CHARACTER OF THE WISE MAN.

There is nothing that he desires not to know, but most and first himself, and not so much his own strength as his weaknesses; neither is his knowledge reduced to discourse, but practice.  He is a skilful logician, not by nature so much as use; his working mind doth nothing all his time but make syllogisms and draw out conclusions; everything that he sees and hears serves for one of the premisses; with these he cares first to inform himself, then to direct others.  Both his eyes are never at once from home, but one keeps house while the other roves abroad for intelligence.  In material and weighty points he abides not his mind suspended in uncertainties, but hates doubting where he may, where he should be resolute:  and first he makes sure work for his soul, accounting it no safety to be unsettled in the foreknowledge of his small estate.  The best is first regarded; and vain is that regard which endeth not in security.  Every care hath his just order; neither is there any one either neglected or misplaced.  He is seldom ever seen with credulity; for, knowing the falseness of the world, he hath learned to trust himself always, others so far as he may not be damaged by their disappointment.  He seeks his quietness in secrecy, and is wont both to hide himself in retiredness, and his tongue in himself.  He loves to be guessed at, not known; and to see the world unseen; and when he is forced into the light, shows by his actions that his obscurity was neither from affectation nor weakness.  His purposes are neither so variable as may argue inconstancy, nor obstinately unchangeable, but framed according to his after-wits, or the strength of new occasions.  He is both an apt scholar and an excellent master; for both everything he sees informs him, and his mind, enriched with plentiful observation, can give the best precepts.  His free discourse runs back to the ages past, and recovers events out of memory, and then preventeth time in flying forward to future things; and comparing one with the other, can give a verdict well near prophetical, wherein his conjectures are better than another’s judgments.  His passions are so many good servants, which stand in a diligent attendance ready to be commanded by reason, by religion; and if at any time forgetting their duty, they be miscarried to rebel, he can first conceal their mutiny, then suppress it.  In all his just and worthy designs he is never at a loss, but hath so projected all his courses that a second begins where the first failed, and fetcheth strength from that which succeeded not.  There be wrongs which he will not see, neither doth he always look that way which he meaneth, nor take notice of his secret smarts, when they come from great ones.  In good turns he loves not to owe more than he must; in evil, to owe and not pay.  Just censures he deserves not, for he lives without the compass of an adversary; unjust he contemneth, and had rather suffer false infamy