As for the accusation of Socrates, the
time must be remembered when it was prosecuted; which was under the
Thirty Tyrants, the most base, bloody, and envious persons that have
governed; which revolution of state was no sooner over but Socrates,
whom they had made a person criminal, was made a person heroical,
and his memory accumulate with honours divine and human; and those
discourses of his which were then termed corrupting of manners, were
after acknowledged for sovereign medicines of the mind and manners,
and so have been received ever since till this day. Let this,
therefore, serve for answer to politiques, which in their humorous
severity, or in their feigned gravity, have presumed to throw
imputations upon learning; which redargution nevertheless (save that
we know not whether our labours may extend to other ages) were not
needful for the present, in regard of the love and reverence towards
learning which the example and countenance of two so learned
princes, Queen Elizabeth and your Majesty, being as Castor and
Pollux, lucida sidera, stars of excellent light and most benign
influence, hath wrought in all men of place and authority in our
nation.
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