[Footnote: A principal clause--_It
will be well_, or some equivalent--is unhappily lacking to this long
sentence.]
The historian scarcely giveth leisure to the moralist, to say so much,
but that he, laden with old mouse-eaten records, authorizing himself
(for the most part) upon other histories, whose greatest authorities
are built upon the notable foundation of hearsay, having much ado to
accord differing writers, and to pick truth out of partiality, better
acquainted with a thousand years ago than with the present age, and
yet better knowing how this world goeth than how his own wit runneth,
curious for antiquities and inquisitive of novelties, a wonder to young
folks, and a tyrant in table-talk, denieth in a great chafe that any
man, for teaching of virtue and virtuous actions, is comparable to
him. I am _Lux vitae_, _Temporum Magistra_, _Vita memoriae_, _Nuncia
vetustatis_, &c.
The philosopher (saith he) teacheth a disputative virtue, but I do an
active: his virtue is excellent in the dangerless academy of Plato,
but mine showeth forth her honourable face in the battles of Marathon,
Pharsalia, Poitiers, and Agincourt.
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