ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound
these learnings together.

II. (1) And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from
politics, they be of this nature: that learning doth soften men's
minds, and makes them more unapt for the honour and exercise of
arms; that it doth mar and pervert men's dispositions for matter of
government and policy, in making them too curious and irresolute by
variety of reading, or too peremptory or positive by strictness of
rules and axioms, or too immoderate and overweening by reason of the
greatness of examples, or too incompatible and differing from the
times by reason of the dissimilitude of examples; or at least, that
it doth divert men's travails from action and business, and bringeth
them to a love of leisure and privateness; and that it doth bring
into states a relaxation of discipline, whilst every man is more
ready to argue than to obey and execute. Out of this conceit Cato,
surnamed the Censor, one of the wisest men indeed that ever lived,
when Carneades the philosopher came in embassage to Rome, and that
the young men of Rome began to flock about him, being allured with
the sweetness and majesty of his eloquence and learning, gave
counsel in open senate that they should give him his despatch with
all speed, lest he should infect and enchant the minds and
affections of the youth, and at unawares bring in an alteration of
the manners and customs of the state. Out of the same conceit or
humour did Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage of his country
and the disadvantage of his own profession, make a kind of
separation between policy and government, and between arts and
sciences, in the verses so much renowned, attributing and
challenging the one to the Romans, and leaving and yielding the
other to the Grecians: Tu regere imperio popules, Romane, memento,