THE SECOND BOOK 233 



And if Alexander made such a liberal assignation to 

 Aristotle of treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowlers, 

 fishers, and the like, that he might compile an History of 

 nature, much better do they deserve it that travail in Arts 

 of nature. 



Another defect which I note, is an intermission or 

 neglect in those which are governors in universities of 

 consultation, and in princes or superior persons of visita- 

 tion ; to enter into account and consideration, whether the 

 readings, exercises, and other customs appertaining unto 

 learning, anciently begun and since continued, be well 

 instituted or no ; and thereupon to ground an amendment 

 or reformation in that which shall be found inconvenient. 

 For it is one of your Majesty's own most wise and 

 princely maxims, 'that in all usages and precedents, the 

 times be considered wherein they first began ; which if 

 they were weak or ignorant, it derogateth from the 

 authority of the usage, and leaveth it for suspect/ And 

 therefore in as much as most of the usages and orders of 

 the universities were derived from more obscure times, it 

 is the more requisite they be re-examined. In this kind I 

 will give an instance or two for example sake, of things 

 that are the most obvious and familiar. The one is a 

 matter which though it be ancient and general, yet I hold 

 to be an error ; which is, that scholars in universities come 

 too soon and too unripe to logic and rhetoric; arts fitter 

 for graduates than children and novices : for these two, 

 rightly taken, are the gravest of sciences; being the arts 

 of arts, the one for judgment, the other for ornament ; 

 and they be the rules and directions how to set forth and 

 dispose matter ; and therefore for minds empty and un- 

 fraught with matter, and which have not gathered that 

 which Cicero calleth sylva and supel/ex, stuff and variety, 

 to begin with those arts, (as if one should learn to weigh 

 or to measure or to paint the wind,) doth work but this 

 effect, that the wisdom of those arts, which is great and 

 universal, is almost made contemptible, and is degenerate 

 into childish sophistry and ridiculous affectation. And 

 further, the untimely learning of them hath drawn on by 



