THE FIRST BOOK 177 



of diseases, nor the complexions of patients, nor peril of 

 accidents, nor the true method of cures. We see it is 

 a like error. -to rely upon advocates or lawyers which are 

 only men of practice and not grounded in their books, 

 who are many times easily surprised when matter falleth 

 out besides their experience, to the prejudice of the causes 

 they handle. So by like reason it cannot be but a matter 

 of doubtful consequence, if states be managed by empiric 

 statesmen, not well mingled with men grounded in learn- 

 ing. But contrariwise, it is almost without instance 

 contradictory, that ever any government was disastrous 

 that was in the hands of learned governors. For howso- 

 ever it hath been ordinary with politic men to extenuate 

 and disable learned men by the names of Pedantes ; yet in 

 the records of time it appeareth in many particulars, that 

 the governments of princes in minority (notwithstanding 

 the infinite disadvantage of that kind of state) have never- 

 theless excelled the government of princes of mature age, 

 even for that reason which they seek to traduce, which is, 

 that by that occasion the state hath been in the hands 

 of Pedantes : for so was the state of Rome for the 

 first five years, which are so much 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 con- 

 tentation in the hands of Misitheus, a Pedanti : so was it 

 before that, in the minority of Alexander 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 do greater things, and 

 proceed upon truer principles of estate, than those which 

 have ascended to the papacy from an education and breed- 

 ing 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 



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