182 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



their power ; and the second is accidental ; the third only 

 is proper to be handled. But because we are not in hand 

 with true measure, but with popular estimation and con- 

 ceit, it is not amiss to speak somewhat of the two former. 

 The derogations therefore which grow to learning from 

 the fortune or condition of learned men, are either in 

 respect of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of 

 life and meanness of employments. 



Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men 

 usually to begin with little and not to grow rich so fast as 

 other men, by reason they conyexLjiQt, their labours chiefly 

 to lucre and increase ; it were good to leave the common 

 place in commendation of poverty to some friar to handle, 

 to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in this point, 

 when he said, 'That the kingdom of the clergy had been 

 long before at an end, if the reputation and reverence 

 towards the poverty of friars had not borne out the 

 scandal of the superfluities and excesses of bishops and 

 prelates/ So a man might say that the felicity and delicacy 

 of princes and great persons had long since turned to rude- 

 ness and barbarism, if the poverty of learning had not kept 

 up civility and honour of life. But without any such 

 advantages, it is worthy the observation what a reverend 

 and honoured thing poverty of fortune was for some ages 

 in the Roman state, which nevertheless was a state without 

 paradoxes. For we see what Titus Livius saith in his 

 introduction : Caeterum aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit, 

 aut nulla unquam respublica nee major, nee sanctior, nee bonis 

 exemplis ditior fuit ; nee in quam tarn serae avaritia luxuriaque 

 immigraverint ; nee ubi tantus ac tarn diu paupertati ac 

 parsimoniae honos fuerit. We see likewise, after that the 

 state of Rome was not itself but did degenerate, how that 

 person that took upon him to be counsellor 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 haec et omnia mala 

 pariter cum honore pecuniae desinent; si neque magistrates, 

 neque alia vulgo cupienda, venalia erunt. To conclude this 

 point, as it was truly said that rubor est virtutis color y 



