THE FIRST BOOK. 3 



be an emulation and contention of your Majesty's virtue with 

 your fortune ; a virtuous disposition with a fortunate 

 regiment ; a virtuous expectation, when time was, of your 

 greater fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the 

 due time ; a virtuous observation of the laws of marriage, 

 with most blessed and happy fruit of marriage ; a virtuous 

 and most Christian desire of peace, with a fortunate inclina 

 tion in your neighbour princes thereunto : so likewise, in 

 these intellectual matters, there seemeth to be no less con 

 tention between the excellency of your Majesty's gifts of 10 

 nature, and the universality and perfection of your learning. 

 For I am well assured that this which I shall say is no 

 amplification at all, but a positive and measured truth ; 

 which is, that there hath not been since Christ's time any 

 king or temporal monarch, which hath been so learned in all 

 literature and erudition, divine and human. For let a man 

 seriously and diligently revolve and peruse the succession of 

 the emperors of Rome, of which Csesar the Dictator, who 

 lived some years before Christ, and Marcus Antoninus, were 

 the best learned ; and so descend to the emperors of Graecia, 20 

 or of the West ; and then to the lines of France, Spain, 

 England, Scotland, and the rest, and he shall find this judg 

 ment is truly made. For it seemeth much in a king, if, by 

 the compendious extractions of other men's wits and labours, 

 he can take hold of any superficial ornaments and shows of 

 learning ; or if he countenance and prefer learning and 

 learned men : but to drink indeed of the true fountains of 

 learning, nay, to have such a fountain of learning in himself, 

 in a king, and in a king born, is almost a miracle. And the 

 more, because there is met in your Majesty a rare conjunction, 30 

 as well of divine and sacred literature, as of profane and 

 human ; so as your Majesty staiideth invested of that 

 triplicity, which in great veneration was ascribed to the 

 ancient Hermes ; the power and fortune of a king, the 

 knowledge and illumination of a priest, and the learning and 

 universality of a philosopher. This propriety, inherent and 



