finally, all virtues, vices, and passions so in their own natural
states laid to the view, that we seem not to hear of them, but
clearly to see through them?

But even in the most excellent determination of goodness, what
philosopher's counsel can so readily direct a prince as the feigned
Cyrus in Xenophon? Or a virtuous man in all fortunes, as AEneas in
Virgil? Or a whole commonwealth, as the way of Sir Thomas More's
Utopia? I say the way, because where Sir Thomas More erred, it was
the fault of the man, and not of the poet; for that way of
patterning a commonwealth was most absolute, though he, perchance,
hath not so absolutely performed it. For the question is, whether
the feigned image of poetry, or the regular instruction of
philosophy, hath the more force in teaching. Wherein, if the
philosophers have more rightly showed themselves philosophers, than
the poets have attained to the high top of their profession, (as in
truth,


"Mediocribus esse poetis
Non Di, non homines, non concessere columnae," {33})


it is, I say again, not the fault of the art, but that by few men
that art can be accomplished. Certainly, even our Saviour Christ
could as well have given the moral common-places {34} of
uncharitableness and humbleness, as the divine narration of Dives
and Lazarus; or of disobedience and mercy, as the heavenly discourse
of the lost child and the gracious father; but that his thorough
searching wisdom knew the estate of Dives burning in hell, and of