But truly it is very unbeseeming to make so slight account of the works of men, seeing yourselves avouch that it is not the habit makes the monk, many being monasterially accoutred, who inwardly are nothing less than monachal, and that there are of those that wear Spanish capes, who have but little of the valour of Spaniards in them.

Therefore is it, that you must open the book, and seriously consider of the matter treated in it.

Then shall you find that it containeth things of far higher value than the box did promise; that is to say, that the subject thereof is not so foolish as by the title at the first sight it would appear to be.
And put the case, that in the literal sense you meet with purposes merry and solacious enough, and consequently very correspondent to their inscriptions, yet must not you stop there as at the melody of the charming syrens, but endeavour to interpret that in a sublimer sense which possibly you intended to have spoken in the jollity of your heart.

Did you ever pick the lock of a cupboard to steal a bottle of wine out of it?
Tell me truly, and, if you did, call to mind the countenance which then you had.
Or, did you ever see a dog with a marrowbone in his mouth,--the beast of all other, says Plato, lib.

2, de Republica, the most philosophical?
If you have seen him, you might have remarked with what devotion and circumspectness he wards and watcheth it: with what care he keeps it: how fervently he holds it: how prudently he gobbets it: with what affection he breaks it: and with what diligence he sucks it.