S8 APVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. [B00j[ L 



As for retirement, it is a theme so common to extol n 

 private life, not taxed with sensuality and sloth, for the 

 liberty, the pleasure, and the freedom from indignity it 

 affords, that every one praises it well, such an agreement 

 it has to the nature and apprehensions of mankind. This 

 may be added, that learned men, forgotten in states and not 

 living in the eyes of the world, are like the images of Cassius 

 and Brutus at the funeral of Junia, which not being repre- 

 sented as many others were, Tacitus said of them that " they 

 outshone the rest, because not seen."^ 



As for their meanness of employ, that most exposed to 

 contempt is the education of youth, to which they are com- 

 monly allotted. But how unjust this reflection is to all who 

 measure things, not by popular opinion, but by reason, will 

 appear in the fact that men are more careful what they put 

 into new vessels than into those already seasoned. It is 

 manifest that things in their weakest state usually demand 

 our best attention and assistance. Hearken to the Hebrew 

 rabbins : " Your young men shall see visions, your old men 

 shall dream dreams;"^ upon which the commentators observe, 

 that youth is the worthier age, inasmuch as revelation by 

 vision is clearer than by dreams. And to say the truth, hoAV 

 much soever the lives of pedants have been ridiculed upon 

 the stage, as the emblem of tyranny, because the modern 

 looseness or negligence has not duly regarded the choice of 

 proper schoolmasters and tutors ; yet the wisdom of the 

 ancientest and best times always complained that states were 

 too busy wuth laws and too remiss in point of education. 

 This excellent part of ancient discipline has in some measure 

 been revived of late by the colleges of Jesuits abroad ; in 

 regard of whose diligence in fashioning the morals and culti- 

 vating the minds of youth, I may say, as Agesilaus said to 

 liis enemy Pharnabasus, " Talis quum sis, utinam noster 

 esses." ^ 



2. The manners of learned men belong rather to their 

 individual persons than to their studies or pursuits. No 

 doubt, as in all other professions and conditions of life, bad 

 and good are to be found among them ; yet it must be ad- 

 mitted that learning and studies, unless they fall in with 



^ Ainsils, iii. 76. • Joel ii. 28. ^ Plut. Life of AgesiL 



