THE FIRST BOOK. 15 



unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be 

 >etter done by others :) and then the question is, but how 

 hose spaces and times of leisure shall be filled and spent ; 

 hether in pleasures or in studies ; as was well answered by 

 mosthenes to his adversary ^Eschines, that was a man 

 iven to pleasure, and told him, That his orations did smell of 

 he lamp : Indeed, said Demosthenes, there is great difference 

 'tween the things that you and I do by lamp-light. So as no 

 ,n need doubt that learning will expulse business, but 

 ther it will keep and defend the possession of the mind 10 

 ainst idleness and pleasure, which otherwise at unawares 



enter to the prejudice of both. 



Again, for that other conceit, that learning should 

 ndermine the reverence of laws and government, it is 

 ssuredly a mere depravation and calumny, without all 

 ow of truth. For to say, that a blind custom of obedi- 

 should be a surer obligation than duty taught and under- 

 it is to affirm, that a blind man may tread surer 

 a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And it is 

 ithout all controversy, that learning doth make the minds 20 

 men gentle, generous, maniable, and pliant to government ; 

 reas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, aiid muti- 

 ous : and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, 

 ionsidering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned 

 Mmes have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and 

 langes. 



And as to the judgment of Cato, the Censor, he was 

 ell punished for his blasphemy against learning, in the 

 me kind wherein he offended ; for when he was past 

 fcireescore years old, he was taken with an extreme desire 30 

 Ip go to school again, and to learn the Greek tongue, to 

 pie end to peruse the Greek authors ; which doth well 

 emonstrate, that his former censure of the Grecian learning 

 rather an affected gravity, than according to the in- 

 ard sense of his own opinion. And as for Virgil's verses, 

 .ough it pleased him to brave the world in taking to the 



