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demonstrate, that his former censure of the Grecian learn- 

 ing was rather an affected gravity, than according to the 

 inward sense of his own opinion. And as for Virgil's 

 verses, though it pleased him to brave the world in taking 

 to the Romans the art of empire, and leaving to others the 

 arts of subjects ; yet so much is manifest, that the Romans 

 never ascended to that height of empire till the time they 

 had ascended to the height of other arts ; for in the time 

 of the two first Caesars, which had the art of government 

 in greatest perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgilius 

 Maro ; the best historiographer, Titus Livius ; the best 

 antiquary, Marcus Varro ; and the best, or second orator, 

 Marcus Cicero, that to the memory of man are known. 

 As for the accusation of Socrates, the time must be re- 

 membered when it was prosecuted ; which was under the 

 thirty tyrants, the most base, bloody, and envious persons 

 that have governed ; which revolution of state was no 

 sooner over, but Socrates, whom they had made a person 

 criminal, was made a person heroical, and his memory 

 accumulate with honours divine and human ; and those 

 discourses of his, which were then termed corrupting of 

 manners, were after acknowledged for sovereign medicines 

 of the mind and manners, and so have been received ever 

 since till this day. Let this therefore serve for answer to 

 politiques, which in their humorous severity or in their 

 feigned gravity have presumed to throw imputations upon 

 learning ; which redargution nevertheless (save that we 

 know not whether our labours may extend to other ages) 

 were not needful for the present, in regard of the love and 

 reverence towards learning which the example and coun- 

 tenance of two so learned princes, Queen Elizabeth and 

 your Majesty, being as Castor and Pollux, ludda sidera, 

 stars of excellent light and most benign influence, hath 

 wrought in all men of place and authority in our nation. 



Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit 

 or diminution of credit, that groweth unto learning from 

 learned men themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest. 

 It is either from their fortune, or from their manners, or 

 from the nature of their studies. For the first, it is not in 



