a dicing-house, or ordinary, or a vintner’s vault; or a justice of peace draw his similitudes from the mathematics, or a divine from a bawdy house, or taverns; or a gentleman of Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, or the Midland, should fetch all the illustrations to his country neighbours from shipping, and tell them of the main-sheet and the bowline.  Metaphors are thus many times deformed, as in him that said, Castratam morte Africani rempublicam; and another, Stercus curiae Glauciam, and Cana nive conspuit Alpes.  All attempts that are new in this kind, are dangerous, and somewhat hard, before they be softened with use.  A man coins not a new word without some peril and less fruit; for if it happen to be received, the praise is but moderate; if refused, the scorn is assured.  Yet we must adventure; for things at first hard and rough are by use made tender and gentle.  It is an honest error that is committed, following great chiefs.

Consuetudo.—­Perspicuitas, Venustas.—­Authoritas.—­Virgil.—­ Lucretius.—­Chaucerism.—­Paronomasia.—­Custom is the most certain mistress of language, as the public stamp makes the current money.  But we must not be too frequent with the mint, every day coining, nor fetch words from the extreme and utmost ages; since the chief virtue of a style is perspicuity, and nothing so vicious in it as to need an interpreter.  Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes; for they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win themselves a kind of grace like newness.  But the eldest of the present, and newness of the past language, is the best.  For what was the ancient language, which some men so dote upon, but the ancient custom?  Yet when I name custom, I understand not the vulgar custom; for that were a precept no less dangerous to language than life, if we should speak or live after the manners of the vulgar:  but that I call custom of speech, which is the consent of the learned; as custom of life, which is the consent of the good.  Virgil was most loving of antiquity; yet how rarely doth he insert aquai and pictai!  Lucretius is scabrous and rough in these; he seeks them:  as some do Chaucerisms with us, which were better expunged and banished.  Some words are to be culled out for ornament and colour, as we gather flowers to strew houses or make garlands; but they are better when they grow to our style; as in a meadow, where, though the mere grass and greenness delight, yet the variety of flowers doth heighten and beautify.  Marry, we must not play or riot too much with them, as in Paronomasies; nor use too swelling or ill-sounding words!  Quae per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt. {114a} It is true, there is no sound but shall find some lovers, as the bitterest confections are grateful to some palates.  Our composition must be more accurate in the beginning and end than in the midst, and in the end more than in the beginning; for through