THE FIRST BOOK 57 



himself, and he answered, Htipe : weigh, I say, 

 whether he had not cast up his account right, because 

 hope must be the portion of all that resolve upon great 

 enterprises. For this was Caesar s portion when he 

 went first into Gaul, his estate being then utterly over 

 thrown with largesses. And this was likewise the 

 portion of that noble prince, howsoever transported 

 with ambition, Henry Duke of Guise, of whom it was 

 usually said, that he was the greatest usurer in France, 

 because he had turned all his estate into obligations. 



21. To conclude therefore : as certain critics are 

 used to say hyperbolically, That if all sciences were 

 lost they might be found in Virgil, so certainly this 

 may be said truly, there are the prints and footsteps 

 of learning in those few speeches which are reported of 

 this prince : the admiration of whom, when I consider 

 him not as Alexander the Great, but as Aristotle s 

 scholar, hath carried me too far. 



22. As for Julius Caesar, the excellency of his learn 

 ing needeth not to be argued from his education, or 

 his company, or his speeches ; but in a further degree 

 doth declare itself in his writings and works ; whereof 

 some are extant and permanent, and some unfortunately 

 perished. For first, we see there is left unto us that 

 excellent history of his own wars, which he intituled 

 only a Commentary, wherein all succeeding times have 

 admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages 

 and lively images of actions and persons, expressed in 

 the greatest propriety of words and perspicuity of 

 narration that ever was ; which that it was not the 

 effect of a natural gift, but of learning and precept, is 

 well witnessed by that work of his intituled De Ana- 

 logia, being a grammatical philosophy, wherein he did 

 labour to make this same Vox ad placitum to become 

 Vox ad licitum, and to reduce custom of speech to con- 

 gruity of speech ; and took as it were the pictures of 

 words from the life of reason. 



23. So we receive from him, as a monument both of 

 his power and learning, the then reformed computation 

 of the year ; well expressing that he took it to be as 



