Jejuna, macilenta, strigosa.--Ossea, et nervosa.--Some men, to avoid
redundancy, run into that; and while they strive to have no ill
blood or juice, they lose their good. There be some styles, again,
that have not less blood, but less flesh and corpulence. These are
bony and sinewy; Ossa habent, et nervos.
Notae domini Sti. Albani de doctrin. intemper.--Dictator.--
Aristoteles.--It was well noted by the late Lord St. Albans, that
the study of words is the first distemper of learning; vain matter
the second; and a third distemper is deceit, or the likeness of
truth: imposture held up by credulity. All these are the cobwebs
of learning, and to let them grow in us is either sluttish or
foolish. Nothing is more ridiculous than to make an author a
dictator, as the schools have done Aristotle. The damage is
infinite knowledge receives by it; for to many things a man should
owe but a temporary belief, and suspension of his own judgment, not
an absolute resignation of himself, or a perpetual captivity. Let
Aristotle and others have their dues; but if we can make farther
discoveries of truth and fitness than they, why are we envied? Let
us beware, while we strive to add, we do not diminish or deface; we
may improve, but not augment.
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