THE FIRST BOOK. ] 7 



it is not in their power ; and the second is accidental : the 

 third only is proper to be handled : but because we are not 

 in hand with true measure, but with popular estimation and 

 conceit, it is not amiss to speak somewhat of the two former. 

 The derogations therefore which grow to learning from the 

 fortune or condition of learned men, are either in respect of 

 scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of life, and 

 meanness of employments. 



Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned 

 men usually to begin with little, and not to grow rich so 10 

 fast as other men, by reason they convert not their labours 

 chiefly to lucre and increase : it were good to leave the 

 common place in commendation of poverty to some friar to 

 handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in this 

 point ; when he said, That the kingdom of the clergy had been 

 long before at an end, if the reputation and reverence towards 

 the poverty of friars had not borne out the scandal of the 

 superfluities and excesses of bishops and prelates. So a man 

 might say that the felicity and delicacy of princes and great 

 persons had long since turned to rudeness and barbarism, 20 

 if the poverty of learning had not kept up civility and 

 honour of life : but without any such advantages, it is 

 worthy the observation, what a reverent and honoured 

 thing poverty of fortune was, for some ages, in the Roman 

 state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes : 

 for we see what Titus Livius saith in his introduction : 

 Cceterum aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam 

 respublica nee major, nee sanctior, nee bonis exemplis ditior 

 fuit ; nee in quam tarn serce avaritia luxuriaque immigra- 

 verint ; nee ubi tantus ac tarn diu paupertati ac parsimonice 30 

 honos fuerit : [If I am not led away by love of the task which I 

 have undertaken, there never was a state greater nor more 

 religious, nor richer in good examples than Rome: nor one 

 into which avarice and luxury were so long in making their 

 way : nor one in which poverty and economy were held in such 

 great and such long continued esteem.} We see likewise, after 



