30 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



mind continually present and entire. He likewise approached a 

 dc Tce nearer unto Christianity, and became, as Agrippa said unto 

 St Paul, &quot;half a Christian ;&quot; holding their religion and law m good 

 opinion, and not only ceasing persecution, but giving way to the 

 advancement of Christians. 



There succeeded him the first dim fratres, the two adoptive 

 brethren, Lucius Commodus Verus, son to ^lius Verus, who de 

 lighted much in the softer kind of learning, and was wont to call the 

 poet Martial his Virgil : and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, whereof the 

 latter, who obscured his colleague, and survived him long, was named 

 the philosopher ; who, as he excelled all the rest in learning, so he 

 excelled them likewise in perfection of all royal virtues ; insomuch as 

 Julianus the emperor, in his book, intitled &quot;Qcsarcs,&quot; being as a 

 pasquil or satire to deride all his predecessors, feigned, that they were 

 all invited to a banquet of the gods, and Silcnus the jester sat at the 

 nether end of the table, and bestowed a scoff on every one as they 

 came in ; but when Marcus Philosophus came in, Silcnus \yas 

 gravelled, and out of countenance, not knowing where to carp at him, 

 save at the last he gave a glance at his patience towards his wife. 

 And the virtue of this prince, continued with that of his predecessor, 

 made the name of Antoninus so sacred in the world, that though it 

 were extremely dishonoured in Commodus, Caracalla, and Helio- 

 gabnlus, who all bore the name ; yet when Alexander Severus refused 

 the name, because he was a stranger to the family, the Senate with one 

 acclamation said, &quot;Quo modo Augustus, sic et Antoninus.&quot; In such 

 renown and veneration was the name of these two princes in those 

 days, that they would have had it as a perpetual addition in all the 

 emperor s stile. In this emperor s time also, the Church for the most 

 part was in peace; so as in this sequence of six princes, we do see the 

 blessed effects of learning in sovereignity, painted forth in the 

 greatest table of the world. 



But for a tablet, or picture of smaller volume, not presuming to 

 speak of your majesty that livcth, in my judgment, the most excellent 

 is that of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate predecessor in this part of 

 Britain ; a princess that if Plutarch were now alive to write lives by 

 parallels, would trouble him, I think to find for her a parallel amongst 

 women. This lady was endued with learning in her sex singular, and 

 rare even amongst masculine princes ; whether we speak of learning 

 of language, or of science, modern or ancient, divinity or humanity : 

 and unto the very last year of her life, she accustomed to appoint set 

 hours for reading ; scarcely any young student in an university, more 

 daily, or more duly. As for her government, I assure myself, I shall 

 not exceed, if I do affirm, that this part of the island never had forty- 

 five years of better times ; and yet not through the calmness of the 

 season, but through the wisdom of her regiment. 



For if there be considered, of the one side, the truth of religion 

 established ; the constant peace and security ; the good administration 

 of justice ; the temperate use of the prerogative, not slackened, not 

 much strained; the nourishing state of learning, sortable to so excel- 



