22 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



man can by a light. And it is without all controversy that 

 learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, man 

 ageable, and pliant to government ; whereas ignorance makes 

 them churlish, thwart, and mutinous : and the evidence of 

 time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most 

 barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject 

 to tumults, seditions, and changes. 



(9) And as to the judgment 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 Komans 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 Caesars, which had the art of government in greatest 

 perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius Maro ; the best 

 historiographer, 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 of 

 Socrates, the time must be remembered when it was pro 

 secuted ; which was under the Thirty Tyrants, the most base, 

 bloody, and envious persons that have governed ; which revo 

 lution of state was no sooner over but Socrates, whom they 

 had made a person criminal, was made a person heroical, and 

 his memory accumulate with honours divine and human ; and 

 those discourses of his which were then termed corrupting of 

 manners, were after acknowledged for sovereign medicines 

 of the mind and manners, and so have been received ever 

 since till this day. Let this, therefore, serve for answer to 

 politiques, which in their humorous severity, or in their 

 feigned gravity, have presumed to throw imputations upon 

 learning ; which redargution nevertheless (save that we know 

 not whether our labours may extend to other ages) were not 

 needful for the present, in regard of the love and reverence 

 towards learning which the example and countenance of two 

 go learned princes, Queen Elizabeth and your Majesty, being 

 as Castor and Pollux, lucida sidera, stars of excellent light and 

 most benign influence, hath wrought hi all men of place and 

 authority in our nation. 



