sswade you from it, and they will not sticke to stand on
theyr three halfe pennie honour, swearing and staring that a man were
better be an hangman than an intelligencer, and call him a sneaking
eausdropper, a scraping hedgecreeper, and a piperly pickthanke, but
you must not bee discouraged by theyr talke, for the most part of those
beggerly contemners of wit, are huge burlybond butchers like _Aiax_,
good for nothing but to strike right downe blowes on a wedge with a
cleauing beetle, or stande hammering all daie vppon barres of yron. The
whelpes of a Beare neuer grow but sleeping, and these bearewards hauing
big limmes shall bee preferd though they doe nothing. You haue read
stories, (He bee sworne he neuer lookte in booke in his life) how many
of the Romane worthies were there that haue gone as spies into theyr
enemies campe? _Vlysses, Nestor, Diomed_, went as spies together in the
night into the tentes of _Rhosus_ and intercepted _Dolon_ the spie
of the Troians: neuer anie discredited the trade of intelligencers
but _Iudas_, & he hanged himselfe. Danger will put wit into anie man.
_Architas_ made a wooden doue to flie: by which proportion I see no
reason that the veryest blocke in the world should despayre of anie
thing. Though nature be contrarie inclined, it may be altered, yet
vsually those whome she denies her ordinarie giftes in one thing, she
doubles them in another. That which the asse wants in wit, hee hath in
honestie, who euer sawe him kicke or winch, or vse anie iades trickes,
though he liue an hundred yeeres you shall never heare that he breakes
pasture. Amongest men, hee that hath not a good wit, lightly hath a
good yron memorie, and he that hath neither of both, hath some bones to
carrie burthens. Blinde men haue better noses than other men: the buls
horns serue him as well as hands to fight withall: the lions pawes are
as good to him as a polaxe, to knock downe anie that resists him: so the
Bores tushes serue him in better stead than a sword and buckler, what
need the snaile care for eyes, when he feeles the waie with his two
homes, as well as if hee were as sharpe sighted as a decypherer. There
is a fish that hauing no wings, supportes her selfe in the ayre with
her finnes. Admit that you had neither wit nor capacitie, as sure in my
iudgement there is none equall vnto you in idiotisme, yet if you haue
simplicitie and secrecie, serpents themselues will thinke you a serpent,
for what serpent is there but h