and felicity, imitating none, and inimitable by any.  And as in your civil estate there appeareth to be an emulation and contention of your Majesty’s virtue with your fortune; a virtuous disposition with a fortunate regiment; a virtuous expectation (when time was) of your greater fortune, with a prosperous possession thereof in the due time; a virtuous observation of the laws of marriage, with most blessed and happy fruit of marriage; a virtuous and most Christian desire of peace, with a fortunate inclination in your neighbour princes thereunto:  so likewise in these intellectual matters there seemeth to be no less contention between the excellency of your Majesty’s gifts of Nature and the universality and perfection of your learning.  For I am well assured that this which I shall say is no amplification at all, but a positive and measured truth; which is, that there hath not been since Christ’s time any king or temporal monarch which hath been so learned in all literature and erudition, divine and human.  For let a man seriously and diligently revolve and peruse the succession of the Emperors of Rome, of which Caesar the Dictator (who lived some years before Christ) and Marcus Antoninus were the best learned, and so descend to the Emperors of Graecia, or of the West, and then to the lines of France, Spain, England, Scotland, and the rest, and he shall find this judgment is truly made.  For it seemeth much in a king if, by the compendious extractions of other men’s wits and labours, he can take hold of any superficial ornaments and shows of learning, or if he countenance and prefer learning and learned men; but to drink, indeed, of the true fountains of learning—­nay, to have such a fountain of learning in himself, in a king, and in a king born—­is almost a miracle.  And the more, because there is met in your Majesty a rare conjunction, as well of divine and sacred literature as of profane and human; so as your Majesty standeth invested of that triplicity, which in great veneration was ascribed to the ancient Hermes:  the power and fortune of a king, the knowledge and illumination of a priest, and the learning and universality of a philosopher.  This propriety inherent and individual attribute in your Majesty deserveth to be expressed not only in the fame and admiration of the present time, nor in the history or tradition of the ages succeeding, but also in some solid work, fixed memorial, and immortal monument, bearing a character or signature both of the power of a king and the difference and perfection of such a king.

Therefore I did conclude with myself that I could not make unto your Majesty a better oblation than of some treatise tending to that end, whereof the sum will consist of these two parts:  the former concerning the excellency of learning and knowledge, and the excellency of the merit and true glory in the augmentation and propagation thereof; the latter, what the particular acts and works are which have been embraced and undertaken for the advancement of learning; and again, what defects and undervalues I find in such particular acts:  to the end that though I cannot positively or affirmatively advise your Majesty, or propound unto you framed particulars, yet I may excite your princely cogitations to visit the excellent treasure of your own mind, and thence to extract particulars for this purpose agreeable to your magnanimity and wisdom.