sincere and able men; and the image of these makes me disrelish the
rest. It is, if rightly taken, the rarest of our forms, and a form
that we chiefly owe to nature. The end of this commerce is simply
privacy, frequentation and conference, the exercise of souls, without
other fruit. In our discourse, all subjects are alike to me; let there
be neither weight, nor depth, 'tis all one: there is yet grace and
pertinency; all there is tinted with a mature and constant judgment,
and mixt with goodness, freedom, gaiety, and friendship. 'Tis not only
in talking of the affairs of kings and state, that our wits discover
their force and beauty, but every whit as much in private conferences.
I understand my men even by their silence and smiles; and better
discover them, perhaps, at table, than in the council. Hippomachus
said very well, "that he could know the good wrestlers by only seeing
them walk in the street." If learning please to step into our talk,
it shall not be rejected, not magisterial, imperious, and importunate,
as it commonly is, but suffragan and docile itself; we there only seek
to pass away our time; when we have a mind to be instructed and
preached to, we will go seek this in its throne; please let it humble
itself to us for the nonce; for, useful and profitable as it is, I
imagine that, at need, we may manage well enough without it, and do
our business without its assistance. A well-descended soul, and
practised in the conversation of men, will of herself render herself
sufficiently agreeable; art is nothing but the counterpart and
register of what such souls produce.

III

OF HIS OWN LIBRARY[21]

It goes side by side with me in my whole course, and everywhere is
assisting me: it comforts me in my old age and solitude; it eases me
of a troublesome weight of idleness, and delivers me at all hours from
company that I dislike: it blunts the point of griefs, if they are not
extreme, and have not got an entire possession of my soul. To divert
myself from a troublesome fancy, 'tis but to run to my books; they
presently fix me to them and drive the other out of my thoughts; and
do not mutiny at seeing that I have only recourse to them for want of
other more real, natural, and lively commodities; they always receive
me with the same kindness. He may well go afoot, they say, who leads
his horse in his hand; and our James, King of Naples and Sicily, who,
handsome, young and healthful, caused himself to be car