12 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



original notions (which by the strangeness and darkness of this 

 tabernacle of the body are sequestered) again revived and 

 restored : such a light of Nature I have observed in your 

 Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame and blaze from the 

 least occasion presented, or the least spark of another s know 

 ledge delivered. And as the Scripture saith of the wisest king, 

 &quot; That his heart was as th2 sands of the sea ; &quot; which, though 

 it be one of the largest bodies, yet it consisteth of the smallest 

 and finest portions ; so hath God given your Majesty a com 

 position of understanding admirable, being able to compass 

 and comprehend the greatest matters, and nevertheless to 

 touch and apprehend the least ; whereas it should seem an 

 impossibility in Nature for the same instrument to make itself 

 fit for great and small works. And for your gift of speech, I 

 call to mind what Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus Caesar : 

 Augusto profluens, et quce principem deceret, eloquentia fuit. 

 For if we note it well, speech that is uttered with labour and 

 difficulty, or speech that savoureth of the affectation of art and 

 precepts, or speech that is framed after the imitation of some 

 pattern of eloquence, though never so excellent ; all this hath 

 somewhat servile, and holding of the subject. But your 

 Majesty s manner of speech is, 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 emulation 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 

 ue time ; a virtuous observation of the laws of mai riage, 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 contention between the 

 excellency of your Majesty s gifts of Nature and the universality 

 and perfection of your learning. 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 

 succession of the Emperors of Rome, of which Caesar the 

 Dictator (who lived some years before Christ) and Marcus 

 Antoninus were the best learned, and so descend to the 

 Emperors of Grsecia, or of the West, and then to the lines of 



