As one, therefore, that in worthy examples hold imitation better than
invention, I have trod in their paths, but with an higher and wider
step, and out of their tablets have drawn these larger portraitures of
both sorts. More might be said, I deny not, of every virtue, of every
vice; I desired not to say all but enough. If thou do but read or like
these I have spent good hours ill; but if thou shalt hence abjure those
vices, which before thou thoughtest not ill-favoured, or fall in love
with any of these goodly faces of virtue, or shalt hence find where thou
hast any little touch of these evils, to clear thyself, or where any
defect in these graces to supply it, neither of us shall need to repent
of our labour.
THE FIRST BOOK.
_CHARACTERISMS OF VIRTUES._
THE PROEM.
Virtue is not loved enough, because she is not seen; and vice loseth
much detestation, because her ugliness is secret. Certainly, my lords,
there are so many beauties, and so many graces in the face of goodness,
that no eye can possibly see it without affection, without ravishment;
and the visage of evil is so monstrous through loathsome deformities,
that if her lovers were not ignorant they would be mad with disdain and
astonishment. What need we more than to discover these two to the world?
This work shall save the labour of exhorting and dissuasion. I have here
done it as I could, following that ancient master of morality, who
thought this the fittest task for the ninety and ninth year of his age,
and the profitablest monument that he could leave for a farewell visit
to his Grecians.
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