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The good parts he hath, he will learn to shew to the full, and use them dexterously, but not much to increase them: the faults he hath, he will learn how to hide and colour them, but not much to amend them: like an ill mower, that mows on still and never whets his scythe. Whereas with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth eyer intermix the correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof. Nay, farther, in general and in sum, certain it is, that veritas and bonitas differ but as the seal and the print: for truth prints goodness; and they be the clouds of error which descend in the storms of passions and perturbations.

From general virtue let us pass on to matter of power and commandment, and consider whether in right reason there be any comparable with that wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth man's nature. We see the dignity of the commandment is according to the dignity of commanded: to have commandment over beasts, as herdmen have, is a thing contemptible; to have commandment over children, as schoolmasters have, is a matter of small honour; to have commandment over galley-slaves, is a disparagement rather than an honour. Neither is the commandment of tyrants much better over people which have put off the generosity of their minds: and therefore it was ever holden, that honours in free monarchies and commonwealths had a sweetness

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more than in tyrannies, because the commandment extendeth more over the wills of men, and not only over their deeds and services. And therefore, when Virgil putteth himself forth to attribute to Augustus Cæsar the best of human honours, he doth it in these words:

victorque volentes

Per populos dat jura viamque affectat Olympo.

But yet the commandment of knowledge is higher than the commandment over the will; for it is. a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself: for there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne, or chair of state, in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning.

In the beginning of the second part, he 'treats of public institutions relative to the advancement of learning; on which subject he lays down this fundamental position :

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Let this ground (says he) be laid, that all works are overcome by amplitude of reward, by soundness

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and philosophy to his reason. He gives also a genealogical table of knowledge, agreeably to this distribution. I shall select a few extracts from each book, which will be sufficient to exhibit his general views of knowledge of all

sorts.

Book I.

There be chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby learning hath been most traduced. For those things we do esteem vain which are either false, or frivolous, those which have either no truth, or no use: and those persons we esteem vain, which are either credulous or curious; and curiosity is either in matter or words: so that in reason, as well as in experience, there fall out to be these three distempers, as I may term them, of learning: the first, fantastical learning; the second, contentious learning; and the last, delicate learning; vain imaginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations; and with the last I will begin.

Martin Luther, conducted no doubt by an higher providence, but in discourse of reason, finding what a province he had undertaken against the bishop of Rome, and the degenerate traditions of the church; and finding his own solitude, being no ways 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 ancient 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 travel in the languages original wherein those authors did write, for the better advantage 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 precipitated by the enmity and opposition, that the propounders of those primitive, but seeming new opinions, had against the schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings were altogether in a different style and form, taking liberty to coin and frame. new terms of art to express their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and as I may call it, lawfulness, of the phrase, or word. And again, because the great labour then was with the people, of whom the Pharisees were wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba que non novit legem; for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request, eloquence and variety of discourse as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar sort: so that these four causes concurring, the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the

schoolmen, the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an affected study of eloquence, and copia of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew speedily into an excess; for men began to hunt more after words than matter; and more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price. Then did Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the orator, and Hermogenes the rhetorician, besides his own books of periods, and imitation, and the like. Then did Car of Cambridge, and Ascham, with their lectures and writings, almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and al- ́ lure all young men that were studious, unto that delicate and polished kind of learning. Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing echo; Decem annos consumpsi in legendo Cicerone: and the echo answered in Greek, *Ore, Asine. Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be utterly despised as barinclination and bent of

barous. In sum, the whole

those times was rather towards copia than weight.

Here therefore is the first distemper of learning,

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