Other arms are made for the spilling of blood, but his only
purify and cleanse it like scurvy-grass; for a small dose taken by his
prescription will refine that which is as base and gross as bull's blood
(which the Athenians used to poison withal) to any degree of purity.
A VIRTUOSO
Is a well-willer to the mathematics; he pursues knowledge rather out of
humour than ingenuity, and endeavours rather to seem than to be. He has
nothing of nature but an inclination, which he strives to improve with
industry; but as no art can make a fountain run higher than its own
head, so nothing can raise him above the elevation of his own pole. He
seldom converses but with men of his own tendency, and wheresoever he
comes treats with all men as such; for as country gentlemen use to talk
of their dogs to those that hate hunting because they love it
themselves, so will he of his arts and sciences to those that neither
know nor care to know anything of them. His industry were admirable if
it did not attempt the greatest difficulties with the feeblest means;
for he commonly slights anything that is plain and easy, how useful and
ingenious soever, and bends all his forces against the hardest and most
improbable, though to no purpose if attained to; for neither knowing how
to measure his own abilities nor the weight of what he attempts, he
spends his little strength in vain and grows only weaker by it; and as
men use to blind horses that draw in a mill, his ignorance of himself
and his undertakings makes him believe he has advanced when he is no
nearer to his end than when he set out first.
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