30 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING*. 



speech, without regard to the pureness, pleasantness and (as 

 I may call it) lawfulness of the phrase or word. And again, 

 because the great labour then was with the people (of whom 

 the Pharisees were wont to say, Execrabihs ista turba qua 

 non novit Icgcm), for the winning and persuading ot 1 .em, 

 there grew of necessity in chief price and request eloquence 

 and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access. 

 into the capacity of the vulgar sort ; so that these four causes 

 concurring-the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the 

 schoolmen, the exact study of languages and the efficacy of 

 preaching-did bring in an affectionate stiidy of eloquence and 

 copy of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew 

 speedily to an excess ; for men began to hunt more afterwords 

 than matter more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the 

 round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet 

 falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their 

 works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, 

 worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or 

 depth of judgment. Then grew the flowing and watery vein 

 of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price. Then did 

 Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero 

 the Orator and Hermogenes the Rhetorician, besides his own 

 books of Periods and Imitation, and the like. Then did Ca: 

 of Cambridge and Ascham with their lectures and writings 

 almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all young 

 men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind 

 of learning. Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the 

 scoffing echo, Decem annos consumpsi in legendo Cicerone; 

 and the echo answered in Greek, One, Asine. Then grew 

 the learning of the schoolmen to be utterly despised as bar 

 barous. In sum, the whole inclination and bent of those 

 times was rather towards copy than weight. 



(3) Here therefore [is] the first distemper of learning, when 

 men study words and not matter ; whereof, though I have 

 represented an example of late times, yet it hath been and will 

 tejecundwn majus et minus in all time. And how is it 

 possible but this should have an operation to discredit learning, 

 even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned men s works 

 like the first letter of a patent or limned book, which though 

 it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter ? It seems to me 

 that Pygmalion s frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of 

 this vanity ; for words are but the images of matter, and 

 except they have life of reason and invention, to fall m love 

 with them is all one as to fall in love with a picture. 



(4) But yet notwithstanding it is a thing not hastily to b 



