iS OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [ll. 9. 



of Socrates, the time must be remembered when it was 

 prosecuted ; which was under the Thirty Tyrants, the 

 most base, bloody, and envious persons that have go 

 verned ; which revolution 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 so learned princes, Queen 

 Elizabeth and your Majesty, being as Castor and Pollux, 

 lucida sidera, stars of excellent light and most benign 

 influence, hath wrought in all men of place and authority 

 in our nation. 



III. i. Now therefore we come to that third sort of 

 discredit or diminution of credit that groweth unto 



I learning from learned men themselves, which com 

 monly cleaveth fastest : it is either from their fortune, 

 or from their manners, or from the nature of their 

 studies. For the first, it is not in their power ; and the 

 second is accidental ; the third only is proper to be 

 handled : but because we are not in hand with true 

 measure, but with popular estimation and conceit, it is 

 not amiss to speak somewhat of the two former. The 

 derogations therefore which grow to learning from the 



