Nine Books on the Dignity and Advancement of Learning

a particular treatise of a Topic a method for finding arguments or a place of arguing on the subject: Of that which is heavy; and of that which is light. And you will judge infallibly that this piece comes from the subtlety of the great Bacon.

The sixth has for its subject Elocution, which is drawn from Grammar, and employed to the point that is necessary, by Rhetoric. One and the other of these two Arts would not merit that I speak to you of them, if they did not have something charming and ingenious, which will make you willingly read what you have not found in any other part; edited in this order which gives us new examples.

The seventh treats of the Morality which must regulate the will of man, which finds itself in disorder because of its affections; of which one has spoken very well, but not of the means that exist to order them according to reason. Upon which the Author reports a very just comparison, when he says: that it is doing the same as the master writers, who exhibit beautiful and well-written pieces: but who do not propose the manner of how one must hold the pen; and how one must form the letters. It is a vice almost common to all men: from which you are nevertheless exempt, MY LORD,
For even though you are touched by the stings of the affections; because you have more delicate sentiments than those Ancients who made it their glory to be insensitive, your natural sweetness always returns: even in the most just occasions that you have to be moved, in the continuous attacks of importunity that one gives you.

The eighth is the Book that I dedicate to you more particularly, MY LORD, insofar as it regards Civility in conversation: where you make yourself