ciples and rules. If it misleads, by the unsuitableness of examples, it shows the force of circumstances, the errors of comparisons, and the cautions of application; so that in all cases, it rectifies more effectually than it perverts: and these remedies it conveys into the mind much more effectually by the force and variety of examples. Let a man look into the errors of Clement the Seventh, so livelily described by Guicciardini; or into those of Cicero, described by himself in his epistles to Atticus, and he will fly from being irresolute let him look into the errors of Phocion, and he will beware of obstinacy or inflexibility: let him read the fable of Ixion, and it will keep him from conceitedness: let him look into the errors of the second Cato, and he will never tread opposite to the world." 4. For the pretence that learning disposes to retirement, privacy, and sloth; it were strange if what accustoms the mind to perpetual motion and agitation should induce indolence; whereas no kind of men love business, for its own sake, but the learned; whilst others love it for profit, as hirelings for the wages; others for honour; others because it bears them up in the eyes of men, and refreshes their reputations, which would otherwise fade; or because it reminds them of their fortune, and gives them opportunities of revenging and obliging; or because it exercises some faculty, wherein they delight, and so keeps them in good humour with themselves. Whence, as false valour lies in the eyes of the beholders, such men's industry lies in the eyes of others, or is exercised with a view to their own designs; whilst the learned love business, as an action according to nature, and agreeable to the health of the mind, as exercise is to that of the body: so that, of all men, they are the most indefatigable in such business as may deservedly fill and employ the mind. And if there are any laborious in study, yet idle in business, this proceeds either from a weakness of body, or a softness of disposition, and not from learning itselí, as Seneca remarks, "Quidam tam sunt umbratiles ut putent in turbido esse, quicquid in luce est."a The consciousness of such a disposition may indeed incline a man to learning, but learning does not breed any such temper in him. Pind. Pyth. ii. 21. Cic. ad Att. ii. 1. If it be objected, that learning takes up much time, which might be better employed, I answer that the most active or busy men have many vacant hours, while they expect the tides and returns of business; and then the question is, how those spaces of leisure shall be filled up, whether with pleasure or study? Demosthenes being taunted by Æschines, a man of pleasure, that his speeches smelt of the lamp, very pertly retorted, "There is great difference between the objects which you and I pursue by lamp-light." No fear, therefore, that learning should displace business, for it rather keeps and defends the mind against idleness and pleasure, which might otherwise enter to the prejudice both of business and learning. 5. For the allegation that learning should undermine the reverence due to laws and government, it is a mere calumny, without shadow of truth; for to say that blind custom of obedience should be a safer obligation than duty, taught and understood, is to say that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a man with his eyes open can by a light. And, doubtless, learning makes the mind gentle and pliable to government, whereas ignorance renders it churlish and mutinous; and it is always found that the most barbarous, rude, and ignorant times have been most tumultuous, changeable, and seditious. 6. As to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was punished for his contempt of learning, in the kind wherein he offended, for when past threescore the humour took him to learn Greek, which shows that his former censure of the Grecian learning was rather an affected gravity than his inward sense. And, indeed, the Romans never arrived at their height of empire till they had arrived at their height of arts; for in the time of the two first Cæsars, when their government was in its greatest perfection, there lived the best poet, Virgil; the best historiographer, Livy; the best antiquary, Varro; and the best, or second best orator, Cicero, that the world has known. And as to the persecution of Socrates, the time must be remembered in which it occurred, viz., under the reign of the Thirty Tyrants, of all mortals the bloodiest and basest that ever reigned, since the government b Plutarch's Life of Demosthenes, not said of schines, but Pytheas. Plutarch's M. Cato. had no sooner returned to its senses than that judgment was reversed. Socrates, from being a criminal, started at once into a hero, his memory loaded with honours human and divine, and his discourses, which had been previously stigmatized as immoral and profane, were considered as the re formers of thought and manners.d And let this suffice as an answer to those politicians who have presumed, whether sportively or in earnest, to disparage learning. We come now to that sort of discredit which is brought upon learning by learned men themselves; and this proceeds either (1) from their fortune, (2) their manners, or (3) the nature of their studies. 1. The disrepute of learning from the fortune or condition. of the learned, regards either their indigence, retirement, or meanness of employ. As to the point, that learned men grow not so soon rich as others, because they convert not their labours to profit, we might turn it over to the friars, of whom Machiavel said, "That the kingdom of the clergy had been long since at an end, if the reputation and reverence towards the poverty of the monks and mendicants had not borne out the excesses of bishops and prelates."e For so the splendour and magnificence of the great had long since sunk into rudeness and barbarism, if the poverty of learned men had not kept up civility and reputation. But to drop such advantages, it is worth observing how reverend and sacred poverty_was esteemed for some ages in the Roman state, since, as Livy says, "There never was a republic greater, more venerable, and more abounding in good examples than the Roman, nor one that so long withstood avarice and luxury, or so much honoured poverty and parsimony."f And we see, when Rome degenerated, how Julius Cæsar after his victory was counselled to begin the restoration of the state, by abolishing the reputation of wealth. And, indeed, as we truly say that blushing is the livery of virtue, though it may sometimes proceed from guilt, so it holds true of poverty that it is the attendant of virtue, though sometimes it may proceed from mismanagement and accident. d Plato, Apol. Socr. Livy's preface, towards the end. e Mach. Hist. de Firenza, b. 10. 8 Diog. Cyn. ap. Laert. vi. 54; compare Tacitus, Agric. 45, of Domitian, "Sævus vultus et rubor, a quo se contra pudorem muniebat." As for retirement, it is a theme so common to extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality and sloth, for the liberty, the pleasure, and the freedom from indignity it affords, that every one praises it well, such an agreement it has to the nature and apprehensions of mankind. This may be added, that learned men, forgotten in states and not living in the eyes of the world, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus at the funeral of Junia, which not being represented as many others were, Tacitus said of them that "they outshone the rest, because not seen."h As for their meanness of employ, that most exposed to contempt is the education of youth, to which they are commonly allotted. But how unjust this reflection is to all who measure things, not by popular opinion, but by reason, will appear in the fact that men are more careful what they put into new vessels than into those already seasoned. It is manifest that things in their weakest state usually demand our best attention and assistance. Hearken to the Hebrew rabbins: "Your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams;"i upon which the commentators observe, that youth is the worthier age, inasmuch as revelation by vision is clearer than by dreams. And to say the truth, how much soever the lives of pedants have been ridiculed upon the stage, as the emblem of tyranny, because the modern looseness or negligence has not duly regarded the choice of proper schoolmasters and tutors; yet the wisdom of the ancientest and best times always complained that states were too busy with laws and too remiss in point of education. This excellent part of ancient discipline has in some measure been revived of late by the colleges of Jesuits abroad; in regard of whose diligence in fashioning the morals and cultivating the minds of youth, I may say, as Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabasus, "Talis quum sis, utinam noster 2. The manners of learned men belong rather to their individual persons than to their studies or pursuits. No doubt, as in all other professions and conditions of life, bad and good are to be found among them; yet it must be admitted that learning and studies, unless they fall in with * Plut. Life of Agesil Annals, iii. 76. i Joel ii. 28. very depraved dispositions, have, in conformity with the adage, “Abire studia in mores,” a moral influence upon men's lives. For my part I cannot find that any disgrace to learning can proceed from the habits of learned men, inherent in them as learned, unless peradventure that may be a fault which was attributed to Demosthenes, Cicero, the second Cato, and many others, that seeing the times they read of more pure than their own, pushed their servility too far in the reformation of manners, and to seek to impose, by austere precepts, the laws of ancient asceticism upon dissolute times. Yet even antiquity should have forewarned them of this excess; for Solon, upon being asked if he had given his citizens the best laws, replied, "The best they were capable of receiving." And Plato, finding that he had fallen upon corrupt times, refused to take part in the administration of the commonwealth, saying that a man should treat his country with the same forbearance as his parents, and recall her from a wrong course, not by violence or contest, but by entreaty and persuasion. Cæsar's counsellor administers the same caveat in the words, "Non ad vetera instituta revocamus quæ jampridem corruptis moribus ludibrio sunt." Cicero points out the same error in the second Cato, when writing to his friend Atticus:-" Cato optime sentit sed nocet interdum Reipublicæ ; loquitur ením tanquam in Republica Platonis, non tanquam in fæce Romuli." The same orator likewise excuses and blames the philosophers for being too exact in their precepts. These preceptors, said he, have stretched the lines and limits of duties beyond their natural boundaries, thinking that we might safely reform when we had reached the highest point of perfection.P And yet himself stumbled over the same stone, so that he might have said, "Monitis sum minor ipse meis.” m 3. Another fault laid to the charge of learned men, and arising from the nature of their studies, is, “That they esteem the preservation, good, and honour of their country before their own fortunes or safeties." Demosthenes said well to the Athenians, "My counsels are not such as tend to Epist. Z. iii. 331; and cf. Ep. r. iii. 316. • Cicero to Atticus, epis. ii. 1. Sallust, Cat. Conspiracy. "I am unequal to my teaching."-Ovid, Ars Amandi, ii. 548. |