ready man, and study an exact man," says Bacon; and this simple accuracy of definition reminds us inevitably of the lucid terseness with which every sentence of the "Apologia" reveals the thought it holds. "The truest expedience is to answer right out when you are asked; the wisest economy is to have no management; the best prudence is not to be a coward." As for the naïveté and the picturesqueness which lend such inexpressible charm to the earlier writers and atone for so many of their misdeeds, what can be more agreeable than to hear Sir Walter Raleigh remark with cheerful ingenuousness, "Some of our captaines garoused of wine till they were reasonable pleasant"!—a most engaging way of narrating a not altogether uncommon occurrence. And what can be more winning to the ear than the simple grace with which Roger Ascham writes of familiar things: "In the whole year, Springtime, Summer, Fall of the Leaf, and Winter; and in one day, Morning, Noontime, Afternoon, and Eventide, altereth the course of the weather, the pith of the bow, the strength of the man"! It seems an easy thing to say "fall of the leaf" for fall, and
