ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 73 



yet so much is verified by experience, that the best times 

 have happened under wise and learned princes ; for though 

 kings may have their errors and vices, like other men, yet 

 if they are illuminated by learning, they constantly retain 

 such notions of religion, policy, and morality, as may pre 

 serve them from destructive and irremediable errors or ex 

 cesses; for these notions will whisper to them, even while 

 counsellors and servants stand mute. Such senators like 

 wise as are learned proceed upon more safe and substan 

 tial principles than mere men of experience the former 

 view dangers afar off, while the latter discover them not 

 till they are at hand, and then trust to their wit to avoid 

 them. This felicity of times under learned princes appears 

 eminent in the age between the death of Domitian and the 

 reign of Commodus, comprehending a succession of six 

 princes, all of them learned, or singular favorers and pro 

 moters of learning. And this age, for temporal respects, 

 was the happiest and most flourishing that ever the Koman 

 State enjoyed ; as was revealed to Domitian in a dream the 

 night before he was slain, &quot; when he beheld a neck and head 

 of gold growing upon his shoulders; a vision which was, in 

 the golden times succeeding this divination, fully accom 

 plished. For his successor Nerva was a learned prince, a 

 familiar friend and acquaintance of Apollonius, who ex 

 pired reciting that line of Homer &quot;Phoabus, with thy 

 darts revenge our tears.&quot; &quot; Trajan, though not learned 

 himself, was an admirer of learning, a munificent patron 

 of letters, and a founder of libraries. Though the taste 

 of his court was warlike, professors and preceptors were 

 found there in great credit and admiration. Adrian was 

 the greatest inquirer that ever lived, and an insatiable ex 

 plorer into everything curious and profound. Antoninus, 

 possessing the patient and subtile mind of a scholastic, ob 

 tained the sobriquet of Cymini Setor, or splitter of cumin- 

 seed. 98 Of the two brothers who were raised to the rank 



96 Suetonius, Life of Domitian, c. 23. Iliad, i. 42. 



98 &quot;Unum de istis puto qui cuminum secant.&quot; Julian. Cses. 

 SCIENCE Yol. 21. 4 



