. . thai mai get no vaunsyng
Without symony.
[52.] Compare Chaucer: ‘wherfore, as seith Senek, ther is nothing more covenable to a man of heigh estate than debonairté and pité; and therfore thise flies than men clepen bees, whan thay make here king, they chesen oon that hath no pricke wherwith he may stynge.’—Persones Tale, Poet. Works, ed. Morris, iii. 301.
[53.] Ascham complains of the harm that rich men’s sons did in his time at Cambridge. Writing to Archbp. Cranmer in 1545, he complains of two gravissima impedimenta to their course of study: (1.) that so few old men will stop up to encourage study by their example; (2.) “quod illi fere omnes qui hue Cantabrigiam confluunt, pueri sunt, divitumque filii, et hi etiam qui nunquam inducunt animum suum, ut abundanti aliqua perfectaque eruditione perpoliantur, sed ut ad alia reipublicæ munera obeunda levi aliqua et inchoata cognitione paratiores efficiantur. Et hic singularis quædam injuria bifariam academiæ intentata est; vel quia hoc modo omnis expletæ absolutæque doctrinæ spes longe ante messem, in ipsa quasi herbescenti viriditate, præciditur; vel quia omnis pauperum inopumque expectatio, quorum ætates omnes in literarum studio conteruntur, ab his fucis eorum sedes occupantibus, exclusa illusaque præripitur. Ingenium, enim, doctrina, inopia judicium, nil quicquam domi valent, ubi gratia, favor, magnatum literæ, et aliæ persimiles extraordinariæ illegitimæque rationes vim foris adferunt. Hinc quoque illud accedit incommodum, quod quidam prudentes viri nimis ægre ferunt partem aliquam regiæ pecuniæ in collegiorum socios inpartiri; quasi illi non maxime indigeant, aut quasi ulla spes perfectæ eruditionis in ullis aliis residere potest, quam in his, qui in perpetuo literarum studio perpetuum vitæ suæ tabernaculum collocarunt.” Ed. Giles, i. p. 69-70. See also p. 121-2.
[54.] Antea enim Cornelius Vitellius, homo Italus Corneli, quod est maritimum Hetruriæ Oppidum, natus nobili Prosapia, vir optimus gratiosusque, omnium primus Oxonii bonas literas docuerat. [Pol. Verg. lib. xxvi.]
[55.] Ante annos ferme triginta, nihil tradebatur in schola Cantabrigiensi, præter Alexandri Parva Logicalia, ut vocant, & vetera illa Aristotelis dictata, Scoticasque Quæstiones. Progressu temporis accesserunt bonæ literæ; accessit Matheseos Cognitio; accessit novus, aut certe novatus, Aristoteles; accessit Græcarum literarum peritia; accesserunt Autores tam multi, quorum olim ne nomina quidem tenebantur, &c. [Erasmi Epist. Henrico Bovillo, Dat. Roffæ Cal. Sept. 1516.]
[56.] Sir John Fortescue’s description of the study of law at Westminster and in the Inns of Chancery is in chapters 48-9 of his De laudibus legum Angliæ.
Mores habent barbarus, Latinus et Græcus;
Si sacerdos, ut plebs est, cæcum ducit cæcus: