negotii suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam respublica nec major, nec
sanctior, nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit; nec in quam tam sero
avaritia luxuriaque immigraverint; nec ubi tantus ac tam diu
paupertati ac parsimoniae honos fuerit. We see likewise, after that
the state of Rome was not itself, but did degenerate, how that
person that took upon him to be counsellor to Julius Caesar after
his victory where to begin his restoration of the state, maketh it
of all points the most summary to take away the estimation of
wealth: Verum haec et omnia mala pariter cum honore pecuniae
desinent; si neque magistratus, neque alia vulgo cupienda, venalia
erunt. To conclude this point: as it was truly said that Paupertas
est virtutis fortuna, though sometimes it come from vice, so it may
be fitly said that, though some times it may proceed from
misgovernment and accident. Surely Solomon hath pronounced it both
in censure, Qui festinat ad divitias non erit insons; and in
precept, "Buy the truth, and sell it not; and so of wisdom and
knowledge;" judging that means were to be spent upon learning, and
not learning to be applied to means. And as for the privateness or
obscureness (as it may be in vulgar estimation accounted) of life of
contemplative men, it is a theme so common to extol a private life,
not taxed with sensuality and sloth, in comparison and to the
disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, liberty, pleasure, and
dignity, or at least freedom from indignity, as no man handleth it
but handleth it well; such a consonancy it hath to men's conceits in
the expressing, and to men's consents in the allowing. This only I
will add, that learned men forgotten in states and not living in the
eyes of men, are like the images of Cassius and Brutus in the
funeral of Junia, of which, not being represented as many others
were, Tacitus saith, Eo ipso praefulgebant quod non visebantur.