much ravished with a few Greek authors restored to light, with hope and desire of enjoying the rest, that he exclaims forthwith, Arabibus atque Indis omnibus erimus ditiores, we shall be richer than all the Arabic or Indian princes; of such [3336]esteem they were with him, incomparable worth and value.  Seneca prefers Zeno and Chrysippus, two doting stoics (he was so much enamoured of their works), before any prince or general of an army; and Orontius, the mathematician, so far admires Archimedes, that he calls him Divinum et homine majorem, a petty god, more than a man; and well he might, for aught I see, if you respect fame or worth.  Pindarus, of Thebes, is as much renowned for his poems, as Epaminondas, Pelopidas, Hercules or Bacchus, his fellow citizens, for their warlike actions; et si famam respicias, non pauciores Aristotelis quam Alexandri meminerunt (as Cardan notes), Aristotle is more known than Alexander; for we have a bare relation of Alexander’s deeds, but Aristotle, totus vivit in monumentis, is whole in his works:  yet I stand not upon this; the delight is it, which I aim at, so great pleasure, such sweet content there is in study. [3337]King James, 1605, when he came to see our University of Oxford, and amongst other edifices now went to view that famous library, renewed by Sir Thomas Bodley, in imitation of Alexander, at his departure brake out into that noble speech, If I were not a king, I would be a university man:  [3338] “and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library, and to be chained together with so many good authors et mortuis magistris.”  So sweet is the delight of study, the more learning they have (as he that hath a dropsy, the more he drinks the thirstier he is) the more they covet to learn, and the last day is prioris discipulus; harsh at first learning is, radices amarcae, but fractus dulces, according to that of Isocrates, pleasant at last; the longer they live, the more they are enamoured with the Muses.  Heinsius, the keeper of the library at Leyden in Holland, was mewed up in it all the year long:  and that which to thy thinking should have bred a loathing, caused in him a greater liking. [3339]"I no sooner” (saith he) “come into the library, but I bolt the door to me, excluding lust, ambition, avarice, and all such vices, whose nurse is idleness, the mother of ignorance, and melancholy herself, and in the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat, with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity all our great ones, and rich men that know not this happiness.”  I am not ignorant in the meantime (notwithstanding this which I have said) how barbarously and basely, for the most part, our ruder gentry esteem of libraries and books, how they neglect and contemn so great a treasure, so inestimable a benefit, as Aesop’s cock did the jewel he found in the dunghill; and all