n, that young men may be
learners, while men in age are actors; and, lastly, good for extern
accidents, because authority followeth old men, and favor and
popularity youth. But for the moral part, perhaps youth will have the
preeminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain rabbin, upon the
text, _Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall 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 some have an over-early
ripeness in their years, which fadeth betimes. These are, first, such
as have brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned; such as was
Hermogenes[34] the rhetorician, whose books are exceeding subtle; who
afterwards waxed stupid.

A second sort is of those that have some natural dispositions which
find better grace in youth than in age; such as is a fluent and
luxuriant speech; which becomes youth well, but not age: so Tully
saith of Hortensius,[35] _Idem manebat, neque idem decebat_. The
third is of such as take too high a strain at the first, and are
magnanimous more than tract of years can uphold. As was Scipio
Africanus, of whom Livy saith[36] in effect, _Ultima primis cedebant_.

IV

OF REVENGE

Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs
to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it
doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law
out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with
his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior; for it is a
prince's part to pardon. And Solomon, I am sure, saith, _It is the
glory of a man to pass by an offense._ That which is past is gone, and
irrevocable; and wise men have enough to do with things present and to
come; therefore they do but trifle with themselves, that labor in past
matters. There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake; but
thereby to purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honor, or the
like. Therefore why should I be angry with a man for loving himself
better than me? And if any man should do wrong merely out of
ill-nature, why, yet it is but like the thorn or brier, which prick
and scratch, because they can do no other.

The most tolerable sort of revenge is