THE FIRST BOOK 27 



but in discourse of reason, finding what a province he 

 had undertaken against the bishop of Rome and the 

 degenerate traditions of the church, and finding his 

 own solitude, being no ways aided by the opinions of 

 his own time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and 

 to call former times to his succours to make a party 

 against the present time : so that the ancient authors, 

 both in divinity and in humanity, which had long time 

 slept in libraries, began generally to be read and re- 

 volved. This by consequence did draw on a necessity 

 of a more exquisite travail in the languages original, 

 wherein those authors did write, for the better under- 

 standing of those authors, and the better advantage of 

 pressing and applying their words. And thereof grew 

 again a delight in their manner of style and phrase, 

 and an admiration of that kind of writing ; which was 

 much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and 

 opposition that the propounders of those primitive but 

 seeming new opinions had against the schoolmen ; who 

 were generally of the contrary part, and whose writings 

 were altogether in a different style and form ; taking 

 liberty to coin and frame new terms of art to express 

 their own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without 

 regard to the pureness, pleasantness, and (as I may call 

 it) lawfulness of the phrase or word. And again, 

 because the great labour then was with the people (of 

 whom the Pharisees were wont to say, ' Execrabilis ista 

 turba, quae non novit legem '), for the winning and 

 persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief 

 price and request eloquence and variety of discourse, as 

 the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the 

 ^'^llgar sort : so that these four causes concurring, the 

 admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the school- 

 men, the exact study of languages, and the efficacy 

 of preaching, did bring in an affectionate study of 

 eloquence and copie of speech, which then began to 

 flourish. This grew speedily to an excess ; for men began 

 to hunt more after words than matter ; more after 

 the choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean 

 composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling 



