I remember I have formerly read a story--[In Appian's Civil Wars, book
iv..]--of some Roman of great quality who, flying the tyranny of the
Triumvirate, had a thousand times by the subtlety of as many inventions
escaped from falling into the hands of those that pursued him. It
happened one day that a troop of horse, which was sent out to take him,
passed close by a brake where he was squat, and missed very narrowly of
spying him: but he considering, at this point, the pains and difficulties
wherein he had so long continued to evade the strict and incessant
searches that were every day made for him, the little pleasure he could
hope for in such a kind of life, and how much better it was for him to
die once for all, than to be perpetually at this pass, he started from
his seat, called them back, showed them his form,--[as of a squatting
hare.]--and voluntarily delivered himself up to their cruelty, by that
means to free both himself and them from further trouble. To invite a
man's enemies to come and cut his throat, seems a resolution a little
extravagant and odd; and yet I think he did better to take that course,
than to live in continual feverish fear of an accident for which there
was no cure. But seeing all the remedies a man can apply to such a
disease, are full of unquietness and uncertainty, 'tis better with a
manly courage to prepare one's self for the worst that can happen, and to
extract some consolation from this, that we are not certain the thing we
fear will ever come to pass.

CHAPTER XXIV

OF PEDANTRY

I was often, when a boy, wonderfully concerned to see, in the Italian
farces, a pedant always brought in for the fool of the play, and that the
title of Magister was in no greater reverence amongst us: for being
delivered up to their tuition, what could I do less than be jealous of
their honour and reputation? I sought indeed to excuse them by the
natural incompatibility betwixt the vulgar sort and men of a finer
thread, both in judgment and knowledge, forasmuch as they go a quite
contrary way to one another: but in this, the thing I most stumbled at
was, that the finest gentlemen were those who most despised them; witness
our famous poet Du Bellay--

"Mais je hay par sur tout un scavoir pedantesque."

["Of all things I hate pedantic learning."--Du Bellay]

And 'twas so in former times; for Plutarch says that Greek and Scholar
were terms of reproach and contempt amongst