e greatest beauty of poetry perfected by art: as we see in our
Gascon villanels and the songs that are brought us from nations that have
no knowledge of any manner of science, nor so much as the use of writing.
The middle sort of poesy betwixt these two is despised, of no value,
honour, or esteem.

But seeing that the path once laid open to the fancy, I have found, as it
commonly falls out, that what we have taken for a difficult exercise and
a rare subject, prove to be nothing so, and that after the invention is
once warm, it finds out an infinite number of parallel examples. I shall
only add this one--that, were these Essays of mine considerable enough to
deserve a critical judgment, it might then, I think, fall out that they
would not much take with common and vulgar capacities, nor be very
acceptable to the singular and excellent sort of men; the first would not
understand them enough, and the last too much; and so they may hover in
the middle region.

CHAPTER LV

OF SMELLS

It has been reported of some, as of Alexander the Great, that their sweat
exhaled an odoriferous smell, occasioned by some rare and extraordinary
constitution, of which Plutarch and others have been inquisitive into the
cause. But the ordinary constitution of human bodies is quite otherwise,
and their best and chiefest excellency is to be exempt from smell. Nay,
the sweetness even of the purest breath has nothing in it of greater
perfection than to be without any offensive smell, like those of
healthful children, which made Plautus say of a woman:

"Mulier tum bene olet, ubi nihil olet."

["She smells sweetest, who smells not at all."
--Plautus, Mostel, i. 3, 116.]

And such as make use of fine exotic perfumes are with good reason to be
suspected of some natural imperfection which they endeavour by these
odours to conceal. To smell, though well, is to stink:

"Rides nos, Coracine, nil olentes
Malo, quam bene olere, nil olere."

["You laugh at us, Coracinus, because we are not scented; I would,
rather than smell well, not smell at all."--Martial, vi. 55, 4.]

And elsewhere:

"Posthume, non bene olet, qui bene semper olet."

["Posthumus, he who ever smells well does not smell well."
--Idem, ii. 12, 14.]

I am nevertheless a great lover of good smells, and as much abominate the
ill ones, which also I scent at a greater distance, I t