III. i.] THE FIRST BOOK. 



fortune or condition of learned men, are either in respect 

 of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of life 

 and meanness of employments. 



2. Concerning want, and that it is the case of learne^l 

 men usually to begin with little, and not to grow rich so 

 fast as other men, by reason they convert not their labours 

 chiefly to lucre and increase, it were good to leave the 

 common place in commendation of poverty to some friar 

 to handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in 

 this point; when he said,7%a/ the kingdom of the clergy had 

 been long before at an end, if the reputation and reverence 

 towards the poverty of friars had not borne out the scandal 

 of the superfluities and excesses of bishops and prelates. So 

 a man might say that the felicity and delicacy of princes 

 had long since tnrnpri to rudeness 

 and barb^ 



but without any such advan- 

 fges, it is worthy the observation what 



jionoured thing poverty of fortune was for some ages in i 

 \ the Roman state, which nevertheless was a state without 

 yparaTimwer FoT&quot;we see what Titus Livius saith in his 

 introduction : Cceierum aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit 

 aut nulla unquam respublica nee major, nee sanctior, nee 

 bonis exemplis dilior fuit ; nee in quam tarn serce, avaritia 

 luxuriaque immigraverint ; nee ubi tantus ac tarn diu pau 

 per tati ac parsimonies honos fuerit. We see likewise, after 

 that the state of Rome was not itself, but did degenerate, 

 how that person that took upon him to be counsellor to 

 Julius Caesar after his victory where to begin his restora 

 tion of the state, maketh it of all points the most sum 

 mary to take away the estimation of wealth : Verum hcec 

 el omnia mala pariter cum honor e pecunice desinent; si neque 

 magistrates, neque alia vulgo cupienda, venalia erunt. To 



c 2 



