Learning’s hope and support lie in Caesar alone.

What he said long ago, we may truly say now. He is our amulet, our sun, our only comfort and refuge, our Ptolemy, our common Maecenas: “James the generous, James the peacemaker, initiate of the Muses, a Platonic king; our great glory and support.” A renowned scholar himself, and the sole patron, pillar and sustainer of learning—

but his merit in this respect is so well known that, as Paterculus said of Cato, “it would now be wrong even to praise him”; and as Pliny said to Trajan, “Serious poetry and the everlasting honour of the annals will celebrate you, not this brief and shameful proclamation.” But he is now gone. Our sun has set, and yet no night follows:

The sun has set; no night has followed.

We have another such king in his place:

One golden bough torn away, another Springs into leaf with the same metal.

And long may he reign and flourish among us.

Let me not be malicious and belie my own disposition. I cannot deny that a sprinkling of our gentry, one here and another there, are exceptionally learned, like the Fuggers in Germany; Du Bartas, Du Plessis and Sadeel in France; Pico della Mirandola, Schottus and Barotius in Italy.

A few scattered swimmers appear in the vast whirlpool.

But they are few beside the multitude. Most—again excepting some of middling attainment—are wholly devoted to hawks and hounds, and often carried away by uncontrolled lust, gambling and drinking. If they ever read a book, “if meanwhile there is any leisure from hunting, drinking, dice and prostitutes”, it is an English chronicle, Sir Huon of Bordeaux, Amadis of Gaul, a playbook or some news pamphlet, and only when they cannot go out, to pass the time. Their only conversation is about dogs, hawks, horses—and what is the news?

If someone has travelled in Italy, or as far as the emperor’s court, spent a winter in Orléans, and can court his mistress in broken French, dress neatly in the latest fashion, sing a few choice foreign tunes and talk about lords, ladies, towns, palaces and cities, he is an accomplished gentleman, to be admired. Otherwise he and the rest are much alike: there is no difference between master and servant except their honourable titles. Shut your eyes and choose between the man who sits down to eat and the man who holds the platter behind him—apart from their clothes, there is nothing to choose. Yet these men must be our patrons, and sometimes our governors too: statesmen, magistrates, noble, great and wise by inheritance.

Do not misunderstand me, I say again: “You of patrician blood”, you worthy senators and gentlemen, I honour your names and persons, and submit myself most humbly to your judgement and service. Among you, I frankly acknowledge, are many deserving patrons and true patriots whom I know, besides, no doubt, many hundreds I have never seen or heard of: pillars of our commonwealth whose merit, generosity, learning, readiness to help, true religious zeal and esteem for all scholars ought to be honoured by every generation to come.

But within your ranks there is also a debauched, corrupt, greedy, unlearned crew, no better than blocks of wood, “mere cattle—I call God to witness that I do not consider them worthy of the name of freeborn men”—barbarous Thracians, “and what Thracian would deny this?” A sordid, profane, pernicious company, irreligious, shameless and stupid: I do not know what names to give them. They are enemies of learning, destroyers of the Church and the ruin of a commonwealth.

They are patrons by hereditary right, entrusted to grant such church livings freely for the Church’s good. But they prove harsh taskmasters: they take away the straw and compel the men to make their full tally of bricks. They commonly pursue their own ends; profit steers everything they do, and the man they finally nominate as having the greatest gifts is the one who will give most. “No penny, no Our Father,” as the saying goes.

“Unless you back your prayers with gold, you only provoke them further.” “As Cerberus with a morsel”: their attendants and officers must be bribed, paid and won over, as Cerberus is with a mouthful of food by the traveller going down to hell. The old saying was, “Everything at Rome is for sale.” It is a remnant of popery that will never be rooted out: there is no hope, no good to be achieved without money.

A clergyman may offer himself and prove his merit, learning, integrity, religion and zeal: they will commend him for it, but “honesty is praised and left out in the cold.” If he is a man of exceptional abilities, they will flock from afar to hear him, as people did in Apuleius to see Psyche:

“Many mortals flocked together to see the glory of the age, a glorious mirror. She is praised by everyone, gazed at by everyone; yet no one—not a king, not a prince—comes as a suitor eager to marry her. All indeed admire her divine beauty, but they admire it as they would a skilfully fashioned statue.”

Many mortal men came to see beautiful Psyche, the glory of her age. They admired her, praised her, desired her for her divine beauty and gazed at her—but as at a picture. None would marry her, “because she had no dowry”: beautiful Psyche had no money. So they treat learning.

The rich miser has now learned Only to admire, only to praise the eloquent, As boys admire Juno’s bird.

Your rich men have now lately learned To admire, commend and come together To hear and see a worthy scholar speak, As children admire a peacock’s feather.