[315] Philip de Comines.
[316] Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, the valiant antagonist of Louis XI. of France. De Comines spent his early years at his court, but afterwards passed into the service of Louis XI. This monarch was notorious for his cruelty, treachery, and dissimulation, and had all the bad qualities of his contemporary, Edward IV. of England, without any of his redeeming virtues.
[317] Pythagoras went still further than this, as he forbade his disciples to eat flesh of any kind whatever. See the interesting speech which Ovid attributes to him in the fifteenth book of the Metamorphoses. Sir Thomas Browne, in his Pseudoxia (Browne’s Works, Bohn’s Antiq. ed. vol. i. p. 27, et seq.), gives some curious explanations of the doctrines of this philosopher.—Plut. de Educat. Puer. 17.
[318] Tapestry. Speaking hypercritically, Lord Bacon commits an anachronism here, as Arras did not manufacture tapestry till the middle ages.
[319] Plut. Vit. Themist. 28.
[320] Ap. Stob. Serm. v. 120.
[321] James i. 23.
[322] He alludes to the recommendation which moralists have often given, that a person in anger should go through the alphabet to himself, before he allows himself to speak.
[323] In his day, the musket was fixed upon a stand, called the “rest,” much as the gingals or matchlocks are used in the East at the present day.
[324] From debts and incumbrances.