Now because they are commonly subject to such hazards, and inconveniences, as dotage, madness, simplicity, &c. Io. Voschius would have good Schollers to be highly rewarded, and had in some extraordinary respect above other men, to have greater priviledges than the rest, that adventure themselves and abbreviate their lives for the publike good.

But our Patrons of Learning are so far now adays, from respecting the Muses, and giving that honor to Scholars, or reward which they deserve, and are allowed by those indulgent priviledges of many noble Princes, that after all their pains taken in the Universities, cost and charge, expences, irksom hours, laborious tasks, wearisome days, dangers, hazards, (barred interim from all pleasures which other men have, mewed up like Hawks all their lives) in they chance to wade through them, they shall in the end be rejected, contemned, and which is their greatest misery, driven to their shifts, exposed to want, poverty, and beggery. Their familiar attendants are,

Pallentes morbi, luctus, curæque laborque Et metus, & malesuada fames, & turpis egestas, Terribiles visu formæ——

Grief, labor, care, pale sickness, miseries, Fear, filthy poverty, hunger that cries, Terrible Monsters to be seen with eyes.

If there were nothing else to trouble them, the conceit of this alone were enough to make them all melancholy. Most other Trades and Professions after some seven years Prentiship, are enabled by their Craft to live of themselves. A Merchant adventures his goods at sea, and though his hazard be great, yet if one Ship return of four, he likely makes a saving Voyage.

An Husbandmans gains are almost certain; quibus ipse Iupiter nocere non potest (’tis Cato’s Hyperbole, a great husband himself;) onely Schollers methinks are most uncertain, unrespected, subject to all casualties, and hazards. For first, not one of a many proves to be a Scholler, all are not capable and docile, ex omni ligno non fit Mercurius:

we can make Majors and Officers every year, but not Scholars: Kings can invest Knights and Barons, as Sigismond the Emperor confessed; Universities can give degrees; and Tu quod es, è populo quilibet esse potest: but he nor they, nor all the world can give Learning, make Philosophers, Artists, Orators, Poets;

we can soon say, as Seneca well notes, O virum bonum, ô divitem, point at a rich man, a good, an happy man, a proper man, sumptuosè vestitum, Calamistratum, bene olentem, magno temporis impendio constat hæc laudatio, ô virum literarum, but tis not so easily performed to finde to out a learned man. Learning is not so quickly got, though they may be willing to take pains, to that end sufficiently informed, and liberally maintained by their Patrons and Parents, yet few can compass it.

Or if they be docile, yet all mens wills are not answerable to their wits, they can apprehend, but will not take pains; they are either seduced by bad companions, vel in puellam impingunt, vel in poculum, and so spend their time to their friends grief and their own undoings.

Or put case they be studious, industrious, of ripe wits, and perhaps good capacities, then how many diseases of body and minde must they encounter? No labor in the world like unto study. It may be, their temperature will not endure it, but striving to be excellent to know all, they lose health, wealth, wit, life and all.

Let him yet happily escape all these hazards, æreis intestinis, with a body of brass, and is now consummate and ripe, he hath profited in his studies, and proceeded with all applause: after many expences, he is fit for preferment, where shall he have it? he is as far to seek it as he was (after twenty years standing) at the first day of his coming to the University.

For what course shall he take, being now capable and ready? The most parable and easie, and about which many are imployed, is to teach a School, turn Lecturer or Curat, and for that he shall have Faulkners wages, ten pound per annum, and his diet, or some small stipend, so long as he can please his Patron or the Parish; if they approve him not (for usually they do but a year or two) as inconstant, as they that cryed Hosanna one day, and Crucifie him the other; Servingman like, he must go look a new Master: if they do, what is his reward?

Hoc quoque te manet ut pueros elementa docentem Occupet extremis in vicis alba senectus.

Like an Ass, he wears out his time for provender, and can shew a stum rod, togam tritam & laceram, saith Hædus, an old torn gown, an ensign of his infelicity, he hath his labor for his pain, a modicum to keep him till he be decrepit, and that is all. Grammaticus non est felix, &c.

If he be a trencher Chaplain in a Gentlemans house, as it befel Euphormio, after some seven years service, he may perchance have a Living to the halves, or some small Rectory with the mother of the maids at length, a poor kindswoman, or a crackt Chamber-maid, to have and to hold during the time of his life. But if he offend his good Patron, or displease his Lady Mistress in the mean time,

Ducetur Plantâ velut ictus ab Hercule Cacus, Poneturque foras, si quid tentaverit unquam Hiscere——

as Hercules did by Cacus, he shall be dragged forth of doors by the heels, away with him. If he bend his forces to some other studies, with an intent to be à secretis to some Noble man, or in such a place with an Embassador, he shall finde that these persons rise like Prentises one under another, and in so many Tradesmens shops, when the master is dead, the Foreman of the shop commonly steps in his place.