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Title:  The compleat gentleman fashioning him absolute in the most necessary & commendable qualities concerning minde or bodie that may be required in a noble gentleman. By Henry Peacham, Mr. of Arts sometime of Trinity Coll: in Cambridge.
Author: Peacham, Henry, 1576?-1643?
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things, which are of all men with admiration beheld, do procure more enuy, then those which without ostentation be honestly couered. I omit, as followeth shortly after, his great and excessiue charge in entertaining of learned men of all professions, to instruct the youth of Florence: his bountie to Argiropolo a Gracian, and Marsilio Fiins, (whom he maintained for the exercise of his owne stu∣dies in his house, and gaue him goodly lands neere his house of Carreggi,) men in that time of singular lear∣ning, because Vertue reares him rather to wonder then Imitation.To proceed, no lesse respect and honour is to be attri∣buted to Eloquence, whereby so many haue raised their esteeme and fortunes, as able to draw Ciuilitie out of Barbarisme, and sway whole kingdomes by leading withDescribed by Lucian to be aged, bld, & wrinckled, browne co∣loured, clad with a Lios skin, holding in his right hand a club, in his left a bow, with a Qer at his back, & long small chaines of Gold and Amber fast∣ned through little holes to the tip of his tongue, draw∣ing a multi∣tude of people willing to ol∣low after him, onely shad∣dowing vnto vs the power of Eloquence. Plato in Timaeo.Celticke Hercules, the rude multitude by the eares. Marke Anthony contending against Augustus for the Romane Empire, assured himselfe he could neuer obtaine his purpose while Cicero liued, therefore he procured his death. The like did Antipater, a Successor to Alexander, by Demosthenes, aspiring to the Monarchy of Greece. And not long since a poore Mahumetan Priest, by his smooth tongue, got the Crowne of Morocco from the right heire, being of the house of Giuseph or Ioseph. And much hurt it may doe, if like a mad mans sword, it be vsed by a tur∣bulent and mutinous Orator; otherwise we must hold it a principall meanes of correcting ill manners, reforming lawes, humbling aspiring minds, and vpholding all ver∣tue. For as Serpents are charmed with words, so the most sauage and cruell natures by Eloquence: which some inter∣pret,Pir. Vak∣ lib. 6. to be the meaning of Mercuries golden Rod, with those Serpents wreathed about it. Much therefore it con∣cerneth Princes, not onely to countenance honest and eloquent Orators, but to maintaine such neere about them, as no meane props (if occasion serue) to vphold a State, and the onely keies to bring in tune a discordant Common-wealth.0