1.8.) ~~‘ THE FIRST BOOK. 17 
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, and-mutinous? and the evidence of time doth 
—— 
rude, and unleamed times have been most subject to” 
tumults, seditions, and changes. 
g. And as to the judgement 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 demonstrate 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 art of empire, and 
leaving to others the arts of 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 Ceesars, which 
had the art of government in greatest perfection, there 
lived the best poet, Virgilius Maro; the best historio- 
grapher, 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 
Cc 
