or in the Travels of Euxodus, the Foundations and Republics of
Aristotle, and the Lives of Famous Men compiled by Aristoxenus;
these will not only bring us exceeding much and great contentment,
but such also as is clean and secure from repentance. And who
could take greater satisfaction either in eating when a-hungry or
drinking when a-dry amongst the Phaeacians, than in going over
Ulysses's relation of his own voyage and rambles? And what man
could be better pleased with the embraces of the most exquisite
beauty, than with sitting up all night to read over what Xenophon
hath written of Panthea, or Aristobulus of Timoclea, or Theopompus
of Thebe?

But now these appertain all solely to the mind. But they chase
away from them the delights that accrue from the mathematics also.
Though the satisfactions we receive from history have in them
something simple and equal; but those that come from geometry,
astronomy, and music inveigle and allure us with a sort of
nimbleness and variety, and want nothing that is tempting and
engaging; their figures attracting us as so many charms, whereof
whoever hath once tasted, if he be but competently skilled, will
run about chanting that in Sophocles,

I'm mad; the Muses with new rage inspire me.
I'll mount the hill; my lyre, my numbers fire me.
(From the "Thamyras" of Sophocles, Frag. 225)

Nor doth Thamyras break out into poetic raptures upon any other
score; nor, by Jove, Euxodus, Aristarchus, or Archimedes. And when
the lovers of the art of painting are so enamoured with the