THE FIRST BOOK 17 



lamp-light.' So as no man need doubt that learningl 

 •will expulse business, but rather it will keep and defend! 

 the possession of the mind against idleness and pleasure, I 

 which otherwise at unawares may enter to the prejudice' 

 of both. 



8. Again, for that other conceit that learning should 

 undermine the reverence of laws and government, it is 

 assuredly a mere depravation and calumny, without all 

 shadow of truth. For to say that a blind custom of 

 obedience should be a surer obligation than duty 

 taught and understood, it is to affirm, that a blind 

 man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can 

 by a light. And it is without all controversy, that 

 learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, 

 maniable, and pliant to government ; whereas ignor- 

 ance makes them churlish, thwart, and mutinous : and 

 the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, consider- 

 ing that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned 

 times have been most subject to tumults, seditions, 

 and changes. 



9. And as to the judgement of Cato the Censor, he 

 was well punished for his blasphemy against learning, 

 in the same kind wherein he offended ; for when he 

 was past threescore years old, he was taken with an 

 extreme desire to go to school again, and to learn the 

 Greek tongue, to the end to peruse the Greek authors ; 

 which doth well demonstrate that his former censure 

 of the Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity, 

 than according to the inward sense of his own opinion. 

 And as for Virgil's verses, though it pleased him to 

 brave the world in taking to the Romans the art of 

 empire, and leaving to others the arts of subjects ; yet 

 so much is manifest that the Romans never ascended 

 to that height of empire, till the time they had ascended 

 to the height of other arts. For in the time of the two 

 first Caesars, which had the art of government in 

 greatest perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius 

 Maro ; the best historiographer, Titus Livius ; the best 

 antiquary, Marcus Varro ; and the best, or second orator, 

 Marcus Cicero, that to the memory of man are known. 



c 



