Advancement of Learning 1 1 



magnified, during the minority of Nero, in the hands of 

 Seneca, a Pedanti ; 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 Mistheus, 

 a Pedanti : so was it before that, in the minority of Alex 

 ander Severus, in like happiness, in hands not much unlike, 

 by reason of the rule of the women, who were aided by 

 the teachers and preceptors. Nay, let a man look into the 

 government 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 entrance esteemed but as 

 pedant ical l 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 

 education 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; yet on the other side, to recompense that, they are_ 



___ 



honour, and moral virtue, which if they be well and watchP 

 fully pursued, 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 hap- 

 peneth sometimes that the grandchild, or other descend 

 ants, resembleth 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 immedia- 

 ate 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. 



^3) QVnd as for those particular seducements, orJndisposi^ 

 lions 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 

 in fiyffy of them greater strength^ medicme 



or remerjy than if nffpreth r.anse of indisposition or infirmity. 



1 Edition 1605, prejudicial. The Latin has &quot; f rater culis rcrum 

 tmperitis.&quot; 



