12. &quot;I THE SECOND BOOK. 8l 



neglect, in those which are governors in universities, 

 of consultation, and in princes or superior persons, of 

 visitation : to enter into account and consideration, whe 

 ther the readings, exercises, and other customs apper 

 taining unto learning, anciently begun and since conti 

 nued, be well instituted or no ; and thereupon to ground 

 an amendment or reformation in that which shall be 

 found inconvenient. For it is one of your Majesty s 

 own most wise and princely maxims, That in all usages 

 and precedents, the times be considered wherein they first 

 began ; which if they were weak or ignorant, it derogateth 

 from the authority of the usage, and leaveth it for suspect. 

 And therefore inasmuch as most of the usages and orders 

 of the universities were derived from more obscure times, 

 it is the more requisite they be re-examined. In this 

 kind I will give an instance or two, for example sake, 

 of things that are the most obvious and familiar. The 

 one is a matter, which though it be ancient and general, 

 yet I hold to be an error ; which is, that scholars in 

 universities come too soon and too unripe to logic 

 and rhetoric, arts fitter for graduates than children and 

 novices. For these two, rightly taken, are the gravest of 

 sciences, being the arts of arts ; the one for judgement, 

 the other for ornament. And they be the rules and 

 directions how to set forth and dispose matter : and 

 therefore for minds empty and unfraught with matter, 

 and which have not gathered that which Cicero calleth 

 sylra and supellex, stuff and variety, to begin with those 

 arts (as if one should learn to weigh, or to measure, or to 

 paint the wind) doth work but this effect, that the wisdom 

 of those arts, which is great and universal, is almost made 

 contemptible, and is degenerate into childish sophistry 

 and ridiculous affectation. And further, the untimely 



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