change and reformation of his former life. Whoever found such an
effect of our discipline?

"Faciasne, quod olim
Mutatus Polemon? ponas insignia morbi
Fasciolas, cubital, focalia; potus ut ille
Dicitur ex collo furtim carpsisse coronas,
Postquam est impransi correptus voce magistri?"

["Will you do what reformed Polemon did of old? will you lay aside
the joys of your disease, your garters, capuchin, muffler, as he in
his cups is said to have secretly torn off his garlands from his
neck when he heard what that temperate teacher said?"
--Horace, Sat., ii. 3, 253]

That seems to me to be the least contemptible condition of men, which by
its plainness and simplicity is seated in the lowest degree, and invites
us to a more regular course. I find the rude manners and language of
country people commonly better suited to the rule and prescription of
true philosophy, than those of our philosophers themselves:

"Plus sapit vulgus, quia tantum, quantum opus est, sapit."

["The vulgar are so much the wiser, because they only know what
is needful for them to know."--Lactantms, Instit. Div., iii. 5.]

The most remarkable men, as I have judged by outward appearance (for to
judge of them according to my own method, I must penetrate a great deal
deeper), for soldiers and military conduct, were the Duc de Guise, who
died at Orleans, and the late Marshal Strozzi; and for men of great
ability and no common virtue, Olivier and De l'Hospital, Chancellors of
France. Poetry, too, in my opinion, has flourished in this age of ours;
we have abundance of very good artificers in the trade: D'Aurat, Beza,
Buchanan, L'Hospital, Montdore, Turnebus; as to the French poets, I
believe they raised their art to the highest pitch to which it can ever
arrive; and in those parts of it wherein Ronsard and Du Bellay excel, I
find them little inferior to the ancient perfection. Adrian Turnebus
knew more, and what he did know, better than any man of his time, or long
before him. The lives of the last Duke of Alva, and of our Constable de
Montmorency, were both of them great and noble, and that had many rare
resemblances of fortune; but the beauty and glory of the death of the
last, in the sight of Paris and of his king, in their service, against
his nearest relations, at the head of an army through his conduct
victorious, a