latter or immediate times: and lastly, the wit of one man can no more countervail learning, than one man's means can hold way with a common purse.

And as for those particular seducements, or indispositions of the mind for policy and government, which learning is pretended to insinuate; if it be granted that any such thing be, it must be remembered withal, that learning ministereth in every of them greater strength of medicine or remedy than it offereth cause of indisposition or infirmity; for if, by a secret operation, it make men perplexed and irresolute, on the other side, by plain precept, it teacheth them when and upon what ground to resolve; yea, and how to carry things in suspense without prejudice, till they resolve; if it make men positive and regular, it teacheth them what things are in their nature demonstrative, and what are conjectural; and as well the use of distinctions and exceptions as the latitude of principles and rules. If it mislead by disproportion, or dissimilitude of examples, it teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors of comparisons, and all the cautions of application; so that in all these it doth rectify more effectually than it can pervert. And these medicines it conveyeth into men's minds much more forcibly by the quickness and penetration of examples. For let a man look into the errors of Clement the Seventh, so livelily described by Guicciardine, who served under him, or into the errors of Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in his Epistles to Atticus, and he will fly apace from being irresolute. Let him look into the errors of Phocion, and he will beware how he be obstinate or inflexible. Let him but read the fable of Ixion,' and it will hold him from being vaporous or imaginative. Let him look into the errors of Cato the second, and he will never be one of the antipodes, to tread opposite to the present world.2

And for the conceit, that learning should dispose men to leisure and privateness, and

1 He was said to have fallen in love with Juno, and to have embraced a cloud instead of the goddess. 2 Lucan declares that Cato opposed not only men but the gods themselves :

The gods and Cato did in this divide,

They took the conquering, he the conquer'd side.

make men slothful; it were a strange thing if that, which accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation, should induce slothfulness; whereas, contrariwise, it may be truly affirmed, that no kind of men love business for itself, but those that are learned; for other persons love it for profit, as a hireling that loves the work for the wages; or for honour, as because it beareth them up in the eyes of men, and refresheth their reputation, which otherwise would wear: or because it putteth them in mind of their fortune, and giveth them occasion to pleasure and displeasure; or because it exerciseth some faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth them in good humour and pleasing conceits toward themselves; or because it advanceth any other their ends. So that, as it is said, of untrue valours, that some men's valours are in the eyes of them that look on; so such men's industries are in the eyes of others, or at least in regard of their own designments: only learned men love business, as an action according to nature, as agreeable to health of mind, as exercise is to health of body, taking pleasure in the action itself, and not in the purchase: so that of all men they are the most indefatigable, if it be towards any business which can hold or detain their mind.

And if any man be laborious in reading and study, and yet idle in business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body, or softness of spirit; such as Seneca speaketh of, "Quidam tam sunt umbratiles, ut putent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est; and not of learning: well may it be, that such a point of a man's nature may make him give himself to learning, but it is not learning that breedeth any such point in his

nature.

And that learning should take up too much time or leisure: I answer; the most active or busy man that hath been or can be, hath, no question, many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides and returns of business (except he be either tedious and of no despatch, or lightly and unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may

be

3 Some people are so delicate that they imagine difficulties to exist where everything is clear.

better done by others): and then the question is, but how those spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent; whether in pleasures or in studies; as was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary Æschines, that was a man given to pleasure, and told him, that his orations did smell of the lamp: "Indeed," said Demosthenes, "there is a great difference between the things that you and I do by lamp-light." So as no man need doubt that learning will expulse business; but rather it will keep and defend the possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which otherwise at unawares may enter, to the prejudice of both.

Again, for that other conceit, that learning should undermine the reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a mere depravation and calumny, without all shadow of truth. For to say, that a blind custom of obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood; it is to affirm, that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And it is without all controversy, that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, maniable and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwarting, and mutinous: and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes.

And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was well punished for his blasphemy against learning, in the same kind wherein he offended; for when he was past threescore years old, he was taken with an extreme desire to go to school again, and to learn the Greek tongue, to the end to peruse the Greek authors; which doth well demonstrate, that his former censure of the Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity than according to the inward sense of his own opinion. And as for Virgil's verses, though it pleased him to brave the world in taking to the Romans the art of empire, and leaving to others the arts of subjects; yet so much is manifest, that the Romans never ascended to that height of empire till the time they had ascended to the height of other arts. For in the time of the two first Cæsars, which had the art of

government in greatest perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius Maro; the best historiographer, Titus Livius; the best antiquary, Marcus Varro; and the best, or second orator, Marcus Cicero, that to the memory of man are known. As for the accusation of Socrates, the time must be remembered when it was prosecuted; which was under the thirty tyrants, the most base, bloody, and envious persons that have governed; which revolution of state was no sooner over, but Socrates, whom they had made a person criminal, was made a person heroical, and his memory accumulate with honours divine and human; and those discourses of his which were then termed corrupting of manners, were after acknowledged for sovereign medicines of the mind and manners, and so have been received ever since till this day. Let this therefore serve for answer to politicians, which in their humorous severity, or in their feigned gravity, have presumed to throw imputations upon learning; which redargution1 nevertheless (save that we know not whether our labours may extend to other ages), were not needful for the present, in regard of the love and reverence towards learning, which the example and countenance of two so learned princes, queen Elizabeth and your majesty, being as Castor and Pollux, "lucida sidera," stars of excellent light and most benign influence, hath wrought in all men of place and authority in our nation.

Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit or diminution of credit, that groweth unto learning from learned men themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest : it is either from their fortune; or from their manners; or from the nature of their studies. For the first, it is not in their power; and the second is accidental; the third only is proper to be handled: but because we are not in hand with true measure, but with popular estimation and conceit, it is not amiss to speak somewhat of the two former. The derogations therefore, which grow to learning from the fortune or condition of learned men, are either in respect of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of life, and meanness of employments.

Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men usually to begin with little, and ⚫ not to grow rich so fast as other men, by reason they convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and increase: it were good to leave the common place in commendation of poverty to some friar to handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in this point; when he said, "That the kingdom of the clergy had been long before at an end, if the reputation and reverence towards the poverty of friars had not borne out the scandal of the superfluities and excesses of bishops and prelates." So a man might say that the felicity and delicacy of princes and great persons had long since turned to rudeness and barbarism, if the poverty of learning had not kept up civility and honour of life; but without any such advantages, it is worthy the observation what a reverend and honoured thing poverty of fortune was, for some ages, in the Roman state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes: for we see what Titus Livius saith in his introduction: "Cæterum aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam respublica nec major, nec sanctior, nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit; nec in quam tam seræ avaritia luxuriaque immigraverint; nec ubi tantus ac tam diu paupertati ac parsimoniæ honos fuerit.” 1 see likewise, after that the state of Rome was not itself, but did degenerate, how that person that took upon him to be counsellor to Julius Cæsar after his victory, where to begin his restoration of the state, maketh it of all points the most summary to take away the estimation of wealth: "Verum hæc, et omnia mala pariter cum honore pecuniæ desinent: si neque magistratus, neque alia vulgo cupienda, venalia

erunt," 2

We

To conclude this point, as it was truly said, that "rubor est virtutis color,' though sometime it come from vice; so it may

1 But either the love of the task I have undertaken deceives me, or there never was any republic, greater, more holy, nor richer in noble examples (than that of Rome), nor one into which luxury and avarice made their way at so late a period; nor where poverty and frugality were so long deemed honourable.

2 But these and all other evils will cease when the custom of giving honour exclusively to wealth is at an end; when neither magistracies nor other things generally desirable will be bought and sold,

3 The blush is the colour of virtue.

be fitly said that "paupertas est virtutis fortu na," though sometime it may proceed from misgovernment and accident. Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both in censure, "Qui festinat ad divitias non erit insons;" 5 and in precept; "Buy the truth, and sell it not;" and so of wisdom and knowledge; judging that means were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be applied to means. And as for the privateness, or obscureness (as it may be in vulgar estimation accounted) of life of contemplative men; it is a theme so common to extol a private life not taxed with sensuality and sloth, in comparison and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, liberty, pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from indignity, as no man handleth it, but handleth it well: such a consonancy it hath to men's conceits in the expressing, and to men's consents in the allowing. This only I will add, that learned men forgotten in states, and not living in the eyes of men, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral of Junia: of which not being represented, as many others were, Tacitus saith, "Eo ipso præfulgebant, quod non visebantur.” 6

And for meanness of employment, that which is most traduced to contempt is that the government of youth is commonly allotted to them; which age, because it is the age of least authority, it is transferred to the disesteeming of those employments wherein youth is conversant, and which are conversant about youth. But how unjust this traducement is (if you will reduce things from popularity of opinion to measure of reason) may appear in that, we see men are more curious what they put into a new vessel than into a vessel seasoned; and what mould they lay about a young plant than about a plant corroborate; so as the weakest terms and times of all things use to have the best applications and helps. And will you hearken to the Hebrew Rabbins? "Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;" say the youth is the worthier age, for that visions are nearer apparitions of God than

4 Poverty is the fortune of virtue.

5 He who hasteneth to riches shall not be innocent.

6 They were more vividly present to the mind from the very fact of not being seen.

dreams. And let it be noted, that howsoever the condition of life of pedants hath been scorned upon theatres, as the ape of tyranny; and that the modern looseness or negligence hath taken no due regard to the choice of schoolmasters and tutors; yet the ancient wisdom of the best times did always make a just complaint, that states were too busy with their laws, and too negligent in point of education: which excellent part of ancient discipline hath been in some sort revived of late times by the colleges of the Jesuits; of whom, although in regard of their superstition I may say, quo meliores, eo deteriores;" yet in regard of this, and some other points concerning human learning and moral matters, I may say, as Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabazus, "Talis quum sis, utinam noster esses." 2 And thus much touching the discredits drawn from the fortunes of learned men.

1

66

As touching the manners of learned men, it is a thing personal and individual: and no doubt there be amongst them, as in other professions, of all temperatures: but yet so as it is not without truth, which is said, that "abeunt studia in mores," "3 studies have an influence and operation upon the manners of those that are conversant in them.

But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I for my part cannot find any disgrace to learning can proceed from the manners of learned men not inherent to them as they are learned; except it be a fault (which was the supposed fault of Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato the second, Seneca, and many more) that, because the times they read of are commonly better than the times they live in, and the duties taught better than the duties practised, they contend sometimes too far to bring things to perfection, and to reduce the corruption of manners to honesty of precepts, or examples of too great height. And yet hereof they have caveats enough in their own walks. For Solon, when he was asked whether he had given his citizens the best laws, answered wisely, "Yea, of such as they would receive:" and Plato, finding that his own heart could not agree with the corrupt manners of his country,

By how much the better, by so much the worse. 2 Since you are so worthy, would you were on our side. 3 Studies become habits.

refused to bear place or office; saying, "That a man's country was to be used as his parents were, that is, with humble persuasions, and not with contestations." And Cæsar's counsellor put in the same caveat, "Non ad vetera instituta revocans, quæ jampridem corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt:" and Cicero noteth this error directly in Cato the second, when he writes to his friend Atticus; "Cato optime sentit, sed nocet interdum reipublicæ; loquitur enim tanquam in republica Platonis, non tanquam in fæce Romuli."5 And the same Cicero doth excuse and expound the philosophers for going too far, and being too exact in their prescripts, when he saith, "Isti ipsi præceptores virtutis et magistri, videntur fines officiorum paulo longius quam natura vellet protulisse, ut cum ad ultimum animo contendissemus, ibi tamen, ubi oportet, consisteremus: and yet himself might have said, "Monitis sum minor ipse meis;"7 for it was his own fault, though not in so extreme a degree.

Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been incident to learned men; which is, that they have esteemed the preservation, good, and honour of their countries or masters before their own fortunes or safeties. For so saith Demosthenes unto the Athenians: "If it please you to note it, my counsels unto you are not such whereby I should grow great amongst you, and you become little amongst the Grecians: but they be of that nature, as they are sometimes not good for me to give, but are always good for you to follow." And so Seneca, after he had consecrated that Quinquennium Neronis, to the eternal glory of learned governors, held on his honest and loyal course of good and free counsel, after

4 Not referring to old institutions, which in the present corrupt state of society would be a mere mockery.

5 Cato's opinions are abstractedly excellent, but he sometimes injures the state; he speaks as if he lived in Plato's republic, and not in the dregs of Romulus.

6 The masters and teachers of virtue seem to have extended the limits of our duties farther than Nature designed; so that though we might mentally attain the farthest bound, yet we were (practically) compelled to stop short where the limit ought to have been fixed.

7 I am not able to observe my own precepts. 8 Five years of Nero's reign.

H

his master grew extremely corrupt in his government. Neither can this point otherwise be; for learning endueth men's minds with a true sense of the frailty of their persons, the casualty of their fortunes, and the dignity of their soul and vocation: so that it is impossible for them to esteem that any greatness of their own fortune can be a true or worthy end of their being an ordainment; and therefore are desirous to give their account to God, and so likewise to their masters under God (as kings and the states that they serve) in these words; "Ecce tibi lucrefeci," and not "Ecce mihi lucrefeci:"2 whereas, the corrupter sort of mere politicians, that have not their thoughts established by learning in the love and apprehension of duty, nor ever look abroad into universality, do refer all things to themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the world, as if all times should meet in them and their fortunes; never caring, in all tempests, what becomes of the ship of estates, so they may save themselves in the cock boat of their own fortune: whereas men that feel the weight of duty, and know the limits of self-love, use to make good their places and duties, though with peril; and if they stand in seditious and violent alterations, it is rather the reverence which many times both adverse parts do give to honesty than any versatile advantage of their own carriage. But for this point of tender sense, and fast obligation of duty, which learning doth endue the mind withal, howsoever fortune may tax it, and many in the depth of their corrupt principles may despise it, yet it will receive an open allowance, and therefore, needs the less disproof or excusation.

Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may be more probably defended than truly denied, is, that they fail sometimes in applying themselves to particular persons: which want of exact application ariseth from two causes; the one, because the largeness of their mind can hardly confine itself to dwell in the exquisite observation or examination of the nature and customs of one person for it is a speech for a lover, and not for a wise man: "Satis magnun alter

1 Behold I have profited you. Behold I have profited myself.

3

alteri theatrum sumus." Nevertheless I shall yield, that he that cannot contract the sight of his mind, as well as disperse and dilate it, wanteth a great faculty. But there is a second cause, which is no inability, but a rejection upon choice and judgment; for the honest and just bounds of observation, by one person upon another, extend no farther but to understand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him offence, or whereby to be able to give him faithful counsel, or whereby to stand upon reasonable guard and caution in respect of a man's self: but to be speculative into another man, to the end to know how to work him, or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous; which as in friendship it is want of integrity, so towards princes or superiors is want of duty. For the custom of the Levant, which is, that subjects do forbear to gaze or fix their eyes upon princes, is in the outward ceremony barbarous, but the moral is good: for men ought not by cunning and bent observations to pierce and penetrate into the hearts of kings, which the Scripture hath declared to be inscrutable.

There is yet another fault (with which I will conclude this part) which is often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carriage, and commit errors in small and ordinary points of action, so as the vulgar sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters by that which they find wanting in them in smaller. But this consequence doth often deceive men, for which I do refer them over to that which was said by Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly being applied to himself out of his own mouth; but, being applied to the general state of this question, pertinently and justly ; when, being invited to touch a lute, he said, "He could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a great state." So, no doubt, many may be well seen in the passages of government and policy, which are to seek in little and punctual occasions. I refer them also to that which Plato said of his master Socrates, whom he compared to the gallipots of apo

3 We are each of us sufficient objects of contemplation for the other.