THE FIRST BOOK 5 



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 incHnation in your neighbour 

 princes thereunto : so hkewise in these intellectual 

 matters, there seemeth to be no less contention between 

 the excellency of your Majesty's gifts of 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 hterature and erudition, divine and human. 

 For let a man seriously and diligently revolve and peruse 

 the succession of the emperors of Rome, of which 

 Caesar the Dictator, who lived some years before 

 Christ, and Marcus Antoninus were the best learned ; 

 and so descend to the emperors of Grecia, or of the 

 West, and then to the lines of France, Spain, England, 

 Scotland, and the rest, and he shall find this judgement 

 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, as well of divine 

 and sacred literature, as of profane and human ; so 

 as your Majesty standeth invested of that triplicity, 

 which in great veneration was ascribed to the ancient 

 Hermes ; the power and fortune of a king, the know- 

 ledge and illumination of a priest, and the learning 

 and universality of a philosopher. This propriety in- 

 herent and individual attribute in your Majesty 



