The former I call properly [Greek omitted] but both together I comprehend under the general name of Symposiacs.

They are promiscuously set down, not in the exact method, but as each singly occurred to memory.

And let not my readers wonder that I dedicate these collections to you, which I have received from others or your own mouth; for if all learning is not bare remembrance, yet to learn and to remember are very commonly one and the same.
QUESTION I WHAT, AS XENOPHON INTIMATES, ARE THE MOST AGREEABLE QUESTIONS AND MOST PLEASANT RAILLERY AT AN ENTERTAINMENT?
SOSSIUS, SENECIO, AND PLUTARCH.
Now each book being divided into ten questions, that shall make the first in this, which Socratial Xenophon hath as it were proposed; for he tells that, Gobryas banqueting with Cyrus, amongst other things he found admirable in the Persians, was surprised to hear them ask one another such questions that it was more pleasant to be interrogated than to be let alone, and pass such jests on one another that it was more pleasant to be jested on than not.

For if some, even whilst they praise, offend, why should not their polite and neat facetiousness be admired, whose very raillery is delightful and pleasant to him that is the subject of it?
Once you said: I wish I could learn what kind of questions those are; for to be skilled in and make right use of apposite questions and pleasant raillery, I think is no small part of conversation.
A considerable one, I replied; but pray observe whether Xenophon himself, in his descriptions of Socrates's and the Persian entertainments, hath not sufficiently explained them.

But if you would have my thoughts, first, men are pleased to be asked those questions to which they have an answer ready; such are those in which the persons asked have some skill and competent knowledge; for when the inquiry is above their reach, those that can return nothing are troubled, as if requested to give something beyond their power; and those that do answer, producing some crude and insufficient demonstration, must needs be very much concerned, and apt to blunder on the wrong.