1 6 The Advancement of Learning 



was a state without paradoxes. For we see what Titus 

 Livius saith in his introduction: CcBtcrum ant me amor 

 negotii suscepti fallit, aut nulla unquam respublica nee major, 

 nee sanctior, ^nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit; nee in quam tarn 

 sercB avaritia luxuriaque immigraverint; nee ubi tantus ac 

 tarn diu paupertati ae parsimonies honos fuerit} We see 

 Hkewise, after that the state of Rome was not itself, but did 

 degenerate, how that person that took upon him to be coun- 

 sellor to Julius Caesar after his victory where to begin his 

 restoration of the state, maketh it of all points the most 

 summary to take away the estimation of wealth: Verum 

 hcBC, et omnia mala pariier eum honore peeunice desinent; si 

 neque magistratus, neque alia vulgo eupienda, venalia erunt.^ 

 To conclude this point, as it was truly said, that Rubor est 

 virtutis eolor, though sometime it come from vice ; ^ so it may 

 be fitly said that Paupertas est virtutis foriuna, though some- 

 time it may proceed from misgovernment and accident. 

 Surely Salomon hath pronounced it both in censure, Qui 

 festinat ad divitias non erit insons; ■* and in precept, Buy the 

 truth, and sell it not; and so of wisdom and knowledge;^ 

 judging that means were to be spent upon Learning, and 

 not Learning to be applied to means. 



And as for the privateness, or obscureness (as it may 

 be in vulgar estimation accounted) of life of contemplative 

 men; it is a theme so common to extol a private life, not 

 taxed with sensuality and sloth, in comparison [with] and 

 to the disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, liberty, plea- 

 sure, and dignity, or at least freedom from indignity, as no 

 man handleth it but handleth it well; such a consonancy 

 it hath to men's conceits in the expressing, and to men's 

 consents in the allowing. This only I will add, that learned 

 men forgotten in states and not living in the eyes of men, are 

 like images of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral of Junia: 

 of which not being represented, as many others were, 

 Tacitus saith, Eo ipso prcefulgebant, quod non visebantur.^ 

 3. And for meanness of emplo5nnent, that which is most 

 traduced to contempt is that the government of youth is 

 commonly allotted to them; which age, because it is the 

 age of least authority, it is transferred to the disesteeming 



1 Livii Prcsf. « Sallust, Ep. i. De Rep. ord. 



* Diog. Laert. vi. 54 * Prov. xxviii. 22. 



* Prov. xxiii. 23. • Tac. Ann. iii. 76, ad Jin. 



