24 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



accident Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both in censure, 

 QuifestirMt ad divitias non erit insons ; and in precept, &quot;Buy 

 the truth, and sell it not ; and so of wisdom and knowledge ; &quot; 

 judging that means were to be spent upon learning, and not 

 learning to be applied to means. And as for the privateness or 

 obscureness (as it may be in vulgar estimation accounted) of 

 life of contemplative men, it is a theme so common to extol a 

 private life, not taxed with sensuality and sloth, in comparison 

 and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, liberty, 

 pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from indignity, as no 

 man handleth it but handleth it well ; such a consonancy it hath 

 to men s conceits in the expressing, and to men s consents in 

 the allowing. This only I will add, that learned men forgotten 

 in states and not living in the eyes of men, are like the images 

 of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral of Junia, of which, not 

 being represented as many others were, Tacitus saith, Eo ipso 

 prcefulgebant, quod non visebantur. 



(3) And for meanness of employment, that which is most 

 traduced to contempt is that the government of youth is com 

 monly allotted to them ; which age, because it is the age of 

 least authority, it is transferred to the disesteeming of those 

 employments wherein youth is conversant, and which are con 

 versant about youth. But how unjust this traducement is (if 

 you will reduce things from popularity of opinion to measure 

 of reason) may appear in that we see men are more curious 

 what they put into a new vessel than into a vessel seasoned ; 

 and what mould they lay about a young plant than about a 

 plant corroborate ; so as the weakest terms and times of all 

 things use to have the best applications and helps. And will 

 you hearken to the Hebrew rabbins ? &quot; Your young men shall 

 see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams : &quot; say they, 

 youth is the worthier age, for that visions are nearer appari 

 tions of God than dreams ? And let it be noted that how 

 soever the condition of life of pedantes hath been scorned upon 

 theatres, as the ape of tyranny ; and that the modern looseness 

 or negligence hath taken no due regard to the choice of school 

 masters and tutors ; yet the ancient wisdom of the best times 

 did always make a just complaint, that states were too busy 

 with their laws and too negligent in point of education : which 

 excellent part of ancient discipline hath been in some sort 

 revived of late times by the colleges of the Jesuits ; of whom, 

 although in regard of their superstition I may say, Quo meliores, 

 eo deteriores ; yet in regard of this, and some other points con 

 cerning human learning and moral matters, I may say ; as 

 Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabazus, Talis quum **. 



