BOOK I.] OBJECTIONS TO LEARNED MEN REFUTED. 37 



had no sooner returned to its senses than that judgment was 

 reversed. Socrates, from being a criminal, started at once 

 into a hero, his memory loaded with honours human and 

 divine, and his discourses, which h?.d been previously stigma 

 tized as immoral and profane, were considered as the re 

 formers of thought and manners. d And let this suffice as an 

 answer to those politicians who have presumed, whether 

 sportively or in earnest, to disparage learning. 



We come now to that sort of discredit which is brought 

 upon learning by learned men themselves; and this proceeds 

 either (1) from their fortune, (2) their manners, or (3) the 

 nature of their studies. 



1. The disrepute of learning from the fortune or condition 

 of the learned, regards either their indigence, retirement, or 

 meanness of employ. As to the point, that learned men grow 

 not so soon rich as others, because they convert not their 

 labours to profit, we might turn it over to the friars, of whom 

 Machiavel said, &quot;That the kingdom of the clergy had been long 

 since at an end, if the reputation and reverence towards the 

 poverty of the monks and mendicants had not borne out the 

 excesses of bishops and prelates.&quot; 6 For so the splendour and 

 magnificence of the great had long since sunk into rudeness 

 and barbarism, if the poverty of learned men had not kept up 

 civility and reputation. But to drop such advantages, it is 

 worth observing how reverend and sacred poverty was 

 esteemed for some ages in the Roman state, since, as Livy 

 says, &quot; There never was a republic greater, more venerable, 

 and more abounding in good examples than the Roman, nor 

 one that so long withstood avarice and luxury, or so much 

 honoured poverty and parsimony.&quot; f And we see, when 

 Rome degenerated, how Julius Caesar after his victory was 

 counselled to begin the restoration of the state, by abolishing 

 the reputation of wealth. And, indeed, as we truly say that 

 blushing is the livery of virtue, though it may sometimes 

 proceed from guilty so it holds true of poverty that it is the 

 attendant of virtue, though sometimes it may proceed from 

 mismanagement and accident. 



d Plato, Apol. Socr. e Mach. Hist, de Firenza, b. 10. 



f Livy s preface, towards the end. 



Diog. Cyn. ap. Laert. vi. 54 ; compare Tacitus, Agric. 45, of 

 &quot; Ssevus vultus et rubor, a quo se contra pudorem munielMt.* 



