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2.) © THE FIRST BOOK. 30 
indeed prince-like, flowing as from a fountain, and yet 
streaming and branching itself into nature’s order, full of 
facility and felicity, imitating none, and inimitable by any. 
And as in your civil estate there appeareth to be an emul- 
ation and contention of your Majesty’s virtue with your 
fortune ; a virtuous disposition with a fortunate regiment; 
a virtuous expectation (when time was) of your greater 
fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the due 
time ; a virtuous observation of the laws of marriage, with 
most blessed and happy fruit of marriage; a virtuous and 
most Christian desire of peace, with a fortunate inclination 
in your neighbour princes thereunto: so likewise in these 
intellectual matters, there seemeth to be no less con- 
tention between the excellency of your Majesty’s gifts of 
nature and the universality and perfection of your learn- 
ing. For I am well assured that this which I shall say is 
no amplification at all, but a positive and measured truth; 
which is, that there hath not been since Christ’s time any ~— 
king or temporal monarch, which hath been so learned in 
all literature and erudition, divine and human. For let a 
man seriously and diligently revolve and peruse the suc- »* 
cession of the emperors of Rome, of which Cesar the 
Dictator, who lived some years before Christ, and Marcus 
Antoninus were the best learned; and so descend to the 
emperors of Grecia, or of the West, and then to the 
lines of France, Spain, England, Scotland, and the rest, 
and he shall find this judgement is truly made. For it 
seemeth much in a king, if, by the compendious ex- 
tractions of other men’s wits and labours, he can take 
hold of any superficial ornaments and shows of learning ; 
or if he countenance and prefer learning and learned 
men: but to drink indeed of the true fountains of learn- 
ing, nay, to have such a fountain of learning in himself, 
B2 
