vercome with
idleness, or otherwise involved in a labyrinth of worldly cares, troubles
and discontents, that will not be much lightened in his mind by reading of
some enticing story, true or feigned, whereas in a glass he shall observe
what our forefathers have done, the beginnings, ruins, falls, periods of
commonwealths, private men's actions displayed to the life, &c. [3317]
Plutarch therefore calls them, _secundas mensas et bellaria_, the second
course and junkets, because they were usually read at noblemen's feasts.
Who is not earnestly affected with a passionate speech, well penned, an
elegant poem, or some pleasant bewitching discourse, like that of [3318]
Heliodorus, _ubi oblectatio quaedam placide fuit, cum hilaritate
conjuncta_? Julian the Apostate was so taken with an oration of Libanius,
the sophister, that, as he confesseth, he could not be quiet till he had
read it all out. _Legi orationem tuam magna ex parte, hesterna die ante
prandium, pransus vero sine ulla intermissione totam absolvi_. [3319]_O
argumenta! O compositionem!_ I may say the same of this or that pleasing
tract, which will draw his attention along with it. To most kind of men it
is an extraordinary delight to study. For what a world of books offers
itself, in all subjects, arts, and sciences, to the sweet content and
capacity of the reader? In arithmetic, geometry, perspective, optics,
astronomy, architecture, sculpture, painting, of which so many and such
elaborate treatises are of late written: in mechanics and their mysteries,
military matters, navigation, [3320]riding of horses, [3321]fencing,
swimming, gardening, planting, great tomes of husbandry, cookery, falconry,
hunting, fishing, fowling, &c., with exquisite pictures of all sports,
games, and what not? In music, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy,
philology, in policy, heraldry, genealogy, chronology, &c., they afford
great tomes, or those studies of [3322]antiquity, &c., _et [3323]quid
subtilius Arithmeticis inventionibus, quid jucundius Musicis rationibus,
quid divinius Astronomicis, quid rectius Geometricis demonstrationibus_?
What so sure, what so pleasant? He that shall but see that geometrical
tower of Garezenda at Bologna in Italy, the steeple and clock at Strasburg,
will admire the effects of art, or that engine of Archimedes, to remove the
earth itself, if he had but a place to fasten his instrument: Archimedes
Coclea, and rare devices to corrivate waters, musical instr