_St. Bernard versus Fulke Greville._--On lately reading over the fine
philosophical poem _Of Humane Learning_, by Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, I
was struck at finding that the 144th stanza was a literal transcript from
St. Bernard. Some of your readers may possibly be amused or interested by
the discovery:
"Yet some seeke knowledge, meerely to be knowne,
And idle curiositie that is;
Some but to sell, not freely to bestow,
These gaine and spend both time and health amisse;
Embasing arts, by basely deeming so,
Some to build others, which is charity,
But those to build themselves, who wise men be."
_Workes_, p. 50.: Lond. 1633, 8vo.
"Sunt namque qui scire volunt eo fine tantum, ut sciant: et turpis
curiositas est. Et sunt item qui scire volunt, ut scientiam suam
vendant, verbi causa pro pecunia, pro honoribus: et turpis quæstus est.
Sed sunt quoque qui scire volunt, ut ædificentur: et prudentia
est."--S. Bernardi _In Cantica Serm._ xxxvi. Sect 3. _Opp._, vol. i. p.
1404. Parisiis, 1719, fol.
It is no mean eulogy upon Lord Brooke's poem just referred to, to say that
it stood high in the estimation of the late Rev. Hugh James Rose, and was
quoted approvingly by him in his lectures before the Durham University. My
acquaintance with it was first derived from that source, and I am confident
that many others of your readers sympathise with the wishes of MR.
CROSSLEY, for "a collected edition of the works of the two noble Grevilles"
("N. & Q.," Vol. iv., p. 139.). The facts upon which the tragedy of
_Mustapha_ is founded are graphically summed up by Knolles in his _Historie
of the Turkes_, pp. 757-65.: London, 1633, fol.