ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 221 



bulk, containing excellent precepts, adapted as well to theoreti- 

 cal truth as to the expediency of use and action. The work is 

 also entirely exempt from that vice even more censured, and 

 which, if it were tolerable, it were so in kings, and in works on 

 regal majesty, viz., that it does not exaggerate the privileges of 

 the crown or invidiously exalt their power. For your Majesty 

 has not described a king of Persia or Assyria, shining forth in 

 all his pomp and glory, but a Moses and a David, pastors as 

 well as rulers of their people. Nor can I forget that memo- 

 rable saying which your Majesty delivered on an important 

 point of judicature That kings rule by the laws of their king- 

 doms, as God by the laws of nature, and ought as rarely to exer- 

 cise their prerogative, which transcends law, as God exercises 

 his power of working miracles. And in your Majesty's other 

 book on a free monarchy, you give all men to understand that 

 your Majesty knows and comprehends the plenitude of the re- 

 gal power, as well as its limits ; I, therefore, have not shrunk 

 from citing this book as one of the best treatises ever published 

 upon particular and respective duties. I can only assure your 

 Majesty, that had the book been a thousand years in existence 

 it would not have lost any of the praises I have bestowed upon 

 it ; nor am I prescribed by the adage which forbids praise in 

 presence ; since this rule of decorum applies only to unseason- 

 able and excessive eulogy. Surely Cicero, in his excellent ora- 

 tion in defence of Marcellus, is only bent upon drawing a pict- 

 ure with singular art, of Caesar's virtues, though in his presence, 

 as the second Pliny did for Trajan. But let us proceed with 

 our subject. 



To this part of the respective duties of vocations and partic- 

 ular professions belongs another, as a doctrine relative or op- 

 posite to it, viz., the doctrine of cautions, frauds, impostures, 

 and their vices ; for corruptions and vices are opposite to duties 

 and virtues ; not but some mention is already made of them 

 in writings, though commonly but cursorily and satirically, 

 rather than seriously and gravely ; for more labor is bestowed 

 in invidiously reprehending many good and useful things in 

 arts and exposing them to ridicule, than in separating what is 

 corrupt and vicious therein from what is sound and serviceable. 

 Solomon says excellently, " A scorner seeks wisdom, and finds 

 it not ; but knowledge is easy to him that understands " ; for 

 whoever comes to a science with an intent to deride and despise, 



