Duke. You speak oracles, sir.
Ant. Look farther, and tell me what you find better or more honourable than age. Is not wisdom entailed upon it? Take the preheminence of it in everything—in an old friend, in old wine, in an old pedigree.
Leo. All this is certain.
Ant. I confess to you, gentlemen, I must reverence and prefer the precedent times before these, which consumed their wits in experiments: and 'twas a virtuous emulation amongst them, that nothing which should profit posterity should perish.
Leo. It argued a good fatherly providence.
Ant. It did so. There was Lysippus, that spent his whole life in the lineaments of one picture, which I will show you anon: then was there Eudoxus the philosopher,[320] who grew old in the top of a mountain, to contemplate astronomy; whose manuscript I have also by me.
Duke. Have you so, sir?
Ant. I have that, and many more; yet see the preposterous desires of men in these days, that account better of a mass of gold than whatever Apelles or Phidias have invented!
Duke. That is their ignorance.
Ant. Well, gentlemen, because I perceive you are ingenious, I would entreat you to walk in, where I will demonstrate all, and proceed in my admonition. [Exeunt.