THE FIRST BOOK 49 



experience : the one sort keeping dangers afar off, 

 •whereas the other discover them not till they come 

 near hand, and then trust to the agility of their wit 

 to ward or avoid them. 



4. Which felicity of times under learned princes (to 

 keep still the law of brevity, by using the most eminent 

 and selected examples) doth best appear in the age 

 which passed from the death of Domitianus the emperor 

 until the reign of Commodus ; comprehending a succes- 

 sion of six princes, all learned, or singular favourers 

 and advancers of learning, which age for temporal 

 respects was the most happy and flourishing that ever 

 the Roman empire (which then was a model of the 

 world) enjoyed ; a matter revealed and prefigured 

 unto Domitian in a dream the night before he was 

 slain ; for he thought there was grown behind upon 

 his shoulders a neck and a head of gold : which came 

 accordingly to pass in those golden times which suc- 

 ceeded : of which princes we will make some com- 

 memoration ; wherein although the matter will be 

 vulgar, and may be thought fitter for a declamation 

 than agreeable to a treatise infolded as this is, yet 

 because it is pertinent to the point in hand, ' Neque 

 semper arcum tendit Apollo,' and to name them only 

 were too naked and cursory, I will not omit it altogether. 

 The first was Nerva ; the excellent temper of whose 

 government is by a glance in Cornelius Tacitus touched 

 to the life : ' Postquam divus Nerva res olim in- 

 sociabiles miscuisset, imperium et libertatem.' And in 

 token of his learning, the last act of his short reign left 

 to memory was a missive to his adopted son Trajan, 

 proceeding upon some inward discontent at the in- 

 gratitude of the times, comprehended in a verse of 

 Homer's : 



Tells, Phoebe, tuis lacrymas ulciscere nostras. 



5. Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not 

 learned : but if we will hearken to the speech of our 

 Saviour, that saith, ' He that receiveth a prophet in 

 the name of a prophet shall have a prophet's reward,' 



