20 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, [ill. 2. 



conclude this point, as it was truly said, that Rubor est 

 virtutis color, though sometime it come from vice ; so it 

 may be fitly said that Paupertas est virtutis for tuna, though 

 sometimes it may proceed from misgovernment and ac 

 cident. Surely Salomon hath pronounced it both in 

 censure, Qut festinat ad divitias non erit insons ; and in 

 precept; Buy the truth, and sell it not ; and so of wisdom 

 and knowledge ; 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 commonly 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 con 

 versant, and which are conversant about youth. But how 

 unjust this traducement is (if you will. reduce things from 

 popularity of opinion to measure of WaserT)irray appear 

 in that we see men are more curious what they put into a 

 new vessel than into a vessel seasoned ; and what mould 



