¶ THE Nosegay of moral Philosophy, lately dispersed amongst many Italian authors, and now newly and succinctly drawn together into Questions and Answers, and translated into English by T.C.  
Seen and allowed.  
¶ Imprinted at London at the three Cranes in the vintry by Thomas Dawson. 1580.   

To the right worshipful and his singular good Lady and mistress, the Lady Martin of London, Thomas crew wisheth long life with increase of all happiness and worship.  
I Was bold (Madam) for two causes to dedicate this Nosegay unto your ladyship. The first is, the gentle acceptance that I know it shall have at your hands, who have always been a favourer of learning, & of them that are learned: The second is, that coming out under the name of so worthy a Patronage, it shallbe the better accepted of all men. I am bound also for two causes to do the same, first to satisfy in part the duty which I own unto you, and to show some sign of the love that I owe to you and yours: Secondly that the world may see that always a green tree is not fruitless: but that that garden which before bare brambles and thistles, if it be well tilled, will bear also sweet smelling flowers. The slips hereof were set in sundry Italian gardens, & with branches thereof I met at Paris, which smelled so sweetly, that I took the pains to transport them hither into England, and to bind them up in this small nosegay, the which I pray your Ladyship so to accept, as with 〈◊〉 humble heart I present the same. Thus wishing continually the increase of your worship, with all other things which you would either to you and yours, I end.  
Your ladyships most dutiful to command, Thomas crew   

¶ The Nosegay of Moral Philosophy.  
Note that Q. signifieth Question, and A. Answer.  
Q. WHAT is the parts of a true Christian?  
A. Too love and honour God above all things, without offending him in thought, word, or deed; and his neighbour as himself.  
Q. What is that which most pricketh a man to live well and godly?  
A. To think still that he is at the last end of his life.  
Q. What is a court or city without virtuous men?  
A. A dark night without any Satrres.  
Q. What are the most enemies to man's life?  
A. Anger, excess, cold, corrupted air, sorrow, travel, urgent affairs, and a great family.  
Q. What is virtue?  
A. It is an harmony of nature, wherein all good things accord, and a true ladder to mount to happiness.  
Q. What is the greatest want that an human creature can have?  
A. Want of discretion and verity.  
Q. Wherein consisteth true philosophy?  
A. In virtuous living.  
Q. What is that doctrine which we should necessarily forget?  
A. The vice of revengement.  
Q. What thing is that (above all others) which the older it is, the better is?  
A. True amity or faithful love.  
Q. What is the best remedy against the fear of death?  
A. To think still upon it.  
Q. What is the greatest spite that a man can do to his enemy?  
A. To excel him in well living.  
Q. What are the things that make a man soonest to err and to be deceived?  
A. To speak much, and know little; to spend much, and have little; to presume much and his power but little; in satiable avarice; and hope to live long.  
Q. How may one covertly dispraise a wicked person?  
A. In praising him, and extolling him too much.  
Q. What is the chief ground of our salvation?  
A. To believe in God the father, and in jesus Christ his only son our Lord, and that the holy Ghost proceedeth from them both, without whom we neither think nor do aught that is good or profitable.  
Q. What is the greatest injury that a prince, judge or governor can do to good men?  
A. To favour and pardon evil men.  
Q. What is a man's truest friend?  
A. His wisdom and prudence.  
Q. And what his most foe?  
A. His folly.  
Q. What are the two principal points that make a King or Prince reign happily?  
A. Liberality and Clemency.  
Q. Who is father and mother to wisdom?  
A. Use is father, and Memory is mother.  
Q. What is the thing that is easiest too learn, and hardest to forget?  
A. Vice.  
Q. What is the office of a good householder, and the duty of his wife?  
A. The man ought to carry the burden of care, travel and labour: and the wife, to be faithful in keeping his goods and house, neat, patiented, and careful to see her husband do well.  
Q. What was the reason that the Philosopher said, a man was more at safety in having many enemies, than one alone?  
A. Because in having many, each one attends till his fellow do the first mischief, and none will begin.  
Q. For what cause said Diogenes, that lame and diseased persons ought rather to be called Lords and masters, than the whole and sound?  
A. Because that being attainted with sickness, they rule and govern their pride, the flesh, the world, and all vain glory, which the other do not.  
Q. Who is master of the covetous?  
A. He that is servant of the liberal, that is to wit, Money.  
Q. Who are those men that have their tongue in their heart; and those other, that have their heart in their tongue?  
A. The wisemen have their tongue in their heart: but the fools have their heart in their tongue.  
Q. What are the chiefest virtues to be required in a man?  
A. To know God and himself, and to keep silence and his his own counsel.  
Q. Wherefore is forgetfulness in many things preferred before memory?  
A. Because we oft record that which we would not; but cannot forget that which we would.  
Q. Who is he alone, that one may judge and say hath lived as long as he would?  
A. He that hath killed himself through despair and wilfully.  
Q. What are the true paths that conduct a man to poverty?  
A. Sloth, gluttony, prodigality and mischance.  
Q. Who are those that easily get friends?  
A. The rich, the liberal, the pitiful and the courteous.  
Q. What are the engines traps, hooks and nets that soonest deceive and take man?  
A. Fair speech, great gifts, desire of gain, and little knowledge.  
Q. What are the five things requisite in a common weal?  
A. These: aged Schoolmasters, virtuous, and not vicious; skilful Captains, valiant and not cowards; learned priests, ruled, and not lascivious; young Damsels, honest and not dissolute; upright judges, just and not corruptible.  
Q. What estate is that which maketh wisemen fools, and fools wisemen?  
A. Marriage.  
Q. What thing is it, that most abateth pride?  
A. Tribulation.  
Q. What kind of folly should we judge best?  
A. Always that which is shortest.  
Q. From whence springeth all malice?  
A. From lack of knowledge.  
Q. What difference is between a Tyrant and a good prince?  
A. The principal desire of a tyrant is, to be served; and of a good prince, to be beloved.  
Q. What only thing is it that cannot wear old?  
A. A lie, for it must needs be discovered.  
Q. What are the most enemies to peace, and chief causers that we have not always peace within ourselves?  
A. Avarice, ambition, envy, wrath, and pride.  
Q. By what means chief may a man master and rule himself?  
A. In rebuking that in himself, which he blameth in another.  
Q. What is the first point of folly?  
A. To repute himself wise.  
Q. To what art or sort of life and science ought a father to advance and put his children?  
A. To that which by nature they are most inclined unto, being in this world profitable, and in the other world available.  
Q. What are the two things which most vere and trouble a man?  
A. Ire and envy.  
Q. To whom should we in no wise utter our secrets?  
A. To him that is angry, when we pray him not to reveal them.  
Q. What are the true tokens of a fool?  
A. To be angry too much and without a cause, to laugh without measure and upon no occasion.  
Q. What beast is that which biteth most venomously?  
A. Of wild beasts, it is a backbiter; and amongst tame, the flatterer.  
Q. What is the right property and nature of Fortune?  
A. To fear the valiant, virtuous and courageous: and foil the varlet, vicious, and coward: and if she show herself favourable to make many become fools, drunken, blind and puffed up with pride.  
Q. How should a master behave himself with his servants?  
A. Not to be too familiar with them, to admonish them often, & therewithal not to discourage them from doing well: not to be too severe nor too partial, but to consider how he was used himself.  
Q. By what means may a king make himself a Monarch?  
A. By good counsel, eloquence, liberality and martial discipline.  
Q. How should the wiseman live with the fool?  
A. As the Phsition doth with the patiented.  
Q. What is the best remedy that a man can use, being deprived of a thing, which he held dear and esteemed?  
A. To persuade himself it is not lost, but lent; or else paid away as being none of his own, but borrowed.  
Q. What do most men now a days in the world?  
A. One sort search without cease, and find nothing: another sort find so much that they are wearied, and yet not satisfied.  
Q. What is the best way to avoid surfeiting?  
A. The rich man to live soberly, and the poor man to labour diligently.  
Q. How should one behave himself not to be deceived in this world?  
A. Either to flee the company of men altogether, or else presently to die.  
Q. What are the three best gifts that man can have here on earth?  
A. An art or faculty to prevail against Fortune health and liveliness of his body and person, and lastly virtue & force of his mind and courage.  
Q. Which are the four purses, most requisite to him that goes to law?  
A. The first is good counsel, the second is money, the third craft and subtlety, and the fourth diligence and patience.  
Q. What is man's life without doctrine?  
A. A tree without fruit, and an Image of death.  
Q. Who is the wiseman's governess?  
A. Patience.  
Q. And who the fools?  
A. Folly.  
Q. What are those things amongst all other that merit the palm of inconstancy?  
A. The sea, the wind, the moon, time, love, fortune, and the common people.  
Q. What is he on earth that most resembleth God?  
A. The just man.  
Q. How is a noble and valiant courage to be maintained?  
A. By labour, exercise and travel.  
Q. For what cause is old age feared so much?  
A. Because she comes ordinarily accompanied and seldom or never alone.  
Q. What should we seek to agyne at each man's hands?  
A. Their favour and friendship, that can never hurt us.  
Q. Why is man, above all wild beasts whatsoever, reputed most cruel?  
A. Because being (as he is often) inobedient to reason, he exerciseth his cruelty against man, & his like: whereas contrary the lions Tigers, serpents, and such like, are friends to their own sex, and not enemies.  
Q. What effect should worldly wealth chief have?  
A. To free their possessors from labour and calamity.  
Q. What force or efficacy hath knowledge and learning?  
A. To induce the good to wax better, and the ill to wax no worser.  
Q. What is he in this world that can do all things?  
A. The only virtuous man.  
Q. What four things are those which each man coveteth to get and no less desireth to preserve?  
A. Health for his person, riches for his house, honour in a common weal, and life everlasting in another world.  
Q. How should a Prince behave himself towards his Subjects?  
A. Like a good Gardiner, that gathereth the leaves and not the roots; or a good shepherd, that keepeth his sheep carefully from the wolf, and sheeres them at time of the year, not cutting their skin off.  
Q. What are the elements and grounds of all evil?  
A. Envy, pride, avarice, and ambition.  
Q. How comes it to pass, that Physicians think they may kill their patientes without reprehension?  
A. Because the ground covereth their workings.  
Q. What is anger or fury?  
A. A certain brief kind of rage or folly.  
Q. What laws were those which Draco commanded inviolably to be observed and written with man's blood?  
A. To stone Rogues and vacabounds being healthful and idle, and to put to death the unthankful.  
Q. What is the whole course and property of man's life?  
A. To be borne weeping, to line laughing, and to die sighing.  
Q. What is one of the principallest causes why regions cities and provinces do rebel often against their sovereign's?  
A. The negligence of the governors, who in place of shepherds and good keepers do commit the flock unto ravening wolves and greedy dogs.  
Q. What are the things, that one true friend should wish to another?  
A. Safety, health, honour, & prosperity.  
Q. When will the good time come again?  
A. When we are gone, and good men in our places.  
Q. What is the speediest way to become rich?  
A. To appoverish the appetites, and be content with that which one hath.  
Q. What is friendship?  
A. It is (saith Cicero) the Sun of the world, without the which the whole world should lie in darkness and without order.  
Q. What is the true way to become every day better and better?  
A. To inquire of wisemen and our familiars what folks say of us: and if they praise us rightly, to persever (without being proud of it) in well doing; if not, to amend our life, and make that they may say well of us.  
Q. What is the chiefest refuge that an offender still hath?  
A. To swear and lie.  
Q. From whence proceedeth now adays such abundance of wicked persons and wickedness in the world?  
A. From the lack of good persons and goodness.  
Q. Who is the particular Emperor and guide of every man's life?  
A. His own conscience and understanding.  
Q. What is the greatest gift, and torment that a man can give his enemy, in reconciling himself to him in amity?  
A. To give him his daughter in marriage, to the end that she may torment him: which happeneth oft among princes.  
Q. Of what value ought a prince his word too be?  
A. Of that value that a private man's oath should be.  
Q. What may a man's body most properly be called?  
Q. The sheath or case of the Soul, the slave or servant of the mind, under whose subjection God, nature, & reason, have put him as a thing altogether brutal too a thing of under standing, and a thing mortal to a thing immortal.  
Q. What disease do meats being too hot, commonly engender?  
A. The leprosy and a corruption of blood.  
Q. What is the best armour to attain● to virtue?  
A. Labour, hunger, thirst, heat, cold, confrancie, Patience, and perseverance.  
Q. What is justice?  
A. It is a great honour and glory to them that use it, and a great gain to them to whom it is used.  
Q. To what may the whole vulgar people be compared?  
A. To a great beast having innumerable feet, and no head.  
Q. What is the best rule that a man may hold with his wife?  
A. To admonish her often, to reprehend her seldom, never to lay hands on her, but if she be good to favour her, to the end that she may continue so; and if she be evil, to suffer her, to the end that she wax not worse.  
Q. What is the best and surest guard that aprince can have?  
A. The love of his subjects.  
Q. Why doth one man bear envy too another?  
A. Because (saith Cicero) he is not as the envied is, & that the envied is better than he.  
Q. What are those things (amongst all other) which we should in no case have affiance in?  
A. In the chance of the dice, in old prosperity, in clouds in the Summer, or fair weather in the winter, nor in the beauty of a woman.  
Q. Wherein consisteth humanity chief?  
A. In gentle speech, In courteous deeds, and friendly hospitality.  
Q. What is an old man amorous?  
A. A knight in the Chess play who helpeth a man to lose his money, and yet cannot deliver him from peril: others say that he is like unto a hog with a white head and a green tail.  
Q. For what cause did Timon the Philosopher so detest and hate all mankind?  
A. He hated the evil, for their vices and offences, and the good, because that (like him) they did not hate the evil.  
Q. What is Idleness?  
A. The devils Darling and a familiar enemy, who when he is once entered, openeth the gate to all vices.  
Q. What is that which a man can do without learning it?  
A. Laugh and weep.  
Q. What rule should one observe in conversation and company of men?  
A. If he with whom we be conversant, be our superior in knowledge, it behoveth us to hear him, and obey him; if he be our equal, to consent and agree to him; and if he be our inferior, to persuade him friendly and gently.  
Q. In what place is silence most to be observed?  
A. At the table in feasts, and banquets, and at plays.  
Q. What signified those presents, which Darius sent to the Scythians, to wit, the Mole, the frog, the bird and darts?  
A. The mole signified the earth; the frog, the water; the bird, the air; and the darts, arms.  
Q. What are those abuses which most corrupt the world?  
A.  

The Wiseman without Works.  
The Old man without Religion.  
The Young man without Obedience.  
The Rich man without Charity.  
The Poor man without Humility.  
The Great Lord without Virtue.  
The Christian without Fraternity.  
The Bishop without P●etie.  
The Prince without Justice & mercy.  
The People without Law & discipline.  
And the woman without shame & honesty.   
Q. What be the true virtues required in a man?  
A. To be a good Christian, just of his word, and secret.  
Q. What is the best mean, to know the qualities of a man, and whether he be to be trusted or not?  
A. One must consider what his works, conditions, words, behaviour, and friends are; and make inquiry how he hath behaved himself in times passed with those with whom he hath practised and dealt, and whose company he hath used.  Pares cum paribus facillimè congregantur, & mores dispares disparia studia sequuntur. 
Q. What two things are those which make the public weal to flourish, or decay?  
A. Union, and dissension.  
Q. What is the greatest signory or government, that a man can attain to?  
A. To govern himself, for it is a more virtue for a man to bridle his affections, then to vanquish his Enemy.  
Q. What things are those amongst all other that breed most joy in the hearse of man?  
A. To have wise children, store of goods and revenge over his enemies.  
Q. Why are the Laws that men dec make, compared to spider's webs.  
A. Because if little Flies come, they are easily taken, and holden: but if great Drones come, they pass through and break all.  
That is to say, Little thieves are soon taken and hanged: but the great are so strong in money, that they with their authority and friendship break all.  
Q. What was the daily lesson of the Lacedæmonians, which by the appointment of Lycurgus the lawmaker was every day published, to the end to be well observed?  
A. To honour God, to be patient in adversity, to obey the rulers, to apply themselves to travel and labour, and to return from the wars either conquerors or else dead.  
Q. What is the greatest virtue that a Prince or great Lord can desire or covet to have?  
A. To be always superior in well doing.  
Q. What be the properties of prudence and justice?  
A. Not to be deceived, nor deceive no body.  
Q. What be the two pricks that incite a man most to learn arts and sciences?  
A. Hope and love.  
Q. What things amongst all others are those which profit a man most to think least of them?  
A. To be inquisitive of another man's doings, and forget his own, to be be curious to know the secrets of princes; and too take thought for food for the fishes of the Sea.  
Q. For what cause is the quality of the Peacock compared to the nature of the rich man?  
A. Because the peacock commonly climbeth upon house sides and high places, to plume himself and show his fair tail: & the rich man commomly searcheth degrees, and dignity to be seen, praised, and esteemed.  
Q. To whom is not Venus hurtful?  
A. To them that are not yet borne.  
Q. To what kind of people is death most acceptable and least fearful?  
A. To the afflicted.  
Q. What things are those that are better old then new?  
A. Wine, Fish, Oil, dry wood to burn, an old horse to ride, and an old dog to bark, and above all these an old friend, and approoned.  
Q. What is a friend?  
A. A friend is another one's self, and friends are one heart or one mind in two bodies.  
Q. What are the most terrible beasts of the world?  
A. Of Forests, hills and dales, bears and Lions: of Towns and cities, flatterers, usurers and backbiters.  
Q. For what cause did Plato, say that when fathers are rich, the children are seldom virtuous?  
A. For that between ease, and abundance of riches, vice commonly (not virtue) doth dwell and hath residence.  
Q. How should a man be born to live happily in this world?  
A. Either a king to revence him on his enemies, and to correct vices: or a fool not to know what sin meaneth, but to live without thought, care or molestation of mind.  
Q. What is the best and greatest rent, that one can have?  
A. Sparing: and if our goods be not sufficient for us, to make ourselves sufficient for our goods.  
Q. What is the true path to bring one honour and renown?  
A. Always to be such a one as we would have ourselves esteemed.  
Q. What is modesty?  
A. A right moderation of our appetites, obeying reason.  
Q. Who is he above all others that may be esteemed rich?  
A. He that is least covetous, and most consent with that he hath.  
Q. Why is it better for a man too be judge or arbitrator between two of his enemies, than two of his friends?  
A. Because in deciding a controversy between two of his enemies, he shall without doubt gain the favour of the one of them: whereas on the contrary part he shall lose the favour of one of his friends.  
Q. For what cause did the Philosopher counsel us to take rather a little wife than a great?  
A. Because always a little evil is better than a great.  
Q. What is it that maketh a prince unhappy.  
A. To think and persuade himself that all things are lawful for him, and to give his ear to parasites and flatterers.  
Q. What is piety properly to be called?  
A. It is the honour which we own first to God, next to our country, and then to our parents and kinsfolks.  
Q. What is corporal beauty?  
A. A Tyrant momental, a still deceiver, and a familiar enemy.  
Q. What are the proper titles of the Sun?  
A. The father of the day, the governor and eye of the world, the heart of nature, the king of Stars, quickening the bodies, as well of reasonable as unreasonable creatures.  
Q. What is the chief let that a young man cannot be wise?  
A. Lack of experience.  
Q. What are the five enemies to peace?  
A. Pride, ire, ambition, avarice, and envy.  
Q. Which are the best helps to come to dignity?  
A. Counsel, eloquence, liberality, and military discipline.  
Q. What is the fairest creature of the world?  
A. It is, saith Aristotle, man adorned with virtue.  
Q. What was the manner of the Assyrians in marrying their daughters?  
A. They sold the fairest at the sound of a trumpet, to him that would give most, and with that money they married the foulest, so that it cost them nothing.  
Q. What are the things requisite for a merchant to have?  
A. Money, credit, diligence, fair words, and keeping of his promise.  
Q. What be the things that are most requisite in a woman or young maid?  
A. Beauty, and honesty in her word, deed and attire; diligence in a household; and skill in washing, sewing, and spinning, but chief in holding her peace.  
Q. What are the best manners a man can have, and most easy to obtain?  
A. Liberality, and truth in word and deed.  
Q. What is the cause that little folks are sooner angry than the great?  
A. They resemble herein little chimneys; which ordinarily are more smoky than the great: or little pistols, which discharge their ●●otte sooner than great cannons.  
Q. What are the poor men's riches?  
A. Their children.  
Q. What are the three things that are good for every man?  
A. To understand well, to speak better, and to do best of all.  
Q. What are the things, that a young damsel should chief eschew?  
A. The haunts of doors or windows the familiarity of spinners and launderers, and to give or take nothing.  
Q. What is the best armour that a man can wear or carry?  
A. A man can wear or carry no better armour than faith and truth.  
Q. What thing is without comparison far greater than all other things?  
A. The mercy of God.  
Q. What is the reason why mankind is worthily compared to the serpent called Vipera?  
A. Because the nature of the female is, when she feels herself great with young ones) to bite of the head of the male: and for her deserts, it comes to pass that the young dipers to revenge their father's death, gnaw themselves out of her belly. Thus if the father suffer, the mother rests not unpunished, and in fine the children bear their share, and it comes to them as they have deserved also.  
Q. Who are they that easily get friends?  
A. The fair spolten, the rich, the liberal and the courteous.  
Q. What are the whips, that excessively torment the heart, and abridge the life of man?  
A. Envy, excess, and the loss of goods by us gotten, the folly of friends, and poverty.  
Q. Who is he that may be said alive amongst the living?  
A. A man amongst wisemen.  
Q. What are the things amongst all others, that a man ought to observe and commend in all estates and times?  
A. Not to wax proud in prosperity, nor despair, in adversity not to revenge each injury received, nor to envy and fret at the prosperity of another man.  
Q. What are the true guides which lead a man straight to the Hospital of poverty?  
A. Play, gluttony, sloth, and whoredom.  
Q. What thing is more necessary than fire or water?  
A. A true friend, or true friendship.  
Q. For what cause is it better to fall amongst ravens than flatterers?  
A. Because ravens only feed on them that are dead, but flatterers devour them that are alive.  
Q. What kind of people ought we most to flee and have fear of?  
A. Those that have their tongue dipped in honey, and their heart in gall.  
Q. What is a quiet life?  
A. A dead Sea.  
Q. What is the most precious ornament that a young maiden can have?  
A. Silence.  
Q. What are the four principal plagues, that princes ought to take heed of?  
A. To call their own follies and rashness prudence, their cruelty justice, and to fatten themselves with the miseris and calamity of the poor people and to favour flatterers.  
Q. What things are those that cannot be hid nor dissembled?  
A. Riches, love, dolour, hate, the cough, and smoke.  
Q. What are the things that are easily and never gotten again.  
A. A word once spoken, virginity and tyme.  
Q. What ought a good father to leave his children, when he dieth?  
A. The good, nothing; and the evil, less: For the good child, though he have nothing, yet can lack nothing: and the more the wicked child hath, the worse he is.  
Q. What are the proper goods of the body?  
A. Health, beauty, force, nimbleness, and a joyful old age.  
Q. What are the proper evils of the body?  
A. Sickness and foulness.  
Q. What are the goods of the mind?  
A. Science and virtue.  
Q. What is felicity?  
A. It is a virtue right happy.  
Q. What are the diseases of the Soul?  
A. Vice and ignorance.  
Q. What are the diseases of Fortune?  
A. Base estate and poverty.  
Q. How shall a master keep himself from being angry?  
A. In remembering that he shall not always be served, but sometimes serve, neither obeyed, but himself obey the prison of the body.  
Q. What is the reason that the Philosophers call Bacchus the foolish God?  
A. Because he makes them fools which overcharge themselves too much with his Septemb●ne liquor.  
Q. What is the state of a covetous person?  
A. Never to have rest, but to be always an hungered and unsatisunied.  
Q. What is the infallible gain that sluggards and sleepers incur?  
A. They live in sin, and die (that is to say, sleep) without profit.  
Q. What sauce did the Lacedemoniens best like with their meat?  
A. Hunger, thirst, travel, sweat, and taking of pain.  
Q. What is the most pernicious thing that we have in ourselves?  
A. The lone of ourselves.  
Q. What are the wings of time?  
A. The past, the present, and the future?  
Q. What is the best art and most necessary for a man to learn?  
A. The art of war. That is to say, like a Christian to war against the flesh, the world and the Devil.  
Q. Why do we naturally hate povertic?  
A. Because she causeth divers to err out of the right way.  
Q. Wherein censisteth true philosophy?  
A. In strining to live virtuously.  
Q. What is a chaste and honest woman?  
A. She is a miracle of all miracles, a degree of immortality, a crown of triumph.  
Q. Why do old folks love their rithes so well?  
A. Because they had rather leave them to their enemies being dead, then in their life time be in danger of their friends for them.  
Q. What is the first point of wisdom?  
A. To know one's self. The which thing how much the more difficult it is, so much the more profitable it is.  
Q. Wherein differeth the angry man from the mad man?  
A. Surely in time.  
Q. How should one correct the ignorance of youth?  
A. By the prudence of age.  
Q. To whom is poverty hurtful?  
A. To him that cannot bear it patiently.  
Q. What is the sauce of travel?  
A. Rest.  
Q. Why would the Carthaginiens have all their Magistrates rich?  
A. Because they held opinion, that he that was poor, could not minister justice aright.  
Q. What is anger properly?  
A. A kind of rage and folly.  
Q. Who is he that is undoubtedly free?  
A. He that is not a slave to his own affections.  
Q. What is it that makes a man nought?  
A. Too much liberty.  
Q. What are the things, which are seldom seen together in one person?  
A. Beauty and chastity, wisdom and riches, youth and continence.  
Q. Who is he that cannot speak?  
A. He that cannot hold his peace.  
Q. What is true liberality?  
A. It is to give to the needy, & to them which have or do well deserve it without being required, or hope of any recompense again.  
Q. What is the best deed that a prince can do in his country?  
A. To exile the wicked, and reward the good.  
Q. Why did Alexander the great more honour his schoolmaster then his father?  
A. Because he said he had life of his father but fora certain time; but of his master, for ever.  
Q. What is wine?  
A. The death of the memory, the poison of the complexion, the corruption of beauty, the debilitation of force and virtue, the banishment of the flower of ones age, and the blood of the earth.  
Q. What is the true Image of man?  
A. His speech.  
Q. What are the things that most incite us to virtue?  
A. The love of honour and fear of blame.  
Q. What are the things that make a public weal to flourish?  
A. It increaseth by good counsel, equity, and unity: and doth decay by disorder and dissension.  
Q. What is the best Counsellor of all others?  
A. Time.  
Q. How may a man live joyfully?  
A. In putting his hope in things unperishable.  
Q. What are the teeth of time whereof he consumes all things?  
A. The day, the might, life and death.  
Q. What is the true Nurse of power?  
A. Virtue: for where she is, there must power needs be.  
Q. What is the best bread that one can eat?  
A. That which we have laboured or taken pain for.  
Q. Who is the rich man that only can lose nothing?  
A. The wise man.  
Q. What is humanity?  
A. It is a virtue conjoined with good affection, & a benevolence mingled, or tempered with dexterity.  
Q. How shall one know a wise man from a fool at the table?  
A. As he shall know a full cask or vessel from an empty. For as the empty one maketh far more noise than that which is full: so doth the fool make more babbling and ado, than the wiseman.  
Q. What title doth the good payer merit?  
A. Magnaest tua fides. Great is thy faith.  
Q. What are the things requisite to do or bring any thing to pass.  
A. To forecast it, to consider of it, to determine upon it, and to do it.  
Q. When is the time too take a wife?  
A. For the young man not yet, and the old never, saith Diogenes.  
Q. Wherein was the honesty of Socrates most apparently known?  
A. In hiding his head with his Cloak, when he heard evil speeches uttered.  
Q. Who is he in this world, that is only free from flatterers?  
A. The poor and indigent.  
Q. What are the three things the are needful and requisite in all works?  
A. Knowledge how to do it, power able to do it, and will to be ready to do it.  
Q. From whence is sprung sparing or niggardness?  
A. From ingratitude.  
Q. What is the hardest thing for a man to do?  
A. To know himself, to vanquish his affections, and to keep his own secret.  
Q. What is the best fear?  
A. That which feareth us from doing evil and thinking wickedly.  
Q. What is dancing?  
A. A kind of folly, for no man danceth fasting.  
Q. What are the two things that a man should marvel at?  
A. The one is, to have found a wiseman; and the other is, to see him angry.  
Q. What is gold?  
A. A venomous brightness.  
Q. What is flattery?  
A. A sugar net.  
Q. What is death?  
A. A flight from the perils of life.  
Q. What should true friendship be?  
A. True friendship ought to be immortal, and hatred mortal.  
Q. What is the best and easiest way to learn to speak?  
A. To hold his peace, and hear wisemen.  
Q. Whereon dependeth the price of a Gem or Jewel?  
A. On the appetite of the buyer, and falsehood of the seller.  
Q. What is love?  
A. It is a delicate thing gotten with great difficulty, and lost easily.  
Q. Who is the most ungrateful creature of the world?  
A. He that is ungrateful towards God.  
Q. Why have the men of ancient time painted love with a flower in his one hand, and a fish in his other?  
A. To show that he is Lord both of Sea and land.  
Q. What overcomes our enemies, and wears away all grief?  
A. Time.  
Q. What is love?  
A. A master, which by his art draweth one likeness to another without violence.  
Q. What are the three evils not able to be suffered?  
A. Fire, water, and a woman.  
Q. Of what is prudence composed?  
A. Of things good and evil.  
Q. What is prosperity?  
A. A stage play or pastime of fortune.  
Q. What is the possession that is least sure in this world?  
A. Riches without wisdom.  
Q. What kind of beauty most delighteth us?  
A. That which is of itself natural, and without arfe.  
Q What is the way to keep good men safe from evil?  
A. Distance of place.  
Q Where to serve riches?  
A. To aid the good, and hinder the wicked.  
Q. What is that which overcometh all things?  
A. Time.  
Q. Wherein lieth the glory of riches?  
A. In using them well, not in having them.  
Q. To whom doth a man oft become bound, and yet oweth him nothing?  
A. To him unto whom he telleth his secret.  
Q. What is the lightest and swiftest thing that is?  
A. The heart and thought of man.  
Q. Who is sister to Justice?  
A. The Law.  
Q. Who are the wisest Liars in this world, and most to be praised?  
A. They (saith Diogenes) which tell folks they will be married, and yet remain single.  
Q. What is that which boileth without fire?  
A. A youthful blood.  
Q. Who is the most fool in this world?  
A. He that thinks himself most wise.  
Q What is the strongest thing in this world?  
A. Necessity.  
Q. What is the greatest vice, that a vicious man can have?  
A. To be short in truth, and large in lying.  
Q. Of what essence or quality are mundane riches?  
A. They are gotten with care, preserved with fear, and lost with despair.  
Q. What is Sickness?  
A. The scourge both of body and soul.  
Q. What thing soonest maketh a merchantman rich?  
A. Credit, and keeping of promise.  
Q. Who is he that in giving receiveth?  
A. He that giveth to the deservers and needy.  
Q. What is a medicine against all mischief?  
A. Patience.  
Q. What is religion?  
A. A true knowledge of the service of God, with good observance of his Laws.  
Q. What is the thing that soonest depraveth and marreth young wits?  
A. Wanton talk and ill examples.  
Q. What are those dead, that are quick, and make fools wisemen, causing Asses, calves, and sheep to become men?  
A. They are books replenished with good admonitions, examples and precepts.  
Q. What is that which destroyeth the memory of evil?  
A. The contemplation of goodness.  
Q. What should good fathers and masters teach children?  
A. That in their youth, which they would have them do in their age.  
Q. Why is poverty of some men had in great commendation?  
A. Because it maketh men industrious, watchful and virtuous.  
Q. What number of friends or enemies should one have?  
A. A little number of friends, and no enemies at all.  
Q. What is the noblest part in a man?  
A. Reason, for by the same he doth that that is just, and delivereth himself from sin.  
Q. Whereunto may the error of a master, captain or prince be compared?  
A. To a shipwreck, or a ship, that by breaking drowneth himself and others?  
Q. What is the sharpest weapon that is?  
A. A wicked tongue.  
Q. What thing is most delectable?  
A. That which a man most desireth.  
Q. How may a man know the wicked?  
A. By comparing them with the good.  
Q. How is the virtue of a man tried?  
A. By adversity, as gold is by fire.  
Q. What is the property of an honest man?  
A. To know how to do good and evil: good, to the good; and evil, to the wicked.  
Q. What are the two good things of little or no estimation?  
A. The beauty of an harlot; & word, wisdom or counsel of a poor man.  
Q. Where lieth the treasure of a fool?  
A. In his tongue, that is to say, in evil speaking.  
Q. How should a child behave himself towards his father?  
A. If the father be gentle, he should love him; if not, he should suffer him.  
Q. What are those two things that make a man overcome?  
A. Patience & a sure trust in God.  
Q. How may a man escape all evils?  
A. In not obeying (saith Diogenes) women.  
Q. Why do old men die with less pain then young men?  
A. Because their senses are already debilitated.  
Q. What is marvel?  
A. The sister of ignorance.  
Q. What kind of covetousness is most commendable?  
A. To be covetous of time when it is well employed.  
Q. How is a true friend known?  
A. At need, and in a doubtful matter.  
Q. Wherein consisteth true amity?  
A. In unity and equality, of wilus whether it be in loving and liking one thing, or loathing and hating another.  
Q. What kind of wars are good?  
A. Those which begin without fear, continue without peril, and end without damage.  
Q. What are the good turns which become evil?  
A. Those which are evilly placed, or bestowed upon ungrateful and naughty persons.  
Q. Which are the best houses in a city?  
A. Those which harbour the fear of God in them, and where the gain surmounteth the dispense.  
Q. What are those kind of people which die twice?  
A. They which are killed with their own proper weapons.  
Q. Of whence spring good laws?  
A. Of evil customs, as good order doth of disorder.  
Q. By what means may one best fortify a city.  
A. By the concord of the citizens.  
Q. For what cause did the old Sages counsel young men not to take a rich wife?  
A. Because that if she be rich, she will not be content to be a wife, but will be a master or a mistress, in commanding, chiding, correcting, and brawling.  
Q. What way should a man take to become humble?  
A. He ought to consider the things of him yil done.  
Q. For what cause do the Sages think that the Image of virtue ought to be hanged up?  
A. To show that she ought not to sleep.  
Q. How may a man of base birth make himself noble?  
A. In living virtuously.  
Q. How may a man live to get him a good fame?  
A. He must live in opinion, that all his enemies still here and see what he doth, and saith.  
Q. At what time shall one know a good brother?  
A. At the division of his father's Patrimony.  
Q. How should one speak to wise men?  
A. Soberly, modestly, and reverently.  
Q What Country should we account best?  
A. That which is governed by the good, and the gibbets flowered with the evil.  
Q. How should a man become a king?  
A. In governing himself, & subduing his affections to the yoke of reason.  
Q. What are the conditions of a good maid servant?  
A. She ought to be careful, faithful, patiented, neat and pleasant.  
Q. What are the true points, which show the conditions of a man?  
A. His speech, his cating, his attire, his practise and company keeping show his life.  
Q. What are the four things inestimable, and uncomparable?  
A. Science, health, virtue, and liberty.  
Q. What are the sour things that sconest deceive men?  
A. Fair speech, great gifts, desire of gain, and little knowledge.  
Q. What are the four things that presage an evil end?  
A. An ill beginning, contempt of good counsel, to do more than one can, and not to continue in a thing well begun.  
Q. What sickness comes by idleness?  
A. love.  
Q. Which are the men that have a double life?  
A. The good men living virtuously.  
Q. What is the thing that time cannot consume, although sometime it seem swallowed up?  
A. Truth.  
Q. What be the points of a good schoolmaster?  
A. To be prudent virtuous, diligent, skilful, patiented, true, a mirror of virtue, eloquent, full of good examples, having a goód eye, & to be as a father towards his scholars.  
Q. What is the property of children?  
A. To be angry & appeased lightly, to open all that they know, & to delight in their likes.  
Q. What profiteth it to give to him, that neither meriteth nor deserveth?  
A. As much as the rain falling upon stones or gravel.  
Q. What is abstinence?  
A. It is a virtue of the soul bridled by reason, the which withholdeth us from the disordinate lusts that we have towards the the pomps of this world.  
Q. What is continency?  
A. It is a virtue of the soul which subdueth our sensual appetites to reason in such sort, that as by abstinence avarice is governed, so by continency lust is bridled.  
Q. What is Sobriety?  
A. It is a virtue ruling eating & drineking, without the which every other virtue is dimmed and darkened.  
Q. What is the last solace in adversity?  
A. Hope.  
Q. How behoveth it us to live in this world?  
A. Like a shamefast man at a banquet, who taketh nought but what is given him, and if the cup be not recht him, drinketh not.  
Q. Why should not we give credit to the world in any case?  
A. Because it is false and fallible, never paying that which it promiseth, nor doing to his creature as it ought to do.  
Q. What is the best reason to move two being at strife to accord?  
A. To persuade them to consent to verity, for she will please both of them.  
Q. Why did Alexander the great judge it better, to give one's daughter in marriage to a poor man being wise, then to a rich man being a fool?  
A. Because the rich fool is still ready to be poorer, when the wise poor man is still in possibility to be richer.  
Q. What maketh a man to become bran?  
A. desire of honour and glory.  
Q. Who is the queen of moral virtues?  
A. Hope.  
Q. Wherein consisteth health?  
A. In not being idle, nor filling the body too full of wine and meat.  
Q. What is the highest wisdom?  
A. To know God.  
Q. What man is worst conditioned?  
A. He that delighteth to speak ill of all the world.  
Q. By what means may women be●● become Masters and Rulers of their husbands?  
A. In suffering & obeying patiently.  
Q. What is science?  
A. It is like unto a soul when the works are the body.  
Q. Which is a good woman?  
A. She that appears outwardly evil.  
Q. When is money good?  
A. When it serves one's turn too do good.  
Q. What is a thing uncurable?  
A. The dishonour of a fool.  
Q. Who is he that never will be rich?  
A. He that never will be sufficed.  
Q. What is the mother of true ignorance?  
A. To be ignorant in the knowledge of God, and ashamed to learn.  
Q. What is patience?  
A. It is to endure willingly a thing of an evil digestion, to have and taste thereby honour and profit.  
Q. Whereon liveth the just man?  
A. On faith.  
Q. Who is he that converteth good turns into evil?  
A. He that giveth to an ungrateful or a wicked person.  
Q. What is that which draws a man's money out of his purse?  
A. A good thing good cheap.  
Q. What is the right way to deceive a niggard?  
A. To use liberality towards him.  
Q. What are the maintainers of all arts?  
A. Honour, hope, and love.  
Q. Where unto may a woman be compared, that is richly appareled, and yet foul and ill-favoured?  
A. Unto a dunghill covered with grass.  
Q. To what may this world be compared?  
A. To a great cave of fantasies mingled together?  
Q. What is the cause that we see not spades, rakes, and shovels in the hands of Princes; and contrary wise sceptres, and crowns upon the head of Country clowns and rustic fellows?  
A. The brevity of our time will not let us see it.  
Q. How comes it to pass that there are so many Cooks and fine uressers of meat now adays?  
A. Because the world is wholly given to delights, and is more weak and negligent then of old time it was.  
Q. What beast is most enemy to man, and most changeable amongst all others?  
A. Thou hast said: it is man.  
Q. How doth man's body mamteine himself in all ages?  
A. In the cradle with milk, in childhoed with rods, in green youth with shame and good discipline, in man's estates with arms, in elder age with counsel, and last of all with a staff he goeth senseless towards his grave.  
Q. What is virtue joined with nobleness?  
A. A mixture of true humanity.  
Q. Who is he that the more he serves, the more free he is?  
A. He that serves an honest man, or in an honest cause.  
Q. What are the true deeds of a wiseman?  
A. To make his enemy his friend, a wicked person good, a fool wise, an ignorant skilful, and to apply himself too the time.  
Q. What is the victory of many against one?  
A. A very crown of infamy.  
Q. What is nobility of birth without the ornament of virtue?  
A. A right Sun beam overshadowed with Clouds.  
Q. What is presumption of knowledge?  
A. The default of unknowledge.  
Q. What is Courage without Counsel?  
A. A Horse without a bridle, which runneth headlong in his race till he fall.  
Q. What is liberality?  
A. A poor usuresse which gaineth the goodwill of him, on whom she is bestowed.  
Q. What is envy?  
A. A certain fretting beast, sworn evemie to the virtuous.  
Q. What is painting?  
A. A still kind of Poetry.  
Q. What is death?  
A. The Horizon which bringeth the day of the soul.  
Q. What is the most desperate enterprise that one can take in hand?  
A. To govern a woman's will.  
Q. What is the best treasure of treasures?  
A. Sense and discretion.  
Q What is the greatest poverty in this world?  
A. Ignorance.  
Q What is the scourge of the Soul?  
A. Sorrow.  
Q. What is the scourge of the Body?  
A. Sickness.  
Q. What was the cause that ancient Philosophers would eat no more but of one sort of meat at a time?  
A. Because they would not have to do with Physic.  
Q. What is the true Partisane shields and buckler of Princes?  
A. The pen of a good writer defending & guarding their glory in the record of eternal memory.  
Q What is one of the greatest shames that a man can receive?  
A. To be overcome in honesty, turtesie, or any other virtue by them that are reputed to be his inferiors.  
Q. What kind of people ought a man not to quarrel with?  
A. Not with the good, for offending them; nor with the evil, lest they offend him.  
Q. How may one properly call temporal faculties?  
A. Disturbers of rest, dullers of the spirit, nets to take worldlings in, and pricks to pierce hungry souls.  
Q. Who is he that may truly be called valiant?  
A. He that loveth his life, and feareth not his death.  
Q. What is the dust that most blindeth man's eyes?  
A. The dust of gold.  
Q. What kind of people have least friends in this world?  
A. The poor and distressed.  
Q. How and when shall we trust any man:  
A. When we have eaten a bushel of salt with him.  
Q. Who is page, attendant still on glory and prosperity?  
A. Envy.  
Q. To whom is a covetous man good?  
A. Nought to all men, and worse to himself.  
Q. Of what quality should one take a wife?  
A. Equal and conformable to his own estate.  
Q. What is banishment?  
A. A civil death.  
Q. What be the three things wherein specially a common weal consisteth, and without the which it can neither flourish nor endure long.  
A. Religion, policy, and learning.  
Q. What doth a covetous man want?  
A. All things.  
Q. What doth a poor man want?  
A. Not much.  
Q. What doth a contented man want?  
A. Nothing.  
Q. What be the goods of fortune?  
A. Nobleness, Riches, Dignity, Friends, an honest wife, and a heap of good children.  
Q. What is the foundation of good laws?  
A. Virtue.  
Q. What is Rhetoric?  
A. A Salad of sweet words seasoned with the oils of flattery.  
Q. What is humanity?  
A. A virtue joined with good affection, or a due benevolence mingled with dexterity.  
Q. What should he have in him that ruleth, and governeth others?  
A. He ought too exceed his subjects in bounty and knowledge, as far as he surpasseth them in degree and honour.  
Q. Why is gold pale?  
A. Because each one looks after it, and lies in wait for it.  
Q. What are the virtues that bring us to Heaven?  
A. Faith, hope, and charity.  
Q. What are the things that are contrary to our salvation?  
A. Hate, misbelief, despair, impiety, hypocrisy, and ill doing.  
Q. Which be the moral virtues?  
A. Prudence, justice, force, temperance magnanimity, magnificence, leberalitie, haughtiness of heart joined with humbleness, innocency, gravity, centinencie, loyalty and shamefastness.  
Q. What is the poison of friendship?  
A. Flattery.  
Q. Whence springeth nobleness?  
A. Of virtue.  
Q. Who is inventor of all arts?  
A. Poverty.  
Q. Why do we commonly give young damsels flowers and nosegays?  
A. Because that after flowers, follow fruits.  
Q. What things are those which are right pleasant to a man, and which he is loath to forego?  
A. The country wherein he was borne, the goods which hunselfe hath gotten, and the friend that he hath thoroughly tried.  
Q. How should one use the goods of fortune?  
A. As subjects unto him, and not he to them.  
Q. Why did Plato hold opinion, that to live happily in a city, one must chase away both riches and poverty?  
A. Because riches maketh a man fyrannous & proud, & poverty induceth him to do wickedly.  
Q. Which are the best riches?  
A. Those which are best gotten, and serve as to the best use.  
Q. How may one know the just from the unjust.  
A. By the law, and not by nature.  
Q. What is carnal lust?  
A. A kind of weak force, or fury.  
Q. What is the secret thief that leads his master to the hospital.  
A. Banqueting and riot.  
Q. What is the property of a wiseman according to Aristotle?  
A. To bear rule over the stars, to know and govern himself, not to change nor vary at the assaults of fortune, to bestows his time well, and not to be afraid of death.  
Q. What is the first duty of a conqueror?  
A. To pardon the conquered.  
Q. How cometh it to pass that the palm representeth constancy?  
A. Because the more it is laden and overpressed, the more it groweth & increaseth.  
Q. What is the office of old age?  
A. To be modest and temperate, grave in consideration in word and deed, & to give good example, and counsel when it is required of him.  
Q. When hath one most licence to lie?  
A. Then when he may save the goods or the life of another man.  
Q. What is the property of a vain glorious man?  
A. To believe lightly all that one speaketh in praise of him.  
Q. What is the true touch of a knane?  
A. To conceal the truth for fear of harm.  
Q. Who is the daughter of time?  
A. Truth.  
Q. What is the thing that is untameable, & that kings themselves cannot withstand?  
A. Necessity.  
Q. When is it good to accompany with a woman?  
A. Always when one will make feeble his body.  
Q. Wherein may a man soon perceive his own wit?  
A. In thinking himself a fool.  
Q. Why did the wiseman pray that God should keep him from his friend, & not from his enemy?  
A. Because men keep themselves eastly from their enemies whom they trust not: but of their friends whom they trust, they are soon deceived.  
Q. What is wine disordinately drunk?  
A. The blood of the earth turned into poison.  
Q. Why did Democritus pull out his own eyes?  
A. Not for to see his friends living in prosperity without justice or virtue.  
Q. Why is old age with Cicero had in great commendation?  
A. Because it is the passage near unto another life.  
Q. What is the privilege of a valiant mind?  
A. Not to be subject to fortune.  
Q. What are the things most noble amongst all other worldly things?  
A. To hate folly, to love virtue, and to have a desire to learn still.  
Q. Why was Lycurgus most esteemed above all other Lawmakers?  
A. Because he obeyed that which he commanded himself.  
Q. What two things are those which rejoice a man much?  
A. To have wise children, and to see revenge over his enemies.  
Q. For what cause is it better to be hated then loved of an ignorant and noughty person?  
A. Because his conversation is always perilous, and no wise profitable.  
Q. From whence proceed and depend all debates and controversies in the world?  
A. From yea and no, mine and thine.  
Q. What is folly?  
A. A great and mighty let from felicity.  
Q. What are the things that are never satisfied?  
A. Fire, the dry ground, hell, the love of a woman and a covetous man's purse.  
Q. When is it that silence is counted a byce?  
A. When for the profit and benefit of ones neighbour he should speak what he knows.  
Q. What is the reason that plutarch compared those men which spoke loud and to no purpose, unto empty vessels.  
A. Because they make ordinarily more noise than the full ones that are profitable.  
Q. How cometh it to pass that being with the fair and healthful, we become not more fair and healthful; but frequenting with the good, fust, & moderate, we become better and increase our virtue?  
A. Because the gifts of the mind may be imitated, and not those of the body.  
Q. When the Gluttons sup daintily and soberly?  
A. When they have dined grossly and disorderly.  
Q. Who is he that may lawfully make himself Lord of another man's goods, or learn his cunning?  
A. He that pays well for it.  
Q. What is the part first form in a man, and last dead?  
A. The heart.  
Q. What is dancing?  
A. A subtle net to entrap the lascivious.  
Q. What are the strongest things of the world?  
A. Time and truth.  
Q. Why is it better to have a shrewish wife than a shéepish?  
A. To the end that the world do not with her as it listeth.  
Q. Why have some men allowed flattery?  
A. Because she setteth before our eyes, what we should be.  
Q. In what countries are the Gibbets most flowered with Naughtipackes?  
A. In those where they have least favour and more justice.  
Q. What were the three pains ordained by the Lacedemoniens, from the which (were it not by death) none could escape, at the least to suffer one?  
A. pain to him which was not married, pain to him which married too late, and a triple pain to him that took an evil wife.  
Q. What virtue and efficacy hath the pen of a good writer?  
A. To eternizate the memory of noble men, to instruct the posterity, and to make his own name endure for ever.  
Q. What sort of men tell the truth?  
A. They that are careless.  
Q. What is the proper ducty of a good father towards his child?  
A. To nourish him soberly, to keep him under in obedience, to teach him good manners and to learn him an art how to live in time to come.  
Q. What things are ordinarily given to a child?  
A. The Nurse gives him two years of milk, the mother two years of excuses, and the father twenty years of chastisement.  
Q. What hath moved the ancient Poets to use so many fictions and inventions?  
A. The zeal that they had to solace and delight men, and the ardent desire to convert them from rudeness to virtue.  
Q. What evils doth idleness engender?  
A. It slandereth the world, perverteth the weal public, undoth his master, endomageth the good, & destroyeth the evil.  
Q. Who is he that is drowned twice?  
A. He that drowns himself in covetousness, and then putteth himself in hazard of the Sea, and there is drowned.  
Q. What are the things that are right necessary and requisite to a Captain of the wars or Colonel?  
A. A competent number of good Soldiers, victuals good store, and plenty to spend and still to be certified what and where the enemies are.  
Q. What is the way for to get a good name?  
A. To speak little, and do well, and too labour?  
Q. What signifieth the sadness of an envious person?  
A. Either that some evil is happened, to him, or some good to another man.  
Q. What is the best thing that a man can do?  
A. To live well.  
Q. Who is the most liberal man of the world?  
A. It is (according to Galen) he that thinketh those good turns great that he receiveth and those little, that he doth.  
Q. What is the best rule for him that will live well?  
A. To bridle his affections by good discipline.  
Q. What are the three worst sicknesses in a City?  
A. Idleness, Ignorance and Folly.  
Q. What is Rhetoric?  
A. A Science to lie and flatter well.  
Q. How may a man win the grace and favour of all the world?  
A. In being merry, courteous, liberal, gallant, tractable, and merciful.  
Q. From whence come lies?  
A. From a servile mind.  
Q. What are the things wherein a man cannot be satisfied?  
A. In getting of riches, or dignities, cunning and honour, and in hearing of good news.  
Q. What is the principal stay of vice?  
A. Abstinence.  
Q. What is the care that every one should have?  
A. Too show himself courteous, too hear patiently, and answer wisely.  
Q. What is that common weal which is like to continue long and not decay?  
A. That where the Prince findeth obedience, and the people love: for as of the love of the Prince springeth the obedience of the people: so of the obedience of the subject springeth the love of the Prince: and as Pythagoras saith, love is paid with love.  
Q. Why did the Greeks in old time weep at the birth of their children, and sing at the death of their old men?  
A. Because the children came to die, and the old men went to live.  
Q. What is the cause that many ill conditioned children desire so ardently to see the death of their Fathers?  
A. Because if the Children be rich, they would have their liberty; and if the fathers be rich, they would have their goods.  
Q. What is old age?  
A. The gulf of maladies.  
Q. What are good words in a jesser or fools mouth?  
A. Like to corn in a wet vessel, which suddenly sprouteth and then perisheth.  
Q. How cometh it to pass that our Predecessors have lived longer than those of our time?  
A. Because they were more sober, and of a better complexion, and that things being saltned by the flood, have caused a great default in nature.  
Q. How may a soldier win honour in the wars?  
A. In losing fear and all faintness of heart.  
Q. What are the three things in men altogether unlike one to another, and yet of great admiration?  
A. The favour of the body, speech and writing.  
Q. Who are they that have fair eyes and see nothing?  
A. The unlearned and the amorous.  
Q. What is the greatest virtue moral?  
A. Force.  
Q. What was the cause that Scipio refused the title of great, which the Spaniards had given him?  
A. Because as he said, to change name and title, is a sign of lightness and unconstancy.  
Q. What is the duty of a good householder?  
A. To give effectually good example, to be diligent, to entertain peace amongst his family, to see all things neat, and to keep one order and measure.  
Q. What are those three things that the wiseman lamenteth, and repenteth that he hath done?  
A. The first is, too have revealed his secret; the second to have gone by Sea, when he might have gone by land; and the third is, to have passed one day without doing some virtuous thing.  
Q. What is the way for a Prince too reign surely?  
A. To do to his subjects as a father doth to his children.  
Q. Who are the merriest merchants and most at their ease?  
A. They that are most lightest, I mean Marchers, and not merchants, for that is quite contrary.  
Q. What three estates are the richest of the world?  
A. The wise, the healthful, and the contented.  
Q. What are the things requisite for a governor of a city?  
A. To use equity to make due provision for victual, to eschew tumult and contention, and to get himself the love of his Citizens.  
Q. How may a man pay his debts, that hath nothing?  
A. In dying.  
Q. To what may one compare, a goodly parsonage and of no courage?  
A. Too a leaden Dagger in a painted sheath.  
Q. What is a sure sauce for all kind of meats?  
A. Hunger and appetite.  
Q. Why have the Philosophers compared love to the Crocodile?  
A. Because the Crocodile flieth them that follow her, and followeth them that fly her, and so doth love.  
Q. What deserveth he that loveth himself too much?  
A. To be hated of all others.  
Q. From what women should a man keep himself?  
A. From the quick and the dead.  
Q. What is man's life?  
A. A ship tossed amongst waves, winds, tempests, sharp showers, and continual perils.  
Q. What is one quick fire, carrying another?  
A. It is a woman carrying fire: for the hotter (saith Aristotle) carrieth the colder.  
Q. When is it that one evil joins with another?  
A. It is when a woman is sick.  
Q. Who is it, that multiplieth evil upon evil?  
A. A young Damsel learning too write.  
Q. Who is he that cannot be always without a wife?  
A. He that is accursed.  
Q. What are the things that make realms, towns, and cities to be lost?  
A. Negligence to people them well, idleness, discord and to trust too much to fortune.  
Q. What are the three things amongst many that greatly displeased Plato?  
A. To see a rich man become poor, an honourable man despised, & a wise man flouted of fools.  
Q. What is the very poison of the earth?  
A. Gold and silver.  
Q. How ought the Prince, and the people to live together?  
A. As the soul and the body.  
Q. What was the cause that a Philosopher speaking pleasantly, held opinion, that the poor were of a better house than the rich?  
A. Because they are all for the most part of the house of God, that is to say, of the Hospital.  
Q. What are the three sorts of men that are to be pitied most?  
A. One should have pity on him which is subject too an evil man; on him which is subject to a fool; and on him which is liberal, and yet is in bands to a niggard.  
Q. Wherein differeth a man from a Beast?  
A. In soul and reason.  
Q. Which is the most perilous member of the body?  
A. The eye being messenger of the heart.  
Q. What are the bitterest roots of all others, and yet bear the sweetest fruits and best?  
A. The roots of patience, for they are necessary too the young, delectable too the old, profitable to the poor, ornaments to the rich, glory to the happy, solace to the unhappy, beautifying the noble, and exalting the unnoble.  
Q. What caused the Philosopher to affirm that it was better too have an evil Prince, than one simple and ignorant?  
A. Because being evil, he is evil but to himself: but being simple, he infecteth all the people.  
Q. What was the cause that Alexander the great lover of justice, would never permit, that offices, appertaining too justice, should be sold?  
A. Because he affirmed that he that buys by great, will at leastwise sell by retail.  
Q. What is the true foundation of a Christian man?  
A. faith, hope, and charity.  
Q. How may a man be a master having no science?  
A. In subduing his own vice.  
Q. What are the things that are most near one to another, and yet enemies?  
A. Life and death, prosperity and adversity.  
Q. Why do old folks so delight in wood.  
A. For fear of falling, & to rest themselves on, I mean staves and stools.  
Q. What are the two beasts, that sustain the crowns of kings?  
A. The hare representing fear, and the dog resembling love.  
Q. What is the life of man properly?  
A.  

A true Cave of fantasies.  
A true Shop of deceits.  
A true Double malady.  
A true joy soon sick.  
A true Old age staffeles.  
A true Peace without faith.  
A true Blindness without a guide.  
A true Stable of lies.  
A true Vale of misery.  
A true Fountain of thoughts.  
A true Ship without governor.  
A true Ark of sorrows.  
A true Sad consolation.  
A true Freedom of vices.  
A true Surety perilous.  
A true Turning wheel.  
A true Vain imagination.  
A true Sloth set a work.  
A true Ignorance yet skilful.  
A true Poverty abounding.  
A true Rotten prison.  
A true Fugitive beauty.  
A true Foolish wisdom.  
A true Bitter sweetness.  
A true Languishing joy.  
A true Fair deformity.  
A true Miserable felicity.  
A true Forest of Thistles.  
A true Slippery ye.  
A true Continual war.  
A true Kingdom of Satan.  
A true Kind of base haughtiness.   
A Bel without a clapper, and a light still overwhelmed with darkness.  
Q. Why is the world compared to a great table covered with a little tablecloth?  
A. Because the more each one draweth it to himself, the more he discovereth his fellows side an place.  
Q. Who doth open wrong unto himself?  
A. He that humbleth himself to one whom he should not.  
Q. What is a manifest folly, and sign of vain glory?  
A. To boast of thy own good deeds.  
Q. What is the most gracious thing in this world and of least continuance?  
A. As Domitian the Enperour saith, it is corporal beauty.  
Q. What is the greatest charge, or burden upon the earth  
A. An ignorant fool.  
Q. What would the Cynic Philosopher infer by his proverb? He that marrieth late, marrieth evil.  
A. That they which are to learn the art of patience, are to begin in their young and tender age, as is approved by unreasonable beasts, as colts, Bullocks. etc.  
Q. What are the things that cannot be clean and undefiled?  
A. The wheel of a chariot or wagon, the potter, the Mariner weighing and mending his cables, and he that is accompanied still with naughty persons.  
Q. How may a jealous man know if his wife make him Cuckold?  
A. Let him geld himself.  
Q. What are the things that change the nature and condition of a man?  
A. Estate or dignity, a wife, and wine.  
Q. What is corporal beauty?  
A. A richesse fugitive, a bait of wantonness, a delectatable detriment, a secret engine and a library of recommendations.  
Q. What is war?  
A. A banishment of peace, a burial of Charity, a nativity of poverty & a nurse of malice.  
Q. Which are the best ways to become rich:  
A. To be heedy, wise, adventurous, and to use great diligence and small dispense.  
Q. What is the property of an honest man?  
A. To think, do, or say nothing but that which is to the glory of God, and profit of his neighbour.  
Q. Wherein consisteth humanity?  
A. In helping his neighbour or his friend at his need, in courteous saluting him, and often inviting him to a moderate banquet or feast.  
Q. What is the best counsel that a man can use in all business?  
A. That (saith Aristotle) which a man taketh for himself being in danger of shipwreck or drowning.  
Q. What is virtue?  
A. The queen of all things just and honest, and the Princess of sovereign happiness.  
Q. What is the most decent manner, that a Lord or great man can use in his house, or territories?  
A. To entertain the little sort, as infants, the middle sort as brethren, the ancient sort as fathers, and strangers as his fellows.  
Q. Which is the way to live in peace and rest?  
A. To flee covetousness and anger.  
Q. Who is he that hath nothing neither can looseth any thing?  
A. The faithless deprived of shame, truth, and honesty.  
Q. What causeth a man to fail so often in choosing a good wife?  
A. Because the number of them is so small.  
Q. What should a man do when he would get the friendship of another man?  
A. Speak well of him, for as enmity & hate comes by evil speaking, so doth amity and love come by well speaking.  
Q. Why is the world compared by Socrates to fire?  
A. Because a little is good to warm a man and revive his spirits, but too much burneth him.  
Q. What are the two greatest troubles and griefs of this world?  
A. A wife and ignorance.  
Q. Who is he that cannot spend his money?  
A. The Covetous man only: for the money that he hath, is not his own, but he is servant to it.  
Q. What sort of people are displeasant both to God and to the world?  
A. The poor man proud, the old man a lecher, the rich man covetous and a liar; the youngman slothful, inobedient, and unreverent.  
Q. Which is the Mother that beareth most children?  
A. The earth.  
Q. What are the things that unprofitable, and nought in a household?  
A. The man servant disloyal, the maid servant with child, the wife a harlot, the child obstinate, and worst of all, the purse empty.  
Q. What may strife and going to law be termed?  
A. A mere perdition of time, of money, and of friends.  
Q. Who is mother of all things?  
A. Experience.  
Q. What is the key of poverty?  
A. Sloth and idleness.  
Q. What is the best way to have speedy audience of an advocate or attorney in the Law?  
A. To bring under his gown a couple of Capons or a young hog, and in entering the house to wring the hog by the ear, which when he gins to cry, my Lord will begin to laugh and say, benè veniatis, pecora campi.  
Q. What are the things that yet never agreed together?  
A. The wolves, and the sheep, the fire and the water, the dogs and the hares, the fox and the pullen, the slothful and the virtuous, the stork and frogs.  
Q. What are the beasts, that are most profitable and necessary to man?  
A. The Ox, the Sheep, the Bee, the Swine, and the Horse.  
Q. Which is the best member and the worst of all the body?  
A. The tongue.  
Q. Which is the noblest kind of revenge that a prince can use towards his subjects?  
A. Only clemency, well agreeing to that sentence of Petrarche which saith,  Nobilissimum vindictae genus est, parcere. 
Q. How may a man find rest in going?  
A. In being accompanied on the way with a wiseman.  
Q. What is the common property of one in debt?  
A. To fly & hate his creditor as much as he can, when he hath not wherewithal to pay him.  
Q. And what is the property of the Creditor?  
A. To desire the health and welfare of his debtor, hoping that he willbe able one day to pay him.  
Q. Wherein consisteth the accomplishing of man's felicity?  
A. In getting of friends, and doing good to others.  
Q. How much difference is between the truth and a lie?  
A. As much as there is distance between the mouth and the ear.  
Q. What is folly?  
A. A Bar from felicity.  
Q. What is the crown and honour of a young Damsel?  
A. Vrginity.  
Q. What ought a good prince to do by might?  
A. He ought, according to the resolution of the demand made by Alexander the great to Plato, to think on the government of his people, and the next day to put it in execution.  
Q. What are the teeth of time?  
A. Day and night, life and death.  
Q. What are the first virtues and lessons that a good Master ought to teach his scholars?  
A. To fear and honour God, to reverence father and mother, and their elders, to induce them to keep silence, and to have humility, diligence, concord and peace.  
Q. What is it to be clothed in soft raiment?  
A. A standard of pride, a nest of luxuriousness.  
Q. Who is he that may rightly be called a covetous wretch and a niggard?  
A. He that hath need of the which he hath.  
Q. Wherein do women surpass men?  
A. In doing evil.  
Q. What is the thing most difficile to keep?  
A. It is (besides secrets) that which is of many men desired.  
Q. Who are they that be deemed evil livers?  
A. They that think never to die.  
Q. What is the thing that most refraineth hunger?  
A. Sleep.  
Q. What difference is there betwixt one woman, and an other?  
A. Take away light, that is to say shame, they are all one.  
Q. What is to be considered in giving a gift?  
A. Whether it be great or small it forceth not, so that it come in time and place.  
Q. What ought a good christian above all things to consider?  
A. Where he is, from whence he came, who and what he is, what he hath done, and whether he goeth.  
Q. What are the three things (according to Plutarch) that are requisite and necessary in a child?  
A. Nature, doctrine, and exercise: of the which three, if any be wanting, he cannot be perfect.  
Q. What are they, that cannot tell how to speak?  
A. They that cannot tell how to hold their peace.  
Q. How contes it to pass that children love not their fathers so well as fathers do their children?  
A. Because Love descends still, and never ascends: beside, the Son hath much of the father, but the father hath nothing of the Son.  
Q. Why did the men of ancient time plainly quarrel with them that came too borrow any thing?  
A. Because in quarreling with them, they thought they should not be so much out of their favour, as if they should ask their own again, if they lent it.  
Q. Which is the best Doctor in the world?  
A. Discretion.  
Q. Which is the healthfullest thing in the world?  
A. Fire, for it is never sick.  
Q. What shall a man do, not too have need of others?  
A. If he be rich, let him live soberly; if he be poor, let him labour diligently.  
Q. What is the thing that is more strong than nature?  
A. Custom.  
Q. Who is he in this world that is master of his word?  
A. Any man is master of his own word before it be spoken.  
Q. How may a man behave himself in his works?  
A. He ought to have his own before his eyes and other men's behind his back.  
Q. What is it that deceiveth all them which put their trust in it?  
A. The world.  
Q. Who is sister to death?  
A. Sleep.  
Q. Why should one dissemble good fortune?  
A. Because she engendereth envy.  
Q. How ought a man to love and hate?  
A. To love, as though he would one day hate; and hate, as though he would love again.  
Q. What is the thing that most weareth away grief and dolour?  
A. Time.  
Q. Why is the common sort of people deemed unconstant?  
A. Because at one instant they both love and hate.  
Q. Why did the Philosopher think it a rare thing to find a good Lord?  
A. Because, to be good, and a Lord, are two things, not according well: for how can he be good that depriveth us of our liberty, and will?  
Q. What sickness is most perilous and mortal?  
A. That which cometh last, and goeth away last.  
Q. What is the true sign of a gentle Prince?  
A. It is when in kneeling to him we find mercy at his feet.  
Q. What is the beginning of all good, and the end of all evil?  
A. Death.  
Q. What is a singular remedy of all injuries?  
A. Forgetfulness.  
Q. What is the mother of felicity?  
A. Obedience.  
Q. Who is the judge that condemneth himself?  
A. He that absolveth the culpable.  
Q. What is the thing that trieth our courage?  
A. Office or rulership.  
Q. What is the true rest of our Soul?  
A. Sapience.  
Q. What is the only thing that hath no need of mercy?  
A. innocency.  
Q. What order shall a man hold being with great Lords, or his superiors?  
A. Let him hold his peace, or speak modestly, and do like him that would warm himself, but not burn.  
Q. What is the property of a discrete person.  
A. To choose the good, and fly the evil.  
Q. What are the things that should govern the world?  
A. The people in good order, the rich man loyal, the young man obedient, the old man sage, and the poor man humble.  
Q. What are the things that are got without buying?  
A. Malady, ignorance, dispraise, and dishonour.  
Q. What are the things that are always good cheap?  
A. The earth, words, will, and lies.  
Q. What are the things to man most hard and miserable?  
A. Poverty in old age, sickness in prison, infamy after honour, and to be banished from his native country.  
Q. What three things are those that are most strong?  
A. The truth, wine, and a woman.  
Q. What is the greatest Empire of all others?  
A. It is the Empire of fools.  
Q. Why is Fortune painted blind, foolish, and deformed?  
A. She is painted blind, because she sees not on whom nor how she bestows her benefits; foolish, because she is unconstant; and deformed, because she is marvelous dishonest.  
Q. What be the conditions of a good servant?  
A. He ought to be diligent, true, faithful, and patiented.  
Q. What is the first token of a good wit in a young man?  
A. Memory.  
Q. What is that which a man will believe soonest?  
A. That which he heareth willingest.  
Q. What is one of the greatest sorrows that can betide a man?  
A. That which cometh by mirth.  
Q. What are the griefs which will not be cured?  
A. Those which come by the disease of love.  
Q. What are the best rules for a man to keep, that will govern himself uprightly all the days of his life?  
A. To think on the time past, to order and dispose the time present, to provide for the time to come, and to make inquiry of things unknown and doubtful.  
Q. What are the things that we see pass before our eyes, and yet cannot follow them?  
A. Smoke, a bird, a ship, and an arrow in the air.  
Q. What is that which a woman most desireth?  
A. Rich apparel, credit, beauty, & liberty.  
Q. What are the things that a Gentleman should wholly abhor?  
A. To he a coward, a niggard, a liar, or a Tyrant.  
Q. Who should have the best office in a city?  
A. The best man, and least vicious.  
Q. What are the two things which neither time nor fortune can destroy in this world?  
A. A good name and verity.  
Q. What is the greatest reproach the agovernour or ruler can by any means receive?  
A. To command (saith Aristotle) over many, and to obey one less or worse than any, he meaneth vice, and to be surpassed in honesty, courtesy, virtue, science, and humanity, by them which are, by seeming, his inferiors.  
Q. What is the soul of a common weal?  
A. justice, for without it neither peace nor war can be, otherwise the filthy smell & corruption that a body without a soul hath, the same hath a weal public without justcie?  
Q. What are the true pricks of lust and wantonness?  
A. Excess in wine, & banqueting, lascivious words, & the conversation of women.  
Q. How may a man drive away all carnal lusts and desires of the flesh?  
A. By hunger, sobriety, travail, labour and occupation.  
Q. What is the duty of a good Physician?  
A. To know the disease, and to order his medicine according to it, and often to visit his patient, and comfort him.  
Q. What is requisite in a sick man?  
A. Obedience to his Surgeon, a large hand, and good courage.  
Q. How may a man know him that is like to himself, & of his own constellation & quality?  
A. Let him regard (saith Plato) whom he doth love and fancy without occasion.  
Q. Why did the Philosopher counsel us to give nothing neither to the young, nor to the old?  
A. Because the young forget it afore they be able to recompense it, and the old do die afore they can have time to requite it.  
Q. From whence proceeds idleness & sloth?  
A. From a base mind & courage, from dark and obscure places, from great rest, and solitariness, and from Melancholy.  
Q. How ought a man to maintain his body in health:  
A. He should never submit himself to the rule of physic: he should go to the fields or country and there live in sweet air, and healthsome places: he should walk oft, and use sober exercises, he should refuse no meat neither sweet nor sour, using no choler, nor excess, and remember to keep himself neat and clean in his apparel.  
Q. Of what things ought a man most to rejoice?  
A. He should rejoice and thank God, that he is borne a man and not a woman, a Christian and not a Turk, and to have lived in the time of the Gospel, and died in a good understanding.  
Q. What is the best answer that a wiseman can give a fool?  
A. To say nothing.  
Q. What are the best counsellors: the most sage, faithful and of least cost that a prince can have?  
A. Books (saith Alfonsus' king of Arragon) for they without fear, flattery, or hope of gain, do counsel and guide kings, princes and other men what they ought to do, and what they should not, and they are not importunate nor greedy of reputation, neither are they given to ravin and pillage, as most part of counsellors now a days are, and besides that, if we will they speak, if not, they will hold their peace at our commandment.  
Q. Why did Diogenes merrily affirm, that old cheese and hard, was better and of greater virtue than the new?  
A. Because in making him to cough that eateth of it at supper, it frayeth so the thieves at nights, that they dare not break his house.  
Q. What are the things that corrupt justice?  
A. Partiality, love, hate, prayer, fear, and reward.  
Q. What is the office of a husband towards his wife.  
A. To guard, and keep her honour, too feed, and  her, and to give her good instructions.  
Q. What is the duty of the wife towards her husband.  
A. To love him sincerely, to have a care over his person, to render him obedience, and to study to appease his choler if he be angry.  
Q. What are the things amongst all others right tedious to endure?  
A. Long rain, long speech, the wind, prison, and malady.  
Q. What are the things that a man cannot live without?  
A. Water, air, bread, fire. and salt.  
Q. What is the cause, and Source of the infelicity of man?  
A. His own proper malice and iniquity.  
Q. What are the four sins that require bengeaunce before God?  
A. The evil or wrong done to an Innocent, the sin of Sodom, the retaining of his wages from a poor servant, and the inflaming of evil tongues.  
Q. What disease is that, which the elder a man waxeth, the younger and fresher it waxeth?  
A. Covetousness.  
Q. Why did a certain Philosopher say to the Emperor Galba, that his wit was ill lodged?  
A. Because the said Emperor was crook shouldered.  
Q. What were the two tokens by the which Lycurgus the Lacedaemonian, judged a ruler, do all things to the glory of God, and profit of the common weal.  
Q. What is the thing that a man ought to judge best above all other things?  
A. Virtue, without the which nothing can be called good.  
Q. Who is he that hath all he will, and the fruition of his whole hearts desire?  
A. He that is content with that he hath, and requireth no more.  
Q. Wherein consisteth nobility especially?  
A. More in beauty of manners, then of blood.  
Q. With what armour should he arm himself, that will fight against adversity?  
A. With Patience.  
Q. What is the thing that maketh a man most timorous and fearful?  
A. An evil conscience.  
Q. What difference is there between the Lord and the servant?  
A. None concerning the man, much concerning servitude.  
Q. How might a man do to be always without fear?  
A. Let him speak little, and do well.  
Q. What are the three things enemies and contrary to good counsel?  
A. Hast, anger, and covetousness.  
Q. Where ought one to write wisdom, and science?  
A. Not in books, but in the hearts of men, saith Socrates.  
Q. What giveth the good and the evil?  
A. Wisedoine saith Alexander (not fortune) giveth the good and folly the evil.  
Q. For what cause was night made?  
A. To think on that in rest, that we may do the day following.  
Q. Who is he that can never be without fear and grief?  
A. The envious hypocrite.  
Q. What is love?  
A. A hidden fire, a sweet venom, a delectable evil, a pleasant punishment, and a flattering death.  
Q. What is the best gift that fortune can give?  
A. Experience, which is a founder of wisdom.  
Q. What are the things that make a man willing to serve?  
A. The people in good order, the wise man with his works, the rich man just and liberal, the poor man humble, the young man obedient, the old man a gever of good counsel, and the woman shamefast, & honest.  
Q. What are they that most delight in things transitory and fugitive?  
A. Hunters and hawkers.  
Q. Who is he that fortifieth without, & hath his en emies within?  
A. A man that clothes himself from cold, and doth not purge himself from vice.  
Q. What is the best medicine for misery?  
A. Death.  
Q. What is a great dowry?  
A. A bed full of strife.  
Q. What is the easiest thing, and of least cost, and yet the best that one can give to his friend:  
A. Good counsel.  
Q. What is money?  
A. A Lamp or soul amongst dead and blind men: and he that hath it not, is nowadays dead amongst the quick.  
Q. What is the best armour and safeguard of the heart, repulsing and banishing all wicked thoughts, & keeping it free from evil cogitations?  
A. A labouring hand.  
Q. Why have men divers enemies?  
A. It may be peradventure because they love themselves too much.  
Q. What is an evil thing, and yet hath a good name?  
A. An evil brother.  
Q. Why did Plato think that hangmen were more courteous than Tyrants?  
A. Because hangmen kill the culpable and guilty, but tyrants often murder the innocent.  
Q. What are the three virtues excellent in a Captain?  
A. Audacity against his enemies, benevolence towards his soldiers, & good counsel in matters of weight.  
Q. Why did the Egyptians and Lacedemoniens compare great Lords to flaming fire?  
A. Because the nearer a man is to them, the sooner he shall burn and be harmed:  
Q. How is fame obtained:  
A. By living virtuously, and dying for one's country.  
Q. What do women desire above all things?  
A. To marry themselves to a lusty young youth, to take pleasure in children, to be well appareled, & above all things to be mistress of the house.  
Q. Over what people is it that death hath no jurisdiction?  
A. Over the virtuous.  
Q. Why lieth the heart of the virtuous man lower than of others?  
A. Because in him lie drowned all the injuries that fortune can do.  
Q. How may a man make himself praised?  
A. In dispraising himself with reason.  
Q. What is the best adversity that a man can have:  
A. That which deterreth him from evil words and evil deeds.  
Q. What is the reason that money is more rife with the evil, then with the good?  
A. Because the good cannot lie, swear, use usury, and deceive their neighbours.  
Q. What is the ordinary profit of a schoolematster?  
A. To be inheritor of all the errors of his Scholars, and to confess that all the profit that they gain, is by their own dexterity of wit.  
Q. What is the right property of a virtuous man?  
A. To bear in memory the benefits received, to forget all injuries done, to think the little that he hath a great deal, not to regard the great deal of another man, to favour the good, to flatter with the evil, to be great with the great, and friendly with inferiors, and to be friend to few, and enemy to none.  
Q. What is the lightest thing of all others?  
A. The heart or thought of man: because in the twinkling of an eye, it will compass all the world.  
Q. Who is he that can scarcely know his friends, or whether he have any or no?  
A. He that is rich and fortunate.  
Q. What is an old father?  
A. A fugitive consolation.  
Q. Of moral virtues, which is the greatest?  
A. Force, for she brings to pass, that man feareth not death.  
Q. What kind of men have their ears at their knees?  
A. They which will not hear a man, unless he bow himself down, and speak too their knees.  
Q. What is the only thing that man can not overcome?  
A. Hunger.  
Q. Why did the Lacedemoniens and The banes paint the images of judges blind and without hands?  
A. To show that justice should be no way corrupted.  
Q. What is poverty?  
A. The mother and mistress of good manners, who only feareth no change of estates nor the fraudulent force of thieves.  
Q. Who is he that cannot die suddenly?  
A. He that liveth sixty or seventy years.  
Q. Who is he that hath always a good Cook?  
A. He that eateth always when hunger oppresseth him.  
Q. What are the bad things that drive a man out of his house?  
A. A bad wife, smoke, rain, and want of victuales.  
Q. Why do women  and cover themselves so sumptuously?  
A. Because fowl things seek to cover themselves still sooner than fair things.  
Q. What are the richest & fairest jewels that a woman can have?  
A. A virtuous husband, and virtuous children.  
Q. What is a fair child?  
A. A glory to the wife, and a suspicion to the husband.  
Q. What is adversity?  
A. The mother of Temperance, the Nurse of Glory, and a spur of virtue.  
Q. Why did the ancient learned men, and sages, disdain to be called doctors?  
A. Because they said and affirmed that virtue had need of no other title than her own.  
Q. To what may one compare a virtuous man, speaking dishonestly?  
A. To an unclean vessel full of pure wine.  
Q. What was the cause that Socrates often exhorted and permitted his scholars and youths, to look themselves in glasses?  
A. Because in beholding their own beauty, and elegancy of their bodies, they might study to make their minds conformable to the same by good disciplines, and if in the glass they appeared fowl, and deformed, they might study how to amend that deformity by virtue.  
Q. Why did Lycurgus forbid the Lacedemoniens to banquet?  
A. Because in banqueting men lose their judgement by drinking, their gravity by speaking, and their health by eating too much.  
Q. What was the order and observance at Marriages of the Lacedemoniens?  
A. To have only nine persons in company, & to give wine to him the held his peace.  
Q. Where should a man seek his goods?  
A. Where his friends are.  
Q. What is the most dangerous ignorance that may be?  
A. Neither to know God nor himself.  
Q. Wherein lieth the force of an army?  
A. In counsel, in the hap of the Captains, in the hearts of the Soldiers, in the situation of the field, and chief in the will of God.  
Q. What are the things best for him that will make good cheer?  
A. A merry hostess, laughing bread, leaping wine, trembling flesh, and weeping cheese and weighty.  
Q. What is the thing that maketh Alquimiftes, fools, poor, and incensed?  
A. Mercury.  
Q. How cometh it to pass that flatterers have commonly so great credit with Princes?  
A. Because they are so amorous of themselves, they love to hear themselves praised: and in this they resemble the Dwle, that hath her eye sight dimmed at mid day.  
Q. How should a man proceed in correcting or reprehending another man?  
A. As the Physician doth in healing his patient, that is, to show himself sweet and pleasant and not a revenger: for the physician that killeth his patient, is not a physician, but a hangman or executioner.  
Q. Who is the father, that when the son offendeth, inviteth him too offend again?  
A. He which winketh at his fault and pardoneth him.  
Q. What is the best glass a man can use?  
A. His own thought, for therein he may see both his fairness and his foulness.  
Q. What is the life without learning?  
A. A tree without fruit, a day without sun, a night without moon and stars, a house without a man, and a body without a head.  
Q. Who is he that may easily vanquish his enemy?  
A. He that demandeth nothing but reason.  
Q. When is the season, that a woman thinketh worst?  
A. Then specially when she is alone and idle.  
Q. What are those commonweals or kingdoms that easily fall to decay?  
A. Those where tyranny raineth, and policy is of no power.  
Q. What are the things that diminish pride?  
A. Sickness, and poverty.  
Q. What is the way to lead a happy life?  
A. To put a bridle to the tongue, the hands the belly, and carnal lusts.  
Q. Who is the servant that may say to his master, I force thee not, thou art servant to my servant.  
A. A poor man serving a covetous carl, so said Diogenes to Alexander the great.  
Q. What is the beast that beareth a man both alive and dead?  
A. The horse, for he carrieth a man on his back; and being dead, they make shoes of his skin.  
Q. What ought Princes to entertain, to the end to have continual peace?  
A. Equality.  
Q. What are the things that a man ought warily to take heed of?  
A. Of wine, of fire, of water, and of a woman.  
Q. Of what effect is service?  
A. It obtaineth friends.  
Q. What are the fruits of flouth?  
A. A Melancholy life, misery, poverty, and despair of himself.  
Q. What is the thing that makes a man most wise?  
A. Daily experience.  
Q. What is the recreation of the Soul?  
A. Sapience.  
Q. What ought a good Pilgrim to have?  
A. An eloquent tongue, a true hand, and a clean mouth.  
Q. For what cause should one neither praise nor dispraise the world?  
A. Because he that praseth it too much, may easily lie, and he that dispraiseth it, is in danger of punishment.  
Q. What are the things that deprive a man of his temporal faculties?  
A. Fortune, sickness, and his foes.  
Q. How ought we to use ourselves towards our friends?  
A. To praise them openly, and reprehend them secretly.  
Q. Wherewith only is prosperity accompanied?  
A. With folly, with aroganeie, and with envy.  
Q. Why do we see Philosophers at princes gates, sooner than Princes at Philosophers gates?  
A. Because Princes know not what they have need of.  
Q. Why did the wise man say that it were better to be a beggar then a fool?  
A. Because a beggar hath need of nothing but of money, but a fool hath need of humanity and understanding.  
Q. What are the deeds of charity?  
A. To honour God, to love his neighbour, to help the oppressed, and chastise the wicked.  
Q. What is death?  
A. It is a play of craft, and not of force, wherein if the player be skilful, he gaineth a great deal for a little.  
Q. What is a ship properly?  
A. A wandering house without foundation.  
Q. What is a remedy against envy?  
A. To banish prosperity.  
Q. What is the best mean and way for a prince to become rich?  
A. To make first his treasure of wise men, and then he shall become rich: for as the wicked and malicious destroy and impoverish a prince, so the wise enrich him with kingdoms and Empires.  
Q. Why ought a prince to know well his subjects and vassals?  
A. To the end he may chastise the evil, and reward and favour the good.  
Q. Why ought we to have death still before our eyes?  
A. To the end we forget not our salvation.  
Q. What are the three things (amongst many) that men love and have in great reputation?  
A. Health of the body, abundance of riches, and conservation of their good name and honour.  
Q. What is the beauty of a woman?  
A. A very mourning dew.  
Q. What is the cause motiffe which most encourageth a valiant man to hazard his life?  
A. The safeguard of his rencome.  
Q. What are the things which shows the condition of the persen?  
A. His speech, drinking, and eating, the apparel of his body, his conversation, and the experience of his doings.  
Q. What are the two things most necessary for the sure guard of ones life?  
A. Good friends, or else great enemies.  
Q. Who is he that leads a merry life?  
A. He that lives a verivous life.  
Q. What is a man?  
A. He is (saith Aristotle) a stranger on earth, a Pilgrim, example of malady, a pray of time, a play of fortune, an Image of ruin a balance of envy and calamity, and all the rest phlegm and choler.  
Q. Who are the best craftsmen amongst all others?  
A. The good, for they without sin, fault, or offence, do all things well and perfectly.  
Q. What is the thing that most maintaineth arts?  
A. Honour.  
Q. How may men obtain just things at the hands of their betters?  
A. In ask unjust things.  
Q. What is prosperity?  
A. A vain pastime of fortune.  
Q. What is the last solace in adversi 'tis?  
A. Hope.  
Q. Wherewith should riches be sustained and accompanied?  
A. With Prudence.  
Q. What is the greatest let that a man can have to become happy?  
A. Folly.  
Q. Which is the best beauty?  
A. That which is without art, or payting.  
Q. What art learneth he the is still sick?  
A. To die.  
Q. What is the office of a good Prince?  
A. To be valiant, just, severe, & haughty to chastise the evil, and reward the good, to root out vices, and plant virtues, and to to be a Tyrant; and a judge, potentate, or officer to be a thief?  
A. To spend much, and have little.  
Q. What are the three things (amongst others) that a good householder should take heed of?  
A. Of new wine, green wood, and hot bread.  
Q. What is the only thing that lets us to know a friend from a dissembler?  
A. poverty.  
Q. What is the difference between a wise man and a fool?  
A. The same (saith Plato) that is between a sick man and a Physician: and as much (saith Aristotle) as is between a quick man and a dead.  
Q. Why are women (by Marcus Aurelius) compared to ships?  
A. Because to keep them well and in order, there is always something wanting, although it be but a nail.  
Q. What are the things convenient for one to speak well?  
A. Courage, skill, use and pleasantness.  
Q. Why did Propertius think gold to be the strongest thing of this world?  
A. Because it breaketh, cities, walls, hearts of men, saith, laws, and all orders, and to say truth we live in this golden age, wherein it raineth so.  
Q. At what hour is it best to dine?  
A. The rich man, when he will; the poor man, when he may.  
Q. When is man worse than a beast?  
A. When he rageth beyond reason.  
Q. What are the things that most anger a man and make him most unpatient?  
A. To serve an unthankful master, to ask and not obtain, to give and have no thanks, and to lose his time in a long and bootless suit.  
Q. What are the four members of a man's body, that are never full to the top.  
A. The ears of hearing, the hands of heaping, the tongue of speaking, and the heart of destring.  
Q. What are a man's most enemies?  
A. His familiars or them of his family: it may also be understood of his vices, as his folly, or evil government.  
Q. What are the things that are only requisite, wherewith to govern the world well, and orderly?  
A. Gain, love, & to see his service is acceptabe  
Q. What is requisite in an honest man?  
A. To hear patiently, to answer discreetly, to offend no man, and to serve every one.  
Q. When was love and charity lost in the world?  
A. When money came in reputation.  
Q. What is the property of a good servant?  
A. To obey patiently, to serve diligently, to speak joyfully, and to be loyal.  
Q. What is the greatest fault, with Cicero, that can be in a good man?  
A. To approve and praise the evil for the good.  
Q. What is the thing that every one most coveteth, and lest exerciseth, by the which all debates, questions, and process are decided?  
A. Reason.  
Q. Who are they that may be called twice miserable?  
A. They that covet to know of the Astrologians that which cannot be eschewed.  
Q. What is Science?  
A. It is like the root of a tree, and the operations are the branches?  
Q. How learneth one to do evil?  
A. In doing nothing.  
Q. What are the true tokens to know a wise man by?  
A. To endure, is the first point: the second is, if he exalt not himself when he is praised: and the third is, to keep hissecrete to himself.  
Q. What are the things necessary and requisite for a good judge?  
A. To hear with patience, to answer with prudence, to give sentence with justice, and to execute with mercy: for being unpatient in hearing, vain in answering, partial in judging, and cruel in executing, he is better worthy to be judged, than judge.  
Q. Why did wise men forbidden us to call mundans goods our own?  
A. Because the which we may be deprived of by reason, is not our own, but fortunes: But only virtue which we get ourselves, is our own.  
Q. What effects have the four Elements in mankind?  
A. The earth engendereth the flesh, the water humours, the air wind or breath, and the fire natural heat.  
Q. What difference is there between city dogs, and dogs of the country?  
A. The City dogs bark at them that go evil appareled; and the country dogs at them that go gay.  
Q. Whereon dependeth a man's good name?  
A. On the tongues of other men.  
Q. What profiteth it early rising?  
A. Early rising is good for the health, and early rising is good for the wealth.  
Q. What are the four good mothers, that bring forth four evil daughters?  
A. Truth getteth hatred, familiarity contempt, virtue ignorance & riches envy.  
Q. What is it to be praised of fools, wicked and evil persons?  
A. It is better to be dyspraised of wise, skilful, and honest persons.  
Q. What are the riches of marriage?  
A. Faith, concord, and progeny.  
Q. What is the thing most difficult to measure?  
A. It is time: because it ought so justly to be measured, that there be not too little to do good, nor too much to do evil.  
Q. Why did the Thebans kill and strangle their male Children that were too fair, and their daughters that were too foul?  
A. Because they thought that men excessive fair were unperfect women, and women too foul were beasts.  
Q. What two instructors should a man have to get virtue?  
A. One dumb that is to say, books; and another speaking, that is to say, a master.  
Q. What thing is most capable?  
A. Place, for it comprehendeth all things.  
Q. What is the thing that meriteth the palm of all beauty?  
A. The world.  
Q. Who is the strongest amongst men?  
A. He, saith Plato, that can vanquish his anger, and keep his own secret.  
Q. How might a man do to live justly?  
A. Let him take that counsel for himself that he giveth to others.  
Q. How may one know a master from a servant?  
A. In marking how he can rule his appetite.  
Q. What is the Smell of smells?  
A. Bread.  
Q. What is the savour of savours?  
A. Salt.  
Q. What is the greatest love of all loves?  
A. That which a Father beareth to his children.  
Q. What is the best and most notable enchantment that women can use to obtain the love of their husbands?  
A. To be silent, peaceable, patient, solitary and honest, of the which five herbs they may make a medicine, the which seen, & not tasted of their husbands, they shall not only be loved, but also worshipped.  
Q. What fruit should one think best and worst?  
A. The treasure of the Indians is not to be compared to that fruit which a woman beareth in her womb, if it be honest and virtuous.  
Q. What are the strongest things amongst all other, and without comparison?  
A. God, Truth, and Virtue.  
Q. What is the easiest thing to get and obtain?  
A. That which one desireth most.  
Q. What are the things amongst all others, common to man?  
A. Life, Dishappe, Laughing, and weeping.  
Q. What sign is it to see many rich Physicians in a City?  
A. A sign of excessive abundance of delights and vices: for the man by excessive delights, becometh sick, and out of health.  
Q. Why is a good woman, though not fair, compared to the Pheasant; and an evil woman, though fair, to the Sabie, Martyr, or foins?  
A. Because that although the feathers of the pheasant be of little account, yet is the flesh good and wholesome: whereas contrary the skin of the Martyr or foins is had in price, but the flesh is nothing worth.  
Q. How comes it to pass that many have a cardinal or red nose?  
A. Because (saith Diogenes) their flesh is yet raw and unboyled.  
Q. Whereof proceed so many discords and controversies between princes and their subjects?  
A. The subjects complain of the little love of their Princes, and the Princes complain of the disobedience of their subjects.  
Q. Why did the Philosopher judge an evil woman to be worse than hell?  
A. Because hell tormenteth the evil only, but a wicked woman tormenteth both the good and the had.  
Q. How comes it to pass that many now adays will go gay clad outwardly, and not study to amend their viees inwardly?  
A. For lack of wisdom and superabundance of folly.  
Q. Who is the mother most pitiful of all other mothers, who although her son hath despised her, and often trodden her under his feet: yet in fine receiveth him again into her entrales?  
A. It is the earth, general mother of all mankind.  
Q. Wherein consisteth true wisdom?  
A. In judging truly of things, and esteeming every one according to his value, not desiring vile things as precious, nor rejecting precious things as vile and abject.  
Q. Why ought one equally to win the love of the fool, as well as of the wise man?  
A. Because the fool shall not hate him, and dispraise him, whereas the wiseman doth love him, and praise him.  
Q. What are the things that can neither be bought nor sold for price, nor esteemed at any value?  
A. Virtue Liberty, Health, Knowledge an Renown.  
Q. What is the beast that most biteth, and doth least hurt?  
A. It is he (saith Diogenes) that reprehendeth his friends without flattery; for as dogs and flatterers bite, the one for to wound, the other to despoil: so true friends correct the faults of their neighbours, and bite them to amend, and lay folly aside.  
Q. What sorts of people amongst all others are most worthy of blame?  
A. They that use reproach.  
Q. What are the things by reason esteemed most loyal in the world?  
A. Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Sleep, Hunger, Thirst and Death, for they serve the poor as well as the rich.  
Q. What are the true conservers of height?  
A. Sobriety, Moderate labour, to hold the seed of Nature, to be merry, and live in a healthful place.  
Q. Who are those that yield themselves to voluntary captivity?  
A. They that become subject to women or wine.  
Q. What is charity?  
A. To love God for himself, and his neighbour for the love of God.  
Q. What is the worst war that is?  
A. The war viscerale, that is, when a man is enemy to himself.  
Q. Why did the ancient father's judge husbandry to be the only exercise that a man should use?  
A. Because that with pleasure it also brings profit.  
Q. How comes it to pass that some children disperse and scatter their father's goods being dead so soon?  
A. Because none knoweth how to keep a thing, but he that hath gotten it with labour.  
Q. What is goodwill?  
A. The foundation of good works, and good works are the messengers of another world.  
FINIS.   

Verses of a blessed life.  

HOw happy is that wight,  
that holds himself content  
With goods and gifts aright,  
which nature doth present?  
No substance else save this,  
but full of care it is.   

Who hath to serve his need,  
be he contented then,  
Whose substance doth exceed,  
shall serve for other men.  
Abundance brings in pain  
more then enough is vain.   

Who mounts to honour's fit,  
and sits on fortune's wheel  
From top is tossed oft,  
and oft adown doth reel:  
With thunder claps we see,  
high Towers soon shaken be.   

War, grief, nor envy fell,  
repair not to the place,  
Where mean estate doth dwell.  
He is in Angel's case:  
And he that needs few things,  
Needs better far than kings.    

Of worldly Wealth.  

O Fount of flattery worldly wealth,  
The nurse of care and soul's unhealth,  
To have thee is an hell of dread,  
To want thee, gulf of grief indeed.    

For Wisdom.  

O God of Father's mine,  
the God & Lord of mercies most:  
Thou blessed father, blessed Son,  
and blessed holy Ghost,  
Which with thy word all things hast made,  
and all things dost ordain,  
That in this world abide and breath,  
or else where do remain:  
Bless thou thy handy work, O Lord,  
and grant me wisdom pure,  
Which ever is about thy seat,  
and ever shall endure.  
For I thy handmaids Son O Lord,  
a feeble creature am:  
Brief is my time, brief is my joy,  
brief is the life of man.  
Too weak also my wisdom is  
to understand thy will:  
Send then thy heavenly Sapience Lord,  
out of thy holy hill:  
That she by thee may me instruct,  
what steps I best may tread,  
And how from men's traditions best,  
I this my life may lead.  
For all their works are vain, O Lord,  
their studies I detest:  
Thou only Lord of Zion hill,  
art he can make me blest.   
Bend to content. T. C.   

Imprinted at London by Thomas Dauson dwelling at the three Cranes in the vintry.