The First Book 1 1 



magnified, during the minority of Nero, in the hands of 

 Seneca, a Pedanti ; so it was again, for ten years' space or 

 more, during the minority of Gordianus the younger, with 

 great applause and contentation in the hands of Mistheus, 

 a Pedanti : so was it before that, in the minority of Alex- 

 ander Severus, in like happiness, in hands not much unlike, 

 by reason of the rule of the women, who were aided by 

 the teachers and preceptors. Nay, let a man look into the 

 government of the bishops of Rome, as, by name, into the 

 government of Pius Quintus, and Sextus Quintus, in our 

 times, who were both at their entrance esteemed but as 

 pedantical ^ friars, and he shall find that such popes doi 

 greater things, and proceed upon truer principles of estate,* 

 than those which have ascended to the papacy from an 

 education and breeding in affairs of estate and courts of 

 princes; for although men bred in learning are perhaps to 

 seek in points of convenience and accommodating for the 

 present, which the Italians call Ragioni di stato, whereof 

 the same Pius Quintus could not hear spoken with patience, 

 terming them inventions against religion and the moral 

 virtues; yet on the other side, to recompense that, they are 

 perfect in those same plain grounds of religion, justice, 

 honour, and moral virtue, which if they be well and watch- 

 fully pursued, there will be seldom use of those other, no 

 more than of physic in a sound or well dieted body. Neither 

 can the experience of one man's hfe furnish examples and 

 precedents for the events of one man's hfe: for, as it hap- 

 peneth sometimes that the grandchild, or other descend- 

 ants, resembleth the ancestor more than the son ; so many 

 times occurrences of present times may sort better with 

 ancient examples than with those of the latter or immedia- 

 ate times, and lastly, the wit of one man can no more 



' countervail learning than one man's means can hold way 

 with a common purse. 



4. And as for those particular seducements, or indisposi- 

 tions of the mind for policy and government, which Learning 

 is pretended to insinuate; if it be granted that any such 

 thing be, it must be remembered withal, that Learning 

 ministereth in every of them greater strength of medicine 

 or remedy than it offereth cause of indisposition or infirmity. 



» Edition 1605, prejudicial. The Latin has " fratercuUs return 

 imperitis." 



