THE DOCTOR,
&c.
INTERCHAPTER VII.
OBSOLETE ANTICIPATIONS; BEING A LEAF OUT OF AN OLD ALMANACK, WHICH LIKE OTHER OLD ALMANACKS THOUGH OUT OF DATE IS NOT OUT OF USE.
If
You play before me, I shall often look on you,
I give you that warning before hand.
Take it not ill, my masters, I shall laugh at you,
And truly when I am least offended with you;
It is my humour.
MIDDLETON.
When St. Thomas Aquinas was asked in what manner a man might best become learned, he answered, “by reading one book;” “meaning,” says Bishop Taylor, “that an understanding entertained with several objects is intent upon neither, and profits not.” Lord Holland's poet, the prolific Lope de Vega tells us to the same purport;