taineth them in good humour and pleasing conceits toward themselves; or because it advanceth any other their ends. So that, as it is faid of untrue valours, that fome men's valours are in the eyes of them that look on; so such men's induftries are in the eyes of others, or at least in regard of their own defignments: 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: fo 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; fuch as Seneca speaketh of: Quidam tam funt umbratiles, ut putent in turbido effe quicquid in luce eft; and not of Learning: well may it be, that fuch a point of a man's nature may make him give himself to learning, but it is not Learning that breedeth any fuch point in his Nature.

And that Learning fhould take up too much time or leifure: I anfwer; the most active or bufy 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 dispatch, 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 Demofthenes to his adversary Æfchines, that was a man given to pleasure, and told him, That his Orations did smell of the Lamp: Indeed, (faid Demofthenes,) 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 poffeffion 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 affuredly a mere depravation and calumny, without all fhadow of truth. For to say, that a blind cuftom of Obedience should be a furer obligation than duty taught and understood; it is to affirm, that a blind man may tread furer 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 affertion, confidering that the moft barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been moft fubject to tumults, feditions, and changes.

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And as to the judgment of Cato, the Cenfor, he was well punished for his blasphemy against Learning, in the fame kind wherein he offended; for when he was paft threefcore years old, he was taken

with an extreme defire to go to School again, and to learn the Greek tongue, to the end to peruse the Greek Authors; which doth well demonftrate, that his former cenfure of the Grecian Learning was rather an affected gravity, than according to the inward fenfe of his own opinion. And as for Virgil's verfes, though it pleafed 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 manifeft, that the Romans never afcended to that height of Empire, till the time they had afcended to the height of other Arts. For in the time of the two first Cæfars, 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 fecond Orator, Marcus Cicero, that to the memory of man are known. As for the accufation of Socrates, the time must be remembered when it was profecuted; which was under the thirty Tyrants, the most base, bloody, and envious persons that have governed; which revolution of State was no fooner over, but Socrates, whom they had made a person criminal, was made a perfon 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 fovereign Medicines of the mind and manners, and so have been received ever fince till this day. Let this, therefore, ferve for answer to Politicians, which in their

humorous severity, or in their feigned gravity, have prefumed 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 fo learned Princes, Queen Elizabeth, and your Majefty, being as Caftor 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 fort of difcredit 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 firft, it is not in their power; and the fecond 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 amifs to speak fomewhat 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 meannefs of employments.

Concerning want, and that it is the cafe of Learned men ufually to begin with little, and not to grow rich fo faft 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 fome 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 fcandal of the superfluities and exceffes of Bishops and Prelates. So a Man might say that the felicity and delicacy of Princes and great Persons had long fince turned to Rudeness and Barbarifm, if the poverty of Learning had not kept up Civility and Honour of life: but without any fuch advantages, it is worthy the obfervation, what a reverend and honoured thing poverty of fortune was, for fome ages, in the Roman State, which nevertheless was a State without Paradoxes for we see what Titus Livius faith in his Introduction: Cæterum aut me amor negotii fufcepti fallit aut nulla unquam refpublica nec major, nec fanétior, nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit ; nec in quam tam feræ avaritia luxuriaque immigraverint; nec ubi tantus ac tam diu paupertati ac parfimoniæ bonos fuerit. We fee 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 Cæfar 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 definent: Si neque Magiftratus, neque alia vulgo cupienda, venalia erunt. To conclude this point, as it was truly said, that