THE FIRST BOOK. 19 



turous, but know neither the causes of diseases, nor the com 

 plexions of patients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true method 

 of cures; we see it is a, like error to rely upon advocates or 

 lawyers which are only men of practice, and not grounded in 

 their books who are many times easily surprised when matter 

 ialleth. out besides their experience, to the prejudice of the 

 causes they handle : so by like reason it cannot be but a matter 

 of doubtful consequence if states be managed by empiric states- 

 , men, not well mingled with men grounded in learning. But 

 contrariwise, it is almost without instance contradictory that 

 ever any government was disastrous that was in the hands of 

 learned governors. For howsoever it hath been ordinary with 

 politic men to extenuate and disable learned men by the names 

 ofpedantes; yet in the records of time it appeareth in many 

 particulars that the governments of princes in minority (not 

 withstanding the infinite disadvantage of that kind of state) 

 have nevertheless excelled the government of princes of mature 

 age even for that reason which they seek to traduce, which is 

 that by that occasion the state hath been in the hands of 

 pedantes : for so was the state of Rome for the first five years 

 which are so much magnified, during the minority of Sewriu 

 the hands of^gen^a, a pedanti ; so it was again, for teiTyears 

 space or more, during the minority of Gordianus the younger 

 with great applause and contentation in the hands of Misitheus 

 ipedanfo: so was it before that, in the minority of Alexander 

 Seyerus , in like happiness, in hands not much unlike, by reason 

 ot 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 Eome, as by name, into the government of Pius 

 Quintus and Sextus Quintus in our times, who were both at 

 * he , lr entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall 

 nnd that such Popes dp greater things, and proceed upon truer 

 principles of state, than those which have ascended to the 

 papacy from an education and breeding in affairs of state and 

 courts of princes; for although men bred in learnin^ 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 perfect in 

 those same plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and 

 moral virtue, which if they be well and watchfully pursued 

 there will be seldom use of those other, no more than of physic 

 ma sound or well-dieted body. Neither can the experience ot 

 one man s life furnish examples and precedents for the events 



