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THE SECOND BOOKE 111
disposition and naturall judgement of my authors. A
man ought to judge their sufficiencie and not their
customes, nor them by the shew of their writings, which
they set forth on this world's theatre. I have sorrowed
a thousand times that ever we lost the booke that Brutus
writ of Vertue. Oh it is a goodly thing to learne the
Theorike of such as understand the practice well. But
forsomuch as the Sermon is one thing and the Preacher
an other, I love as much to see Brutus in Plutarke as
in himself: I would rather make choice to know
certainly what talk he had in his tent with some of
his familiar friends, the night fore-going the battell,
than the speech he made the morrow after to his Annie;
and what he did in his chamber or closet, than what in
the senate or market place. As for Cicero, I am of the
common judgement, that besides learning there was no
exquisite eloquence in him: He was a good citizen, of
an honest, gentle nature, as are commonly fat and
burly men : for so was he : But to speake truly of him,
full of ambitious vanity and remisse niceness. And I
know not well how to excuse him, in that he deemed
his Poesie worthy to be published. It is no great
imperfection to make bad verses, but it is an imperfection
in nim that he never perceived how unworthy they were
of the glorie of his name. Concerning his eloquence, it is
beyond all comparison, and 1 verily beleeve that none
shall ever equal! it. Cicero the younger, who resembled
his father in nothing but in name, commanding in Asia,
chanced one day to have many strangers at his board,
and amongst others, one Caestius sitting at the lower
end, as the manner is to thrust in at great mens tables:
Cicero inquired of one of his men what he was, who
told him his name, but he dreaming on other matters,
and having forgotten what answere his man made him,
asked him his name twice or thrice more: the servant,
because he would not be troubled to tell him one thing
so often, and by some circumstance to make him to
know him better, 'It is,' said he, 'the same Caestius
of whom some have told you that, in respect of his
owne, maketh no accompt of your fathers eloquence:'