168 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



your capacity, the faithfulness of your memory, the swift- 

 ness of your apprehension, the penetration of your judg- 

 ment, and the facility and order of your elocution : and I 

 have often thought that of all the persons living that I 

 have known, your Majesty were the best instance to 

 make a man of Plato's opinion, that all knowledge is 

 but remembrance, and that the mind of man by nature 

 knoweth all things, and hath but her own native and 

 original notions (which by the strangeness and darkness of 

 this tabernacle of the body are sequestered) again revived 

 and restored : such a light of nature I have observed in 

 your Majesty, and such a readiness to take flame and 

 blaze from the least occasion presented, or the least spark 

 of another's knowledge delivered. And as the Scripture 

 saith of the wisest king, ' That his heart was as the sands 

 of the sea ' ; which though it be one of the largest bodies 

 yet it consisteth of the smallest and finest portions ; so 

 hath God given your Majesty a composition of under- 

 standing admirable, being able to compass and comprehend 

 the greatest matters, and nevertheless to touch and appre- 

 hend the least ; whereas it should seem an impossibility in 

 nature for the same instrument to make itself fit for great 

 and small works. And for your gift of speech, I call to 

 mind what Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus Caesar; 

 Angus to profluens, et quae principem deceret^ eloquentia fuit ; 

 for if we note it well, speech that is uttered with labour 

 and difficulty, or speech that savoureth of the affectation 

 of art and precepts, or speech that is framed after the 

 imitation of some pattern of eloquence, though never so 

 excellent, all this has somewhat servile, and holding of 

 the subject. But your Majesty's manner of speech is 

 indeed ..prince-like, flowing as from a fountain, and yet 

 streaming and branching itself into nature's order, full of 

 facility and felicity, imitating none, and inimitable by any. 

 And as in your civil estate there appeareth to be an emula- 

 tion and contention of your Majesty's virtue with your 

 fortune ; u virtuous disposition with a fortunate regiment ; 

 a virtuous expectation (when time was) of your greater 

 fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the due 



