III. (1) Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit or
diminution of credit that groweth unto learning from learned men
themselves, which commonly cleaveth fastest: it is either from
their fortune, or from their manners, or from the nature of their
studies. For the first, it is not in their power; and the second is
accidental; the third only is proper to be handled: but because we
are not in hand with true measure, but with popular estimation and
conceit, it is not amiss to speak somewhat of the two former. The
derogations therefore which grow to learning from the fortune or
condition of learned men, are either in respect of scarcity of
means, or in respect of privateness of life and meanness of
employments.

(2) Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men usually
to begin with little, and not to grow rich so fast as other men, by
reason they convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and increase,
it were good to leave the commonplace in commendation of povery to
some friar to handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in
this point when he said, "That the kingdom of the clergy had been
long before at an end, if the reputation and reverence towards the
poverty of friars had not borne out the scandal of the superfluities
and excesses of bishops and prelates." So a man might say that the
felicity and delicacy of princes and great persons had long since
turned to rudeness and barbarism, if the poverty of learning had not
kept up civility and honour of life; but without any such
advantages, it is worthy the observation what a reverent and
honoured thing poverty of fortune was for some ages in the Roman
state, which nevertheless was a state without paradoxes. For we see
what Titus Livius saith in his introduction: Caeterum aut me amor