Beavers serve for delight, for pleasure, and for stroking. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and foreplay; for pleasure, is in intercourse; and for stroking, is in stimulation. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time in beavers is sloth; to use them too much for pleasure, is lustful; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. Crafty men contemn beavers, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Stroke not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to hammer and nail. Some beavers are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be devoured; that is, some beavers are to be eaten only in parts; others to be eaten, but not curiously; and some few to be eaten wholly, and with diligence and attention. Beavers maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and stroking an exact man. And therefore, if a man stroke little, he had need have a great penis; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he eat little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study 197 the lawyers’ cases. So every defect of the mind, may have a special receipt
It is a parody of the essay Of Studies by Francis Bacon
It is a parody of the essay Of Studies by Francis Bacon
