arce able to hold a pen, they must say something, [77]"and
get themselves a name," saith Scaliger, "though it be to the downfall and
ruin of many others." To be counted writers, _scriptores ut salutentur_, to
be thought and held polymaths and polyhistors, _apud imperitum vulgus ob
ventosae nomen artis_, to get a paper-kingdom: _nulla spe quaestus sed
ampla famae_, in this precipitate, ambitious age, _nunc ut est saeculum,
inter immaturam eruditionem, ambitiosum et praeceps_ ('tis [78]Scaliger's
censure); and they that are scarce auditors, _vix auditores_, must be
masters and teachers, before they be capable and fit hearers. They will
rush into all learning, _togatam armatam_, divine, human authors, rake over
all indexes and pamphlets for notes, as our merchants do strange havens for
traffic, write great tomes, _Cum non sint re vera doctiores, sed
loquaciores_, whereas they are not thereby better scholars, but greater
praters. They commonly pretend public good, but as [79]Gesner observes,
'tis pride and vanity that eggs them on; no news or aught worthy of note,
but the same in other terms. _Ne feriarentur fortasse typographi vel ideo
scribendum est aliquid ut se vixisse testentur_. As apothecaries we make
new mixtures everyday, pour out of one vessel into another; and as those
old Romans robbed all the cities of the world, to set out their bad-sited
Rome, we skim off the cream of other men's wits, pick the choice flowers of
their tilled gardens to set out our own sterile plots. _Castrant alios ut
libros suos per se graciles alieno adipe suffarciant_ (so [80]Jovius
inveighs.) They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works.
_Ineruditi fures_, &c. A fault that every writer finds, as I do now, and
yet faulty themselves, [81]_Trium literarum homines_, all thieves; they
pilfer out of old writers to stuff up their new comments, scrape Ennius'
dunghills, and out of [82]Democritus' pit, as I have done. By which means
it comes to pass, [83]"that not only libraries and shops are full of our
putrid papers, but every close-stool and jakes," _Scribunt carmina quae
legunt cacantes_; they serve to put under pies, to [84]lap spice in, and
keep roast meat from burning. "With us in France," saith [85]Scaliger,
"every man hath liberty to write, but few ability." [86]"Heretofore
learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are
vilified by base and illiterate scribblers," that either write for
vainglory, need, to g