THE FIRST BOOK. 59 



&quot;It is a view of delight,&quot; saith he, &quot;to stand or walk upon 

 the shore side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the 

 sea ; or to be in a fortified tower, and to see two battles join 

 upon a plain. But it is a pleasure incomparable, for the mind 

 of man to be settled, landed, and fortified in the certainty of 

 truth ; and from thence to descry and behold the errors, per 

 turbations, labours, and wanderings up and down of other 

 men. 



(6) Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments, that by learning 

 man excelleth man in that wherein man excelleth beasts ; that 

 by learning man ascendeth to the heavens and their motions, 

 where in body he cannot come ; and the like : let us conclude 

 with the dignity and excellency of knowledge and learning in 

 that whereunto man s nature doth most aspire, which is im 

 mortality or continuance ; for to this tendeth generation, 

 and raising of houses and families ; to this tend buildings, 

 foundations, and monuments ; to this tendeth the desire of 

 memory, fame, and celebration ; and in effect the strength of 

 all other human desires. We see then how far the monuments 

 of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of 

 power or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer 

 continued twenty-five hundred years, or more, without the 

 loss of a syllable or letter ; during which time infinite palaces, 

 temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and demolished? 

 It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, 

 Alexander, Csesar, HO nor of the kings or gr^at personages of 

 much later years ; for the originals cannot last, and the copies 

 cannot but leese of the life and truth. But the images of 

 men s wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from 

 the wrong of time and capable of perpetual renovation. 

 Neither are they fitly to be called images, because they 

 generate still, and cast their seeds in the minds of others, pro 

 voking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeeding 

 ages. So that if the invention of the ship was thought so 

 noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to 

 place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participa 

 tion of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, 

 which as ships pass through the vast seas of time, and make 

 ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, 

 and inventions, the one of the other ? Nay, further, we see 

 some of the philosophers which were least divine, and most 

 immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality 

 of the soul, yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions 

 the spirit of man could act and perform without the organs of 

 the body, they thought might remain after death, which wer 



