l, that I make great doubt how they shall be
maintained, or who shall be their patients. Besides, there are so many of
both sorts, and some of them such harpies, so covetous, so clamorous, so
impudent; and as [2026]he said, litigious idiots,

"Quibus loquacis affatim arrogantiae est
Pentiae parum aut nihil,
Nec ulla mica literarii salis,
Crumenimulga natio:
Loquuteleia turba, litium strophae,
Maligna litigantium cohors, togati vultures,"

"Lavernae alumni, Agyrtae," &c.

"Which have no skill but prating arrogance,
No learning, such a purse-milking nation:
Gown'd vultures, thieves, and a litigious rout
Of cozeners, that haunt this occupation,"

that they cannot well tell how to live one by another, but as he jested in
the Comedy of Clocks, they were so many, [2027]_major pars populi arida
reptant fame_, they are almost starved a great part of them, and ready to
devour their fellows, [2028]_Et noxia callidilate se corripere_, such a
multitude of pettifoggers and empirics, such impostors, that an honest man
knows not in what sort to compose and behave himself in their society, to
carry himself with credit in so vile a rout, _scientiae nomen, tot
sumptibus partum et vigiliis, profiteri dispudeat, postquam_, &c.

Last of all to come to our divines, the most noble profession and worthy of
double honour, but of all others the most distressed and miserable. If you
will not believe me, hear a brief of it, as it was not many years since
publicly preached at Paul's cross, [2029]by a grave minister then, and now
a reverend bishop of this land: "We that are bred up in learning, and
destinated by our parents to this end, we suffer our childhood in the
grammar-school, which Austin calls _magnam tyrannidem, et grave malum_, and
compares it to the torments of martyrdom; when we come to the university,
if we live of the college allowance, as Phalaris objected to the Leontines,
[Greek: pan ton endeis plaen limou kai phobou], needy of all things but
hunger and fear, or if we be maintained but partly by our parents' cost, do
expend in unnecessary maintenance, books and degrees, before we come to any
perfection, five hundred pounds, or a thousand marks. If by this price of
the expense of time, our bodies and spirits, our substance and patrimonies,
we cannot purchase those small rewards, which are ours by law, and the
right of inheritance, a p