, i 4 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



/- There be therefore three vanities in studies, whereby learning hath 

 been most traduced. For those things we do esteem vain, which are 

 either false or frivolous, those which either have no truth, or no use : 

 and those persons we esteem vain, which are either credulous or 

 curious ; and curiosity is either in matter, or words : so that in reason, 

 as well as in experience, there fall out to be these three distempers, 

 as I may term them, of learning : the first, fantastical learning ; the 

 second, contentious learning : and the last delicate learning ; vain im 

 aginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations ; and with the last 

 I will begin. 



Martin Luther, conducted no doubt by an higher providence, but in 

 discourse of reason, finding what a province he had undertaken against 

 the bishop of Rome, and the degenerate traditions of the church, and 

 finding his own solitude being no ways aided by the opinion of his own 

 time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former times to 

 his succour, to make a party against the present time. So that the 

 ancient authors, both in divinity, and in humanity, which had long 

 time slept in libraries, began generally to be read and revolved. This 

 by consequence did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite travel in 

 the languages original, wherein those authors did write, for the better un 

 derstanding of those authors, and the better advantage of pressing and 

 applying their words. And thereof grew again a delight in their 

 manner and style of phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing ; 

 which was much furthered and precipitated by the enmity of opposi 

 tion, that the propounders of those primitive, but seeming new, opin 

 ions had against the schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary 

 part, and whose writings were altogether of a differing style and form ; 

 taking liberty to coin, and frame new forms of art to express their 

 own sense, and to avoid circuit of speech, without regard to the pure- 

 ness, pleasantness, and, as I may call it, lawfulness of the phrase or 

 word. And again, because the great labour then was with the people, 

 of whom the Pharisees were wont to say, &quot; Execrabilis ista turba, qiue 

 non novit legcm ;&quot; for the winning and persuading of them, there grew 

 of necessity in chief price and request, eloquence and variety of dis 

 course, as the fittest and forciblcst access into the capacity of the vulgar 

 sort : so that these four causes concurring, the admiration of ancient 

 authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of languages, and 

 the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an affectionate study of elo 

 quence, and copia of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew 

 speedily into an excess : for men began to hunt more after words than 

 matter ; and more after the choiccness of the phrase, and the round 

 and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the 

 clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and 

 figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, sound 

 ness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then grew 

 the flowing and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in 

 price. Then did Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon 

 Cicero the orator, and Hermogenes the rhetorican, besides his own 

 books of the periods, and imitation, and the like. Then did Car of 



