18 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



that the state of Eome was not itself, but did degenerate, 

 how that person, that took upon him to be counsellor to 

 Julius Csesar after his victory, where to begin his restoration 

 of the state, maketh it of all points the most summary to 

 take away the estimation of wealth : Verum hcec et omnia 

 mala pariter cum honore pccunice desinent: si neque magis- 

 tratus, neque alia vulgo cupienda venalia erunt : [But these 

 and all evils will disappear when wealth is no longer honoured, 

 and when the magistracies and other objects of general 



10 ambition are not procurable by moneyJ] To conclude this 

 point, as it was truly said, that Rubor est virtutis color, 

 [A blush is virtue's colour,] though sometime it come from 

 vice ; so it may be fitly said that Paupertas est virtutis 

 fortuna, [Poverty is virtue's fortune,'] though sometime it 

 may proceed from misgovernment and accident. Surely 

 Solomon hath pronounced it both in censure, Qui festinat 

 ad divitias non erit insons, [He that maketh haste to be rich 

 shall not be innocent ;] and in precept, Buy the truth, and sell 

 it not ; and so of wisdom and knowledge ; judging that means 



20 were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be 

 applied to means. And as for the privateness, or obscure- 

 ness (as it may be in vulgar estimation accounted) of life 

 of contemplative men ; it is a theme so common, to extol a 

 private life not taxed with sensuality and sloth, in com 

 parison and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, 

 liberty, pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from 

 indignity, as no man handleth it, but handleth it well : 

 such a consonancy it hath to men's conceits in the express 

 ing, and to men's consents in the allowing. This only 



30 I will add, that learned men forgotten in states, and 

 not living in the eyes of men, are like the images of 

 Cassius and Brutus in the funeral of Junia : of which 

 not being represented, as many others were, Tacitus saith, 

 Eo ipso prcefulgebant, quod non visebantur : [They out 

 shone them all from the very fact that they were not to be ,, 

 seen.] /\ 



