He says that what the Grecians call 'Apotheosis,' and the Latins 'relatio inter dives,' was the supreme honour which man could attribute unto man, and observes, that whereas founders, uniters of states, lawgivers, and the like, were honoured by the ancients with the titles of worthies or demi-gods, the inventors of new arts, endowments, and commodities towards man's life, were consecrated among the gods themselves.

He says that under learned princes and governors there have been ever the best times, and cites as illustrations the Roman emperors, from the death of Domitian until the reign of Commodus-Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius, Lucius Commodus Verus, and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. As to our Queen Elizabeth, he says: "If Plutarch were now alive to write lives by parallels, it would trouble him, I think, to find for her a parallel amongst women." He then proceeds to show that the influence of learning is not confined to civil merit and moral virtue, but extends to martial virtue and prowess, and quotes Alexander the Great, the pupil of Aristotle, Julius Cæsar, and Xenophon, as instances, respecting each of whom he mentions several interesting facts.

He says that "There is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of state in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning"; and that "the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning far surpasseth all other in nature"; that "Of knowledge there is no satiety, but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable"; and that "By learning, man excelleth man in that wherein man excelleth beasts."

SECOND BOOK.

Bacon says: "It remaineth to consider of what kind those acts are which have been undertaken and performed by kings and others for the increase and advancement of learning." He asserts that: "All works are overcome by amplitude of reward,

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by soundness of direction, and by the conjunction of labours"; that: "The work or acts of merit towards learning are conversant about three objects-the places of learning, the books of learning, and the persons of the learned," each of which he discusses. He says that he finds it strange that all the colleges in Europe are dedicated to professions, and none left free to arts and sciences at large, and contends that the neglect of fundamental general principles has mainly hindered the progress of learning; he advocates free high-class education, says that the salaries are not sufficient to secure the services of the best men as professors; urges the necessity of expenditure on experiments; complains of the want of interest shown by the governors of the universities in their working, the consequence being that antiquated usages and orders were still in force, as for example, that logic and rhetoric, fitter for graduates than novices, were taught to mere children, with the necessary consequence that those, the gravest of sciences, had degenerated into childish sophistry and ridiculous affectation. He complains of the neglect of subjects to cultivate the memory and invention, and which fit the scholars to the duties of life; he laments the want of a bond of union between all the European universities, inasmuch as they have all one common object, and suggests that for those branches of knowledge that have been neglected or insufficiently dealt with, inquirers and writers should be maintained at the public charge. As to those neglected subjects, he says: "The endeavours of a private man may be but as an image in a cross-way; that may point at the way, but cannot go He then proposes to himself a general survey of the field of knowledge, for the purpose of ascertaining what parts have been well cultivated, but imperfectly cultivated, or left wholly uncultivated. He says, however, that he is only going to refer to the omissions and deficiencies, "for it is one thing to set forth what ground lieth unmanured, and another thing to correct ill-husbandry in that which is manured.” To those who may urge impossibility, he says: "I take it those

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things are to be held possible which may be done by some person, though not by everyone, and which may be done by many though not by anyone." He divides human learning into three branches; says that man's understanding is the seat of learning, that history appeals to his memory, poesy to his imagination, philosophy to his reason, and that divine learning is distributable in like manner.

He divides history into natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary. He finds the first three extant, the fourth deficient, which he deplores, and says: "For it is not St. Augustine's nor St. Ambrose's works that will make so wise a divine as ecclesiastical history, thoroughly read and observed; and the same reason is of learning."

He divides the history of nature into three branches, i.e., history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts. He finds the first extant, and in good perfection; the last two, handled weakly and unprofitably. He observes that: “As it is not yet known in what cases, and how far, effects attributed to superstition do participate of natural causes, therefore, howsoever the practice of such things is to be condemned, yet, from the speculation and consideration of them, light may be taken not only for the discerning of the offences, but for the further disclosing of nature." "It often cometh to pass,” he says, "that mean and small things discover the great, better than great can discover the small;" and therefore Aristotle noteth well that "The nature of everything is best seen in its smallest portions." And for that cause he enquireth the nature of a commonwealth, first in a family, and the simple conjugations of man and wife, parent and child, master and servant, which are in every cottage.

He says that civil history is of three kinds, i.e., memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities. He divides memorials into commentaries and registers. He says: "History, which may be called just and perfect history, is of three kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth or pretendeth to represent;

for it either representeth a time, or a person, or an action. The first we call chronicles, the second lives, and the third narrations or relations." He says: "It is in vain to note the heathen antiquities for deficient; deficient they are, no doubt, consisting most of fables and fragments, but the deficiencies cannot be holpen." He regrets that there is no perfect course of history for Græcia, from Theseus to Philopomen, incorporating the text of Thucydides and Zenophon; and for Rome, from Romulus to Justinianus, incorporating the texts of Livius, Polybius, Sallustius, Cæsar, Appianus, Tacitus, and Herodianus.

Of modern histories, he regarded the greater part as beneath mediocrity; says that there is no worthy history of England; complains of the partiality and obliquity of the largest and latest work on the history of Scotland; and suggests as an excellent theme, in the absence of a more comprehensive undertaking, the study of the period in English history dating from the uniting of the roses to the uniting of the kingdoms.

He says:- "For lives, I do find it strange that these times have so little esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the writing of lives should be no more frequent. For narrations and relations of particular actions, there were also to be wished a greater diligence therein, for there is no great action but hath some good pen which attends it. And because it is an ability not common to write a good history, as may well appear by the small number of them: yet, if particularity of actions memorable were but tolerably reported as they pass, the compiling of a more complete history of times might be better expected when a writer should arise that were fit for it: for the collection of such relations might be as a nursery garden, whereby to plant a fair and stately garden when time should serve." He commends annals and journals, and refers with approbation to Cornelius Tacitus. He says that- "The history of cosmography is the part of learning of all others which, in this latter time, hath obtained more proficience. For it

may be truly affirmed to the honour of these times, and in a virtuous emulation with antiquity, that this great building of the world had never thorough lights made in it till the age of us and our fathers." He says:-"This proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant also an expectation of the further proficience and augmentation of all sciences."

He says that history ecclesiastical is susceptible of the same divisions as history civil, but that it may also be divided into the history of the church, the history of prophecy, and the history of providence. As to the first he says:-"This part I ought in no sort to note as deficient; only I would that the virtue and sincerity of it were according to the mass and quantity." As to prophecy, and the accomplishment, he says :- "This is a work which I find deficient; but it is to be done with wisdom, sobriety, and reverence, or not at all.”

Orations, letters, and brief speeches or sayings, he styles appendices to history: concerning which he has no deficiencies to propound.

Poesy he says refers to the imagination, it being feigned history invented by man to satisfy his soul, because the acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth the mind of man; poesy feigneth acts and events, greater and more heroical. He says that poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation, and that it has had access and estimation where other learning stood excluded. He divides it into narrative, representative, and allusive or parabolical, and says that, as hieroglyphics were before letters, so parables were before argument. He says that parable has at all times retained much life and vigour, because reason cannot be so sensible, nor examples so fit. He observes that parable has not merely been employed to enlighten, but to obscure, e.g., where the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, or philosophy are involved in fables or parables. Bacon's "Wisdom of the Ancients" is possibly the best existing exponent of this doctrine. He says that Homer was not the inventor of many of the fables in his poems.