ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 87 



The institutions which relate to the extension of letters 

 are threefold; viz., schools and universities, books, and pro 

 fessors. For as water, whether of the dew of heaven or 

 spring of the earth, would speedily lose itself in the ground 

 unless collected into conduits and cisterns, so it seemeth this 

 excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from 

 Divine inspiration or spring from human sense, would soon 

 hide itself in oblivion, unless, collected in books, traditions, 

 academies, and schools, it might find a permanent seat, and 

 a fructifying union of strength. 



The works which concern the seats of learning are four 

 buildings, endowments, privileges, and charters, which all 

 promote quietness and seclusion, freedom from cares and 

 anxieties. Such stations resemble those which Virgil pre 

 scribes for beehiving : 



&quot;Principle sedes apibus, fitatioque petenda 

 Quo neque sit ventia aditus.&quot;* 



The works which relate to books are two first, libraries, 

 which are as the shrines where the bones of old saints full 

 of virtue lie buried; secondly, new editions of writers, with 

 correcter impressions, more faultless versions, more useful 

 commentaries, and more learned annotations. 



Finally, the works which pertain to the persons of the 

 learned are, besides the general patronage which ought to 

 be extended to them, twofold. The foundation of professor 

 ships in sciences already extant, and in those not yet begun 

 or imperfectly elaborated. 



These are, in short, the institutions on which princes 

 and other illustrious men have displayed their zeal for 

 letters. To me, dwelling upon each patron of letters, that 

 notion of Cicero occurs, which urged him upon his return 

 not to particularize, but to give general thanks &quot;Difficile 

 non aliquem, in gratum quenquam, prseterire. &quot; 3 Kather 

 should we, conformably to Scripture, look forward to the 



2 Georg. iv. 8. 



3 Apocryphal Orat. post Repit. in Sen. xii. 30; cf. pro PI. xxx. 74. 



