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ment, which learning is pretended to incinuate;
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 re-
medy 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

disproportion, or dissimilitude of examples, it
teacheth men the force of circumstances, the errors
of comparisons, and all the cautions of applica-
tion; so that in all these it doth rectify more
effectually than it can pervert. And these medi-
cines it conveyeth into men's minds much more
forcibly by the quickness and penetration of ex-
amples. 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

they handle: so, by like reason, it cannot be but
a matter of doubtful consequence, if states be
managed by empiric statesmen, not well mingled
with men grounded in learning. But contrari-
wise, it is almost without instance contradictory,
that ever any government was disastrous that
was in the hands of learned governors. For
howsoever it hath been ordinary with politic men
to extenuate and disable learned men by the names
of pedants; yet in the records of time it appear-
eth, in many particulars, that the governments of
princes in minority (notwithstanding the infinite
disadvantage of that kind of state) have neverthe- demonstrative, and what are conjectural; and as
less excelled the government of princes of mature well the use of distinctions and exceptions, as the
age, even for that reason which they seek to tra-latitude of principles and rules. If it mislead by
duce, which is, that by that occasion the state
hath been in the hands of pedants: for so was the
state of Rome for the first five years, which are
so much magnified, during the minority of Nero,
in the hands of Seneca, a pedant: so it was again
for ten years' space or more, during the minority
of Gordianus the younger, with great applause
and contentation in the hands of Misitheus, a
pedant: so it was before that, in the minority of
Alexander Severus, in like happiness, in hands
not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the
women, who were aided by the teachers and pre-his epistles to Atticus, and he will fly apace from
ceptors. Nay, let a man look into the govern-
ment of the bishops of Rome, as by name, into
the government of Pius Quintus, and Sextus
Quintus, in our times, who were both at their en-
trance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he
shall find that such popes do greater things, and
proceed upon truer principles of estate, than those
which have ascended to the papacy from an edu-
cation and breeding in affairs of estate and courts
of princes; for although men bred in learning
are perhaps to seek in points of convenience, and
accommodating for the present, which the Italians
call "ragioni di stato," whereof the same Pius
Quintus could not hear spoken with patience,
terming them inventions against religion and the
moral virtues; but on the other side, to recom-
pence that, they are perfect in those same plain
grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral
virtue, which, if they be well and watchfully pur-
sued, there will be seldom use of those other, no
more than of physic in a sound or well-dieted
body. Neither can the experience of one man's
life furnish examples and precedents for the events
of one man's life: for, as it happeneth sometimes
that the grandchild, or other descendant, resem-
bleth the ancestor more than the son; so many
times occurrences of present times may sort better
with ancient examples, than with those of the
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 govern

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 im-
aginative. Let him look into the errors of Cato
the Second, and he will never be one of the anti-
podes, to tread opposite to the present world.

And for the conceit, that learning should dispose
men to leisure and privateness, and 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 an
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 occa-
sion 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 it-
self, and not in the purchase; so that of all
men they are the most indefatigable, if it be

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towards any business which can hold or detain | art of empire, and leaving to others the arts of 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 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 Eschines, 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, thwart ing, 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 deaonstrate, 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

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 revolutions 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 afterwards 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 redargution, 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 commonplace 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 popularity of opinion to measure of reason) may poverty of friars had not borne out the scandal appear in that, we see men are more curious what of the superfluities and excesses of bishops and they put in a new vessel, than into a vessel seaprelates." So a man might say, that the felicity soned; and what mould they lay about a young and delicacy of princes and great persons had long plant, than about a plant corroborate; so as the since turned to rudeness and barbarism, if the weakest terms and times of all things use to have poverty of learning had not kept up civility and the best applications and helps. And will you honour of life: but without any such advantages, hearken to the Hebrew Rabbins? "Your young it is worthy the observation, what a reverend and men shall see visions, and your old men shall honoured thing poverty of fortune was, for some dream dreams;" say the youth is the worthier age, ages, in the Roman state, which nevertheless was for that visions are nearer apparitions of God than a state without paradoxes: for we see what Titus dreams. And let it be noted, that howsoever the Livius saith in his introduction: "Cæterum aut condition of life of pedants hath been scorned upon me amor negotii suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam theatres, as the ape of tyranny; and that the respublica nec major, nec sanctior, nec bonis ex-modern looseness or negligence hath taken no emplis ditior fuit; nec in quam tam seræ avaritia due regard to the choice of schoolmasters and luxuriaque immigraverint; nec ubi tantus ac tam tutors; yet the ancient wisdom of the best times diu paupertati ac parsimoniæ honos fuerit." We did always make a just complaint, that states see likewise, after that the state of Rome was not were too busy with their laws, and too negligent itself, but did degenerate, how that person, that in point of education; which excellent part of took upon him to be counsellor to Julius Cæsar ancient discipline hath been in some sort revived of after his victory, where to begin his restoration of late times by the colleges of the Jesuits; of whom, the state, maketh it of all points the most sum- although in regard of their superstition I may mary to take away the estimation of wealth: say, "quo meliores, eo deteriores ;" yet in regard “Verum hæc, et omnia mala pariter cum honore of this, and some other points concerning human pecuniæ desinent: si neque magistratus, neque learning and moral matters, I may say, as Agesialia vulgo cupiendia, venalia erunt." To con- laus said to his enemy Pharnabaus, “Talis quum clude this point, as it was truly said, that "rubor sis, utinam noster esses." And thus much touchest virtutis color," though sometimes it come from ing the discredits drawn from the fortunes of vice; so it may be fitly said that "paupertas est learned men. virtutis fortuna," though sometimes it may proceed from misgovernment and accident. Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both in censure, "Qui festinat ad divitias, non erit insons; 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."

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

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," 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, 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

yet it will receive an open allowance, and therefore, needs the less disproof or excusation.

corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt:" and Cicero noteth | depth of their corrupt principles may despise it, this error directly in Cato the Second, when he writes to his friend Atticus: "Cato optime sentit, sed nocet interdum reipublicæ; loquitur enim Another fault incident commonly to learned tanquam in republica Platonis, non tanquam in men, which may be more probably defended than fæce Romuli." And the same Cicero doth ex- truly denied, is, that they fail sometimes in applycuse and expound the philosophers for going too ing themselves to particular persons: which want far, and being too exact in their prescripts, when of exact application ariseth from two causes: the he saith, "Isti ipsi præceptores virtutis et magis- one, because the largeness of their mind can hardly tri, videnter fines officiorum paulo longius quam confine itself to dwell in the exquisite observanatura vellet protulisse ut cum ad ultimum animotion or examination of the nature and customs of contendissemus, ibi tamen, ubi oportet, consiste- one person: for it is a speech for a lover, and not remus:" and yet himself might have said, "Monitus sum minor ipse meis:" 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 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 and 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;" 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 lines should meet in them and their fortunes; never caring, in all tempests, what becomes of the ship of state, so they may save themselves in the cockboat 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 seditions 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

for a wise man: "Satus magnum alter 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 judg ment; 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 apothecaries, which on the outside had apes, and owls, and antiques, but contained within sovereign and precious liquors and confections; acknowledging

that to an external report he was not without superficial levities and deformities, but was inwardly replenished with excellent virtues and powers. And so much touching the point of manners of learned men.

and convenience, cannot be disallowed; for
though they may have some outward baseness,
yet in a judgment truly made, they are to be ac-
counted submissions to the occasion, and not to
the person.

Now I proceed to those errors and vanities
which have intervened amongst the studies them-
selves of the learned, which is that which is
principal and proper to the present argument;
wherein my purpose is not to make a justification
of the errors, but, by a censure and separation of
the errors, to make a justification of that which is
good and sound, and to deliver that from the as-
persion of the other. For we see, that it is the
manner of men to scandalize and deprave that
which retaineth the state and virtue, by taking
advantage upon that which is corrupt and degene-
rate: as the heathens in the primitive church used
to blemish and taint the Christians with the faults
and corruptions of heretics. But nevertheless I
have no meaning at this time to make any exact
animadversion of the errors and impediments in
matters of learning, which are more secret and
remote from vulgar opinion, but only to speak
unto such as do fall under or near unto a popular
observation.

But in the mean time I have no purpose to give allowance to some conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers professors of learning have wronged themselves, and gone too far; such as were those trencher philosophers, which in the later age of the Roman state were usually in the houses of great persons, being little better than solemn parasites; of which kind Lucian maketh a merry description of the philosopher that the great lady took to ride with her in her coach, and would needs have him carry her little dog, which he doing officiously and yet uncomely, the page scoffed, and said, “That he doubted, the philosopher of a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic." But above all the rest, the gross and palpable flattery, whereunto many not unlearned have abased and abused their wits and pens, turning, as Du Bartas saith, Hecuba into Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia, hath most diminished the price and estimation of learning. Neither is the modern dedication of books and writings, as to patrons, to be commended: for that books, such There be therefore chiefly three vanities in as are worthy the name of books, ought to have studies, whereby learning hath been most trano patrons but truth and reason. And the an-duced. For those things we do esteem vain, cient custom was to dedicate them only to private which are either false or frivolous, those which and equal friends, or to entitle the books with either have no truth, or no use: and those persons their names; or if to kings and great persons, it we esteem vain, which are either credulous or was to some such as the argument of the book curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words; was fit and proper for; but these and the like so that in reason as well as in experience, there courses may deserve rather reprehension than de-fall out to be these three distempers, as I may fence. Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration | ing; the second, contentious learning; and the or application of learned men to men in fortune. For the answer was good that Diogenes made to one that asked him in mockery, "How it came to pass that philosophers were the followers of rich men, and not rich men of philosophers?" He answered soberly, and yet sharply, "Because the one sort knew what they had need of, and the other did not." And of the like nature was the answer which Aristippus made, when having a petition to Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell down at his feet; whereupon Dionysius stayed, and gave him the hearing, and granted it; and afterward some person, tender on the behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus, that he would offer the profession of philosophy such an indignity as for a private suit to fall at a tyrant's feet: but he answered, "It was not his fault, but it was the fault of Dionysius, that had his ears in his feet." Neither was it accounted weakness, but discretion in him that would not dispute his best with Adrianus Cæsar; excusing himself, "That it was reason to yield to him that commanded thirty legions." These and the like applications, and stooping to points of necessity VOL. I.-22

term them, of learning; the first, fantastical learn

last, delicate learning; vain imaginations, vain
altercations, and vain affectations; and with the
last I will begin. Martin Luther, conducted no
doubt by a higher Providence, but in discourse
of reason, finding what a province he had under-
taken against the Bishop of Rome and the degene-
rate traditions of the church, and finding his own
solitude being noways aided by the opinions of
his own time, was enforced to awake all antiquity,
and to call former times to his succour, to make a
party against the present time. So that the an-
cient authors, both in divinity and in humanity,
which had long time slept in libraries, began
generally to be read and revolved.
This by
consequence did draw on a necessity of a more
exquisite travail in the languages original, where-
in those authors did write, for the better under-
standing of those authors, and the better advan-
tage of pressing and applying their words. And
thereof grew again a delight in their manner of
style and phrase, and an admiration of that kind
of writing; which was much furthered and preci-
pitated by the enmity and opposition that the
propounders of those primitive, but seeming new

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