pre-eminence in speaking. The poet, says Plato, seated upon the muses
tripod, pours out with fury whatever comes into his mouth, like the pipe
of a fountain, without considering and weighing it; and things escape him
of various colours, of contrary substance, and with an irregular torrent.
Plato himself is throughout poetical; and the old theology, as the
learned tell us, is all poetry; and the first philosophy is the original
language of the gods. I would have my matter distinguish itself; it
sufficiently shows where it changes, where it concludes, where it begins,
and where it rejoins, without interlacing it with words of connection
introduced for the relief of weak or negligent ears, and without
explaining myself. Who is he that had not rather not be read at all than
after a drowsy or cursory manner?

"Nihil est tam utile, quod intransitu prosit."

["Nothing is so useful as that which is cursorily so."
--Seneca, Ep., 2.]

If to take books in hand were to learn them: to look upon them were to
consider them: and to run these slightly over were to grasp them, I were
then to blame to make myself out so ignorant as I say I am. Seeing I
cannot fix the attention of my reader by the weight of what I write,
'manco male', if I should chance to do it by my intricacies. "Nay, but
he will afterwards repent that he ever perplexed himself about it."
'Tis very true, but he will yet be there perplexed. And, besides, there
are some humours in which comprehension produces disdain; who will think
better of me for not understanding what I say, and will conclude the
depth of my sense by its obscurity; which, to speak in good sooth, I
mortally hate, and would avoid it if I could. Aristotle boasts somewhere
in his writings that he affected it: a vicious affectation. The frequent