreme anxieties and foolish cavils of grammarians, is able to break a wit in pieces, being a work of manifold misery and vainness, to be elementarii senes.  Yet even letters are, as it were, the bank of words, and restore themselves to an author as the pawns of language:  but talking and eloquence are not the same:  to speak, and to speak well, are two things.  A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks; and out of the observation, knowledge, and the use of things, many writers perplex their readers and hearers with mere nonsense.  Their writings need sunshine.  Pure and neat language I love, yet plain and customary.  A barbarous phrase has often made me out of love with a good sense, and doubtful writing hath wracked me beyond my patience.  The reason why a poet is said that he ought to have all knowledges is, that he should not be ignorant of the most, especially of those he will handle.  And indeed, when the attaining of them is possible, it were a sluggish and base thing to despair; for frequent imitation of anything becomes a habit quickly.  If a man should prosecute as much as could be said of everything, his work would find no end.

De orationis dignitate. [Greek text].—­Metaphora.  Speech is the only benefit man hath to express his excellency of mind above other creatures.  It is the instrument of society; therefore Mercury, who is the president of language, is called deorum hominumque interpres. {110a} In all speech, words and sense are as the body and the soul.  The sense is as the life and soul of language, without which all words are dead.  Sense is wrought out of experience, the knowledge of human life and actions, or of the liberal arts, which the Greeks called [Greek text].  Words are the people’s, yet there is a choice of them to be made; for verborum delectus origo est eloquentiae. {111a} They are to be chosen according to the persons we make speak, or the things we speak of.  Some are of the camp, some of the council-board, some of the shop, some of the sheepcote, some of the pulpit, some of the Bar, &c.  And herein is seen their elegance and propriety, when we use them fitly and draw them forth to their just strength and nature by way of translation or metaphor.  But in this translation we must only serve necessity (nam temere nihil transfertur a prudenti) {111b} or commodity, which is a kind of necessity:  that is, when we either absolutely want a word to express by, and that is necessity; or when we have not so fit a word, and that is commodity; as when we avoid loss by it, and escape obsceneness, and gain in the grace and property which helps significance.  Metaphors far-fetched hinder to be understood; and affected, lose their grace.  Or when the person fetcheth his translations from a wrong place as if a privy councillor should at the table take his metaphor from