[ 926] Man losing himselfe in the pursuit after knowledge Extraordinary.
HOunds that are over-fleet, often out-run the prey in the pursuit, or else tyred and hungry,* 1.1 fall upon some dead piece of carrion in the way, and omit the game: Thus Man, who onely hath that essentiall consequence of his Reason, Ca∣pacity of Learning; though all his time he be brought up in a School of Know∣ledge, yet too too often lets the glass of his dayes be run out, before he know the Author he should study; hence it is, that the greatest Epicures of Knowledge (as Children new set to School,* 1.2 turn from their lessons to look upon Pictures in their Books) gaze upon some hard trifle, some unnecessary subtilty, and forget so much as to spell God; How great a part of this span-length of his dayes doth the Gram∣maticall Critick spend, in finding out the Construction of some obsolete word; or the principal verb in a worn-out Epitaph, still ready to set out a new book upon an old Criticisme? How doth the Antiquary search whole Libraries, to light upon some auncient Monument, whilst the Chronicles of the Lord, who is the Ancient of dayes, are seldom looked into? all of them so wearying the faculties of their understandings before hand by over-practising,* 1.3 that when they come at the race indeed, where their knowledge should so run that it might attain, it gives over the course as out of breath,* 1.4 before it have begun.