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A SCHOLAR TURNED COMMANder.

from Socrates' school into Asia, in the expedition of Cyrus the younger against King Artaxerxes. This Xenophon at that time was very young, and never had seen the wars before; neither had any command in the army, 5 but only followed the war as a voluntary, for the love and conversation of Proxenus his friend. He was present when Falinus came in message from the great king to the Grecians, after that Cyrus was slain in the field, and they a handful of men left to themselves in the midst of To the king's territories, cut off from their country by many navigable rivers and many hundred miles. The message imported that they should deliver up their arms, and submit themselves to the king's mercy. To which message before answer was made, divers of the army conferred 15 familiarly with Falinus, and amongst the rest Xenophon happened to say, 'Why, Falinus, we have now but these two things left, our arms and our virtue; and if we yield up our arms, how shall we make use of our virtue?' Whereto Falinus, smiling on him, said, 'If I be not deceived, young gentleman, you are an Athenian, and I believe you study philosophy, and it is pretty that you say; but you are much abused if you think your virtue can withstand the king's power.' Here was the scorn. The wonder followed; which was that this young scholar 25 or philosopher, after all the captains were murdered in parley by treason, conducted those ten thousand foot through the heart of all the king's high countries from Babylon to Grecia in safety, in despite of all the king's forces, to the astonishment of the world, and the encouragement 30 of the Grecians in time succeeding to make invasion upon the kings of Persia; as was after purposed by Jason the Thessalian, attempted by Agesilaus the Spartan, and achieved by Alexander the Macedonian, all upon the ground of the act of that young scholar.

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To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to

LEARNING MOULDS CHARACTER.

moral and private virtue. First, it is an assured truth which is contained in the verses :

'Tis learning's boon, the gift of liberal art,

To soften manners, and refine the heart.1

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[To have thoroughly studied the liberal arts, softens the 5 manners, and suffers them not to be brutal.] It taketh away the wildness and barbarism and fierceness of men's minds; but indeed the accent had need be upon 'fideliter' [thoroughly], for a little superficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away all levity, temerity, 10 and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and to accept of nothing but examined and tried. It taketh away vain admiration of anything, 15 which is the root of all weakness. For all things are admired, either because they are new, or because they are great. For novelty, no man that wadeth in learning or contemplation thoroughly, but will find that printed. in his heart, There is nothing new on the earth.2 20 Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that goeth behind the curtain and adviseth well of the motion. And for magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after that he was used to great armies and the great conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received letters 25 out of Greece of some fights and services there, which were commonly for a passage, or a fort, or some walled town at the most, he said, 'It seemed to him that he was advertised of the battles of the frogs and the mice, that the old tales went of.' So certainly, if a man medi

1 Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes,
Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.

Nil novi super terram.

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tate much upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it- the divineness of souls except - will not seem much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go 5 empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust. It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death or adverse fortune, which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue and imperfections of manners. For if a man's mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of the mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily concur with Epictetus, who went forth one day and saw a woman weeping for her pitcher of earth that was broken, and went forth the next day, and saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead; and thereupon said, Yesterday I saw a 15 brittle thing broken, to-day a mortal dead. And therefore did Virgil excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of causes and the conquest of all fears together, as concomitants.2

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Happy the man who doth the causes know
Of all that is; serene he stands, above

All fears; above the inexorable Fate,

And that insatiate gulf that roars below.3

It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning doth minister to all the diseases of the 25 mind, sometimes purging the ill humors, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping digestion, sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the like; and therefore I will conclude with that which hath the sum of the whole mat

1 Heri vidi fragilem frangi, hodie vidi mortalem mori.

2 Concomitantia.

8 Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,

Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum

Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.

IGNORANT

GROWTH IMPOSSIBLE TO THE IG

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ter, which is that it disposeth the constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in the defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of growth and reformation. For the unlearned man knows not what it is to descend into himself, or to call himself to account, nor the pleas- 5 are of that happiest of experiences, to feel oneself each day a better man than he was the day before. The good parts he hath he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexterously, but not much to increase them; the faults he hath, he will learn how to hide and color them, but 10 not much to amend them, like an ill mower, that mows on still, and never whets his scythe. Whereas with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix the correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employment thereof. Nay further, in general and in 15 sum, certain it is that truth and goodness* differ but as the seal and the print; for truth prints goodness, and they be the clouds of error which descend in the storms of passions and perturbations.

From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power 20 and commandment, and consider whether in right reason there be any comparable with that wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth man's nature. We see the dignity of the commandment is according to the dignity of the commanded. To have commandment over beasts, as 25 herdsmen have, is a thing contemptible; to have commandment over children, as schoolmasters have, is a matter of small honor; to have commandment over galley-slaves is a disparagement rather than an honor. Neither is the commandment of tyrants much better, 30 over people which have put off the generosity of their

1 Rationem totius.

2 Suavissima vita, indies sentire se fieri meliorem.

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DIGNITY OF RULE OVER THE REASON.

minds; and therefore it was ever holden that honors in free monarchies and commonwealths had a sweetness more than in tyrannies, because the commandment extendeth more over the wills of men, and not only over 5 their deeds and services. And therefore when Virgil putteth himself forth to attribute to Augustus Cæsar the best of human honors, he doth it in these words:

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Moving in conquest onward, at his will

To willing peoples he gives laws, and shapes

Through worthiest deeds on earth his course to Heaven.1

But yet the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment over the will; for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth 15 law to the will itself. For there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of estate in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning! And therefore we see thể detestable and extreme pleasure that 20 arch-heretics and false prophets and impostors are transported with, when they once find in themselves that they have a superiority in the faith and conscience of men; so great, that if they have once tasted of it, it is seldom seen that any torture or persecution can make them relinquish 25 or abandon it. But as this is that which the author of the Revelation calleth the depth or profoundness of Satan, so, by argument of contraries, the just and lawful sovereignty over men's understanding, by force of truth rightly interpreted, is that which approacheth nearest to the similitude 30 of the divine rule.

As for fortune and advancement, the beneficence of learning is not so confined to give fortune only to states

1 Victorque volentes

Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo.

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