From the essay on “Presumption.”

THERE is another sort of glory, which is the having too good an opinion of our own worth. ’Tis an inconsiderate affection with which we flatter our selves, and that represents us to our selves other than we truly are. Like the passion of love, that lends beauties and graces to the person it does embrace; and that makes those who are caught with it, with a deprav’d and corrupt judgment, consider the thing they love, other and more perfect than it is. I would not, nevertheless, for fear of failing on the other side, that a man should not know him self aright, or think him self less than he is, the judgment ought in all things to keep it self upright and just: ’tis all the reason in the world he should discern in him self, as well as in others, what truth sets before him; if he be Cæsar, let him boldly think him self the greatest captain in the world. We are nothing but ceremony; ceremony carries us away, and we leave the substance of things; we hold by the branches and quit the trunk. Ceremony forbids us to express by words things that are lawful and natural, and we obey it; reason forbids us to do things unlawful and ill, and no body obeys it. I find my self here fetter’d by the laws of ceremony; for it neither permits a man to speak well of him self nor ill. We will leave it there for this time. They whom Fortune (call it good or ill) has made to pass their lives in some eminent degree may by their publick actions manifest what they are; but they whom she has only employed in the crowd, and of whom nobody will say a word unless they speak them selves, are to be excus’d, if they take the boldness to speak of them selves to such whose interest it is to know them….

  Methinks philosophy has never so fair a game to play as when it falls upon our vanity and presumption; when it most lays open their irresolution, weakness, and ignorance. I look upon the too good opinion that man has of him self to be the nursing mother of all the most false, both publick and private opinions. Those people who ride astride upon the Epicycle of Mercury, who see so far into the heavens, are worse to me than a tooth drawer that comes to draw my teeth: for in my study, the subject of which is man, finding so great a variety of judgments, so great a labyrinth of difficulties one upon another; so great diversity and uncertainty, even in the school of wisdom it self, you may judge, seeing those people could not resolve upon the knowledge of them selves, and their own condition, which is continually before their eyes, and within them, seeing they do not know, how that moves which they them selves move, nor how to give us a description of the springs they them selves govern and make use of; how can I believe them about the ebbing and flowing of the Nile. The curiosity of knowing things has been given to man for a scourge, says the Holy Scripture. But to return to what concerns my self: I think it very hard that any other should have a meaner opinion of him self, nay, that any other should have a meaner opinion of me, than I have of my self. I look upon my self as one of the common sort, saving in this, that I have no better an opinion of my self; guilty of the meanest and most popular defects, but not disown’d or excus’d, and do not value my self upon any other account than because I know my own value. If there be any glory in the case, ’tis superficially infus’d into me by the treachery of my complexion, and has no body that my judgment can discern. I am sprinkled, but not tincted. For in truth, as to the effects of the mind, there is no part of me, be it what it will, with which I am satisfied; and the approbation of others makes me not think the better of my self; my judgment is tender and fickle, especially in things that concern my self; I feel my self float and waver by reason of my weakness. I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment; my sight is clear and regular enough, but in opening it, it is apt to dazzle; as I most manifestly find in poesie. I love it infinitely, and am able to give a tolerable judgment of other men’s works; but in good earnest, when I apply my self to it, I play the child, and am not able to endure my self. A man may play the fool in every thing else, but not in poetry. I would to God the sentence was writ over the doors of all our printers, to forbid the entrance of so many rhymers.

  Why have not we such people? Dionysius the father valu’d him self so much upon nothing as his poetry. At the Olympick games, with chariots surpassing the others in magnificence, he sent also poets and musicians to present his verses with tents and pavilions royally gilt and hung with tapistry. When his verses came to be recited, the excellency of the pronunciation did at first attract the attention of the people; but when they afterwards came to poise the meanness of the composition, they first enter’d in to disdain, and continuing to nettle their judgments, presently proceeded to fury, and ran to pull down, and tear to pieces all his pavilions; and in that his chariots neither perform’d any thing to purpose in the course; and that the ship which brought back his people fail’d of making Sicily, and was by the tempest driven and wrack’d upon the coast of Tarentum, they did certainly believe, was through the anger of the gods, incens’d, as they them selves were, against that paltry poem; and even the mariners who escap’d from the wrack seconded this opinion of the people. To which also the Oracle, that foretold his death, seem’d to subscribe; which was, “That Dionysius should be near his end when he should have overcome those who were better than him self,” which he interpreted of the Carthaginians, who surpass’d him in power; and having war with them, often declin’d the victory, not to incur the sense of this perdition. But he understood it ill; for the god pointed at the time of the advantage that by favour and injustice he obtain’d at Athens over the tragick poets, better than him self, having caus’d his own play call’d the “Leineicus” to be acted in emulation. Presently after which victory he died, and partly of the excessive joy he conceiv’d at the success. What I find tolerable of mine is not so really, and in it self; but in comparison of other worse things, that I see are well enough receiv’d. I envy the happiness of those that can please and hug them selves in what they do, for ’tis a very easie thing to be so pleas’d, because a man extracts that pleasure from him self, especially if he be constant in his self-conceit. I know a poet, against whom both the intelligent in poetry, and the ignorant, abroad and at home, both heaven and earth, exclaim, that he understands very little in it; and yet for all that, he has never a whit the worse opinion of him self; but is always falling upon some new piece, always contriving some new invention, and still persists; by so much the more obstinate, as it only concerns him to stand up in his own defence. My works are so far from pleasing me, that as oft as I review them they disgust me.

  I have always an idea in my soul, which presents me a better form than that I have made use of; but I cannot catch it, nor fit it to my purpose; and yet even that idea is but of the meaner sort, by which I conclude that the productions of those great souls of former times, as very much beyond the utmost stretch of my imagination, or my wish; their writings do not only satisfie and fill me, but they astonish me, and ravish me with admiration. I judge of their beauty, I see it, if not to the utmost, yet so far at least as ’tis possible for me to aspire. Whatever I undertake, I owe a sacrifice to the Graces, as Plutarch says of some one, to make a return for their favour.