If gentlemen wil not trauel and professe _physicke_, let them feele the price of ignorance, and punish their carcasses besides the consumption of their cofers, as all learning being refused by them hath no other way to reueng her selfe, then only to leaue them to ignorance, which will still attend to flatter and fawne there where small stuffing is, and that which is most miserable, bycause themselues see it not, will cause them selues to be their owne _Gnatoes_, a most vnproper part, to be seene vpon a stage, when the same person plaieth _Thraso_, and answereth himselfe, as if he were two. Were it not most honorable for them to see these effectes in their owne persons? _singuler knowledge_ where studie is for knowledge and knowledge for no neede? _liberall execution_, where desire to do good, and good for gramercie be the true ends of most honour? where the promises from heauen, the princes vpon earth, the perpetuall prayer, and neuer dying prayse of the profited people will remember, and requite that honorable labour, so honestly employed, that fortunate reuenew so blessedly bestowed, not for priuate pleasure, but for common profit?
Albeit there is one note here necessarily to be obserued in yong _gentlemen_ that it were a great deale better that they had no learning at all and knew their owne ignorance, then any litle smattering, vnperfit in his kinde, and fleeting in their heades. For their knowne ignorance doth but harme them selues, where other that be cunning may supply their rowmes: but their vnripe learning though pretie in the degree, and very like to haue proued good, if it had taryed the pulling, and hung the full haruest, doth keepe such a rumbling in their heades, as it will not suffer them to rest, such a wonder it is to see the quickesiluer. For the greatnes of their place emboldeneth the rash vnripenes of their studie, in what degree so euer it be, whether in not digesting that which they haue read, or in not reading sufficiently, or in chusing of absurdities to seeme to be able to defende where their state makes them spared, and meaner mens regard doth procure them reuerence, though their rashnes be seene, or in not resting vpon any one thing, but desultorie ouer all. A matter that may seeme to be somewhat in scholes, euen amongst good scholers: and very much in that state, where least learning is conmonly best liked, though best learning be most aduanced, when it ioynes with birth in sowndnes, and admiration. As the contrary troubleth all the world, with most peruerse opinions, beginning at the insufficient, though stout _gentleman_, and so marching forward still among such, as make more account of the person whence the ground comes, then of the reason which the thing carieth. Wherefore to conclude, I wish yong _gentlemen_ to be better then the common in the best kinde of learning, as their meane to come to it, is euery way better. I wish them in exercise, and the frutes thereof to be their defendours, bycause they are able to beare out the charge, wherevnder the common of necessitie must shrinke: That both those wayes they may helpe their countrie in all needes, and themselues, to all honour.