I.] ADVANCEMENT OF LEAKXfKG. 109 



learned men, are cither 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 convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and increase : 

 It were good to leave the common place in commendation of some 

 friar to handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavcl in this 

 point ; when he said, &quot;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.&quot; 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: u C.eterum aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit, 

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

 cxemplis ditior fuit ; nee in quam tarn sera? avaritia luxuriaquc 

 immigravcrint ; nee ubi tantus ac tarn diu paupertati ac parsimonkc 

 honos fuerit.&quot; 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 resto 

 ration of the state, maketh it of all points the most summary to take 

 away the estimation of wealth: &quot; Verum hzec ct omnia mala paritcr 

 cum honore pecuniar desincnt, si neque magistratus, ncque alia vulgo 

 cupienda, vcnalia crunt.&quot; To conclude this point, as it was truly 

 said, that &quot; rubor est virtutis color,&quot; though sometimes it comes from 

 vice: so it may be fitly said, that &quot; paupertas est virtutis fortuna ;&quot; 

 though sometimes it may proceed from misgovernment and accident. 

 Surely Sobmon hath pronounced it both in censure, &quot; Qui fcstinat 

 ad divitias, non crit insons ;&quot; and in precept ; &quot;Buy the truth and 

 sell it not ;&quot; and so of wisdom and knowledge ; judging that means 

 were to be spent upon learning, and not learning to be applied to 

 means. And as for the privateness, or obscurencss (as it may be in 

 vulgar estimation accounted) of life of contemplative men ; it is a 

 theme so common, to extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality 

 and sloth, in. comparison, and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for 

 Illfety, liberty, pleasure, and dignity, or at least freedom from indignity, 

 as no man handleth it, but handleth it well : such a consonancy it 

 liath to men s conceits in the expressing, and to men s consents in 

 the allowing. This only I will add, that learned men, forgotten in 

 States, and not living in the eyes of men, are like the images of Cassius 

 and lirutus in the funeral of Junia ; of which not being represented, 

 as many others were, Tacitus saith, &quot; Eo ipso praefulgebant, quod non 

 rfoebantur.&quot; 



And for the meanness of employment, that which is most traduced 

 to contempt, is, that the government of youth is commonly allotted to 



