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THE SECOND BOOKE 277
publike imaginarie thing of it. It is a subject which
they hold and handle: they have all power granted
them to rip him, to sever him, to range him, to join and
reunite him together againe, and to stuffe him every one
according to his fantasie ; and yet they neither have nor
possess him. They cannot so order or rule him, not in
truth onely, but in imagination, but still some cadence
or sound is discovered which escapeth their architecture,
bad as it is, and botched together with a thousand false
patches and fantasticall peeces. And they have no
reason to be excused : for to painters when they pourtray
the heaven, the earth, the seas, the hills, the scattered
Hands, we pardon them if they but represent us with
some slight apparence of them ; and as of things unknowne
we are contented with such fained shadows.
But when they draw us, or any other subject that is
familiarly knowne unto us, to the life, then seeke we
to draw from them a perfect and exact representation
of their or our true lineaments or colours, and scorne
if they misse never so little. I commend the Milesian
wench, who seeing Thales the Philosopher continually
amusing himself in the contemplation of heavens widebounding
vault, and ever holding his eyes aloft, laid
something in his way to make him stumble, thereby to
warne and put him in minde that he should not amuse
his thoughts about matters above the clouds before he
had provided for and well considered those at his feet.
Verily she advised him well, and it better became him
rather to looke to himselfe than to gaze on heaven ; for,
as Democritus by the mouth of Cicero saith,
Quod este ante pedes, nemo spectat; coeli scrutantur plagas, 1
No man lookes what before his feet doth lie,
They seeke and search the climates of the skie.
But our condition beareth that the knowledge of
what we touch with our hands and have amongst us, is
as far from us and above the clouds as that of the stars.
As saith Socrates in Plato, that one may justly say to
1 CIC. Div. 1. ii.