At this rate, agriculture was an honour to Cyrus, and eloquence and the knowledge of letters to Charlemagne.

I have in my time known some, who by writing acquired both their titles and fortune, disown their apprenticeship, corrupt their style, and affect ignorance in so vulgar a quality (which also our nation holds to be rarely seen in very learned hands), and to seek a reputation by better qualities.

Demosthenes' companions in the embassy to Philip, extolling that prince as handsome, eloquent, and a stout drinker, Demosthenes said that those were commendations more proper for a woman, an advocate, or a sponge, than for a king': "Imperet bellante prior, jacentem Lenis in hostem." ["In the fight, overthrow your enemy, but be merciful to him when fallen.--"Horace, Carm.Saec., v.

51.] 'Tis not his profession to know either how to hunt or to dance well; "Orabunt causas alii, coelique meatus Describent radio, et fulgentia sidera dicent; Hic regere imperio populos sciat." ["Let others plead at the bar, or describe the spheres, and point out the glittering stars; let this man learn to rule the nations." -- AEneid, vi.

849.] Plutarch says, moreover, that to appear so excellent in these less necessary qualities is to produce witness against a man's self, that he has spent his time and applied his study ill, which ought to have been employed in the acquisition of more necessary and more useful things.
So that Philip, king of Macedon, having heard that great Alexander his son sing once at a feast to the wonder of the best musicians there: "Art thou not ashamed," said he to him, "to sing so well ?" And to the same Philip a musician, with whom he was disputing about some things concerning his art: "Heaven forbid, sir," said he, "that so great a misfortune should ever befall you as to understand these things better than I." A king should be able to answer as Iphicrates did the orator, who pressed upon him in his invective after this manner: "And what art thou that thou bravest it at this rate?
art thou a man at arms, art thou an archer, art thou a pikeman ?"--"I am none of all this; but I know how to command all these." And Antisthenes took it for an argument of little value in Ismenias that he was commended for playing excellently well upon a flute.
I know very well, that when I hear any one dwell upon the language of my essays, I had rather a great deal he would say nothing: 'tis not so much to elevate the style as to depress the sense, and so much the more offensively as they do it obliquely; and yet I am much deceived if many other writers deliver more worth noting as to the matter, and, how well or ill soever, if any other writer has sown things much more materials or at all events more downright, upon his paper than myself.