2 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



an extreme wonder at those your virtues and faculties, 

 which the Philosophers call intellectual ; the largeness of 

 your capacity, the faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness 

 of your apprehension, the penetration of your judgment, 

 and the facility and order of your elocution : and I have 

 often thought, that of the persons living that I have known, 

 your Majesty were the best instance to make a man of Plato's 

 opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the 

 mind of man by nature knoweth all things, and hath but her 



10 own native and original notions (which by the strangeness 

 and darkness of this tabernacle of the body are sequestered) 

 again revived and restored : such a light of nature I have 

 observed in your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame 

 and blaze from the least occasion presented, or the least 

 spark of another's knowledge delivered. And as the Scrip 

 ture saith of the wisest king, That his heart was as the sands 

 of the sea ; which though it be one of the largest bodies, yet 

 it consisteth of the smallest and finest portions ; so hath God v 

 given your Majesty a composition of understanding admirable, 



20 being able to compass and comprehend the greatest matters, 

 and nevertheless to touch and apprehend the least ; whereas 

 it should seem an impossibility in nature, for the same instru 

 ment to make itself fit for great and small works. And for 

 your gift of speech, I call to mind what Cornelius Tacitus 

 saith of Augustus Csesar : Augusta profluens, et quae princi- 

 pern deceret, eloquentia fuit : [Augustus had an easy and fluent 

 way of speaking, such as became a sovereign.'] For, if we note 

 it well, speech that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or 

 speech that savoureth of the affectation of art and precepts, 



30 or speech that is framed after the imitation of some pattern 

 of eloquence, though never so excellent ; all this hath some 

 what servile, and holding of the subject. But your Majesty's 

 manner of speech is indeed prince-like, flowing as from a 

 fountain, and yet streaming and branching itself into nature's 

 order, full of facility and felicity, imitating none, and inimi 

 table by any. And as in your civil estate there appeareth to 



