Within this compass too, come those that are
too much wedged into the world, and have no lifting thoughts above those
things; that call to thrive, to do well; and preferment only the grace
of God. That aim all studies at this mark, and show you poor scholars as
an example to take heed by. That think the prison and want a judgment
for some sin, and never like well hereafter of a jail-bird. That know no
other content but wealth, bravery, and the town-pleasures; that think
all else but idle speculation, and the philosophers madmen. In short,
men that are carried away with all outwardnesses, shows, appearances,
the stream, the people; for there is no man of worth but has a piece of
singularity, and scorns something.
A PLODDING STUDENT
Is a kind of alchymist or persecutor of nature, that would change the
dull lead of his brain into finer metal, with success many times as
unprosperous, or at least not quitting the cost, to wit, of his own oil
and candles. He has a strange forced appetite to learning, and to
achieve it brings nothing but patience and a body. His study is not
great but continual, and consists much in the sitting up till after
midnight in a rug-gown and a nightcap, to the vanquishing perhaps of
some six lines; yet what he has, he has perfect, for he reads it so long
to understand it, till he gets it without book. He may with much
industry make a breach into logic, and arrive at some ability in an
argument; but for politer studies he dare not skirmish with them, and
for poetry accounts it impregnable.
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