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hardly able to colour other Men's Monies in the Country: fo as the Licenfe of Nine will not fuck away the current Rate of Five; for no Man will fend his Monies far off, nor put them into unknown Hands.

If it be objected that this doth in a sort authorize Ufury, which before was in fome places but permiffive; the answer is, that it is better to mitigate Ufury by Declaration than to fuffer it to rage by Connivance.

XLII. Of Youth and Age.

MAN that is young in Years may be old in Hours, if he have loft no Time. But that happeneth rarely. Generally, Youth is like the firft Cogitations, not fo wife as the fecond. For there is a Youth in thoughts as well as in Ages; and yet the Invention of young Men is more lively than that of old; and Imaginations stream into their Minds better, and, as it were, more divinely. Natures that have much Heat, and great and violent Defires and Perturbations, are not ripe for Action till they have paffed the Meridian of their years as it was with Julius Cæfar and Septimus Severus. the latter of whom, it is faid, Juventutem egit Erroribus, imò Furoribus, plenam:1 and yet he was the ableft Emperor almost of all the Lift. But

Of

1 Juventam plenam furorum nonnunquam et criminum habuit. -Spartian vit. Sev.

reposed Natures may do well in Youth, as it is feen in Auguftus Cæfar, Cofmos Duke of Florence, Gafton de Foix, and others. On the other fide, Heat and Vivacity in Age is an Excellent Compofition for Bufinefs. Young Men are Fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for Execution than for Counsel; and fitter for new Projects than for settled Business. For the Experience of Age, in Things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them; but in new Things abuseth them. The Errors of young Men are the Ruin of Business; but the Errors of aged Men amount but to this; that more might have been done, or fooner. Young Men, in the conduct and Manage of Actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the End, without Confideration of the Means and Degrees; pursue some few Principles which they have chanced upon abfurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown. Inconveniences; ufe extreme Remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all Errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready Horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of Age object too much, confult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and feldom drive Business home to the full Period; but content themselves with a Mediocrity of Succefs. Certainly it is good to compound Employments of both; for that will be good for the Present, because the Virtues of either

2 Gaston de Foix was nephew to Louis XII.; he commanded the French armies in Italy with brilliant fuccefs, but was killed at the battle of Ravenna, in 1512. His portrait, by Giorgione, has been just added to the National Gallery, by the bequest of Mr. Rogers.

M

Age may correct the defects of both: and good for Succeffion, that Young Men may be Learners, while Men in Age are Actors: and, laftly, good for externe Accidents, because Authority followeth old Men, and Favour and Popularity Youth. But for the moral Part, perhaps Youth will have the pre-eminence, as Age hath for the Politick. A certain Rabbin, upon the Text, Your Young Men fhall fee vifions, and your Old Men fhall dream dreams, inferreth that young Men are admitted nearer to God than old, because Vision is a clearer Revelation than a Dream: and, certainly, the more a Man drinketh of the World, the more it intoxicateth; and Age doth profit rather in the Powers of Understanding than in the Virtues of the Will and Affections. There be fome have an overearly Ripeness in their years, which fadeth betimes these are, firft, fuch as have brittle Wits, the Edge whereof is foon turned; fuch as was Hermogenes the Rhetorician, whose Books are exceeding fubtile, who afterwards waxed ftupid: a fecond Sort is of those that have some natural Difpofitions, which have better Grace in Youth than in Age; fuch as is a fluent and luxuriant Speech; which becomes Youth well, but not Age; fo Tully faith of Hortenfius, Idem manebat, neque idem decebat. The third is of fuch as take too high a Strain at the Firft; and are magnanimous more than Tract of years can uphold; as was Scipio Africanus, of whom Livy faith in effect; Ultima Primis cedebant.5

3 Joel ii. 28; quoted in Acts ii. 17; Adv. of L. 1. iii. 23. Cic. Brut. 95. Adv. of L. 1. xxiii. 28.

5 Livy, xxxviii. 53. The words are "Memorabilior prima pars

XLIII. Of Beauty.

IRTUE is like a rich Stone, best plain fet; and furely Virtue is best in a Body that is comely, though not of delicate Features; and that hath rather Dignity of Presence than Beauty of Aspect. Neither is it almost seen, that very beautiful Perfons are otherwise of great Virtue; as if Nature were rather busy not to err, than in labour to produce Excellency: and therefore, they prove accomplished, but not of great Spirit; and Study rather Behaviour than Virtue. But this holds not

always; for Auguftus Cæfar, Titus Vefpafianus, Philip le Bel of France, Edward the Fourth of England, Alcibiades of Athens, Ifmael the Sophy of Perfia, were all high and great Spirits, and yet the most beautiful Men of their Times. In Beauty, that of Favour1 is more than that of Colour; and that of decent and gracious Motion more than that of Favour. That is the beft Part of Beauty which a Picture cannot express; no, nor the first Sight of the Life. There is no excellent Beauty, that hath not fome Strangeness in the Proportion. A Man cannot tell whether Apelles or Albert Durer were the more Trifler; whereof the one would make a Perfonage by Geometrical Propor

vitæ quam poftrema fuit." But the allufion is to Ovid. Heroid. ix. 23, 24.

"Cœpifti melius quam definis: ULTIMA PRIMIS
CEDUNT: diffimiles hic vir et ille puer."

1 Favour is general appearance.

tions; the other, by taking the best Parts out of divers Faces to make one Excellent: fuch Perfonages, I think, would please nobody but the Painter that made them. Not but I think a Painter make a better Face than ever was; may but he must do it by a kind of Felicity (as a Mufician that maketh an excellent Air in Mufick), and not by Rule. A Man fhall fee Faces, that if you examine them Part by Part, you shall find never a good; and yet altogether do well. If it be true, that the principal Part of Beauty is in decent Motion, certainly it is no marvel, though Perfons in Years seem many times more amiable; Pulchrorum Autumnus Pulcher: for no Youth can be comely but by Pardon, and confidering the Youth as to make up the comelinefs. Beauty is as Summer Fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and cannot laft; and, for the most part, it makes a diffolute Youth, and an Age a little out of countenance; but yet certainly again, if it light well, it maketh Virtues fhine and Vices blufh.

2 The allufion in regard to Apelles may probably be to the story of Zeuxis in Cicero, De Invent. ii.

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