families that use it, accursed in their progeny, and, as common
experience evinceth, accursed themselves in all their proceedings. With
what face (as [2042]he quotes out of Aust.) can they expect a blessing
or inheritance from Christ in heaven, that defraud Christ of his
inheritance here on earth? I would all our simoniacal patrons, and such
as detain tithes, would read those judicious tracts of Sir Henry
Spelman, and Sir James Sempill, knights; those late elaborate and
learned treatises of Dr. Tilslye, and Mr. Montague, which they have
written of that subject. But though they should read, it would be to
small purpose, clames licet et mare coelo Confundas; thunder, lighten,
preach hell and damnation, tell them 'tis a sin, they will not believe
it; denounce and terrify, they have [2043]cauterised consciences, they
do not attend, as the enchanted adder, they stop their ears. Call them
base, irreligious, profane, barbarous, pagans, atheists, epicures, (as
some of them surely are) with the bawd in Plautus, Euge, optime, they
cry and applaud themselves with that miser, [2044]simul ac nummos
contemplor in arca: say what you will, quocunque modo rem: as a dog
barks at the moon, to no purpose are your sayings: Take your heaven,
let them have money. A base, profane, epicurean, hypocritical rout: for
my part, let them pretend what zeal they will, counterfeit religion,
blear the world's eyes, bombast themselves, and stuff out their
greatness with church spoils, shine like so many peacocks; so cold is
my charity, so defective in this behalf, that I shall never think
better of them, than that they are rotten at core, their bones are full
of epicurean hypocrisy, and atheistical marrow, they are worse than
heathens. For as Dionysius Halicarnassaeus observes, Antiq. Rom. lib.
7. [2045]Primum locum, &c. Greeks and Barbarians observe all religious
rites, and dare not break them for fear of offending their gods; but
our simoniacal contractors, our senseless Achans, our stupefied
patrons, fear neither God nor devil, they have evasions for it, it is
no sin, or not due jure divino, or if a sin, no great sin, &c. And
though they be daily punished for it, and they do manifestly perceive,
that as he said, frost and fraud come to foul ends; yet as
[2046]Chrysostom follows it Nulla ex poena sit correctio, et quasi
adversis malitia hominum provocetur, crescit quotidie quod puniatur:
they are rather worse than better,—iram atque animos a crimine sumunt,
and the more they are corrected, the more they offend: but let them
take their course, [2047]Rode caper vites, go on still as they begin,
'tis no sin, let them rejoice secure, God's vengeance will overtake
them in the end, and these ill-gotten goods, as an eagle's feathers,
[2048] will consume the rest of their substance; it is [2049]aurum
Tholosanum, and will produce no better effects. [2050]Let them lay it
up safe, and make their conveyances never so close, lock and shut door,
saith Chrysostom, yet fraud and covetousness, two most violent thieves
are still included, and a little gain evil gotten will subvert the rest
of their goods. The eagle in Aesop, seeing a piece of flesh now ready
to be sacrificed, swept it away with her claws, and carried it to her
nest; but there was a burning coal stuck to it by chance, which
unawares consumed her young ones, nest, and all together. Let our
simoniacal church-chopping patrons, and sacrilegious harpies, look for
no better success.
A second cause is ignorance, and from thence contempt, successit odium
in literas ab ignorantia vulgi; which [2051]Junius well perceived: this
hatred and contempt of learning proceeds out of [2052]ignorance; as
they are themselves barbarous, idiots, dull, illiterate, and proud, so
they esteem of others. Sint Mecaenates, non deerunt Flacce Marones: Let
there be bountiful patrons, and there will be painful scholars in all
sciences. But when they contemn learning, and think themselves
sufficiently qualified, if they can write and read, scramble at a piece
of evidence, or have so much Latin as that emperor had, [2053]qui
nescit dissimulare, nescit vivere, they are unfit to do their country
service, to perform or undertake any action or employment, which may
tend to the good of a commonwealth, except it be to fight, or to do
country justice, with common sense, which every yeoman can likewise do.
And so they bring up their children, rude as they are themselves,
unqualified, untaught, uncivil most part. [2054]Quis e nostra juventute
legitime instituitur literis? Quis oratores aut Philosophos tangit?
quis historiam legit, illam rerum agendarum quasi animam? praecipitant
parentes vota sua, &c. 'twas Lipsius' complaint to his illiterate
countrymen, it may be ours. Now shall these men judge of a scholar's
worth, that have no worth, that know not what belongs to a student's
labours, that cannot distinguish between a true scholar and a drone? or
him that by reason of a voluble tongue, a strong voice, a pleasing
tone, and some trivially polyanthean helps, steals and gleans a few
notes from other men's harvests, and so makes a fairer show, than he
that is truly learned indeed: that thinks it no more to preach, than to
speak, [2055]or to run away with an empty cart; as a grave man said:
and thereupon vilify us, and our pains; scorn us, and all learning.
[2056] Because they are rich, and have other means to live, they think
it concerns them not to know, or to trouble themselves with it; a
fitter task for younger brothers, or poor men's sons, to be pen and
inkhorn men, pedantical slaves, and no whit beseeming the calling of a
gentleman, as Frenchmen and Germans commonly do, neglect therefore all
human learning, what have they to do with it? Let mariners learn
astronomy; merchants, factors study arithmetic; surveyors get them
geometry; spectacle-makers optics; land-leapers geography; town-clerks
rhetoric, what should he do with a spade, that hath no ground to dig;
or they with learning, that have no use of it? thus they reason, and
are not ashamed to let mariners, apprentices, and the basest servants,
be better qualified than themselves. In former times, kings, princes,
and emperors, were the only scholars, excellent in all faculties.
Julius Caesar mended the year, and writ his own Commentaries,
[2057]———media inter prealia semper,
Stellarum coelique plagis, superisque vacavit.
[2058]Antonius, Adrian, Nero, Seve. Jul. &c. [2059]Michael the emperor,
and Isacius, were so much given to their studies, that no base fellow
would take so much pains: Orion, Perseus, Alphonsus, Ptolomeus, famous
astronomers; Sabor, Mithridates, Lysimachus, admired physicians:
Plato's kings all: Evax, that Arabian prince, a most expert jeweller,
and an exquisite philosopher; the kings of Egypt were priests of old,
chosen and from thence,—Idem rex hominum, Phoebique sacerdos: but those
heroical times are past; the Muses are now banished in this bastard
age, ad sordida tuguriola, to meaner persons, and confined alone almost
to universities. In those days, scholars were highly beloved,
[2060]honoured, esteemed; as old Ennius by Scipio Africanus, Virgil by
Augustus; Horace by Meceanas: princes' companions; dear to them, as
Anacreon to Polycrates; Philoxenus to Dionysius, and highly rewarded.
Alexander sent Xenocrates the philosopher fifty talents, because he was
poor, visu rerum, aut eruditione praestantes viri, mensis olim regum
adhibiti, as Philostratus relates of Adrian and Lampridius of Alexander
Severus: famous clerks came to these princes' courts, velut in Lycaeum,
as to a university, and were admitted to their tables, quasi divum
epulis accumbentes; Archilaus, that Macedonian king, would not
willingly sup without Euripides, (amongst the rest he drank to him at
supper one night, and gave him a cup of gold for his pains) delectatus
poetae suavi sermone; and it was fit it should be so; because as
[2061]Plato in his Protagoras well saith, a good philosopher as much
excels other men, as a great king doth the commons of his country; and
again, [2062]quoniam illis nihil deest, et minime egere solent, et
disciplinas quas profitentur, soli a contemptu vindicare possunt, they
needed not to beg so basely, as they compel [2063]scholars in our times
to complain of poverty, or crouch to a rich chuff for a meal's meat,
but could vindicate themselves, and those arts which they professed.
Now they would and cannot: for it is held by some of them, as an axiom,
that to keep them poor, will make them study; they must be dieted, as
horses to a race, not pampered, [2064]Alendos volunt, non saginandos,
ne melioris mentis flammula extinguatur; a fat bird will not sing, a
fat dog cannot hunt, and so by this depression of theirs [2065]some
want means, others will, all want [2066]encouragement, as being
forsaken almost; and generally contemned. 'Tis an old saying, Sint
Mecaenates, non deerunt Flacce Marones, and 'tis a true saying still.
Yet oftentimes I may not deny it the main fault is in ourselves. Our
academics too frequently offend in neglecting patrons, as [2067]Erasmus
well taxeth, or making ill choice of them; negligimus oblatos aut
amplectimur parum aptos, or if we get a good one, non studemus mutuis
officiis favorem ejus alere, we do not ply and follow him as we should.
Idem mihi accidit Adolescenti (saith Erasmus) acknowledging his fault,
et gravissime peccavi, and so may [2068]I say myself, I have offended
in this, and so peradventure have many others. We did not spondere
magnatum favoribus, qui caeperunt nos amplecti, apply ourselves with
that readiness we should: idleness, love of liberty, immodicus amor
libertatis effecit ut diu cum perfidis amicis, as he confesseth, et
pertinaci pauperate colluctarer, bashfulness, melancholy, timorousness,
cause many of us to be too backward and remiss. So some offend in one
extreme, but too many on the other, we are most part too forward, too
solicitous, too ambitious, too impudent; we commonly complain deesse
Maecenates, of want of encouragement, want of means, when as the true
defect is in our own want of worth, our insufficiency: did Maecenas
take notice of Horace or Virgil till they had shown themselves first?
or had Bavius and Mevius any patrons? Egregium specimen dent, saith
Erasmus, let them approve themselves worthy first, sufficiently
qualified for learning and manners, before they presume or impudently
intrude and put themselves on great men as too many do, with such base
flattery, parasitical colloguing, such hyperbolical elogies they do
usually insinuate that it is a shame to hear and see. Immodicae laudes
conciliant invidiam, potius quam laudem, and vain commendations
derogate from truth, and we think in conclusion, non melius de laudato,
pejus de laudante, ill of both, the commender and commended. So we
offend, but the main fault is in their harshness, defect of patrons.
How beloved of old, and how much respected was Plato to Dionysius? How
dear to Alexander was Aristotle, Demeratus to Philip, Solon to Croesus,
Auexarcus and Trebatius to Augustus, Cassius to Vespasian, Plutarch to
Trajan, Seneca to Nero, Simonides to Hieron? how honoured?
[2069]Sed haec prius fuere, nunc recondita
Senent quiete,
those days are gone; Et spes, et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantum:
[2070] as he said of old, we may truly say now, he is our amulet, our
[2071]sun, our sole comfort and refuge, our Ptolemy, our common
Maecenas, Jacobus munificus, Jacobus pacificus, mysta Musarum, Rex
Platonicus: Grande decus, columenque nostrum: a famous scholar himself,
and the sole patron, pillar, and sustainer of learning: but his worth
in this kind is so well known, that as Paterculus of Cato, Jam ipsum
laudare nefas sit: and which [2072] Pliny to Trajan. Seria te carmina,
honorque aeternus annalium, non haec brevis et pudenda praedicatio
colet. But he is now gone, the sun of ours set, and yet no night
follows, Sol occubuit, nox nulla sequuta est. We have such another in
his room, [2073]aureus alter. Avulsus, simili frondescit virga metallo,
and long may he reign and flourish amongst us.
Let me not be malicious, and lie against my genius, I may not deny, but
that we have a sprinkling of our gentry, here and there one,
excellently well learned, like those Fuggeri in Germany; Dubartus, Du
Plessis, Sadael, in France; Picus Mirandula, Schottus, Barotius, in
Italy; Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto. But they are but few in
respect of the multitude, the major part (and some again excepted, that
are indifferent) are wholly bent for hawks and hounds, and carried away
many times with intemperate lust, gaming and drinking. If they read a
book at any time (si quod est interim otii a venatu, poculis, alea,
scortis) 'tis an English Chronicle, St. Huon of Bordeaux, Amadis de
Gaul, &c., a play-book, or some pamphlet of news, and that at such
seasons only, when they cannot stir abroad, to drive away time,
[2074]their sole discourse is dogs, hawks, horses, and what news? If
some one have been a traveller in Italy, or as far as the emperor's
court, wintered in Orleans, and can court his mistress in broken
French, wear his clothes neatly in the newest fashion, sing some choice
outlandish tunes, discourse of lords, ladies, towns, palaces, and
cities, he is complete and to be admired: [2075]otherwise he and they
are much at one; no difference between the master and the man, but
worshipful titles; wink and choose betwixt him that sits down (clothes
excepted) and him that holds the trencher behind him: yet these men
must be our patrons, our governors too sometimes, statesmen,
magistrates, noble, great, and wise by inheritance.
Mistake me not (I say again) Vos o Patritius sanguis, you that are
worthy senators, gentlemen, I honour your names and persons, and with
all submissiveness, prostrate myself to your censure and service. There
are amongst you, I do ingenuously confess, many well-deserving patrons,
and true patriots, of my knowledge, besides many hundreds which I never
saw, no doubt, or heard of, pillars of our commonwealth, [2076]whose
worth, bounty, learning, forwardness, true zeal in religion, and good
esteem of all scholars, ought to be consecrated to all posterity; but
of your rank, there are a debauched, corrupt, covetous, illiterate crew
again, no better than stocks, merum pecus (testor Deum, non mihi videri
dignos ingenui hominis appellatione) barbarous Thracians, et quis ille
thrax qui hoc neget? a sordid, profane, pernicious company,
irreligious, impudent and stupid, I know not what epithets to give
them, enemies to learning, confounders of the church, and the ruin of a
commonwealth; patrons they are by right of inheritance, and put in
trust freely to dispose of such livings to the church's good; but (hard
taskmasters they prove) they take away their straw, and compel them to
make their number of brick: they commonly respect their own ends,
commodity is the steer of all their actions, and him they present in
conclusion, as a man of greatest gifts, that will give most; no penny,
[2077]no paternoster, as the saying is. Nisi preces auro fulcias,
amplius irritas: ut Cerberus offa, their attendants and officers must
be bribed, feed, and made, as Cerberus is with a sop by him that goes
to hell. It was an old saying, Omnia Romae venalia (all things are
venal at Rome,) 'tis a rag of Popery, which will never be rooted out,
there is no hope, no good to be done without money. A clerk may offer
himself, approve his [2078]worth, learning, honesty, religion, zeal,
they will commend him for it; but [2079]probitas laudatur et alget. If
he be a man of extraordinary parts, they will flock afar off to hear
him, as they did in Apuleius, to see Psyche: multi mortales confluebant
ad videndum saeculi decus, speculum gloriosum, laudatur ab omnibus,
spectatur ob omnibus, nec quisquam non rex, non regius, cupidus ejus
nuptiarium petitor accedit; mirantur quidem divinam formam omnes, sed
ut simulacrum fabre politum mirantur; many mortal men came to see fair
Psyche the glory of her age, they did admire her, commend, desire her
for her divine beauty, and gaze upon her; but as on a picture; none
would marry her, quod indotato, fair Psyche had no money. [2080]So they
do by learning;
[2081]———didicit jam dives avarus
Tantum admirari, tantum laudare disertos,
Ut pueri Junonis avem———
Your rich men have now learn'd of latter days
T'admire, commend, and come together
To hear and see a worthy scholar speak,
As children do a peacock's feather.