12                          OF DISCOURSE.

books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and
some few to be chewed and digested : that is, some
are to be read only in parts, others to be read but
curiously, and some few to be read wholly with
diligence and attention. Reading maketh a full
man, conference a ready, and writing an exact man ;
therefore, if a man write little, he had need of a great
memory ; if he confer little, he had need of a present
wit; and if he read little, he had need have much
cunninj^ to seem to know that he doth not know.
Histories make men wise ; poets witty; the mathe-
imatics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral
^rave ; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
 

II.
 

OF DISCOURSE.
 

Some, in their discourse, desire rather commenda¬
tion of wit in being able to hold all arguments
than of judgment in discerning what is true, as if it
were a praise to know what might be said, and not
 

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