THE "CHANDOS CLASSICS."
BACON'S ESSAYS
INCLUDING HIS
MORAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS,
NAMELY
THE ESSAYS.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND i WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS.
EVIL.
ORNAMENTA RATIONALIA, OR
ELEGANT SENTENCES.
SHORT NOTES FOR CIVIL
CONVERSATION.
NEW ATLANTIS.
APOPHTHEGMS.
HISTORY OF HENRY VII.
,, HENRY VIII.
ELIZABETH.
WITH MEMOIR, NOTES, AND GLOSSARY.
LONDON AND NEW YORK
FREDERICK WARNE AND CO.
1892.
PREFACE.
IN this volume are combined with Bacon's world-famous Essays
his summary of learning as it was in his day — its then possessions
and its needs — a treatise which awoke the learned of Europe to an
earnest desire of improvement, and widely extended the reign of know
ledge ; his Wisdom of the Ancients, in which he finds a new and
remarkably ingenious sense (chiefly political) in the myths of the old
world ; his Atlantis, a dream of a new world ; his Life of Henry VII.
and historical fragments.
The Editor is indebted to Mr. Wright's edition for the reference to
St. Augustine (p. 2, note 2J, and for a reference to Juvenal in Essay 2,
p. 4, note 5.
The Scripture references are always given, as they vary from our
own translation, being taken from the Vulgate. Our present Bible
was published only in 1611, while the Essays appeared (ist edition) in
1597, and the Advancement of Learning in 1605. Slight differences
in the translation therefore appear, which make reference to both
versions desirable ; the Douay Bible is referred to as the translation
of the Latin Vulgate.
A large glossary has been added to the volume for those who may
wish to know the exact meaning of all Bacon's words, though, like
Shakespeare, he is
70.9456.
CONTENTS.
ESSAYS
PAG5
DEDICATION ....
I
XXX.
OF REGIMENT O7
I.
OF TRUTH
t .
I
HEALTH .
58
II.
OF DEATH .
3
XXXI.
OF SUSPICION . .
60
III.
OF UNITY IN RELI
XXXII.
OF DISCOURSE .
60
GION
.
4
XXXIII.
OF PLANTATIONS . .
62
IV.
OF REVENGE .
<
7
XXXIV.
OF RICHES
64
V.
OF ADVERSITY .
8
XXXV.
OF PROPHECIES . .
66
VI.
OF SIMULATION
AND
XXXVI.
OF AMBITION .
68
DISSIMULATION
9
XXXVII.
OF MASQUES AND
VII.
OF PARENTS
AND
TRIUMPHS . . .
70
CHILDREN
.
11
XXXVIII.
OF NATURE IN MEN .
7U
VIII.
OF MARRIAGE
AND
XXXIX.
OF CUSTOM AND EDU
SINGLE LIFE
.
12
CATION . . .
72
IX.
OF ENVY • ,<//•:
.
H
XL.
OF FORTUNE . .
73'
X.
OF LOVE . . ;
.
17
XLI.
OF USURY ... ,
75
XI.
OF GREAT PLACE
(
18
XLII.
OF YOUTH AND AGE.
77
XII.
OF BOLDNESS .
.
20
XLIII.
OF BEAUTY . . .
78
XIII.
OF GOODNESS,
AND
XLIV.
OF DEFORMITY .
79
GOODNESS OF NATURE
22
XLV
OF BUILDING . .
80
XIV.
OF NOBILITY
.
24
XLV(.
OF GARDENS
83
XV.
OF SEDITIONS
AND
XLV II.
OF NEGOTIATING . .
S7
TROUBLES .
, .
25
XLVIU^
OF FOLLOWERS AND
XVI.
OF ATHEISM
.
29
FRIENDS .
88
XVII.
OF SUPERSTITION
31
XLIX.
OF SUITORS . . .
89
XVIIL
OF TRAVEL .
.
32
L.
OF STUDIES
90
XIX.
OF EMPIRE
34
LI.
OF FACTION . . .
91
XX.
OF COUNSEL
.
37
LII.
OF CEREMONIES AND
XXI.
OF DELAYS
. .
40
RESPECTS .
92
XXII.
OF CUNNING
.
41
LIII.
OF PRAISE . . .
93
XXIII.
OF WISDOM FOR A
LIV.
OF VAIN GLORY
95
MAN'S SELF
43
LV.
OF HONOUR AND RE
XXIV.
OF INNOVATIONS .
.
44
PUTATION . . •,,
96
XXV.
OF DISPATCH .
.
45
LVI.
OF JUDICATURE . .
97'
XXVI.
OF SEEMING WISE
.
46
LVII.
OF ANGER
100
XXVII.
OF FRIENDSHIP
.
47
LVIII.
OF VICISSITUDE OF
XXVIII.
OF EXPENSE
.
52
THINGS . . .
101
XXIX.
OF THE TRUE GREAT-
LIX.
A FRAGMENT OF AN
NESS OF KINGDOMS
ESSAY ON FAME
105
AND ESTATES
. •
53
LX.
ON DEATH . . .
106
CONTENTS.
FAGB
ORNAMENTA RATIONALIA : OR ELEGANT SENTENCES . . .110
SHORT NOTES FOR CIVIL CONVERSATION , . , . . . n$
OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL 117
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE PROFICIENCE AND ADVANCEMENT OF
LEARNING
THE 1-RKFACE.
PAN, OR NATURE
CGELUM, OR BEGINNINGS
PROMETHEUS
PROTEUS, OR MATTER
CU>ID, OR ATOMS
cAtSANDRA, OR DIVINATION .
TYPHON, OR A REBEL
THE CYCLOPS, OR THE MINIS
TERS OF TERROR
NARCISSUS, OR SELF-LOVE .
PERSKUS, OR WAR
ENDYMION, OR A FAVOURITE
THE SISTER OF THE GIANTS,
OR FAME
ACTEON AND PENTHEUS, OR A
CURIOUS MAN
ORPHEUS, OR PHILOSOPHY
MEMNON, OR A YOUTH TOO
FORWARD .
TITHONUS, OR SATIETY
NEW ATLANTIS
A COLLECTION OF APOPHTHEGMS, NEW AND OLD . . . . ^Sc
THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF KING HENRY THE SEVENTH . 387
THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF KING HENRY THE EIGHTH . . 507
QUEEN ELIZABETH .......... 508
THE PRAISE OF HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES ^17
THE BEGINNING OF THE HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN , . .518
JULIUS CAESAR 521
AUGUSTUS C/I:SAR 2
277
277
JUNO'S SUITOR, OR BASENESS
/ /
306
t
280
DIOMED, OR ZEAL . . .
306
GS
284
DAEDALUS, OR MECHANICAL
. .
286
SKILL ... . .
308
.
--'293
ERICTHONIUS, OR IMPOSTURE
310
.
294
DEUCALION, OR RESTITUTION
310
AT I ON .
296
NEMESIS, OR THE VICISSITUDE
. .
297
OF THINGS . . . .
3"
: MINIS-
ACHELOUS, OR BATTLE .
312
.
298
DIONYSUS, OR BACCHUS . .
312
OVE . .
29S
ATA LAN TA AND HIPPOMENES,
.
299
OR GAIN ....
3'5
DURITE.
301
ICARUS AND SCYLLA AND
GIANTS,
CHARYBDIS, OR THE
302
MIDDLE WAY .
,?i6
JS, OR A
SPHINX, OR SCIENCE . . .
316
302
PROSERPINE, OR SPIRIT .
3i2
PIIY
3°3
METIS, OR COUNSEL . . .
321
HI TOO
THE SIRENS, OR PLEASURES .
321
.
3°S
THE RIVER STYX .
3-3
Y
306
GLOSSARY
52)
A BRIEF MEMOIR
OF
LORD BACON,
Fr.ANClS BACON was born January 22, 1560 (old style), at Yoik
House-, which stood at the end of Buckingham Street, Strand, on Lhe
banks of the Thames. One last vestige of it is still to be seen : the
fine water gate by Inigo Jones, which still stands by the gardens of
the Embankment. He was the youngest son of Sir Nicholas Bacon,
the first Lord Keeper of the Seals invested with the dignity and power
of a Lord Chancellor. Sir Nicholas was a learned and excellent man,
of remarkable prudence and integrity. Bacon's mother (Ann Cooke)
was also a woman of remarkable intelligence. She was the daughter
of Sir Anthony Cooke, who had been preceptor to Edward VI., and
who was celebrated for his ability as a classical scholar. His daughter
shared the erudition which the ladies of her period possessed ; could
read Greek, and ably translated from the Latin Bishop Jewel's Apology
for the Church of England. She also spoke and wrote well both
Italian and French.
Her sons were worthy of her. Anthony, though not possessed of
his brother's genius, appears to have been a clever and very excellent
person ; morally, perhaps Bacon's superior.
Francis gave early signs of his future turn for philosophical re
search. He broke his drums and trumpets " to look for the sound " ;
he left some ordinary out-of-door sport to discover the cause of an
echo ; and at twelve years old, Macaulay tells us, " he busied himself
with ingenious speculations on the art of legerdemain."
Sir Nicholas Bacon was a favourite with Queen Elizabeth. His sen
relates that when Queen Elizabeth came 'to his house at Gormanbury,
she exclaimed — very rudely, we should say — u My lord, what a little
house you have gotten I" "Madam," replied the Lord Keeper, "my
house is well ; but it is you that have made me too great for my
house."
The Queen distinguished the Lord Keeper's gifted boy by her
especial notice, and asked him various questions, all of which he
answered so intelligently that she called him, laughing, her young
Keeper. Sh,e aslced him his age. The boy promptly replied
vi MEMOIR OF LORD BACON.
that he was two years younger than her Grace's happy reign. Here
was the readiness of wit and the apt flattery of the future Chancellor.
Bacon entered Trinity College, Cambridge, towards the close of his
thirteenth year, but as his father intended him for the diplomatic pro
fession he was removed from Cambridge at the age of sixteen without
having taken a degree, and was placed with Sir Amyas Paulet, the
Queen's ambassador at Paris. He was occasionally employed in
offices of trust, and finally settled at Poictiers, where he devoted three
years to study. He was recalled to England by the sudden death of
his father, who perished, as a certain king of Spain is said to have
died, through the over-reverent scruples of his attendant. He had
been under the hands of his barber, and the weather being very warm,
sat by an open window, where he fell asleep. He awoke chilled and
shivering.
" Why," said he to his servant, " did you suffer me to sleep thus
exposed ? "
The man answered that he durst not disturb him.
" Then," said the Lord Keeper, " by your civility I lose my life."
He retired to his bed-chamber, and died in a few days.
Sir Nicholas had set apart a considerable sum for his youngest and
favourite son, to purchase an estate for him ; but he had not willed it
to Francis, and in consequence of this sudden demise Bacon had only
his share of a sum left between him and his four brothers — the younger
children of Sir Nicholas's first marriage, and his own brother.
Bacon was now nineteen, and it became imperative on him to adopt
a profession for his support. He chose, rather from necessity than
preference, that of the law, and placed himself as a student in Gray's
Inn. For ten or twelve years he studied assiduously, and was named
by Elizabeth her counsel extraordinary. About this time he published
a sketch of his philosophical ideas, called the " Greatest Birth of
Time," but it fell silently from the press and proved an actual injury to
his future prospects.
His uncle, Lord Burleigh, was then Minister, and his influence ruled
his royal mistress. To him Bacon continually applied for some ap
pointment, which would help him, or open the door of advancement
to him. But Burleigh was utterly incapable of understanding his
gifted nephew ; and his son, Sir Robert Cecil, was probably jealous of
him, for both he and his father did their worst to injure him. Burleigh
assured the Queen that the " Greatest Birth of Time" was full of the
wildest dreams, and that Bacon was utterly unfit for business. ^ er-
haps, however, to silence his continued importuning, Burleigh soon
after gave his nephew the reversion of the office of Registrar of the
Star Chamber ; but as the place did not fall due till after the expira
tion of twenty years, Bacon had small cause to be grateful for it.
MEMOIR OF LORD BACON. vii
Bacon, unfortunately, helped his kinsmen in their endeavour to
bring him into disfavour with Elizabeth. He had been elected member
for Middlesex in 1 593, and his first speech on the assembling of Par
liament was in favour of law reform. The applause bestowed on it
seems to have incited him to further efforts ; and in a debate on the
subsidy demanded by the Queen he eloquently denounced it, and
declaimed upon the sufferings which such exactions must cause to the
inferior gentry. He carried his motion for an enquiry, and the anger
of his imperious sovereign at this thwarting of her will may be imagined.
She desired that Bacon might be told he should never receive favour
or preferment from her, nor should he enter her presence. In reply,
the too facile orator promised amendment, and
The Solicitor-General's place becoming vacant some time after,
Bacon applied for his uncle's influence to obtain it ; but Burleigh was
resolved never to advance so formidable a rival to his son, and, on
Bacon's bringing his case before the Queen, he was met by her anger
at his speech, and the prejudice instilled into her mind against him by
the Cecils.
Bacon then turned to the favourite of Elizabeth, and the enemy of
the Cecils — the Earl of Essex, who with generous ardour endeavoured
to assist him against them. But the Queen was jealous of the great
popularity of the young Earl after his expedition to Cadiz, and refused
obstinately to give the place to Bacon. Essex, vexed and mortified,
then resolved to bestow an independence on his friend out of his own
fortune, and insisted on his accepting Twickenham Park and its Gar
den of Paradise, then worth more, Bacon tells us, than ,£1,800— a
large sum in those days — the same land in the present time has been
valued at ,£100,000.
Bacon, thus set at ease in money matters — he was deeply in debt —
determined to show the world how false the Cecils's estimate of his
legal knowledge was, and wrote a treatise on the " Elements and Use
of Common Law," which at once answered its intended purpose.
In 1597 Bacon published h*5 most celebrated_and immnrta,! gnjjfj
" The Essays," and *' The Colours of Good and Evil," and at once his
geniuinSecame known to the world. " In Bacon's Essays," says
Dugald Stewart, " the superiority of his genius appears to the greatest
advantage, the novelty and depth of his reflections often receiving a
strong relief from the triteness of the subject. The volume may be
read from beginning to end in a few hours, and yet, after the twentieth,
one seldom fails to remark in it something overlooked before."
But, like his first unsuccessful work, this successful one was destined
to have an evil influence on his fortunes. He was a suitor to the
beautiful widow of Sir Christopher Hatton, and had, perhaps, some
hopes of success ; Kit, unluckily, the Essays fell into her hands, and
via MEMOIR OF LORD BACON.
she read the fatal words, " Great spirits and great businesses do keep
out this weak passion, i.e., love." Whether this tradition be true 01
not, it is certain that anyone reading the Essays must have seen how
little Bacon knew of the passion he professed.
The lady rejected him, and added to his mortification by marrying
his rival and enemy, old Sir Edward Coke, the Attorney -General.
Bacon now devoted himself to his legal work, and had soon won the
reputation of a great lawyer by his celebrated argument on perpetui
ties, which he published as a tract.
/ But now came the first of Bacon's great moral failures.
His generous friend, the EaiL of Essex, had been sent to Ireland by
Elizabeth to conduct the war against Tyrone. His conduct in this
position incurred blame from his sovereign (he had made an unjusti
fiable treaty with the Irish Rebel), and (betrayed, it is said, by a
stratagem of Cecil's), he left his post without the Queen's permission,
and rushed, unsummoned, into her presence. At that very time he
found his sovereign a visitor at the house at Twickenham which he
had given to Bacon — who by' his legal successes, his writings, and the
death of Burleigh, had regained Elizabeth's favour. Thus it was in
his house that the impetuous Earl came into the startled presence of
Elizabeth. The Queen received him coldly, and after some apparent
consideration ordered him to confine himself to his o\vn house, and
the Star Chamber to examine into his conduct. Bacon was retained
as council-extraordinary against hisjriend. At first he endeavoured
earnestly to effect a reconciliation between the favourite and the
Queen; but both of them distiw_led him, apparently, and, Lord
Macaulay says, " the reconciliation which Bacon had laboured to
effect appeared utterly hopeless." The stubborn pride of the Earl,
and the jealausxo[LEli_zabeth, rendered all his efforts vairh
"A thousand signs," goes on the great essayist, "legible to eyes far
less keen than his, announced that the fall of his patron was at hand.
He [Bacon] shaped his course accordingly. When Essex was brought
before the Council to answer for his conduct in Ireland, Bacon, after
a faint attempt to excuse himself from taking part against his friend,
submitted to the Queen's pleasure, and appeared at the bar in support
of the charges."
Essex was sentenced to be removed from his place at the Council
board, to be suspended from his offices of Earl Marshal and Master
of the Ordnance, and to be imprisoned during the Queen's pleasure.
But Elizabeth, having thus humiliated him, would not fully carry out
the sentence. She continued him as Master of the Horse, and gave
him full liberty, but warned him, significantly, to "be his own keeper."
But Essex was the victim of evil counsellors and mischief-makers of
all kinds. He had petitioned thr Queen for the monopoly of sweet
ME MO IK OF LORD BACON.
wines, and Elizabeth refused, saying (it was reported) "that an un-
mangeable beast must be stinted in his provender." These cruel words
were repeated to the fallen favourite, who, driven to fury, devised a
mad scheme of rebellion against his Sovereign, meaning to secure the
Queen's person, and banish from about her all whom he considered
his enemies.
The absurd attempt at exciting a rising in London failed : he \vas
taken prisoner, and tried for high treason, the prosecution being
managed by Sir Edward Coke as Attorney-General, and Bacon at
one of the Queen's Counsel.
At the trial Sir Edward Coke treated the fallen Earl with great
insolence and scurrility ; Bacon was moderate and decent, but ought
never to have been placed in such a position. The crime was easily
proved, and the favourite was sentenced to death. His fate is too well
known to be repeated here.
But he was the idol of the people. The murmurs at hu untimely end
were bold and universal, and the Queen herself was sevev ^ly blamed.
The Administration therefore found it necessary to defend its con
duct by an appeal, or sort of apology, to the people, and Bacon was
the writer selected to execute this painful task. If it was really (as is
said) imposed on him by the contrivance of Cecil, it was indeed a
masterpiece of malignity on the part of his envious cousin, for it
brought on Bacon the hatred and contempt of the nation. He was
everywhere condemned as an ungrateful traitor to his benefactor for
murdering his good name as the Ministry had his body ; his life even
was threatened, and he was in daily peril of assassination. This
obliged him to publish, in his own defence, the "Apology" found
amongst his writings, in which he labours to clear himself of blame,
asserting that he had never done the Earl any ill offices with the
Queen (though she had insinuated that he had) ; that on the contrar)
he had always given Lord Essex good advice, and that he had wished
and tried to secure his preservation.
But no apology could excuse his conduct in this instance.
In the following reign Sir Henry Yelverton ventured on the dis
pleasure of James and Villiers, rather than plead against the wicked
Earl of Somerset ; because he (Somerset) had made him Solicitor-
General.
Grief and remorse for Essex's death caused that of his royal mis
tress. She survived him scarcely a year, and was succeeded by
James VI. of Scotland.
Bacon at once sought to ingratiate himself with the new king, who
received him favourably, and made him (at his request) a knight in a
batch of three hundred on whom he conferred that title ! James sowed
honours broadcast. Soon after Bacon, who was then seeking to win
* MEMOIR OF LORD BACON.
the daughter of a rich alderman, married her. She was a Miss Alice
Barnham.
Bacon soon after appeared as counsel for the Crown on the trial of
Sir Walter Raleigh for being engaged in a conspiracy to place the
Lady Arabella Stuart, James's cousin, on the throne ; but his old
enemy, Coke, would not allow him to examine the witnesses, or address
the jury.
The following year Bacon published his treatise on the " Ajjvance;
ment of^ Learning," which greatly recommended him to the King, to
wjiom ]t_was dedicated. The aim of the treatise was to survey accu
rately the whole state and extent of the intellectual world at that period
— so short a time (comparatively) after the revival of learning ; to
show what parts of it had been successfully cultivated ; those that lay
still neglected ; and by what methods learning might be improved and
advanced. This work had a wonderful effect in awaking the attention
and calling forth the powers of all the students and learned men of
Europe, and vast results probably proceeded from it, though some
blame has been attached to Bacon for ignorance of many "profi
ciencies," as he would have called them, where he found " deficiencies."
,/ In 1607 Bacon became Solicitor-General. He had, meantime, been
busy again with his pen, and published the first sketch of his "Novum
Organum," his " De Sapientia Veterum," and an enlarged edition of his
" Essays." He also wrote valuable treatises to explain and improve
the law.
^/ In 1613 he succeeded to the Attorney-Generalship, about three
months after the death of his cousin and enemy Cecil — the Lord
Treasurer Salisbury. He was now a wealthy man. This office
brought him in ,£6,000 a year, and, as his office of Registrar of the
Star Chamber was now his, he had .£1,600 a year more from that —
large sums in that age.
The trial of the guilty Earl of Somerset was the next great case
which occupied the Attorney-General, and in this there was much
mystery. Bacon had become the subservient creature of James, and
James evidently feared the exposure by Somerset of some secret of his
own ; and he gave his Attorney-General immense trouble, and many
perplexing cautions and directions in that miserable trial.
A new favourite had taken Somerset's place— George Villiers,
shortly to be Duke of Buckingham, and to him the Attorney-General
now paid court, giving him, however, it must be allowed, good and
Drudent advice.
A/ It was by the influence of Buckingham that, in 1617, Bacon became
'f) Chancellor, with the title of Lord Keeper. Shortly afterwards he was
created Viscount St. Albans.
And now Bacon had reached th^ height of his ambition. He had
MEMOIR OF LORD BACON. xi
the house where he was born, York House, on the Thames, fitted up
splendidly: he had a villa at Kew ; a small dwelling at Gormanbuvy
His retinue was princely : according to Mr. Spedding it consisted ot
two chaplains, six gentlemen-of-the-chamber, six gentlemen-waiters,
four pages, two gentlemen ushers, three yeomen of the wardrobe, three
yeomen of the pantry, and four butlers (see note at p. 88), not to men
tion the inferior servants.
These followers seem to have managed their Master's property very
much as they pleased, and thus wrought his ruin.
The philosopher who wrote " It is a strange desire to seek power and
lose liberty ; or, to seek power over others, and to lose power over a
man's self," had bartered away his liberty for pomp, show, and wealth.
He had said, " Men in great place are thrice servants ; servants of
the sovereign or state ; servants of fame, and servants of business : "
he was destined to find himself also the servant of an imperious,
grasping, unprincipled favourite.
His old enemy, Coke, who had been dismissed from the Chief
Justiceship, perceived that his only means to restore his fortune was
to please the Duke of Buckingham, who (amidst all his selfishness)
was devotedly fond of his relatives. He therefore offered his daughter
by his second wife, Lady Hatton, to the brother of the Duke, the
needy Sir John Villiers, this young lady being a great heiress. Lady
Hatton, who had long been separated from the old Judge, opposed
this marriage, and even ran off with her daughter, and hid her near
Hampton Court ; but Coke pursued them, and brought back his
daughter. Bacon, fearing the renewed ascendancy of his old enemy,
opposed this marriage in every way. He wrote to the king against it,
and thus incurred the wrath both of the favourite and the sovereign.
James, enraged, wrote severely to his Chancellor, and BacQja__pej>
ceived his danger, and, with hij^usual moral cowardice, shrank from
it. ^He bowed before the tempest, and apologised humbly for having
mistaken the king's wishes, and again he and Buckingham were
friends : but henceforward Bacon was the slave of the capricious
favourite. The king was always in need of money. To fill his purse
he resumed the old system (which Elizabeth had given up) of mono
polies and patents.
These were charters under the Great Seal conferring on certain
persons the power of being the only dealers in any article of merchan
dize, or the only pursuers of any manufacture, and permitting them to
enter_to^earch_anj house which might be suspected of invading their
patent or monopoly. Bacon had, on his first acquaintance with
Villiers, urged him to put an end to this mode of plundering the
people. But now he found that he must pass under the Great Seal
whatever patents or monopolies the favourite chose to send him ; con.
r.
xii MEMOIR OF LORD BACON.
sequently, an infamous number of them were thus endorsed, Bucking
ham receiving a portion of the profits.
Ultimately, the people's sense of justice was roused, and when
James (himself in utter need of money) summoned a Parliament,
which met Jan. 20, 1621, in order to fill his purse, the Commons, after
voting the king two entire subsidies, went into a strict enquiry into the
patents, which for seven years had oppressed the people. Among the
monopolies were two equally grievous : one which set an annual fine
on inns and alehouses throughout England ; another, a patent for
making gold and silver lace, which had been granted to tAvo infamous
agents of Buckingham — Mompesson and Michel. They shamefully
abused their power by selling counterfeit lace for real gold and silve*
At the full price, and whoever presumed to sell any other was punished
by fine and imprisonment.
Buckingham was warned that there were secret meetings of mem
bers also to enquire into his (Buckingham's) share in these oppres
sions ; and the duke, alarmed, persuaded the king to frustrate their
plans by dissolving Parliament immediately. James would certainly
have done so if Williams, dean of Westminster, had not interfered.
This man, an astute politician, advised the king to " swim with the
current ; " to " cancel by proclamation all monopolies and vexatious
grants ; to sacrifice inferior criminals to the public anger ; and to tell
the Parliament that these reforms were made at the instigation of his
favourite."
But the Commons had carried their search up to the prime cause of
all these grievances. They sought to discover by whose influence
these patents had passed the Great Seal, and either Bacon or Bucking-
h ham must be sacrificed. James did not hesitate. He had an inter-
/ view with his Chancellor, as the favourite also had, and it seems that
Bacon was persuaded or cajoled into becoming the scapegoat of
Buckingham.
Bacon could scarcely have defended himself against the charge of
criminal subserviency to the favourite ; but he might have found some
thing to extenuate his faults, as to receiving bribes perhaps, since they
had been taken often, probably without his knowledge, by his servants ;
but the king positively forbade his speaking at all in his own defence,
and ordered him not even to be present at his trial, probably fearing
what he might say in his own justification.
u/ Bacon submitted to the sovereign who treated him so unworthily,
^ end sacrificed even his honour to the exaggerated loyalty he evidently
entertained for James, or perhaps to his own moral cowardice.
A Committee for inspecting into the abuses of trie Courts of Justice
was appointed by the Commons. Some days after Sir Robert Phillips
reported from it that complaints had been brought before them by two
MEMOIR OF LORD BACON. xiii
persons against the Chancellor for bribery and corruption. This
report he made, not only without bitterness, but in terms of great
regard and tenderness for the accused.
The Lords, at a conference with the Lower House, agreed to take
Uie subject into consideration. No sooner did the matter become
public than a crowd of accusers appeared to charge the unfortunate
Chancellor with bribery. Many who had courted him (probably
through his servants) with gifts, and yet had received an unfavourable
judgment on their case, were eager now to take their revenge on him
who had, they considered, betrayed them ; and they were listened to ;
though the mere fact of such bribes or gifts not having influenced his
judgments, ought to have shown that he knew nothing of them, or did
not consider them bribes.
Bacon's great crime, assuredly, was his criminal si1bfiprvlpnry tft
Buckingham^Jn having put the Great Seal to his patents and monopo
lies ; the bribery— since it did not taint his judgments — must surely
have been his followers' faultT not his own.
Meantime he was confined to his bed by real or pretended illness —
he was very ill mentally, without a doubt !
The Houses met again, after a recess of six weeks ; and their indig
nation then fell wholly on the Chancellor. It was he who had sealed
the patents — doubtless for a consideration ! — it was he who had issued
the monopolies, and who had taken bribes.
They refused to receive a general confession — which was delivered
for him by Charles, Prince of Wales, himself — in which he renounced
all justification for himself, and sued for no other favour " but that his
penitent submission might be his sentence, the loss of the seals his
punishment." He was compelled to put in a particular answer to each
point of his accusation. He acknowledged all, and threw himself on
the mercy of his judges.
He was sentenced to " pay a fine of ,£40,000 ; to be imprisoned in
the Tower during the king's pleasure ; to be for ever incapable of any
office, place, or employment in the Commonwealth ; and never to sit
again in Parliament, or come within the verge of the Court."
The secret agreement between him and his king was manifested at
once. He passed only one day in the Tower ; then James set him
free, and in three years' time granted him a full and entire remission
of his sentence. Accordingly, he was summoned to the first Parlia
ment of Charles I. The king also allowed him a pension of ^1,800 a
year.
Thenceforward Bacon withdrew into retirement, and devoted him-
self to study. The first fruits of his leisure was a work suggested to
him by the king who had sacrificed him — a " History of Henry VII,n
fCin£ James greatly preferred this memoir to the
xiv MEMOIR OF LORD BACON.
of which he said " It was like the peace of God, it passed all under
standing." He vouchsafed to correct Bacon's MS. himself ! and
allowed him to come to London to pass it through the press.
This Memoir was immediately followed by his " History of Life
and Death," and another edition of his Essays.
King James died in 1625. His unfortunate and ill-requited Chan
cellor survived him for a little more than a year.
Always in feeble health from his youth, his life was finally sacrificed
to an experiment. He believed that decomposition might be prevented
by freezing (then an original idea), and he determined to ascertain,
experimentally, if he was right. Therefore, one cold, spring morning,
he drove to Highgate, alighted, bought a fowl at a neighbouring cot
tage, and stuffed it with snow which lay on the ground around him
By the time his operation was finished he felt greatly chilled, and
sought warmth and shelter at Lord Arundel's house, which was near
at hand. Here he was gladly welcomed by the household, given warm
cordials, &c., but was put into a damp bed !
From this fatal hospitality he never recovered ; and he seems to
have been aware that he was in great danger, for he wrote to his absent
host, comparing himself to the elder Pliny, who lost his life by too
near an approach to Vesuvius, when watching a terrible eruption, but
adding that his own experiment had ended "excellently well."
A fever and cold on the lungs closed the career of one of the greatest
of Englishmen, one week afterwards. He died on Easter morn,
April 9, 1626, at the age of 66.
His will contained this remarkable passage : — " My name and
memory I leave to foreign nations, and to mine own countrymen after
some years."
Among his own countrymen his genius has been long acknowledged,
and his faults little remembered. Among his followers were Boyle,
Locke, Newton, and all the long list of scientific discoverers since his
time.
Bacon was of middle stature ; his forehead spacious and open, and
early impressed with the marks of age ; his eyes lively and penetrating ;
his whole appearance pleasing.
His scientific, political, and law works were numerous, and remark
able for great ability.
ESSAYS.
DEDICATION
To tKc Right Honourable my very good Lord the DUKE OF BUCKING
HAM his Grace, Lord High Admiral of England.
EXCELLENT LORD,
SOLOMON says, A good name is as a precioiis ointment; and I as
sure myself such will your Grace's name be with posterity. For your
fortune and merit both have been eminent, and you have planted
things like to last. I do now publish my Essays, which, of all my
works, have been most current, for that, as it seems, they come home
to men's business and bosoms. I have enlarged them both in number
and weight, so that they are indeed a new work. I thought it there
fore agreeable to my affection and obligation to your Grace, to prefix
your name before them both in English and in Latin. For I do con
ceive that the Latin Volume of them (being in the universal language)
may last as long as books last. My Instauration I dedicated to the
King ; my History of Henry the Seventh (which I have now also
translated into Latin) and my portions of Natural History, to the
Prince ; and these I dedicate to your Grace, being of the best fruits
that, by the good increase which God gives to my pen and labours, I
could yield. God lead your Grace by the hand.
Your Grace's most obliged and faithful servant,
Fr. ST. ALBAN.
I.
OF TRUTH.
What is Truth ? said jesting Pilate ; and would not stay for an
answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness,1 and count it a
bondage to fix a belief ; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in
acting. And, though the sects of philosophers2 of that kind be gone,
1 Changing their opinions.
8 Sects. Bacon alludes to the disciples of Pyrrho — the Sceptics, or Pyrrhonists. Pyrrho was
a philosopher of Elis, who accompanied Alexander the Great to India, and there studied the
Brahmimcal learning. He was himself doubtful of all things as the word sceptic implies. He
died 288 B.C. The philosophers of the New Academy were also sceptics. The question
they agitated was " What criterion is there of the truth of our knowledge?" "What," in
fact, "is Truth? " And it was this question that Pilate repeated — in his perplexity — not, we
think, in jest. See S. John's Gospel, xviii. 38. From Pyrrho's name, the term Pyrrhooi»m
a OB TRUTH.
yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins1 j
though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the
ancients. B^UJL it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take
in finding out of truth— nor, again, that, when it is found, it imposeth
upon men's thoughts — that doth bring lies in favour ; but a natural
though corrupt love of the_Jje itself. One of the later schools of the
Grecians examineth tEelnatter, and is at a stand to think what should be
in it, that men should love lies, where neither they make Jgr__rjkasure,
as with po£ts, nor for advantage, as with tKe merrha.ni-J hntfnr tru^
lie's sake. | But I cannoT tell'fthis same truth is a naked and open
daylight, that doth not show the masques and mummeries, and
triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights/]
[Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that sheweth best by
aay ; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle that
sheweth best in varied lights. Aniixture_of_a lie doth ever add plea- Jy>"
§ure. CDothaiiy__man doubt, tnat itMJienT'werc taken' out of men'sA
nimcls vailrTomnions, flattermgTiopes7iaIse vaRTafiorTs7 imaginations as
one would, and the Jike, but it would leave the minds of ajiui
m£rjt poor shrunken thmgiyJuTI of melancholy and indisposition, and
•n pleasing to themselves'?] One of the fathers, in great severity,
ailed2 poesy vimrmrttcevionuui, because it filleth the imagination, and
it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth
through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that
doth the hurt such as we spake of before. (_^But howsoever these things
are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which
only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth (which is the
love-making, or wooing of it) the knowledge of truth (which is the pre
sence of it) and the belief of truth (which is the enjoying of it) is the
sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the
works of the days, was the light of the sense ; the last was the light of
reason ; and His Sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of His
spirit. First He breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos ;
then He breathed light into the face of man : and still He breathctlj
and inspircth light into the face of His chosen. The poet,3 that beau*
titled the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excel
lently well, It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships
tost upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to
see the battle, and the adventures thereof below ; biit no pleasiire is com
parable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to
be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to
see Uic. errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale
l>elow ; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swell
ing or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's
is used now for all doubtful facts or questions. Voltaire has written on the " Pyrrhonism o>'
History." * Veins — turns of thought, opinion.
~ St. Augustine, Confessions, i — 16 — 29. See Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 103.
3 Lucretius, one of the greatest of the Roman poets, born B.C. 95, died B.C. 55. His poem
DC Rcriim Natura expounds the philosophy of Epicurus. Bacon styles the Epicureans
"inferior to the rest," because the sect degenerated into self-indulgence and indifference to
the nubler virtu"-;. K]>"-!;iU:, himself was a man of simple and abstemious habits. Iltj
tidnuuo.! i he e.vi.MciiLV uf l!ie g'-id^, but declined tluit they took no part in the cieatiou up
preservation ol man.
OF DEATH. 3
mind movii in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of
truth.
To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of
civil business, it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it
not, that clear and round1 dealing is the honour of man's nature, and
that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which
may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these
winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which
goeth basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice
that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfi
dious ; and therefore Montaigne3 saith prettily,*rwn~en he inquired the
reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an
odious charge — saith he If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth,
is as much as to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward
towards man; for a lie faces God, a^^hrj^ks^miLman, <• ^i>»HPX*x**
Surely the wickedness of FaTseEbod and breach of faith cannot pos
sibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last peal to call
the judgments of God upon the generations of men : it being foretold,
that when Christ cometh, He shall not find faith upon the earth?
II.
u
OF DEATH.
MEN fear death as children fear to go in the dark ; and as that
natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. Cer
tainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin and passage to
another world, is holy and religious ; but the fear of it, as a tribute due
unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes
a mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of
the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself
what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured,
and thereby imagine what the pains of death are when the whole body
is corrupted and dissolved ; when many times death passeth with less
pain than the torture of a limb, for the most vital parts are not the
quickest of sense : and by him that spake only as a philosopher and
natural man, it was well said,4 Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors
ipsa. Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends
weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible.
It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind
of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death : and
therefore Death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many
1 Straightforward. "Roundly" is "plainly, straightforwardly." Still useJ in the dialect
of the peasantry — " I told her roundly what I thought," &c.
a Michel Montaigne, born 1533, died 1592. His essays are extremely witty, and rank very
highly amongst the memorable books of the world. They have been translated into all
languages, and have passed through eighty editions in Europe. A copy of the essays is one
of the two books which we know were in Shakespeare's possession ; the copy, Florio's
translation of them, has the great poet's autograph in it.
a St. Luke, xviii. 8.
* At that period rooms in which the .dead lay were hung with black. Mourning garment*
8»ay also be alluded to by Bacon ; and the black horses and plumes of hearses.
OF UNITY IN RELIGION,
C\^J^
attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge
triumphs over death ; love slights it ; honour aspireth to it; grief
flieth to it ; fear jpreaccupatethMt ; nay, we read, after Otho the Em-
iperor'had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) pro-
roked many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as
the truest sort of followers ; nay, Seneca adds niceness2 and satiety :
Co&ita quamdiu eademfeceris j morivelle, non tantumfortis, aut miser,
scd etiamfastidiosus potest. A man would die, though he were neither
valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so
oft over and over. It is no less worthy to observe, how little alteration
in good spirits the approaches of death make ; for they appear to be
the same men up to the last instant. Augustus Ccesar died in a com
pliment.3 Livid conjugii nostri memor, vive ct vale. Tiberius in dis
simulation, as Tacitus saith of him, jam Tiberium vires et corpits, non
Jissimulatio, deserebant. Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon the stool,
Ut puto Deus fio. Galba with a sentence, Fcri, si ex re sit populi
Romani, holding forth his neck. Septimius Severus in dispatch,
Adcste, si quid mihi rest at agendum. And the like.
Certainly the Stoics4 bestowed too much cost upon death, and by
their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better saith he.
Qidfinem vittz extremum inter muner a ponat Natures* It is as natural
to die as to be born : and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as
painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one
that is wounded in hot blood : who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt ;
and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good doth
avert the dolours of death. But, above all, believe it, the sweetest
canticle is, Nunc diniittj^-s^^ri a man hath obtained worthy ends and
expectations. Death hath th!sfltrso;"f fraTTt "openethJiie gate to good
fame, and extinguisheth envy.
— Extinct its amabitur idem.
III.
OF UNITY IN RELIGION.
RELIGION being the chief band6 of human society, it is a happy
thing when itself is well contained within the true band of unity. The
quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the
heathen. The reason was, because the religion of the heathen con
sisted rather in rites and ceremonies than in any constant belief. For
you may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors
and fathers of their church were the poets. But the true God hath
1 Anticipates. 2 Fastidiousness.
" Fear and niceness,
The handmaids of all women, or more truly
Woman its pretty self."— Shakespeare.
8 See Pope's Epistle to Lord Cobham on the " ruling passion strong in death."
4 The- Stoics, a sect of Greek philosopher^, founded by Zeno. They placed happiness in
endurance and ascetic virtue, and were thus 'he opposite of the Epicureans.
5 Juvenal, Sat. x.
6 Religion is d^-ived from the Latin reli^o — to bind back 'he hands ; and means, of couri/e,
a restraint.
OF UNITY IN RELIGION. 5
this attribute that He is a jealous God ; and therefore His worship
and religion will endure no mixture nor partner. We shall therefore
speak a few words concerning the Unity of the Church ; what are the
Fruits thereof; what the Bounds ; and what the Means.
The Fruits of Unity (next unto the well-pleasing of God which is all
in all) are two ; the one towards those that are without the Church,
the other towards those that are within. For the former ; it is cer
tain, that heresies and schisms are of all others the greatest scandals,
yea, more than corruption of manners. For as in the natural body a
wound or solution of continuity is worse than a corrupt humour, so in
the spiritual. So that nothing doth so much keep men out of the
Church, and drive men out of the Church, as breach of unity. And,
therefore, whensoever it cometh to that pass that one saith, Ecce in
deserto, another saith, Ecce inpenetralibus, — that is, when some men seek
Christ in the conventicles of heretics, and others in an outward face of
a Church — that voice had need continually to sound in men's ears,
Nolite exire. The Doctor1 of the Gentiles (the propriety of whose
vocation drew him to have a special care of those without) saith, If a
heathen come in, and hear you speak with several tongttes, will he not
say that you are mad? And certainly it is little better when atheists
and profane persons do hear of so many discordant and contrary
opinions in religion ; it doth avert2 them from the Church, and maketh
them to sit down in the chair of the scorners. It is but a light thing to
be vouched in so serious a matter, but yet it expresseth well the de
formity ; there is a Master3 of scoffing, that in his catalogue of books
of a feigned library, sets down this title of a book, The Morris Dance*
of Heretics. For, indeed, every sect of them have a diverse posture,
or cringe, by themselves ; which cannot but move derision in world
lings and depraved politics,5 who are apt to contemn holy things.
As for the Fruit towards those that are within, it is peace, which
containeth infinite blessings. It establisheth faith; it kindleth
charity ; the outward peace of the Church distilleth into peace of
conscience, and it turneth the labours of writing and reading contro
versies into treatises of mortification and devotion.
Concerning the Bonds of Unity, the true placing of them importeth
exceedingly. There appear to be two extremes ; for to certain zelants6
all speech of pacification is odious. Is it peace, Jehu ? What hast
thou to do with peace? turn thee behind me. Peace is not the matter,7
but following and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans* and luke
warm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by
1 St. Paul. " Doctor" is for teacher.
8 Avert, to turn away.
8 Rabelais, the greatest scoffer known, perhaps. He was born in Touraine about 1483?
and died 1558. His " Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel " is a satire on the monks and th*
Pope. It is very witty, but coarse.
* The Morris dance, or moresco, is thought to have been brought from Spain, but was
nationalised in England by the introduction of Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, the
Hobby Horse, &c.. into it. Though thought by some to have been brought to this country
by John of Gaunt there are few notices of it in writing till Henry jth's time. (See Douce' a
illustrations of Shakespeare.)
5 Politicians.
6 Zealots.
7 Is not that for which they seek.
• " Neither hot nor cold." See Rev.
6 OF UNITY IN RELIGION.
middle ways, and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements, as if
they would make an arbitrement between God and man. Both these
extremes are to be avoided ; which will be done if the league of
Christians, penned by our Saviour Himself, were in the two cross
clauses thereof soundly and plainly expounded : He that is not with us
is against us; and again, He that is not against us is with us; that is,
if the points fundamental, and of substance in religion, were truly dis
cerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of
opinion, order, or good intention. This is a thing may seem to many
a matter trivial, and done already ; but if it were done less partially,
it would be embraced more generally.
Of this I may give only this advice, according to my small model.
Men ought to take heed of rending God's Church by two kinds of
controversies. The one is, when the matter of the point controverted
is too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled
only by contradiction. For, as it is noted by one of the fathers,
Chris Ps coat indeed had no seam, but the Churctis vesture was of
divers colours ; whereupon he saith, In veste varietas sit, scissura non
sit; they be two things, Unity and Uniformity. The other is, when
the matter of the point controverted is great, but it is driven to an
over-great subtilty and obscurity, so that it becometh a thing rather
ingenious than substantial. A man that is of judgment and under
standing shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well
within himself that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet they
themselves would never agree. And if it come so to pass in that dis
tance of judgment which is between man and man, shall we not think
that God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men,
in some of their contradictions, intend the same thing, and accepteth
of both ? The nature of such controversies is excellently expressed by
St. Paul in the warning and precept that he giveth concerning the
same,1 Devita profanas vocum novitatcs et oppositiones falsi nominis
scientice. Men create oppositions which are not, and put them into
new terms so fixed, as whereas the meaning ought to govern the term,
the term in effect governeth the meaning. There be also two false
Peaces, or Unities, the one, when the peace is grounded but upon an
implicit ignorance (for all colours will agree in the dark) ; the other
when it is pieced up upon a direct admission of contraries in funda
mental points. For truth and falsehood in such things are like the
iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image : they may cleave
but they will not incorporate.
Concerning the Means of procuring Unity, men must beware, that
in the procuring or muniting2 of religious unity, they do not dissolve
and deface the laws of charity and of human society. There be two
swords amongst Christians, the spiritual and the temporal, and both
have their due office and place in the maintenance of religion. But
//e may not take up the third sword, which is Mahomet's sword, or
like unto it — that is, to propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary
persecutions to force consciences (except it be in cases of overt scan
dal, blasphemy, or intermixture of practice against the state), much
1 i Tim. vi. 20.
* Defending or fortifying.
OF REVENGE. f
less to nourish seditions, to authorise conspiracies and rebellions, to
put the sword into the people's hands, and the like, tending to the sub
version of all government, which is the ordinance of God. For this is
but to dash the first table1 against the second ; and so to consider
men as Christians, as we forget that they are men. Lucretius the
poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon,2 that could endure the
sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed : —
Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
vVhat would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in France,3
or the powder treason of England?4 He would have been seven
times more Epicure5 and atheist than he was. For as the temporal
sword is to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion, so
it is a thing monstrous to put it into the hands of the common people.6
Let that be left to the Anabaptists7 and other furies. It was a great
blasphemy when the devil said, / will ascend and be like the Highest;
but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring Him in say
ing, / will descend and be like the prince of darkness. And what is it
better, to make the cause of religion to descend to the cruel and exe
crable actions of murdering princes, butchery of people, and subver
sion of states and governments? Surely this is to bring down the
Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture
or raven ; and to set out of the bark of a Christian Church a flag of a
bark of pirates and assassins. Therefore it is most necessary that the
Church by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, and all learn
ings — both Christian and moral — as by their Mercury rod,8 do damn
and send to hell for ever those facts and opinions tending to the sup
port of the same, as hath been already in good part done. Surely in
councils concerning religion, that counsel of the Apostle would be
prefixed,9 Ira hominis 11071 implet justitiam Dei. And it was a notable
observation of a wise father and no less ingenuously confessed, that
those which held and persuaded pressure of consciences ', were commonly
interested therein themselves for their own ends.
IV.
OF REVENGE.
REVENGE is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature
runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong,
it does but offend the law ; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the
Of the Decalogue. _
For a favourable wind to waft the Greek armament to Troy he sacrificed Iphigenia. to
D ana.
The Massacre of the St. Bartholomew, in which 60,000 persons perished, Aug. 24, 1572.
Gunpowder Plot. 5 Epicurean. 6 As in the following reign.
Anabaptists, a sect who began a civil war in Germany in defence of their wild and
in moral opinions. They were defeated in Saxony, and then seized the town of Munster.
They were guilty of greiw crimes and excesses, but were finally conquered and nearly
txterminated.
8 The Caduceus, or serpent-wreathed rod, with which Mercury, the messenger of the gods,
was wont to summon the souls of the dead, and send them to their final destination.
* James i. 20.
a OF ADVERS12Y.
law out of office. Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with
his enemy, but in passing it over, he is superior ; for it is a prince's
part to pardon : and Solomon,1 I am sure, saith, // is the glory of a
man to pass by an offence.
That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and wise men have
enough to do with things present and to come ; therefore they do but
trifle with themselves, that labour in past matters. There is no man
doth a wrong for the wrong's sake, but thereby to purchase himself
profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the like ; therefore why should I be
angry with a man for loving himself better than me ? And if any man
should do wrong, merely out of ill-nature, why, yet it is but like the
thorn or briar, which prick and scratch, because they can do no other.
The most tolerable sort of revenge is for those wrongs which there
is no law to remedy : but then, let a man take heed the revenge be
such as there is no law to punish ; else a man's enemy is still before
hand, and it is two for one.
Some, when they take revenge, are desirous the party should know
whence it cometh. This is the more generous. For the delight
seemeth to be not so much in doing the hurt, as in making the party
repent. But base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in
the dark.
Cosmus, Duke of Florence,2 had a desperate saying against per
fidious or neglecting friends, as if those wrongs were unpardonable.
You s£&ll_jvgd_isziitli he) that we are comvwndpd. fa forgive mir
efiemies ; but_yeu never read that we are commanded to forgive__Qiir
friends^ But yet~lhe spirit of Job was in a better tune : Shall we (saith
he) take good at God's hands, and not be content to take evil also ? And
so of friends in a proportion. This is certain, that a man that studieth
revenge keeps his own wounds green,3 which otherwise would heal and
do well. Public revenges are for the most part fortunate ; as that for the
death of Caesar ;4 for the death of Pertinax ;5 for the death of Henry
the Third of France ; 6 and many more. But in private revenges it is
not so. Nay rather, vindicative persons live the life of witches,7 whet,
as they are mischievous, so end they infortunate.
V.
OF ADVERSITY.
IT was an high speech of Seneca8 (after the manner of the Stoics),
that the good things which belong to Prosperity are to be wished, but
the good things that belong to Adversity are to be admired. Bonn
1 The discretion of a man deferreth his anger ; and it is his glory to pass over a transgres
sion. Prov. xix. ii.
* Cosmo de Medici, the founder of the greatness of the House of Medici.
3 Green— unhealed.
4 For which the chief conspirators suffered, Brutus and Cassius both falling at Philippi.
5 Pertinax, Roman Emperor, was assassinated in 193 A. D. by the Praetorian guards, who
were put to death by Septimius Severus, his successor.
e Friar Clement, who murdered Henry III. of France, was put to death by Henri Quatre.
7 Bacon shared the general belief in witchcraft, then punished with death.
8 A Roman philosopher, the tutor of the Emperor Nero. His moral teachings were so
excellent that he has been thought to have had some knowledge of the Christian doctrines.
OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION. g
rermn secundarum optabilia, adversarum mirabilia. Certainly, if „.
miracles be the command over nature, they appear most in Adversity. (
It is yet a higher speech of his than the other (much too high for a
heathen), // is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and
the security of a God. Vere magnum, habere fragilitatem hominis,
securitatem Dei. This would have done better in poesy, where tran-1
scendencies are more allowed ; and the poets, indeed, have been busy!
with it. For it is in effect the thing which is figured in that strange
fiction of the ancient poets, which seemeth not to be without mystery,
nay, and to have some approach to the state of a Christian : that
Hercules, -when he went to unbind Prometheics (by whom human nature
is represented), sailed the length of the great ocean in an earthen pot or
pitcher ; * lively describing Christian resolution, that saileth in the frail
bark of the flesh through the waves of the world.
But to speak in a mean. The^yjrtue-pjLProsperity is temperance ;
the virtue of Adversity is fortitude : which in morals is the more
heroical virtue. ~Prosperfty~is the blessing of the Old Testament ;
adversity is the blessing of the New : which carrieth the greater
benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favour. Yet even in
the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as
many hearse-like airs as carols ; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost
hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felici
ties of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes ;2
and Adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needle
works and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon
a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work
upon a lightsome ground. Judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the
heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours,
most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed ; 3 for prosperity doth I
best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
VI.
OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION.
DISSIMULATION is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom. For it
asketh a strong wit and a strong heart to know when to tell truth, and
to do it. Therefore it is the weaker sort of politicians that are the
greatest dissemblers.
Tacitus saith, Livia sorted* well with the arts of her husband and
dissimulation of her son; attributing arts of policy to Augustus, and
dissimulation to Tiberius. And again, when Mucianus5 encourageth
Vespasian to take arms against Vitellius, he saith, We rise not againsi
1 See for this myth the Wisdom of the Ancients, following. * Disgusts.
3 This sentence probably suggested to Moore the lines :
But Thou wilt heal the broken heart,
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.
4 Agreed. 5 A famous intriguing general under Otho and Vitellius.
in OF SIMULATION AND DISSIMULATION.
the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness
of Tiberius. These properties of arts or policy, and dissimulation and
closeness, are indeed habits and faculties several, and to be dis
tinguished. For if a man have that penetration of judgment as he
can discern what things are to be laid open, and what to be secreted,
and what to be shewed at half-lights, and to whom and when (which
indeed are arts of state, and arts of life, as Tacitus well calleth them),
to him a habit of dissimulation is a hindrance and a poorness. But if
a man cannot obtain to that judgment, then it is left to him generally
to be close, and a dissembler. For where a man cannot choose or
vary in particulars, there it is good to take the safest and wariest way
in general, like the going softly by one that cannot well see.i Certainly
the ablest men that ever were have had all an openness ancTfrankn sss
of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity. But then they were
like horses well managed ; for they could tell passing well when to
stop or turn : and at such times when they thought the case indeed
required dissimulation, if then they used it, it came to pass that the
former opinion, spread abroad, of their good faith and clearness M,
dealing, made them almost invisible?}.
""There be three degrees of this hiHlng and veiling of a man's self :
the first, Closeness, Reservation, and Secrecy, — when a man leaveth
himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is ;
the second, Dissimulation, in the negative, — when a man lets fall signs
and arguments that he is not that he is ; and the third, Simulation, in
the affirmative, — when a man industriously and expressly feigns and
pretends to be that he is not.
For the^ first of these, Secrecy ; it is indeed the virtue of a confessor.1
And assuredly the secret man heareth many confessions ; for who will
open himself to a blab or a babbler ? But if a man be thought secret,
it inviteth discovery, as the more close air sucketh in the more open.
And, as in confession the revealing is not for worldly use, but for the
ease of a man's heart, so, secret men come to the knowledge of many
things in that kind, while men rather discharge their minds than
impart their minds. In few words, mysteries are due to Secrecy.
Besides (to say truth) nakedness is uncomely as well in mind as in
body ; and it addeth no small reverence to men's manners and actions,
if they be not altogether open. As for talkers, and futile2 persons, they
are commonly vain and credulous withal. For he that talketh what
he knoweth, will also talk what he knoweth not. Therefore set it
down, that an habit of secrecy is both politic and moral. And in this
part it is good that a man's face give his tongue leave to speak. For
the discovery of a man's self, by the tracts of his countenance, is a
great weakness and betraying ; by how much it is many times more
marked and believed than a man's words.
For the second, which is Dissimulation, it followeth many times
upon Secrecy, by a necessity. '"So that he that will be secret, must be
a dissembler in some degree. For men are too cunning to suffer a
{nan to keep an indifferent carriage between both, and to be secret,
Ivithout swaying the balance on either side. They will so beset a man
1 A priest who 1 ;ars confessions. * Talkative.
OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN. ti
with questions, and draw him on, and pick it out of him, that, without
an absurd silence, he must show an inclination one way ; or if he do
not, they will gather as much by his silence as by his speech. As for
equivocations, or oraculous speeches, they cannot hold out long. So
that no man can be secret, except he give himself a little scope of
dissimulation ; which is, as it were, but the skirts or train of secrecy.
But for the third degree, which is Simulation and false profession,
that I hold more culpable, and less politic ; except it be in great and
rare matters. And, therefore, a general custom of Simulation (which
is this last degree) is a vice rising either of a natural falseness, or fear-
fulness, or of a mind that hath some main faults, which because a man
must needs disguise, it maketh him practise simulation in other things,
test his hand should be out of ure.1
The great advantages of Simulation and Dissimulation are three.
First, to lay asleep opposition, and to surprise ; for where a man's
intentions are published, it is an alarum to call up all that are against
them. The second is, to reserve to a man's self a fair retreat ; for if a
man engage himself by a manifest declaration, he must go through, or
take a fall. The third is, the better to discover the mind of another ;
for to him that opens himself men will hardly show themselves adverse,
but will (fair) let him go on, and turn their freedom of speech to freedom
of thought. And therefore it is a good shrewd proverb of the Spaniard,
tell a lie a,7idfind a troth : as if there were no way of discovery but by
Simulation. There be also three disadvantages to set it even. The
first, that Simulation and Dissimulation commonly carry with them a
show of fearfulness, which, in any business, doth spoil the feathers of
round2 flying up to the mark. The second, that it puzzleth and per-
plexeth the conceits3 of many, that perhaps would otherwise co-operate
with him, and makes a man walk almost alone to his own ends. The
third, and greatest, is, that it depriveth a man of one of .the most prin
cipal instruments for action ; which is trust and belief. LjThe best com-
position andJLejgmerature is to have opennessJn fame and^ opinion ;
secrecvin habit : dissimulation in g^cnnahlp jLiseT\ and a power" to
feign, ifthere be no remedy. 4
VII.
OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN.
THE joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears.
They cannot utter the one, nor they will not utter the other. Children
sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter ; they increase
the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The
perpetuity by generation is common to beasts ; but memory, merit,
and noble works are proper to men. And surely a man shall see the
noblest works and foundations have proceeded from childless men,
which have sought to express the images of their minds, where those
of their bodies have failed. So the care of posterity is most in them
1 Practice.
1 Straight, uninterruptedly — a metaphoi from archery.
* Conceptions, ideas.
12 OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE.
that have no posterity. They that are the first raisers of their houses
are most indulgent towards their children, beholding them as the
continuance, not only of their kind, but of their work ; and so botfr
children and creatures.
The difference in affection of parents towards their several children
is many times unequal, and sometimes unworthy, especially in the
mother ; as Salomon saith, A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an un
gracious son shames the mother.1 A man shall see, where there is a
house full of children, one or two of the eldest respected, and the
youngest made wantons ;° but in the midst some that are as it were
forgotten, who, many times, nevertheless, prove the best.
The illiberality of parents, in allowance towards their children, is a
harmful error, makes them base, acquaints them with shifts, makes
them sort3 with mean company, and makes them surfeit more when
they come to plenty. And therefore the proof is best when men keep
their authority towards their children, but not their purse. Men have
a foolish manner (both parents, and schoolmasters, and servants), in
creating and breeding an emulation between brothers during child
hood ; which many times sorteth to discord when they are men, and
disturbeth families.
The Italians make little difference between children and nephews,
or near kinsfolk ; but, so they be of the lump, they care not, though
they pass not through their own body. And, to say truth, in nature it
is much a like matter : insomuch that we see a nephew sometimes re-
sembleth an uncle, or a kinsman, more than his own parent, as the
blood happens.
Let parents choose betimes the vocations and courses they mean
their children should take ; for then they are most flexible. And let
them not too much apply themselves to the disposition of their chil
dren, as thinking they will take best to that which they have most
mind to. It is true that, if the affection or aptness of the children be
extraordinary, then it is good not to cross it ; but generally the pre
cept is good, Optimum eligc, suave et facile illud facict consuetudo.
Younger brothers are commonly fortunate, but seldom or never where
the elder are disinherited.
VIII.
OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE.
HE that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune ; for
they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have^
proceeded from the unmarried or childless men ; which, both in affec
tion and means, have married and endowed the public. Yet it were
great reason that those that have children should have greatest care
of future times ; unto which they know they must transmit their
dearest pledges.
1 Prov. x. I. 2 Spoiled children — idle, worthless persons.
8 Associate — from consort.
OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE 13
Some there are, who, though they lead a single life> yet their
thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times imperti-
nencies. Nay, there are some other that account wife and children
but as bills of charges. Nay, more, there are some foolish rich cove
tous men that take a pride in having no children, because they may
be thought so much the richer. For, perhaps, they have heard some
talk, Such a one is a great rich man, and another except to it, Yea, bict
he hath a great charge of children, as if it were an abatement to his
riches. But the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty, especi
ally in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible
of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters
to be bonds and shackles.
Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants ; but
not always best subjects. For they are light to run away ; and almost
all fugitives are of that condition. A single life doth well with church
men ; for charity will hardly water the ground where it must first fill a
pool. It is indifferent for judges and magistrates ; for if they be
facile1 and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a
wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly, in their hortatives,2
put men in mind of their wives and children ; and I think the despi
sing of marriage among the Turks maketh the vulgar soldier more
base.
Certainly wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity ;
and single men, though they be many times more charitable, because
their means are less exhaust, yet, on the other side, they are more
cruel and hard-hearted (good to make severe inquisitors), because their
tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures, led by custom,
and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of
Ulysses,3 Vettilam mam pr&tulit iuunortalitati. Chaste women are
often proud and froward, as presuming upon the merit of their chastity.
It is one of the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife,
if she thinks her husband wise ; which she will never do if she find
him jealous. ^
y Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, andj
old men's nurses ; so as a man may have a quarrel4 to marry, when I
he will. But yet he was reputed one of the wise men that made answer /
to the question when a man should marry5 — A young man not yet, an L
elder man not at all. It is often seen that bad husbands have very
good wives ; whether it be that it raiseth the price of their husbands'
kindness ^when it comes, or that the wives take a pride in their
patience.1^ But .this never fails, if the bad husbands were of their own
choosing,~against their friends' consent ; for then they will be sure 10
make good their own folly/")
J
1 Easily influenced.
2 Exhortations.
3 Ulysses refused to remain with Calypso and become immortal, for the sake or" his wif«
Penelope.
* A good argument, a good reason on which to argue.
5 This was a saying of Thales, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece. It is recorded
by Plutarch.
*~ OF ENVY.
IX.
OF ENVY.
THERE be none of the affections which have been noted to
fascinate or bewitch, but Love and Envy. They both have vehement
wishes ; they frame themselves readily into imaginations and sugges
tions, and they come easily into the eye, especially upon the presence
of the objects : which are the points that conduce to fascination, if
any such thing there be. We see, likewise, the Scripture calleth envy
an evil eye y1 and the astrologers call the evil influences of the stars
evil aspects : so that still there seemeth to be acknowledged, in the
act of envy, an ejaculation or irradiation of the eye.2 Nay, some
have been so curious as to note that the times when the stroke or
percussion of an envious eye doth most hurt, are when the party envied
is beheld in glory or triumph. For that sets an edge upon envy ;
and, besides, at such time, the spirits of the person envied do come
forth most into the outward, parts, and so meet the blow.
But leaving these curiosities (though not unworthy to be thought
on in fit place) we will handle what persons are apt to envy others j
what persons are most subject to be envied themselves j and what is
the difference between public and private envy.
A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others.
For men's minds will either feed upon their own good, or upon others'
evil ; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the other ; and whoso
is out of hope to attain another's virtue, will seek to come at even
hand,3 by depressing another's fortune.
A man that is busy and inquisitive is commonly envious. For to
know much of other men's matters cannot be because all that ado
may concern his own estate. Therefore it must needs be that he
taketh a kind of play-pleasure 4 in looking upon the fortunes of others.
Neither can he that mindeth but his own business find much matter
for envy. For envy is a gadding passion, and walketh the streets,
and doth not keep home : Non est curiosus, quin idem sit malcvolus.
Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when
they rise. For the distance is altered : and it is like a deceit of the
eye that, when others come on, they think themselves go back.
Deformed persons, and eunuchs, and old men, and bastards, are
envious. For he that cannot possibly in end his own case, will do
what he can to impair another's : except \hese defects light upon a
very, brave and heroical nature, which thinkcth to make his natural
1 Prov. xxiii. 6, xxviii. 22.
2 The Evil Eye is devoutly believed in still iu Italy and the East. In Italy chmns are
worn to avert its influence. When the Editor was in India a strong evidence of this super
stition was given by a woman carrying a beautiful baby. The writer admired its delicate
little feet and ancles : the mother appeared very uneasy ; and the next time the child was
seen its small feet and ancles were tied up in rags to cover them from the evil eye. Precious
things, we were told, are never willingly exposed in the East to the general gaze, on account
of the malignant effect of admiration or envy in the evil eye.
3 At even hand — to be even with him — to get on an equality,
* The pleasure of a spectatoi at a play.
OF EN7Y. 15
wants part of his honour ; in that it should be said that an eunuch,
>r a lame man, did such great matters ; affecting the honour of
a miracle ; as it was in Narses the eunuch,1 and Agesilaus * and
Tamerlane, that were lame men.
The same is the case of men that rise after calamities and mis
fortunes. For they are as men fallen out with the times, and think
other men's harms a redemption of their own sufferings.
They that desire to excel in too many matters, out of levity and
vain-glory, are ever envious. For they cannot want work3 ; it being
impossible but many, in some one of those things, should surpass
them. Which was the character of Adrian the emperor,4 that mortally
envied poets and painters, and artificers in works wherein he had a vein
to excel.
Lastly, near kinsfolk and fellows in office, and those that are bred
together, are more apt to envy their equals when they are raised. For
it doth upbraid unto them their own fortunes, and poiriteth at them,
ai?d cometh oftener into their remembrance, and incurreth5 likewise
more into the note of others ; and envy ever redoubleth from speech
and fame. Cain's envy was the more vile and malignant towards his
brother Abel, because, when his sacrifice was better accepted, there
was nobody to look on. Thus much for those that are apt to envy.
Concerning those that are more or less subject to envy. First, pen
sons of eminent virtue, when they are advanced, are less envied. For
their fortune seemeth but due unto them ; and no man envieth the
payment of a debt, but rewards and liberality rather. Again, envy is
ever joined with the comparing of a man's self ; and where there is no
comparison, no envy : and therefore kings are not envied but by kings.
Nevertheless, it is to be noted that unworthy persons are most envied
at their first coming in, and afterwards overcome it better ; whereas,
contrariwise, persons of worth and merit are most envied when their
fortune continueth long. For by that time, though their virtue be the
same, yet it hath not the same lustre : for fresh men grow up that
darken it.
Persons of noble blood are less envied in their rising. For it
seemeth but right done to their birth. Besides, there seemeth not
much added to their fortune ; and envy is as the sunbeams, that beat
hotter upon a bank, or steep rising ground, than upon a flat. And, for
the same reason, those that are advanced by degrees are less envied
than those that are advanced suddenly, and per saltum.
Those that have joined with their honour great travels, cares, or
perils, are less subject to envy. For men think that they earn their
honours hardly, and pity them sometimes ; and pity ever healeth envy.
Wherefore you shall observe, that the more deep and sober sort of
1 Narses, a great general, the rival of Belisarius and the conqueror of the Goths. Gibbon
says of him : " A feeble, diminutive body concealed the soul of a statesman and a warrior.
As soon as he approached the person of the Emperor, Justinian listened with surprise and
pleasure to the manly counsels of his chamberlain and private treasurer." — Decline and Fali
of the Roman Empire, Warne's Edition, chap. 43, p. 18.
2 Agesilaus, King of Sparta, had one leg shorter than the other. Tamerlane or Timour Beg,
the great Tartar or Mongol Sultan and conqueror. He defeated the Ottoman Sultan Bajazet
at \ii 'ora. As he was about to set out on the conquest of China he cjjed at 70 years of age.
Tamerlane v. as lame and iliiihtly deformed.
3 Want cause for it * Of Rome, 117 A.D. 5 To conix u -uiou-
j6 OP ENVY.
politic persons, in their greatness, are ever bemoaning themselves what
a life they lead, chanting a quanta patimur. Not that they feel it so,
but only to abate the edge of envy. But this is to be understood of
business that is laid upon men, and not such as they call unto them
selves. For nothing increaseth envy more than an unnecessary and
ambitious engrossing of business. And nothing doth extinguish envy
more than for a great person to preserve all other inferior officers in
their full rights and pre-eminences of their places. For, by that means,
there be so many screens between him and envy.
Above all, those are most subject to envy which carry the greatness
of their fortunes in an insolent and proud manner ; being never well
6ut while they are showing how great they are, either by outward
pomp, or by triumphing over all opposition or competition. Whereas
wise men will rather do sacrifice to envy, in suffering themselves,
sometimes of purpose, to be crossed and overborne in things that do
not much concern them. Notwithstanding, so much is true, that the
carriage of greatness in a plain and open manner (so it be without
arrogancy and vain-glory), doth draw less envy than if it be in a more
crafty and cunning fashion. For in that course a man doth but dis
avow fortune, and seemeth to be conscious of his own want in worth,
and doth but teach others to envy him.
Lastly, to conclude this part : as we said in the beginning that the
act of envy had somewhat in it of witchcraft, so there is no other cure
of envy but the cure of witchcraft ; and that is to remove the lot l (as
they call it), and to lay it upon another. For which purpose, the wiser
sort of great persons bring in ever upon the stage somebody upon
whom to derive2 the envy that would come upon themselves ; some
times upon ministers and servants, sometimes upon colleagues and
associates, and the like. And, for that turn, there are never wanting
some persons of violent and undertaking natures, who, so they may
have power and business, will take it at any cost.
Now, to speak of public envy. There is yet some good in public
envy, whereas in private there is none. For public envy is as an
ostracism,3 that eclipseth men when they grow too great. And there
fore it is a bridle also to great ones to keep within bounds.
This envy, being in the Latin word invidia, goeth in the modern
languages by the name of discontentment; of which we shall speak in
handling Sedition. It is a disease in a State like to infection. For,
as infection spreadeth upon that which is sound, and tainteth it ; so,
when envy is gotten once into a State, it traduceth even the best actions
thereof, and turneth them into an ill odour. And therefore there is
little won by intermingling of plausible actions. For that doth argue
but a weakness and fear of envy, which hurteth so much the more ;
as it is likewise usual in infections, which, if you fear them, you call
them upon you.
This public envy seemeth to bear chiefly upon principal officers o*
ministers, rather than upon Kings and Estates themselves. But this
1 Spell or charm.
* To pass over.
* A banishment by the Athenians by writing the person's name on an oyster shell. A mod*
^restraining or rendering powerless is meant here.
OP LOVE. I?
is a sure rule, that if the envy upon the minister1 be great> when the
cause of it in him is small, or if the envy be general in a manner upon
all the ministers of an estate, then the envy (though hidden) is truly
upon the State itself. And so much of public envy or discontentment,
and the difference thereof from private envy, which was handled in the
first place.
We will add this in general, touching the affection of envy, that of
tJ\ other affections it is the most importune and continual. For of
other affections there is occasion given but now and then ; and there
fore it was well said, Invidia festos dies non agit. For it is ever work
ing upon some or other. And it is also noted, that love and envy do
make a man pine, which other affections do not, because they are not
so continual. It is also the vilest affection, and the most depraved ; for
which cause it is the proper attribute of the Devil, who is called The
envious man that soiveth tares among the wheat by night j as it always
cometh to pass, that envy worketh subtilly, and in the dark, and to
the prejudice of good things, such as is the wheat.
X.
OF LOVE.
L THE stage is more beholding1 to Love than the life of man For, as
to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of
tragedies ; but in life it doth much mischief, sometimes like a Siren,
/"•sometimes like a Fury. You may observe that amongst all the great '
/'iand worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or
_...._.,
the hal£partner of the empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius, the
decemvir and law-giver ;2 whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous
man, and inordinate, but the latter was an austere and wise man :
and therefore it seems (though rarely) that love can find entrance, not
only in an open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be
not well kept.
It is a poor saying of Epicurus, Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum (^ ^
sumus: as if Man, made for ths contemplation of heaven, and all jjtj*
1 noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and ^
make himself a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are), yet &f**-
of the eye, which was given him for higher purposes. It is a strange
thing to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature
and value of things, by this : that the speaking in a perpetual hyper
bole is comely in nothing but in love, j Neither is it merely in the
phrase. For, whereas it hath been well said, that the arch-flatterer,
with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self:
certainly the lover is more. For there was never a proud man thought
so absurdly well of himself as the lover doth of the person loved. And
1 Or beholden — i.e., obliged.
' And tyrant of Virginia. He was one of the framers of the " Laws of the Twelve Table*."
>
j$ OP GREAT PLACE.
therefore it was well said, that it is impossible to loi)e ana be
Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party
loved ; but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciproque.
For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded either with the reci
proque, or with an inward- or secret contempt. By how much the
more men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other
things, but itself. As for the other losses, the poet's relation doth well
figure them : that he1 that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts2 of Juno
and Pallas ; for whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection
quitteth both riches and wisdom.
This passion hath his floods in the very times of weakness, which
are great prosperity and great adversity (though this latter hath been
less observed) ; both which times kindle love, and make it more
fervent, and therefore show it to be the child of folly. They do best
who, if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarter,3 and
sever it wholly from their serious affairs and actions of life. For if it
checlTonce with business, it troubleth men's fortunes,^and maketh men
that they can no ways be true to their own ends._i I krrtfw not how, but
martial men are given to love : I think it is but as they are given to
wine ; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.
There is in man's nature a secret inclination and motion towards
love of others, which, if it be noc spent upon some one or a few, doth
naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane
and charitable, as it is seen sometime in friars. Nuptial Jove_maketh
mankind ; friendJ^lovejDerfecJfith it ; but wanton love corrupteth and
embaseth it. f
XI.
OF GREAT PLACE.
MEN in Great Place are thrice servants ; servants of the Sovereign
or State, servants of fame, and servants of business. So as they have
no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in^ their
times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty 4 or to
seek power over others and to lose power over a man's self. The
rising unto place is laborious ; and by pains men come to greater
pains : and it is sometimes base ; and by indignities men come to
dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall
or at least an eclipse, which is a melancholy thing. Cum non sis qiti
fucris, non esse cur velis vivere. Nay, retire men cannot when they
would, neither will they when it were reason, but are impatient of
privatcness, even in age and sickness, which require the shadow ;
like old townsmen, that will be still sitting at their street door,4 though
thereby they offer age to scorn. Certainly great persons had need to
borrow other men's opinions to think themselves happy. For if they
judge by their own feeling, they cannot find it ; but if they think with
1 Paris. » Power and knowledge and wisdom.
8 Keep in its p^c. * A common custom of that age,
OF GREA1 PLACE. 19
themselves what other men think of them, and that other men would
fain be as they are, then they are happy as it were by report, when,
perhaps, they find the contrary within. For they are the first that
find their own griefs, though they be the last that find their own
faults. Certainly, men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves,
and while they are in the puzzle of business, they have no time to tend
their health, either of body or mind. I Hi mors grams inctibat, qui
notus nimis omnibus, ignotus moritur sibi.
In place there is license to do good and evil, whereof the latter is a
curse ; for in evil, the best condition is not to will, the second not to
can.1 But power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring.
For good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards men are
little better than good dreams, except they be put in act ; and that
cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and commanding
ground. Merit and good works is the end of man's motion, and
conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man's rest For if
a man can be a partaker of God's theatre, he shall likewise be par
taker of God's rest. Et conversus Deus, ut aspiceret opera, qua
fecerunt manus SUCK, vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis j 2 and then
the Sabbath.
In the discharge of thy place set before thee the best examples ;
for imitation is a globe of precepts. And after a time set before thee
thine own example, and examine thyself strictly whether thou didst
not best at first. Neglect not also the examples of those that have
carried themselves ill in the same place ; not to set off thyself by
taxing their memory, but to direct thyself what to avoid. Reform,
therefore, without bravery,3 or scandal of former times and persons :
but yet set it down to thyself, as well to create good precedents as to
follow them. Reduce things to the first institution, and observe
wherein and huvv they have degenerated : but yet ask counsel of both
times ; of the ancient time, what is best ; and of the latter time, what
is fittest. Seek to make thy course regular, that men may know
beforehand what they may expect ; but be not too positive and
peremptory, and express thyself well when thou digressest from thy
rule. Preserve the right of thy place, but stir not questions of juris
diction ; and rather assume thy right in silence, and de facto, than
voice it with claims and challenges. Preserve likewise the rights of
inferior places, and think it more honour to direct in chief than to be
busy in all. Embrace and invite helps and advices touching the
execution of thy place ; and do not drive away such as bring thee
information, as meddlers, but accept of them in good part.
The, vices of authority are chieflyjp.ur : delays, corruption, roughness,
and facility. For .delays : give easy access ; keep times appointed ;
go through with that which isin hand, and interlace not business but
of necessity. For XQrruptioifT' do not only bind thine own hands or
thy servants' hands from taking, but bind the hands of suitors also
from offering. Fox-iniegrity used doth the one ; but integrity pro
fessed, and with a manifest detestation of bribery, doth the other.
And avoid not only the fault but the suspicion. Whosoever is found
To b- able. 2 Gen. i. 31. 3 Boasting.
C 2
20 OF BOLDNESS.
variable and changeth manifestly without manifest cause, giveth
suspicion of corruption. Therefore always when thou changest thine
opinion or course, profess it plainly, and declare it, together with the
reasons that move thee to change : and do not think to steal l it.
A servant or a favourite, if he be inward, and no other apparent cause
of esteem, is commonly thought but a by-way to close corruption.
For rougrmess ; it is a needless cause of discontent : severity breed eth
fear, but roughness breedeth hate. Even reproofs from authority
ought to be grave, and not taunting. As for facility.2 it is worse than
bribery. For bribes come but now and then ; But if importunity or idle
respects lead a man, he shall never be without. As Solomon saith,
To respect persons it is not good, for such a man will transgress for a \
piece of bread?
It is most true that was anciently spoken, A place shoiveth the man.
And it showeth some to the better, and some to the worse. Omnium
consensu, capax imperii, nisi imperasset, saith Tacitus of Galba4 ; but
of Vespasian5 he saith, Solus imperantium, Vespasianus mutatus in
melius. Though the one was meant of sufficiency, the other of man
ners and affection. It is an assured sign of a worthy and generous
spirit, whom honour amends. For honour is, or should be, the place
of virtue : and as in nature things move violently to their place, and
calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority
settled and calm.
All rising to great place is by a winding stair ; and if there be fac
tions, it is good to side a man's self whilst he is in the rising, and to
balance himself when he is placed.
Use the memory of thy predecessor fairly and tenderly ; for if thou
dost not, it is a debt will surely be paid when thou art gone. If thou
have colleagues, respect them ; and rather call them when they look
not for it, than exclude them when they have reason to look to be
called. Be not too sensible or too remembering of thy place in con
versation and private answers to suitors ; but let it rather be said,
When he sits in place he is another man.
XII.
OF BOLDNESS.
IT is a trivial grammar-school text, but yet worthy a wise man's
consideration : question was asked of Demosthenes, What was the
chief part of an orator? he answered, Action : What next ? Action :
1 To hide the change, like a theft. 2 Easiness of yielding.
8 Proverbs xxviii. 21.
, ,
armies in Germany and Spain. Condemned to death by the jealousy of Nero, he revolted
against th* Emperor in A. D. 68; and Gaul declaring for him, Nero killed himself, and
was proclaimed Emperor ; but he gave himself up to the government of favourites, and was
deposed and slain by the Pretorian bands. Had he never reigned he would always have been
thought worthy to have been Emperor.
5 Vespasian was the only one of the Roman Emperors who was improved by wearing the
Imperial purple. He was born of a poor family of the Sabines A. D. 9, and became Emperor
in A. J). 69.
OF BOLDNESS. tl
IVhal tiext again ? Action. He said it that knew it best, and had by
nature himself no advantage in that he commended. A strange thing,
that that part of an orator which is but superficial, and rather the
virtue of a player, should be placed so high above those other noble
parts, of invention, elocution, and the rest ; nay, almost alone, as if it
were all in all. But the reason is plain. There is in human nature
generally more of the fool than of the wise ; and therefore those facul
ties by which the foolish part of men's minds is taken are most potent.
Wonderful like1 is the case of boldness in civil business ; What first?
boldness : What second and third ? boldness. And yet boldness is a
child of ignorance and baseness, far inferior to other parts. But
nevertheless it doth fascinate and bind hand and foot those that are
either shallow in judgment or weak in courage, which are the greatest
part ; yea, and prevaileth with wise men at weak times. Therefore
we see it hath done wonders in popular States ; but with senates and
princes less : and more ever upon the first entrance of bold persons into
action, than soon after ; for boldness is an ill keeper of promise.
Surely, as there are mountebanks for the natural body, so there are
mountebanks for the politic body ; men that undertake great cures,
and perhaps have been lucky in two or three experiments, but want
the grounds of science, and therefore cannot hold out. Nay, you shall
see a bold fellow many times do Mahomet's miracle. Mahomet made
the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of
it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assem
bled ; Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again ; and
when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, If the hill
will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill. So these
men, when they have promised great matters, and failed most shame
fully, yet, if they have the perfection of boldness, they will but slight it
over, and make a turn, and no more ado.2
Certainly to men of great judgment bold persons are sport to
behold ; nay, and to the vulgar also boldness hath somewhat of the
ridiculous. For, if absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you not
but great boldness is seldom without some absurdity. Especially it is
a sport to see when a bold fellow is out of countenance, for that puts
his face into a most shrunken and wooden posture : as needs it must ;
for in bashfulness the spirits do a little go and come, but with bold
men, upon like occasion, they stand at a stay ; like a stale at chess,
where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir. But this last were
fitter for a satire than fora serious observation.
This is well to be weighed, that boldness is ever blind, for it seeth
not dangers and inconveniences. Therefore it is ill in counsel, good
in execution. So that the right use of bold persons is, that they never
command in chief, but be seconds, and under the direction of others.
For in counsel it is good to see dangers, and in execution not to sec
them, except they be very great.
1 Wonderfully like oratory.
* Bacon's knowledge of huir.an nature is for all time.
as OF GOODNESS, AND GOODNESS OF NATURE,
XIII.
OF GOODNESS, AND GOODNESS OF NATURE.
I TAKE Goodness in this sense — the affecting of the weal of men
which is that the Grecians call Philanthropia ; and the word humanity
(as it is used) is a little too light to express it. Goodness I call the
habit, and Goodness of Nature the inclination. This, of all virtues
and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of the
Deity ; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no
better than a kind of vermin. Goodness answers to the theological
virtue, Charity, and admits no excess, but error.
The desire of power, in excess, caused the angels to fall \ the desire
of knowledge, in excess, caused man to fall ; but in charity there is no
excess ; neither can angel or man come in danger by it. The inclina
tion to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man ; insomuch
that, if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other living crea
tures : as it is seen in the Turks, a cruel people, who, nevertheless, are
kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds ; insomuch as Busbe-
chius1 reporteth, a Christian boy in Constantinople had like to have
been stoned for gagging, in a waggishness, a long-billed fowl.
Errors, indeed, in this virtue of goodness or charity, may be com
mitted. The Italians have an ungracious proverb, Tanto buon che val
niente : So good that he is good for nothing. And one of the doctors3
of Italy, Nicholas Machiavel, had the confidence to put in writing,
almost in plain terms, that the Christian faith had given tip good men
in prey to those who are tyramiical ^nd unjust. Which he spake be
cause, indeed, there was never law, or sect, or opinion, did so much
magnify goodness as the Christian religion doth. Therefore, to avoid
the scandal, and the danger both, it is good to take knowledge of the
errors of an habit so excellent. Seek the good of other men, but be
not in bondage to their faces or fancies : for that is but facility or soft
ness ; which taketh an honest mind prisoner. Neither give thou
/Esop's cock a gem, who would be better pleased and happier if he had
had a barley-corn. The example of God teacheth the lesson truly : He
sendcth his rain, and maketh his sun to shine upon the just and the un-
1 The Latin name of Augier Ghislain de Busbecq, a celebrated diplomatist, born in
Flanders, 1522. He was Ambassador from Ferdinand, King of the Romans, to the Sultan.
He stayed in Constantinople seven years, and left an admirable account of the Ottoman
Empire, which was translated into all the European languages. Lady Mary Montagu, writing
from Adrianople in April, 1717, says : " Here are some little birds held in a sort of religious
reverence, and for that reason multiply prodigiously ; turtles on account of their innocence,
and storks because they are supposed to make every winter the pilgrimage to Mecca. To say
truth they are the happiest subjects under the Turkish government, and are so sensible of
their privileges that they walk the streets without fear, and generally build in the low parts
of the houses. Happy are those whose houses are so distinguished, as the vulgar Turks ara
Eerfectly persuaded that they will not be attacked either by fire or pestilence. I have the
appiness to have one of their sacred nests under my chamber window." — Letters, vol. i|
p. 396,- Ed. 1837.
2 IDoctors — learned men. Machiavelli, a celebrated Florentine statesman and historian,
author of a famous book called "II Principe," the teaching of which has given the name of
" Machiavellian " to everything insincere and perfidious. He was born 1469, died 1527. Ho
was the guide of the infamous Caesar Borgia, for whom he wrote his book,
OF GOODNESS, AND GOODNESS OF NATURE. 23
just; but He doth not rain wealth nor shine honour and virtues upon
men equally. Common benefits are to be communicate with all ; but
peculiar benefits with choice. And beware how, in making the portraiture,
thou breakest the pattern. For divinity maketh the love of ourselves the
pattern, the love of our neighbours but the portraiture. Sell all thou,
hast, and give it to the poor, and follow me; but sell not all thou hastJ
except thou come and follow me : that is, except thou have a vocationl
wherein thou mayest do as much good with little means as with]
great ; for otherwise, in feeding the streams, thou driest the fountain. I
Neither is there only a habit of goodness directed by right reason ;
but there is in some men, even in nature, a disposition towards it ; as,
on the other side, there is a natural malignity ; for there be that in
their nature do not affect the good of others. The lighter sort of
malignity turneth but to a crossness, or frowardness, or aptness to
oppose, or difficilness,1 or the like ; but the deeper sort to envy, and
mere mischief. Such men, in other men's calamities, are, as it were,
in season, and are ever on the loading part : not so good as the dogs
that licked Lazarus' sores, but like flies that are still buzzing upon
anything that is raw: Misanthropi, that make it their practice to bring
men to the bough, and yet never have a tree for the purpose in their
gardens, as Timon2 had. Such dispositions are the very errors of
human nature ; and yet they are the fittest timber to make great poli-
tiques of: like to knee-timber,3 that is good for ships that are ordained
to be tossed, but not for building houses that shall stand firm.
The parts and signs of goodness are many. If a man be gracious
and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and
that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent
that joins to them. If he be compassionate towards the affliction of
other's, it shows that his heart is like the noble tree that is wounded
itself when it gives the balm.4 If he easily pardons and remits
offences, it shows that his mind is planted above injuries, so that he
cannot be shot. If he be thankful for small benefits, it shows that he
weighs men's minds, and not their trash. But, above all, if he have
St. Paul's perfection, that he would wish to be an anathema from
Christ, for the salvation of his brethren, it shows much of a divine
nature, and a kind of conformity with Christ Himself.
I Difficult to get on with.
2 Tim. I have a tree, which grows here in my close,
T hat mine own use invites me to cut down,
And shortly must I fell it : tell my friends,
Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree,
From high to low throughout, that whoso please
To stop affliction, let him take his haste,
Come hither, ere my tree hath felt the axe,
And hang himself : I pray you, do my greeting.
Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, Act 5, .Scene It
II Part of a tree that has grown gnarled and crooked, and forms an angle.
• The myrrh treei
«4 OF NOBILITY
XIV.
OF NOBILITY.
WE will speak of Nobility first as a portion of an estate, then as a
condition of particular persons. A monarchy where there is no nobi
lity at all is ever a pure and absolute tyranny, as that of the Turks.
For nobility attempers sovereignty, and draws the eyes of the people
somewhat aside from the line royal. But for democracies, they need
it not ; and they are commonly more quiet, and less subject to sedi
tion than where there are stirps1 of nobles. For men's eyes are upon
the business, and not upon the persons ; or, if upon the persons, it is
for the business' sake, as fittest, and not for flags and pedigree. We
see the Switzers last well, notwithstanding their diversity of religion
and of Cantons ; for utility is their bond, and not respects. The
United Provinces of the Low Countries in their government excel.
For where there is an equality, the consultations are more indifferent,
and the payments and tributes more cheerful. A great and potent
nobility addeth majesty to a monarch, but diminisheth power, and
putfeth life and spirit into the people, but presseth their fortune. It is
well when nobles are not too great for sovereignty, nor for justice; and
yet maintained in that height, as the insolency of inferiors may be
broken upon them before it come on too fast upon the majesty of
kings. A numerous nobility causeth poverty and inconvenience in a
State ; for it is a surcharge of expense ; and besides, it being of neces
sity that many of the nobility fall in time to be weak in fortune, it
maketh a kind of disproportion between honour and means.
As for nobility in particular persons : it is a reverend thing to see
an ancient castle or building not in decay, or to see a fair timber tree
sound and perfect; how much more to behold an ancient noble family,
which hath stood against the waves and weathers of time. For new
nobility is but the act of power, but ancient nobility is the act of time.
Those that are first raised to nobility are commonly more virtuous,
but less innocent, than their descendants ; for there is rarely any
rising but by a commixture of good and evil arts. But it is reason
the memory of their virtues remain to their posterity, and their faults
die with themselves. Nobility of birth commonly abateth industry;
and he that is not industrious envieth him that is. Besides, nobJe
.persons cannot go much higher ; and he that standeth at a stay2 when
'•others rise can hardly avoid motions of envy. On the other side,
nobility extinguisheth the passive envy from others towards them,
because they are in possession of honour. Certainly, kings that have
able men of their nobility shall find ease in employing them, and a
better slide3 into their business ; for people naturally bend to them as
born in some sort to command.
1 As was shown in the case of Warwick the king maker) and the Wars of the Rose&
* Stand stilL
* Smooth progiess.
OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES. a«5
XV.
OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES.
SHEPHERDS of people had need know the calendars1 of tempests in
State ; which are commonly greatest when things grow to equality, as
natural tempests are greatest about the equinoctia. And as there are
certai.i hollow blasts of wind and secret swellings of seas before a
tempest, so are there in States :
Ille etiam ccecos instare tumultus
' S&pe monet, fraudesque et operta, tumescere bella*
Libels and licentious discourses against the State, when they are
frequent and open ; and in like sort, false news often running up and
down to the disadvantage of the State, and hastily embraced, are
amongst the signs of troubles. Virgil, giving the pedigree of Fame,
saith, she was sister to the giants :
Illam terra parens, ird irritata. deorum,
Extremam (ut perhibent] Cceo Enceladoquc sororem
Progenuit?
As if fames were the relics of seditions past. But they are no less
indeed the preludes of seditions to come. Howsoever, he noteth it
right, that seditious tumults and seditious fames 4 differ no more but
as brother and sister, masculine and feminine : especially if it come
to that, that the best actions of a State, and the most plausible, and
which ought to give greatest contentment, are taken in ill sense and
traduced. For that shows the envy great, as Tacitus saith, Conflata
viagna imridia, seu bene, sen male, gesta premunt. Neither doth it
follow that because these fames are a sign of troubles, that the sup
pressing of them with too much severity should be a remedy of
troubles. For the despising of them many times checks them best \
and the going about to stop them doth but make a wonder long-lived
Also that kind of obedience, which Tacitus speaketh of, is to be held
suspected : Erant in officio, sed tamen qui mallent ma?idata impcran-
tium intcrpretari, quam exequi. Disputing, excusing, cavilling upon
mandates and directions, is a kind of shaking off the yoke, and assay
of disobedience : especially if in those disputings they which are for
the direction speak fearfully and tenderly, and those that are against
it, audaciously.
Also, as Machiavel noteth well, when princes, that ought to be
common parents, make themselves as a party, and lean to a side,
that is, as a boat that is overthrown by uneven weight on the one
side : as was well seen in the time of Henri III. of France ; for, first
himself entered League 5 for the extirpation of the Protestants, and
presently after, the same League was turned upon himself. For whei
1 Alluding to the weather predictions in almanacks. * Georgics, i, 465.
8 .rfEneid, 4, 179 — 181. * Rumours.
• The Holy League, headed by the Guises, which was afterwards turned against hims«l£
26 OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES.
the authority of princes is made but an accessory to a cause, and that
there be other bands that tie faster than the band of sovereignty, kings
begin to be put almost out of possession.
Also, when discords, and quarrels, and factions are carried openly
and audaciously, it is a sign the reverence of government is lost. For
the motions of the greatest persons in a government ought to be as the
motions of the planets under primum mobile x (according to the old
opinion), which is, that every of them is carried swiftly by the highest
motion, and softly in their own motion. And, therefore, when great
ones in their own particular motion move violently, and, as Tacitus
expresseth it well, liberius quam ut imperantium meminissent, it is a
sign the orbs are out of frame. For reverence is that, wherewith
princes are girt from God, who threateneth the dissolving thereof : 2
Solvam cingula rcgum.
So when any of the four pillars of government are mainly shakened,
or weakened (which are Religion, Justice, Counsel, and Treasure),
men had need to pray for fair weather. But let us pass from this
part of predictions (concerning which, nevertheless, more light might
be taken from that which followeth), and let us speak first of the
materials of seditions, then of the motives of them, and thirdly of the
remedies.
Concerning the Materials of seditions. It is a thing well to be
considered : for the surest way to prevent seditions (if the times do
bear it) is to take away the matter of them. For if there be fuel pre
pared, it is hard to tell whence the spark shall come that shall set it
on fire. The matter of seditions is of two kinds — much poverty, and
much discontentment. It is certain, so many overthrown estates, so
many votes for troubles. Lucan noteth well the state of Rome before
the civil war :
Hinc usiira vorax rapidiimque in tcmporefcenuSt
Hinc concussa fides, et multis utile bellum.*
This same multis utile bellum is an assured and infallible sign of a
State disposed to seditions and troubles. And if this poverty and
broken estate in the better sort be joined with a want and necessity
in the mean people, the danger is imminent and great. For the
rebellions of the belly are the worst. As for discontentments, they
are in the politic body like to humours in the natural, which are apt
to gather a preternatural heat, and to inflame. And let no prince
\ measure the danger of them by this, whether they be just or unjust
I (for that were to imagine people to be too reasonable ; who do often
1 spurn at their own good), nor yet by this, whether the griefs whereupon
1 they rise be in fact great or small ; for they are the most dangerous dis
contentments, where the fear is greater than the feeling. Dokndi modus,
timcndi non item. Besides, in great oppressions, the same things that
provoke the patience do withal mate 4 the courage ; but in fears it is
1 Primum mobile was the " first movement." the outermost or tenth heaven, which, pure,
starless,, and excessively swift in movement, was supposed by Ptolemy and the early astro
nomers to carry round with it all the stars and planets in 24 hours.
2 Isaiah, xlv. r.
3 Lucan's Pharsalia, i, 181.
* Mate is to check, as in chess, or literally to stupify cr deaden,
OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES. 27
not so. Neither let any prince, or State, be secure concerning dis
contentments, because they have been often, or have been long, and
yet no peril hath ensued. For as it is true that every vapour or fume
doth not turn into a storm, so it is nevertheless true that storms,
though they blow over divers times, yet may fall at last. And, as the
Spanish proverb noteth well, The cord breaketh at the last by the
weakest pull.
The Causes and Motives of seditions are innovation in religion,
taxes, alteration of laws and customs, breaking of privileges, general
oppression, advancement of unworthy persons, strangers,1 dearths,
disbanded soldiers, factions grown desperate, and whatsoever in
offending people joineth and knitteth them in a common cause.
For the Remedies ; there may be some general preservatives,
whereof we will speak : as for the just cure, it must answer to the
particular disease, and so be left to counsel rather than rule.
The first remedy or prevention is to remove, by all means possible,
that material cause of sedition whereof we speak, which is want and
poverty in the estate. To which purpose serveth the opening and
well-balancing of trade ; the cherishing of manufactures ; the banish-
ing of idleness ; the repressing of waste and excess by sumptuary
laws ; the improvement and husbanding of the soil ; the regulating of
prices of things vendible ; the moderating of taxes and tributes ; and
the like. Generally, it is to be foreseen that the population of a king
dom (especially if it be not mown down by wars) do not exceed the
stock of the kingdom which should maintain them. Neither is the
population to be reckoned only by number. For a smaller number,
that spend more and earn less, do wear out an estate sooner than a
greater number that live low and gather more. Therefore the multi
plying of nobility, and other degrees of quality, in an over-proportion
to the common people, doth speedily bring a State to necessity ; and
so doth likewise an over-grown clergy ; for they bring nothing to the
stock ; and in like manner, when more are bred scholars than prefer
ments can take off.
It is likewise to be remembered, that, forasmuch as the increase of
any estate must be upon the foreigner (for whatsoever is somewhere
gotten is somewhere lost), there be but three things which one nation
selleth unto another ; the commodity as nature yieldeth it, the manu
facture, and the vecture, or carriage. So that, if these three wheels
go, wealth will flow as in a spring tide. And it cometh many times
to pass, that materiam superabit opus, that the work and carriage
is worth more than the material, and enricheth a State more ; as is
notably seen in the Low Countrymen, who have the best mines above
ground in the world.2
Above all things, good policy is to be used, that the treasures and
monies in a State be not gathered into few hands. For otherwise, a
State may have a great stock, and yet starve ; and money is like
muck, not good except it be spread. This is done chiefly by sup-
* Prosperous foreigners.
* These mines \vere their successful commerce and prudent trading.
e8 OF SEDITIONS AND TROUBLES.
pressing, or at the least keeping a strait hand upon, the devouring
trades of usury, engrossing,1 great pasturages, and the like.
For removing discontentments, or, at least, the danger of them :
there is in every state (as we know) two portions of 'subjects, the
nobles and the commonalty. When one of these is discontent, the
danger is not great : for common people are of slow motion, if they
be not excited by the greater sort ; and the greater sort are of small
strength, except the multitude be apt and ready to move of them
selves. Then is the danger, when the greater sort do but wait for the
troubling of the waters amongst the meaner, that then they may de
clare themselves. The poets feign that the rest of the gods would
have bound Jupiter ; which he hearing of, by the counsel of Pallas
sent for Briareus, with his hundred hands, to come in to his aid. An
emblem, no doubt, to show how safe it is for monarchs to make sure
of the good-will of common people.
To give moderate liberty for griefs and discontentments to evaporate
(so it be without too great insolency or bravery) is a safe way. For
he that turneth the humours back, and maketh the wound bleed
inwards, endangereth malign ulcers and pernicious imposthumations.
The part of Epimetheus mought2 well become Prometheus, in the
case of discontentments ; for there is not a better provision against
them. Epimetheus, when griefs and evils flew abroad, at last shut the
lid,3 and kept hope in the bottom of the vessel. Certainly, the politic
and artificial nourishing and entertaining of hopes, and carrying men
from hopes to hopes, is one of the best antidotes against the poison of
discontentments. And it is a certain sign of a wise government and
proceeding, when it can hold men's hearts by hopes, when it cannot
by satisfaction ; and when it can handle things in such manner as no
evil shall appear so peremptory but that it hath some outlet of hope :
which is the less hard to do, because both particular persons and fac
tions are apt enough to flatter themselves, or, at least, to brave that
which they believe not.
Also the foresight and prevention, that there be no likely or fit head
whereupon discontented persons may resort, and under whom they
may join, is a known, but an excellent point of caution. I understand
a fit head to be one that hath greatness and reputation, that hath con
fidence with the discontented party, and upon whom they turn their
eyes, and that is thought discontented in his own particular ; which
kind of persons are either to be won and reconciled to the State, and
that in a fast and true manner, or to be fronted with some other of the
same party that may oppose them, and so divide the reputation.
Generally, the dividing and breaking of all factions and combinations
that are adverse to the State, and setting them at distance, or, at
least, distrust among themselves, is not one of the worst remedies.'
For it is a desperate case, if those that hold with the proceeding of the
State be full of discord and faction, and those that are against it be
entire and united.
1 Moriopolies.
* Might.
» Of Pandora's box, containing all evils, but with Hope at the bottom.
• It was tbrt of Catherine de Medici. " Pivjsez pour regner " was her motto and policy.
OP ATHEISM. 29
1 have noted, that some witty and sharp speeches, which have fallen
from princes, have given fire to seditions. Caesar did himself infinite
hurt in that speech, Sylla nescivit literas, non potuit dictare : for it
did utterly cut off that hope which men had entertained, that he would
at one time or other give over his dictatorship.1 Galba undid himself
by that speech, legi a se militem, non emi :z for it put the soldiers out
of hope of the donative. Probus, likewise, by that speech, Si vixero,
non opus erit amplius Romano imperio militibusj a speech of great
despair for the soldiers.3 And many the like. Surely princes had need,
in tender matters and ticklish times, to beware what they say,
especially in these short speeches, which fly abroad like darts, and are
thought to be shot out of their secret intentions. For, as for large
discourses, they are flat things, and not so much noted.
Lastly, let princes, against all events, not be without some great
person, one or rather more, of military valour, near unto them, for the
repressing of seditions in their beginnings. For, without that, there
useth to be more trepidation in court upon the first breaking out of
trouble than were fit. And the State runneth the danger of that which
Tacitus saith4 — Atque is habitus animorum fmt, ut pessimum f acinus
auderent pauci iplures vellent, omnes paterentur. But let such military
persons be assured and well reputed of, rather than factious and
popular ; holding also good correspondence with the other great men
in the State : or else the remedy is worse than the disease.
XVI.
OF ATHEISM.
I HAD rather believe all the fables in the Legend,5 and the Talmud,1
and the Alcoran,7 than that this universal frame is without a mind.
And therefore God never wrought miracles to convince atheism,
because his ordinary works convince it. It is true that a little philo
sophy inclineth Man's mind to atheism ; but depth in philosophy
bringeth men's minds about to religion. For while the mind of Mao
looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them,
and go no farther ; but when it beholdeth the chain of them confede
rate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.
Nay, even that school which is most accused of atheism, doth most
demonstrate religion; that is, the school of Leucippus,8 and Demo-
1 Czesar punned upon the word "dictate" — as both meaning to dictate by writing — to
reign as a dictator.
2 Galba, for saying " he would not buy soldiers, he would levy them," was murdered by
the Praetorian Guards A. D. 69.
3 Probus was Emperor A. L>. 276 to 282, when, for saying " If I live there will be no more
peed of soldiers in the Roman Empire," he was murdered by the troops.
* Tacitus' History, i. 28.
6 The Golden Legend, a volume containing biographies of the saints and the Miracles
wrrought by them, written by Jacobus Voragine in the j3th century.
The collection of Rabbinical traditions and expositions of the Law.
' The " Book" of the Mahometan Faith and Law.
8 Leucippus was a Greek philosopher, the originator of the atomic theory — or <iie erfiatior
of things by the fortuitous coming together and blending of atoms.
SO OF A THEISM.
critus,1 and Epicurus. For it is a thousand times more credible that
four mutable elements and one immutable fifth essence, duly and
eternally placed, need no God, than that an army of infinite small
portions or seeds, unplaced, should have produced this order and
beauty without a divine marshal.
The Scripture saith, Thejool hatJi said in his heart, there is no God?
it is not said, The fool hath thought in his heart ; so as he rather saith
it by rote to himself, as that he would have, than that he can thoroughly
believe it, or be persuaded of it ; for none deny there is a God, but
those for whom it maketh3 that there were no God. It appeareth in
nothing more, that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of
man, than by this, that atheists will ever be talking of that their
opinion, as if they fainted in it themselves, and would be glad to be
strengthened by the consent of others. Nay, more, you shall have
atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects. And,
which is most of all, you shall have of them that will suffer for atheism,
and not recant : whereas, if they did truly think that there were no
such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves ? Epicurus
is charged, that he did but Dissemble for his credit's sake, when he
affirmed there were Blessed Natures, but such as enjoy themselves
without having respect to the government of the world. Wherein they
say he did temporize, though in secret he thought there was no God.
But certainly he is traduced ; for his words are noble and divine :
Non deos vulgi negare profanumj sed vulgi opiniones diis applicare
profanum. Plato could have said no more. And although he had
the confidence to deny the administration, he had not the power to
deny the nature. The Indians of the West have names for their
particular gods, though they have no name for God (as if the heathens
should have had the names Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, &c., but not the
word Deus), which shews that even those barbarous people have the
notion, though they have not the latitude and extent of it. So that
against atheists the very savages take part with the very subtlest
philosophers. The contemplative atheist is rare : a Diagoras,4 a Bion,5
a Lucian G perhaps, and some others. And yet they seem to be more
than they are, for that all that impugn a received religion, or super
stition, are, by the adverse part, branded with the name of atheists.
But the great atheists indeed are hypocrites, which are ever handling
1 Democritus was born at Abdera of a noble and wealthy family, who entertained Xerxes
on his return from Asia. In recompense the King of Persia left some of his magi to instruct
the young Democritus. He adopted the atomic theory of Leucippus. He travelled much,
and was one of the most celebrated of the philosophers, an experimental one also. Pie was
called the laughing philosopher.
2 Psalm xiv. i.
3 To whose interest it would be that there should be no God.
4 An Athenian philosopher, who, seeing that a man who perjured himself when making a
false claim as to the authorship of one of Diagoras's poems, remained unpunished by the gods,
turned Atheist. The Areopagus, on account of his impieties and blasphemies, set a price on
his head, and he had to fly from Athens. He lived 416 B.C.
3 Not the Greek poet, but a Scythian philosopher of atheistic opinions — a scoffer and
satirist, but who before his death acknowledged the existence and po\\er of Providence. He
died 241 u.c.
c He was a Greek writer of Samosata, who was born in the reign of Trojan, and \vaj
patronised by the Emperor Aurelius. He ridiculed alike the superstitions of the heathen and
Christianity.
O£ SUPERSTITION* yi
Holy things, but without feeling, so as they must needs be cauterized
in the end.
The causes of atheism are, divisions in religion, if there be many
(for any one main division addeth zeal to both sides, but many divi
sions introduce atheism) ; another is, scandal of priests, when it is
come to that which St. Bernard 1 saith, Non est jam dicere, ut populus.
sic sacerdos ; quia ncc sic populus, ut sacerdos j a third is, a custom of
profane scoffing in holy matters, which doth by little and little deface
the reverence of religion ; and lastly, learned times, especially with
peace and prosperity ; for troubles and adversities do more bow men's
minds to religion.
They that deny a God destroy Man's nobility, for certainly Man is
of kin to the beasts by his body ; and if he be not of <in to God by
his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. It destroys likewise
magnanimity, and the raising of human nature. For take an example
of a dog, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on when
he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God,
or melior natura : which courage is manifestly such as that creature,
without that confidence of a better nature than his own, could never
attain. So Man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon divine
protection and favour, gathereth a force and faith which human nature
in itself could not obtain ; therefore, as atheism is in all respects hate
ful, so in this, that it depriveth human nature of the means to exalt
itself above human frailty. As it is in particular persons, so it is in
nations. Never was there such a State for magnanimity as Rome.
Of this State hear what Cicero saith: Quam volumus, licet, patres
conscripti, nos amemus, tamen nee numero Hispanos, nee robore Gallos,
nee calliditate Pcenos, nee artibus Grcecos, nee denique hoc ipso hujus
gentis et terra domestico nativoque sensu Italos ipsos et Latinos; sed
pietate, ac religione, atque hdc una sapientid, quod deoruvi immorta-
lium numine omnia rcgi, gubernarique perspcximus, omnes gentes
nationesque superavimus.
XVII.
OF SUPERSTITION.2
IT were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an
opinion as is unworthy of him. For the one is unbelief, the other is
contumely : and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity,
Plutarch saith well to that purpose : Surely, saith he, I had rather a
great deal men should say there was no such a man at all as Plutarch,
tfiatt that they should say there was one Plutarch that would eat his
children as soon as they were born j as the poets speak of Saturn.
And as the contumely is greater towards God, so the danger is greater
towards men. Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to
natural piety, to laws, to reputation : all which may be guides to an
outward moral virtue, though religion were not. But superstition dis-
1 The celebrated Abbot of Clairvaux, who preached the second Crusade.
* Pt- ^wmsoii calls superstition " R^igion without morals."
32 OF TRAVEL.
mounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of
men. Therefore atheism did never perturb States ; for it makes men
weary of themselves, as looking no further : and we see the times
inclined to atheism, as the time of Augustus Csosar, were civil times.
But superstition hath been the confusion of many States, and bringeth
in a new primum mobile? that ravisheth all the spheres of government.
The master of superstition is the people, and in all superstition wise
men follow fools ; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed
order. It was gravely said by some of the prelates in the Council of
Trent, where the doctrine of the schoolmen2 bare great sway, that the
schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics and epi
cycles? and such engines oj orbs, to save the phenomena, though they
knew there were no such things; and, in like manner, that the school
men had framed a number of subtle and intricate axioms and theo
rems to save the practice of the Church.
The causes of superstition are pleasing and sensual rites and cere
monies ; excess of outward and pharisaical holiness ; over-great rever
ence of traditions, which cannot but load the Church ; the stratagems
of prelates for their own ambition and lucre ; the favouring too much
of good intentions, which openeth the gate to conceits and novelties ;
the taking an aim at divine matters by human, which cannot but
breed mixture of imaginations ; and, lastly, barbarous times, especi
ally joined with calamities and disasters.
Superstition, without a veil, is a deformed thing ; for, as it addcth
deformity to an ape to be so like a man, so the similitude of supersti
tion to religion makes it the more deformed. And as wholesome meat
corrupteth to little worms, so good forms and orders corrupt into a
number of petty observances.
There is a superstition in avoiding superstition, when men think to
do best if they go farthest from the superstition formerly received ;
therefore care would be had that (as it fareth in ill purgings) the good
be not taken away with the bad, which commonly is done when the
people is the reformer.
XVIII.
OF TRAVEL.
TRAVEL, in the younger sort, is a part of education : in the elder, a
part of experience. He that travelleth into a country, before he hath
some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel.
That young men travel under some tutor, or grave servant, I allow
well ; so that he be such a one that hath the language, and hath been
in the country before ; whereby he may be able to tell them what
1 Cause of motion. See Essay 15, note, p. 26.
2 The men who adopted and taught the Scholastic Divinity in the Universities during
the middle ages. The chief of these was the celebrated Duns Scotus.
3 Excentrics and Epicycles. By the Ptolemaic astronomy the sun and moon both wer_ sai..I
to revolve round the earth : but as the earth (they asserted) was not in the ceni.c of these
circles, or the velocity would not vary, they were called Eccentrics, or Excentric Circles.
Epicycles were the small circles in one of which each planet moved : the centre of it described
a larger circle about the earth.
OF TRAVEL. 33
things are worthy to be seen in the country where they go, what
acquaintances they are to seek, what exercises or discipline the place
yieldeth ; for else young men shall go hooded,1 and look abroad little.
It is a strange thing that, in sea-voyages, where there is nothing to
be seen but sky and sea, men should make diaries ; 2 but in land-
travel, wherein so much is to be observed, for the most part they omit
it : as if chance were fitter to be registered than observation. Let
di?a-ies, therefore, be brought in use.
The things to be seen and observed are the courts of princes,
especially when they give audience to ambassadors ; the courts of
justice, while they sit and hear causes, and so of consistories eccle
siastic ; the churches and monasteries, with the monuments which are
therein extant ; the walls and fortifications of cities and towns, and so
the havens and harbours ; antiquities and ruins ; libraries, colleges ;
disputations and lectures, where any are ; shipping and navies ; houses
and gardens of state and pleasure near great cities ; armories, arsenals,
magazines ; exchanges, burses, warehouses ; exercises of horsemanship,
fencing, training of soldiers, and the like ; comedies, such whereunto
the better sort of persons do resort ; treasuries of jewels and robes ;
cabinets and rarities ; and, to conclude, whatsoever is memorable in
the places where they go ; after all which, the tutor or servants ought
to make diligent inquiry. As for triumphs, masks, feasts, weddings,
funerals, capital executions, and such shows, men need not be put in
mind of them ; yet they are not to be neglected. If you will have a
young man to put his travel into a little room, and in short time to
gather much, this you must do. First, as was said, he must have some
entrance into the language before he goeth. Then he must have such
a servant, or tutor, as knoweth the country, as was likewise said. Let
him carry with him also some card, or book, describing the country
where he travelleth, which will be a good key to his inquiry. Let him
keep also a diary. Let him not stay long in one city or town : more
or less, as the place deserveth, but not long. Nay, when he stayeth
in one city or town, let him change his lodging from one end and part
of the town to another ; which is a great adamant 3 of acquaintance.
Let him sequester himself from the company of his countrymen, and
diet in such places where there is good company of the nation where
he travelleth. Let him, upon his removes from one place to another,
procure recommendation to some person of quality residing in the
place whither he removeth, that he may use his favour in those things
he desireth to see or know. Thus he may abridge his travel with much
profit.
As for the acquaintance which is to be sought in travel, that which
is most of all profitable is acquaintance with the secretaries and
employed men of ambassadors. For so, in travelling in one country,
he shall suck the experience of many. Let him also see and visit
eminent persons in all kinds, which are of great name abroad, that he
may be able to tell how the life agreeth with the fame. For quarrels,
they are with care and discretion to be avoided. They are commonly
1 Blindfold — as a falcon is hooded.
2 The log.
8 The magD«t of '~~ J-,tone (j.e.. a great attracti^nX
14 OF
for mistresses, healths,1 place, and words. And let a man beware how
he keepeth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons, for they
will engage him into their own quarrels. When a traveller returneth
home, let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether
behind him, but maintain a correspondence by letters with those of his
acquaintance which are of most worth. And let his travel appear
rather in his discourse, than in his apparel or gesture ; and in his
discourse let him be rather advised in his answers, than forward to
tell stories : and let it appear that he doth not change his country
manners for those of foreign parts, but only prick in2 some flowers of
that he hath learned abroad into the customs of his own country.
XIX,
OF EMPIRE.
f£ is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and
many things to fear ; and. yet that commonly is the case with kings ;
who, being at the highest, want matter of desire, which makes their
minds more languishing ; and have many representations of perils and
shadows, which make their minds the less clear. And this is one
reason also of that effect which the Scripture speaketh of, that the
king's heart is inscrutable j 3 for multitude of jealousies, and lack of
some predominant desire, that should marshal and put in order all the
rest, maketh any man's heart hard to find or sound. Hence it comes
likewise, that princes many times make themselves desires, and set
their hearts upon toys ; sometimes upon a building ; sometimes upon
erecting of an Order ; sometimes upon the advancing of a person ;
sometimes upon obtaining excellency in some art, or feat of the hand :
as Nero for playing on the harp ; Domitian for certainty of the hand
with the arrow ; Commoclus for playing at fence ; Caracalla for driving
chariots ; and the like. This seemeth incredible unto those that know
ot the principle, that the mind of man is more c/iee red and refreshed
#y profiting in small things ; than by standing at a stay in great. We
see rJso that kings that have been fortunate conquerors in their first
years, it being not possible for them to go forward infinitely, but that
they must have some check or arrest in their fortunes, turn in their
latter years to be superstitious and melancholy ; as did Alexander the
'Great,4 Dioclesian,5 and in our memory Charles V. ;f) and others : fot
he that is used to go forward, and findeth a stop, falleth out of his own
favour, and is not the thing he was.
To speak now of the true temper of empire : it is a thing rare and
hard to keep; for both temper and distemper consist of contraries.
But it is one thing to mingle contraries, another to interchange them.
The answer of Apollonius to Vespasian is full of excellent instruction.
1 Drinking toasts. 2 Plant. 3 Proverbs v. 3.
4 Alexander towards the close of his life became greatly depressed.
5 Dioclesian abdicated the Empire of Rome, and retired to private life.
6 Charles V. abdicated the Empire of Germany and Crown of Spain, and died in the
Monastery of St. Just, Lstramadura.
Of S.MHRR. 35
Vespasian asked him, What was Nero's overthrow? He answered,
Nero could touch and tune the harp well; but in government sometimes
he ttsed to wind the phis too high, sometimes to let them down too low.
And certain it is, that nothing destroyeth authority so much as the
unequal and untimely interchange of power pressed too far, and
relaxed too much.
This is true, that the wisdom of all these latter times in prince?'
affairs is rather fine deliveries, and shiftings of dangers and mischiefs,
when they are near, than solid and grounded courses to keep them
aloof ; but this is but to try masteries with fortune. And let men
beware how they neglect and suffer matter of trouble to be prepared.
For no man can forbid the spark, nor tell whence it may come. The
difficulties in princes' business are many and great, but the greatest
difficulty is often in their own mind. For it is common with princes
(saith Tacitus) to will contradictories : Sunt plerumque regum volun-
tates vehementes, et inter se contraries : for it is the solecism of power
to think to command the end, and yet not to endure the mean.
Kings have to deal with their neighbours, their wives, their children,
their prelates or clergy, their nobles, their second nobles or gentlemen,
their merchants, their commons, and their men of war ; and from all
these arise dangers, if care and circumspection be not used.
First, for their neighbours ; there can no general rule be given (the
occasions are so variable), save one which ever holdeth ; which is,
that princes do keep due sentinel that none of their neighbours do
overgrow so (by increase of territory, by embracing of trade, by
approaches, or the like) as they become more able to annoy them
than they were. And this is generally the work of standing councils
to foresee and to hinder it. During that triumvirate of kings, King
Henry VIII. of England, Francis I., king of France, and Charles V.,
emperor, there was such a watch kept that none of the three could win
a palm of ground, but the other two would straighways balance it,
either by confederation, or, if need were, by a war, and would not in
anywise take up peace at interest. And the like was done by that
league (which Guicciardini1 saith was the security of Italy), made be
tween Ferdinando, king of Naples, Lorenzius Medices, and Ludovicus
Sforza, potentates, the one of Florence, the other of Milan. Neither
is the opinion of some of the schoolmen to be received, that a war
cannot justly be made, but upon a precedent injury or provocation.
For there is no question but a just fear of an imminent danger, though
there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war.
For their wives ; there are cruel examples of them. Livia is in-
f<vmied for the poisoning of her husband2; Roxolana,3 Solyman's wife,
4.is the destruction of that renowned prince, Sultan Mustapha, and
otherwise troubled his house and succession ; Edward II. of England,
his queen,4 had the principal hand in the deposing and murder of her
husband. This kind of danger is then to be feared chiefly when the
1 A Florentine historian. He wrote " The History of Italy during his own time."
2 Augustus.
8 Roxolana, a European slave, was married by Splyman the Magnificent, the greatest of
the Ottoman Sultans. She persuaded him to have his son Mustapha strangled.
* Isabella of Anjou.
D 2
36 OF EMPIRE.
wives have, plots for the raising of their own children, or else that the/
be advoutresses.
For their children ; the tragedies likewise of dangers from them
have been many ; and generally the entering of the fathers into suspi
cion of their children hath been ever unfortunate. The destruction of
Mustapha (that we named before) was fatal to Solyman's line, as the
succession of the Turks from Solyman until this day is suspected to
be untrue, and of strange blood ; for that Selymus II. was thought to
be supposititious. The destruction of Crispus,1 a young prince of rare
towardness, by Constantinus the Great, his father, was in like manner
fatal to his house, for both Constantinus and Constance, his sons, died
violent deaths ; and Constantius, his other son, did little better ; who
died, indeed of sickness, but after that Julianus had taken arms against
him. The destruction of Demetrius, son to Philip II. of Macedon,2
turned upon the father, who died of repentance. And many like
examples there are ; but few or none where the fathers had good by
such distrust : except it were where the sons were in open arms
against them, as was Selymus I. against Bajazet, and the three sons of
Henry II. king of England.
For their prelates ; when they are proud and great, there is also
danger from them ; as it was in the times of Ansclmus3 and Thomas
Beckett, archbishops of Canterbury, who, with their crosiers, did
almost try it with the king's sword : and yet they had to deal with
stout and haughty kings, William Rufus, Henry I., and Henry II.
The danger is not from that state, but where it hath a dependence of
foreign authority, or where the churchmen come in and are elected, not
by the collation of the king, or particular patrons, but by the people.
For their nobles ; to keep them at a distance, it is not amiss ; but
to depress them may make a king more absolute, but less safe, and
less able to perform anything that he desires. I have noted it in my
history of King Henry VII. of England, who depressed his nobility ;
whereupon it came to pass, that his times were full of difficulties and
troubles. For the nobility, though they continued loyal unto him, yet
did they not co-operate with him in his business ; so that in effect he
was fain to do all things himself.
For their second nobles ; there is not much danger from them,
being a body dispersed. They may sometimes discourse high ; but
that doth little hurt. Besides, they are a counterpoise to the high
nobility, that they grow not too potent. And, lastly, being the most
immediate in authority with the common people, they do best temper
popular commotions.
For their merchants ; they are vena portaf and if they flourish not, a
kingdom may have good limbs, but will have empty veins, and nourish
little. Taxes and imposts upon them do seldom good to the king's
1 The son of Constantine the Great, falsely accused by his step-mother Fausta, antf
poisoned by his father.
* Accused falsely of compassing his father's dethronement by his own brother Perseus, B.C.
»8o..
3 Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I. He was
Constantly contending with those Sovereigns for the rights of the Church.
* An important vein ; in Bacon's time it was supposed to convey the chyle taken up by
it to the liver. Bacon means that merchants gather to distribute.
OF COUNSEL. 37
revenue. For that that he wins in the hundred he loseth in the shire :
the particular rates being increased, but the total bulk of trading rather
decreased.
For their commons ; there is little danger from them, except it be
where they have great and potent heads ; or where you meddle with
the point of religion, or their customs, or means of life.
For their men of war ; it is a dangerous state where they live and
remain in a Body, and are used to donatives ; whereof we see examples
in the Janizaries,1 and pretorian bands of Rome. But trainings of men,
and arming them, in several places, and under several commanders,
and without donatives, are things of defence, and no danger.
Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times,2
and which have much veneration, but no rest. All precepts con
cerning kings are in effect comprehended in those two remembrances :
Alcinento quod es homo, and Memento quod es Deus, or vice Dei. The
one bridleth their power, and the other their will.
XX.
OF COUNSEL.
THE greatest trust between man and man is the trust of giving
counsel. For in other confidences men commit the parts of life,
their lands, their goods, their children, their credit, some particular
affair ; but to such as they make their counsellors they commit the
whole : by how much the more they are obliged to all faith and
integrity. The wisest princes need not think it any diminution lo
their greatness, or derogation to their sufficiency, to rely upon counsel.
God Himself is not without, but hath made it one of the names of His
blessed Son : The Counsellor. Solomon hath pronounced that in
counsel is stability? Things will have their first or second agitation.
If they be not tossed upon the arguments of counsel, they will be
tossed upon the waves of fortune, and be full of inconstancy, doing
and undoing, like the reeling of a drunken man. Solomon's son 4
found the force of counsel, as his father saw the necessity of it ; for
the beloved kingdom of God was first rent and broken by ill counsel.
Upon which counsel there are set for our instruction the two marks
whereby bad counsel is for ever best discerned : that it was young
counsel, for the persons, and violent counsel, for the matter.
The ancient times do set forth in figure both the incorporation and
inseparable conjunction of counsel with Kings, and the wise and
politic use of counsel by Kings : the one, in that they say Jupiter did
marry Metis, which signifieth counsel, whereby they intend that
Sovereignty is married to Counsel ; the other in that which followeth,
38 OF COUNSEL.
which was thus : Taey say, after Jupiter was married to Metis, she
conceived by him, and was with child : but Jupiter suffered her not to
stay till she brought forth, but ate her up ; whereby he became him
self with child, and was delivered of Pallas armed out of his head.
Which monstrous fable containeth a secret of empire how kings are
to make use of their counsel of state : that first, they ought to refer
matters unto them, which is the first begetting or impregnation ; but
when they are elaborate, moulded, and shaped in the womb of their
counsel, and grow ripe and ready to be brought forth, that then they
suffer not their counsel to go through with the resolution and direc
tion, as if it depended on them, but take the matter back into their
own hands, and make it appear to the world that the decrees and
final directions (which, because they come forth with prudence and
power, are resembled to Pallas armed) proceeded from themselves,
and not only from their authority, but (the more to add reputation to
themselves) from their head and device.
Let us now speak of the inconveniences of counsel, and of the
remedies. The inconveniences that have been noted in calling and
using counsel are three. First, the revealing of affairs, whereby they
become less secret ; secondly, the weakening of the authority of
princes, as if they were less of themselves ; thirdly, the danger of
being unfaithfully counselled, and more for the good of them that
counsel than of him that is counselled. For which inconveniences,
the doctrine of Italy, and practice of France, in some kings' times,
hath introduced cabinet councils, a remedy worse than the disease.
As to secrecy ; princes are not bound to communicate all matters
with all counsellors, but may extract and select. Neither is it neces
sary that he that consulteth what he should do should declare what
he will do. But let princes beware that the unsecreting of their
affairs comes not from themselves. And as for cabinet councils, it
may be their motto, Plenus riniaruvi sum. One futile * person, that
maketh it his glory to tell, will do more hurt than many that know it
their duty to conceal. It is true there be some affairs which require
extreme secrecy, which will hardly go beyond one or two persons
besides the king. Neither are those counsels unprosperous. For,
besides the secrecy, they commonly go on constantly in one spirit of
direction without distraction ; but then it must be a prudent king,
such as is able to grind with a hand-mill.2 " And those inward coun
sellors had need also be wise men, and especially true and trusty to
the king's ends : as it was with King Henry VII. of England, who in
his greatest business imparted himself to none, except it were to
Morton and Fox.3
For weakening of authority ; the fable showeth the remedy. Nay,
the majesty of kings is rather exalted than diminished when they are
in the chair of counsel : neither was there ever prince bereaved of his
dependencies by his counsel ; except where there hath been either an
1 Talkative.
* To act alone — on his own judgment.
8 Morton was made Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry VII. He was an old servant of
that king : Fox was Bishop of Winchester, who had been attached to Henry VII. when he was
Earl of Richmond. He was the patron of Wolsey, and founded Corpus Christi College,
Oxford.
OF COUNSEL. 39
over-greatness in one counsellor, or an over-strict combination in
divers : which are things soon found and holpen.
For the last inconvenience, that men will counsel with an eye to
themselves : certainly, non inveniet fidem super terrain is meant of
the nature of times, and not of all particular persons. There be that
are in nature faithful and sincere, and plain and direct, not crafty and
involved ; let princes, above all, draw to themselves such natures.
Besides, counsellors are not commonly so united but that one coun<
sellor keepeth sentinel over another, so that if any counsel out of
faction or private ends, it commonly comes to the king's ear. But.
the best remedy is, if princes know their counsellors, as well as their
counsellors know them :
Principis est virtus maxima nosse snos.1
And on the other side, counsellors should not be too speculative 2
into their sovereign's person. The true composition of a counsellor
is, rather to be skilful in his master's business, than in his nature, for
then he is like to advise him, and not to feed his humour. It is of
singular use to princes if they take the opinions of their council both
separately and together, for private opinion is more free, but opinion
before others is more reverend. In private, men are more bold in
their own humours, and, in consort, men are more obnoxious to others'
humours. Therefore it is good to take both ; and of the inferior sort,
rather in private, to preserve freedom ; of the greater, rather in con
sort, to preserve respect. It is in vain for princes to take counsel
concerning matters, if they take no counsel likewise concerning per
sons. For all matters are as dead images ; and the life of the execution
of affairs resteth in the good choice of persons. Neither is it enough to
consult concerning persons, secundum genera fas in an idea, or mathe
matical description), what the kind and character of the person should
be. For the greatest errors are committed, and the most judgment
is shown, in the choice of individuals. It was truly said, Optimi
consiliarii mortui : Books will speak plain when counsellors blanch?
Therefore it is good to be conversant in them, specially the books of
such as themselves have been actors upon the stage.
The councils at this day in most places are but familiar meetings,
where matters are rather talked on than debated, and they run too
swift to the order or act of council. It were better that, in causes of
weight, the matter were propounded one day, and not spoken to till
the next day ; in node consilium* So was it done in the commission of
union between England and Scotland, which was a grave and orderly
assembly. I commend set days for petitions, for both it gives the
suitors more certainty for their attendance, and it frees the meetings
for matters of estate, that they may hoc agere. In choice of com
mittees for ripening business for the council, it is better to choose in
different persons, than to make an indifferency by putting in those
that are strong on both sides. I commend also standing commissions ;
as, for trade, for treasure, for war, for suits, for some provinces ; for
1 Mnrtial Epigrams.
• Inquisitive. 3 Flinch
< " It is best to sleep on it," we say.
«0 OF DELAYS.
where there be divers particular councils, and but one council of estate
(as it is in Spain), they are, in effect, no more than standing commis
sions, save that they have greater authority. Let such as are to inform
councils out of their particular professions (as lawyers, seamen, mint-
men, and the like) be first heard before committees, and then, as
occasion serves, before the council. And let them not come in multi
tudes, or in a tribunitious1 manner ; for that is to clamour councils,
not to inform them. A long table and a square table, or seats about
the walls, seem things of form, but are things of substance ; for at a
long table, a few at the upper end, in effect, sway all the business ;
but in the other form there is more use of the counsellors' opinions
that sit lower. A king, when he presides in council, let him beware
how he opens his own inclination too much in that which he pro-
poundeth. For else counsellors will but take the wind of him, and
instead of giving free counsel, will sing him a song of placebo.
XXI.
OF DELAYS.
FORTUNE is like the market ; where, many times, if you can stay a
little, the price will fall. And again, it is sometimes like Sibylla's
offer ; 2 which at first offereth the commodity at full, then consumeth
part and part, and still holdeth up the price. For Occasion (as it is in
the common verse) turneth a bald noddle after she hath presented her
locks in front, and no hold taken j or, at least, turneth the handle of
the bottle first to be received, and after the belly, which is hard to
clasp. There is surely no greater wisdom than well to time the begin
nings and onsets of things. Dangers are no more light if they once
seem light ; and more dangers have deceived men than forced them.
Nay, it were better to meet some dangers half way, though they come
nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon their approaches.
For if a man watch too long, it is odds he will fall asleep. On the
other side, to be deceived with too long shadows (as some have been
when the moon was low, and shone on their enemies' back), and so to
shoot off before the time, or to teach dangers to come on by over-early
buckling towards them, is another extreme. The ripeness or unripe
ness of the occasion (as we said) must ever be well weighed ; and
generally it is good to commit the beginnings of all great actions to
Argus3 with his hundred eyes, and the ends to Briareus4 with his
hundred hands : first to watch, and then to speed. For the helmet of
Pluto,5 which maketh the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in the
council, and celerity in the execution. For when things are once
1 Like the seditious tribunes of Rome.
2 The Sibyl who increased the price of the books she offered to Tarquin the more she
diminished their numbers.
3 The spy of Juno appointed to watch lo. When he was slain by Jupiter's order she is said
to have changed him into a peacock.
4 A giant said to have fifty heads and a hundred hands. He assisted the Titans in their
^ar against the gods.
' 1'Juto's helmet rendered its wearer invisible. Perseus borrowed it to slay the Gorgon.
OF CUNNING. 4«
come to the execution, there is no secrecy comparable to celerity— like
the motion of a bullet in the air, which flieth so swift as it outruns the
XXII.
OF CUNNING.
WE take Cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom. And certainly
there is a great difference between a cunning man and a wise man,
not only in point of honesty, but in point of ability. There be that
can pack the cards,1 and yet cannot play well ; so there are some that
are good in canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak men.
Again, it is one thing to understand persons, and another thing to
understand matters. For many are perfect in men's humours, that
are not greatly capable of the real part of business ; which is the con
stitution of one that hath studied men more than books. Such men
are fitter for practice than for counsel, and they are good but in their
own alley : 2 turn them to new men, and they have lost their aim ; so
as the old rule, to know a fool from a wise man, Mitte ambos nudos ad
ignotos, et videbis, doth scarce hold for T:hem. And because these
cunning men are like haberdashers of small wares, it is not amiss to
set forth their shop.
It is a point of cunning to wait upon him with whom you speak,
with your eye ; as the Jesuits give it in precept ; for there be many
wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances. Yet
this would be done with a demure abasing of your eye sometimes, as
the Jesuits also do use.
Another is, that when you have anything to obtain of present dis
patch, you entertain and amuse the party with whom you deal with
some other discourse, that he be not too much awake to make objec
tions. I know a counsellor and secretary, that never came to Queen
Elizabeth of England with bills to sign, but he would always first put
her into some discourse of estate,3 that she mought the less mind the
bills.
The like surprise may be made by moving4 things when the party is
in haste, and cannot stay to consider advisedly of that is moved.
If a man would cross a business that he doubts some other would
handsomely and effectually move, let him pretend to wish it well, and
move it himself, in such sort as may foil it.
The breaking off in the midst of that one was about to say, as if he
took himself up, breeds a greater appetite in him with whom you con
fer to know more.
And because it works better when anything seemeth to be gotten
from you by question, than if you offer it of yourself, you may lay a
bait for a question, by showing another visage and countenance than
you are wont ; to the end, to give occasion for the party to ask what
1 Arrange them so as to get a good hand— cheat.
' Groove — an allusion to the game of skittles or bowls. An alley was a bowling green or*
3 State, * Proposing.
«3 OF CUNNING.
the matter is of the change ; as Nehemiah did, And I had not before
that time been sad before the king?
In things that are tender and unpleasing, it is good to break the ice
by some whose words are of less weight, and to reserve the more
weighty voice to come in as by chance, so that he may be asked the
question upon the other's speech ; as Narcissus did, in relating to
Claudius the marriage of Messalina and Silius.
In things that a man would not be seen in himself, it is a point of
cunning to borrow the name of the world ; as to say, The world says,
or, There is a speech abroad.
I knew one that, when he wrote a letter, he would put that which
was most material in the postscript, as if it had been a bye matter.
I knew another that, when he came to have speech, he would pass
over that he intended most, and go forth, and come back again, and
speak of it as a thing he had almost forgot.
Some procure themselves to be surprised at such times as it is like
the party that they work upon will suddenly come upon them, and be
found with a letter in their hand, or doing somewhat which they are
not accustomed, to the end they may be apposed 2 of those things
which of themselves they are desirous to utter.
It is a point of cunning to let fall those words in a man's own name
which he would have another man learn and use, and thereupon take
advantage. I knew two that were competitors for the secretary's place,
in Queen Elizabeth's time, and yet kept good quarter between them
selves, and would confer one with another upon the business ; and the
one of them said, that to be a secretary in the declination of a
monarchy was a ticklish thing, and that he did not affect it. The other
straight caught up those words, and discoursed with divers of his
friends, that he had no reason to desire to be secretary in the declina
tion of a monarchy. The first man took hold of it, and found means
it was told the Queen ; who, hearing of a declination of a monarchy,
took it so ill, as she would never after hear of the other's suit.
There is a cunning, which we in England call the turning of the cat
in the pan; which is, when that which a man says to another, he lays
it as if another had said it to him. And, to say truth, it is not
easy, when such a matter passed between two, to make it appear from
which of them it first moved and began.
It is a way that some men have, to glance and dart at others by
justifying themselves by negatives ; as to say, TJiis I do not ; as
Tigellinus3 did towards Burrhus, saying, Se non diversas spes, sed in-
'iohimitatem imperatoris simpliciter spectare.
Some have in readiness so many tales and stories, as there is nothing
they would insinuate but they can wrap it into a tale ; which serveth
both to keep themselves more in guard, and to make others carry it
with more pleasure. It is a good point of cunning for a man to shape
the answer he would have in his own words and propositions ; for it
makes the other party stick the less.
It is strange how long some men will lie in wait to speak somewhat
1 Nehemiah ii. i.
2 Questioned on. See King Lear, Act I., Scene z.
1 The minister and creature of Nero. Burrhus was commander of the Praetorian guards-
OP WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF. 43
they desire to say, and how far about they will fetch, and how many
other matters they will beat over to come near it ; it is a thing of
great patience, but yet of much use. A sudden, bold, and unexpected
question doth many times surprise a man, and lay him open. Like to
him that, having changed his name, and walking in Paul's,1 another
suddenly came behind him, and called him by his true name ; whereat
straightways he looked back.
But these small wares and petty points of cunning are infinite, and
it were a good deed to make a list of them ; for that nothing doth
more hurt in a State than that cunning men pass for wise.
But certainly some there are that know the resorts and falls of busi
ness, that cannot sink into the main of it ; like a house that hath con
venient stairs and entries, but never a fair room. Therefore you shall
see them find out pretty looses 2 in the conclusion, but are no ways
able to examine or debate matters. And yet commonly they take
advantage of their inability, and would be thought wits of direction.
Some build rather upon the abusing3 of others, and (as we now say)
putting tricks upon them, than upon the soundness of their own pro
ceedings. But Solomon saith, Prudens advertit ad gressus suos y
st ult us diver tit
XXIII.
OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF.
AN ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd 5 thing in an
orchard or garden. And certainly men that are great lovers of them
selves waste the public. Divide with reason between self-love and
society ; and be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others,
especially to thy king and country. It is a poor centre of a man's
actions, himself. It is right earth. For that only stands fast upon its
own centre ; 6 whereas all things that have affinity with the heavens
move upon the centre of another, which they benefit.
The referring of all to a man's self is more tolerable in a sovereign
prince, because themselves are not only themselves, but their good and
evil is at the peril of the public fortune. 'But it is a desperate evil in a
servant to a prince, or a citizen in a republic. For whatsoever affairs
pass such a man's hands, he crooketh them to his own ends ; which
must needs be often eccentric7 to the ends of his master or State.
Therefore, let princes or States choose such servants as have not this
mark; except they mean their service should be made but the
accessary. **
That which maketh the effect more pernicious is, that all proportion
1 The Cathedral. At that time the centre aisle in St. Paul's was an ordinary walk for
idlers.
2 Good hits. A "loose" was the act of loosing the arrow from the bow. " To make a shot
at a thing " is still said.
8 To abuse meant to deceive. * Ecclesiastes xiv. z. 6 Mischievous.
6 According to the old Ptolemaic astronomy, to which Bacon adhered.
* Out of the straight course.
44 OF INNOVATIONS
is lost. It were disproportion enough for the servant's good to be
preferred before the master's ; but yet it is a greater extreme, when a
little good of the servant shall carry things against a great good of the
master's And yet that is the case of bad officers, treasurers, am
bassadors, generals, and other false and corrupt servants ; which set a
oias l upon their bowl, of their own petty ends and envies, to the over
throw of their master's great and important affairs. And for the most
part the good such servants receive is after the model of their owi»
fortune ; 2 but the hurt they sell for that good is after the model of
their master's fortune.3 And certainly it is the nature of extreme self-
lovers as they will set a house on fire and 4 it were but to roast their
eggs. And yet these men many times hold credit with their masters,
because their study is but to please them, and profit themselves ; and4
for either respect they will abandon the good of their affairs.
Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches thereof, a depraved
thing. It is the wisdom of rats, that will be sure to leave a house
somewhat before it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts out
the badger, who digged and made room for him. It is the wisdom of
crocodiles, that shed tears when they would devour. But that which
is specially to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of Pompey)
are sni amantes sine rivali, are many times unfortunate. And whereas
they have all their time sacrificed to themselves, they become in the
end themselves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune ; whose wings
they thought by their self-wisdom to have pinioned.
XXIV.
OF INNOVATIONS.
As the births of living creatures at first are ill-shapen, so are all
Innovations, which are the births of time. Yet, notwithstanding, as
those that first bring honour into their family are commonly more
worthy than most that succeed, so the first precedent (if it be good) is
seldom attained by imitation. For 111, to man's nature as it stands
perverted, hath a natural motion, strongest in continuance ; but Good
has a forced motion, strongest at first. Surely every medicine is an
innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new
evils. For time is the greatest innovator ; and if time of course
alters things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter
them to the better, what shall be the end ?
It is true that what is settled by custom, though it be not good, yet
at least it is fit ; and those things which have long gone together
are, as it were, confederate with themselves ; whereas new things piece
not so well ; but, though they help by their utility, yet they trouble
by their inconformity. Besides, they are like strangers, more admired,
and less favoured. All this is true, if time stood still ; which contrari
wise moveth so round that a fro ward retention of custom is as turbulent
1 A bias is the weight at the side of a bowl to regulate its course. The bias of self-seek^rt
fe to turn all to th*% «wp advantage. 3 Small. 2 Great. * I£
OP DISPATCH. 45
l thing as an innovation ; and they that reverence too mu^b t»id
times, are but a scorn to the new. It were good, therefore, thai men
in their innovations would follow the example of time itself; wuich
indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be
perceived ; for otherwise, whatsover is new is unlocked for : and
ever it mends some, and pairs l others ; and he that is holpen takes it
for a fortune, and thanks the time ; and he that is hurt, for a wrong
and imputeth it to the author.
It is good also not to try experiments in States, except the necessity
be urgent, or the utility evident ; and well to beware that it be the
reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change
that pretendeth the reformation : and lastly, that the novelty, though
it be not rejected, yet be held for a suspect ; and, as the Scripture
saith, that we make a stand upon the ancient way, and then look about
us, and discover what is the straight and right way ', and so to walk
in it?
XXV.
OF DISPATCH.
AFFECTED Dispatch is one of the most dangerous things to business
that can be. It is like that which the physicians call predigestion, or
hasty digestion, which is sure to fill the body full of crudities, and
secret seeds of diseases. Therefore measure not dispatch by the times
of sitting, but by the advancement of the business. And as in races
it is not the large stride or high lift that makes the speed, so in business
the keeping close to the matter and not taking of it too much at once,
procureth dispatch. It is the care of some only to come off speedily
for the time, or to contrive some false periods of business, because they
may seem men of dispatch. But it is one thing to abbreviate by
contracting, another by cutting off; and business so handled at
several sittings or meetings goeth commonly backward and forward
in an unsteady manner. I knew a wise3 man that had it for a
by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, Stay a little,
we may make an end the sooner.
\ On the other side, true dispatch is a rich thing. For time is the
measure of business, as money is of wares ; and business is bought
at a dear hand 4 where there is small dispatch. The Spartans and
1 Spaniards have been noted to be of small dispatch : Mi venga la
muerte de Sfagna; Let my death come from Spain ; for then it will
be sure to be long in coming.
Give good hearing to those that give the first information in busi
ness ; and rather direct them in the beginning than interrupt them in
the continuance of their speeches ; for he that is put out of his own
order will go forward and backward, and be more tedious while he
waits upon his memory than he could have been if he had gone on in
I mpair s — inj ures.
1 for the present aee. The passage is probably Jeremiah vi. _
* Dearly,
* Admirable counsel for the present age. The passage is probably Jeremiah vi. 16.
• Sir Amyas Paulet, with whoi» Bacon lived 1576. See his Apophthegms.
4<5 OF SEEMING WISE.
his own course. But sometimes it is seen that the moderator is more
troublesome than the actor.
Iterations are commonly loss of time. But there is no such gain of
time as to iterate often the state of the question ; for it chaseth awaj
many a frivolous speech as it is coming forth. Long and curious
speeches are as fit for dispatch as a robe or mantle with a long train
is for a race. Prefaces, and passages,1 and excusations, and other
speeches of reference to the person, are great wastes of time ; and
though they seem to proceed of modesty, they are bravery.2 Yet
beware of being too material when there is any impediment or
obstruction in men's wills ; for pre-occupation of mind ever requireth
preface of speech, like a fomentation to make the unguent enter.
Above all things, order and distribution, and singling out of parts,
is the life of dispatch ; so as the distribution be not too subtle. For
he that doth not divide will never enter well into business ; and he
that divideth too much will never come out of it clearly. To choose
time is to save time ; and an unseasonable motion is but beating the
air. There be three parts of business : the preparation, the debate or
examination, and the perfection. Whereof, if you look for dispatch,
let the middle only be the work of many, and the first and last the
work of few. The proceeding upon somewhat conceived in writing
doth for the most part facilitate dispatch. For, though it should be
wholly rejected, yet that negative is more pregnant of direction than
an indefinite ; as ashes are more generative than dust.
XXVI.
OF SEEMING WISE.
IT hath been an opinion, that the French are wiser than they seem,
and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are. But howsoever it be
between nations, certainly it is so between man and man. For, as the
Apostle saith of godliness, Having a show of godliness, but denying
the power thereof? so, certainly there are, in point of wisdom and
sufficiency, that do nothing or little very solemnly, Magno conatu
nugas. It is a ridiculous thing, and fit for a satire to persons of judg
ment, to see what shifts these formalists have, and what prospectives,4
to make superficies to seem body that hath depth and bulk. Some
are so close and reserved, as they will not show their wares but by a
dark light, and seem always to keep back somewhat : and when they
know within themselves they speak of that they do not well know,
would nevertheless seem to others to know of that which the/may
not well speak. Some help themselves with countenance and gesture,
and are wise by signs ; as Cicero saith of Piso, that when he answered
him he fetched one of his brows up to his forehead, and bent the other
down to his chin ; Respo?ides, altcro ad front em sublato, altero ad
inentiim deprcsso siipercilio j crudelitatcni tibi no?i placerc. Some think
i From authors, i.e., quotations. 2 Ostentation. 8 a Tim. iii. 5,
* Perspective glasses — probably magnifying glasses only.
OF P&1MM&SX1P. 47
to bear1 it by speaking a great word, and being peremptory ; and go
on, and take by admittance2 that which they cannot make good
Some, whatsoever is beyond their reach, will seem to despise, or
make light of it, as impertinent or curious ; and so would have their
ignorance seem judgment. Some are never without a difference, and
commonly by amusing men with a subtlety, blanch3 the matter; of
whom A. Gellius saith, Hominem delirum^ qiti verboruin minutiis
remm frangit pondera. Of which kind also Plato, in his Protagoras,
bringeth in' Prodicus in scorn, and maketh him make a speech that
consisteth of distinctions from the beginning to the end.
Generally, such men, in all deliberations, find ease to be of the
negative side, and affect a credit to object and foretell difficulties ; for
when propositions are denied, there is an end of them ; but if they be
allowed, it requireth a new work : which false point of wisdom is the
bane of business.
To conclude, there is no decaying merchant, or inward beggar, hath
so many tricks to uphold the credit of their wealth, as these empty
persons have to maintain the credit of their sufficiency. Seeming wise
men may make shift to get opinion ;4 but let no man choose them for
employment ; for, certainly, you were better take for business a man
somewhat absurd than over-formal.
XXVII.
OF FRIENDSHIP.
IT had been hard for him5 that spake it, to have put more truth and
untruth together in few words, than in that speech, Whosoever is de
lighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god. For it is most true,
that a natural and secret hatred and aversation towards society, in
any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast ; but it is most untrue,
that it should have any character at all of the divine nature, except it
proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire
to sequester a man's self for a higher conversation : such as is found
to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathens, as Epime-
nides6 the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and
Apollonius of Tyana, and truly and really in divers of the ancient
hermits and holy fathers of the Church. But little do men perceive
1 To carry it off.
2 Others permitting them.
* Avoid, or gloss over.
* 15e thought wise. » Aristotle— Polhica. Book I.
6 Epimenides was an Epic poet of Crete, contemporary witli Solon. While tending hit
flocks he entered a cave and fell asleep in it. His sleep was fabled to have lasted fifty-seven
years.
Numa, second King of Rome, sought solitude on pretence of consulting the nymph Egeria.
Empedocles, a philosopher, said to have thrown himself into Etna in order to be taken for a
god, but the mountain threw up one of his sandals.
Apollonius of Tyana , a Pythagorean well skilled in magic. He practUf) asceticism, :>ud
performed pretended miracles.
.,6 OP FRIENDSHIP.
what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd1 is not com
pany, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling
cymbal, where there is no love. The Latin adage meeteth with it a little :
Alagna rivitas, magna solitudo j because in a great town friends are
scattered ; so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which
is in less neighbourhoods. But we may go further, and affirm most truly,
that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without
which the world is but a wilderness. And, even in this sense also of
solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit
for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.
A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fulness
and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kinds do cause and
induce. We .mow diseases of stoppings and suffocations are the most
dangerous in the body ; and it is not much otherwise in the mind. You
may take sarza to open the liver, steel to open the spleen, flower of
sulphur for the lungs, castoreum for the brain : but no receipt openeth
the heart but a true friend ; to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears,
hopes, suspicions, counsels, and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to
oppress it, in a kind of civil shrift or confession.
It is a strange thing to observe how high a rate great kings and
monarchs do set upon this fruit of friendship whereof we speak, so
great as they purchase it many times at the hazard of their own safety
and greatness. For princes, in regard of the distance of their fortune
from that of their subjects and servants, cannot gather this fruit, ex
cept (to make themselves capable thereof) they raise some persons
to be as it were companions, and almost equals to themselves, which
many times sorteth to inconvenience. The modern languages give
unto such persons the name of favourites, or privadoes ; as if it were
matter of grace or conversation. But the Roman name attaineth the
true use and cause thereof, naming them Participes curarum; for it is
that which tieth the knot. And we see plainly that this hath been
done, not by weak and passionate princes only, but by the wisest and
most politic that ever reigned : who have oftentimes joined to them
selves some of their servants, whom both themselves have called
friends, and allowed others likewise to call them in the same manner,
using the word which is received between private men.
L. Sylla,2 when he commanded Rome, raised Pompey, after sur-
named the Great, to that height that Pompey vaunted himself for
Sylla's over-match. For when he had carried the consulship for a friend
of his, against the pursuit of Sylla, and that Sylla did a little resent
thereat, and began to speak great, Pompey turned upon him again,
and in effect bade him be quiet ; for that more men adored the sun
1 IHit midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men.
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress !
None that, with kindred consciousness endued
If we were not, would seem to smile the less,
Of all that flattered, followed, sought and sued ;
This is to be alone : this, this, is solitude. — Byron,
1 Tb* cruel Dictator of Rome.
OP FRIENDSHIP. 49
rising than the sun setting. With Julius Cesar, Decimus Brutus had
obtained that interest, as he set him down in his testament for heir in
, remainder after his nephew. And this was the man that had power
with him to draw him forth to his death. For when Caesar would have
3 discharged the senate, in regard of some ill presages, and especially a
dream of Calphurnia, this man lifted him gently by the arm out of his
chair, telling him he hoped he would not dismiss the senate till his
wife had dreamed a better dream. And it seemeth his favour was so
great, as Antonius, in a letter, which is recited verbatim in one of
Cicero's Philippics, called him venefica, witch, as if he had enchanted
Ccesar. Augustus raised Agrippa,1 though of mean birth, to that
height, as, when he consulted with Maecenas2 about the marriage of his
daughter Julia, Maecenas took the liberty to tell him, that he must
either marry his daughter to Agrippa, or take away his life : there was
no third way, he had made 'him so great. With Tiberius Caesar,
Sejanus had ascended to that height as they two were termed and
reckoned as a pair of friends. Tiberius, in a letter to him, saith, Hcec
pro amicitia nostra non occultavi j and the whole senate dedicated an
altar to Friendship, as to a goddess, in respect of the great dearness of
friendship between them two. The like, or more, was between Septi-
mius Severus and Plautianus. For he forced his eldest son to marry
the daughter of Plautianus, and would often maintain Plautianus in
doing affronts to his son ; and did write also, in a letter to the senate,
by these words : / love the man so well, as I wish he may over-live me.
Now, if these princes had been as a Trajan, or a Marcus Aurelius, a
man might have thought that this had proceeded of an abundant good
ness of nature ; but being men so wise, of such strength and severity
of mind, and so extreme lovers of themselves, as all these were, it
proveth, most plainly, that they found their own felicity, though as
great as ever happened to mortal men, but as a half piece, except they
might have a friend to make it entire. And yet, which is more, they
were princes that had wives, sons, nephews ; and yet all these could
not supply the comfort of friendship.
It is not to be forgotten what Comineus3 observeth of his first master,
Duke Charles the Hardy ; namely, that he would communicate his
secrets with none ; and, least of all, those secrets which troubled him
most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith that towards his latter time
that closeness did impair and a little perish his understanding. Surely
Comineus mought have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased
him, of his second master, Louis XL, whose closeness was indeed his
tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark, but true, Cor ne edito :
Eat not the heart. Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase,
those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their
own hearts. But one thing is most admirable (wherewith I will con
clude this first fruit of friendship), which is, that this communicating
of a man's self to his friend, works two contrary effects : for it redoubleth
joys, and cutteth griefs in halfs. For there is no man that imparteth
his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that im-
1 A celebrated Roman general, who fought for Augustus at Actlum and Philippi.
* The favourite of Augustus, and friend and patron of Virgil.
• Philip de Comines, the historian of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and Louis XI. of France.
B
56 OF FRIENDSHIP.
parteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is,
in truth, of operation upon a man's mind of like virtue as the alchy-
mists use to attribute to their stone for man's body, that it worketh all
contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature ; but yet,
without praying in aid of alchymists, there is a manifest image of this
in the ordinary course of nature. For in bodies, union strengthened!
and cherisheth any natural action, and, on the other side, weakeneth
and dulleth any violent impression : and even so is it of minds.
The second fruit of friendship is healthful and sovereign for the
Understanding, as the first is for the affections. For friendship maketh
indeed a fair day in the affections from storm and tempests ; but it
maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion
of thoughts ; neither is this to be understood only of faithful counsel.
which a man receiveth from his friend ; but before you come to that,
certain it is, that whosoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts,
his wits and understanding do clarify and break up, in the communi
cating and discoursing with another : he tosseth his thoughts more
easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look
when they are turned into words ; finally, he waxeth wiser than him
self: and that more by an hour's discourse than by a day's meditation.
It was well said by Themistocles to the king of Persia, that speech was
like cloth of Arras,1 opened and put abroad, whereby the imagery doth
appear in figure ; whereas in thoughts they lie but as in packs. Neither
is this second fruit of friendship, in opening the understanding, re
strained only to such friends as are able to give a man counsel. They
indeed are best : but, even without that, a man learneth of himself, and
bringeth his own thoughts to light, and whetteth his wits as against a
stone, which itself cuts not. In a w^ord, a man were better relate himself
to a statua or picture, than to suffer his thoughts to pass in smother.
Add now, to make this second fruit of friendship complete, that
other point which lieth more open, and falleth within vulgar observa
tion ; which is faithful counsel from a friend. Heraclitus2 saith well,
in one of his enigmas, Dry light is ever the best. And certain it is,
that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another is drier
and purer than that which cometh from his own understanding and
judgment ; which is ever infused and drenched in his affections and
customs. So as there is as much difference between the counsel that
a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the
counsel of a friend and of a flatterer ; for there is no such flatterer as
is a man's self, and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's
self as the liberty of a friend. Counsel is of two sorts ; the one con
cerning manners, the other concerning business. For the first, the
best preservative to keep the mind in health is the faithful admonition
of a friend. The calling of a man's self to a strict account is a medi
cine sometimes too piercing and corrosive. Reading good books of
1 Themistocles could have known nothing of cloth of Arras, which was not made till the
middle ages. His words were '. " A man's discourse is like a rich Persian carpet, the beautiful
figures and patterns of which can only be shown by spreading and extending it out ; when it
is contracted and folded up they are obscure and lost." — dough's Plutarch, p. 83.
2 Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher of the Ionian school. He took a severe runl niol.ui-
choly view of life, and was styled the weeping philosopher. He thought fire the chief e
of creation.
OF FRIENDSHIP. 5£
morality is a little flat and dead ; observing our faults in others is
sometimes unproper for our case ; but the best receipt (best, I say, to
work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend.
It is a strange thing to behold what gross errors and extreme
absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want
of a friend to tell them of them ; to the great damage both of their
fame and fortune. For, as St. James saith, they are as men, that look
sometimes into a glass, and presently forget their own shape and
favour?- As for business, a man may think, if he will, that two eyes
see no more than one; or that a gamester seeth always more
than a looker-on ; or that a man in anger is as wise as he that
hath said over the four-and-twenty letters ; or that a musket may
be shot off as well upon the arm as upon a rest ;"J and such other fond
and high imaginations, to think himself all in all. But when all is
done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth business straight.
And if any man think that he will take counsel, but it shall be by
pieces ; asking counsel in one business of one man, and in another
business of another man ; it is well (that is to say, better, perhaps,
than if he asked none at all), but he runneth two dangers. One, that
he shall not be faithfully counselled : for it is a rare thing, except it be
from a perfect and entire friend, to have counsel given, but such as
shall be bowed and crooked to some ends which he hath that giveth
it. The other, that he shall have counsel given, hurtful and unsafe
(though with good meaning), and mixed partly of mischief and partly
of remedy. Even as if you would call a physician, that is thought
good for the cure of the disease you complain of but is unacquainted
with your body, and therefore, may put you in a way for present cure,
but overthroweth your health in some other kind, and so cure the
disease, and kill the patient. But a friend, that is wholly acquainted
with a man's estate, will beware, by furthering any present business,
how he dasheth upon other inconvenience. And, therefore, rest not
upon scattered counsels, for they will rather distract and mislead than
settle and direct.
After these two noble fruits of friendship (peace in the affections,
and support of the judgment), followeth the last fruit, which is, like the
pomegranate, full of many kernels : I mean, aid and bearing a part in
all actions and occasions. Here, the best way to represent to life the
manifold use of friendship, is to cast and see how many things there
are which a man cannot do himself; and then it will appear that it
was a sparing speech of the ancients, to say, that a friend is another
himself j for that a friend is far more than himself. Men have their
time, and die many times in desire of some things which they princi
pally take to heart ; the bestowing3 of a child, the finishing of a work,
or the like. If a man have a true friend, he may rest almost secure
^hat the care of those things will continue after him. So that a man
hath, as it were, two lives in his desires. A man hath a body, and
that body is confined to a place ; but where friendship is, all offices of
life are, as it were, granted to him and his deputy. For he may exer
cise them by his friend. How many things are there which a man
1 James i. 23. ~ The musket of Bacon's time was fixed on a stand, called a rest, to be fired.
9 Settling, providing for, placing.
£ 3
52 OF EXPENSE.
cannot, with any face or comeliness, say or do himself! A man can
scarce allege his own merits with modesty, much less extol them ; a
man cannot sometimes stoop to supplicate or beg ; and a number of
the like ; but all these things are graceful in a friend's mouth, which
are blushing in a man's own. So, again, a man's person hath many
proper relations which he cannot put off. A man cannot speak to his
son but as a father ; to his wife but as a husband ; to his enemy but
upon terms : whereas a friend may speak as the case requires, and not
as it sorteth with the person. But to enumerate these things were
endless : I have given the rule : where a man cannot fitly play his own
part, if he have not a friend, he may quit the stage.
XXVIII.
OF EXPENSE.
RICHES are for spending, and spending for honour and good
actions. Therefore extraordinary expense must be limited by the
worth of the occasion ; for voluntary undoing may be as well for a
man's country as for the kingdom of heaven. But ordinary expense
ought to be limited by a man's estate, and governed with such regard
as it be within his compass and not subject to deceit and abuse of
servants ; and ordered to the best show, that the bills may be less
than the estimation abroad. Certainly, if a man will keep but of
even hand,1 his ordinary expenses ought to be but to the half of his
receipts ; and if he think to wax rich, but to the third part. It is no
baseness for the greatest to descend and look into their own estate.
Some forbear it, not upon negligence alone, but doubting to bring
themselves into melancholy, in respect they shall find it broken. But
wounds cannot be cured without searching. He that cannot look
into his own estate at all had need both choose well those whom he
employeth, and change them often ; for new are more timorous and
less subtle. He that can look into his estate but seldom, it behoveth
him to turn all to certainties. A man had need, if he be plentiful in
some kind of expense, to be as saving again in some other. As, if
he be plentiful in diet, to be saving in apparel ; if he be plentiful in
the hall, to be saving in the stable, and the like. For he that is
Plentiful in expenses of all kinds, will hardly be preserved from decay,
n clearing of a man's estate, he may as well hurt himself in being
too sudden as in letting it run on too long ; for hasty selling is com
monly as disadvantageable as interest.2 Besides, he that clears at
once will relapse ; for finding himself out of straits, he will revert to
his customs : but he that cleareth by degrees induceth a habit o\
frugality, and gaineth as well upon his mind as upon his estate.
Certainly, who hath a state to repair may not despise small things :
and commonly, it is less dishonourable to abridge petty charges than
to stoop to petty gettings. A man ought warily to begin charges
which, once begun, will continue ; but in matters that return not, he
may be more magnificent.
1 His accounts equally balanced.
8 fje speaks of freeing an estate from mortgages, or selling it.
OF THE TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 53
XXIX.
OF THE TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS AND
ESTATES.
THE speech of Thcmistocles, the Athenian, which was haughty
and arrogant, in taking so much to himself, had been a grave and
wise observation and censure, applied at large to others. Desired at
a feast to touch a lute, he said, He could not fiddle, but yet he could
make a small town a great city.1 These words, holpen a little with a
\ / metaphor, may express two differing abilities in those that deal in
business of estate. For, if a true survey be taken of counsellors and
statesmen, there may be found (though rarely) those which can make
a small State great and yet cannot fiddle : as, on the other side, there
will be found a great many that can fiddle very cunningly, but yet are
so far from being able to make a small State great, as their gift lieth
the other way, to bring a great and flourishing estate to ruin and decay.
And, certainly, those degenerate arts and shifts, whereby many coun
sellors and governors gain both favour with their masters and esti
mation with the vulgar, deserve no better name than fiddling ; being
things rather pleasing for the time, and graceful to themselves only,
than tending to the weal and advancement of the State which they
serve. There are also (no doubt) counsellors and governors which
may be held sufficient negotiis pares ', able to manage affairs, and to
keep them from precipices and manifest inconveniences ; which,
nevertheless, are far from the ability to raise and amplify an estate in
power, means, and fortune. But be the workmen what they may be,
let us speak of the work ; that is, the jrue greatness of kingdoms and
estates? and the means thereof. ArTaTgument tit tor great and mighty
princes to have in their hand : to the end that neither by over-
measuring their forces, they lose themselves in vain enterprises ; nor,
on the other side, by undervaluing them, they descend to fearful and
pusillanimous counsels.
The greatness of an estate, in bulk and territory, doth fall under
measure ; and the greatness of finances and revenue doth fall under
computation. The population may appear by musters ; and the
number anci greatness of cities and towns by cards and maps. But
yet there is not anything, amongst civil affairs, more subject to errorr
than the right valuation and true judgment concerning the power and
forces of an estate. The kingdom of heaven is compared, not to any
great kernel, or nut, but to a grain of mustard seed ; which is one of
the least grains, but hath in it a property and spirit hastily to get up
and spread. So are there states great in territory, and yet not apt to
enlarge or command ; and some that have but a small dimension of
stem, and yet are apt to be the foundation of great monarchies.
Walled towns, stored arsenals and armouries, goodly races of horse,
chariots of war, elephants, ordnance, artillery, and the like : all this is
but a sheep in a lion's skin, except the breed and disposition of the
people be stout and warlike. Nay, number itself in armies importeth
1 Clough's Plutarch, p. 78.
54 OF THE TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES.
not much, where the people are of weak courage ; for, as Virgil saith,
It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be. The army of the
Persians, in the plains ofArbela, was such a vast sea of people as
it did somewhat astonish the commanders in Alexander's army ; who
came to him, therefore, and wished him to set upon them by night ;
but he answered, He would not pilfer the victory : and the defeat was
easy. When Tigranes, the Armenian, being encamped upon a hill
with four hundred thousand men, discovered the army of the Romans,
being not above fourteen thousand, marching towards him, he made
himself merry with it, and said, Yonder men are too many for an
ambassage and too few for a fight.1 But, before the sun set, he found
them enow to give him the chase with infinite slaughter. Many are
the examples of the great odds between number and courage ; so that
a man may truly make a judgment, that the principal point of great
ness, in any State, is to have a race of military men. Neither is
money the sinews of war (as it is trivially said), where the sinews of
men's arms in base and effeminate people are failing. For Solon said
well to Croesus (when in ostentation he shewed him his gold), Sir, if
any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all
this gold. Therefore, let any prince or State think soberly of his
forces, except his militia of natives be of good and valiant soldiers.
And let princes, on the other side, that have subjects of martial dis
position, know their own strength, unless they be otherwise wanting
unto themselves. As for mercenary forces (which is the help in this
case), all examples show that, whatsoever estate or prince doth rest
upon them, he may spread his feathers for a time, but he will mew *
them soon after.
The blessing of Judah and Issachar3 will never meet ; that the same
people, or nation, should be both the lion's wJielp, and the ass between
bttrdens : neither will it be, that a people overlaid with taxes should
ever become valiant and martial. It is true that taxes, levied by
consent of the estate, do abate men's courage less ; as it hath been
seen notably in the excises of the Low Countries ; and in some degree,
in the subsidies of England. For, you must note, that we speak now
of the heart, and not of the purse. So that, although the same tribute
and tax, laid by consent, or by imposing, be all one to the purse, yet
it works diversely upon the courage. So that you may conclude, that
no people overcharged with tribute is fit for empire.
Let states, that aim at greatness, take heed how their nobility and
gentlemen do multiply too fast. For that maketh the common subject
grow to be a peasant and base swine, driven out of heart, and in effect,
but the gentleman's labourer. Even as vou may see in coppice woods ;
if you leave your stacldles4 too thick, you shall never have clean under
wood, but shrubs and bushes. So in countries, if the gentlemen be too
many, the commons will be base ; and you will bring it to that, that
not the hundredth poll will be fit for an helmet ; especially as to the
infantry, which is the nerve of an army : and so there will be great
population, and little strength. This which I speak of hath been no
1 Lucullus, dough's Plutarch, p. 361.
* Moult. 3 Gun. xlix. o, 14, 15.
* Young trees left when woods are cut down, or brushwood cleared.
ttf" THE TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 55
where better seen than by comparing of England and France ; whereof
England, though far less in territory and population, hath been (never
theless) an overmatch ; in regard the middle people of England make
good soldiers, which the peasants of France do not. And herein the
device of King Henry VII. (whereof I have spoken largely in the
history of his life) was profound and admirable, in making farms and
houses of husbandry of a standard ; that is, maintained with such a
proportion of land unto them, as may breed a subject to live in con
venient plenty and no servile condition ; and to keep the plough in
the hands of the owners, and not mere hirelings. And thus indeed
you shall attain to Virgil's character, which he gives to ancient Italy :
Terra potens armis atque zibere ghbce.
Neither is the state (which, for anything I know, is almost peculiar to
England, and hardly to be found anywhere else, except it be, perhaps,
in Poland) to be passed over ; I mean the state of free servants and
attendants upon noblemen and gentlemen : which are no ways inferior
unto the yeomanry for arms. And therefore, out of all question, the
splendour and magnificence and great retinues, and hospitality of
noblemen and gentlemen, received into custom, doth much conduce
unto martial greatness. Whereas, contrariwise, the close and reserved
living of noblemen and gentlemen causeth a penury of military forces.
By all means it is to be procured, that the trunk of Nebuchad
nezzar's tree of monarchy1 be great enough to bear the branches and
the boughs ; that is, that the natural subjects of the Crown, or State,
bear a sufficient proportion to the stranger subjects that they govern.
Therefore all states that are liberal of naturalization towards strangers
are fit for empire. For to think that an handful of people can, with
the greatest courage and policy in the world, embrace too large extent
of dominion — it may hold for a time, but it will fail suddenly. The
Spartans were a nice people in point of naturalization : whereby, while
they kept their compass, they stood firm ; but when they did spread,
and their boughs were becomen too great for their stem, they became
a windfall upon the sudden. Never any State was, in this point, so
open to receive strangers into their Body as were the Romans. There
fore it sorted with them accordingly ; for they grew to the greatest
monarchy. Their manner was to grant naturalization (which they
called jus civitatis} and to grant it in the highest degree : that is, not
only jus commercii,jus connubii,jus hcereditatis, but also jus sujfragit
and jus honorum : and this not to singular persons alone, but likewise
to whole families ; yea, to cities, and sometimes to nations. Add to
this, their custom of plantation of colonies, whereby the Roman plant
was removed into the soil of other nations, and putting both constitu
tions together, you will say, that it was not the Romans that spread
upon the world, but it was the world that spread upon the Romans ;
and that was the sure way of greatness. I have marvelled sometimes
at Spain, how they clasp and contain so large dominions with so few
natural Spaniards : but sure the whole compass of Spain is a very
great body of a tree, far above Rome and Sparta at the firs* And
1 Daniel iv. 10.
THE TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES.
Jes, though they have not had that usage to naturalize liberally,
they have that which is next to it : that is, to employ, almost in
tently, all nations in their militia of ordinary soldiers, yea, and
sometimes in their highest commands. Nay, it seemeth at this in
stant, they are sensible of this want of natives; as by the Pragmatical
Sanction,1 now published, appeareth.
It is certain that sedentary and within-door arts, and delicate manu
factures (that require rather the finger than the arm), have in their
nature a contrariety to a military disposition. And generally all war
like people are a little idle, and love danger better than travail.
Neither must they be too much broken of it, if they shall be preserved
in vigour. Therefore it was great advantage in the ancient States of
Sparta, Athens, Rome, and others, that they had the use of slaves ;
which commonly did rid those manufactures. But that is abolished,
in greatest part, by the Christian law. That which cometh nearest to
it is to leave those arts chiefly to strangers (which, for that purpose,
are the more easily to be received), and to contain the principal bulk
of the vulgar natives within those three kinds, tillers of the ground,
free servants, and handicraftsmen of strong and manly arts, as smiths,
masons, carpenters, &c. ; not reckoning professed soldiers.
But, above all, for empire and greatness, it importeth most that a
nation do profess arms as their principal honour, study, and occupa
tion ; for the things which we have formerly spoken of are but habili-
tations towards arms : and what is habilitation without intention and
act ? Romulus, after his death (as they report or feign), sent a pre
sent to the Romans, that above all they should intend 2 arms ; and
then they should prove the greatest empire of the world. The fabric
of the State of Sparta was wholly (though not wisely) framed and com
posed to that scope and end. The Persians and Macedonians had it
for a flash.3 The Gauls, Germans, Goths, Saxons, Normans, and
others, had it for a time. The Turks have it at this day, though in
great declination. Of Christian Europe, they that have it are, in
effect, only the Spaniards. But it. is so plain that every man profiteth
in that he most intendeth, that it needeth not to be stood upon. It is
enough to point at it ; that no nation which doth not directly profess
arms, may look to have greatness fall into their mouths. And, on the
other side, it is a most certain oracle of time, that those states that
continue long in that profession (as the Romans and Turks principally
have done), do wonders. And those that have professed arms but for
an age, have, notwithstanding, commonly attained that greatness in
that age which maintained them long after, when their profession and
exercise of arms hath grown to decay.
Incident to this point is for a State to have those laws or customs
which may reach forth unto them just occasions, as may be pretended,
of war. For there is that justice imprinted in the nature of men, that
they enter not upon wars, whereof so many calamities do ensue, but
upon some, at the least specious grounds and quarrels. The Turk
1 Philip the 4th's decree, which gave certain privileges to eersons who married, and
immunity to those who had six children.
a Attend to, study
• A short time.
OF THE TRUE GREATNESS OF KINGDOMS AND ESTATES. 57
hath at hand, for cause of war, the propagation of his law or sect ; a
quarrel that he may always command. The Romans, though they
esteemed the extending the limits of their empire to be great honour
to their generals when it was done, yet they never rested upon that
alone to begin a war. First, therefore, let nations that pretend to
greatness have this ; that they be sensible of wrongs, either upon
borderers, merchants, or politic ministers ; and that they sit not too
long upon a provocation. Secondly, let them be prest x and ready to
give aids and succours to their confederates ; as it ever was with the
Romans ; insomuch as, if the confederates had leagues defensive with
divers other States, and, upon invasion offered, did implore their aids
severally, yet the Romans would ever be the foremost, and leave it to
none other to have the honour. As for the wars which were anciently
made on the behalf of a kind of party, or tacit conformity of state, I
do not see how they maybe well justified ; as when the Romans made
a war for the liberty of Graecia ; or when the Lacedaemonians and
Athenians made war to set up or pull down democracies and
oligarchies ; or when wars were made by foreigners, under the pre
tence of justice or protection, to deliver the subjects of others from
tyranny and oppression, and the like. Let it suffice, that no estate
expect to be great, that is not awake upon any just occasion of
arming.
No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor
politic : and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable
war is the true exercise. A civil war, indeed, is like the heat of a
fever : but a foreign war is like the heat of exercise, and serveth to
keep the body in health ; for in a slothful peace, both courages will
effeminate, and manners corrupt. But howsoever it be for happiness,
without all question for greatness, it makelli to be still for the most
part in arms : and the strength of a veteran army, though it be a
chargeable business, always on foot, is that which commonly giveth
the law, or, at least, the reputation, amongst all neighbour States ; as
may be well seen in Spain ; which hath had, in one part or other, a
veteran army almost continually, now by the space of six-score years.
To be master of the sea is an abridgment2 of a monarchy.
Cicero, writing to Atticus of Pompey's preparation against Caesar,
saith, Consilium Pompeii plane Tliemistocleum est j put at enim, qui
mari potitur, eum rerum potiri ; and without doubt, Pompey had
tired out Caesar, if upon vain confidence he had not left that way.
We see the great effects of battles by sea. The battle of Actium 3
decided the empire of the world. The battle of Lepanto 4 arrested
the greatness of the Turk. There be many examples where sea-fights
have been final to the war : but this is when princes, or States, have
set up their rest upon the battles. But thus much is certain, that he
1 Quick — in general, ready.
2 An epitome.
8 Fought between Augustus and Antony, B.C. 31. By Antony's defeat the Empire of the
World became Augustus's.
* Fought 1571, when the combined fleets of Spain, Venice, Genoa, Malta, and the Pope
'ius V., commanded by Don John of Austria, defeated the Turkish fleet, and completely
'ined their maritime power and checked their course of conquest. Trafalgar is another of
~ ; decisive naval victories.
58 UP REGIMENT OF HEALTH.
that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and
as little of the war as he will. Whereas those that be strongest by
land are many times, nevertheless, in great straits. Surely, at this
day, with us of Europe, the vantage of strength at sea (which is one
of the principal dowries of this kingdom of Great Britain) is great ;
both because most of the kingdoms of Europe are not merely inland,
bat girt with the sea most part of their compass ; and because the
wealth of both Indies seems, in great part, but an accessary to the
command of the seas.
The wars of latter ages seem to be made in the dark, in respect of
the glory and honour which reflected upon men from the wars in
ancient time. There be now, for martial encouragement, some degrees
and orders of chivalry, which, nevertheless, are conferred promiscuously
upon soldiers and no soldiers : and some remembrance perhaps
upon the escutcheon ; l and some hospitals for maimed soldiers ; and
such like things. But in ancient times, the Trophies erected upon the
place of the victory ; the funeral laudatives and monuments for those
that died in the wars ; the crowns and garlands personal ; the style of
Emperor, which the great kings of the world after borrowed ; the
Triumphs of the generals upon their return ; the great donatives and
largesses, upon the disbanding of the armies, were things able to
inflame all men's courages. But above all, that of the Triumph
amongst the Romans was not pageants, or gaudery, but one of the
wisest and noblest institutions that ever was. P"or it contained three
things, honour to the general, riches to the treasury out of the spoils,
and donatives to the army. But that honour, perhaps, were not fit for
monarchies ; except it be in the person of the monarch himself, or his
sons : as it came to pass in the times of the Roman emperors, who
did impropriate the actual triumphs to themselves and their sons, for
such wars as they did achieve in person ; and left only for wars
achieved by subjects some triumphal garments and ensigns to the
general.
To conclude. No man can by care-taking (as the Scripture saith)
add a cubit to his stature, in this little model of a man's body ; but in
the great frame of kingdoms and commonwealths, it is in the power of
princes, or estates, to add amplitude and greatness to their kingdoms.
For by introducing such ordinances, constitutions, and customs, as we
have now touched, they may sow greatness to their posterity and suc
cession. But these things are commonly not observed, but left to take
their chance
XXX.
OF REGIMENT OF HEALTH.
THERE is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic : a man's
own- observation, what he finds good of, and what he finds hurt of, is
the best physic to preserve health. But it is a safer conclusion to say,
* An augmentation of honour.
OF REGIMENT OF HEALTH. 59
This agreeth not well with me, therefore I will not continue it, than
this, I find no offence of this, therefore I may use it. For strength of
nature in youth passeth over many excesses which are owing a man till
his age. Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the
same things still ; for age will not be defied. Beware of sudden change
in any great point of diet, and if necessity enforce it, fit the rest to it.
For it is a secret, both in nature and state, that it is safer to change
many things than one. Examine thy customs of diet, sleep, exercise,
apparc1, and the like, and try, in anything thou shalt judge hurtful, to
discontinue it by little and little ; but so as, if thou dost find any
inconvenience by the change, thou come back to it again : for it is
hard to distinguish that which is generally held good and wholesome,
from that which is good particularly, and fit for thine own body. To
be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep
and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of long lasting. As for
the passions and studies of the mind, avoid envy, anxious fears, anger,
fretting inwards, subtle and knotty inquisitions, joys and exhilarations
in excess, sadness not communicated. Entertain hopes ; mirth rather
than joy ; variety of delights rather than surfeit of them ; wonder
and admiration, and therefore novelties ; studies that fill the mind
with splendid and illustrious objects, as histories, fables, and contem
plations of nature. If you fly physic in health altogether, it will be
too strange for your body when you shall need it. If you make it too
familiar, it will work no extraordinary effect when sickness cometh. I
commend rather some diet for certain seasons, than frequent use of
physic, except it be grown into a custom. For those diets alter the
body more, and trouble it less. Despise no new accident in your
body, but ask opinion of it. In sickness, respect health principally ;
and in health, action. For those that put their bodies to endure in
health, may in most sicknesses which are not very sharp, be cured
only with diet and tendering. Celsus * could never have spoken it as a
physician, had he not been a wise man withal, when he giveth it for
one of the great precepts of health and lasting, that a man do vary
and interchange contraries, but with an inclination to the more
benign extreme : use fasting and full eating, but rather full eating ;
watching and sleep, but rather sleep : sitting and exercise, but rather
exercise, and the like. So shall nature be cherished and yet taught
masteries. Physicians are some of them so pleasing and conformable
to the humour of the patient, as they press not the true cure of the
disease ; and some other are so regular in proceeding according to art
(or the disease, as they respect not sufficiently the condition of the
patient. Take one of a middle temper ; or, if it may not be found in
one man, combine two of either sort, and forget not to call as well the
best acquainted with your body, as the best reputed of for his faculty.
1 A Roman physician of the time of Tiberius. He wrote eigh* books on medicine ; only tht
kst survives, but is valuable.
6c 3F DISCOURSE.
XXXI.
OF SUSPICION.
SUSPICIONS amongst thoughts are like bats amongst birds, — they
ever fly by twilight. Certainly they are to be repressed, or, at the
least, well guarded. For they cloud the mind, they lose friends, and
they check with business, whereby business cannot go on currently
Und constantly. They dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy,
wise men to irresolution and melancholy. They are defects, not in
the heart, but in the brain ; for they take place in the stoutest natures :
as in the example of Henry the Seventh of England. There was not
a more suspicious man nor a more stout. And in such a composition
they do small hurt ; for commonly they are not admitted but with
examination whether they be likely or no. But in fearful natures they
gain ground too fast.
There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know
little ; and, therefore, men should remedy suspicion by procuring to
know more, and not to keep their suspicions in smother. What would
men have ? Do they think those they employ and deal with are
Saints? Do they not think they will have their own ends, and be
truer to themselves than to them ? Therefore there is no better way
to moderate suspicions than to account upon such suspicions as true,
and yet to bridle them as false. For so far a man ought to make use
of suspicions, as to provide as, if that should be true that he suspects,
yet it may do him no hurt.
Suspicions that the mind of itself gathers, are but buzzes ; but sus
picions that are artificially nourished, and put into men's heads by
the tales and whisperings of others, have stings. Certainly, the best
mean to clear the way in this same wood of suspicions, is frankly to
communicate them with the party that he suspects. For thereby he
shall be sure to know more of the truth of them than he did before ;
and withal shall make that parcy more circumspect, not to give further
cause of suspicion. But this would not be done to men of base
natures. For they, if they find themselves once suspected, will never
be true. The Italian says, Sospctto licenciafede? as if Suspicion did
give a passport to Faith ; but it ought rather to kindle it to discharge
itself.
XXX I L
OF DISCOURSE.
SOME in their discourse desire rather commendation of wit, in being
able to hold arguments, than of judgment, in discerning what is true.
As if it were a praise to know what might be said, and not what should
be thought. Some have certain commonplaces and themes, wherein
they are good, and want variety : which kind of poverty is for the most
part tedious, and, when it is once perceived, ridiculous.
1 Suspicion discharges or dismisses faith.
OF DISCOURSE. 62
The honourablest part of the talk is to give the occasion ; l and
again to moderate, and pass to somewhat else : for then a man leads
the dance. It is good in discourse, and speech of conversation, to
vary, and intermingle speech of the present occasion with arguments ;
tales with reasons ; asking of questions with telling of opinions ; and
jest with earnest ; for it is a dull thing to tire, and as we say now, to
jade anything too far. As for jest, there be certain things which ought
to be privileged from it; namely, religion, matters of State, great
persons, any man's present business of importance, and any case that
deserveth pity. Yet there be some that think their wits have been
asleep, except they dart out somewhat that is piquant and to the quick.
That is a vein which would be bridled :
Parce puer stimuli* ; et fortius utere loris?
And generally, men ought to find the difference between saltness and
bitterness. Certainly, he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh
others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' memory.
He that questioneth much shall learn much, and content much ;
but especially if he apply his questions to the skill of the persons whom
he asketh. For he shall give them occasion to please themselves in
speaking, and himself shall continually gather knowledge. But let
his questions not be troublesome ; for that is fit for a poser : 3 and let
him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak. Nay, if there be
any that would reign and take up all the time, let him find means to
take them off, and bring others on ; as musicians use to do with those
that dance too long galliards.4
If you dissemble sometimes your knowledge of that you are thought
to know, you shall be thought, another time, to know that you know
not.
Speech of a man's self ought to be seldom, and well chosen. I
knew one was wont to say in scorn, He must needs be a wise man, he
speaks so much of himself : and there is but one case wherein a man
may commend himself with a good grace ; and that is in commending
virtue in another, especially if it be such a virtue whereunto himself
pretendeth.
Speech of touch5 towards others should be sparingly used; for
Discourse ought to be as a field, without coining home to any man.
I knew two noblemen, of the West part of England, whereof the one
was given to scoff, but kept ever royal cheer in his house ; the other
would ask of those that had been at the other's table, Tell truly , was
there never a flout* or dry blow given ? To which the guest would
answer, Such atid such a thing passed. The lord would say, / thought
he would mar a good dinner.
Discretion of speech is more than eloquence : and to speak agree
ably to him with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words
tr in good order.
1 Start the subject.
2 Ovid Met. ii. 127.
3 One who asks puzzling questions.
* A French dance of that period, resembling a hornpipe.
k Talking at people.
* An insult or contemptuous speech — "a snub " in modern phraseology.
6a OF PLANTATIONS.
A good continued speech, without a good speech of interlocution,
shows slowness ; and a good reply, or second speech, without a good
settled speech, showeth shallowness and weakness. As we see in
beasts, that those that are weakest in the course, are yet nimblest in
the turn ; as it is betwixt the greyhound and the hare. To use too
many circumstances ere one come to the matter, is wearisome ; to use
none at all, is blunt.
XXXIII.
OF PLANTATIONS.
PLANTATIONS are amongst ancient, primitive, and heroical works,
When the world was young, it begat more children ; but now it is old,
it begets fewer. For I may just account new plantations to be the
children of former kingdoms.
I like a plantation in a pure soil, that is, where people are not dis-
planted to the end to plant in others. For else it is rather an extir
pation than a plantation. •
Planting of countries is like planting of woods. For you must make
account to lose almost twenty years' profit, and expect your recompense
in the end. For the principal thing that hath been the destruction of
most plantations hath been the base and hasty drawing of profit in the
first years. It is true, speedy profit is not to be neglected, as far as it
may stand with the good of the plantation, but no farther.
It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people, and
wicked condemned men,2 to be the people with whom you plant. And
not only so, but it spoileth the plantation. For they will ever live like
rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend
victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country
to the discredit of the plantation. The people wherewith you plant
ought to be gardeners, ploughmen, labourers, smiths, carpenters,
joiners, fishermen, fowlers, with some few apothecaries, surgeons,
cooks, and bakers.
In a country of plantation, first look about what kind of victual the
country yields of itself to hand ; as chestnuts, walnuts, pine-apples,
olives, dates, plums, cherries, wild honey, and the like ; and make use
of them. Then consider what victual or esculent things there are,
which grow speedily, and within the year : as parsnips, carrots, turnips,
onions, radish, artichokes of Jerusalem, maize, and the like. For
wheat, barley, and oats, they ask too much labour : but with peas and
beans you may begin ; both because they ask less labour, and because
they serve for meat as well as for bread. And of rice likewise cometh
a great increase, and it is a kind of meat. Above all, there ought to
be brought store of biscuit, oatmeal, flour, meal, and the like, in the
beginning, till bread may be had. For beasts or birds, take chiefly
such as are least subject to diseases, and multiply fastest : as swine,
goats, cocks, hens, turkeys, geese, house-doves, and the like.
The victual in plantations ought to be expended almost as in =4
1 Colonies — long called plantations.
$ He alludes to the transportation of criminals to colonies which began in 1610,
OF PLANTATIONS. 63
besieged town, that is, with certain allowance ; and let the main part
of the ground employed to gardens or corn be to a common stock, and
to be laid in, and stored up, and then delivered out in proportion ;
besides some spots of ground that any particular person will manure
for his own private.
Consider likewise, what commodities the soil where the plantation is
doth naturally yield, that they may some way help to defray the charge
of the plantation : so it be not, as was said, to the untimely prejudice
of the main business ; as it hath fared with tobacco in Virginia.
Wood commonly aboundeth but too much, and therefore timber is lit
to be one. If there be iron ore, and streams whereupon to set the
mills, iron is a brave commodity where wood aboundeth. Making of
bay salt,1 if the climate be proper for it, would be put in experience.
Growing silk, likewise, if any be, is a likely commodity. Pitch and
tar, where store of firs and pines are, will not fail. So drugs and
sweet woods, where they are, cannot but yield great profit. Soap
ashes likewise, and other things that may be thought of. But moil
not too much under ground. For the hope of mines is very uncertain,
and useth to make the planters lazy in other things.
For government, let it be in the hands of one, assisted with some
counsel ; and let them have commission to exercise martial laws, with
some limitation. And, above all, let men make that profit of being
in the wilderness, as they have God always and His service before
their eyes. Let not the government of the plantation depend upon too
many counsellors and undertakers in the country that planteth, but
upon a temperate number. And let those be rather noblemen and
gentlemen, than merchants ; for they look ever to the present gain.
Let there be freedoms from custom, till the plantation be of strength,
and not only freedom from custom, but freedom to carry their com
modities where they may make their best of them, except there be
some special cause of caution.
Cram not in people, by sending too fast company after company ;
but rather hearken how they waste, and send supplies proportionably :
but so as the number may live well in the plantation, and not by sur
charge be in penury.
It hath been a great endangering to health of some plantations, that
they have built along the sea and rivers, in marish 2 and unwholesome
grounds. Therefore, though you begin there, to avoid carriage and
other like discommodities, yet build still rather upwards from the
stream than along it. It concerneth likewise the health of the planta
tion that they have good store of salt with them, that they may use it
in their victuals when it shall be necessary.
If you plant where savages are, do not only entertain them with
trifles and gingles,3 but use them justly and graciously, with sufficient
guard, nevertheless. And do not win their favour by helping them to
invade their enemies ; but for their defence, it is not amiss. And send
oft of them over to the country that plants, that they may see a better
condition than their own, and commend it when they return.
1 Salt obtained from sea-water by evaporation in the heat of the sup.
8 Marshy. s Jingles, or rattles.
64 OP RICHES.
When the plantation grows to strength, then it is time to plant with
women as well as with men, that the plantation may spread into gene
rations, and not be ever pieced from without. It is the sinfullest thing
tA the world to forsake or destitute l a plantation once in forwardness.
For, beside the dishonour, it is the guiltiness of blood of many
commiserable persons.
XXXIV.
OF RICHES.
I CANNOT call riches better than the Baggage of Virtue. The
Roman word is better, Impedimenta. For as the baggage is to an
army, so is riches to Virtue. It cannot be spared nor left behind, but
it hindereth the march. Yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or
disturbeth the victory.
Of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution ;
the rest is but conceit. So saiih Solomon, Where much z'j, there are
many to consume it ; and'wliat hath the owner but the sight of it with
his eyes?1* The personal fruition in any man cannot reach to feel
great riches : there is a custody of them, or a power of dole, and a
donative of them, or a fame of them, but no solid use to the owner.
Do \ ju not see what feigned prices are set upon little stones and
rarities, and what works of ostentation are undertaken, because there
might seem to be some use of great riches? But then, you will say,
they may be of use to buy men out of dangers or troubles ; as Solomon
saith, Riches are as a stronghold in the imagination of the rich man?
But this is excellently expressed, that it is in imagination, and not
always in fact. Tor certainly, great riches have sold more men than
they have bought out.
Seek not proud riches, but cuch as thou mayest get justly, use
soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly. Yet have no
abstract or friarly contempt of them : but distinguish, as Cicero saith
well of Rabirius Posthumus. In studio rei am£!ificand(Z) apparebat,
non avariticE prccdam, sed instrumentum bonitati quczri; Hearken
also to Solomon, and beware of hasty gathering of riches: Qui ' festinat
ad divitias, non erit insons* The poets feign that when Plutus (which
is riches) is sent from Jupiter, he limps, and goes slowly, but when he
is sent from Pluto,5 he runs, and is swift of foot ; meaning that riches
gotten by good means and just labour pace slowly, but when they
come by the death of others (as by the course of inheritance, testa
ments, and the like), they come tumbling upon a man. But it mought
be applied likewise to Pluto, taking him for the Devil. For when
riches come from the Devil (as by fraud, and oppression, and unjust
means) they come upon speed.
The ways to enrich are many, and most of them foul. Parsimony
is ore of the best, and yet it is not innocent ; for it withholdeth meft
1 Leave without supplies as had been done to the first settlers in Virginia.
2 Kcclesiastes v. n. 3 Prov. x. 15, and xviii. n.
* IVov. xxviii, 22. 6 The god of the dead.
OF RICHES. 65
from works of liberality and charity. The improvement of the ground
is the most natural obtaining of riches ; for it is our great mother's
blessing the earth's : but it is slow ; and yet, where men of great
wealth do stoop to husbandry, it multiplieth riches exceedingly. I
knew a nobleman of England that had the greatest audits of any man
in my time, a great grazier, a great sheep-master, a great timber-man,
a great collier, a great corn-master, a great lead-man, and so of iron,
and a number of the like points of husbandry ; so as the earth seemed
a sea to him in respect of the perpetual importation. It was truly
observed by one, that himself came very hardly to little riches, and
very easily to great riches ; for when a man's stock is come to that,
that he can expect the prime of markets, and overcome1 those bargains
which for their greatness are few men's money, and be partner in the
industries of younger men, he cannot but increase mainly.
The gains of ordinary trades and vocations are honest, and fur
thered by two things chiefly ; by diligence, and by a good name for
good and fair dealing. But the gains of bargains are of a more doubt
ful nature, when men shall wait upon others' necessity ; broke2 by ser
vants and instruments to draw them on ; put off others cunningly that
would be better chapmen ; and the like practices, which are crafty and
naught. As for the chopping of bargains, when a man buys not to
hold, but to sell over again, that commonly grindeth double, both upon
the seller and upon the buyer. Sharings do greatly enrich, if the
hands be well chosen that are trusted. Usury is the certainest means
of gain, though one of the worst, as that whereby a man doth eat his
bread in sudore vulttis alieni and, besides, doth plough upon Sundays ;
but yet, certain though it be, it hath flaws : for that the scriveners and
brokers do value unsound men, to serve their own turn.
The fortune in being the first in an invention, or in a privilege, doth
cause sometimes a wonderful overgrowth in riches ; as it was with the
first sugar-man in the Canaries. Therefore if a man can play the
true logician, to have as well judgment as invention, he may do great
matters ; especially if the times be fit. He that resteth upon gains
certain, shall hardly grow to great riches ; and he that puts all upon
adventures, doth oftentimes break and come to poverty : it is good,
therefore, to guard adventures with certainties that may uphold losses.
Monopolies,3 and coemption of wares for resale, where they are not
restrained, are greit means to enrich ; especially if the party have
intelligence what things are like to come into request, and so store
himself beforehand.
Riches gotten by service, though it be of the best rise, yet wher
they are gotten by flattery, feeding humours, and other servile rendi
tions, they may be placed amongst the worse. As for fishing for testa
ments and executorships (as Tacitus saith of Seneca, Testamenta et
orbos tanquam indagine capij) it is yet worse, by how much men sub
mit themselves to meaner persons than in service.
1 Master- or get the best of a bargain.
2 Broke— by servants— diminished by the brokerage of servants who negotiate or " dra*
them on."
* Monopolies—exclusive rights of trading in any merchandise or article— often given tu
their favourites by the Tudor Sovereigns.
F
66 OF PROPHECIES.
Believe not much them that seem to despise riches : for they despise
them that despair of them ; and none worse, when they come to them.
Be not penny-wise ; riches have wings, and sometimes they fly away
of themselves, sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more.
Men leave their riches either to their kindred, or to the public ; and
moderate portions prosper best in both. A great estate left to an heir,
is as a lure to all the birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he
be not the better stablished in years and judgment. Likewise,
glorious1 gifts and foundations are like sacrifices without salt,2 and
but the painted sepulchres of alms, which soon will putrefy and cor
rupt inwardly. Therefore measure not thine advancements by quan
tity, but frame them by measure. And defer not charities till death.
For, certainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so is rather
liberal of another man's than of his own,
XXXV.
OF PROPHECIES.
I MEAN not to speak of divine prophecies, nor of heathen oracles,
nor of natural predictions ; but only of prophecies that have been of
certain memory, and from hidden causes. Saith the Pythonissa3 to
Saul, To-morrow thou and thy sons shall be ivith me.* Virgil hath
these verses from Homer :
At domus sEneoe cunctis dominabitur oris,
Et nati natorum, et qui nascentur ab illis,
a prophecy, as it seems, of the Roman empire. Seneca the tragedian
hath these verses :
• Venient annis
ScBcula seris, quibus Oceanus
Vincula rerum laxct, et ingen.
Pateat tellus, Tiphysqiie uovos
Dctegat orbes ; nee sit terris
Ultima Thule:
a prophecy of the discovery of America. The daughter of Polycrates
dreamed that Jupiter bathed her father, and Apollo anointed him.
And it came to pass that he was crucified in an open place, where the
sun made his body run with sweat, and the vain washed it. Philip of
Maeedon dreamed he sealed up his wife's belly ; whereby he did
.expound it, that his wife should be barren : but Aristander the sooth
sayer told him his wife was with child, because men do not use to sea]
vessels that are empty. A phantasm that appeared to M. Brutus in
his tent, said to him, Philippis iterum me videbis. Tiberius said to
Galba : Tu quoque, Galba, degustabis imperium. In Vespasian's time
1 Ostentatious. 2 Lacking the true spirit.
3 Or Pythoness, because of having the spirit oi Python or Apollo, which was divination,
They were the words of Samuel, but perhapb repealed by the witgh of Endor to Saul
> . ';im. xxviii., 19.
OF PROPHECIES. 67
there went a prophecy in the East, that those that should come forth
of Judea should reign over the world ; which, though it may be was
meant of our Saviour, yet Tacitus expounds it of Vespasian. Domi-
tian dreamed, the night before he was slain, that a golden head was
growing out of the nape of his neck ; and, indeed, the succession that
followed him, for many years, made golden times. Henry VI. of
England said of Henry VII. when he was a lad, and gave him water,
This is the lad that shall enjoy the crown for which we strive.1 When
I was in France, I heard from one Dr. Pena, that the Queen Mother,
who was given to curious arts, caused the king- her husband's nativity
to be calculated under a falsa name, and the astrologer gave a judg
ment that he should be killed in a duel ; at which the queen laughed,
thinking her husband to be above challenges and duels : but he was
slain upon a course at tilt, the splinters of the staff of Montgomery
going in at his beaver.3 The trivial prophecy which I heard when I
was a child, and Queen Elizabeth was in the flower of her years, was :
When hempe is spun,
England s done :
whereby it was generally conceived that, after the princes had reigned
which had the principal letters of that word hempe (which were Henry,
Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth), England should come to utter
confusion : which, thanks be to God, is verified in the change of the
name ; for that the king's style is now no more of England, but of
Britain. There was also another prophecy before the year of eighty-
eight, which I do not well understand :
There shall be seen -upon a day,
Between the Baugh and the May,*
The black fleet of Norway.
When that that is come and gone,
England build houses of lime and stone,
For after wars shall you have none.
It was generally conceived to be meant of the Spanish fleet that came
in eighty-eight ; for that the king of Spain's surname, as they say, is
Norway. The prediction of Regiomontanus,
Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus
* 3 Henry 6, Act 4, scene 6.
K. Hen. My lord of Somerset, what youth is that
Of whom you seem to have so tender care?
Som. My liege, it is young Henry, earl of Richmond.
K. Hen. Come hither. England's hope : [Lays his
hand on his head.} If secret powers
Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts.
This pretty lad will prove our country's bliss
His looks are full of peaceful majesty :
His head by nature framed to wear a crown,
His hand to wield a sceptre ; and himself
Likely in time to bless a regal throne.
Make much of him, my lords ; for this is he
Must help you more than you are hurt by me.
Shakespeare.
8 Henry the Second. 8 1559.
* There is an Isle of May in the Firth of Forth ; the prophecy was most probably meant to
refer to the real Norwegian fleet which had once been the dread of Scotland, but which never
came again in war after James's ist marriage with Anne of Denmark
F 2
63 OF AMBITION.
was thought likewise accomplished in the sending of that great fleet,
being the greatest in strength, though not in number, of all that ever
swam upon the sea. As for Cleon's dream, I think it was a jest. It
was, that he was devoured of a long dragon ; and it was expounded of
a maker of sausages, that troubled him exceedingly. There are num
bers of the like kind, especially if you include dreams, and predictions
of astrology ; but I have set down these few only of certain credit, for
example.
My judgment is, that they ought all to be despised, and ought to
serve but for winter-talk by the fireside. Though when I say despised,
I mean it as for belief : for otherwise, the spreading or publishing of
them is in no sort to be despised. For they have done much mischief,
and I see many severe laws made to suppress them. That that hath
given them grace, and some credit, consisteth in three things. First,
that men mark when they hit, and never mark when they miss ; as
they do, generally, of dreams. The second is, that probable conjec
tures, or obscure traditions, many times turn themselves into prophe
cies ; while the nature of Man, which coveteth divination, thinks it no
peril to foretell that which indeed they do but collect : as that of
Seneca's verse. For so much, was then subject to demonstration, that
the globe of the earth had great parts beyond the Atlantic, which
might be probably conceived not to be all sea : and adding thereto
the tradition in Plato's Timaus and his Atlanticus,\\. might encourage
one to turn it to a prediction. The third and last (which is the great
one) is, that almost all of them, being infinite in number, have been
impostures, and by idle and crafty brains, merely contrived and
feigned, after the event passed.
XXXVI.
OF AMBITION.
AMBITION is like choler ; which is an humour that maketh mev
active, earnest, full of alacrity, and stirring, if it be not stopped ; but
if it be stopped, and cannot have his way, it becometh adust, and
thereby malign and venomous. So ambitious men, if they find the
way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy
than dangerous ; but if they be checked in tbeir desires, they become
secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye,
and are best pleased when things go backward ; which is the worst
property in a servant of a prince or State. Therefore, it is good for
princes, if they use ambitious men, to handle it so as they be still pro
gressive and not retrograde ; which, because it cannot be without
inconvenience, it is good not to use such natures at all. For if they
rise not with their service, they will take order to make their service
fall with them.
But since we have said, it were good not to use men of ambitious
natures, except it be upon necessity, it is fit to speak in what cases
they are of necessity. Good commanders in the wars must be taken,
OP AMBITION. 69
be they never so ambitious ; for the use of their service dispcnscth
with the rest ; and to take a soldier without ambition is to pull off his
spurs. There is also great use of ambitious men in being screens to
princes in matters of danger and envy ; for no man will take that part
except he be like a seeled1 dove, that mounts and mounts, because he
cannot see about him. There is use also of ambitious men in pulling
down the greatness of any subject that overtops ; as Tiberius2 used
Macro in the pulling down of Sejanus.
Since, therefore, they must be used in such cases, there resteth to
speak how they are to be bridled, that they may be less dangerous.
There is less danger of them if they be of mean birth, than if they be
noble : and if they be rather harsh of nature, than gracious and
popular ; and if they be rather new raised, than grown cunning and
fortified in their greatness. It is counted by some a weakness in
princes to have favourites, but it is, of all others, the best remedy
against ambitious great ones. For when the way of pleasuring and
displeasuring lieth by the favourite, it is impossible any other should
be over great. Another means to curb them, is to balance them by
others as proud as they. But then there must be some middle coun
sellors to keep things steady ; for without that ballast, the ship will roll
too much. At the least, a prince may animate and inure some meaner
persons to be, as it were, scourges to ambitious men. As for the having
of them obnoxious to ruin, if they be of fearful natures it may do well ;
but if they be stout and daring, it may precipitate their designs, and
prove dangerous. As for the pulling of them down, if the affairs
require it, and that it may not be done with safety suddenly, the only
way is, the interchange continually of favours and disgraces, whereby
they may not know what to expect, and be, as it were, in a wood.
Of ambitions, it is less harmful, the ambition to prevail in great
things, than that other, to appear in everything ; for that breeds con
fusion, and mars business. But yet it is less clanger to have an ambi
tious man stirring in business, than great in dependencies. He that
seeketh to be eminent amongst able men, hath a great task, but that
is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure
amongst cyphers, is the decay of a whole age.
Honour hath three things in it ; the vantage ground to do good, the
approach to kings and principal persons, and the raising of a man's
own fortunes. He that hath the best of these intentions, when he
aspireth, is an honest man ; and that prince that can discern of these
intentions in another that aspireth, is a wise prince. Generally, let
princes and States choose such ministers as are more sensible of duty
than of rising, and such as love business rather upon conscience
than upon bravery3; and let them di?~ern a busy nature from a willing
mind.
1 Seeling was fastening the dove's eyelids down by a fine thread passed through them
2 Emperor of Rome. Sejanus was his too powerful minister. Macro was the tool ot
Tiberius for destroying him, but was afterwards an accessory to the Emperor's muxiler b?
Nero.
3 Ostentation.
70 OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS.
XXXVII.
OF MASQUES AND TRIUMPHS.
THESE things are but toys, to come amongst such serious observa
tions. But yet, since princes will have such things, it is better they
should be graced with elegancy than daubed with cost.
Dancing to song is a thing of great state and pleasure. I under
stand it that the song be in quire, placed aloft,1 and accompanied with
some broken2 music, and the ditty fitted to the device. Acting in
song, especially in dialogues, hath an extreme good grace — I say act
ing, not dancing (for that is a mean and vulgar thing) — and the voices
of the dialogue would be strong and manly (a bass and a tenor, no
treble), and the ditty high and tragical, not nice or dainty. Several
quires placed one over against another, and taking the voice by catches,
anthemwise, give great pleasure. Turning dances into figure is a
childish curiosity. And generally let it be noted, that those things
which I here set down, are such as do naturally take the sense, and not
respect petty wonderments. It is true, the alteration of scenes, so it be
quietly and without noise, are things of great beauty and pleasure ; for
they feed and relieve the eye before it be full of the same object. Let
the scenes abound with light, especially coloured and varied ; and let
the masquers, or any other that are to come down from the scene, have
some motions upon the scene itself before their coining down ; for it
draws the eye strangely, and makes it with great pleasure to desire to
see that it cannot perfectly discern. Let the songs be loud and cheer
ful, and not chirpings or pulings. Let the music likewise be sharp and
loud, and well placed. The colours that show best by candlelight are
white, carnation, and a kind of sea-water green ; and oes,3 or spangs,
as they are of no great cost, so they are of most glory. As for rich
embroidery, it is lost and not discerned. Let the suits of the masquers
be graceful, and such as become the person when the vizards are off,
not after examples of known attires, Turks, soldiers, mariners, and the
like. Let anti-masques not be long ; they have been commonly of
fools, satyrs, baboons, wild men. antiques,4 beasts, sprites, witches,
yEthiopes, pigmies, turquets,5 nymphs, rustics, Cupids, statuas moving,
and the like. As for angels, it is not comical enough to put them in
anti-masques ; and anything that is hideous, as devils, giants, is, on
the other side, as unfit. But chiefly, let the music of them be recrea
tive, and with some strange changes. Some sweet odours suddenly
coming forth, without any drops falling, are, in such a company, as
there is steam and heat, things of great pleasure and refreshment.
Double masques, one of men, another of ladies, addeth state and
variety. But all is nothing, except the room be kept clear and neat.
For justs, and tourneys, and barriers ; the glories of them are chiefly
1 In the music gallery then placed at the end of the hall in great houses
2 Music in parts ; harmony.
8 Spangles — then of recent invention.
* Figures in old fashioned costumes.
* Turkish figures.
OF NATURE IN MEN. 7*
In the chariots, wherein the challengers make their entry, especially if
they be drawn with strange beasts, as lions, bears, camels, and the
like ; or, in the devices of their entrance, or in bravery l of their liveries,
or in the goodly furniture of their horses and armour. But enough of
these toys.
XXXVIII.
OF NATURE IN MEN.
NATURE is often hidden, sometimes overcome, seldom extinguished.
Force maketh nature more violent in the return ; doctrine and dis
course maketh nature less importune ; 2 but custom only doth alter
and subdue nature.
He that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himself too
great nor too small tasks ; for the first will make him dejected by
often failing, and the second will make him a small proceeder, though
by often prevailings. And, at the first, let him practise with helps, as
swimmers do with bladders or rushes ; but after a time, let him prac
tise with disadvantages, as dancers do with thick shoes ; for it breeds
great perfection if the practice be harder than the use.
Where nature is mighty, and therefore the victory hard, the degrees
had need be, first to stay and arrest nature in time (like to him that
would say over the four-and-twenty letters when he was angry) ; then
to go less in quantity (as if one should, in forbearing wine, come from
drinking healths to a draught at a meal) ; and, lastly, to discontinue
altogether. But if a man have the fortitude and resolution to en
franchise himself at once, that is the best :
Optimus ille animi vindex, Icedentia pectus
Vincula qui rupit, dedoluitque semel.
Neither is the ancient rule amiss, to bend nature as a wand, to a con
trary extreme, whereby to set it right ; understanding it where the
contrary extreme is no vice.
Let not a man force a habit upon himself with a perpetual contin
uance ; but with some intermission. For both the pause reinforceth
the new onset ; and if a man that is not perfect be ever in practice, he
shall as well practise his errors as his abilities, and induce one habit
of both : and there is no means to help this but by seasonable inter
missions. But let not a man trust his victory over his nature too far ;
for nature will lay buried a great time, and yet revive upon the occa
sion or temptation. Like as it was with ./Esop's damsel, turned from
a cat to a woman, who sat very demurely at the board's 3 end till a
mouse ran before her. Therefore, let a man either avoid the occasion
altogether, or put himself often to it, that he may be little moved
with it.
A man's nature is best perceived in privateness ; for there is no
1 Show. 8 Importunate.
» Table.
7» OF CUSTOM AND EDUCATION.
affectation : in passion, for that putteth a man out of his precepts 2
and in a new case or experiment, for there custom leaveth him.
They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations ;
otherwise they may say, Multum incola fuit anima mea, when they
converse in those things they do not affect. In studies, whatsoever
a man commandeth upon himself, let him set hours for it ; but what
soever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no care for any set
.imes : for his thoughts will fly to it of themselves, so as the spaces of
other business or studies will suffice.
A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds ; therefore let him
seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.
XXXIX.
OF CUSTOM AND EDUCATION.
MEN'S thoughts are much according to their inclination ; their dis
course and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions ;
but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed. And, there
fore, as Machiavel well noteth, though in an evil-favoured instance,
there is no trusting to the force of nature, nor to the bravery of words,
except it be corroborate by custom. His instance is, that for the
achieving of a desperate conspiracy, a man should not rest upon the
fierceness of any man's nature, or his resolute undertakings, but take
such a one as hath had his hands formerly in blood. But Machiavel
knew not of a friar Clement,1 nor a Ravaillac,2 nor a Jaureguy,3 nor a
Baltazar Gerard.4 Yet his rule holdeth still, that nature, nor the
engagement of words, are not so forcible as custom. Only supersti
tion is now so well advanced, that men of the first blood 5 are as firm
as butchers by occupation ; and votary 6 resolution is made equi
pollent 7 to custom, even in matter of blood. In other things, the
predominancy of custom is everywhere visible, insomuch as a man
would wonder to hear men profess, protest, engage, give great words,
and then do just as they have done before, as if they were dead
images and engines, moved only by the wheels of custom.
We see also the reign or tyranny of custom, what it is. The
Indians (I mean the sect of their wise men) 8 lay themselves quietly
upon a stack of wood, and so sacrifice themselves by fire. Nay, the
wives strive to be burned with the corpses of their husbands.9 The
lads of Sparta, of ancient time, were wont to be scourged upon the
altar of Diana, without so much as queching.10 I remember, in the
beginning of Queen Elizabeth's time of England, an Irish rebel coi?
He assassinated Henry III. of France in 1589 A.D.
He assassinated Henry IV. of France, 1610 A.D.
Jaureguy attempted to assassinate William, Prince of Orange, 1582 A.D.
Shut William the Silent, Prince of Orange in 1584 A.D.
\\ ho have only once shed hlood, or never before shed blood.
'1 he resolution springing from a vow.
Having equal power or force.
The Brahmins. 9 The suttee — abolished by the English,
Flinching — crying out.
OF FORTUNE. 73
demned, put up a petition to the deputy that he might be hanged in a
withe,1 and not in a halter, because it had been so used with former
rebels. There be monks in Russia, for penance, that will sit a whole
night in a vessel of water, till they be engaged with hard ice.
Many examples may be put of the force of custom, both upon mind
and body : therefore, since custom is the principal magistrate of man's
life, let men by all means endeavour to obtain good customs. Cer
tainly custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years ; this
we call education ; which is, in effect, but an early custom. So we see
in languages, the tongue is more pliant to all expressions and sounds, the
joints are more supple to all feats of activity and motions in youth
than afterwards. For it is true that late learners cannot so well take
the ply ; except it be in some minds, that have not suffered themselves
to fix, but have kept themselves open and prepared to receive con
tinual amendment, which is exceeding rare.
But if the force of custom, simple and separate, be great, the force
of custom, copulate and conjoined, and collegiate, is far greater. For
there example teacheth, company comforteth, emulation quickeneth,
glory raiseth ; so as in such places the force of custom is in his
exaltation. Certainly, the great multiplication of virtues upon human
nature resteth upon societies well ordained and disciplined ; for
commonwealths and good governments do nourish virtue grown, but
do not much mend the seeds. But the misery is, that the most effec
tual means are now applied to the ends least to be desired.
XL.
OF FORTUNE.
IT cannot be denied but outward accidents conduce much to for
tune ; favour, opportunity, death of others, occasion fitting virtue.
But chiefly, the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hand. Faber
quisque fortunes slice, saith the Poet. And the most frequent of
external causes is, that the folly of one man is the fortune of another.
For no man prospers so suddenly as by others' errors. Serpens nisi
serpentem comederit nonfit draco.
Overt and apparent virtues bring forth praise ; but there be secret
and hidden virtues that bring forth fortune, certain deliveries of a
man's self, which have no name. The Spanish name ctisemboliura* partly
expresseth them, when there be not stonds 3 nor restiveness in a man's
nature, but that the wheels of his mind keep way with the wheels of
his fortune. For so Livy (after he had described Cato Major in these
words, in illo viro, tantum robur corporis et animi fuit, itt quoctmque
loco natus essef, fortunam sibi facturus mderetur] falleth upon that,
that he had versatile ingenium. Therefore, if a man look sharply and
attentively, he shall see fortune ; for, though she be blind, yet she is
1 A willow-twig — a band of twigs twisted together.
• Turning; inside out, 8 Hindrances.
74 OF FORTUNE,
not invisible. The way of fortune is like the milken way in the sky :
which is a meeting, or knot, of a number of small stars not seen
asunder, but giving light together. So are there a number of little
and scarce discerned virtues, or rather faculties and customs, that
make men fortunate. The Italians note some of them, such as a man
would little think. When they speak of one that cannot do amiss,
they will throw in into his other conditions, that he hath Poco di
niatto : 1 and, certainly, there be not two more fortunate properties
than to have a little of the fool, and not too much of the honest ;
therefore extreme lovers of their country, or masters, were never
fortunate ; neither can they be, for when a man placeth his thoughts
without himself, he goeth not his own way.
A hasty fortune maketh an enterpriser and remover (the French
hath it better, entreprenant, or remnant) ; but the exercised fortune
maketh the able man. Fortune is to be honoured and respected, and
it be but for her daughters, Confidence and Reputation. For those
two felicity breedcth ; the first within a man's self, the latter in others
towards him.
All wise men, to decline tjie envy of their own virtues, use to ascribe
them to Providence and Fortune. For so they may the better assume
them ; and besides, it is greatness in a man to be the care of the
higher powers. So Caesar said to the pilot in the tempest, Ccesarem
portas, et forttmam ejus. So Sylla chose the name offetz'.r, and not of
magnus. And it hath been noted, that those who ascribe openly too
much to their own wisdom and policy, end infortunate. It is written
that Timotheus the Athenian,2 after he had, in the account he gave to
the state of his government, often interlaced this speech, And in this
fortune had no part, never prospered in anything he undertook after
wards.
Certainly there be whose fortunes are like Homer's verses, that have
a slide and an easiness more than the verses of other poets ; as Plu
tarch saith of Timoleon's fortune,3 in respect of that of Agesilaus, or
Epaminondas. And that this should be, no doubt, it is much in a
man's self.
1 A little of the fool.
2 The son of Conon and friend of Plato. He was a successful general.
3 " Although Greece in his time produced several persons of extraordinary worth and much
renowned for their achievements, such as Timotheus, and Agesilaus, and Pelopidas, and
(Timoleon's chief model) Epaminondas, yet the lustre of their best actions was obscured by
a degree of violence and labour, insomuch that some of them were matter of blame and of
repentance, whereas there is not any one act of Timoleon's, setting aside the necessity he was
placed under in reference to his brother, to which, as Timeus observes, we may not fully apply
that exclamation of Sophocles : —
O, gods ! what Venus or what Grace divine
Did here with human workmanship combine.
dough's Plutarch, p i&»V
OF USUXY. n
XLT.
OF USURY.
MANY have made witty invectives against Usury. They say, that it
is pity the devil should have God's part, which is the tithe : l that
the usurer is the greatest Sabbath-breaker, because his plough goeth
every Sunday : that the usurer is the drone that Virgil speaketh of :
Ignavumfucos pecus a prcssepibus arcent ;
that the usurer breaketh the first law that was made for mankind after
the fall, which was In sudore vultfis tut comedes panem tuitm, not ///
sudore vultus alieni : that usurers should have orange-tawny2 bonnets,
because they do judaize ; that it is against nature tor money to beget
money ; and the like. I say this only, that usury is a concessum
propter duritiem cordis : for since there must be borrowing and lend
ing, and men are so hard of heart as they will not lend freely, usury
must be permitted. Some others have made suspicious and cunning
propositions of banks,3 discovery of men's estates, and other inven
tions. But few have spoken of usury usefully. It is good to set before
us the incommodities and commodities of usury, that the good may be
either weighed out or culled out ; and warily to provide, that, while we
make forth to that which is better, we meet not with that which is
worse.
The discommodities of usury are, first, that it makes fewer mer
chants. For were it not for this lazy trade of usury, money would not
lie still, but it would in great par* be employed upon merchandising,
which is the vena porta* of wealth in a State. The second, that it
makes poor merchants. For, as a farmer cannot husband his ground
so well if he sit at a great rent, so the merchant cannot drive his trade
so well if he sit at great usury. The third is incident to the other two ;
and that is, the decay of customs of kings, or estates, which ebb or
flow with merchandising. The fourth, that it bringeth the treasure of
a realm or State into a few hands. For the usurer being at certainties,
and the other at uncertainties, at the end of the game most of the
money will be in the box ; and ever a State flourisheth when wealth is
more equally spread. The fifth, that it beats down the price of land ;
for the employment of money is chiefly either merchandising, or pur
chasing ; and usury waylays both. The sixth, that it doth dull and
damp all industries, improvements, and new inventions, wherein
money would be stirring, if it were not for this slug. The last, that it
is the canker and ruin of many men's estates ; which in process of
time breeds a public poverty.
On the other side, the commodities of usury are, first, that howso
ever usury in some respects hindereth merchandising, yet in some
1 The legal interest on borrowed money was then 10 per cent.
2 Orange-tawny or dark -yellow caps wer« worn by compulsion by the Jews.
Ihe Goldsmiths — men of substance, as George Heriot — ket^. money for its possessors then
as bankers do now ; but there was a bank ii> Amsterdam in 1650, which failed.
* Chief vein.
76 OF USURY.
other it advanccth it ; for it is certain that the greatest part of trade is
driven by young merchants upon borrowing at interest, so as, if the
usurer either call in or keep back his money, there will ensue presently
a great stand of trade. The second is, that, were it not for this easy
borrowing upon interest, men's necessities would draw upon them a
most sudden undoing, in that they would be forced to sell their means
(be it lands or goods) far under foot ; and so, whereas usury doth but
gnaw upon them, bad markets would swallow them quite up. As for
mortgaging, or pawning, it will little mend the matter, for either men
will not take pawns without use, or if they do, they will look precisely
for the forfeiture. I remember a cruel monied man in the country,
that would say, The devil take tJiis usury, it keeps us from forfeiture of
mortgages and bonds. The third and last is, that it is a vanity to con
ceive that there would be ordinary borrowing without profit, and it is
impossible to conceive the number of inconveniences that will ensue,
if borrowing be cramped. Therefore to speak of the abolishing of
usury is idle ; all states have ever had it in one kind or rate, or other.
So as that opinion must be sent to Utopia.1
To speak now of the reformation and reiglement of usury, how the
discommodities of it may be best avoided, and the commodities re
tained. It appears by the balance of commodities and discommodities
of usury, two things are to be reconciled ; the one that the tooth of
usury be grinded, that it bite not too much ; the other that there be
left open a means to invite monied men to lend to the merchants, for
the continuing and quickening of trade. This cannot be done, except
you introduce two several sorts of usury, a less and a greater. For if
you reduce usury to one low rate, it will ease the common borrower,
but the merchant will be to seek for money ; and it is to be noted,
that the trade of merchandise being the most lucrative, many bear
usury at a good rate ; other contracts not so.
To serve both intentions, the way would be briefly thus : that there
be two rates of usury, the one free and general for all, the other under
licence only to certain persons, and in certain places of merchandising.
First, therefore, let usury in general be reduced to five in the hundred,
and let that rate be proclaimed to be free and current, and let the
State shut itself out to take any penalty for the same. This will pre
serve borrowing from any general stop or dryness. This will ease
infinite borrowers in the country. This will, in good part, raise the
price of land, because land purchased at sixteen years' purchase will
yield six in the hundred, and somewhat more, whereas this rate of
interest yields but five. This, by like reason, will encourage and edge
industrious and profitable improvements, because many will rather
venture in that kind, than take five in the hundred, especially having
been used to greater profit. Secondly, let there be certain persons
licensed to lend to known merchants upon usury, at a higher rate, and
let it be with the cautions following : let the rate be, even with the.
merchant himself, somewhat more easy than that he used formerly to
pay ;. for by that means all borrowers shall have some ease by this
reformation, be he merchant or whosoever. Let it be no bank, or
1 The land of imaginary perfection in Sir Thomas More's political romance.
OF YOUTH AND AGE. 77
common stock, but every man be master of his own money. Not t :MI
I altogether mislike banks ; but they will hardly be brooked, in regard
of certain suspicions. Let the State be answered l ^some small matter
for the licence, and the rest left to the lender ; for if the abatement be
but small, it will no whit discourage the lender. For he, for example,
that took before ten or nine in the hundred, will sooner descend to
eight in the hundred, than give over this trade of usury, and go from
certain gains to gains of hazard. Let these licensed lenders be in
number indefinite, but restrained to certain principal cities and towns
of merchandise. For then they will be hardly able to colour other
men's monies in the country, so as the licence of nine will not suck
away the current rate of five. For no man will lend his monies far
off, nor put them into unknown hands.
If it be objected that this doth in a sort authorise usury, which
before was in some places but permissive ; the answer is, that it is
better to mitigate usury by declaration than to suffer it to rage by
connivance.
XLII.
OF YOUTH AND AGE.
A MAN that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost
no time. But that happeneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the
first cogitations, not so wise as the second, for there is a youth in
thoughts as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men is
more lively than that of old, and imaginations stream into their minds
better, and, as it were, more divinely.
Natures that have much heat, and great and violent desires and
perturbations, are not ripe for action till they have passed the meridian
of their years ; as it was with Julius Csesar and Septimius Severus, of
the latter of whom it is said, Juventutem egit erroribus, imo furoribus^
plenam; and yet he was the ablest emperor almost of all the list.
But reposed natures may do well in youth, as it is seen in Augustus
Csesar, Cosmus Duke of Florence, Gaston de Foix,2 and others.
On the other side, heat and vivacity in age is an excellent compo
sition for business. Young men are fitter to invent than to judge,
fitter for execution than for counsel, and fitter for new projects than
for settled business ; for the experience of age, in things that fall
within the compass of it, directeth them, but in new things abuseth 3
them.
The errors of young men are the ruin of business ; but the errors of
aged men amount but to this — that more might have been done, or
sooner. Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace
more than they can hold ; stir more than they can quiet ; fly to the
end, without consideration of the means and degrees ; pursue some
i Paid.
* Nephew of Louis XII. of France. He fell at the battle of Ravenna, isia.
' Deceives.
7« OF BEAUTY.
few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly ; care not to
innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences ; use extreme remedies
at first ; and that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or
retract them ; like an unready horse that will neither stop nor turn.
Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little,
repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period,
but content themselves with a mediocrity of success.
Certainly it is good to compound employments of both ; for that
will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age may
correct the defects of both ; and good for succession, that young men
may be learners, while men in age are actors ; and, lastly, good for
externe accidents, because authority followeth old men, and favour and
popularity youth. But, for the moral part, perhaps, youth will have
the pre-eminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain Rabbin, upon
the text, Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall
dream dreams, inferreth that young men are admitted nearer to God
than old, because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream. And,
certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxi-
cateth ; and age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding,
than in the virtues of the will and affections.
There be some have an over-early ripeness in their years, which
fadeth betimes. These are, first, such as have brittle wits, the edge
whereof )s soon turned ; such as was Hermogenes 1 the rhetorician,
whose books are exceeding subtle, who afterwards waxed stupid. A
second sort is of those that have some natural dispositions which have
better grace in youth than in age ; such as is a fluent and luxurious
speech, which becomes youth well, but not age. So Tully saith of
Hortensius,2 Idem manebat, neqtie idem decebat. The third is of such
as take too high a strain at the first, and are magnanimous more than
tract of years can uphold ; as was Scipio Africanus, of whom Livy
saith in effect, Ultima primis cedebant.
XLIII.
OF BEAUTY.
VIRTUE is like a rich stone, best plain set ; and surely virtue is best
in a body that is comely, though not of delicate features, and that hath
rather dignity of presence than beauty of aspect ; neither is it almost
seen that very beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue ; as if
nature were rather busy not to err, than in labour to produce excel
lency ; and therefore they prove accomplished, but not of great
spirit ; and study rather behaviour than virtue. But this holds not
always ; for Augustus Csesar, Titus Vespasianus, Philip le Bel of
France, Edward IV. of England, Alcibiades of Athens, Ismael1 the
1 He lived in the second century after Christ, and lost his memory very young,
2 The rival of Cicero.
* lie made himself master of Peisia in 1478.
OF DEFORMITY. 7§
Sophy of Persia, were all high and great spirits, and yet the most
beautiful men of their times. In beauty, that of favour l is more than
that of colour, and that of decent and gracious motion more than that
of favour. That is the best part of beauty which a picture cannot
express, no, nor the first sight of the life. There is no excellent beauty
that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A man cannot tell
whether Apelles2 or Albert Durer3 were the more trifler ; whereof
the one would make a personage by geometrical proportions, the other
by taking the best parts out of divers faces to make one excellent.
Such personages, I think, would please nobody but the painter that
made them. Not but I think a painter may make a better face than
ever was, but he must do it by a kind of felicity (as a musician that
maketh an excellent air in music), and not by rule. A man shall sec
faces that, if you examine them part by part, you shall find never a
good, and yet all together do well. If it be true that the principal part
of beauty is in decent motion, certainly it is no marvel though persons
in years seem many times more amiable : Pulchrorum autumnus
pulcher. For no youth can be comely but by pardon, and considering
the youth, as to make up the comeliness.
Beauty is as summer-fruits, which are easy to corrupt, and cannot
last ; and for the most part, it makes a dissolute youth, and an age a
little out of countenance ; but yet certainly again, if it light well, it
maketh virtue shine, and vices blush.
XLIV.
OF DEFORMITY.
DEFORMED persons are commonly even with nature, for as nature
hath done ill by them, so do they by nature ; being for the most part
(as the Scripture saith) void of natural affection j and so they have
their revenge of nature. Certainly there is a consent between the
body and the mind, and where nature erreth in the one she ventureth
in the other. Ubi peccat in uno, periclitatur in altero. But because
there is in man an election touching the frame of his mind, and a
necessity in the frame of his body, the stars of natural inclination are
sometimes obscured by the sun of discipline and virtue ; therefore it is
good to consider of deformity, not as a sign (which is more deceivable)
but as a cause which seldom faileth of the effect.
Whosoever hath anything fixed in his person that doth induce
contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself to rescue and deliver
himself from scorn. Therefore, all deformed persons are extreme bold,
1 Features.
- Apelles flourished from 340 B.C. to 323 B.C. He was patronised by Alexander the Great.
but it was Zeuxis who, as Campbell wrote —
"Mingled in his piece,
Each look that charmed him in the fair of Greece."
8 Albert Durer, who asserted the geometrical proportions of the human form in his Tieatise,
; Lit far Hutu hutnani corporis.
eo OP BUILDING.
first, as in their own defence, as being exposed to scorn, but in process
of time by a general habit. Also, it stirreth in them industry, and
especially of this kind, to watch and observe the weakness of others,
that they may have somewhat to repay. Again, in their superiors, it
quencheth jealousy towards them, as persons that they think they may
at pleasure despise ; and it layeth their competitors and emulators
asleep, as never believing they should be in possibility of advancement,
till they see them in possession. So that upon the matter, in a great
wit, deformity is an advantage to rising.
Kings in ancient times (and at this present, in some countries) were
wont to put great trust in eunuchs, because they that are envious
towards all are obnoxious and officious towards one. But yet their
trust towards them hath rather been as to good spials and good
whisperers than good magistrates and officers ; and much like is the
reason of deformed persons. Still the ground is, they will, if they be
of spirit, seek to free themselves from scorn ; which must be either by
virtue or malice. And therefore, let it not be marvelled, if sometimes
they prove excellent persons ; as was Agesilaus,1 Zanger the son of
Solyman,2 ^Esop,3 Gasca,4 president of Peru ; and Socrates may go
likewise amongst them ; with others.
XLV.
OF BUILDING.
HOUSES are built to live in, and not to look on ; therefore let use be
preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had. Leave
the goodly fabrics of houses, for beauty only, to the enchanted palaces
of the poets, who built them with small cost. He that builds a fair
house upon an ill seat,5 committeth himself to prison ; neither do I
reckon it an ill seat only where the air is unwholesome, but likewise
where the air is unequal ; as you shall see many fine seats set upon a
knap6 of ground, environed with higher hills round about it ; whereby
the heat of the sun is pent in, and the wind gathereth as in troughs :
so as you shall have, and that suddenly, as great diversity of heat and
cold as if you dwelt in several places. Neither is it ill air only that
maketh an ill seat, but ill ways, ill markets, and, if you consult with
Momus, ill neighbours. I speak not of many more ; want of water,
want of wood, shade, and shelter, want of fruitfulness, and mixture of
grounds of several natures, want of prospect, want of level grounds,
want of places at some near distance for sports of hunting, hawking,
and races ; too near the sea, too remote ; having the commodity of
navigable rivers, or the discommodity of their overflowing ; too far of?
from great eities, which may hinder business, or too near them, whic>
1 King of Sparta, 398 B.C. to 361 B.C.
* The magnificent Sultan of the Turks. He was an excellent person,
8 The writer of Fables. He lived in the sixth century B.C.
4 He lived in 1547 A.D., and put down the rebellion of PLzarro.
5 A bad situation. 6 A rising ground.
OF BUILDING. 81
lurcheth1 all provisions, and maketh everything dear ; where a man
hath a great living laid together, and where he is scanted : all which,
as it is impossible perhaps to find together, so it is good to know them,
and think of them, that a man may take as many as he can ; and, if
he have several dwellings, that he sort them so, that what he wanteth
in the one he may find in the other. Lucullus answered Pompey well,
who, when he saw his stately galleries and rooms so large and light-
some in one of his houses, said, Surely > an excellent place for summer,
but how do you in 'winter? Lucullus answered, Why, do you not
think me as wise as some fowls are, that ever change their abode towards
the winter ?*
To pass from the seat to the house itself, we will do as Cicero doth
in the orator's art, who writes books De Oratore, and a book he enti
tles Orator; whereof the former delivers the precepts of the art, and
the latter the perfection. We will therefore describe a princely palace,
making a brief model thereof; for it is strange to see, now in Europe,
such huge buildings as the Vatican and Escurial and some others be,
and yet scarce a very fair room in them.
First therefore, I say, you cannot have a perfect palace, except you
have two several sides ; a side for the banquet, as is spoken of in the
book of Hester,3 and a side for the household ; the one for feasts and
triumphs, and the other for dwelling. I understand both these sides
to be not only returns, but parts of the front ; and to be uniform with
out, though severally partitioned within ; and to be on both sides of a
great and stately tower in the midst of the front, that as it were joineth
them together on either hand. I would have, on the side of the banquet
in front, one only goodly room above stairs, of some forty feet high ; and
under it a room for a dressing, or preparing place, at times of triumphs.
On the other side, which is the household side, I wish it divided at the
first into a hall and a chapel (with a partition between) both of good
state and bigness ; and those not to go all the length, but to have at
the further end a winter and a summer parlour, both fair. And undc*
these rooms a fair and large cellar sunk under ground ; and likewise
some privy kitchens, with butteries and pantries, and the like. As for
the tower, I would have it two stories, of eighteen foot high a-piece
above the two wings ; and a goodly leads upon the top, railed with
statues interposed ; and the same tower to be divided into rooms, as
shall be thought fit. The stairs likewise to the upper rooms, let them
be upon a fair and open newel,4 and finely railed in with images of
wood cast into a brass colour, and a very fair landing-place at the top.
But this to be, if you do not point any of the lower rooms for a dining
place of servants. For otherwise you shall have the servants' dinner
after your own ; for the steam of it will come up as in a tunnel. And
so much for the front. Only, I understand the height of the first stairs
to be sixteen feet, which is the height of the lower room.
Beyond this front is there to be a fair court, but three sides of it of a
far lower building than the front ; an^1 in all the four corners of that
court fair staircases, cast into turrets on the outside, and not within
1 Carries off. ! See " Lucullus" in dough's Plutarch.
« Esther, i. 5.
* The pillar to which winding-stairs are attached.
o
8a OF BUILDING.
the rows of buildings themselves. But those towers are not to be of
the height of the front, but rather proportionable to the lower build
ing. Let the court not be paved, for that striketh up a great heat in
summer, and much cold in winter, but only some side alleys with a
cross, and the quarters to graze, being kept shorn, but not too near shorn.
The row of return on the banquet side, let it be all stately galleries ;
in which galleries let there be three or five fine cupolas in the length
of it, placed at equal distance, and fine coloured windows of several
works. On the household side, chambers of presence1 and ordinary
entertainments with some bed-chambers ; and let all three sides be a
double house, without thorough lights on the sides, that you may have
rooms from the sun, both for forenoon and afternoon. Cast it also
that you may have rooms both for summer and winter ; shady for
summer and warm for winter. You shall have sometimes fair houses
so full of glass, that one cannot tell where to become2 to be out of the
sun or cold. For embowed3 windows, I hold them of good use (in
cities, indeed, upright do better, in respect of the uniformity towards
the street) for they be pretty retiring places for conference, and, be
sides, they keep both the wind and sun off. For that which would strike
almost through the room, doth scarce pass the window. But let them
be but few, four in the court, on the sides only.
Beyond this court let there be an inward court, of the same square
and height, which is to be environed with the garden on all sides ; and
in the inside, cloistered on all sides upon decent and beautiful arches,
as high as the first story ; on the under story, towards the garden, let
it be turned to a grotto, or place of shade, or estivation4; and only
have opening and windows towards the garden ; and be level upon the
floor, no whit sunk under ground, to avoid all dampishness. And let
there be a fountain, or some fair work of statues in the midst of the
court, and to be paved as the other court was. These buildings to be
for privy lodgings on both sides, and the end for privy galleries ;
whereof you must foresee that one of them be for an infirmary, if the
prince or any special person should be sick, with chambers, bed
chamber, antecamera? and recamera* joining to it. This upon the
second story. Upon the ground story, a fair gallery, open, upon
pillars ; and upon the third story likewise an open gallery upon pillars,
to take the prospect and freshness of the garden. At both corners of
the further side, by way of return, let there be two delicate or rich
cabinets, daintily paved, richly hanged, glazed with crystalline glass,
and a rich cupola in the midst, and all other elegancy that may be
thought upon. In the upper gallery, too, I wish that there may be, if
the {.1 ice will yield it, some fountains running in divers places from
the wall, with some fine avoidances. And thus much for the model of
the palace ; save that you must have, before you come to the front,
three courts— a green court, plain, with a wall about it ; a second
court of the same, but more garnished with little turrets, or rather
embellishments, upon the wall ; and a third court, to make a square
* Chambers of presence. — Reception rooms in which one was brought into the presence of
the host. 2 To go.
3 Bay windows. * A sort of summer-house.
8 An ante-chamber. 6 A back-chamber
OF GARDENS. 63
with the front, but not to be built, nor yet enclosed with a naked wall,
but enclosed with terraces leaded aloft, and fairly garnished, on the
three sides, and cloistered on the inside with pillars, and not with
arches below. As for offices, let them stand at distance, with some
low galleries to pass from them to the palace itself.
XLVI.
OF GARDENS.
COD ALMIGHTY first planted a garden; and, indeed, it is the purest
cf human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of
man, without which building and palaces are but gross handyworks :
and a man shall ever see, that when ages grow to civility and elegancy,
men come to build stately, sooner than to garden finely ; as if garden
ing were the greater perfection. I do hold it, in the royal ordering of
gardens, there ought to be gardens for all the months in the year, in
which, severally, things of beauty may be then in season. For Decem
ber and January, and the latter part of November, you must take such
things as are green all winter ; holly, ivy,bays, juniper, cypress-trees, yew,
pine-apple trees, fir-trees, rosemary, lavender ; periwinkle, the white, the
purple, and the blue ; germander, flag, orange-trees, lemon-trees, and
myrtles, if they be stoved ; and sweet marjoram, warm set.1 There
followeth, for the latter part of January and February, the mezereon-
tree, which then blossoms ; crocus vernus, both the yellow and the
grey ; primroses, anemones, the early tulip, hyacinthus orientalis,
chamaYris,2 frettellaria. For March, there come violets, especially the
single blue, which are the earliest ; the early daffodil, the daisy, the
almond-tree in blossom, the peach-tree in blossom, the cornelian-tree3
in blossom, sweetbriar. In April, follow the double white violet, the
wall-flower, the stock-gilliflower, the cowslip, flower-de-luces, and lilies
of all natures, rosemary flowers, the tulip, the double peony, the pale
daffodil, the French honeysuckle, the cherry-tree in blossom, the
damascene,4 and plum-trees in blossom, the white thorn in leaf, the
lilac-tree. In May and June come pinks of all sorts, especially the
blush pink ; roses of all kinds, except the musk, which comes later ;
honeysuckles, strawberries, bugloss, columbine, the French marigold,
flos Africanus,6 cherry-tree in fruit, ribes, figs in fruit, rasps, vine
flowers, lavender in flowers, the sweet satyrian, with the white flower,
herba muscaria, lilium convallium, the apple-tree in blossom. In July
come gilliflowers of all varieties, musk roses, the lime-tree in blossom,
early pears, and plums in fruit, ginnitings,6 quadlins.7 In August come
plums of all sorts in fruit, pears, apricocks,8 barberries, filberds, musk
melons, monkshoods of all colours. In September come grapes,
1 In a hot-bed. » Dwarf flag, or Iris.
The cornel-tree. * Damson.
1 The African Marigold.
6 Jennitings, an apple ; well known in Hampshire by that name still.
' Codlings — another apple. 8 The old way of spelling apricots
Q 3
84 OF GARDENS.
apples, poppies of all colours, peaches, melocotones,1 nectarines, cor
nelians,2 wardens,3 quinces. In October and the beginning of Novem
ber come services, medlars, bullaces, roses cut or removed to come
late, hollyoaks, and such like. These particulars are for the climate
of London ; but my meaning is perceived, that you may have ver per-
*petuum, as the place affords.
And because the breath of flowers is far sweeter in the air (where it
comes and goes, like the warbling of music) than in the hand, there
fore nothing is more fit for that delight than to know what be the
flowers and plants that do best perfume the air. Roses, damask and
red, are fast flowers of their smells ;4 so that you may walk by a whole
row of them, and find nothing of their sweetness, yea, though it be in
a morning's dew. Bays likewise yield no smell as they grow, rose
mary little, nor sweet marjoram. That which, above all others, yields
the sweetest smell in the air, is the violet ; 5 especially the white double
violet, which comes twice a-year, about the middle of April and about
Bartholomew-tide. Next to that is the musk rose ; then the straw
berry leaves dying, with a most excellent cordial smell. Then thfi.
flower of the vines : it is a little dust like the dust of a bent, which
grows upon the cluster in the first coming forth. Then sweetbriar.
Then wall-flowers, which are very delightful to be set under a parlour
or lower chamber window. Then pinks and gilliflowers, especially the
matted pink and clove gilliflowers. Then the flowers of the lime-tree.
Then the honeysuckles, so they be somewhat afar off. Of bean-flowers
I speak not, because they are field flowers ; but those which perfume
the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden^,
upon and crushed, are three, that is, burnet, wild thyme, and water-
mints. Therefore, you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the
pleasure when you walk or tread.
For gardens (speaking of those which are, indeed, prince-like, as
we have done of buildings), the contents ought not well to be under
thirty acres of ground, and to be divided into three parts ; a green in
the entrance, a heath or desert in the going forth, and the main garden
in the midst, besides alleys on both sides. And I like well that four
acres of ground be assigned to the green, six to the heath, four and
four to either side, and twelve to the main garden. The green hath
two pleasures ; the one, because nothing is more pleasant to the eye
than green grass kept finely shorn ; the other, because it will give you
a fair alley in the midst, by which you may go in front upon a stately
hedge, which is to enclose the garden. But, because the alley will be
long, and in great heat of the year or day, you ought not to buy the
shade in the garden by going in the sun through the green, therefore
you are, of either side the green, to plant a covert alley, upon car
penters' work, about twelve feet in height, by which you may go in
shade into the garden. As foi the making of knots or figures, with
1 A kind of quince.
* Cornelians were the cherry-like fruit of the Cornel tree.
3 Wardens were pears, used in pies. See Winter's Tale, Act iv. Scene a.
" I must have saffron to colour the warden pies."
* Retain their smell in the blossoms.
* Surely the sweetbriar is more diffused.
OP GARDENS. 85
divers-coloured earths, that they may lie under the windows of the
liouse on that side on which the garden stands, they be but toys : you
may see as good sights many times in tarts. The garden is best to be
square, encompassed on all the four sides with a stately arched hedge;
the -arches to be upon pillars of carpenters' work, of some ten feet
high, and six feet broad ; and the spaces between, of the same dimen
sions with the breadth of the arch. Over the arches let there be an
entire hedge of some four foot high, framed also upon carpenters-'
work ; and upon the upper hedge, over every arch, a little turret with
a belly enough to receive a cage of birds : and over every space
between the arches, some other little figure, with broad plates of round
coloured glass gilt, for the sun to play upon. But this hedge I intend
to be raised upon a bank, not steep, but gently slope, of some six foot,
set all with flowers. Also, I understand that this square of the garden
should not be the whole breadth of the ground, but to leave on either
side ground enough for diversity of side alleys, unto which the two
covert alleys of the green may deliver you ; but there must be no
alleys with hedges at either end of this great enclosure — not at the
hither end, for letting1 your prospect upon this fair hedge from the
green, nor at the further end, for letting1 your prospect from the hedge
through the arches upon the heath.
For the ordering of the ground within the great hedge, I leave it to
variety of device ; advising, nevertheless, that whatsoever form you
cast it into, first it be not too busy, or full of work ; wherein I, for my
part, do not like images cut out in juniper or other garden stuff : they
be for children. Little low hedges, round like welts, with some pretty
pyramids, I like well ; and in some places fair columns, upon frames
of carpenters' work. I would also have the alleys2 spacious and fair.
You may have closer alleys upon the side grounds, but none in the
main garden. I wish also, in the very middle, a fair mount, with three
ascents and alleys, enough for four to walk abreast ; which I would
have to be perfect circles, without any bulwarks or embossments : and
the whole mount to be thirty foot high, and some fine banqueting-
house, with some chimneys neatly cast, and without too much glass.
For fountains, they are a great beauty and refreshment ; but pools
mar all, and make the garden unwholesome, and full of flies and frogs.
Fountains I intend to be of two natures, the one that sprinkleth or
spouteth water ; the other a fair receipt of water, of some thirty or
forty foot square, but without any fish, or slime, or mud. For the
first, the ornaments of images, gilt or of marble, which are in use, do
well : but the main matter is so to convey the water as it never stay,
either in the bowls or in the cistern ; that the water be never by rest
discoloured, green or red, or the like, or gather any mossiness or putre
faction. Besides that, it is to be cleansed every day by the hand.
Also some steps up to it, and some fine pavement about it, doth well.
As for the other kind of fountain, which we may call a bathing-pool, it
may admit much curiosity and beauty, wherewith we will not trouble
ourselves : as, that the bottom be finely paved, and with images ; the
sides likewise ; and withal embellished with coloured glass, and such
* Hindering. • Walk*
86 OF GARDENS.
things of lustre, encompassed also with fine rails of low statues. But
the main point is the same which we mentioned in the former kind of
fountain, which is, that the water be in perpetual motion, fed by 3
water higher than the pool, and delivered into it by fair spouts, and
then discharged away under ground, by some equality of bores, that it
stay little. And for fine devices, of arching water without spilling, and
making it rise in several forms (of feathers, drinking glasses, canopies,
and the like), they be pretty things to look on, but nothing to health
and sweetness.
For the heath, which was the third part of our plot, I wished it to
be framed, as much as may be, to a natural wildness. Trees I would
have none in it, but some thickets made only of sweetbriar and honey
suckle, and some wild vines amongst, and the ground set with violets,
strawberries, and primroses ; for these are sweet, and prosper in the
shade, and these to be in the heath here and there, not in any
order. I like also little heaps, in the nature of mole-hills (such as are
in wild heaths), to be set, some with wild thyme, some with pinks,
some with germander,1 that gives a good flower to the eye ; some with
periwinkle, some with violets, some with strawberries, some with cow-
slips, some with daisies, sonic with red roses, some with lilium conval-
lium, some with sweet-williams red, some with bear's-foot, and the like
low flowers, being withal sweet and sightly. Part of which heaps to be
with standards of little bushes pricked upon their top, and part with
out. The standards to be roses, juniper, holly (berberries but here
and there, because of the smell of their blossom), red currants, goose
berries, rosemary, bays, sweetbriar, and such like. But these stan
dards to be kept with cutting, that they grow not out of course.
For the side grounds, you are to fill them with variety of alleys ;
private, to give a full shade, some of them, wheresoever the sun be.
You are to frame some of them likewise for shelter, that, when the
wind blows sharp, you may walk as in a gallery. And those alleys
must be likewise hedged at both ends to keep out the wind ; and
these closer alleys must be ever finely gravelled, and no grass, because
of going wet. In many of these alleys, likewise, you are to set fruit-
trees of all sorts, as well upon the walls as in ranges. And this should
be generally observed, that the borders wherein you plant your fruit-
trees be fair, and large, and low, and not steep, and set with fine
flowers ; but thin and sparingly, lest they deceive2 the trees. At the
end of both the side grounds I would have a mount of some pretty
height, leaving the wall of the enclosure breast-high, to look abroad
into the fields.
For the main garden, I do not deny but there should be some fair
alleys ranged on both sides with fruit-trees ; and some pretty tufts of
fruit-trees and arbours with seats, set in some decent order ; but these
to be by no means set too thick, but to leave the main garden, so as it
be not close, but the air open and free. For as for shade, I would
have you rest upon the alleys of the side-grounds, there to walk, if you
feel .disposed, in the heat of the year or day ; but to make account,
that the main garden is for the more temperate parts of the year, and,
1 Ox-heel or setter wort.
8 Steal the nourishment from.
OP NEGOTIATING. 87
in the heat of summer, for the morning and the evening, or overcast
days.
For aviaries, I like them not, except they be of that largeness, as
'vhey may be turfed, and have living plants and bushes set in them,
tli at the birds may have more scope and natural nestling, and that no
foulness appear on the floor of the aviary.
So I have made a platform of a princely garden, partly by precept,
partly by drawing ; not a model, but some general lines of it ; and in
this I have spared for no cost. But it is nothing for great princes,
that, for the most part, taking advice with workmen, with no less cost
set their things together, and sometimes add statues, and such things,
for state and magnificence, but nothing to the true pleasure of a
garden.
XLVII.
OF NEGOTIATING.
IT is generally better to deal by speech than by letter, and by the
mediation of a third than by a man's self. Letters are good, when a
man would draw an answer by letter back again ; or when it may
serve for a man's justification afterwards to produce his own letter ; or
where it may be danger to be interrupted, or heard by pieces. To
deal in person is good, when a man's face breedeth regard, as com
monly with inferiors ; or in tender cases, where a man's eye upon the
countenance of him with whom he speaketh may give him a direction
how far to go ; and generally, where a man will reserve to himself
liberty, either to disavow or to expound.
In choice of instruments, it is better to choose men of a plainer
sort, that are like to do that that is committed to them, and to report
back again faithfully the success, than those that are cunning to con
trive out of other men's business somewhat to grace themselves, and
will help the matter in report, for satisfaction sake. Use also such
persons as affect the business wherein they are employed (for that
quickeneth much), and such as are fit for the matter ; as, bold men
for expostulation, fair-spoken men for persuasion, crafty men for
inquiry and observation, froward and absurd men for business that
doth not well bear out itself. Use also such as have been lucky, and
prevailed before in things wherein you have employed them. For
that breeds confidence, and they will strive to maintain their prescrip
tion. It is better to sound a person with whom one deals, afar ofT,
than to fall upon the point at first, except you mean to surprise him by
some short question. It is better dealing with men in appetite,1 than
with those that are where they would be. If a man deal with another
upon conditions, the start or first performance is all ; which a man
cannot reasonably demand, except either the nature of the thing be
such which must go before ; or else a man can persuade the other
1 Who are hungry for succesa.
88 OF FOLLOWERS AND FRIENDS.
party that he shall still need him in some other thing j or else that he
be counted the honester man.
All practice is to discover, or to work. Men discover themselves in
trust, in passion, at unawares, and of necessity — when they would have
somewhat done, and cannot find an apt pretext. If you would work
any man, you must either know his nature and fashions, and so lead
him ; or, his ends, and so persuade him ; or his weakness and disad
vantages, and so awe him ; or those that have interest in him, and so
govern him. In dealing with cunning persons, we must ever consider
their ends to interpret their speeches ; and it is good to say little to
them, and that which they least look for. In all negotiations of diffi
culty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once, but must prepaie
business, and so ripen it by degrees,
XLVIII.
OF FOLLOWERS AND FRIENDS.1
COSTLY followers are not to be liked ; lest, while a man maketh his
train longer, he make his wings shorter. I reckon to be costly, not
them alone which charge the purse, but which are wearisome and
importune in suits. Ordinary followers ought to challenge no higher
conditions than countenance, recommendation, and protection from
wrongs. Factious followers are worse to be liked, which follow not
upon affection to him with whom they range themselves, but upon
discontentment conceived against some other ; whereupon commonly
ensueth that ill intelligence that we many times see between great
personages. Likewise glorious 2 followers, who make themselves as
trumpets of the commendation of those they follow, are full of incon
veniences. For they taint business through want of secrecy ; and
they export honour from a man, and make him a return in envy.
There is a kind of followers, likewise, which are dangerous, being
indeed espials ; which inquire the secrets of the house, and bear tales
of them to others. Yet such men many times are in great favour ;
for they are officious, and commonly exchange tales. The following
by certain estates of men, answerable to that which a great man him
self professeth (as of soldiers to him that hath been employed in the
wars, and the like), hath ever been a thing civil, and well taken even
in monarchies ; so it be without too much pomp or popularity. But
1 The followers or servants of noblemen and gentlemen in James I.'s rtign were very
numerous. IF fact, the pomp of feucalism still lingered in the old halls and manors of
England. The Earl of Dorset's household consisted of 220 servants : and the father of John
Evelyn, when sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, "had a hundred and sixteen servants in liveries
of green satin doublets, besides gentlemen and persons of quality who waited on them in the
Kune costume. The chief of these followers of nobles were still the younger sons of gentle or
noble families who sought preferment in their patron's service." Mr. Spedding, in his Life of
liucon, gives the following list (from an imperfect Roll) of Bacon's followers and servants, i.e.,
Two chaplains, six gentlemen of the chamber, twenty-six gentlemen-waiters, four pages, two
gentlemen ushers, three j-eomen of the wardrobe, three yeomen of the pantry, and fuUJ
Butlers.
* Vain-glorious : boastful.
OF SUITORS. 89
the most honourable kind of following is to be followed as one that
apprehendeth to advance virtue and desert in all sorts of persons.
And yet, where there is no eminent odds in sufficiency, it is better to
take with the more passable than with the more able. And, besides,
to speak truth, in base times active men are of more use than virtuous.
It- is true, that in government it is good to use men of one rank
equally : for to countenance some extraordinarily is to make them
insolent, and the rest discontent, because they may claim a due. But
contrariwise in favour, to use men with much difference and election,
is good : for it maketh the persons preferred more thankful, and the
rest more officious ; because all is of favour. It is good discretion
not to make too much of any man at the first, because one cannot
hold out that proportion. To be governed (as we call it) by one, is
not safe, for it shows softness, and gives a freedom to scandal and
disreputation ; for those that would not censure or speak ill of a man
immediately, will talk more boldly of those that are so great with
them, and thereby wound their honour. Yet to be distracted with
many, is worse ; for it makes men to be of the last impression, and
full of change. To take advice of some few friends, is ever honour
able ; ior lookers-on many times see more than gamesters ; and the
vale best discovereth the hill. There is little friendship in the world,
and least of all between equals, which was wont to be magnified.
That that is, is between superior and inferior, whose fortunes may
comprehend the one the other.
XLIX.
OF SUITORS.
MANY ill matters and projects are undertaken ; and private suits do
putrefy the public good. Many good matters are undertaken with bad
minds : I mean not only corrupt minds, but crafty minds, that intend
not performance. Some embrace suits which never mean to deal
effectually in them ; but if they see there may be life in the matter,
by some other mean, they will be content to win a thank, or take a
second reward, or, at least, to make use in the meantime of the
suitor's hopes. Some take hold of suits only for an occasion to cross
some other, or to make an information, whereof they could not other
wise have apt pretext, without care what become of the suit when the
turn is served ; or, generally, to make other men's business a kind of
entertainment to bring in their own. Nay, some undertake suits with
a full purpose to let them fall, to the end to gratify the adverse party
or competitor. Surely there is in some sort a right in every suit :
cither a right of equity, if it be a suit of controversy, or a right of
desert, if it be a suit of petition. If affection lead a man to favour
the wrong side in justice, let him rather use his countenance to com
pound the matter than to carry it. If affection lead a man to favour
90 OF STUDIES.
the less worthy in desert, let him do it without depraving l or dis
abling2 the better deserve r. In suits which a man doth not well
understand, it is good to refer them to some friend of trust and judg
ment, that may report whether he may deal in them with honour ; but
let him choose well his referendaries, for else he may be led by the
nose. Suitors are so distasted with delays and abuses,3 that plain
dealing in denying to deal in suits at first, and reporting the success
barely, and in challenging no more thanks than one hath deserved, is
grown not only honourable but also gracious. In suits of favour, the
first coming ought to take little place. So far forth consideration may
be had of his trust, that, if intelligence of the matter could not other
wise have been had but by him, advantage be not taken of the note,
but the party left to his other means, and in some sort recompensed
for his discovery. To be ignorant of the value of a suit is simplicity,
as well as to be ignorant of the right thereof is want of conscience.
Secrecy in suits is a great mean of obtaining ; for voicing them to
be in forwardness may discourage some kind of suitors, but doth
quicken and awake others. But timing of the suit is the principal.
Timing, I say, not only in respect of the person who should grant it,
but in respect of those which are like to cross it. Let a man, in the
choice of his mean, rather choose the fittest mean than the greatest
mean ; and rather them that deal in certain things, than those that
are general. The reparation of a denial is sometimes equal to the
first grant, if a man show himself neither dejected nor discontented.
Iniquum petas, ut cequum fcras is a good rule where a man hath
strength of favour ; but otherwise, a man were better rise in his suit ;
for he that would have ventured at first to have lost the suitor, will
not, in the conclusion, lose both the suitor and his own former favour.
Nothing is thought so easy a request to a great person, as his letter ;
and yet, if it be not in a good cause, it is so much out of his reputa
tion. There are no worse instruments than these general contrivers of
suits ; for they are but a kind of poison and infection to public pro
ceedings.
OF STUDIES.
STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their
chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring ; for ornament, is in
discourse ; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of busi
ness ; for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars,
one by one ; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling
of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much
time in studies, is sloth ; to use them too much for ornament, is affec
tation ; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a
scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience ; for
natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning4 by study j
1 Slandering. 3 Disparaging. 8 Peceptior.S.
OF FACTION. 91
and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except
they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men condemn studies ;
simple men admire them ; and wise men use them. For they teach not
their own use ; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them,
won by observation.
Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for
granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to
be chewed and digested. That is, some books are to be read only in
parts ; others to be read, but not curiously ; l and some few to be read
wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be
read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others ; but that would
be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books :
else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things.
Reading maketh a full man ; conference a ready man ; and writing
an exact man ; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have
a great memory ; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit ;
and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know
that he doth not.
Histories make men wise ; poets witty ; the mathematics subtle ;
natural philosophy deep ; moral, grave ; logic and rhetoric, able to
contend : Abeunt studia in mores ; nay, there is no stond2 or impedi
ment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies, like as diseases
of the body may have appropriate exercises : bowling is good for the
stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle walking for
the stomach, riding for the head, and the like ; so, if a man's wits be
wandering, let him study the mathematics ; for in demonstrations, if
his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again ; if his wit
be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the school
men, for they are cymini sect ores? If he be not apt to beat over
matters, and to call upon one thing to prove and illustrate another, let
him study the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind may have
a special receipt.
LI.
OF FACTION.
MANY have an opinion not wise, that for a prince to govern his
estate, or for a great person to govern his proceedings according to the
respect of factions, is a principal part of policy. Whereas, contrari
wise, the chiefest wisdom is, either in ordering those things which are
general, and wherein men of several factions do nevertheless agree, or
in dealing with correspondence to particular persons one by one. But
I say not that the consideration of factions is to be neglected. Mean
men, in their rising, must adhere ; but great men, that have strength
in themselves, were better to maintain themselves indifferent and
1 With earnest research. * Stand.
1 We say now " Splitters of hairs."
9« OF CEREMONIES AND RESPECTS.
neutral. Yet even in beginners, to adhere so moderately, as he be a
man of the one faction, which is most passable with the other, com
monly giveth best way. The lower and weaker faction is the firmer in
conjunction ; and it is often seen, that a few that are stiff, do tire out a
greater number that are more moderate.
When one of the factions is extinguished, the remaining subdivideth ;
as the faction between Lucullus and the rest of the nobles of the Senate
(which they called optimatcs) held out awhile against the faction of
Pompey and Ccesar; but when the Senate's authority was pulled
clown, Caesar and Pompey soon after brake. The faction or party of
Antonius and Octavius Cassar against Brutus and Cassius, held out
likewise for a time ; but when Brutus and Cassius were overthrown,
then, soon after, Antonius and Octavius brake, and subdivided. These
examples are of wars, but the same holdeth in private factions ; and,
therefore, those that are seconds in factions, do many times, when the
faction subdivideth, prove principals. But many times also they prove
cyphers and cashiered ; for many a man's strength is in opposition,
and, when that faileth, he groweth out of use.
It is commonly seen, that. men once placed, take in with the con
trary faction to that by which they enter : thinking, belike, that they
have their first sure, and now are ready for a new purchase. The
traitor in faction lightly goeth away with it ; for when matters have
stuck long in balancing, the winning of some one man casteth them,
and he getteth all the thanks. The even carriage between two
factions proceedeth not always of moderation, but of a trueness to a
man's self, with end to make use of both. Certainly, in Italy, they
hold it a little suspect in popes, when they have often in their mouth,
Padre commune; and take it to be a sign of one that meaneth to refer
all to the greatness of his own house.
Kings had need beware how they side themselves, and make them
selves as of a faction or party ; for leagues within the State are ever
pernicious to monarchies : for they raise an obligation paramount to
obligation of sovereignty, and make the king tanquam unus ex nobis;
as was to be seen in the league of France.1 When factions are carried
too high and too violently, it is a sign of weakness in princes, and
much to the prejudice both of their authority and business. The
motions of factions under kings ought to be like the motions (as the
astronomers speak) of the inferior orbs, which may have their proper
motions, but yet still are quietly carried by the higher motion of
priuium mobile.
LIT.
OF CEREMONIES AND RESPECTS.
HE that is only real had need have exceeding great parts of virtue,
as the stone had need to be rich that is set without foil. But if a man
mark it well, it is in praise and commendation of men as it is in gettings
and gains ; for the proverb is true, That light gams make heavy
1 Henry III.'s adhesion to the League of the Guises against the Huguenots,
OP PRAISE 93
s, for light gains come thick, whereas great come but now and
then ; so it is true, that small matters win great commendation, because
they are continually in use and in note, whereas the occasion of any
great virtue cometh but on festivals. Therefore it doth much add to a
man's reputation, and is (as Queen Isabella1 said) like perpetual letters
commendatory, to have good forms.2
To attain them, it almost sufficeth not to despise them ; for so shall
a man observe them in others, and let him trust himself with the rest ;
for if he labour too much to express them, he shall lose their grace,
which is to be natural and unaffected. Some men's behaviour is like
a verse, wherein every syllable is measured. How can a man com
prehend great matters, that breaketh his mind too much to small
observations ? Not to use ceremonies at all, is to teach others not to
use them again, and so diminisheth respect to himself; especially they
are not to be omitted to strangers and formal natures ; but the dwelling
upon them, and exalting them above the moon, is not only tedious, but
doth diminish the faith and credit of him that speaks ; and certainly,
there is a kind of conveying of effectual and imprinting passages
amongst compliments, which is of singular use, if a man can hit upon
it. Amongst a man's peers a man shall be sure of familiarity, and there
fore it is good a little to keep state. Amongst a man's inferiors one shall
be sure of reverence, and therefore it is good a little to be familiar. He
that is too much in any thing, so that he giveth another occasion of
satiety, maketh himself cheap. To apply one's self to others is good ;
so it be with demonstration that a man doth it upon regard and not
upon facility. It is a good precept generally in seconding another,
yet to add somewhat of one's own ; as, if you will grant his opinion, let
it be with some distinction ; if you will allow his motion, let it be with
condition ; if you allow his counsel, let it be with alleging further
reason.
Men had need beware how they be too perfect in compliments : for
be they never so sufficient otherwise, their enviers will be sure to give
them that attribute, to the disadvantage of their greater virtues. It is
loss also in business to be too full of respects, or to be too curious3 in
observing times and opportunities. Solomon saith, He that consi-
dercth the wind shall not sow, and he that looketh to the clouds shall
not reap* A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Men's behaviour should be like their apparel, not too strait or point
device,5 but free for exercise or motion.
LIII.
OF PRAISE.
PRAISE is the reflection of virtue ; but it is as the glass or body
which giveth the reflection. If it be from the common people, it is
1 Wife of Ferdinand of Arragon and Queen of Castile. * Manners.
8 Careful. * Ecclesiastes xi. 4.
Fastidiously exact. There was a lace of very fine pattern called pobtt-de-vtce, but whether
named from this manner or the manner from the lace is not known .
94 OF PKAISS.
commonly false and naught, and rather followeth vain persons than
virtuous : for the common people understand not many excellent
virtues ; the lowest virtues draw praise from them, the middle virtues
work in them astonishment or admiration ; but of the highest virtues
they have no sense or perceiving at all ; but shows, and species virtu-
tibus similes serve best with them. Certainly, fame is like a river, that
beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and
solid. But if persons of quality and judgment concur, then it is (as
the Scripture saith) Nomen bonum instar unguenti fragrajitis1 j it
filleth all round about, and will not easily away2; for the odours of
ointments are more durable than those of flowers.
There be so many false points of praise, that a man may justly hold
it a suspect.3 Some praises proceed merely of flattery : and if it be an
ordinary flatterer, he will have certain common attributes, which may
serve every man ; if he be a cunning flatterer, he will follow the arch-
flatterer, which is a man's self, and wherein a man thinketh best of
himself, therein the flatterer will uphold him most : but if he be an
impudent flatterer, look wherein a man is conscious to himself that he
is most defective, and is most out of countenance in himself, that will
the flatterer entitle him to, perforce, spretd conscientia. Some praises
come of good wishes and respects, which is a form due in civility to
kings and great persons, laudando pr&cipcre; when, by telling men
what they are, they represent to them what they should be. Some
men are praised maliciously to their hurt, thereby to stir envy and
jealousy towards them ; pcssimum genus inimicorum laudantium;
insomuch as it was a proverb amongst the Grecians, that he that was
praised to his hurt, should have a push* rise upon his nosej as we say,
that A blister will rise upon one's tongue that tells a lie. Certainly,
moderate praise, used with opportunity, and not vulgar, is that which
doeth the good. Solomon saith, He that praiseth his friend aloud,
rising early, it shall be no better to him than a curse* Too much
magnifying of man or matter doth irritate contradiction, and procure
envy and scorn. To praise a man's self, cannot be decent, except it
be in rare cases ; but to praise a man's office or profession, he may do
it with good grace, and with a kind of magnanimity. The cardinals of
Rome, which are theolognes, and friars, and schoolmen, have a phrase
of notable contempt and scorn towards civil business: for they call
all temporal business of wars, embassages, judicature, and other
employments, sbirrerie, which is undcr-sherijfrics, as if they were
but matters for under-sheriffs and catchpolesfi; though many times
those undersheriffries do more good than their high speculations.
St. Paul, when he boasts of himself, doth oft interlace, I speak like a
fool;1 but speaking of his calling, he saith, Magnificabo apostolatum
incum?
1 Ecclesiastes vii. i. 2 Go away.
3 In suspicion. * A pimple. 5 proverbs xxvii. ȣ,
6 Bailiffs assLstanti. ' 2 Cor. xi. 23. * Rom. xi. 13,
VAIN GLORY.
LIV.
OF VAIN GLORY.
IT was prettily devised ot ^Esop — the fly sat upon the axle-tree of
the chariot wheel, and said, What a dust do I raise f So are theie
some vain persons, that whatsoever goeth alone, or moveth upon
greater means, if they have never so little hand in it, they think it is
they that carry it. They that are glorious1 must needs be factious;
for all bravery stands upon comparisons. They must needs be violent,
to make good their own vaunts ; neither can they be secret ; and
therefore not effectual : but, according to the French proverb, beaucoup
de bruit, peu de fruit : much bruit, little frtiit. Yet, certainly, there is
use of this quality in civil affairs. Where there is an opinion and fame
to be created, either of virtue or greatness, these men are good trum
peters. Again, as Titus Livius noteth in the case of Antiochus and
the ^tolians, there are sometimes great effects of cross lies ; as, if a
man that negotiates between two princes, to draw them to join in a war
against a third, doth extol the forces of either of them above measure,
the one to the other ; and sometimes he that deals between man and
man raiseth his own credit with both, by pretending greater interest
than he hath in either ; and in these, and the like kinds, it often falls
out, that somewhat is produced of nothing ; for lies are sufficient to
breed opinion, and opinion brings on substance.
In military commanders and soldiers, vain glory is an essential
point ; for as iron sharpens iron, so by glory one courage sharpened!
another. In cases of great enterprise upon charge and adventure a
composition2 of glorious3 natures doth put life into business ; and
those that are of solid and sober natures, have more of the ballast than
of the sail. In fame of learning, the flight will be slow without some
feathers of ostentation. Qui de contemnendd gloria libros scribinit,
nonien suum inscribunt. Socrates, Aristotle, Galen, were men full of
ostentation. Certainly vain glory helpeth to perpetuate a man's
memory ; and virtue was never so beholden to human nature, as it
received his due at the second hand. Neither had the fame of Cicero,
Seneca, Plinius Secundus,4 borne her age so well, if it had not been
joined with some vanity in themselves ; like unto varnish, that makes
scelings5 not only shine, but last.
But all this while, when I speak of vain glory, I mean not of that
property that Tacitus doth attribute to Mucianus6 — Omnium qucc,
dixerat feceratque, arte quadam ostentator ; for that proceeds not of
vanity, but of natural magnanimity and discretion ; and in some per
sons it is not only comely but gracious ; for excusations,7
Vain-glorious; absurdly proud of themselves.
A mixture. 8 Vain-glorious.
Pliny the younger.
Seelings — wainscottings, also ceilings and floors of rooms
Mucianus, a general of the Emperors Otho and Vitellius.
Excuses.
q6 OF HONOUR AND REPUTATION.
modesty itself well governed, are but arts of ostentation. And amongst
those arts there is none better than that which Plinius Secundus
speaketh of, which is to be liberal of praise and commendation to
others, in that wherein a man's self hath any perfection. For, saith
I 'liny, very wittingly, In commending anot1ier,you do yourself rigJit ; for
J;c that you com mend is either superior to you in that you commend, or
inferior; if he be inferior, if he be to be commended, you much morej if
]>c be superior, ij he be not to be commended, you much less.
Glorious men are the scorn of wise men, the admiration of fools, the
idols of parasites, and the slaves of their own vaunts.
LV.
OF HONOUR AND REPUTATION.
THE winning of honour is but the revealing of a man's virtue and
worth without disadvantage ; for some in their actions do woo and
affect honour and reputation ; which sort of men are commonly much
talked of, but inwardly little admired ; and some, contrariwise, darken
their virtue in the show of it, so as they be undervalued in opinion.
If a man perform that which hath not been attempted before, or
attempted and given over, or hath been achieved but not with so good
circumstance, he shall purchase more honour than by affecting a
matter of greater difficulty or virtue, wherein he is but a follower. If
a man so temper his actions, as in some one of them he doth content
every faction or combination of people, the music will be the fuller. A
man is an ill husband L of his honour that, entereth into any action, the
failing wherein may disgrace him more than the carrying of it through
can honour him. Honour that is gained and broken upon another2
hath the quickest reflection, like diamonds cut with facets ; and, there
fore, let a man contend3 to excel any competitors of his honour in out-
shooting them, if he cart, in their own bow. Discreet followers and
•servants help much to reputation : Omnis fama a domesticis emanat*
Knvy, which is the canker of honour, is best extinguished by declaring
a man's self, in his ends rather to seek merit than fame ; and by
attributing a man's successes rather to divine Providence and felicity,
than to his own virtue or policy.
The true marshalling of the degrees of sovereign honour are these.
In the first place are conditorcs impcriorum, founders of States and
commonwealths ; such as were Romulus.5 Cyrus, Crcsar, Ottoman,
Ismael. In the second place are legislators, lawgivers; which are
1 An ill husband — a bad economist — which is the meaning of " husband."
" To husband " is to take cure.
- Won at another's expense by surpassing theirs — an allusion to " breaking a spear " in the
lists.
3 Contend ; endeavour ; strive.
* We have a contrary proverb — " No man is a hero to his valet."
5 Romulus, founder of Rome, 753 B.C. Cyrus, founder of the Persian Empire, 550 B.C.
Ottoman or Othman I., founder of the Turkish Empire, born 1299. Ismael, founder of the
second Persian Kingdom.
OF JUDICATURE. 97
R!SO called second founders, m perpetiii principes, because they govern
by their ordinances after they are gone ; such were Lycurgus, Solon,
Justinian, Edgar, Alphonsus of Castile the Wise, that made the Siete
partidas.1 In the third place are liberatores, or salvatores ; such as
compound the long miseries of civil wars or deliver their countries
from servitude of strangers or tyrants ; as Augustus Caesar,2 Vespa-
sianus, Aurelianus, Theodoricus, King Henry the Seventh of England,
King Henry the Fourth of France. In the fourth place are propaga-
tores, or propugnatores imperil; such as in honourable wars enlarge
their territories, or make noble defence against invaders. And in the
last place are patres patrice, which reign justly, and make the times
good wherein they live. Both which last kinds need no examples,
they are in such number.
Degrees of honour in subjects are, first, participes curarum, those
upon whom princes do discharge the greatest weight of their affairs ;
their right hands as we may call them. The next are duces belli, great
leaders ; such as are princes' lieutenants, and do them notable services
in the wars. The third are gratiosi, favourites ; such as exceed not
this scantling,3 to be solace to the sovereign, and harmless to the
people. And the fourth, negotiis pares; such as have great places
under princes, and execute their places with sufficiency. There is an
honour, likewise, which may be ranked amongst the greatest, which
happeneth rarely ; that is, of such as sacrifice themselves to death or
danger for the good of their country ; as was M. Regulus,4 and the two
Decii.5
LVI.
OF JUDICATURE.
JUDGES ought to remember that their office is jus dicere, and not
fits dare j to interpret law, and not to make law, or give law, else will
it be like the authority claimed by the church of Rome, which, under
pretext of exposition of Scripture, doth not stick to add and alter, and
to pronounce that which they do not find, and by show of antiquity to
introduce novelty. Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more
reverend than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all
1 Lycurgus, Spartan law-giver, nine centuries before Christ. Solon, law-giver of Athens,
B.C. 594. Justinian, Emperor and law-giver of the Romans, A.C. 536. Edgar, a great Saxon
legislator (See Green's Short History of England). Alphonso of Castile, the Spanish law
giver, 1252. His laws consisted of siete partidas, seven parts.
a Augustus closed the Civil Wars by his defeat of Antony. Vespasian delivered Rome
from the civil wars following the death of Nero. Aurelian, 270 A.D., was the conqueior ol
Zenobia and settled the Empire in peace. Theodoric freed Italy from Odoacer, 493 A.D.
Henry VII. ended the Wars of the Roses. Henry IV., those of the League in France at Ivry.
3 Limit — Favourites were established facts in Bacon's time, Buckingham being at this time
in the ascendant.
* Regulus was sent by the Carthaginians (to whom he was prisoner) to Rome with terms of
peace. If they were accepted, he was to be exchanged for a Carthaginian prisoner. He
advised the Romans strongly against the peace, and returning to Carthage in compliance with
his promise given to return, was tortured to death by his enemies, 257 B.C.
5 The Decii during a doubtful battle devoted themselves to the infernal gods. i.e. resolved
to die— a sacrifice supposed to insure victory to the army, and thus, by raising the spirit of
their soldiers, woa the day. One died 140 B.C., the other 295 B.C.
H
98 OF JUDICATURE.
things, integrity is their portion, and proper virtue. Cttrsed (saith the
law) is he that removeth the landmark.^ The mislayer of a mere-stone 2
is to blame ; but it is the unjust judge that is the capital remover of
landmarks, when he defincth amiss of lands and property. One foul
sentence doth more hurt than many foul examples ; for these do but
corrupt the stream, the other corrupteth the fountain. So saith
Solomon, Fons turbatus et vena corrupta est Justus cadens in causd
sud cor am adversaria?
The office of judges may have a reference unto the parties that sue,
unto the advocates that plead, unto clerks and ministers of justice
underneath them, and to the sovereign or state above them.
First, for the causes or parties that sue. There be (saith the Scrip
ture) that turn judgment into wormwood;^ and surely there be also
that turn it into vinegar ; for injustice maketh it bitter, and delays
make it sour. The principal duty of a judge is to suppress force and
fraud, whereof force is the more pernicious when it is open, and fraud
when it is close and disguised. Add thereto contentious suits, which
ought to be spewed out as the surfeit of courts. A judge ought to
prepare his way to a just sentence as God useth to prepare His way,
by raising valleys and taking down hills ; so, when there appeareth on
either side a high hand, violent persecution, cunning advantages taken,
combination, power, great counsel, then is the virtue of a judge seen to
make inequality equal ; that he may plant his judgment as upon even
ground. Qui fortiter emungit elicit sangtiinem j 5 and where the wine
press is hard-wrought, it yields a harsh wine, that tastes of the grape-
stone.
Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences ;
for there is no worse torture than the torture of laws ; specially in case
of laws penal, they ought to have care, that that which was meant for
terror be not turned into rigour : and that they bring not upon people
that shower whereof the Scripture speaketh, Pluet super eos laqueos*
For penal laws pressed, are a shower of snares upon the people.
Therefore let penal laws, if they have been sleepers of long, or if they
be grown unfit for the present time, be by wise judges confined in the
execution : Judicis officium est ut res ita tempera rerum &€. In
causes of life and death, judges ought (as far as the law permitteth)
in justice to remember mercy, and to cast a severe eye upon the
example, but a merciful eye upon the person.
Secondly, for the advocates and counsel that plead. Patience and
gravity of hearing is an essential part of justice; and an over-speaking
judge is no well-tuned cymbal. It is no grace to a judge first to find
that which he might have heard in due time from the bar, or to show
quickness of conceit in cutting off evidence or counsel too short, or to
prevent information by questions, though pertinent. The parts of a
judge in hearing are four : to direct the evidence ; tg.moderate length,
repetition, or impertinency of speech ; to recapitulate, select, and col
late the material points of that which hath been .said ; and to give the
rule or sentence. Whatsoever is above these is too much, and pro-
1 Don. xxvii. 17. 2 A boundary-stone. » Prov. xxv. 26.
« Amos v. 7. 5 Prov. xxx. 33. « Psalm xi. 6.
OF JUDICATURE. 99
ceedeth either of glory and willingness to speak, or of impatience to
hear, or of shortness of memory, or of want of a staid and equal atten
tion. It is a strange thing to see that the boldness of advocates should
prevail with judges ; whereas they should imitate God, in whose seat
they sit, who represseth the presumptuous, and giveth grace to the
modest ; but it is more strange that judges should have noted favour
ites, which cannot but cause multiplication of fees and suspicion of
by-ways. There is due from the judge to the advocate some commen
dation and gracing, where causes are well-handled and fair pleaded,
especially towards the side which obtaineth not ; for that upholds in
the client the reputation of his counsel, and beats down in him the
conceit of his cause. There is likewise due to the public a civil repre
hension of advocates, where there appeareth cunning counsel, gross
neglect, slight information, indiscreet pressing, or an over-bold de
fence ; and let not the counsel at the bar chop1 with the judge, nor
wind himself into the handling of the cause anew, after the judge hath
declared his sentence : but, on the other side, let not the judge meet
the cause half-way, nor give occasion to the party to say his counsel
or proofs were not heard.
Thirdly, for that that concerns clerks and ministers. The place of
justice is a hallowed place ; and therefore not only the bench, but the
footpace and precincts and purprise2 thereof ought to be preserved
without scandal and corruption. For, certainly, Grapes (as the Scrip
ture saith) will not be gathered of thorns or thistles j 3 neither can jus
tice yield her fruit with sweetness amongst the briars and brambles of
catching4 and polling clerks and ministers. The attendance of courts
is subject to four bad instruments. First, certain persons that are
sowers of suits, which make the court swell, and the country pine ; the
second sort is of those that engage courts in quarrels of jurisdiction,
and are not truly amid curia, but parasiti ctiricp, in puffing a court up
beyond her bounds for their own scraps and advantages ; the third
sort is of those that may be accounted the left hands of courts : per
sons that are full of nimble and sinister tricks and shifts, whereby
they pervert the plain and direct courses of courts, and bring justice
into oblique lines and labyrinths ; and the fourth is the poller and
exacter of fees : which justifies the common resemblance of the courts
of justice to the bush, whereunto while the sheep flies for defence in
weather, he is sure to lose part of his fleece. On the other side, an
ancient clerk, skilful in precedents, wary in proceedings, and under
standing in the business of the court, is an excellent finger of a court,
and doth many times point the way to the judge himself.
Fourthly, for that which may concern the sovereign and estate.
Judges ought, above all, to remember the conclusion of the Roman
twelve tables, Salus populi suprema lex; and to know that laws,
except they be in order to that end, are but things captious, and
oracles not well inspired. Therefore it is a happy thing in a state,
when kings and states do often consult with judges : and again, when
judges do often consult with the king and State ; the one, where there
1 Bandy words. * A close, or enclosure.
' S. Matthew vil 16. Bailiffs and baililTs' assistants.
H 2
too OF ANGER.
is matter oflaw intervenicnt in business of state; the other when there
is some consideration of State intervenient in matter of law : for many
times the things deduced to judgment may be meum and tuum, when
the reason and consequence thereof may trench to point of estate. I
call matter of estate, not only the parts of sovereignty, but whatsoever
introduceth any great alteration or dangerous precedent, or concerneth
manifestly any great portion of people ; and let no man weakly con
ceive that just laws, and true policy, have any antipathy ; for they are
like the spirits and sinews, that one moves with the other. Let judges
also remember, that Solomon's throne was supported by lions on both
sides : let them be lions, but yet lions under the throne, being circum
spect they do not check or oppose any points of sovereignty. Let not
judges also be so ignorant of their own right as to think there is not
left them, as a principal part of their office, a wise use and application
of laws : for they may remember what the Apostle saith of a greater
law than theirs, Nos scimus quia lex bona est, modo quis ea utatur
legitime?
LVII.
OF ANGER.
To seek to extinguish Anger utterly is but a oravcry of the Stoics.
We have better oracles : Be angry, but sin not; let not the sun go
down upon your anger.'2' Anger must be limited and confined, both in
race and in time. We will first speak how the natural inclination and
habit to be angry may be attempered and calmed ; secondly, how the
particular motions of anger may be repressed, or, at least, refrained
from doing mischief; thirdly, how to raise anger, or appease anger in
another.
For the first ; there is no other way but to meditate and ruminate
well upon the effects of anger, how it troubles Man's life ; and the best
time to do this, is to look back upon anger when the fit is thoroughly
over. Seneca saith well, that Anger is like rain, which breaks itself
upon that it falls. The Scripture exhorteth us to possess our souls in
patience : whosoever is out of patience, is out of possession of his soul.
Men must not turn bees :
—animasque i* vulnere ponunis
Anger is certainly a kind of baseness ; as it appears well in the weak
ness of those subjects in whom it reigns, children, women, old folks,
sick folks. Only men must beware that they carry their anger rather
with scorn than with fear, so that they may seem rather to be above
the injury than below it ; which is a thing easily done, if a man wil*
give law to himself in it.
For the second point ; the causes and motives of anger are chieft
Uiree. First, to be too sensible of hurt ; for no man is angry that feell
1 Tim- »• 8 * Ephes. iv. 26. s Georgics, 4, 238.
OP VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. xoi
not himself hurt ; and, therefore, tender and delicate persons must
needs be oft angry, they have so many things to trouble them which
more robust natures have little sense of. The next is, the apprehen
sion and construction of the injury offered, to be, in the circumstances
thereof, full of contempt. For contempt is that which putteth an edge
upon anger, as much or more than the hurt itself, and therefore, when
men are ingenious in picking out circumstances of contempt, they do
kindle their anger much. Lastly, opinion of the touch1 of a man's
reputation doth multiply and sharpen anger, wherein the remedy is,
that a man should have, as Gonsalvo2 was wont to say, telam honoris
(rasswrem. But in all refrainings of anger, it is the best remedy to
ivin time and to make a man's self believe that the opportunity of hi*
revenge is not yet come, but that he foresees a time for it, and so to
still himself in the mean time and reserve it.
To contain anger from mischief, though it take hold of a man, there
be two things whereof you must have special caution. The one, of
extreme bitterness of words, especially if they be aculeate3 and proper
(for communia maledicta are nothing so much) ; and again, that in
anger a man reveal no secrets : for that makes him not fit for society.
The other, that you do not peremptorily break off in any business in a
fit of anger : but howsoever you show bitterness, do not act anything
that is not revocable.
For raising and appeasing anger in another, it is done chiefly by
choosing of times when men are frowardest and worst disposed, to
incense them. Again, by gathering (as was touched before) all that
you can find out to aggravate the contempt ; and the two remedies are
by the contraries. The former to take good times, when first to relate
to a man an angry business ; for the first impression is much ; and
the other is, to sever, as much as may be, the construction of the injurv
from the point of contempt ; imputing it to misunderstanding, fear,
passion, or what you will.
LVIII.
OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS.
SOLOMON saith, There is no new thing upon the earth,41 So that
as Plato had an imagination that All knowledge was but remembrance,
so Solomon givcth his sentence, that All "novelty is but oblivion.
Whereby you may see that the river of Lethe runneth as well above
ground as below.5 There is an abstruse astrologer that saith : If it
were not for two things that are constant (the one is, that the fixed
stars ever stand at like distance one from another, and never come
nearer together, nor go further asunder ; the other, that the diurnal
motion perpetually kecpcth time), no individual would last one moment.
1 Of an injury to.
* A famous Spaniard called the Great Captain, born 1483, died 1515.
' Pointed and stinging.
< Ecclesiastes i. 9, 10. ' As well as in Hades ; as fabled.
roa OF VICISSlTbDE OF THINGS.
Certain it is that Matter is in a perpetual flux, and never at a stay,
The great winding-sheets that bury all things in oblivion are two ;
deluges and earthquakes ; as for conflagrations and great droughts,
they do not merely dispeople but destroy. Phaeton's car went but a
day ; and the three years' drought, in the time of Elias, was but par
ticular, and left people alive ; as for the great burnings by lightnings,
which are often in the West Indies, they are but narrow. But in the
other two destructions, by deluge and earthquake, it is further to be
noted, that the remnant of people which hap to be reserved, are
commonly ignorant and mountainous people, that can give no account
of the time past ; so that the oblivion is all one, as if none had been
left. If you consider well of the people of the West Indies, it is very
probable that they are a newer or a younger people than the people of
the old world ; and it is much more likely, that the destruction that
hath heretofore been there, was not by earthquakes (as the Egyptian
priest told Solon, concerning the island of Atlantis, that it was
swallowed by an earthquake]^ but rather, that it was desolated by a
particular deluge. For earthquakes are seldom in those parts. But,
on the other side, thay have such pouring rivers, as the rivers of Asia
and Afric and Europe are but brooks to them. Their Andes likewise,
or mountains, are far higher than those with us ; whereby it seems,
that the remnants of generations of men were in such a particular
deluge saved. As for the observation that Machiavel hath, that the
jealousy of sects doth much extinguish the memory*oT things, traduc
ing Gregory the Great, that he did what in him lay to extinguish all
heathen antiquities, I do not find that those zeals do any great effects,
nor last long ; as it appeared in the succession of Sabinian,1 who did
revive the former antiquities.
The vicissitudes or mutations, in the superior globe, are no fit
matter for this present argument. It may be, Plato's great year,2 if
the world should last so long, would have some effect, not in renewing
the state of like individuals (for that is the fume3 of those that con
ceive the celestial bodies have more accurate influences upon these
things below, than indeed they have), but in gross.
Comets, out of question, have likewise power and effect over the
gross and mass of things ; but they are rather gazed upon, and waited
upon in their journey, than wisely observed in their effects, especially in
their respective effects ; that is, what kind of comet, for magnitude,
colour, version of the beams, placing in the region of heaven or
lasting, produceth what kind of effects.
1 here is a toy, which I have heard, and I would not have it given
over,, but waited upon a little. They say it is observed in the Low
Countries (I know not in what part), that every five-and-thirty years
the same kind and suit of years and weathers comes about again ;
as, great frosts, great wet, great droughts, warm winters, summers
with little heat, and the like ; and they call it the prime ; it is a thing
I do the rather mention, because, computing backwards, I have found
some -concurrence.
\ Sabinian of Volaterra was elected Bishop of Rome on the death of Gregory, 604 A.D.
e great year of the mathematicians : it was supposed to occur after a period of 12,054
years, and was to be of 25,920 years duration. a Fancy,
OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 103
But to leave these points of nature, and to come to men. The
greatest vicissitude of things amongst men is the vicissitude of sects
and religions ; for those orbs rule in men's minds most. The true
religion is built upon the rock ; the rest are tossed upon the waves of
time. To speak therefore of the causes of new sects, and to give
some counsel concerning them, as far as the weakness of human
judgment can give stay to so great revolutions.
When the religion fomerly received is rent by discords, and when
the holiness of the professors of religion is decayed and full of scandal,
and withal the times be stupid, ignorant, and barbarous, you may
doubt the springing up of a new sect ; if then also there should arise
any extravagant and strange spirit to make himself author thereof, all
which points held when Mahomet published his law. If a new sect
have not two properties, fear it not ; for it will not spread. The one
is the supplanting, or the opposing of authority established ; for
nothing is more popular than that ; the other is the giving licence to
pleasures and a voluptuous life ; for as for speculative heresies (such
as were in ancient times the Arians, and now the Arminians), though
they work mightily upon men's wits, they do not produce any great
alteration in states, except it be by the help of civil occasions. There
be three manner of plantations of new sects. By the power of signs
and miracles ; by the eloquence and wisdom of speech and per
suasion ; and by the sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst
miracles, because they seem to exceed the strength of human nature ;
and I may do the like of superlative and admirable holiness of life.
Surely there is no better way to stop the rising of new sects and
schisms than to reform abuses ; to compound the smaller differences ;
to proceed mildly, and not with sanguinary persecutions ; and rather
to take off the principal authors, by winning and advancing them,
than to enrage them by violence and bitterness.
The changes and vicissitudes in wars are many, but chiefly in three
things ; in the seats or stages of the war, in the weapons, and in the
manner of the conduct. Wars, in ancient time, seemed more to move
from East to West ; for the Persians, Assyrians, Arabians, Tartars
(which were the invaders), were all eastern people. It is true the
Gauls were western ; but we read but of two incursions of theirs, the
one to Gallo-Grascia, the other to Rome. But East and West have no
certain points of heaven ; and no more have the wars, either from the
East or West, any certainty of observation. But North and South
are fixed ; and it hath seldom or never been seen that the far Southern
people have invaded the Northern, but contrariwise ; whereby it is
manifest that the Northern tract of the world is in nature the more
martial region : be it in respect of the stars of that hemisphere ; or of
the great continents that are upon the north (whereas the South part,
for aught that is known, is almost all sea) ; or (which is most
apparent) of the cold of the Northern parts, which is that which,
without aid of discipline, doth make the bodies hardest, and the
courage warmest.
Upon the breaking and shivering of a great State and empire, you
may be sure to have wars. For great empires, while they stand,
do enervate and destroy the forces of the natives which they have
io4 OF VICISSITUDE OF THINGS.
subdued, resting upon their own protecting forces ; and then when
they fail also, all goes to ruin, and they become a prey. So was it in
the decay of the Roman empire, and likewise in the empire of Al-
maigne,1 after Charles the Great, every bird taking a feather ; and
were not unlike to befall to Spain, if it should break.2 The great ac
cessions and unions of kingdoms do likewise stir up wars. For when
a State grows to an over power, it is like a great flood, that will be
sure to overflow, as it hath been seen in the States of Rome, Turkey,
Spain, and others. Look when the world hath fewest barbarous
people, but such as commonly will not marry, or generate, except they
know means to live (as it is almost everywhere at this day, except
Tartary), there is no danger of inundations of people. But when
there be great shoals of people, which go on to populate, without fore
seeing means of life and sustentation, it is of necessity that once in an
age or two they discharge a portion of their people upon other
nations ; which the ancient northern people were wont to do by lot ;
casting lots what part should stay at home, and what should seek
their fortunes. When a warlike State grows soft and effeminate, they
may be sure of a war ; for commonly such States are grown rich in
the time of their degenerating ; and so the prey inviteth, and their
decay in valour encourageth a war.
As for the weapons, it hardly falleth under rule and observation ;
yet we see even they have returns and vicissitudes. For certain it is,
that ordnance was known in the city of the Oxidrakes in India, and
was that which the Macedonians called thunder and lightning, and
magic. And it is well known that the use of ordnance hath been in
China above two thousand years. The conditions of weapons and
their improvements are, first, the fetching 3 afar off ; for that outruns
the danger, as it is seen in ordnance and muskets ; secondly, the
strength of the percussion, wherein likewise ordnance do exceed all
arietations 4 and ancient inventions ; the third is, the commodious
use of them, as, that they may serve in all weathers, that the carnage
may be light and manageable, and the like.
For the conduct of the war : at the first, men rested extremely
upon number; they did put the wars likewise upon main force and
valour, pointing days for pitched fields, and so trying it out upon an
even match ; and they were more ignorant in ranging and arraying
their battles. After, they grew to rest upon number rather competent
than vast ; they grew to advantages of place, cunning diversions, and
the like ; and they grew more skilful in the ordering of their battles.
In the youth of a state, arms do flourish ; in the middle age of a
state, learning ; and then both of them together for a time ; in
the declining age of a state, mechanical arts and merchandise.
Learning hath his infancy, when it is but beginning, and almost
childish ; then his youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile ; then his
strength of years, when it is solid and reduced ; and, lastly, his old
i»gc, when it waxeth dry and exhaust. But it is not good to look too
1 r.crmany after Charlemagne's death.
2 At the time Bacon wrote. Spain was a great power.
• Striking.
« Assaults by hattering-rams. The word is probably derived from Aries a rani.
A FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON FAME. 105
long upDn these turning wheels of vicissitude, lest we become -giddy.
As for the philology of them, that is but a circle of tales, and there
fore not fit for this writing.
LIX.
A FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON FAME.
THE poets make Fame a monster. They describe her in part finely
and elegantly, and in part gravely and sententiously. They say, look
how many feathers she hath, so many eyes she hath underneath ; so
many tongues ; so many voices ; she pricks up so many ears.
This is a flourish ; there follow excellent parables : as that she
gathereth strength in going ; that she goeth upon the ground,
and yet hideth her head in the clouds; that in the day-time she
sitteth in a watch-tower, and flieth most by night- ; that she
mingleth things done with things not done ; and that she is a
terror to great cities. But that which passeth all the rest is : they do
recount that the earth, mother of the giants that made war against
Jupiter and were by him destroyed, thereupon in anger brought forth
Fame : for certain it is that rebels (figured by the giants) and seditious
fames and libels, are but brothers and sisters, masculine and feminine.
But now if a man can tame this monster, and bring her to feed at the
hand, and govern her, and with her fly other ravening fowl and kill
them, it is somewhat worth. But we are infected with the style of the
poets. To speak now in a sad and serious manner : there is not in all
the politics a place less handled, and more worthy to be handled, than
this of fame. We will therefore speak of these points ; what arc false
fames, and what are true fames, and how they may be best discerned ;
how fames may be sown and raised ; how they may be spread and
multiplied ; and how they may be checked and laid dead ; and other
things concerning the nature of fame. Fame is of that force, as there
is scarcely any great action wherein it hath not a great part, especially
in the war. Mucianus undid Vitellius by a fame that he scattered,
that Vitellius had in purpose to move the legions of Syria into Germany,
and the legions of Germany into Syria; whereupon the legions of
Syria were infinitely inflamed. Julius Caesar took Pompey unprovided,
and laid asleep his industry and preparations by a fame that he cun
ningly gave out, how Caesar's own soldiers loved him not, and, being
wearied with the wars, and laden with the spoils of Gaul, would forsake
him as soon as he came into Italy. Livia settled all things for the
succession of her son Tiberius, by continually giving out that her
husband Augustus was upon recovery and amendment: and it is a
usual thing with the bashaws to conceal the death of the Great Turk
from the Janizaries and men of war, to save the sacking of Constanti
nople, and other towns, as their manner is. Themistocles made
Xerxes, King of Persia, post apace out of Grecia, by giving out that
the Grecians had a purpose to break his bridge of ships, which he had
made athwart the Hellespont. There be a thousand such like examples ;
X06 ON DEATH.
and the more they are, the less they need to be repeated, because
a man meeteth with them everywhere. Therefore let all wise governors
have as great a watch and care over fames,1 as they have of the actions
and designs themselves.
[The rest was not finished.'}
LX.
ON DEATH.
1 HAVE often thought upon death, and I find it the least of all evils.
All that which is past is as a dream ; and he that hopes or depends
upon time coming, dreams waking. So much of our life as we have
discovered is already dead ; and all those hours which we share, even
from the breasts of our mothers, until we return to our grandmother
the earth, are part of our dying days, whereof even this is one, and
those that succeed are of the same nature, for we die daily ; and as
others have given place to us, so we must in the end give way to
others.
Physicians in the name of death include all sorrow, anguish, disease,
calamity, or whatsover can fall in the life of man, either grievous or
unwelcome. But these things are familiar unto us, and we suffer them
every hour ; therefore we die daily, and I am older since I affirmed it.
I know many wise men that fear to die ; for the change is bitter, and
flesh would refuse to prove it : besides, the expectation brings terror,
and that exceeds the evil. But I do not believe that any man fears to
be dead, but only the stroke of death ; and such are my hopes, that if
heaven be pleased, and nature renew but my lease for twenty-one
years more, without asking longer days, I shall be strong enough to
acknowledge without mourning, that I was begotten mortal. Virtue
walks not in the highway, though she go per alta ; this is strength and
Jji.e blood to virtue, to contemn things that be desired, and to neglect
that which is feared.
Why should man be in love with his fetters, though of gold ? Art
thou drowned in security ? Then I say thou art perfectly dead. For
though thou movest, yet thy soul is buried within thee, and thy good
angel either forsakes his guard or sleeps. There is nothing under
heaven, saving a true friend (who cannot be counted within the number
of movables), unto which my heart doth lean. And this dear freedom
liath begotten me this peace, that I mourn not for that end which
must be, nor spend one wish to have one minute added to the un
certain date of my years. It was no mean apprehension of Lucian,'
who says of Menippus, that in his travels through hell, he knew not
the kings of the earth from other men but only by their louder cryings
and tears, which were fostered in them through the remorseful memory
of the good days they had seen, and the fruitful havings which they
1 Rumours. 2 See p. 30, last note.
ON DEATH. 107
so unwillingly left behind them : he that was well seated, looked back
at his portion, and was loth to forsake his farm ; and others, either
minding marriages, pleasures, profit, or preferment, desired to be
excused from death's banquet : they had made an appointment with
earth, looking at the blessings, not the hand that enlarged them,
forgetting how unclothedly they came hither, or with what naked
ornaments they were arrayed.
But were we servants of the precept given, and observers of the
heathens' rule, memento mori, and not become benighted with this
"seeming felicity, we should enjoy it as men prepared to lose, and not
wind up our thoughts upon so perishing a fortune : he that is not
slackly strong (as the servants of pleasure), how can he be found
unready to quit the veil and false visage of his perfection ? The soul
having shaken off her flesh, doth then set up for herself, and contemn
ing things that are under, shows what finger hath enforced her ; for
the souls of idiots are of the same piece with those of statesmen, but
now and then nature is at a fault, and this good guest of ours takes
soil in an imperfect body, and so is slackened from showing her
wonders ; like an excellent musician, which cannot utter himself upon
a defective instrument.
But see how I am swerved, and lose my course, touching at the soul
that doth least hold action with death, who hath the surest property in
this frail act ; his style is the end of all flesh, and the beginning of
incorruption.
This ruler of monuments leads men for the most part out of this
world with their heels forward, in token that he is contrary to life,
which being obtained, sends men headlong into this wretched theatre,
where being arrived, their first language is that of mourning. Nor in
my own thoughts, can I compare men more fitly to anything than to
the Indian fig-tree, which, being ripened to his full height, is said to
decline his branches down to the earth, whereof she conceives again,
and they become roots in their own stock.
So man, having derived his being from the earth, first lives the life
of a tree, drawing his nourishment as a plant, and made ripe for death,
he tends downwards, and is sowed again in his mother the earth, where
he perisheth not, but expects a quickening.
So we see death exempts not a man from being, but only presents an
alteration ; yet there are some men 'I think) that stand otherwise
persuaded. Death finds not a worse t'riend than an alderman, to
whose door I never knew him welcome ; but he is an importunate
guest, and will not be said nay.
And though they themselves shall affirm that they are not within,
yet the answer will not be taken ; and that which heightens their fear
is, that they know they are in danger to forfeit their flesh, but are not
wise of the payment-day, which sickly uncertainty is the occasion that
(for the most part) they step out of this world unfurnished for their
general account, and being all unprovided, desire yet to hold their
gravity, preparing their souls to answer in scarlet.
Thus I gather, that death is unagreeable to most citizens, because
they commonly die intestate ; this being a rule, that when their will is
made, thev think themselves nearer a grave than before : now they,
«*, ON DEATH.
out of the wisdom of thousands, think to scare destiny, from which
there is no appeal, by not making a will, or to live longer by protesta
tion of their unwillingness to die. They are for the most part well
made in this world (accounting their treasure by legions, as men do
devils) : their fortune looks toward them, and they are willing to
anchor at it, and desire (if it be possible) to put the evil day far off
from them, and to adjourn their ungrateful and killing period.
No, these are not the men which have bespoken death, or whose
looks are assured to entertain a thought of him.
Death arrives gracious only to such as sit in darkness, or lie heavy
burthened with grief and irons ; to the poor Christian, that sits bound
in the galley l ; to despairful widows, pensive prisoners, and deposed
kings ; to them whose fortune runs back, and whose spirits mutiny :
unto such death is a redeemer, and the grave a place for retiredness
and rest.
These wait upon the shore of death, and waft unto him to draw near,
wishing above all others to see his star, that they might be led to his
place ; wooing the remorseless sisters 2 to wind down the watch of their
life, and to break them off before the hour.
But death is a doleful messenger to a usurer, and fate untimely cuts
his thread ; for it is never mentioned by him, but when rumours of
war, and civil tumults put him in mind thereof.
And when many hands are armed, and the peace of a city in dis
order, and the foot of the common soldiers sounds an alarm on his
stairs, then perhaps such a one (broken in thoughts of his moneys
abroad, and cursing the monuments of coin which are in his house)
can be content to think of death, and (being hasty of perdition) will
perhaps hang himself, lest his throat should be cut ; provided that he
may do it in his study, surrounded with wealth, to which his eye sends
a faint and languishing salute, even upon the turning off; remember
ing always, that he have time and liberty, by writing, to depute himself
as his own heir.
For that is a great peace to his end, and reconciles him wonderfully
upon the point.
Herein we all dally with ourselves, and are without proof of neces
sity. I am not of those, that dare promise to pine away myself in vain
glory, and I hold such to be but feat3 boldness, and them that dare
commit it, to be vain.4 Yet for my part, I think nature should do me
great wrong, if 1 should be so long in dying, as I was in being born.
To speak truth, no man knows the lists of his own patience : nor
can divine how able he shall be in his sufferings, till the storm come
(the perfectest virtue being tried in action) : but I would (out of a care
to do the best business well) ever keep a guard, and stand upon keeping
faith and a good conscience.
And if wishes might find place, I would die together, and not my
mind often, and my body once ; that is, I would prepare for the mes
scngcrs of death, sickness and affliction, and not wait long, or be
attempted 5 by the violence of pain.
1 A prisoner to the Moors. 2 The Fates. * Atfectsd.
* Foolish. « Tried.
ON DEATH. 109
Herein I do not profess myself a Stoic, to hold grief no evil, but
opinion, and a thing indifferent.
But I consent with Csesar, that the suddenest passage is easiest, and
there is nothing more awakens our resolve and readiness to die than
the quieted conscience, strengthened with opinion, that we shall be
well spoken of upon earth by those that are just, and of the family of
virtue ; the opposite whereof is a fury to man, and makes even life
un sweet.
Therefore, what is more heavy than evil fame deserved ? Or like
wise, who can see worse days, than he that yet living doth follow at
flie funerals of his own reputation ?
I have laid up many hopes, that I am privileged from that kind of
mourning, and could wish the like peace to all those with whom I wage
love.
I might say much of the commodities that death can sell a man ;
but briefly, death is a friend of ours ; and he that is not ready to
entertain him, is not at home. Whilst I am, my ambition is not to
fore-flow the tide ; I have but so to make my interest of it as I may
account for it ; I would wish nothing but what might better my days,
nor desire any greater place than the front of good opinion. I make
not love to the continuance of days, but to the goodness of them ; nor
wish to die, but refer myself to my hour, which the great Dispenser of
all things hath appointed me ; yet as I am frail, and suffer for the
first fault, were it given me to choose, I should not be earnest to see
the evening of my age ; that extremity of itself being a disease, and a
mere return into infancy : so that if perpetuity of life might be given
me, I should think what the Greek poet said, " Such an age is a mortal
evil." And since I must needs be dead, I require it may not be done
before mine enemies, that I be not stript before I be cold ; but before
my friends. The night was even now : but that name is lost ; it is
not now late, but early. Mine eyes begin to discharge their watch,
and compound with this fleshly weakness for a time of perpetual rest ;
and I shall presently be as happy for a few hours, as I had died the
first hour I was born.
CRN AMENTA RATION ALIA:
OR
ELEGANT SENTENCES.
ALEATOR, quanto in arte est melior, tanto cst nequior — A gamester,
the greater master he is in his art, the worse man he is.
Arcum intensio frangit ; animum, remissio — Much bending breaks
the bow ; much unbending, the mind.
Bis vincit, qui se vincit in victoria— He conquers twice, who restrains
himself in victory.
Cum vitia prosint, peccat qui recte facit— If vices were profitable,
the virtuous man would be the sinner.
Bene dormit, qui non sentit quod male dormiat — He sleeps well, who
is not conscious that he sleeps ill.
Deliberare utilia, mora est tutissima — To deliberate about useful
things is the safest delay.
Dolor decrescit, ubi quo crescat non habet — The flood of grief
decreaseth, when it can swell no higher.
Etiam innocentes cogit mentiri dolor — Pain makes even the inno
cent man a liar.
Etiam celeritas in desiderio, mora est — In desire, swiftness itself is
delay.
Etiam capillus unus habet umbram suam — Even a single hair casts
a shadow.
Fidem qui perdit, quo se servat in reliquum ? — He that has lost his
faith, what staff has he left ?
Formosa facies muta commcndatio est — A beautiful face is a silent
commendation.
Fortuna nimium quern fovet, stultum facit — Fortune makes him
fool, whom she makes her darling.
Fortuna obesse nulli contenta est semel — Fortune is not content to
do a man but one ill turn.
Facit gratum fortuna, quem nemo videt — The fortune which nob3cly
sees makes a man happy and unenvied.
ORNAMENT A RATION ALIA : OR ELEGANT SENTENCES. in
Heu ! quam miserum est ab illo Iredi, de quo non possis queri — O !
vhat a miserable thing it is to be injured by those of whom we cannot
complain.
Homo toties moritur quoties amittit suos — A man dies as often as
he loses his friends.
Hseredis fletus sub persona risus est — The tears of an heir arc
laughter under a mask.
Jucundum nihil est, nisi quod reficit varietas — Nothing is pleasant
to which variety does not give relish.
Invidiam ferre, aut fortis, aux felix potest — He may be envied, who
is either courageous or happy.
In malis sperare bonum, nisi innocens, nemo potest — In adversity,
only the virtuous can entertain hope.
In vindicando, criminosa est celeritas — In revenge, haste is
criminal.
In calamitoso risus etiam injuria est — In misfortune, even to smile is
to offend.
Improbe Neptunum accusat, qui iterum naufragium facit — He
accuseth Neptune unjustly, who makes shipwreck a second time.
Multis minatur, qui uni facit injuriam — He that injures one, threatens
many.
Mora omnis ingrata est, sed facit sapientiam — All delay is un
pleasant, but we are the wiser for it.
Mori est felicis antequam mortem invocet — Happy he who dies ere
he calls on death.
Malus ubi bonum se simulat, tune est pessimus — A bad man is
worst when he pretends to be a saint.
Magno cum periculo custoditur, quod multis placet — Lock and key
will scarce keep that secure which pleases everybody.
Male vivunt qui se semper victuros putant — They live ill, who think
to live for ever.
Male secum agit osger, medicum qui hrm-edem facit — That sick man
does ill for himself, who makes his physician his heir.
Multos timere debet, quem multi timent — He of whom many are
afraid, ought himself to fear many.
Nulla tam bona est fortuna, de qua nil possis queri — There's no
fortune so good, but it bates an ace.
Pars beneficii est quod petitur, si bene neges — That is half granted
which is denied graciously.
Timidus vocat se cautum, parcum sordidus — The coward calls him
self a cautious man ; and the miser says, he is frugal.
O vita ! misero longa, felici brevis — O life ! an age to the rr:?erable,
» moment to the happy.
ri2 ORNAMENT A RATION ALIA: OR ELEGANT SENTENCES.
The following are sentences extracted from the writings of Lord
Bacon : —
It is a strange desire which men have, to seek power and lose
liberty.
Children increase the cares of life : but they mitigate the remem-
br?Lce of death.
Round dealing is the honour of man's nature ; and a mixture of
falsehood is like alloy in gold and silvf /, which may make the metal
work the better, but it debaseth it.
Death openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguish eth envy.
Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man's nature
runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.
He that studieth revenge, keepeth his own wounds green.
It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics), that
the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished ; but the
good things which belong to adversity are to be admired.
He that cannot see well, let him go softly.
If a man be thought secret, it inviteth discovery ; as the more close
air sucketh in the more open.
Keep your authority wholly from your children, not so your purse.
Men of noble birth are noted to be envious towards new men when
they rise. For the distance is altered ; and it is like a deceit of the
eye, that when others come on, they think themselves go back.
As in nature things move more violently to their place, and calmly
A their place : so virtue in ambition is violent ; in authority, settled
and calm.
Boldness in civil business, is like pronunciation in the orator of
Demosthenes ; the first, second, and third thing.
Boldness is blind : whereof 'tis ill in counsel, but good in execution.
For in counsel it is good to see dangers, in execution not to see them,
except they be very great.
Without goodnature, man is but a better kind of vermin.
God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because his
ordinary works convince it.
The great atheists indeed are hypocrites, who are always handling
holy things, but without feeling, so as they must needs be cauterized
in the end.
The master of superstition is the people. And in all superstition,
wise men follow fools.
In removing superstitions, care should be had, that (as it fareth in il]
purgings) the good be not taken away with the bad ; which commonly
is done, when the people is the physician.
He that goeth into a country before he hath some entnij.ee into the
language, goeth to school, and not to travel.
ORNAMENTA RATION ALIA, OR ELEGANT SENTENCES. 113
It is a miserable state of mind (and yet it is commonly the case ol
kings) to have few things to desire, and many to fear.
Depression of the nobility may make a king more absolute, but less
safe.
All precepts concerning kings are, in effect, comprehended in these
remembrances : Remember thou art a man ; remember thou art
God's vicegerent. The one bridleth their power, and the other their
will.
Things will have their first or second agitation. If they be not
tossed upon the arguments of counsel, they will be tossed upon the
waves of fortune.
The true composition of a counsellor is rather to be skilled in his
master's business than his nature ; for then he is like to advise him,
and not to feed his humour.
Fortune sometimes turneth the handle of the bottle, which is easy
to be taken hold of; and after the belly, which is hard to grasp.
Generally it is good to commit the beginning of all great actions to
Argus with an hundred eyes ; and the ends of them to Briareus with
an hundred hands ; first to watch and then to speed.
There is a great difference betwixt a cunning man and a wise man.
There be that can pack the cards, who yet cannot play well ; they are
good in canvasses and factions, and yet otherwise mean men.
Extreme self-lovers will set a man's house on fire, though it were
but to roast their eggs.
New things, like strangers, are more admired and less favoured.
It were good that men, in their innovations, would follow the ex
ample of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and
by degrees scarce to be perceived.
They that reverence too much old times are but a scorn to the
new.
The Spaniards and Spartans have been noted to be of small de
spatch. Mi venga la muerte de Spagna — Let my death come from
Spain ; for then it will be sure to be long a-coming.
You had better take for business a man somewhat absurd, than
over- formal.
Those who want friends to whom to open their griefs, are cannibals
of their own hearts.
Number itself importeth not much in armies, where tl*e people are
of weak courage ; for (as Virgil says) it never troubles a wolf how
many the sheep be.
Let states, that aim at greatness, take heed how their nobility and
gentry multiply too fast. In coppice woods, if you leave your stad-
dles too thick, you shall never have clean underwood, but shrubs and
ishes.
II4 ORNAMENTA RATION ALIA : OR ELEGANT SENTENCES,
A civil war is like the heat of a fever ; but a foreign war is like the
neat of exercise, and serveth to keep the body in health.
Suspicions among thoughts are like bats among birds, they ever fly
by twilight.
Base natures, if they find themselves once suspected, will never be
true.
Men ought to find the difference between saltness and bitterness.
Certainly he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of
his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' memory.
Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.
Men seem neither well to understand their riches, nor their strength ;
of the former they believe greater things than they should and of the
latter much less. And from hence fatal pillars have bounded the
progress of learning.
Riches are the baggage of virtue ; they cannot be spared nor left
behind, but they hinder the march.
Great riches have sold more men than ever they have bought out.
He that defers his charity till he is dead, is (if a man weighs it
rightly) rather liberal of another man's, than of his own.
Ambition is like choler ; if he can move, it makes men active; if it
be stopped, it becomes adust, and makes men melancholy.
To take a soldier without ambition, is to pull off his spurs.
Some ambitious men seem as screens to princes in matters of dan
ger and envy. For no man will take such parts, except he be like
the seeled dove, that mounts and mounts, because he cannot see
about him.
Princes and states should choose such ministers as are more sen
sible of duty than rising ; and should discern a busy nature from a
willing mind.
A man's nature runs either to herbs or weeds ; therefore let him
seasonably water the one, and destroy the other.
If a man look sharp and attentively, he shall see fortune ; for though
she be blind, she is not invisible.
Usury bringeth the treasure of the realm or state into a few hands :
for the usurer being at certainties, and the others at uncertainties ; at
the end of the game most of the money will be in the box.
Virtue is best in a body that hath rather dignity of presence than
beauty of aspect. The beautiful prove accomplished, but not of
great spirit ; and study, for the most part, rather behaviour than
virtue.
The best part of beauty is that which a picture cannot express.
He who builds a fair house upon an ill seat commits himself to
prison.
If you would work on any man, you must either know his nature
SHORT NOTES FOR CIVIL CONVERSATION. 115
and fashions, and so lead him ; or his ends, and so persuade him ; or
his weaknesses and disadvantages, and so awe him ; or those that
have interest in him, and so govern him.
Costly followers (among whom we may reckon those who are im
portunate in suits) are not to be liked ; lest, while a man maketh his
train longer, he maketh his wings shorter.
Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and
drowns things weighty and solid.
Seneca saith well, that anger is like rain, that breaks itself upon
that it falls.
Excusations, cessions, modesty itself well governed, are but arts of
ostentation.
High treason is not written in ice ; that when the body relenteth,
the impression should go away.
The best governments are always subject to be like the fairest crys
tals, when every icicle or grain is seen, which in a fouler stone is never
perceived.
In great place ask counsel of both times : of the ancient time what
is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.
The virtue of prosperity is temperance, of adversity fortitude, which
in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of
the Old Testament, adversity the blessing of the New, which carrieth
the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of God's favour.
SHORT NOTES FOR CIVIL CONVERSATION.
To deceive men's expectations generally (with cautel1) argueth a
staid mind, and unexpected constancy ; viz., in matters of fear, anger,
sudden joy or grief, and all things which may affect or alter the mind
in public or sudden accidents, or such like.
It is necessary to use a steadfast countenance, not wavering with
action, as in moving the head or hand too much, which showeth a
fantastical light and fickle operation of the spirit, and consequently
like mind as gesture : only it is sufficient, with leisure, to use a modest
action in either.
In all kinds of speech, either pleasant, grave, severe, or ordinary,
it is convenient to speak leisurely, and rather drawingly, than
hastily ; because hasty speech confounds the memory, and often
times (besides unseemliness) drives a man either to a nonplus or un-
1 Caution.
I 2
zi6 SHORT NOTES FOR CIVIL CONVERSATION.
seemly stammering, harping upon that which should follow ; whereas
a slow speech confirmeth the memory, addeth a conceit of wisdom td
the hearers, besides a seemliness of speech and countenance.
To desire in discourse to hold all arguments is ridiculous, wanting
true judgment ; for in all things no man can be exquisite.1
To have common-places to discourse, and to want variety, is both
tedious to the hearers, and shows a shallowness of conceit2; therefore
it is good to vary, and suit speeches with the present occasions ; and
to have a moderation in all our speeches, especially in jesting, of reli
gion, state, great persons, weighty and important business, poverty, or
anything deserving pity.
A long continued speech, without a good speech ot interlocution,
showeth slowness : and a good reply without a good set speech,
showeth shallowness and weakness.
To use many circumstances, ere you come to matter, is wearisome :
and to use none at all, is but blunt.
Bushfulness is a great hindrance to a man, both of uttering his con
ceit,3 and understanding what is propounded unto him ; wherefore it it
good to press himself forwards with discretion, both in speech and
company of the better sort.
Usus promptos facit.
1 Perfect or without fault. 2 In this sense, "idssa/*
• Here conceit means opinion.
OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL.
To the LORD MOUNTJOYE.
I SEND you the last part of the best book of Aristotle of Stagira,
who, as your Lordship knoweth, goeth for the best author. But saving
the civil respect which is due to a received estimation, the man, being
a Grecian, and of a hasty wit, having hardly a discerning patience,
much less a teaching patience, hath so delivered the matter, as I am
glad to do the part of a good house-hen, which without any strangeness
will sit upon pheasant's eggs. And yet, perchance, some that shall
compare my lines with Aristotle's lines will muse by what art, or rather
by what revelation, I could draw these conceits out of that place. But
I, that should know best, do freely acknowledge that I had my light
from him ; for where he gave me not matter to perfect, at the least he
gave me occasion to invent. Wherein as I do him right, being myself
a man that am as free from envying the dead in contemplation as
from envying the living in action or fortune : so yet nevertheless still I
say, and I speak it more largely than before, that in perusing the
writings of this person so much celebrated, whether it were the impedi
ment of his wit, or that he did it upon glory and affection to be subtile,
as one that, if he had seen his own conceits clearly and perspicuously
delivered, perhaps would have been out of love with them himself ; or
else upon policy, to keep himself close, as one that had been a chal
lenger of all the world, and had raised infinite contradiction : to what
cause soever it is to be ascribed, I do not find him to deliver and
unwrap himself well of that he seemeth to conceive ; nor to be a
master of his own knowledge. Neither do I for my part also, though
I have brought in a new manner of handling this argument, to make
it pleasant and lightsome, pretend so to have overcome the nature of
the subject, but that the full understanding and use of it will be some
what dark, and best pleasing the taste of such wits as are patient to
stay the digesting and soluting unto themselves of that which is sharp
and subtile. Which was the cause, joined with the love and honoui
v,rhich I bear your lordship, as the person I know to have many vir<-
tues, and an excellent order of them, which moved me to dedicate thii
writing to your lordship after the ancient manner ; choosing both a
friend, and one to whom I conceived the argument was agreeable.
OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL,
A FRAGMENT.
IN dclibcrativcs the point is what is good and what Is evil, and of
good what is greater, and of evil what is the less.
So that the persuader's labour is to make things appear good or
evil, and that in higher or lower degree, which as it may be performed
by true and solid reasons, so it may be represented also by colours,
popularities, and circumstances, which are of such force, as they sway
the ordinary judgment either of a weak man, or of a wise man, not
fully and considerately attending and pondering the matter. Besides
their power to alter the nature of the subject in appearance, and so to
lead to error, they are of no less use to quicken and strengthen the
opinions and persuasions which are true : for reasons plainly de
livered, and always after one manner especially with fine and fastidious
minds, enter but heavily and dully ; whereas if they be varied and
have more life and vigour put into them by these forms and insinua
tions, they cause a stronger apprehension, and many times suddenly
win the mind to a resolution. Lastly, to make a true and safe judg
ment, nothing can be of greater use and defence to the mind than
the discovering and reprehension of these colours, showing in what
cases they hold, and in what they deceive ; which as it cannot be
done, but out of a very universal knowledge of the nature of things, so
being performed, it so cleareth man's judgment and election, as it is
the less apt to slide into any error.
A TAP.LE OF THE COLOURS, OR APPEARANCES OF GOOD AND EVIL,
AND TEIEIR DEGREES, AS PLACES OF PERSUASION AND DISSUA
SION ; AND THEIR SEVERAL FALLAXES,1 AND THE ELENCHES a
OF THEM.
I. Cut cctcrcc partes vcl scctcz sccitndas tinanimiter dcfenmt, aim
sini^ulcc principatum sibi vcndicent mclior rcliquis 1'idctur, nam
primas quccqiie ex zclo videtur stimcre^ sccimdas autcm ex vero et
men' to ti'ibucrc.
So GVtvv went about to prove the Sect of Academics which sus
pended all asseveration, for to be the best, for, saith he, ask a Stoic
which philosophy is true, he will prefer his own. Then ask him which
approacheth next the truth, he will confess the Academics. So
d'jal with the JCfocure* that will scarce endure the Stoic to be in
1 F.ill.icies. * Refutations. 8 Epicurean!
OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL. 119
sight of him, as soon as he hath placed himself, he will place the
Academics next him.
So if a prince took divers competitors to a place, and examined
them severally whom next themselves they would rathest commend, it
were like the ablest man should have the most second votes.
The fallax of this colour happeneth oft in respect of envy, for men
are accustomed after themselves and their own faction to incline to
them which are softest, and are least in their way, in despite and
derogation of them that hold them hardest to it. So that this colour
of meliority and pre-eminence is oft a sign of enervation and weak
ness.
2. Cujus exccllentia vel exuperantia melior, id toto genere melius»
Appertaining to this are the forms ; Let us not wattder in gejie-
ralties : Let us compare particular with particular, &c. This ap
pearance, though it seem of strength and rather logical than rhe-
vbrical, yet is very oft a fallax.
Sometimes because some things are in kind very casual, which, if
they escape, prove excellent, so that the kind is inferior, because it is
so subject to peril, but that which is excellent being proved is
superior ; as the blossom of March and the blossom of May, whereof
the French verse goeth,
Bourgeon de Mars, enfant de Paris,
Si un eschape, il en vaut dix.
So that the blossom of May is generally better than the blossom of
March ; and yet the best blossom of March is better than the best
blossom of May.
Sometimes, because the nature of some kinds is to be more equal
and more indifferent, and not to have very distant degrees, as hath
been noted in the warmer climates, the people are generally more wise,
but in the Northern climate the wits of chief are greater. So in many
armies, if the matter should be tried by duel between two champions,
the victory should go on one side, and yet if it be tried by the gross,
it would go of the other side ; for excellencies go as it were by chance,
but kinds go by a more certain nature, as by discipline in war.
Lastly, many kinds have much refuse which countervail that which
they have excellent ; and therefore generally metal is more precious
than stone, and yet a diamond is more precious than gold.
3. Quod ad veritatem refertur ma/us est quam quod ad opinioncm.
Modus autem et probatio efus quod ad opinionem pertinet, h&c
est, quod quis si clam put arct fore, facturus non esset.
So the Epicures say of the Stoic's felicity placed in virtue, that it is
like the felicity of a player, who if he were left of his auditory and
their applause, he would straight be out of heart and countenance, anl
I ao OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL.
therefore they call virtue Bonum theatrale. But of riches the poet
saith :
Populus me sibilat, At mihi plaudo.
And of pleasure :
Grata sub imo
Gau.iia corde premens, vultu simulante pudorem.
The fallax of this colour is somewhat subtile, though the answer to
the example be ready, for virtue is not chosen propter auram popu-
larcm, but contrariwise, Ma^ime omnium teipsum reverere ; so as a
virtuous man will be virtuous in solitudine, and not only in thcatro,
though percase it will be more strong by glory and fame, as an heat
which is doubled by reflexion. But that denieth the supposition, it
doth not reprehend the fallax whereof the reprehension is ; allow that
virtue such as is joined with labour and conflict would not be chosen
but for fame and opinion, yet it followeth not that the chief motive of
the election should not be real and for itself, for fame may be only
causa impulsive*, and not causa constituens, or ejjiciens. As if there
were two horses, and the one would do better without the spur than
the other : but again, the other with the spur would far exceed the
doing of the former, giving him the spur also ; yet the latter will be
judged to be the better horse. And the form as to say, Tush, the life
of this horse is but in the spur, will not serve as to a wise judgement :
for since the ordinary instrument of horsemanship is the spur, and
that it is no manner of impediment nor burden, the horse is not to be
accounted the less of, which will not do well without the spur, but
rather the other is to be reckoned a delicacy than a. virtue. So glory
and honour are as spurs to virtue : and although virtue would languish
without them, yet since they be always at hand to attend virtue,
virtue is not to be said the less chosen for itself, because it needeth
\he spur of fame and reputation : and therefore that position, Nota
ejus rci quod propter opiniojiem et non propter veritatcm eligitur, hcec
est ; quod quis, si clam ptitaret fore facturus non esset is reprehended.
4. Quod rem integram seruat bonum; quod sine rcocptu est malum :
nam se rccipcre non posse, impotentia genus est ; potentia autem
bonum.
Hereof Esop framed the fable of the Two Frogs1 that consulted
together in time of drought (when many plashes2 that they had re
paired to were dry) what was to be done, and the one propounded to
go down into a deep well, because it was like the water would not fail
there, but the other answered, Yea, but if it do fail, how shall we get
up. again? And the reason is, that human actions are so uncertain
and subject to perils, as that scemeth the best course which hath most
passages out of it. Appertaining to this persuasion the forms are,
1 Fable 38. » Ponds, or puddles.
OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL* 121
you shall engage yourself. On the other side. Non tantum quantum
voles sumes ex fortuna, you shall keep the matter in your own hands.
The reprehension of it is, That proceeding and resolving in all actions
is necessary : for as he saith well, Not to resolve, is to resolve, and
many times it breeds as many necessities, and engageth as far in sor e
other sort as to resolve.
So it is but the covetous man's disease translated into power, for
the covetous man will enjoy nothing because he will have his full
store and possibility to enjoy the more, so by this reason a man should
execute nothing because he should be still indifferent and at liberty to
execute anything. Besides necessity and this same jacta est alca hath
many time's an advantage, because it awaketh the powers of the mind,
and strengtheneth endeavour. Ccp.teris pares necessitate certe supcr-
iores cstis.
5. Quod ex pluribus cons tat et divisilllius est inajus quam quod ex
paucioribus et magis ununi : nam omnia per paries consider at a
major a videntur ; quare et pluralitas partium magnitudinem prce
se fert ; fortius aittem operatur pluralitas partium si ordo absit,
nam indiicit similitudinem infiniti et impedit comprehensionem.
This colour seemeth palpable, for it is not plurality of parts without
majority of parts that maketh. the total greater, yet nevertheless it
often carries the mind away, yea, it deceiveth the sense, as it seemeth
to the eye a shorter distance of way if it be all dead and continued,
than if it have trees or buildings or any other marks whereby the eye
may divide it. So when a great monied man hath divided his chests
and coins and bags, he seemeth to himself richer than he was ; and
therefore a way to amplify any thing is to break it, and to make an
anatomy of it in several parts, and to examine it according to several
circumstances. And this maketh the greater show if it be done
without order, for confusion maketh things muster more, and besides,
what is set down by order and division doth demonstrate that nothing
is left out or omitted, but all is there ; whereas if it be without order,
both the mind comprehendeth less that which is set down, and besides
it leaveth a suspicion, as if more might be said than is expressed.
This colour deceiveth, if the mind of him that is to be persuaded
do of itself over-conceive or prejudge of the greatness of any thing,
for then the breaking of it will make it seem less, because it maketh it
appear more according to the truth, and therefore if a man be in sick
ness or pain, the time will seem longer without a clock or hour-glass
than with it, for the mind doth value every moment, and then the hour
doth rather sum up the moments than divide the day. So in a dead
plain, the way seemeth the longer, because the eye hath pre-conceived
it shorter than the truth : and the frustrating of that maketh it seem
kmger than the truth. Therefore if any man have an overgreat
opinion of any thing, then if another think by breaking it into
several considerations he shall make it seem greater to him, he will be
deceived, and therefore in such cases it is not safe to divide, but to
extol the entire still in general.
122 OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL.
Another case wherein this colour deceiveth is, when the matter
broken or divided is not comprehended by the sense or mind at once
in respect of the distracting or scattering of it, and, being entire and
not divided, is comprehended ; as a hundred pounds in heaps of five
pounds will show more than in one gross heap, so as the heaps be all
upon one table to be seen at once, otherwise not ; or flowers growing
scattered in divers beds will show more than if they did grow in one
bed, so as all those beds be within a plot that they be object to view
at once, otherwise not ; and therefore men whose living lieth together
in one shire are commonly counted greater landed than those whose
livings are dispersed though it be more, because of the notice and
comprehension.
A third case wherein this colour deceiveth, and it is not so properly
a case or reprehension as it is a counter colour, being in effect as large
as the colour itsolf, and that is, Omnis compositio indigentice cujusdam
i?i singulis videtur esse particcps, because if one thing would serve the
turn it were ever best, but the defect and imperfections of things hath
brought in that help to piece them up as it is said, Martha Martha
attendis ad plurivia, unum sufficit.1 So likewise hereupon Esop
framed the fable of the Fox and the Cat,2 whereas the Fox bragged
what a number of shifts and devices he had to get from the hounds,
and the Cat said she had but one, which was to climb a tree, which in
proof was better worth than all the rest, whereof the proverb grew,
Mtilta novit Vulpes sed Felts umim magnum.
And in the moral of this fable it comes likewise to pass, that a good
sure friend is a better help at a pinch than all the stratagems and
policies of a man's own wit. So it falleth out to be a common error
in negociating, whereas men have many reasons to induce or persuade,
they strive commonly to utter and use them all at once, which
weakeneth them. For it argueth, as was said, a neediness in every
of the reasons by itself, as if one did not trust to any of them, but
tied from one to another, helping himself only with that.
Et quce non frosunf singula, multa juvant.
Indeed in a set speech in an assembly it is expected a man should use
all his reasons in the case he handlcth, but in private persuasions it is
always a great error.
A fourth case wherein this colour may be reprehended is in respect
of that same vis unita fortior, according to the tale of the French
King, that when the Emperor's Ambassador had recited his master's
style at large which consisteth of many countries and dominions : the
French King willed his Chancellor or other minister to repeat and say
over France as many times as the other had recited the several
dominions, intending it was equivalent with them all, and beside more
compacted and united.
There is also appertaining to this colour another point, why breaking
of a thing doth help it, not by way of adding a show of magnitude unta
it, but a note of excellency and rarity ; whereof the forms are, Whcrt
1 St. Luke x. 41. * Fable PCX
OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL. 123
shall you find such a concurrence ? Great but not complete, for it seems
a less work of nature or fortune to make any thing in his kind greater
than ordinary, than to make a strange composition.
Yet if it be narrowly considered, this colour will be reprehended or
encountered by imputing to all excellencies in compositions a kind of
poverty or at least a casualty or jeopardy, for from that which is excel
lent in greatness somewhat may be taken, or there may be decay ; and
yet sufficiency left, but from that which hath his price in composition
if you take away any thing, or any part do fail, all is disgraced.
6. Cujus privatio bona, malum j cujus privatio mala, bo num.
The form to make it conceived that that was evil which is changed
for the better are, He that is in hell thinks there is no other heaven.
Satis quercus, Acorns were good till bread was found, etc. And of the
other side the forms to make it conceived that that was good which
was changed for the worse are, Bona magis carendo quam fruendo
scntimus, Bona d tergo formosissima, Good things never appear in
their full beauty till they turn their back and be going away, &c. The
reprehension of this colour is, that the good or evil which is removed
may be esteemed good or evil comparatively and not positively or
simply. So that if the privation be good, it follows not the former
condition was evil, but less good ; for the flower or blossom is a posi
tive good, although the remove of it to give place to the fruit be a
comparative good. So in the tale of Esop ; when the old fainting man
in the heat of the day cast down his burthen and called for Death, and
when Death came to know his will with him, said it was for nothing
but to help him up with his burthen again : it doth not follow that
because death which was the privation of the burthen was ill, therefore
the burthen was good. And in this part the ordinary form of Malum
necessarium aptly reprehendeth this colour, for Privatio mali necessarii
est mala, and yet that doth not convert the nature of the necessary
evil, but it is evil.
Again it cometh sometimes to pass that there is an equality in the
change or privation, and as it were a Dilemma boni or a Dilemma
mali, so that the corruption of the one good is a generation of the
other.
Sorti pater cequus utrique est ;
And contrary the remedy of the one evil is the occasion and com
mencement of another, as in Scylla and Charybdis.
7, Quod bono vtcinum, bonum: quod a bono remotum malum.
Such is the nature of things, that things contrary and distant ii
nature and quality are also severed and disjoined in place, and things
like and consenting in quality are placed, and as it were quartered
together ; for partly in regard of the nature to spread, multiply, and
infect in similitude, and partly in regard of the nature to break, expel,
and alter that which is disagreeable and contrary, most things do
124 OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL.
•?ither associate and draw near to themselves the like, or at least
assimilate to themselves that which approacheth near them, and do
also drive away, chase, and exterminate their contraries, And that is
the reason commonly yielded why the middle region of the air should
be coldest, because the sun and stars are either hot by direct beams or
by reflection. The direct beams heat the upper region, the reflected
beams from the earth and seas heat the lower region. That which is
in the midst being furthest distant in place from these two regions of
heat are most distant in nature, that is coldest ; which is that they term
cold or hot, per a?itiperistasin, that is environing by contraries ; which
was pleasantly taken hold of by him that said that an honest man in
these days must needs be more honest than in ages heretofore, propter
antiperislasin because the shutting of him in the midst of contraries
must needs make the honesty stronger and more compact in itself.
The reprehension of this colour is, first many things of amplitude in
their kind do as it were ingross to themselves all, and leave that which
is next them most destitute, as the shoots or underwood that grow near
a great and spread tree are the most pined and shrubby wood of the
held, because the great tree doth deprive and deceive them of sap and
nourishment. So he saith well, Divitis servi maxime servi : and the
comparison was pleasant of him that compared courtiers attendant in
the courts of princes, without great place or office, to fasting days,
which were next the holy days, but otherwise were the leanest days in
all the week.
Another reprehension is, that things of greatness and predominancy,
though they do not extenuate the things adjoining in substance, yet
they drown them and obscure them in show and appearance. And
therefore the astronomers say, that whereas in all other planets con
junction is the perfectest amity, the sun contrarywise is good by aspect,
but evil by conjunction.1
A third reprehension is because evil approacheth to good sometimes
for concealment, sometimes for protection, and good to evil for con
version and reformation. So hypocrisy draweth near to religion for
covert and hiding itself :
Scrpe latet vifizim proximitate boni,
and sanctuary men, which were commonly inordinate men and male
factors, were wont to be nearest to priests and prelates and holy men,
for the majesty of good things is such, as the confines of them are
revered. On the other side our Saviour charged with nearness of
Publicans and rioters said, The physician approacheth the sick, rather
than the whole*
8. Quod quis culpa sna contraxit, majus mahim; quod ab extcr?iis
iiuponitur, minus maluui.
The reason is because the sting and remorse of the mind accusing
itself doubleth all adversity : contrariwise the considering and record-
1 An allusion to astrology.
9 Bacon does not quote from our present version, as will be observed all through his works.
In fact, it had not been published when be began writing. " Of the Colours of Good and
Lvil was first published in 150.7. with the first edition of the Essays. The verse to which ha
alludes is bt. Matthew ix. ia.
OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND E17.L. 125
Ing inwardly that a man is clear and free from fault and just imputa
tion, doth attemper outward calamities. For if the evil be in the sense
and in the conscience both, there is a germination of it, but if evil be
in the one and comfort in the other, it is a kind of compensation. So
the poets in tragedies do make the most passionate lamentations, and
those that forerun final despair, to be accusing, questioning, and
torturing of a man's self.
Seque unum clamat causarnque caputque malorum.
And contrariwise the extremities of worthy persons have been anni
hilated in the consideration of their own good deserving. Besides
when the evil cometh from without, there is left a kind of evaporation
of grief; if it come by human injury, either by indignation and medi
tating of revenge from ourselves, or by expecting or foreconceiving
that Nemesis and retribution will take hold of the authors of our hurt,
or if it be by fortune or accident, yet there is left a kind of expostula
tion against the divine powers.
Atque deos atque astro, vocat crudelia mater.
But where the evil is derived from a man's own fault there all strikes
deadly inwards and suffocateth.
The reprehension of this colour is first in respect of hope, for re
formation of our faults is in nostra potestate, but amendment of our
fortune simply is not. Therefore Demosthenes in many of his orations
saith thus to the people of Athens. That which having regard to the
time past is the worst point and circumstance of all the rest, that as to
the time to come is the best : What is that ? Even this, that by your
sloth) irresolution, and misgovernment, your affairs are grown to this
declination and decay. For had you used and ordered your means and
forces to the best, and done your parts every way to the full, and not
withstanding your matters should have gone backwards in this manner
as they do, "there had been no hope left of recovery or reparation, but
since it hath been only by your own errors, etc. So Epictetus in his
degrees saith, The worst state of man is to accuse external things,
better than that to accuse a marts self, and best of all to accuse neither.
Another reprehension of this colour is in respect of the well bearing
of evils, wherewith a man can charge nobody but himself, which
maketh them the less.
Levefit quod benefertur onus.
And therefore many natures, that are either extremely proud and will
take no fault to themselves, or else very true, and cleaving to them
selves (when they see the blame of anything that falls out ill must
light upon themselves) have no other shift but to bear it out well, and
to make the least of it ; for as we see when sometimes a fault is com
mitted, and before it be known who is to blame, much ado is made of
it, but after if it appear to be done by a son or by a wife, or by a neai
friend, then it is light made of; so much more when a man must take
it upon himself. And therefore it is commonly seen that women that
marry husbands of their own choosing against their friends' consents,
iz6 OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL.
if they be never so ill used, yet you shall seldom see them complain
but to set a good face on it.
9. Quod opera et virtute nostra partum est majus bonum; quod ab
alicno beneficio^ vel ab induigentia fortune? delatum est minus
bonum.
The reasons are first the future hope, because in the favours of
others or the good winds of fortune we have no state or certainty ; in
our endeavours or abilities we have. So as when they have purchased
us one good fortune, we have them as ready and better edged and
inured to procure another.
The forms be : You have won this by play : you have not only th\
watcry but you have the receipt; you can make it again if it be lost, etc.
Next because these properties which we enjoy by the benefit of
others carry with them an obligation, which seemeth a kind of burthen,
whereas the other which derive from ourselves, are like the freest
patents absque aliquo inde reddendo, and if they proceed from fortune
or providence, yet they seem to touch us secretly with the reverence of
the divine powers whose favours we taste, and therefore work a kind
of religious fear and restraint, whereas in the other kind, that comes to
pass which the Prophet speaketh, Lcetantur et exultant, immolant
plagis suis, et sacrijicani reti sico.1
Thirdly because that which cometh unto us without our own virtue
yieldeth not that commendation and reputation ; for actions of great
felicity may draw wonder, but praise less, as Cicero said to Ccssar :
Qua miremur habemus, quce laudemus expectamus.
Fourthly because the purchases of our own industry are joined com-
monly with labour and strife which gives an edge and appetite, and
makes the fruition of our desire more pleasant, Suavis cibus a venatu.
On the other side there be four counter colours to this colour rather
than reprehensions, because they be as large as the colour itself. First
because felicity seemeth to be a character of the favour and love of the
divine powers, and accordingly worketh both confidence in ourselves
and respect and authority from others. And this felicity extendeth to
many casual things, whereunto the care or virtue of man cannot
extend, and therefore seemeth to be a larger good, as when Ccssar
said to the sailor, Cccsarcm portas et fortunam ejus, if he had said, et
•uirtutcm ejus, it had been small comfort against a tempest, otherwise
than if it might seem upon merit to induce fortune.
Next, whatsoever is done by virtue and industry seems to be done
by a kind of habit and art, and therefore open to be imitated and fol
lowed, whereas felicity is inimitable : so we generally see that things
of nature seem more excellent than things of art, because they be
inimitable, for quod imitabile est potentia quadam vulgatum esi.
Thirdly, felicity commendeth those things which cometh without our
own labour, for they seem gifts, and the other seem pennyworths :
whereupon Plutarch saith elegantly of the acts of Timolcon^ who was
so fortunate, compared with the acts of Agcsilaus and Epaminondas
1 Habukuk i. 15, 1.6.
OF THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL. 127
That they were like Homer's verses, they ran so easily and so well, and
therefore it is the word we give unto poesy, terming it a happy vein,
because facility seemeth ever to come from happiness.
Fourthly, this same prczter spent, vel prceter expectatum, doth in
crease the price and pleasure of many things, and this cannot be
incident to th< se things that proceed from our own care and compass.
lo. Gradus privationis major videtur quam gradus diminutionis ; et
rursus gradus i?iceptionis major mdetur quam gradus incrementi.
It is a position in the Mathematics that there is no proportion
between somewhat and nothing, therefore the degree of nullity and
quiddity or act seemeth larger than the degrees of increase and de
crease, as to a monoculos it is more to lose one eye, than to a man
that hath two eyes. So if one have lost divers children, it is more
grief to him to lose the last than all the rest, because he is spes gregis.
And therefore Sybilla when she brought her three books, and had
burned two, did double the whole price of both the other, because the
burning of that had been gradus privationis, and not diminutionis.
This colour is reprehended first in those things the use and service
whereof resteth in sufficiency, competency, or determinate quantity ; as
if a man be to pay one hundred pounds upon a penalty, it is more for
him to want twelve pence, than after that twelve pence supposed to be
wanting, to want ten shillings more ; so the decay of a man's estate
seems to be most touched in the degree when he first grows behind,
more than afterwards when he proves nothing worth. And hereof the
common forms are, Sera in fundo parsimo?iia, and as good never a
whit, as never the better, &c. It is reprehended also in respect of that
notion, Corruptio unius, generatio alterius, so that gradus privationis
is many times less matter, because it gives the cause and motive to
some new course. As when Demosthenes reprehended the people for
barkening to the conditions offered by King Philip, being not honour
able nor equal, he saith they were but aliments of their sloth and
weakness, which, if they were taken away, necessity would teach them
stronger resolutions. So Doctor Hector was wont to say to the dames
•»f London, when they complained they were they could not tell how,
but yet they could not endure to take any medicine, he would tell
them, Their way was only to be sick, for then they would be glad to
take any medicine.
Thirdly, this colour may be reprehended, in respect that the degree
of decrease is more sensitive than the degree of privation ; for in the
rnind of man, gradus diminutionis may work a wavering between hope
and fear, and so keep the mind in suspense from settling and accom
modating in patience, and resolution ; hereof the common forms are,
Better eye out than always ache, make or mar, £c.
For the second branch of this colour, it depends upon the same
general reason : hence grew the common place of extolling the begin
ning of everything,
Dimidiumfacti qui bene ccepit habet.
This made the astvologers so idle as to judge of a man's nature and
ra8 Ob THE COLOURS OF GOOD AND EVIL.
destiny by the constellation of the moment of his nativity or concep
tion. This colour is reprehended, because many inceptions are but as
Epicurus termeth them, tentamenta, that is, imperfect offers and
essays, which vanish and come to no substance without an iteration,
so as in such cases the second degree seems the worthiest, as the body-
horse in the cart, that draweth more than the fore-horse. Hereof the
common forms are, The second blow makes tiie fray. The second word
makes the bargain. Alter malo prindpium dedit, alter modum
abstulit, etc. Another reprehension of this colour is in respect of de-
fatigation,1 which makes perseverance of greater dignity than incep
tion,2 for chance or instinct of nature may cause inception, but settled
affection or judgment maketh the continuance.
Thirdly, this colour is reprehended in such things which have a
natural course, and inclination contrary to an inception. So that the
inception is continually evacuated and gets no start, as in the common
form. Non progredi, est regredi, Qui non proficit, deficit : Running
against the hill : Rowing against the stream, &c. For if it be with the
stream or with the hill, then the degree of inception is more than all
the rest.
Fourthly, this colour is to be understood of gradus inceptionis a
potcntia, ad actum comparatus ; cum gradtt ab actu ad incremcntum :
for otherwise, major mdetur gradus ab impotentia ad potentiam^ quam
a potent ia ad actum.
« Wearint*. *
THE FIRST BOOK OF THE PROFICIENCE
AND ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,
To the KING.
THERE were under the law, excellent king, both daily sacrifices, and
freewill offerings : the one proceeding upon ordinary observance, the
other upon a devout cheerfulness : in like manner there belongeth to
kings from their servants, both tribute of duty, and presents of affec
tion. In the former of these, I hope I shall not live to be wanting,
according to my most humble duty, and the good pleasure of your
majesty's employments : for the latter, I thought it more respective to
make choice of some oblation, which might rather refer to the pro
priety and excellency of your individual person, than to the business
of your crown and state.
Wherefore representing your majesty many times unto my mind,
and beholding you not with the inquisitive eye of presumption, to dis
cover that which the Scripture telleth me is inscrutable, but with the
observant eye of duty and admiration : leaving aside the other parts
of your virtue and fortune, I have been touched, yea, and possessed
with an extreme wonder at those your virtues and faculties, which the
philosophers call intellectual : the largeness of your capacity, the
faithfulness of your memory, the swiftness of your apprehension, the
penetration of your judgment, and the facility and order of your elocu
tion : and I have often thought, that of all the persons living, that I
have known, your majesty were the best instance to make a man of
Plato's opinion, that all knowledge is but remembrance, and that the
mind of man by nature knoweth all things, and hath but her own
native and original notions (which by the strangeness and darkness of
this tabernacle of the body are sequestered) again revived and re
stored : such a light of nature I have observed in your majesty, and
such a readiness to take flame, and blaze from the least occasion
presented, or the least spark of another's knowledge delivered. And as
the Scripture saith of the wisest king,1 "That his heart was as the
sands of the sea ; " 2 which though it be one of the largest bodies, yet it
consisteth of the smallest and finest portions : so hath God given your
majesty a composition of understanding admirable, being able to
compass and comprehend the greatest matters, and nevertheless to
touch and apprehend the least ; whereas it should seem an impossi
bility in nature for the same instrument to make itself fit for great
1 Solomon.
» 9 Kings iv. 29 : " Largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on '.he sea shore/1
K
130 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
and small works. And for your gift of speech, I call to mind what
Cornelius Tacitus saith of Augustus Cassar : "Augusta profluens, et
qua printipem deceret, eloquentiafuit." For, if we note it well, speech
that is uttered with labour and difficulty, or speech that savoureth o/
the affectation of art and precepts, or speech that is framed after the
imitation of some pattern of eloquence, though never so excellent ; all
this has somewhat servile, and holding of the subject. But your
majesty's manner of speech is indeed prince-like, flowing as from a
fountain, and yet streaming and branching itself into nature's order,
full of facility and felicity, imitating none, and inimitable by any. And
as in your civil estate there appeareth to be an emulation and conten
tion 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 there
unto : 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 Grascia, 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 uni
versality 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
1 Hermes Trismegistus, a priest and philosopher of Egypt in the age of Osiris,
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 131
end, whereof the sum will consist of these two parts ; the former con
cerning 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.
In the entrance to the former of these, to clear the way, and, as it
were, to make silence, to have the true testimonies concerning the
dignity of learning to be better heard, without the interruption of tacit
objections ; I think good to deliver it from the discredits and disgraces
which it hath received, all from ignorance, but ignorance severally dis
guised ; appearing sometimes in the zeal and jealousy of divines, some
times in the severity and arrogancy of politicians, and sometimes in the
errors and imperfections of learned men themselves.
I hear the former sort say, that knowledge is of those things which
are to be accepted of with great limitation and caution ; that the
aspiring to overmuch knowledge, was the original temptation and sin,
whereupon ensued the fall of man ; that knowledge hath in it somewhat
of the serpent, and therefore where it entereth into a man it maketh him
swell ; Scientia inflat : that Solomon gives a censure, " That there is
no end of making books, and that much reading is weariness of the
flesh j"1 and again in another place, " That in spacious knowledge
there is much contristation, and that he that increaseth knowledge
increaseth anxiety ; "2 that St. Paul gives a caveat, " That we be not
spoiled through vain philosophy ;"3 that experience demonstrates how
learned men have been arch-heretics, how learned times have been
inclined to atheism, and how the contemplation of second causes doth
derogate from our dependence upon God, who is the first cause.
To discover, then, the ignorance and error of this opinion, and the
misunderstanding in the grounds thereof, it may well appear these
men do not observe or consider, that it was not the pure knowledge of
nature and universality, a knowledge by the light whereof man did give
names unto other creatures in paradise, as they were brought before
him, according unto their proprieties, which gave the occasion to the fall ;
but it was the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man
to give law unto himself, and to depend no more upon God's com
mandments, which was the form of the temptation. Neither is it any
quantity of knowledge, how great soever, that can make the mind of
man to swell ; for nothing can fill, much less extend the soul of man
but God, and the contemplation of God ; and therefore Solomon,
speaking of the two principal senses of inquisition, the eye and ear,
amrmeth that the eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with
1 Ecclesiastes xii. ix * Ecclesiastes i. 18.
K 2
X32 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
hearing ; and if there be no fulness, then is the continent greater than
the content : so of knowledge itself, and the mind of man, whereto the
senses are but reporters, he deftneth likewise in these words, placed
after that calendar or ephemerides, which he maketh of the diversities
of times and seasons for all actions and purposes ; and concludeth
thus : " God hath made all things beautiful, or decent, in the true
return of their seasons : Also he hath placed the world in man's heart,
yet cannot man find out the work which God worketh from the begin
ning to the end : " l declaring, not obscurely, that God hath framed the
mind of man as a mirror, or glass, capable of the image of the univer
sal world, and joyful to receive the impression thereof, as the eye joyeth
to receive light : and not only delighted in beholding the variety of
things, and vicissitude of times, but raised also to find out and discern
the ordinances and decrees, which throughout all those changes are
infallibly observed. And although he doth insinuate, that the supreme
or summary law of nature, which he calleth, " The work which God
worketh from the beginning to the end, is not possible to be found out
by man ;" yet that doth not. derogate from the capacity of the mind,
but may be referred to the impediments, as of shortness of life, ill con
junction of labours, ill tradition of knowledge over from hand to hand,
and many other inconveniencies, whereunto the condition of man is
subject. For that nothing parcel of the world is denied to man's
inquiry and invention, he doth in another place rule over, when
he saith, "The spirit of man is as the lamp of God, wherewith he
searcheth the inwardness of all secrets.''2 If then such be the capacity
and receipt of the mind of man, it is manifest, that there is no danger
at all in the proportion or quantity of knowledge, how large soever, lest
it should make it swell or out-compass itself ; no, but it is merely the
quality of knowledge, which, be it in quantity more or less, if it be taken
without the true corrective thereof, hath in it some nature of venom or
malignity, and some effects of that venom, which is ventosity or swell
ing. This corrective spice, the mixture whereof maketh knowledge so
sovereign, is charity, which the apostle immediately addeth to the
former clause; for so he saith, "knowledge bloweth up, but charity
buildeth up;"3 not unlike unto that which he delivereth in another
place : " If I spake," saith he, "with the tongues of men and angels,
and had not charity, it were but as a tinkling cymbal ;"4 not but that it
is an excellent thing to speak with the tongues of men and angels, but
because, if it be severed from charity, and not referred to the good of
men and mankind, it hath rather a sounding and unworthy glory, than
a meriting and substantial virtue. And as for that censure of Solomon,
concerning the excess of writing and reading books, and the anxiety of
spirit which redoundeth from knowledge ; and that admonition of St.
Paul, "That we be not seduced by vain philosophy ;" let those places
f C rightly understood, and they do indeed excellently set forth the true
bounds and limitations, whereby human knowledge is confined and
circumscribed ; and yet without any such contracting or coarctation.
Ecclesiastes iii. n. * Prov. xx. 27. __ s ^t Corinthians vjil
* ist Cc'inthians xjii. i.
Of LEARNING. 133
but that it may comprehend all the universal nature of things : for
these limitations are three : the first, that we do not so place our feli
city in knowledge, as we forget our mortality. The second, that we
make application of our knowledge, to give ourselves repose and con
tentment, and not distaste or repining. The third, that we do not
presume by the contemplation of nature to attain to the mysteries of
God. For, as touching the first of these, Solomon doth excellently
expound himself in another place of the same book, where he saith ;
" I saw well that knowledge recedeth as far from ignorance, as light
doth from darkness ; and that the wise man's eyes keep watch in his
head, whereas the fool roundeth about in darkness ; but withal I
learned, that the same mortality involveth them both."1 And for the
second, certain it is, there is no vexation or anxiety of mind which
resulteth from knowledge, otherwise than merely by accident ; for all
knowledge and wonder (which is the seed of knowledge) is an impres
sion of pleasure in itself: but when men fall to framing conclusions
out of their knowledge, applying it to their particular, and ministring
to themselves thereby weak fears, or vast desires, there gro\veth that
carefulness and trouble of mind which is spoken of: for then know
ledge is no more Lume?i siccum, whereof Heraclitus the profound8
said, " Lumen siccum optima antma;" but it becometh Lumen madi-
dam, or maceratum, being steeped and infused in the humours of tho
affections. And as for the third point, it deserveth to be a little stood
upon, and not to be lightly passed over ; for if any man shall think by
view and inquiry into these sensible and material things to attain that
light, whereby he may reveal unto himself the nature or will of God,
then indeed is he spoiled by vain philosophy : for the contemplation
of God's creatures and works produceth (having regard to the works
and creatures themselves) knowledge ; but, having regard to God, no
perfect knowledge, but wonder, which is broken knowledge. And
therefore it was most aptly said by one of Plato's school, " That the
sense of man carrieth a resemblance with the sun, which, as we see,
openeth and revealeth all the terrestrial globe ; but then again it ob-
scureth and concealeth the stars and celestial globe : so doth the
sense discover natural things, but it darkeneth and shutteth up
divine." And hence it is true, that it hath proceeded, that divers great
learned men have been heretical, whilst they have sought to fly up to
the secrets of the Deity by the waxen wings of the senses : 3 and as for
the conceit, that too much knowledge should incline a man to atheism,
and that the ignorance of second causes should make a more devout
dependence upon God, who is the first cause : First, it is good to ask
the question which Job asked of his friends :4 "Will you lie for God,
as one man will do for another, to gratify him?" For certain it is,
that God worketh nothing in nature but by second causes ; and if they
would have it otherwise believed, it is mere imposture, as it were in
favour towards God ; and nothing else but to offer to the Author of
Truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie. But farther, it is an assured truth,
and a conclusion of experience, that a little or superficial knowledge of
1 Ecclesiastes ii. 13, 14. < * See Essay 27, p. 50, note a,
' See Wisdom cf the Ancients — Icarus. ' Job xiii. 7, 9.
i34 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
philosophy may incline the mind of man to atheism, but a farther pro
ceeding therein doth bring the mind back again to religion ; for in the
entrance of philosophy, when the second causes, which are next unto
the senses, do offer themselves to the mind of man, if it dwell and stay
there it may induce some oblivion of the highest cause ; but when a
man passeth on farther, and seeth the dependence of causes and the
works of providence ; then, according to the allegory of the poets, he
will easily believe that the highest link of nature's chain must needs be
tied to the foot of Jupiter's chair. To conclude therefore : let no man,
upon a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-applied moderation, think or
maintain, that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the
book of God's word, or in the book of God's works ; divinity or philo
sophy ; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress, or profi-
cience in both. Only let men beware that they apply both to charity,
and not to swelling ; to use, and not to ostentation ; and again, that
they do not unwisely mingle, or confound these learnings together.
And as for the disgraces which learning receiveth from politicians,
they be of this nature ; that learning doth soften men's minds, and
makes them more unapt for the honour and exercise of arms ; that it
doth mar and pervert men's dispositions for matter of government and
policy, in making them too curious and irresolute by variety of reading,
or too peremptory or positive by strictness of rules and axioms, or too
immoderate and overweening by reason of the greatness of examples,
or too incompatible and differing from the times, by reason of the dis
similitude of examples ; or at least, that it doth divert men's travails
from action and business, and bringeth them to a love of leisure and
privateness ; and that it doth bring into states a relaxation of dis
cipline, whilst every man is more ready to argue than to obey and
execute. Out of this conceit, Cato, surnamed the Censor, one of the
wisest men indeed that ever lived, when Carneades the philosopher
came in embassage to Rome, and that the young men of Rome began
to flock about him, being allured with the sweetness and majesty 01'
his eloquence and learning, gave counsel in open senate, that they
should give him his dispatch with all speed, lest he should infect and
inchant the minds and affections of the youth, and at unawares bring
in an alteration of the manners and customs of the state. Out of the
same conceit, or humour, did Virgil, turning his pen to the advantage
of his country, and the disadvantage of his own profession, make a
kind of separation between policy and government, and between arts
and sciences, in the verses so much renowned, attributing and
challenging the one to the Romans, and leaving and yielding the other
to the Grecians ; " Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento, H<z
tibi erunt artcs? etc. So'likewise we see that Anytus, the accuser of
Socrates, laid it as an article of charge and accusation against him,
that he did, with the variety and power of his discourses and disputa
tions, withdraw young men from due reverence to the laws and customs
of their country ; and that he did profess a dangeitous and pernicious
science, which was, to make the worse matter seem the better, and to
suppress truth by force of eloquence and speech.
But these, and the like imputations, have rather a countenance of
gravity, than any ground of justice : for experience doth warrant, that,
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, 135
both in persons and in times, there hath been a meeting and concur
rence in learning and arms, flourishing and excelling in the same men,
and the same ages. For, as for men, there cannot be a better, nor the
like instance, as of that pair, Alexander the Great and Julius Qesar
the dictator ; whereof the one was Aristotle's scholar in philosophy,
and the other was Cicero's rival in eloquence : or if any man had
rather call for scholars, that were great generals, than generals that
were great scholars, let him take Epaminondas the Theban, or Xeno-
phon the Athenian , whereof the one was the first that abated the
power of Sparta, and the other was the first that made way to the
overthrow of the monarchy of Persia. And this concurrence is yet
more visible in times than in persons, by how much an age is greater
object than a man. For both in Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Graecia, and
Rome, the same times that are most renowned for arms, are likewise
most admired for learning ;l so that the greatest authors and philoso
phers, and the greatest captains and governors have lived in the same
ages. Neither can it otherwise be : for as, in man, the ripeness of
the strength of body and mind cometh much about an age, save
that the strength of the body cometh somewhat the more early ; so, in
states, arms and learning, whereof the one correspondeth to the body,
the other to the soul of man, have a concurrence or near sequence in
times.
And for matter of policy and government, that learning should
rather hurt, than enable thereunto, is a thing very improbable. We see
it is accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physi
cians, which commonly have a few pleasing receipts, whereupon they
are confident and adventurous, but know neither the causes of diseases,
nor the complexions of patients, nor peril of accidents, nor the true
method of cures : we see it is a like error to rely upon advocates or
lawyers, which are only men of practice, and not grounded in their
books, who are many times easily surprised, when matter falleth out
besides their experience, to the prejudice of the causes they handle : so,
by like reason, it cannot be but a matter of doubtful consequence, if
states be managed by empiric statesmen, not well mingled with men
grounded in learning. But contrariwise, it is almost without instance
contradictory, that ever any government was disastrous that was in the
hands of learned governors. For howsoever it hath been ordinary
with politic men to extenuate and disable learned men by the names
of pedants ; yet in the records of time it appeareth, in many particulars,
that the governments of princes in minority (notwithstanding the
infinite disadvantage of that kind of state) have nevertheless excelled
the government of princes of mature age, even for that reason which
they seek to traduce, which is, that by that occasion the state hath been
in the hands of pedants : for so was the state of Rome for the first five
years, which are so much magnified, during the minority of Nero, in
the hands of Seneca, a pedant : so it was again for ten years space or
more during the minority of Gordianus the younger, with great ap
plause and contentation in the hands of Misitheus, a pedant: so was
1 The truth of this was proved also in England in the time of Elizabeth, Anne, and in the last
fears of Geo. III., and the early Regency, when we were at war with Na*.»leo»
136 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
it before that, in the minority of Alexander Severus, in like happiness,
in hands not much unlike, by reason of the rule of the women, who
were aided by the teachers and preceptors. Nay, let a man look into
the government of the bishops of Rome, as by name, into the govern
ment of Pius Quintus, and Sextus Quintus, in our times, who were
both at their entrance esteemed but as pedantical friars, and he shall
find that such popes do greater things, and proceed upon truer prin
ciples of state, than those which have ascended to the papacy from
an education and breeding in affairs of state and courts of princes ;
for although men bred in learning are perhaps to seek in points of
convenience, and accommodating for the present, which the Italians
call ragioni di stato, whereof the same Pius Quintus could not hear
spoken with patience, terming them inventions against religion and
the moral virtues ; yet on the other side, to recompense that, they are
perfect in those same plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and
moral virtue, which if they be well and watchfully pursued, there will
be seldom use of those other, no more than of physic in a sound or well
dieted body. Neither can the experience of one man's life furnish ex
amples and precedents for the events of another man's life : for as it hap-
peneth sometimes that the grandchild, or other descendant, resembleth
the ancestor, more than the son ; so many times occurrences of present
times may sort better with ancient examples, than with those of the
later or immediate times : and lastly, the wit of one man can no more
countervail l learning, than one man's means can hold way with a
common purse.
And as for those particular seducements, or indispositions of the
mind for policy and government, which learning is pretended to in
sinuate ; if it be granted that any such thing be, it must be remem
bered withal, that learning ministereth in every of them greater
strength of medicine or remedy, than it offereth cause of indisposition
or infirmity : for if, by a secret operation, it make men perplexed and
irresolute, on the other side, by plain precept, it teacheth them when,
and upon what ground, to resolve ; yea, and how to carry things in
suspense without prejudice, till they resolve : if it make men positive
and regular, it teacheth them what things are in their nature demon
strative, and what are conjectural ; and as well the use of distinctions
and exceptions, as the latitude of principles and rules. If it mislead
by disproportion, or dissimilitude of examples, it teacheth men the
force of circumstances, the errors of comparisons, and all the cautions
of application : so that in all these it doth rectify more effectually than
it can pervert. And these medicines it convey eth into men's minds
much more forcibly by the quickness and penetration of examples,
For let a man look into the errors of Clement the seventh, so lively
described by Guicciardine,2 who served under him, or into the errors of
Cicero, painted out by his own pencil in his epistles to Atticus, and he
will 11 y apace from being irresolute. Let him look into the errors of
Phocion,3 and he will beware how he be obstinate or inflexible. Let
him but read the fable of Ixion, and it will hold him from being vapor-
Outvie.
* An Italian historian, born 1482, at Florence, died 1542.
A celebrated Athenian statesman, died about 318 B.C
Of LEARNING. 137
Ous or {imaginative.1 Let him look into the errors of Cato the second,
and he will never be one of the Antipodes, to tread opposite to the
present world.
And for the conceit, that learning should dispose men to leisure and
privateness, and make men slothful ; it were a strange thing if thai,
which accustometh the mind to a perpetual motion and agitation,
should induce slothfulness ; whereas contrariwise it may be truly
affirmed, that no kind of men love business for itself, but those that
<tre learned : tor other persons love it for profit ; as an nireling, that
loves the work for the wages ; or for honour, as because it beareth them
up in the eyes of men, and refresheth their reputations, which other
wise would wear ; or because it putteth them in mind of their fortune,
and giveth them occasion to pleasure and displeasure ; or because it
exerciseth some faculty wherein they take pride, and so entertaineth
them in good humour and pleasing conceits towards themselves ; or
because it advanceth any other their ends. So that, as it is said of
untrue valours, that some men's valours are in the eyes of them that
look on : so such men's industries are in the eyes of others, or at least
in regard of their own designments. Only learned men love business,
as an action according to nature, as agreeable to health of mind, as
exercise is to health of body, taking pleasure in the action itself, and
not in the purchase : so that of all men they are the most indefatigable,
if it be towards any business which can hold or detain their mind.
And if any man be laborious in reading and study, and yet idle
in business and action, it groweth from some weakness of body, or
softness of spirit ; such as Seneca speaketh of : " Quidam tarn sunt
umbratileS) ut ptitent in turbido esse, quicquid in luce est ; " and not
of learning : well may it be, that such a point of a man's nature may
make him give himself to learning, but it is not learning that breedeth
any such point in his nature.
And that learning should take up too much time or leisure : I
answer ; the most active or busy man, that hath been or can be, hath,
no question, many vacant times of leisure, while he expecteth the tides
and returns of business (except he be either tedious and of no dispatch,
or lightly and unworthily ambitious to meddle in things that may be
better done by others :) and then the question is but, how those spaces
and times of leisure shall be filled and spent ; whether in pleasures, or in
studies ; as was well answered by Demosthenes to his adversary
/Eschines, that was a man given to pleasure, and told him, "that his
orations did smell of the lamp:" "Indeed,'' said Demosthenes,
" there is a great difference between the things that you and I do by
lamp-light.3' So as no man need doubt, that learning will expulse
business, but rather it will keep and defend the possession of the
mind against idleness and pleasure ; which otherwise, at unawares,
may enter to the prejudice of both.
Again, for that other conceit, that learning should undermine the
reverence of laws and government, it is assuredly a mere depravation '•
and calumny, without all shadow of truth. For to say, that a blind
custom of obedience should be a surer obligation, than duty taught
1 Ixion mistook a cloud for Juno. * Slander.
r33 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
and understood ; it is to affirm, that a blind man may tread surer by a
guide, than a seeing man can by a light. And it is without all con
troversy, that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous,
maniable, and pliant to government ; whereas ignorance makes them
churlish, thwarting, and mutinous ; and the evidence of time doth
clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, and
unlearned times, have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and
changes.
And as to the judgment of Cato the Censor, he was well punished
for his blasphemy against learning, in the same kind wherein he
offended ; for when he was past threescore years old he was taken
with an extreme desire to go to school again, and to learn the Greek
tongue, to the end to peruse the Greek authors, which doth well
demonstrate, that his former censure of the Grecian learning was
rather an affected gravity, than according to the inward sense of his
own opinion. And as for Virgil's verses, though it pleased him to
brave the world, in taking to the Romans the art of empire, and
leaving to others the arts of subjects ; yet so much is manifest, that
the Romans never ascended to that height of empire, till the time they
had ascended to the height of other arts. For in the time of the two
first Cassars, which had the art of government in greatest perfection,
there lived the best poet, Virgilius Maro ; the best historiographer,
Titus Livius ; the best antiquary, Marcus Varro ; and the best or
second orator, Marcus Cicero, that to the memory of man are known.
As for the accusation of Socrates, the time must be remembered when
it was prosecuted : which wa$ 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 politicians, which, in their humorous severity, or in their feigned
gravity, have presumed to throw imputations upon learning; which
redargution,1 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.
Now therefore we come to that third sort of discredit, or diminution
of credit, that groweth unto learning from learned men themselves,
which commonly cleaveth fastest : it is either from their fortune, or
from their manners, or from the nature of their studies. For the first,
it is .not in their power ; and the second is accidental ; the third only
is proper to be handled : but because we are not in hand with true
measure, but with popular estimation and conceit, it is not amiss to
1 Refutation.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 139
speak somewhat of the two former. The derogations, therefore, which
grow to learning from the fortune or condition of learned men, aie
either in respect of scarcity of means, or in respect of privateness of
life, and meanness of employments.
Concerning want, and that it is the case of learned men usually to
begin with little, and not to grow rich so fast as other men, by reason
they convert not their labours chiefly to lucre and increase : it were
good to leave the common place in commendation of some friar to
handle, to whom much was attributed by Machiavel in this point ;
when he said, " that the kingdom of the clergy had been long before
at an end, if the reputation, and reverence towards the poverty of friars
had not borne out the scandal of the superfluities and excesses of
bishops and prelates." So a man might say, that the felicity and
delicacy of princes and great persons had long since turned to rude
ness and barbarism, if the poverty of learning had not kept up civility
and honour of life : but, without any such advantages, it is worthy the
observation, what a reverend and honoured thing poverty of fortune
was, for some ages, in the Roman state, which nevertheless was a
state without paradoxes ; for we see what Titus Livius saith in his
introduction : " Cceterum aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit, aut nulla
unquam respublica nee major, ncc sanctior, nee bonis exemplis ditior
fuitj nee in quam tarn sera avaritia luxuriaque immigraverint ; ntc
ubi tantus ac tarn diu paupertati ac parsimonies honos fuerit." We see
likewise, after that the state of Rome was not itself, but did degene
rate, how that person, that took upon him to be counsellor to Julius
Caesar, after his victory, where to begin his restoration of the state,
maketh it of all points the most summary to take away the estimation
of wealth : " Verum hac et omnia mala pariter cum honor e pecu?ii<z
destnent, si neque magistratus, neque alia vulgo cupicnda, venalia
erunt" To conclude this point, as it was truly said, that " rubor est
•uirtutis color]' though sometimes it comes from vice : so it may be
fitly said, that " paupertas est virtutis fortima ; " though sometimes it
may proceed from misgovernment and accident. Surely Solomon
hath pronounced it both in censure, " Quifestinat ad divitias, non erit
insons ; " * and in precept ; " Buy the truth and sell it not ; " 2 and so
of wisdom and knowledge ; judging that means were to be spent upon
learning, and not learning to be applied to means. And as for the
privateness, or obscureness (as it may be in vulgar estimation ac
counted) of life of contemplative men ; it is a theme so common, to
extol a private life, not taxed with sensuality arid sloth, in comparison,
and to the disadvantage of a civil life, for safety, liberty, pleasure, and
dignity, or at least freedom from indignity, as no man handleth it, but
handleth it well : such a consonancy it hath to men's conceits in the
expressing, and to men's consents in the allowing. This only I will
add, that learned men, forgotten in states, and not living in the eyes of
men. are like the images of Cassius and Brutus in the funeral of Junia;
of which not being represented, as many others were, Tacitus saith,
" Eo ipso pr<zfi(lgcbant, quod non visebanttir"
And for the meanness of employment, that which is most traduced
1 Prov. xxviii. 30. * Prov. xxiii. 23.
140 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
to contempt, is, that the government of youth is commonly allotted to
them ; winch age, because it is the age of least authority, it is trans
ferred to the disesteeming of those employments wherein youth is con
versant, and which are conversant about youth. But how unjust this
traducement is (if you will reduce things from popularity of opinion to
measure of reason) may appear in that we see men are more curious
what they put into a new vessel, than into a vessel seasoned ; and what
mould they lay about a young plant, than about a plant corroborate ; l
so as the weakest terms and times of all things use to have the best
applications and helps. And will you hearken to the Hebrew Rab
bins? "Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall
dream dreams ; "2 say they, youth is the worthier age, for that visions
are nearer apparitions of God than dreams. And let it be noted, that
howsoever the condition of life of pedants hath been scorned upon
theatres, as the ape of tyranny ; and that the modern looseness or
negligence hath taken no due regard to the choice of schoolmasters
and tutors ; yet the ancient wisdom of the best times did always make
a just complaint, that states were too busy with their laws, and too
negligent in point of education : which excellent part of ancient dis
cipline hath been in some sort revived, of late times, by the colleges of
the Jesuits ; of whom, although in regard of their superstition I may
say "quo meliores, eo deteriorcs ;" yet in regard of this, and some
other points concerning human learning and moral matters, I may say,
as Agesilaus said to his enemy Pharnabasus, " Tails qmun sz's, utinam
noster esses." And thus much touching the discredits drawn from the
fortunes of learned men.
As touching the manners of learned men, it is a thing personal and
individual : and no doubt there be amongst them, as in other profes
sions, of all temperatures ; but yet so as it is not without truth, which
is said, that " abeunt studia in mores" studies have an influence and
operation upon the manners of those that are conversant in them.
But upon an attentive and indifferent review, I, for my part, cannot
find any disgrace to learning can proceed from the manners of learned
men not inherent to them as they are learned ; except it be a fault
(which was the supposed fault of Demosthenes, Cicero, Cato the
second, Seneca, and many more) that, because the times they read of
are commonly better than the times they live in, and the duties taught
better than the duties practised, they contend sometimes too far to
bring things to perfection, and to reduce the corruption of manners to
honesty of precepts, or examples of too great height. And yet hereof
they have caveats enough in their own walks. For Solon, when he was
asked whether he had given his citizens the best laws, answered wisely,
" Yea, of such as they would receive : " And Plato, finding that his
own heart could not agree with the corrupt manners of his country,
refused to bear place or office ; saying, "That a man's country was to
be used as his parents were, that is, with humble persuasions, and not
with contestations.5' And Caesar's counsellor put in the same caveat,
" Non ad -vctera instittita revocans, qua jampridem corruptis moribus
ludibrio sunt:" and Cicero noted this error directly in Cato the second,
1 Strengthened, confirmed ; here, well rooted. * Joel ii. 28.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. I4!
when he writes to his friend Atticus : " Cato optima sentit, sea nocet
inter dum reipubliccz; loquitur enim tanquam in republica Platonis,
non tanquam in fccce Romuli" And the same Cicero doth excuse and
expound the philosophers for going too far, and being too exact in their
prescripts, when he saith, " Isti ipsi pr&ceptorcs irirtutis et magistri
videntur fines offitiorum paulo longius, quam natura vellet, protulisse,
ut cum ad ultimum ammo contendisscmus, ibi tamen, ubi oportet con-
sisteremus :" and yet himself might have said, " Monitis sum minor
ipse meisj" for it was his own fault, though not in so extreme a
degree.
Another fault likewise much of this kind hath been incident tt
learned men ; which is, that they have esteemed the preservation,
good, and honour of their countries or masters, before their own for
tunes or safeties. For so saith Demosthenes unto the Athenians : ".If
it please you to note it, my counsels unto you are not such, whereby 1
should grow great amongst you, and you become little amongst the
Grecians : but they be of that nature, as they are sometimes not good
for me to give, but are always good for you to follow." And so
Seneca, after he had consecrated that Quinquennium Neronis to the
eternal glory of learned governors, held on his honest and loyal course
of good and free counsel, after his master grew extremely corrupt in
his government. Neither can this point otherwise be ; for learning
endueth men's minds with a true sense of the frailty of their persons,
the casualty of their fortunes, and the dignity of their soul and voca
tion ; so that it is impossible for them to esteem that any greatness of
their own fortune can be a true or worthy end of their being and
ordainment ; and therefore are desirous to give their account to God,
and so likewise to their masters under God (as kings and the states that
they serve) in these words : " Ecce tibi lucrifeci" and not " Ecce mihi
lucrifeci\" whereas the corrupter sort of mere politicians, that have
not their thoughts established by learning in the love and apprehen
sion of duty, nor ever look abroad into universality, do refer all things
to themselves, and thrust themselves into the centre of the world, as
if all lines should meet in them and their fortunes ; never caring, in all
tempests, what becomes of the ship of state, so they may save them
selves in the cock-boat of their own fortune ; whereas men that feel
the weight of duty, and know the limits of self-love, use to make good
their places and duties, though with peril. And if they stand in
seditious and violent alterations, it is rather the reverence which many
times both adverse parts do give to honesty, than any versatile ?.d-
vantage of their own carriage. But for this point of tender sense, and
fast obligation of duty, which learning doth endue the mind withal, how
soever fortune may tax it, and many in the depth of their corrupt prin
ciples may despise it, yet it will receive an open allowance, and there
fore needs the less disproof or excusation.
Another fault incident commonly to learned men, which may be
more probably defended than truly denied, is, that they fail sometimes
in applying themselves to particular persons : which want of exact
application ariseth from two causes ; the one, because the largeness of
their mind can hardly confine itself to dwell in the exquisite observa
tion or examination of the nature and customs of one person ; for it
142
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
is a speech for a lover, and not for a wise man : " Satis magnum altet
alteri thcatrum sumus? Nevertheless I shall yield, that he that can
not contract the sight of his mind, as well as disperse and dilate it,
wanteth great faculty. But there is a second cause, which is no
inability, but a rejection upon choice and judgment : for the honest
and just bounds of observation, by one person upon another, extend
no farther, but to understand him sufficiently, whereby not to give him
offence, or whereby to be able to give him faithful counsel, or whereby
to stand upon reasonable guard and caution, in respect of a man's self.
But to be speculative into another man, to the end to know how to
work him, or wind him, or govern him, proceedeth from a heart that
is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous ; which, as in
friendship, it is want of integrity, so towards princes or superiors, is
want of duty. For the custom of the Levant, which is, that subjects
do forbear to gaze or fix their eyes upon princes, is in the outward
ceremony barbarous, but the moral is good : for men ought not, by
cunning and bent observations, to pierce and penetrate into the hearts
of kings, which the Scripture hath declared to be inscrutable.
There is yet another fault, with which I will conclude this part,
which is often noted in learned men, that they do many times fail to
observe decency and discretion in their behaviour and carnage, and
commit errors in small and ordinary points of actions, so as the vulgar
sort of capacities do make a judgment of them in greater matters, by
that which they find wanting in them in smaller. But this consequence
doth often deceive men, for which I do refer them over to that which
was said by Themistocles, arrogantly and uncivilly, being applied to
himself out of his own mouth ; but, being applied to the general state
of this question, pertinently and justly ; when being invited to touch a
lute, he said, " He could not fiddle, but he could make a small town a
great state." So, no doubt, many may be well seen in the passages
of government and policy, which are to seek in little and punctual
occasions. I refer them also to that which Plato said of his master
Socrates, whom he compared to the gallipots of apothecaries, which
on the outside had apes and owls, and antiques, but contained within
sovereign and precious liquors and confections ; acknowledging, that
to an external report, he was not without superficial levities and de
formities, but was inwardly replenished with excellent virtues and
powers. And so much touching the point of manners of learned men.
But in the mean time I have no purpose to give allowance to some
conditions and courses base and unworthy, wherein divers professors
of learning have wronged themselves, and gone too far ; such as were
those trencher philosophers, which in the latter age of the Roman state
were usually in the houses of great persons, being little better than
solemn parasites ; of which kind Lucian maketh a merry description
of the philosopher that the great lady took to ride with her in her
coach, and would needs have him carry her little dog, which he doing
officiously, and yet uncomely, the page scoffed, and said, " That he
doubted, the philosopher of a Stoic would turn to be a Cynic." But
above all the rest, the gross and palpable flattery, whereunto many,
not unlearned, have abased and abused their wits and pens, turning,
as Du Bartas saith, Hecuba into Helena, and Faustina into Lucretia,
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 143
hath most diminished the price and estimation of learning. Neither
is the modern dedication of books and writings, as to patrons, to be
commended : for that books, such as are worthy the name of books,
ought to have no patrons but truth and reason. And the ancient
custom was, to dedicate them only to private and equal friends, or to
intitle the books with their names ; or if to kings and great persons, it
was to some such as the argument of the book was fit and proper for :
but these and the like courses may deserve rather reprehension than
defence.
Not that I can tax or condemn the morigeration ' or application of
learned men to men in fortune. For the answer was good that
Diogenes made to one that asked him in mockery, " How it came to
pass that philosophers were the followers of rich men, and not rich
men of philosophers ?" He answered soberly, and yet sharply,
" Because the one sort knew what they had need of, and the other did
not." And of the like nature was the answer which Aristippus made,
when having a petition to Dionysius, and no ear given to him, he fell
down at his feet ; whereupon Dionysius stayed, and gave him the
hearing, and granted it ; and afterwards some person, tender on the
behalf of philosophy, reproved Aristippus,2 that he would offer the
profession of philosophy such an indignity, as for a private suit to
fall at a tyrant's feet. But he answered, " It was not his fault, but it
was the fault of Dionysius, that he had his ears in his feet." Neither
was it accounted weakness, but discretion in him that would not dis
pute his best with Adrianus Caesar ; excusing himself, " That it was
reason to yield to him that commanded thirty legions." These and
the like applications, and stooping to points of necessity and con*
venience, cannot be disallowed : for though they may have some out
ward baseness, yet in a judgment truly made, they are to be accounted
submissions to the occasion, and not to the person.
Now I proceed to those errors and vanities, which have intervened
amongst the studies themselves of the learned, which is that which is
principal and proper to the present argument ; wherein my purpose is,
not to make justification of the errors, but, by a censure and separa
tion of the errors, to make a justification of that which is good and
sound, and to deliver that from the aspersion of the other. For we
see, that it is the manner of men to scandalize and deprave that which
retaineth the state and virtue, by taking advantage upon that which is
corrupt and degenerate ; as the heathens in the primitive Church used
to blemish and taint the Christians with the faults and corruptions of
heretics. But nevertheless I have no meaning at this time to make
any exact animadversion of the errors and impediments in matters of
learning, which are more secret and remote from vulgar opinion, but
only to speak unto such as do fall under, or near unto, a popular
observation.
There be therefore chiefly three vanities in studies, whereby learning
hath been most traduced. For those things we do esteem vain, which are
either false or frivolous, those which either have no truth, or no use :
and those persons we esteem vain, which are either credulous or
1 Obsequiousness. J A philosopher of Cyrene. He was a base, selfish person.
M4 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
curious ; and curiosity is either in matter, or words : so that in reason,
as well as in experience, there fall out to be these three distempers,
as I may term them, of Learning : the first, fantastical learning ; the
second, contentious learning : and the last, delicate learning ; vain
imaginations, vain altercations, and vain affectations ; and with the
k.st"l will begin.
Martin Luther, conducted no doubt by an higher providence, but in
discourse of reason, finding what a province he had undertaken against
the bishop of Rome, and the degenerate traditions of the church, and
finding his own solitude being no ways aided by the opinion of his own
time, was enforced to awake all antiquity, and to call former times to
his succour, to make a party against the present time. So that the
ancient authors, both in divinity, and in humanity, which had long
time slept in libraries, began generally to be read and revolved. This
by consequence did draw on a necessity of a more exquisite travail in
the languages original, wherein those authors did write, for the better
understanding of those authors, and the better advantage of pressing
and applying their words. And thereof grew again a delight in their
manner and style of phrase, and an admiration of that kind of writing ;
which was much furthered and precipitated by the enmity and opposi
tion, that the propounders of those primitive, but seeming new, opinions
had against the schoolmen, who were generally of the contrary part,
and whose writings were altogether of a differing style and form ;
taking liberty to coin, and frame new forms of art to express their
own sense, and to avoid .ircuit of speech, without regard to the pure-
ness, pleasantness, and, as I may call it, lawfulness of the phrase or
word. And again, because the great labour then was with the people,
of whom the Pharisees were wont to say, " Execrabilis ista turba, qua
non novit legem; " for the winning and persuading of them, there grew
of necessity in chief price and request, eloquence and variety of dis
course, as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar
sort : so that these four causes concurring, the admiration of ancient
authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of languages, and
the efficacy of preaching, did bring in an affectionate study of elo
quence and copia of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew
speedily into an excess : for men began to hunt more after words than
matter ; and more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the round
and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the
clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and
figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, sound
ness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then grew
the flowing and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be
in price. Then did Sturmius x spend such infinite and curious pains
upon Cicero the orator, and Hermogenes2 the rhetorician, besides his
own books of periods, and imitation, and the like. Then did Car of
' .Johann Sturm, an eminent German classical scholar and theologian, born 1507. lie wrote
SO elegantly in Latin, that he has been called the German Cicero. He died in 1589.
* A distinguished rhetorician, born at Tarsus about the middle of the 2nd Century after
Christ. lie was remarkable for extraordinary precocity, and the rapid extinction of his
talents. At seventeen he published his great work on rhetoric. At twenty-four, he sank i&tO
imbecility,
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 145
Cambridge, and Ascham,1 with their lectures and writings, almost deify
Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all young men, that were studious,
unto that delicate and polished kind of learning. Then did Erasmus
take occasion to make the scoffing echo; " Decem annos consumpsi
in legendo Cicerone:" and the echo answered in Greek 'Ove, Asine.
Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be utterly despised as
barbarous. In sum, the whole inclination and bent of those times was
rather towards copia than weight.
Here therefore is the first distemper of learning, when men study
words and not matter : whereof though I have represented an example
of late times, yet it hath been, and will be secundum ma/us et minus
in all time. And how is it possible but this should have an operation
to discredit learning, even with vulgar capacities, when they see learned
men's works like the first letter of a patent, or limned2 book ; which
though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter ? It seems to me
that Pygmalion's frenzy3 is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity ;
for words are but the images of matter, and except they have life of
reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in
love with a picture.
But yet, notwithstanding, it is a thing not hastily to be condemned,
to clothe and adorn the obscurity, even of philosophy itself, with
sensible and plausible elocution. For hereof we have great examples
in Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and of Plato also in some
degree ; and hereof likewise there is great use ; for surely, to the
severe inquisition of truth, and the deep progress into philosophy, it
is some hindrance ; because it is too early satisfactory to the mind of
man, and quencheth the desire of farther search, before we come to a
just period ; but then, if a man be to have any use of such knowledge
in civil occasions, of conference, counsel, persuasion, discourse or the
like ; then shall he find it prepared to his hands in those authors which
write in that manner. But the excess of this is so justly contemptible,
that as Hercules, when he saw the image of Adonis, Venus's minion,
in a temple, said in disdain, "Nil sacri es;" so there is none of
Hercules's followers in learning, that is, the more severe and laborious
sort of inquirers into truth, but will despise those delicacies and affec
tations, as indeed capable of no divineness. And thus much of the
first disease or distemper of learning.
The second, which followeth, is in nature worse than the former :
for as substance of matter is better than beauty of words, so, contrari
wise, vain matter is worse than vain words. Wherein it seerneth the
reprehension of St. Paul was not only proper for those times, but
prophetical for the times following ; and not only respective to
divinity, but extensive to all knowledge : " Devita profanas vocuin
novitates, et oppositiones falsi nouiitiis stientice"* For he assigneth
two marks and badges of suspected and falsified science : the one,
the novelty and strangeness of terms ; the other, the strictness of
positions, which of necessity doth induce oppositions, and so questions
and altercations. Surely, like as many substances in nature which
1 Roger Ascham, the tutor of Queen Elizabeth, born 1515, died 1568.
* Painted— illustrated. 3 Pygmalion fell in love with his own work— a status.
* i Tim. vi *o ; ii Tim. iv. 7.
I46 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
are solid, do putrify and corrupt into worms ; so it is the pi opriety of
good and sound knowledge, to putrify and dissolve into a number of
subtle, idle, unwholesome, and, as I may term them, vcrmiculate
questions, which have indeed a kind of quickness, and life of spirit,
but no soundness of matter, or goodness of quality. This kind of
degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who,
having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small
variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few
authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator), as their persons were shut up
in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history,
either of nature or time, did, out of no great quantity of matter, and
infinite agitation of wit, spin out unto us those laborious webs of learn
ing, which are extant in their books. For the wit and mind of man,
if it work upon matter, which is the contemplation of the creatures oi
God, worketh according to the stuff, and is limited thereby : but if it
work upon itself, as the spider worketh his web, then it is endless, and
brings forth indeed cobwebs of learning, admirable for the fineness
of thread and work, but of JIG substance or profit.
This same unprofitable subtility or curiosity is of two sorts ; either
in the subject itself that they handle, when it is fruitless speculation or
controversy, whereof there are no small number both of divinity and
philosophy ; or in the manner or method of handling of a knowledge,
which amongst them was this ; upon every particular position or as
sertion to frame objections, and to those objections, solutions ; which
solutions were for the most part not confutations, but distinctions :
whereas indeed the strength of all sciences is, as the strength of the
old man's faggot, in the band. For the harmony of a science, sup
porting each part the other, is and ought to be the true and brief con
futation and suppression of all the smaller sorts of objections. But,
on the other side, if you take out every axiom, as the sticks of the
faggot, one by one, you may quarrel with them and bend them, and
break them at your pleasure : so that as was said of Seneca, " Ver-
borum mimitiis rerum frcuigit pondcra : " so a man may truly say of
the schoolmen, " Quccstioniim mimitiis scientiarum frangunt solidi-
tatem." For were it not better for a man in a fair room, to set up one
great light, or branching candlestick of lights, than to go about with a
small watch candle into every corner? And such is their method,
that rests not so much upon evidence of truth proved by arguments,
authorities, similitudes, examples, as upon particular confutations and
solutions of every scruple, cavillation, and objection ; breeding for the
most part one question, as fast as it solveth another ; even as in the
former resemblance, when you carry the light into one corner, you
darken the rest : so that the fable and fiction of Scylla seemeth to be
a lively image of this kind of philosophy or knowledge, which was
transformed into a comely virgin for the upper parts : but then, " Can
dida succinctam latrantibus inguina mojistris :" so the generalities of
the schoolmen are for a while good and proportionable ; but then,
when you descend into their distinctions and decisions, instead of a
fruitful womb, for the use and benefit of man's life, they end in mon
strous altercations, and barking questions. So as it is not possible
but this quality of knowledge must fall under popular contempt, the
ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. 147
people being apt to contemn truth upon occasion of controversies and
altercations, and to think they are all out of their way which never
meet : and when they see such digladiation l about subtilties, and
matters of no use or moment, they easily fall upon that judgment of
Dionysius of Syracuse, " Verba ista sunt senum otiosorum."
Notwithstanding, certain it is, that if those schoolmen, to their great
thirst of truth, and unwearied travail of wit, had joined variety and
universality of reading and contemplation, they had proved excellent
lights, to the great advancement of all learning and knowledge ; but
as they are, they are great undertakers indeed, and fierce with dark
keeping. But as in the inquiry of the divine truth, their pride inclined
to leave the oracle of God's word, and to vanish in the mixture of their
own inventions ; so in the inquisition of nature, they ever left the oracle
of God's works, and adored the deceiving and deformed images, which
the unequal mirror of their own minds, or a few received authors or
principles, did represent unto them. And thus much for the second
disease of learning.
For the' third vice or disease of learning, which concerneth deceit
or untruth, it is of all the rest the foulest ; as that which doth destroy
the essential form of knowledge ; which is nothing but a representation
of truth ; for the truth of being, and the truth of knowing are one,
differing no more than the direct beam, and the beam reflected. This
vice therefore brancheth itself into two sorts ; delight in deceiving, and
aptness to be deceived ; imposture and credulity ; which, although they
appear to be of a diverse nature, — the one seeming to proceed of cun
ning, and the other of simplicity, — yet certainly they do for the most
part concur : for as the verse noteth,
Percontatoremfiigito, nain garrulus idem est :
an inquisitive man is a prattler : so upon the like reason, a credulous
man is a deceiver : as we see it in fame, that he that will easily believe
rumours, will as easily augment rumours, and add somewhat to them
of his own ; which Tacitus wisely noteth, when he saith, " Fingunl
simul creduntque : " so great an affinity hath fiction and belief.
This facility of credit, and accepting or admitting things weakly
authorized or warranted, is of two kinds, according to the subject : for
it is either a belief of history, or, as the lawyers speak, matter of fact ;
or else of matter of art and opinion. As to the former, we see the
experience and inconvenience of this error in ecclesiastical history,
which hath too easily received and registered reports and narrations
of miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, or monks of the desert, and
other holy men, and their relics, shrines, chapels, and images ; which
though they had a passage for a time, by the ignorance of the people,
the superstitious simplicity of some, and the politic toleration of others,
holding them but as divine poesies : yet after a period of time, when
the mist began to clear up, they grew to be esteemed but as old wives'
fables, impostures of the clergy, illusions of spirits, and badges 01
antichrist, 10 the great scandal and detriment of religion.
So in natural history, we see there hath not been that choice and
1 Sharp combats— crossing of sword*.
L2
U8 ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING.
judgment used as ought to have been, as may appear in the Writings
of Plinius,1 Cardanus,2 Albertus,3 and divers of the Arabians, being
fraught with much fabulous matter, a great part not only untried, but
notoriously untrue, to the great derogation of the credit of natural
philosophy with the grave and sober kind of wits : wherein the wisdom
and integrity of Aristotle is worthy to be observed, that, having made
so diligent and exquisite a history of living creatures, hath mingled it
.sparingly with any vain or feigned matter ; and yet, on the other side,
hath cast all prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the
recording, into one book : excellently discerning that matter of
manifest truth, such whereupon observation and rule was to be built,
was not to be mingled or weakened with matter of doubtful credit ;
and yet again, that rarities and reports, that seem incredible, are not
to be suppressed or denied to the memory of men.
And as for the facility of credit which is yielded to arts and
opinions, it is likewise of two kinds, either when too much belief is
attributed to the arts themselves, or to certain authors in any art.
The sciences themselves, which have had better intelligence and con
federacy with the imagination of man, than with his reason, are three
in number: astrology, natural magic, and alchemy ; of which sciences,
nevertheless, the ends or pretences are noble. For astrology pre-
tendeth to discover that correspondence, or concatenation, which is
between the superior globe and the inferior. Natural magic pre-
tendeth to call and reduce natural philosophy from variety of
speculations to the magnitude of works ; and alchemy pretendeth to
make separation of all the unlike parts of bodies, which in mixtures of
nature are incorporate. But the derivations and prosecutions to these
ends, both in the theories and in the practices, are full of error and
vanity ; which the great professors themselves have sought to veil over
and conceal by enigmatical writings, and referring themselves to
auricular traditions and such other devices, to save the credit of
impostors : and yet surely to alchemy this right is due, that it may be
compared to the husbandman whereof yEsop makes the fable ; that,
when he died, told his sons, that he had left uuto them gold buried
under ground in his vineyard ; and they digged over all the ground,
and gold they found none ; but by reason of their stirring and digging1
the mould about the roots of their vines, they had a great vintage the
year following : so assuredly the search and stir to make gold hath
brought to light a great number of good and fruitful inventions and
experiments, as well for the disclosing of nature, as for the use of
man's life.
And as for the overmuch credit that hath been given unto authors
MI sciences, in making them dictators, that their words should stand ;
and not consuls to give advice ; the damage is infinite that sciences
have received thereby, as the principal cause that hath kept them low,
at a stay, without growth or advancement. For hence it hath come,
1 Pliny the elder, the naturalist.
Cardanus, the name Latinised after the fashion of Bacon's »<me, was Jerome Cardan, an
Han physician and mathematician, born in Pa via, practised at Rome, 1571. He made im
portant discoveries in algebra, and wrote an immense number of books. Died 1576.
Albeitus Magnus was one of the greatest of the scholastic philosophers and theologians,
born in Swabia, 1205. He was supposed to be a magician.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 149
that in arts mechanical the first deviser comes shortest, and time
addeth and perfecteth : but in sciences, the first author goeth farthest,
and time loseth and corrupteth. So we see, artillery, sailing, printing,
and the like, were grossly managed at the first, and by time accom
modated and refined : but contrariwise the philosophies and sciences
of Aristotle,1 Plato, Democritus, Hippocrates, Euclides, Archimedes,
of most vigour at the first, and by time degenerate and embased ;
whereof the reason is no other, but that in the former many wits and
industries have contributed in one ; and in the latter, nwiy wits and
industries have been spent about the wit of some one, whom many
times they have rather depraved than illustrated. For as water will
not ascend higher than the level of the first spring-head from whence
it descendeth, so knowledge derived from Aristotle, and exempted from
liberty of examination, will not rise again higher than the knowledge
of Aristotle. And therefore, although the position be good, " Oportet
discentem credere;" yet it must be coupled with this, " Oportet edocttim
judicare :)} for disciples do owe unto masters only a temporary belief,
and a suspension of their own judgment till they be fully instructed,
and not an absolute resignation, or perpetual captivity : and, therefore,
to conclude this point, I will say no more ; but so let great authors
have their due, as time, which is the author of authors, be not de
prived of his due, which is, farther and farther to discover truth,
Thus I have gone over these three diseases of learning; besides the
which, there are some other rather peccant humours than formed dis
eases, which nevertheless are not so secret and intrinsic, but that they
fall under a popular observation and traducement, and therefore are
not to be passed over.
The first of these is the extreme affecting of two extremities : the
one antiquity, the other novelty ; wherein it seemeth the children of
time do take after the nature and malice of their father. For as he
devoureth his children, so one of them seeketh to devour and suppress
the other, while antiquity envieth there should be new additions, and
novelty cannot be content to add, but it must deface. Surely, the
advice of the prophet is the true direction in this matter, "State super
mas antiquas, et videte qucenam sit via recta et bona, et ambulate in
ea"2 Antiquity deserveth that reverence, that men should make a
stand thereupon, and discover what is the best way: but when the
discovery is well taken, then to make progression. And to speak
truly, " Antiquitas sectdi juventus mundi." These times are the
ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we
account ancient ordine retrograde, by a computation backward from
ourselves.
Another error, induced by the former, is a distrust that anything
should be now to be found out, which the world should have missed
and passed over so long time ; as if the same objection were to be
made to time, that Lucian maketh to Jupiter and other the heathen
gods, of which he wondereth, that they begot so many children in old
1 Aristotle, Plato, and Democritus — philosophers of Greece. Hippocrates, a physician.
Euclid and Archimedes, mathematicians ; the latter great at mechanics. The devotion of th«
learned of the Middle Ages to the Aristotelian philosophy tcpded to prevent anything \\\SM
originality or progress in learning till Bacon's time.
* Jeremiah vi. i&.
XSo ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
time, and begot none in his time ; and asketh, whether they were
become septuagenary, or whether the law Papia, made against old
men's marriages, had restrained them. So it seemeth men doubt, lest
time is become past children and generation ; wherein, contrariwise,
we see commonly the levity and unconstancy of men's judgments,
which, till a matter be done, wonder that it can be done ; and, as soon
as it is done, wonder again that it was no sooner done ; as we see in
the expedition of Alexander into Asia, which at first was prejudged as
a vast and impossible enterprise : and yet afterwards it pleaseth Livy
to make no more of it than this ; "Nil aliud, gnam dene ansus est vana
contemnere:" and the same happened to Columbus in the western
navigation. But in intellectual matters, it is much more common ; as
may be seen in most of the propositions of Euclid, which till they be
demonstrated, they seem strange to our assent ; but being demon
strated, our mind accepteth of them by a kind of relation, as the lawyers
speak, as if we had known them before.
Another error that hath also some affinity with the former, is a con
ceit, that of former opinions or sects, after variety and examination, the
best hath still prevailed, and suppressed the rest : so as, if a man
should begin the labour of a new search, he were but like to light upon
somewhat formerly rejected, and by rejection brought into oblivion ; as
if the multitude, or the wisest, for the multitude's sake, were not ready
to give passage, rather to that which is popular and superficial, than to
that which is substantial and profound : for the truth is, that time
seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down
to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that
which is weighty and solid.
Another error, of a diverse nature from all the former, is the over-
early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods ;
from which time, commonly, sciences receive small or no augmentation.
But as young men, when they knit, and shape perfectly, do seldom
grow to a farther stature, so knowledge, while it is in aphorisms and
observations, it is in growth ; but when it once is comprehended in
exact methods, it may perchance be farther polished and illustrated,
and accommodated for use and practice ; but it increaseth no more in
bulk and substance.
Another error which doth succeed that which we last mentioned, is,
that after the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men have
abandoned universality, or philosophic* prima; which cannot but
cease, and stop all progression. For no perfect discovery can be made
upon a flat or a level : neither is it possible to discover the more re
mote, and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but upon the level
of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science.
Another error hath proceeded from too great a reverence, and a
kind of adoration of the mind and understanding of man : by means
whereof, men have withdrawn themselves too much from the contem
plation of nature, and the observations of experience, and have
tumbled up and down in their own reason and conceits. Upon these
intellectualists, which are, notwithstanding, commonly taken for the
most sublime and divine philosophers, Heraclitus gave a just censure,
saying, " Men sought truth in their own little worlds, and not in the
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 151
great and common world ;" for they disdain to spell, and so by degrees
to read in the volume of God's works ; and contrariwise, by continual
meditation and agitation of wit, do urge and as it were invocate their
o\vn spirits to divine, and give oracles unto them, whereby they are
deservedly deluded.
Another error that hath some connexion with this latter, is, that,
men have used to infect their meditations, opinions, and doctrines,
wilh some conceits which they have most admired, or some sciences
which they have most applied ; and given all things else a tincture
according to them, utterly untrue and unproper. So hath Plato
intermingled his philosophy with theology, and Aristotle with logic ,
and the second school of Plato, Proclus, and the rest, with the
mathematics. For these were the arts which had a kind of primo
geniture with them severally. So have the alchemists made a
philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace ; and Gilbertus,1
our countryman, hath made a philosophy out of the observations of
a loadstone. So Cicero, when reciting the several opinions of the
nature of the soul, he found a musician, that held the soul was but
a harmony, saith pleasantly, "Hie ab arte sua non recessit" etc. But
of these conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely, when he
saith, " Qui respiciunt ad pauca, de facili promt ntiant. "
Another error is an impatience of doubt, and haste to assertion
without due and mature suspension of judgment. For the two ways
of contemplation are not unlike the two ways of action, commonly
spoken of by the ancients: the one plain and smooth in the begin
ning, and in the end impassable : the other rough and troublesome in
the entrance, but after a while fair and even. So it is in contempla
tion ; if a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts ; but
if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
Another error is in the manner of the tradition and delivery of
knowledge, which is for the most part magistral and peremptory ; and
not ingenuous and faithful, in a sort, as may be soonest believed, and
not easiliest examined. It is true, that in compendious treatises for
practice, that form is not to be disallowed. Bat in the true handling
of knowledge, men ought not to fall either, on the one side, into the
vein of Velleius the Epicurean : " Nil tarn metuens, quam ne dubitare
aliqua de re viderctur :" nor, on the other side, into Socrates his
ironical doubting of all things ; but to propound things sincerely,
with more or less asseveration, as they stand in a man's own judgment
proved more or less.
Other errors there are in the scope that men propound to them
selves, whereunto they bend their endeavours : for whereas the more
constant and devote kind of professors of any science ought to pro
pound to themselves to make some additions to their science, they
convert their labours to aspire to certain second prizes ; as to be
a profound interpreter or commentator ; to be a sharp champion or
defender ; to be a methodical compounder or abridger ; and so the
1 William Gilbert, a celebrated physician and natural philosopher. He wrote the first
classical treatise on Magnetism ; which is asserted to contain all the principal facts on that
subject. Galileo and Erasmus greatly admired Gilbert. Born 1540, died 1603,
I5a ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
patrimony of knowledge cometh to be sometimes improved, but
seldom augmented.
But the greatest error of all the rest, is the mistaking or misplacing
of the last or farthest end of knowledge : for men have entered into
a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural
curiosity, and inquisitive appetite ; sometimes to entertain their minds
with variety and delight ; sometimes for ornament and reputation ;
and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction ;
and most times for lucre and profession ; and seldom sincerely to give
a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men.
As if there were sought in knowledge a couch, whereupon to rest a
searching and restless spirit ; or a terrace, for a wandering and variable
mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect ; or a tower of stat^
for a proud mind to raise itself upon ; or a fort or commanding ground
for strife and contention ; or a shop, for profit, or sale ; and not a rich
storehouse, for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of man's estate.
But this is that which will indeed dignify and exalt knowledge, if con
templation and action may be more nearly and straitly conjoined and
united together than they have been ; a conjunction like unto that of
the two highest planets, Saturn, the planet of rest and contemplation,
and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and action. Howbeit, I do not
mean, when I speak of use and action, that end before-mentioned of
the applying of knowledge to lucre and profession ; for I am not
ignorant how much that diverteth and interrupteth the prosecution and
advancement of knowledge, like unto the golden ball thrown before
Ataianta, which "while she goeth aside and stoopeth to take up, the
race is hindered ; " l
Dcclinat cursus, aururnque vohibile tollit.
Neither is my meaning, as was spoken of Socrates, to call
philosophy down from heaven to converse upon the earth : that is,
to leave natural philosophy aside, and to apply knowledge only to
manners and policy. But as both heaven and earth do conspire and
contribute to the use and benefit of man ; so the end ought to be,
from both philosophies to separate and reject vain speculations, and
whatsoever is empty and void, and to preserve and augment what
soever is solid and fruitful : that knowledge may not be, as a courtesan,
for pleasure and vanity only, or, as a bond-woman, to acquire and
gain to her master's use ; but, as a spouse, for generation, fruit, and
comfort.
Thus have I described and opened, as by a kind of dissection,
those peccant humours, the principal of them, which have not only
given impediment to the proficience of learning, but have given also
occasion to the traducement thereof: wherein if I have been too plain,
it must be remembered, "Fidelia vubiera amantis, sed dolosa oscula
waltgnantis"
This, 1 think, I have gained, that I ought to be the better believed
in that which 1 shall say pertaining to commendation ; because I have
proceeded so freely in that which concerneth censure. And yet I
* See fable of At&l^nta. in WJsclona of the Ancients,
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 153
have no purpose to enter into a laudative of learning, or to make a
hymn to the Muses, though I am of opinion that it is long since their
rites were duly celebrated : but my intent is, without varnish or ampli
fication, justly to weigh the dignity of knowledge in the balance with
other things, and to take the true value thereof by testimonies and
arguments divine and human.
First therefore, let us seek the dignity of knowledge in the arche
type or first platform, which is the attributes and acts of God, as far
as they are revealed to man, and may be observed with sobriety ;
wherein we may not seek it by the name of learning ; for all learning
is knowledge acquired, and all knowledge in God is original ; and
therefore we must look for it by another name, that of Wisdom or
Bapience, as the Scriptures call it.
It is so then, that in the work of the creation we see a double
emanation of virtue from God ; the one referring more properly to
power, the other to wisdom ; the one expressed in making the subsis
tence of the matter, and the other in disposing the beauty of the form.
This being supposed, it is to be observed, that, for anything which
appeareth in the history of the creation, the confused mass and matter
of heaven and earth was made in a moment ; and the order and dis
position of that chaos, or mass, was the work of six days ; such a
note of difference it pleased God to put upon the works of power, and
the works of wisdom : wherewith concurreth, that in the former it is
not set down that God said, " Let there be heaven and earth," as it is
set down of the works following ; but actually, that God made heaven
and earth : the one carrying the style of a manufacture, and the other
of a law, decree, or council.
To proceed to that which is next in order, from God to spirits. We
find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial hierarchy of that
supposed Dionysius the senator of Athens, the first place or degree is
given to the angels of love, which are termed Seraphim ; the second
to the angels of light, which are termed Cherubim ; the third, and so
following places, to thrones, principalities, and the rest, which are all
angels of power and ministry ; so as the angels of knowledge and
illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination.
To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible and ma
terial forms ; we read the first form that was created was Light, which
hath a relation and correspondence in nature and corporal things to
knowledge in spirits and incorporal things.
So in the distribution of days, we see, the day wherein God did
rest, and contemplate His own works, was blessed above all the days
wherein He did effect and accomplish them.
After the creation was finished, it is set down unto us, that man was
placed in the garden to work therein ; which work, so appointed to
him, could be no other than work of contemplation j that is, when the
end of the work is but for exercise and experiment, not for necessity ;
for there being then no reluctation of the creature, nor sweat of the
brow, man's employment must of consequence have been matter ot
dplight in the experiment, and not matter of labour for the use.
Again, the first acts which man performed in paradise, consisted of
tfoe two summary parts of knowledge ; the view of creature <? ' the
154 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
imposition of names. As for the knowledge which induced the Fall,
it was, as was touched before, not the natural knowledge of creatures,
but the moral knowledge of good and evil ; wherein the supposition
was, that God's commandments or prohibitions were not the originals
of good and evil, but that they had other beginnings, which man
aspired to know, to the end to make a total defection from God, and to
depend wholly upon himself.
To pass on : in the first event or occurrence after the fall of man,
we see, as the Scriptures have infinite mysteries, not violating at all
the truth of the story or letter, an image of the two estates, the con
templative state, and the active state, figured in the two persons of
Abel and Cain, and in the two simplest and most primitive trades of
life, that of the shepherd, who, by reason of his leisure, his rest in a
place, and living in view of heaven, is a lively image of a contemplative
life ; and that of the husbandman ; where we see again the favour and
election of God went to the shepherd, and not to the tiller of the
ground.
So in the age before the flood, the holy records within those few
memorials, which are there entered and registered, have vouchsafed to
mention, and honour the name of the inventors and authors of music,
and works in metal. In the age after the flood, the first great judg
ment of God upon the ambition of man was the confusion of tongues ;
whereby the open trade and intercourse of learning and knowledge
was chiefly imbarred.
To descend to Moses the lawgiver, and God's first pen. He is
adorned by the Scriptures with this addition and commendation, that
he was "seen in all the learning of the Egyptians ;'J1 which nation,
we know, was one of the most ancient schools of the world : for so
Plato brings in the Egyptian priest saying unto Solon, " You Grecians
are ever children ; you have no knowledge of antiquity, nor antiquity
of knowledge." Take a view of the ceremonial law of Moses. You
shall find, besides the prefiguration of Christ, the badge or difference
of the people of God, the exercise and impression of obedience, and
other divine uses and fruits thereof, that some of the most learned
Rabbins have travailed profitably, and profoundly to observe ; some of
them a natural, some of them a moral sense, or reduction of many of
the ceremonies and ordinances. As in the law of the leprosy, where
it is said, " If the whiteness have overspread the flesh, the patient
may pass abroad for clean ; but if there be any whole flesh remaining,
he is to be shut up for unclean : "2 one of them noteth a principle of
nature, that putrefaction is more contagious before maturity, than
after : and another noteth a position of moral philosophy, that men,
abandoned to vice, do not so much corrupt manners, as those that
are half good and half evil. So in this, and very many other places in
that law, there is to be found, besides the theological sense, much
aspersion of philosophy.
So likewise in that excellent book of Job, if it be revolved with dili
gence, it will be found pregnant and swelling with natural philosophy ;
as for example, cosmography and the roundness of the world : " Qui
1 Acts vii, 53. * Leviticus xiii. iv 14.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 15$
€xtendit aquilonem super vacuum, et appendit terrain super nihilumj "l
wherein the pensileness of the earth, the pole of the north, and the
finiteness or convexity of heaven are manifestly touched. So regain,
matter of astronomy ; " Spiritus ejus ornavit ccelus, et obstetricanti
manu ejus eductus est Coluber tortuosus"* And in another place ;
** Nimquid conjungere valebis micantes stellas Pleiadas, aut gyrum
Arcturi poteris dissipare ?"3 Where the fixing of the stars, ever stand
ing at equal distance, is with great elegancy noted. And in another
place ; " Qui facit Arcturum, et Oriona, et Hyadas, et interiora Aus-
tri j'"4 where again he takes knowledge of the depression of the
southern pole, calling it the secrets of the south, because the southern
stars were in that climate unseen. Matter of generation, " Annon
sicut lac mulsisti me, et sicut caseum coagulasti me" &c.5 Matter ol
minerals, " Habet argentum venarum suarum principia : et auro locus
est in quo conflature,ferrum de terra tollitur, et lapis solutus calore in
as vertitur : " and so forwards in that chapter.6
So likewise in the person of Solomon the king, we see the gift or
endowment of wisdom and learning, both in Solomon's petition, and
in God's assent thereunto, preferred before all other terrene and tem
poral felicity. By virtue of which grant or donative of God, Solomon
became enabled, not only to write those excellent parables, or
aphorisms, concerning divine and moral philosophy ; but also to com
pile a natural history of all verdure, from the cedar upon the moun
tain to the moss upon the wall, which is but a rudiment between
putrefaction and an herb, and also of all things that breathe or move.
Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of
treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of
service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he
maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of
inquisition of truth ; for so he saith expressly, " The glory of God is
to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out ;"7 as if,
according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took
delight to hide His works, to the end to have them found out ; and as
if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God's playfellows
in that game, considering the great commandment of wits nnd means,
whereby nothing needeth to be hidden from them.
Neither did the dispensation of God vary in the times after our
Saviour came into the world ; for our Saviour Himself did first show
His power to subdue ignorance, by His conference with the priests and
doctors of the law, before He showed His power to subdue nature by His
miracles. And the coming of the Holy Spirit was chiefly figured and
expressed in the similitude and gift of tongues, which are but vehi-
cula scie?iti<z.
So in the election of those instruments, which it pleased God to use
for the planUtion of the faith, notwithstanding that at the first He did
employ persons altogether unlearned, otherwise than by inspiration,
more evidently to declare His immediate working, and to abase all
human wisdom or knowledge j yet, nevertheless, that counsel of His
1 Job xxvi. 7. * Job xxvi. 13. * Job xxxviii. 31. * Job ix. 9.
* Job x. ' Job xxviii. i, 2, &c. 7 Prov. xxv. a.
I56 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
was no sooner performed, but in the next vicissitude and succession,
He did send His divine truth into the world, waited on with other
learnings, as with servants or handmaids : for so we see St. Paul, who
was only learned among the apostles, had his pen most used in the
Scriptures of the New Testament.
So again, we find that many of the ancient bishops and fathers of
the Church were excellently read and studied in all the learning of the
heathen ; insomuch, that the edict of the emperor Julianus, whereby
it was interdicted unto Christians to be admitted into schools, lectures,
or exercises of learning, was esteemed and accounted a more per
nicious engine and machination against the Christian faith, than were
all the sanguinary prosecutions of his predecessors ; neither could the
emulation and jealousy of Gregory, the first of that name, bishop of
Rome, ever obtain the opinion of piety or devotion ; but contrariwise
received the censure of humour, malignity, and pusillanimity, even
amongst holy men ; in that he designed to obliterate and extinguish
the memory of heathen antiquity and authors. But contrariwise it
was the Christian Church, which, amidst the inundations of the
Scythians on the one side from the north-west, and the Saracens from
the east, did preserve, in the sacred lap and bosom thereof, the
precious relics even of heathen learning, which otherwise had been
extinguished, as if no such thing had ever been.
And we see before our eyes, that in the age of ourselves and our
fathers, when it pleased God to call the Church of Rome to account
for their degenerate manners and ceremonies, and sundry doctrines
obnoxious, and framed to uphold the same abuses : at one and the
same time it was ordained by the divine providence, that there should
attend withal a renovation, and new spring of all other knowledges :
and, on the other side, we see the Jesuits, who partly in themselves,
and partly by the emulation and provocation of their example, have
much quickened and strengthened the state of learning ; we see, I say,
what notable service and reparation they have done to the Roman see.
Wherefore, to conclude this part, let it be observed, that there be
two principal duties and services, besides ornament and illustration,
which philosophy and human learning do perform to faith and
religion. The one, because they are an effectual inducement to the
exaltation of the Glory of God. For as the Psalms and other Scrip
tures do often invite us to consider, and magnify the great and wonder
ful works of God : so if we should rest only in the contemplation of
the exterior of them, as they first offer themselves to our senses,
we should do a like injury unto the Majesty of God, as if we should
judge or construe of the store of some excellent jeweller, by that only
which is set out towards the street in his shop. The other, because
they minister a singular help and preservative against unbelief and
error ; for our Saviour saith, " You err, not knowing the Scriptures,
nor the power of God ;" laying before us two books or volumes to
study, if we will be secured from error ; first, the Scriptures, revealing
the will of God; and then the creatures, expressing His power;
whereof the latter is a key unto the former : not only opening our
understanding to conceive the true sense of the Scriptures, by the
general notions of reason and rules of speech j but chiefly opening
OP LEARNING. 15?
6ur belief, in drawing us into a due meditation of the omnipotency of
Cod, which is chiefly signed and engraven upon His works. Thus
much therefore for divine testimony and evidence, concerning the true
dignity and value of learning.
As for human proofs, it is so large a field, as, in a discourse of this
nature and brevity, it is fit rather to use choice of those things which
we shall produce, than to embrace the variety of them. First, there
fore, in the degrees of human honour amongst the heathen, it was the
highest, to obtain to a veneration and adoration as a God. This unto
the Christians is as the forbidden fruit. But we speak now separately
of human testimony ; according to which, that which the Grecians call
"apotheosis," and the Latins, " relatio inter divas f was the supreme
honour which man could attribute unto man ; especially when it was
given, not by a formal decree or act of state, as it was used among the
Roman Emperors, but by an inward assent and belief. Which honour
being so high had also a degree or middle term ; for there were
reckoned above human honours, honours heroical and divine : in the
attribution and distribution of which honours, we see antiquity made
this difference : that whereas founders and uniters of states and cities,
lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, fathers of the people, and other eminent
persons in civil merit, were honoured but with the titles of worthies or
demigods, such as were Hercules, Theseus, Minos, Romulus, and the
like : on the other side, such as were inventors and authors of new arts,
endowments and commodities towards man's life, were ever consecrated
amongst the gods themselves : as were Ceres, Bacchus, Mercurius,
Apollo, and others ; and justly : for the merit of the former is confined
within the circle of an age or a nation ; and is like fruitful showers,
which though they be profitable and good, yet serve but for that season,
and for a latitude of ground where they fall ; but the other is indeed
like the benefits of heaven, which are permanent and universal. The
former, again, is mixed with strife and perturbation ; but the latter
hath the true character of divine presence, coming in a^^ra lent, with
out noise or agitation.
Neither is certainly that other merit of learning, in repressing the
inconveniencies which grow from man to man, much inferior to the
former, of relieving the necessities which arise from nature ; which
\nerit was lively set forth by the ancients in that feigned relation of
•Orpheus's theatre, where all beasts and birds assembled, and forgetting
their several appetites, some of prey, some of game, some of quarrel,
stood all sociably together, listening to the airs and accords of the
harp ; the sound whereof no sooner ceased, or was drowned by some
louder noise, but every beast returned to his own nature : wherein is
aptly described the nature and condition of men, who are full of savage
and unreclaimed desires of profit, of lust, of revenge ; which as long
as they give ear to precepts, to laws, to religion, sweetly touched with
eloquence and persuasion of books, of sermons, of harangues, so long
is society and peace maintained ; but if these instruments be silent, of
that sedition and tumult make them not audible, all things dissolve
into anarchy and confusion.
But this appeareth more manifestly, when kings themselves, or
persons of authority under them, or other governors in commonwealths
IS8 ADVANCEMENT Off LEARNING,
and popular estates, are endued with learning. For although he might
be thought partial to his own profession, that said, "Then should
people and estates be happy, when either kings were philosophers, or
philosophers kings ;" yet so much is verified by experience, that under
wise and learned princes and governors there have been ever the best
times : for howsoever kings may have their imperfections in their
passions and customs ; yet if they be illuminate by learning, they have
those notions of religion, policy, and morality, which do preserve them ;
and refrain them from all ruinous and peremptory errors and excesses,
whispering evermore in their ears, when counsellors and servants stand
mute and silent. And senators, or counsellors likewise, which be
learned, do proceed upon more safe and substantial principles, than
counsellors which are only men of experience ; the one sort keeping
dangers afar off, whereas the other them discover not till they come
near hand, and then trust to the agility of their wit to ward or avoid
them.
Which felicity of times under learned princes, to keep still the law
of brevity, by using the most eminent and selected examples, doth best
appear in the age which passed from the death of Domitianus the
emperor, until the reign of Commodus : comprehending a succession
of six princes, all learned, or singular favourers and advancers of
learning ; which age, for temporal respects, was the most happy and
nourishing that ever the Roman empire, which then was a model of
the world, enjoyed ; a matter revealed and prefigured unto Domitian
in a dream the night before he was slain ; for he thought there was
grown behind upon his shoulders a neck and a head of gold : which
came accordingly to pass in those golden times which succeeded ; of
which princes we will make some commemoration : wherein although
the matter will be vulgar, and may be thought fitter for a declamation,
than agreeable to a treatise enfolded as this is ; yet because it is per
tinent to the point in hand, " neque semper arcuni tendit Apollo" and
to name them only were too naked and cursory, I will not omit it
altogether.
The first was Nerva, the excellent temper of whose government, is
by a glance in Cornelius Tacitus touched to the life: " Postquam
divus Nerva res olim insociabiles misctiisset, imperium et libertatem"
And in token of his learning, the last act of his short reign, left to
memory, was a missive to his adopted son Trajan, proceeding upon
some inward discontent at the ingratitude of the times, comprehended
in a verse of Homer's.
Telis Phcebe, tuts lacrymas tilctscere nostras.
Trajan, who succeeded, was for his person not learned : but if we
will hearken to the speech of our Saviour, that saith, "He that
receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall have a prophet's
reward," he deserveth to be placed amongst the most learned princes ;
for there was not a greater admirer of learning, or benefactor of
learning ; a founder of famous libraries, a perpetual advancer oj
learned men to office, and a familiar converser with learned professors
and preceptors, who were noted to have then most credit in court. On
the other side, how much Trajan's virtue and government was admired
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
ftnd Renowned, surely no testimony of grave and faithful history doth
more lively set forth, than that legend tale of Gregorius Magnus,
bishop of Rome, who was noted for the extreme envy he bore towards
all heathen excellency ; and yet he is reported, out of the love and
estimation of Trajan's moral virtues, to have made unto God passionate
and fervent prayers for the delivery of his soul out of hell ; and to
have obtained it, with a caveat, that he should make no more such
petitions. In this prince's time also, the persecutions against the
Christians received intermission, upon the certificate of Plinius Se-
cundus, a man of excellent learning, and by Trajan advanced.
Adrian, his successor, was the most curious l man that lived, and
the most universal inquirer ; insomuch as it was noted for an error in
his mind, that he desired to comprehend all things, and not to reserve
himself for the worthiest things ; falling into the like humour that was
long before noted in Philip of Macedon, who, when he would needs
over-rule and put down an excellent musician, in an argument touching
music, was well answered by him again, " God forbid, Sir," saith he,
" that your fortune should be so bad, as to know these things better
than I." It pleased God likewise to use the curiosity of this emperor,
as an inducement to the peace of his Church in those days. For
having Christ in veneration, not as a God or Saviour, but as a wonder
or novelty ; and having His picture in his gallery, matched with Apol-
lonius,2 with whom, in his vain imagination, he thought He had some
conformity, yet it served the turn to allay the bitter hatred of those
times against the Christian name, so as the Church had peace during
his time. And for his government civil, although he did not attain to
that of Trajan's, in the glory of arms, or perfection of justice ; yet in
deserving of the weal of the subject he did exceed him. For Trajan
erected many famous monuments and buildings, insomuch as Con-
stantine the Great in emulation was wont to call him " Parietaria,"
wall-flower, because his name was upon so many walls : but his build
ings and works were more of glory and triumph than use and neces
sity. But Adrian spent his whole reign, which was peaceable, in a
perambulation, or survey of the Roman empire, giving order, and
making assignation where he went, for re-edifying of cities, towns, and
forts decayed, and for cutting of rivers and streams, and for making
bridges and passages, and for policying of cities and commonalties
with new ordinances and constitutions, and granting new franchises
and incorporations ; so that his whole time was a verv restauration of
all the lapses and decays of former times.
Antoninus Pius, who succeeded him, was a prince excellently
learned ; and had the patient and subtle wit of a schoolman ; inso
much as in common speech, which leaves no virtue untaxed, he was
called " Cymini sector," a carver, or a divider of cumin seed, which
is one of the least seeds ; such a patience he had and settled spirit,
to enter into the least and most exact difference of causes, a fruit no
doubt of the exceeding tranquillity and serenity of his mind ; which
being no ways charged or encumbered, either with fears, remorses, or
scruples, but having been noted for a man of the purest goodness,
1 Nicely diligent ; enquiring. * See p. 47, last not*.
160 AbVANC&M&ttf OF
without all fiction or affectation, that hath reigned or lived, made hii
mind continually present and entire. He likewise approached a decree
nearer unto Christianity, and became, as Agrippa said unto St. Paul,
" half a Christian ; " holding their religion and law in good opinion,
and not only ceasing persecution, but giving way to the advancement
of Christians.
There succeeded him the first divi fratres, the two adoptive
brethren, Lucius Commodus Verus, son to yEiius Verus, who de
lighted much in the softer kind of learning, and was wont to call the
poet Martial his Virgil : and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, whereof the
latter, who obscured his colleague, and survived him long, was named
the philosopher ; who, as he excelled all the rest in learning, so he
excelled them likewise in perfection of all royal virtues ; insomuch as
Julianus the emperor, in his book, intitled " Caesares," being as a
pagquil l or satire to deride all his predecessors, feigned, that they were
all invited to a banquet of the gods, and Silenus the jester sat at the
nether end of the table, and bestowed a scoff on every one as they
came in ; but when Marcus. Philosophus came in, Silenus was gravel
led, and out of countenance, not knowing where to carp at him, save
at the last he gave a glance at his patience towards his wife. And the
virtue of this prince, continued with that of his predecessor, made the
name of Antoninus so sacred in the world, that though it were extremely
dishonoured in Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus, who all bore
the name ; yet when Alexander Severus refused the name, because he
was a stranger to the family, the Senate with one acclamation said,
" Quo modo Augustus, sic et Antoninus" In such renown and vene
ration was the name of these two princes in those days, that they
would have had it as a perpetual addition in all the emperors' style.
In this emperor's time also, the Church for the most part was in peace ;
so as in this sequence of six princes, we do see the blessed effects of
learning in sovereignty, painted forth in the greatest table of the world.
But for a tablet, or picture of smaller volume,— not presuming to
speak of your majesty that liveth, — in my judgment, the most exceilent
is that of Queen Elizabeth, your immediate predecessor in this part of
Britain ; a princess that if Plutarch were now alive to write lives by
parallels, would trouble him, I think to find for her a parallel amongst
won.en. This lady was endued with learning in her sex singular, and
rare even amongst masculine princes ; whether we speak of learning
of language, or of science, modern or ancient, divinity or humanity':
and unto the very last year of her life, she accustomed to appoint set
hours for reading ; scarcely any young student in an university, more
daily, or more duly. As for her government, I assure myself, 1 shall
not exceed, if I do affirm, that this part of the island never had fortv-
five years of better times ; and yet' not through the calmness of the
ieason, but through the wisdom of her regiment.
For if there be considered, of the one side, the truth of religion
established ; the constant peace and security ; the good administration
of justice ; the temperate use of the prerogative, not slackened, nor
1 A coarse satire : the name taken from the statue called Pasquin, which stood in Rome, on
which were affixed in the night satirical and scurrilous remarks on persons and public
pccurrences.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 161
much strained : the flourishing state of learning, sortable to so excel
lent a patroness ; the convenient estate of wealth and means, both ol
crown and subject ; the habit of obedience, and the moderation of
discontents ; and there be considered, on the other side, the differences
of religion, the troubles of neighbour countries, the ambition of Spain,
arid opposition of Rome : and then, that she was solitary, and of her
self: these things, ' say, considered, as I could not have chosen an
instance so recent and so proper, so, I suppose, I could not have
chosen one more remarkable, or eminent, to the purpose now in hand,
which is concerning the conjunction of learning in the prince, with
felicity in the people.
Neither hath learning an influence and operation only upon civil
merit and moral virtue, and the arts or temperature of peace and
peaceable government ; but likewise it hath no less power and efficacy
in enablement towards martial and military virtue and prowess ; as
may be notably represented in the examples of Alexander the Great,
and Caesar the dictator, mentioned before, but now in fit place to be
resumed ; of whose virtues and acts in war there needs no note or
recital, having been the wonders of time in that kind : but of their
affections towards learning, and perfections in learning, it is pertinent
to say somewhat.
Alexander was bred and taught under Aristotle the great philoso
pher, who dedicated divers of his books of philosophy unto him : he
was attended by Callisthenes, and divers other learned persons, that
followed him in camp, throughout his journeys and conquests. What
price and estimation he had learning in, doth notably appear in these
three particulars: first, in the envy he used to express that he bore
towards Achilles, in this, that he had so good a trumpet of his praises
as Homer's verses : secondly, in the judgment or solution he gave
touching that precious cabinet of Darius, which was found amongst
his jewels, whereof question was made as to what thing was worthy to
be put into it, and he gave his opinion for Homer's works : thirdly, in
his letter to Aristotle, after he had set forth his books of nature, wherein
he expostulateth with him for publishing the secrets or mysteries of
philosophy, and gave him to understand that himself esteemed it more
to excel other men in learning and knowledge, than in power and
empire. And what use he had of learning doth appear, or rather
shine, in all his speeches and answers, being full of science and use of
science, and that in all variety.
And here again it may seem a thing scholastical, and somewhat
idle, to recite things that every man knoweth ; but yet, since the argu
ment I handle leadeth me thereunto, I am glad that men shall perceive
I am as willing to flatter, if they will so call it, an Alexander, or a
Caesar, or an Antoninus, that are dead many hundred years since, as
any that now liveth : for it is the displaying of the glory of learning in
sovereignty that I propound to myself, and not an humour of declaim
ing any man's praises. Observe then the speech he used of Diogenes,
and see if it tend not to the true estate of one of the greatest questions
of moral philosophy ; whether the enjoying of outward things, or the
contemning of them, be the greatest happiness : for when he saw
Diogenes so perfectly contented with so little, he said to those that
M
t6a ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,
mocked at his condition ; " Were I not Alexander, I would wish to ttt
Diogenes." But Seneca invcrtcth it, and saith : " Plus erat, quod his
nolict accipere, quam quod ille posset dare" " There were more
things which Diogenes would have refused, than those were which
Alexander could have given or enjoyed."
Observe again that speech which was usual with him, " That he felt
his mortality chiefly in two things, sleep and lust ; " and see if it were
not a speech extracted out of the depth of natural philosophy, and
liker to have come out of the mouth of Aristotle or Democritus, than
from Alexander.
See again that speech of humanity and poesy ; when upon the
bleeding of his wounds, he called unto him one of his flatterers, that was
wont to ascribe to him divine honour, and said, " Look, this is very
blood ; this is not such liquor as Homer speaketh of, which ran from
Venus's hand, when it was pierced by Diomcdes."
See likewise his readiness in reprehension of logic in the speech he
used to Cassander, upon a complaint that was made against his father
Antipater : for when Alexander happened to say, " Do you think these
\nen would have come from so far to complain, except they had just
cause of grief ?" And Ca^sander answered, " Yea, that was the mat
ter, because they thought they should not be disproved." Said Alex
ander laughing : " See the subtilities of Aristotle, to take a matter boU
ways, pro ct contra" etc.
But note again how well he could use the same art, which he repre
hended, to serve his own humour, when bearing a secret grudge to
Callisthenes, because he was against the new ceremony of his adora
tion. Feasting one night, where the same Callisthenes was at the
table, it was moved by some, after supper, for entertainment sake, that
Callisthenes, who was an eloquent man, might speak of some theme
or purpose at his own choice : which Callisthenes did ; choosing the
praise of the Macedonian nation for his discourse, and performing the
same with so good manner, as the hearers were much ravished : where
upon Alexander, nothing pleased, said, " It was easy to be eloquent
upon so good a subject. But/' saith he, "turn your style, and let us
hear what you can say against us : " which Callisthenes presently
undertook, and did with that sting and life, that Alexander interrupted
him, and said, " The goodness of the cause made him eloquent before,
and despite made him eloquent then again."
Consider farther, for tropes of rhetoric, that excellent use of a meta
phor or translation, wherewith he taxed Antipater, who was an im
perious and tyrannous governor: for when one of Antipater's friends
commended him to Alexander for his moderation, that he did not
degenerate, as his other lieutenants did, into the Persian pride in use
of purple, but kept the ancient habit of Macedon, of black : "True/'
saith Alexander, "but Antipater is all purple within." Or that other
when Parmenio came to him in the plain of Arbela, and showed him
the innumerable multitude of his enemies, especially as they appeared
by the infinite number of lights, as it had been a new firmament of
stars, and thereupon advised him to assail them by night: whereupon
he answered that he would not steal the victory.
For matter of policy, weigh that significant distinction, so much in
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 163
all ages embraced, that he made between his two friends, Hephaestion
and Craterus, when he said, " That the one loved Alexander, and the
other loved the king : " describing the principal difference of princes'
best servants, that some in affection love their person, and others in
duty love their crown.
Weigh also that excellent taxation of an error ordinary with coun
sellors of princes, that they counsel their masters according to the
model of their own mind and fortune, and not of their masters ; when,
upon Darius's great offers, Parmenio had said," Surely I would accept
these offers, were I as Alexander ; " saith Alexander, " So would I,
were I as Parmenio."
Lastly, weigh that quick and acute reply, which he made when he
gave so large gifts to his friends and servants, and was asked what he
did reserve for himself, and he answered, " Hope : " weigh, I say,
whether he had not cast up his account right, because hope must be
the portion of all that resolve upon great enterprises. For this was
Caesar's portion when he went first into Gaul, his estate being then
utterly overthrown with iargesscs. And this was likewise the portion
of that noble prince, howsoever transported with ambition, Henry
Duke of Guise, of whom it was usually said, that he was the greatest
usurer in France, because he had turned all his estate into obligations.
To conclude therefore : as certain critics are used to say hyperboli-
cally, "That if all sciences were lost, they might be found in Virgil ;"
so certainly this may be said truly, there are the prints and footsteps
of all learning in those few speeches which are reported of this prince :
the admiration of whom, when I consider him not as Alexander the
Great, but as Aristotle's scholar, hath carried me too far.
As for Julius Caesar, the excellency of his learning needeth not to
be argued from his education, or his company, or his speeches ; but in
a farther degree doth declare itself in his writings and works ; whereof
some are extant and permanent, and some unfortunately perished.
For, first we see, there is left unto us that excellent history of his own
wars, which he intitled only a commentary, wherein all succeeding
times have admired the solid weight of matter, and the real passages,
and lively images of actions and persons, expressed in the greatest
propriety of words and perspicuity of narration that ever was ; which
that it was not the effect of a natural gift, but of learning and precept,
is well witnessed by that work of his, intitled " De Analogia," being a
grammatical philosophy, wherein he did labour to make this same
vox ad placitum to become 'vox ad licitum, and to reduce custom ot
speech to congruity of speech; and took, as it were, the picture of
words from the life of reason.
So we receive from him, as a monument both of his power and
learning, the then reformed computation of the year ; well expressing
that he took it to be as great a glory to himself to observe and know
the law of the heavens, as to give law to men upon the earth.
So likewise in that book of his, " Anti-Cato," it may easily appear
that he did aspire as well to victory of wit as victory of war ; under
taking therein a conflict against the greatest champion with the pe:i
that then lived, Cicero the orator.
So again in his book of "Apophthegms," which he collected, we
M 2
!64 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
see that he esteemed it more honour to make himself but a pair of
tables.1 to take the wise and pithy words of others, than to have every
word of his own to be made an apophthegm, or an oracle ; as vain
princes, by custom of flattery, pretend to do. And yet if I should
enumerate divers of his speeches, as I did those of Alexander, they are
truly such as Solomon noted, when he saith, ** Verba sapientum tan-
quani aculei, et tan^uam clam in altum defixi:" whereof I will only
recite three, not so delectable for elegancy, but admirable for vigour
and efficacy.
As first, it is reason he be thought a master of words, that could
with one word appease a mutiny in his army, which was thus : The
Romans, when their generals did speak to their army, did use the word
Milites, but when the magistrates spake to the people, they did use the
word Quirites. The soldiers were in tumult, and seditiously prayed to
be cashiered ; not that they so meant, but by expostulation thereof to
draw Ccesar to other conditions ; wherein he being resolute not to give
way, after some silence, he began his speech, " Ego, Quirites :" which
did admit them already cashiered : wherewith they were so surprised,
crossed, and confused, as they would not suffer him to go on in his
speech, but relinquished their demands, and made it their suit, to be
again called by the name of " Milites."
The second speech was thus : Caesar did extremely affect the name
of king ; and some were set on, as he passed by, in popular acclama
tion to salute him king ; whereupon, finding the cry weak and poor,
he put it off thus, in a kind of jest, as if they had mistaken his surname ;
" Non rex. sum, sed Cczsar;" a speech, that if it be searched, the life
and fulness of it can scarce be expressed : for first, it was a refusal of
the name, but yet not serious : again, it did signify an infinite confi
dence and magnanimity, as if he presumed Caesar was the greater
title, as by his worthiness it is come to pass till this day : but chiefly,
it was a speech of great allurement towards his own purpose ; as if
the state did strive with him but for a name, whereof mean families
were vested ; for Rex was a surname with the Romans, as well as King
is with us.
The last speech which I will mention was used to Metellus ; when
Ca?sar, after war declared, did possess himself of the city of Rome, at
which time entering into the inner treasury to take the money there
accumulated, Metellus, being tribune, forbade him : whereto Ca?sar
said, " That if he did not desist, he would lay him dead in the place."
And presently taking himself up, he added, " Young man, it is harder
for me to speak it, than to do it ;" " Adolescens, durius est uiihi hoc
diccre, quam facere? A speech compounded of the greatest terror
and greatest clemency that could proceed out of the mouth of man.
But to return, and conclude with him; it is evident, himself knew
well his own perfection in learning, and took it upon him : as appeared,
when, upon occasion that some spake, what a strange resolution it was
in Lucius Sylla to resign his dictature ; he scoffing at him, to his own
advantage, answered, u That Sylla could not skill of letters, and there-
fore knew not how to dictate."
* Cablets of wax or ivory.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 165
And here it were fit to leave this point, touching the concurrence of
military virtue and learning, for what example should come with any
grace, after those two of Alexander and Caesar, were it not in regard
of the rareness of circumstance, that I find in one other particular, as
that which did so suddenly pass from extreme scorn to extreme
wonder ; and it is of Xenophon the philosopher, who went from
Socrates's school into Asia, in the expedition of Cyrus the younger,
against king Artaxerxes. This Xenophon at that time was very young,
and never had seen the wars before ; neither had any command in the
army, but only followed the war as a voluntary, for the love and con
versation of Proxenus his friend. He was present when Falinus came
in message from the great king1 to the Grecians, after that Cyrus was
slain in the field, and they a handful of men left to themselves in the
midst of the king's territories, cut off from their country by many
navigable rivers, and many hundred miles. The message imported
that they should deliver up their arms, and submit themselves to the
king's mercy. To which message, before answer was made, divers of
t.ie army conferred familiarly with Falinus : and amongst the rest
Xenophon happened to say, "Why, Falinus, we have now -Hit these
two things left, our arms and our virtue ; and if we yield up nir arms,
how shall we make use of our virtue?" Whereto Falinus, smiling on
him, said, "If I be not deceived, young gentleman, yo-j are an
Athenian, and, I believe you study philosophy, and it is pxetty that
you say ; but you are much abused, if you think your virtue can with
stand the king's power." Here was the scorn : the wonder followed ;
which was, that this young scholar, or philosopher, after r-!l the cap
tains were murdered in parley by treason, conducted those ten thou
sand foot, through the heart of all the king's high countries, from
Babylon to Graecia in safety, in despite of all the king's forces, to the
astonishment of the world, and the encouragement of the Grecians in
time succeeding to make invasion upon the kings of Persia ; as was
after purposed by Jason the Thessalian, attempted by Agesilaus the
Spartan, and achieved by Alexander the Macedonian, all upon the
ground of the act of that young scholar.
To proceed now from imperial and military virtue to moral and
private virtue ; first, it is an assured truth, which is contained in the
verses ;
Scilicet ingenuas didicisse fide liter artest
Emollit mores, nee sinit esseferos.
It taketh away the wildness, and barbarism, and fierceness of men's
minds ; but indeed the accent had need be upon fideliter j for a little
buperficial learning doth rather work a contrary effect. It taketh away
all levity, temerity, and insolency, by copious suggestion of all doubts
and difficulties, and acquainting the mind to balance reasons on both
sides, and to turn back the first offers and conceits of the mind, and
to accept of nothing but examined and tried. It taketh away vain
admiration of anything, which is the root of all weakness : lor all
things are admired, either because they are new, or because they are
* The usual Greek term for the King of Persia.
166 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
great. For novelty, no man that wadcth in learning or contemplation
thoroughly, but will find that printed in his heart, "Nil novi super
terrain.'' Neither can any man marvel at the play of puppets, that
goeth behind the curtain, and adviseth well of the motion. And for
magnitude, as Alexander the Great, after he was used to great armies,
and the conquests of the spacious provinces in Asia, when he received
letters out of Greece, of some fights and services there, which were
commonly for a passage, or a fort, or some walled town at the most,
he said, " It seemed to him, that he was advertised of the battle of the
frogs and the mice, that the old tales went of." So certainly, if a man
meditate upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon
it, the divineness of souls excepted, will not seem much other than an
ant-hill, where some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and
some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust. It taketh
away or mitigateth fear of death, or adverse fortune ; which is one of
the greatest impediments of virtue, and imperfections of manners.
For if a man's mind be deeply seasoned with the consideration of the
mortality and corruptible nature of things, he will easily concur with
Epictetus,1 who went forth one day, and saw a woman weeping for her
pitcher of earth that was broken ; and went forth the next day, and
saw a woman weeping for her son that was dead ; and thereupon said,
" Heri -vidi fragilem frangi, hodie iridt mortalem mori? And there
fore did Virgil excellently and profoundly couple the knowledge of
causes, and the conquest of all fears together, as concomitantia :
Felix, qui potuif. rerum cognoscere causas,
Quique mctus omnes, et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pcdibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari.
It were too long to go over the particular remedies which learning
doth minister to all the diseases of the mind, sometimes purging the
ill humours, sometimes opening the obstructions, sometimes helping
digestion, sometimes increasing appetite, sometimes healing the
wounds and exulcerations thereof, and the like ; and therefore I
will conclude with that which hath " rationem totius" which is, that
it disposeth the constitution of the mind not to be fixed or settled in
the defects thereof, but still to be capable and susceptible of growth
and reformation. For the unlearned man knows not what it is to
descend into himself, or to call himself to account ; nor the pleasure
of that " suavissima vi/a, indies sentire se fieri mcliorem. The good
parts he hath, he will learn to show to the full, and use them dexter
ously, but not much to increase them ; the faults he hath, he will learn
to hide and colour them, but not much to amend them : like an ill
mower, that mows on still, and never whets his scythe. Whereas,
with the learned man it fares otherwise, that he doth ever intermix
the correction and amendment of his mind with the use and employ
ment thereof. Nay, farther, in general and in sum, certain it is, that
verittis and bonitas differ but as the seal and the print : for truth
prints goodness ; and they be the clouds of error, which descend in
the storms of passions and perturbations.
* One of the best and. wisest of the Stoic philosophers. The " Enchiridion " was compiled
from his lectures. It was translated by Elizabeth Cartes,
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 167
From moral virtue let us pass on to matter of power and command
ment, and consider whether in right reason there be any comparable
with that, wherewith knowledge investeth and crowneth man's nature.
We see the dignity of the commandment is according to the dignity of
the commanded : to have commandment over beasts, as herdmen
have, is a thing contemptible : to have commandment over children,
as schoolmasters have, is a matter of small honour ; to have com
mandment over galley-slaves, is a disparagement, rather than an
honour. Neither is the commandment of tyrants much better, over
people which have put off the generosity of their minds : and there
fore it was ever holden, that honours in free monarchies and common
wealths had a sweetness more than in tyrannies, because the com
mandment extendeth more over the wills of men, and not only over
their deeds arid services. And therefore when Virgil putteth himself
forth to attribute to Augustus Caesar the best of human honours, he
doth it in these words :
vie torque volenta
Per populos dat jura, viamque affectat Olympo.
But the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the command
ment over the will ; for it is a commandment over the reason, belief,
and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and
giveth law to the will itself : for 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 know
ledge and learning. And therefore we see the detestable and extreme
pleasure that arch-heretics and false prophets are transported with
when they once find in themselves that they have a superiority
in the faith and conscience of men ; so great, as, if they have once
tasted of it, it is seldom seen that any torture or persecution can
make them relinquish or abandon it. But as this is that which the
author of the "Revelation" calleth "the depth," or profoundness,
" of Satan ;" so, by argument of contraries, the just and lawful
sovereignty over men's understanding, by force of truth rightly in
terpreted, is that which approachcth nearest to the similitude of
the divine rule.
As for fortune and advancement, the beneficence of learning is
not so confined to give fortune only to states and commonwealths, as
it doth not likewise give fortune to paiticular persons. For it was
well noted long ago, that Homer hath given more men their livings,
than either Sylla, or Caesar, or Augustus ever did, notwithstanding
their great largesses and donatives, and distributions of lands to so
many legions ; and no doubt it is hard to say, whether arms or learn
ing have advanced greater numbers. And in case of sovereignty we
see, that if arms or descent have carried away the kingdom, yet
learning hath carried the priesthood, which ever hath been in some
competition with empire.
Again, for the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning, ft
far surpasseth all other in nature ; for shall the pleasures of the affec
tions so exceed the pleasures of the senses, as much as the obtaining
Qf desire or victory exceedetl) a song or a dinner ? and must not, (X/
168 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
consequence, the pleasures of the intellect, or understanding, exceed
the pleasures of the affections ? We see in all other pleasures there
is a satiety, and after they be used, their verdure cleparteth ; which
showeth well they be but deceits of pleasure, and not pleasures ;
and that it was the novelty which pleased, and not the quality ; and
therefore we see that voluptuous men turn friars, and ambitious
princes turn melancholy.1 But of knowledge there is no satiety-
but satisfaction and appetite are perpetually interchangeable ; and
therefore appeareth to be good in itself simply, without fallacy or
accident. Neither is that pleasure of small efficacy and content
ment to the mind of man, which the poet Lucretius describcth
elegantly :
Suave mari mag.no, turbantibus czquora vcntis, etc.
" It is a view of delight," saith he, "to stand or walk upon the shore
side, and to see a ship tossed with tempest upon the sea ; or to be in
a fortified tower, and to see two battles join upon a plain ; but it is a
pleasure incomparable for the mind of man to be settled, landed, and
fortified in the certainty of truth, and from thence to descry and
behold the errors, perturbations, labours, and wanderings up and down
of other men." 2
Lastly, leaving the vulgar arguments that by learning man excelleth
man in that wherein man excelleth beasts ; that by learning man
ascendeth to the heavens and their motions, where in body he cannot
come, and the like : let us conclude with the dignity and excellency
of knowledge and learning in that whereunto man's nature doth most
aspire, which is, immortality or continuance : for to this tendeth gene
ration, and raising of houses and families ; to this tend buildings,
foundations, and monuments ; to this tendeth the desire of memory,
fame, and celebration, and in effect the strength of all other human
desires. We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are
more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For
have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years, or
more, without the loss of a syllable or letter ; during which time,
infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities, have been decayed and de
molished ? It is not possible to have the true pictures or statues oi
Cyrus, Alexander, Caesar ; no, nor of the kings or great personages o\
much later years ; for the originals cannot last, and the copies cannot
but lose of the life and truth. But the images of men's wits and
knowledges remain in books exempted from the wrong of time, and
capable of perpetual renovation. Neither are they fitly to be called
images, because they generate still, and cast their seeds in the mind of
others, provoking and causing infinite actions and opinions in succeed
ing ages : so that if the invention of the ship was thought so noble,
which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and con-
sociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits ; how
much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through
the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the,
wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other? Nay*
1 As in the instance of Charles V. o.f Germany.
* See Essay op Truth.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 169
farther, we see, some of the philosophers which were least divine, and
most immersed in the senses, and denied generally the immortality of
the soul ; yet came to this point, that whatsoever motions the spirit of
man could act and perform without the organs of the body, they
thought might remain after death, which were only those of the under
standing, and not of the affections ; so immortal and incorruptible a
thing did knowledge seem unto them to be. But we, that know by
divine revelation, that not only the understanding, but the affections
purified ; not only the spirit, but the body changed, shall be advanced
to immortality, do disclaim in these rudiments of the senses. But it
must oe remembered both in this last point, and so it may likewise be
needful in other places, that in probation of the dignity of knowledge
or learning, I did in the beginning separate divine testimony from
human, which method I have pursued, and so handled them both
apart.
Nevertheless I do not pretend, and I know it will be impossible for
me, by any pleading of mine, to reverse the judgment, either of ^sop's
cock, that preferred the barley-corn before the gem ; or of Midas, that
being chosen judge between Apollo, president of the muses, and Pan,
god of the flocks, judged for plenty ; or of Paris, that judged for beauty
and love, against wisdom and power ; or of Agrippina, " Ocddat
matrem, modo imperet? that preferred empire with any condition
never so detestable ; or of Ulysses, " qui vetulam pratulit immor-
talitati? being a figure of those which prefer custom and habit before
all excellency ; or of a number of the like popular judgments. For
these things must continue as they have been ; but so will that also
continue, whereupon learning hath ever relied, and which faileth not :
"Justificata est Sapieutia a filiis sitis" *
BOOK II.
IT might seem to have more convenience, though it come often
otherwise to pass, excellent king, that those which are fruitful in thrir
generations, and have in themselves the foresight of immortality in
their descendants, should likewise be more careful of the good estate of
future times, unco which, they know, they must transmit and commend
their dearest pledges. Queen Elizabeth was a sojourner in the world,
in respect of her unmarried life, and was a blessing to her own times;
and yet so as the impression of her good government, besides her
happy memory, is not without some effect which doth survive her.
But to your majesty, whom God hath already blessed with so much
royal issue,2 worthy to continue and represent you for ever ; and whose
youthful and fruitful bed doth yet promise many the like renovations ;
it is proper and agreeable to be conversant, not only in the transitory
parts of good government, but in those acts also which are in their
nature permanent and perpetual : amongst the which, if affection do
1 St. Matthew xi. 19 : St. Luke vii. 35.
• Henry, Elizabeth, nqd Charles,
IT* ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
not transport me, there is not any more worthy than the farther
endowment of the world with sound and fruitful knowledge. For why
should a few received authors stand up like Hercules's columns ;
beyond which there should be no sailing or discovering, since we have
so bright and benign a star as your majesty, to conduct and prosper
us ? To return therefore where we left, 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,
wherein I purpose to speak actively, without digressing or dilating.
Let this ground therefore be laid, that all works are overcome by
amplitude of reward, by soundness of direction, and by the conjunc
tion of labours. The first multiplieth endeavour, the second pre-
venteth error, and the third supplieth the frailty of man ; but the prin
cipal of these is direction : for " claudus in via antevcrtit cursorem
extra viam j" and Solomon excellently setteth it down, "If the iron
be not sharp, it requireth more strength ; but wisdom is that which
prevaileth : J> signifying, that the invention or election of the mean is
more effectual than any irifprcement or accumulation of endeavours.
This I am induced to speak, for that, not derogating from the noble
intention of any that have been deservers towards the state of learn
ing, I do observe, nevertheless, that their works and acts are rather
matters of magnificence and memory, than of progression and pro-
ficience, and tend rather to augment the mass of learning, in the
multitude of learned men, than to rectify or raise the sciences them
selves.
The works 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. For as water, whether it be the dew of heaven,
or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and lose itself in the ground,
except it be collected into some receptacle, where it may by union
comfort and sustain itself; and for that cause the industry of man
hath made and framed spring-heads, conduits, cisterns, and pools,
which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn with
accomplishments of magnificence and state, as well as of use and
necessity ; so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend
from divine inspiration, or spring from human sense, would soon
perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, tradi
tions, conferences, and places appointed ; as universities, colleges, and
schools, for the receipt and comforting of the same.
The works which concern the seats and places of learning are four :
foundations and buildings, endowments with revenues, endowments
with franchises and privileges, institutions and ordinances for govern
ment ; all tending to quietness and privateness of life, and discharge
of cares and troubles ; much like the stations which Virgil prescribcth
for the hiving of bees ;
Principle sedes afibus statioque fctenda,
i^uo ncque sit vcitlis aditus, etc.
The works touching books are two : first, libraries, which are as the
shrines where all the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue,
and that without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed I
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 171
secondly, new editions of authors, with more correct impressions, more
faithful translations, more profitable glosses, more diligent annota
tions, and the like.
The works pertaining to the persons of learned men, besides the
advancement and countenancing of them in general, are two : the
reward and designation of readers in sciences already extant and
invented ; and the reward and designation of writers and inquirers
concerning any parts of learning not sufficiently laboured and pro
secuted.
These are summarily the works and acts, wherein the merits of
many excellent princes and other worthy personages have been con
versant. As for any particular commemorations, I call to mind what
Cicero said, when he gave the general thanks: " Difficile non aliquem^
ingratum quenquam praterire? Let us rather, according to the Scrip
tures, look unto the part of the race which is before us, than look back
to that which is already attained.
First therefore, amongst so many great foundations of colleges in
Europe, I find strange that they are all dedicated to professions, and
none left free to arts and sciences at large. For if men judge that
learning should be referred to action, they judge well ; but in this they
fall into the error described in the ancient fable, in which the other
parts of the body did suppose the stomach had been idle, because it
neither performed the office of motion, as the limbs do, nor of sense,
as the head doth ; but yet, notwithstanding, it is the stomach that
digesteth and distributeth to all the rest : so if any man think philo
sophy and universality to be idle studies, he doth not consider that all
professions are from thence served and supplied. And this I take to
be a great cause that hath hindered the progression of learning,
because these fundamental knowledges have been studied but in
passage. For if you will have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used
to do, it is not anything you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring
of the earth, arid putting new mould about the roots, that must work
it. Neither is it to be forgotten, that this dedicating of foundations
and dotations to professory learning, hath not only had a malign
aspect and influence upon the growth of sciences, but hath also been
prejudicial to states and governments. For hence it proceedeth that
princes find a solitude in regard of able men to serve them in causes
of estate, because there is no education collegiate which is free, where
such as were so disposed might give themselves to histories, modern
languages, books of policy and civil discourse, and other the like
enablements unto service of state.
And because founders of colleges do plant, and founders of lectures
do water, it followeth well in order, to speak of the defect which is in
public lectures ; namely, in the smallness and meanness of the salary
or reward, which in most places is assigned unto them ; whether they
be lectures of arts or of professions. For it is necessary to the pro
gression ol sciences, that readers be of the most able and sufficient
men, as those which are ordained for generating and propagating of
sciences, and not for transitory use. This cannot be, except their
condition and endowment be such as may content the ablest man
to appropriate his whole labour, and continue his whole age in that
I7a ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
function and attendance, and therefore must have a proportion
answerable to that mediocrity or competency of advancement, which
may be expected from a profession, or the practice of a profession.
So as, if you will have sciences flourish, you must observe David's
military law, which was, " That those which stayed with the carriage
•should have equal part with those which were in the action ; " else will
the carriages be ill attended. So readers in sciences are indeed the
guardians of the stores and provisions of sciences, whence men in
active courses are furnished, and therefore ought to have equal enter
tainment with them ; otherwise if the fathers in sciences be of the
weakest sort, or be ill-maintained,
Et patntm iiivalidi referent jejunia nati.
Another defect I note, wherein I shall need some alchemist to help
me, who call upon men to sell their books, and to build furnaces,
quitting and forsaking Minerva and the Muses as barren virgins, and
relying upon Vulcan. But certain it is. that unto the deep, fruitful,
and operative study of many sciences, especially natural philosophy
and physic, books be not only the instrumental wherein also the
beneficence of men hath not been altogether wanting : for we see
spheres, globes, astrolabes, maps, and the like, have been provided as
appurtenances to astronomy and cosmography, as well as books ; we
see likewise, that some places instituted for physic have annexed the
commodity of gardens for simples of all sorts, and do likewise com
mand the use of dead bodies for anatomies. But these do respect but
a few things. In general, there will hardly be any main proficience in
the disclosing of nature, except there be some allowance for expenses
about experiments ; whether they be experiments appertaining to
Vulcanus or Dcedalus, furnace or engine, or any other kind ; and
therefore as secretaries and spials of princes and states bring in bills
for intelligence, so you must allow the spials and intelligencers of
nature to bring in their bills, or else you shall be ill advertised.
And if Alexander made such a liberal assignation to Aristotle of
treasure for the allowance of hunters, fowlers, fishers, and the like,
that he might compile an history of nature, much better do they
deserve it that travail in arts of nature.
Another defect which I note, is an intermission or neglect, in those
which are governors in universities, of consultation ; and in princes, o»
superior persons, of visitation : to enter into account and consideration,
whether the readings, exercises, and other customs, appertaining unto
learning, anciently begun, and since continued, be well instituted or
no, and thereupon to ground an amendment or reformation in that
which shall be found inconvenient. For it is one of your majesty's
own most wise and princely maxims, " That in all usages and prece
dents, the times be considered wherein they first began, which if they
were weak or ignorant, it derogateth from the authority of the usage,
and leaveth it for suspect." And therefore inasmuch as most of the
usages and orders of the universities were derived from more obscure
times, it is the more requisite they be re-examined. In this kind I
will give an instance or two, for example's sake, of things that are the
most obvious and familiar : the one is a matter, which though it be
ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. 173
ancient and general, yet I hold to be an error, which is, that scholars
in universities come too soon and too unripe to logic and rhetoric, arts
fitter for graduates than children and novices ; for these two, rightly
taken, are the gravest of sciences, being the arts of arts, the one for
judgment, the other for ornament. And they be the rules and direc
tions how to set forth and dispose matter ; and therefore for minds
empty and unfraught with matter, and which have not gathered that
tvhich Cicero calleth sylva and supcllex, stuff and variety, to begin
with those arts, as if one should learn to weigh, or to measure, or to
paint the wind, doth work but this effect, that the wisdom of those
arts, which is great and universal, is almost made contemptible, and is
degenerate into childish sophistry and ridiculous affectation. And
farther, the untimely learning of them hath drawn on, by consequence,
the superficial and unprofitable teaching and writing of them, as fitteth
indeed to the capacity of children. Another, is a lack 1 find in the
exercises used in the universities, which do make too great a divorce
between invention and memory ; for their speeches are either preme
ditate in verbis conceptis, where nothing is left to invention ; or merely
extemporal, where little is left to memory ; whereas in life and action
there is least use of either of these, but rather of intermixtures of pre
meditation and invention, notes and memory ; so as the exercise fitteth
not the practice, nor the image the life ; and it is ever a true rule in
exercises, that they be framed as near as may be to the life of practice,
for otherwise they do pervert the motions and faculties of the mind,
and not prepare them. The truth whereof is not obscure, when
scholars come to the practices of professions, or other actions of civil
life, which when they set into, this want is soon found by themselves,
and sooner by others. But this part, touching the amendment of the
institutions and orders of universities, I will conclude with the clause
of Caesar's letter to Oppius and Balbus, " Hoc quemadmodum fieri
possit, nonnulla mihi in mentem veniunt, et multa reperiri possunt : de
Us rebus rogo vos, ut cogttationem susdpiatis?
Another defect, which I note, ascendeth a little higher than the
precedent ; for as the proficience of learning consisteth much in the
orders and institutions of universities in the same states and kingdoms,
so it would be yet more advanced, if there were more intelligence
mutual between the universities of Europe than now there is. We see
there be many orders and foundations, which though they be divided
under several sovereignties and territories, yet they take themselves to
have a kind of contract, fraternity, and correspondence one with
another, insomuch as they have provincials and generals. And surely
as nature createth brotherhood in families, and arts mechanical con
tract brotherhoods in commonalties, and the anointment of God super-
induceth a brotherhood in kings and bishops : so in like manner there
cannot but be a fraternity in learning and illumination, relating to that
paternity which is attributed to God, who is called the Father of
illuminations or lights.
The last defect which I will note is, that there hath not been, or
very rarely been, any public designation of writers or inquirers con
cerning such parts of knowledge, as may appear not to have been
already sufficiently laboured or undertaken : unto which point it is an
i74 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
inducement to enter into a view and examination what parts of learn
ing have been prosecuted, and what omitted : for the opinion of plenty
is amongst the causes of want, and the great quantity of books maketh
a show rather of superfluity than lack ; which surcharge, nevertheless
is not to be remedied by making no more books, but by making more
good books, which, as the serpent of Moses, might devour the serpents
of the enchanters.
The removing of all the defects formerly enumerated, except the last,
and of the active part also of the last, which is the designation of
writers, are opera basilica; towards which 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 it. But the inducing part of the latter, which is
the survey of learning, may be set forward by private travail : where
fore I will now attempt to make a general and faithful perambulation
of learning, with an inquiry what parts thereof lie fresh and waste, and
not improved and converted by the industry of man ; to the end that
such a plot, made and recorded to memory, may both minister light to
any public designation, and also serve to excite voluntary endeavours :
wherein, nevertheless, my purpose is at this time to note only omis
sions and deficiencies, and not to make any redargution ] of errors, or
incomplete prosecutions : for it is one thing to set forth what ground
lieth unmanured, and another thing to correct ill husbandry in that
which is manured.
In the handling and undertaking of which work I am not ignorant
what it is that 1 do now move and attempt, nor insensible of mine own
weakness to sustain my purpose ; but my hope is that if my extreme
love to learning carry me too far, I may obtain the excuse of affection ;
for that " it is not granted to man to love and to be wise." But, I know
well, I can use no other liberty of judgment than I must leave to
others ; and I, for my part, shall be indifferently glad either to perform
myself, or to accept from another, that duty of humanity, ''''Nam qiti
erranti comitcr moiistrat vuvn" etc. I do foresee likewise, that of
those things which I shall enter and register, as deficiencies and
omissions, many will conceive and censure, that some of them are
already done and extant ; others to be but curiosities,'-2 and things of
no great use ; and others to be of too great difficulty, and almost im
possibility to be compassed and effected : but for the two first, I refer
myself to the particulars ; for the last, touching impossibility, I take
it, those things are to be held possible, which may be done by some
person, though not by every one ; and which may be done by many,
though not by any one ; and which may be done in succession
of ages, though not within the hour-glass of one man's life ; and
which may be done by public designation, though not by private
endeavour.
But, notwithstanding, if any man will take to himself rather that of
Solomon, " Dicit pigcr, Leo est in via?* than that of Virgil, " Possunt
quia. posse mdentur : " I shall be content that my labours be esteemed
but as the better sort of wishes ; for as it asketh some knowledge to
1 Refutation. * Things of curious research.
8 Proverbs xxii. 13,
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 175
demand a question not impertinent,1 so it requireth some sense to make
a wish not absurd.
THE parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of
man's Understanding, which is the seat of learning : History to his
Memory, Poesy to his Imagination, and Philosophy to his Reason.
Divine learning receiveth the same distribution, for the spirit of man
is the same, though the revelation of oracle and sense be diverse : so
as theology consisteth also of history of the Church ; of parables,
which is divine poesy ; and of holy doctrine or precept : for as for that
part which seemeth supernumerary, which is prophecy, it is but divine
history ; which hath that prerogative over human, as the narration
may be before the fact, as well as after.
HISTORY is Natural, Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary ; whereof
the three first I allow as extant, the fourth I denote as deficient. For
no man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning to be
described and represented from age to age, as many have done the t
works of nature, and the state civil and ecclesiastical ; without which
the history of the world seemeth to me to be as the statue of Poly
phemus with his eye out, that part being wanting which doth most
show the spirit and life of the person : and yet I am not ignorant, that \
in divers particular sciences, as of the jurisconsults, the mathemati
cians, the rhetoricians, the philosophers, there are set down some small
memorials of the schools, authors, and books ; and so likewise some
barren relations touching the invention of arts or usages.
But a just story of learning, containing the antiquities and originals
of knowledges and their sects, their inventions, their traditions, their
divers administrations and managings, their flourishings, their oppo
sitions, decays, depressions, oblivions, removes, with the causes and
occasions of them, and all other events concerning learning, through
out the ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be wanting.
The use and end of which work, I do not so much design for curio
sity, or satisfaction of those that are lovers of learning, but chiefly for
a more serious and grave purpose, which is this in a few words, that
it will m"ake learned men wise in the use and administration of learn
ing. 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.
HISTORY of Nature is of three sorts ; of nature in course, of nature
trring or varying, and of nature altered or wrought ; that is, history of
creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts.
The first of these, no doubt, is extant, and that in good perfection ;
the two latter are handled so weakly and unprofitably, as I am moved
to note them as deficient.
For I find no sufficient or competent collection of the works of
nature, which have a digression and deflexion from the ordinary
course of generations, productions, and motions, whether they be
singularities of place and region, or the strange events of time and
1 Unsuitable — inapplicable.
176 Ari'ANCEMENT Of LEARNING.
Chance, ol4 the cftos of yet unknown properties, or the instances of
exception to general kinds : it is true, I find a number of books of
fabulous experiments and secrets, and frivolous impostures for pleasure
and strangeness : but a substantial and severe collection of the hetero-
clites, or irregulars of nature, well examined and described, I find not,
especially not with due rejection of fables, and popular errors : for as
things now are, if an untruth in nature be once on foot, what by reason
of the neglect of examination and countenance of antiquity, and what
by reason of the use of the opinion in similitudes and ornaments of
speech, it is nevrer called down.
The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in Aristotle, is
nothing less than to give contentment to the appetite of curious and
vain wits, as the manner of mirabilaries is to do ; but for two reasons,
both of great weight : the one, to correct the partiality of axioms and
opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and familiar
examples ; the other, because from the wonders of nature is the nearest
intelligence and passage towards the wonders of art : for it is no more,
but by following, and as it were, hounding nature in her wanderings,
to be able to lead her afterwards to the same place again.
Neither am I of opinion, in this history of marvels, that superstitious
narrations of sorceries, witchcrafts, dreams, divinations, and the like,
where there i? un assurance and clear evidence of the fact, be altogether
excluded, f^ r it is not yet known in what cases, and how far, effects
attributed to superstition do participate of natural causes : and there
fore 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 farther disclos
ing of nature. Neither ought a man to make scruple of entering into
these things for inquisition of truth, as your majesty hath showed in
your own example i1 who with the two clear eyes of religion and natural
philosophy have looked deeply and wisely into these shadows, and yet
proved yourself to be of the nature of the sun, which passeth through
pollutions, and itself remains as pure as before.
But this I hold fit, that these narrations, which have mixture with
superstition, be sorted by themselves, and not to be mingled with the
narrations, which are merely and sincerely natural.
But as for the narrations touching the prodigies and miracles of
religions, they are either not true, or not natural ; and therefore irp*
pertinent for the story of nature.
For history of nature wrought, or mechanical, I find some collec
tions made of agriculture, and likewise of manual arts, but commonly
with a rejection of experiments familiar and vulgar.
For it is esteemed a kind of dishonour unto learning, to descend to
inquiry or meditation upon matters mechanical, except they be such
as may be thought secrets, rarities, and special subtilties ; which
humour of vain and supercilious arrogancy is justly derided in Plato ;
where he brings in Hippias, a vaunting sophist, disputing with Socrates^
H true and unfeigned inquisitor of truth : where the subject be.ng
touching beauty, Socrates, after his wandering manner of inductions,
1 J;:mes wrote a book on Demonology and Witchcraft ; entitled Dsemonologia.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 177
put first an example of a fair virgin, and then of a fair horse, and then
of a fair pot well glazed, whereat Hippias was offended ; and said,
" More than for courtesy's sake, he did not think much to dispute with
any that did allege such base and sordid instances : " whereunto
Socrates answered, " You have reason, and it becomes you well, being
a man so trim in your vestments," etc. And so goeth on in an irony.
But the truth is, they be not the highest instances that give j the
Securest information ; as may be well expressed in the tale so common
of the philosopher, that while he gazed upwards to the stars fell into the
water ; for if he had looked down he might have seen the stars in the
water, but looking aloft, he could not see the water in the stars. So it
cometh often to pass, that mean and small things discover great, better
than great can discover the small ; l and therefore Aristotle noteth
well, "that the nature of every thing is best seen in his smallest
portions." And for that cause he inquireth the nature of a common
wealth, first in a family, and the simple conjugations of man and wife,
parent and child, master and servant, which are in every cottage.
Even so likewise the nature of this great city of the world, and the
policy thereof, must be first sought in mean concordances and small
portions. So we see how that secret of nature, of the turning of iron,
touched with the loadstone, towards the north was found out in needles
of iron, not in bars of iron.
But if my judgment be of any weight, the use of History Mechanical
is, of all others, the most radical and fundamental towards natural
philosophy ; such natural philosophy as shall not vanish in the fume
of subtile, sublime, or delectable speculation, but such as shall be
operative to the endowment and benefit of man's life : for it will not
only minister and suggest for the present many ingenious practices in
all trades, by a connexion and transferring of the observations of one
art to the use of another, when the experiences of several mysteries
shall fall under the consideration of one man's mind ; but farther, it
will give a more true and real illumination concerning causes and
axioms than is hitherto attained.
For like as a man's disposition is never well known till he be
crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened and
held fast ; so the passages and variations of nature cannot appeal so
fully in the liberty of nature, as in the trials and vexations ot art.
FOR Civil History, it is of three kinds, not unfitly to be compared
•.vith the three kinds of pictures or images : for of pictures or images,
we see, some are unfinished, some are perfect, and some are defaced.
So of histories we may find three kinds, Memorials, Perfect Histories,
and Antiquities ; for memorials are history unfinished, or the first or
rough draughts of history ; and antiquities are history defaced, or some
remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.
Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two sorts, whereof the one
may be termed Commentaries, and the other Registers. Commentaries
are they which set down a continuance of the naked events and actions,
without the motives or designs, the counsels, the speeches, the pretexts,
1 For instance, Newton's Apple.
x78 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
the occasions, and other passages of action : for this is the true nature
of a Commentary, though Caesar, in modesty mixed with greatness, did
for his pleasure apply the name of a Commentary to the best history
of the world. Registers are collections of public acts, as decrees ol
council, judicial proceedings, declarations and letters of state, orations,
and the like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of the thread
of the narration.
Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, tanquam tabula
naufragii, when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous dili
gence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs,
traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, pas
sages of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover
somewhat from the deluge of time.
In these kinds of imperfect histories I do assign no deficience, for
they are tanquam imperfecte mista, and therefore any deficience in
them is but their nature.
As for the corruptions and moths of history, which are Epitomes,
the use of them deserveth to be banished, as all men of sound judg
ment have confessed, as those that have fretted and corroded the
sound bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought them into base
and unprofitable dregs.
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 represented a time, or a person, or an action.
The first we call Chronicles, the second Lives, and the third Narra
tions, or Relations.
Of these, although the first be the most complete and absolute kind
of history, and hath most estimation and glory, yet the second excelleth
it in profit and use, and the third in verity and sincerity. For history
of times representeth the magnitude of actions, and the public faces
and deportments of persons, and passeth over in silence the smaller
passages and motions of men and matters.
But such being the workmanship of God, as He doth hang the
greatest weight upon the smallest wires, maxima e minimis suspendenst
it comes therefore to pass, that such histories do rather set forth the
pomp of business than the true and inward resorts thereof. But lives,
if they be well written, propounding to themselves a person to repre
sent, in whom actions, both greater and smaller, public and private,
have a commixture, must of a necessity contain a more true, native,
and lively representation. So again narrations and relations of actions,
as the War of Peloponnesus, the Expedition of Cyrus Minor, the Con
spiracy of Catiline, cannot but be more purely and exactly true, than
histories of times, because they may choose an argument comprehen
sible within the notice and instructions of the writer : whereas he that
undertaketh the story of a time, especially of any length, cannot but
meet with many blanks and spaces, which he must be forced to fill up
ont of his own wit and conjecture.
For the History of Times (1 mean of civil history) the providence
of God hath made the distribution : for it hath pleased God to
ordain and illustrate two exemplar states of the world for arms,
learning, moral virtue, pplicy, and laws. The state of Gnecia3 arr|
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 179
the state of Rome : the histories whereof occupying the middle
part of time, have more ancient to them, histories which may by
> ne common name be termed the Antiquities of the world ; an I
after them, histories which may be likewise called by the name ol
Modern History.
Now to speak of the deficiencies. As to the heathen antiquities of
the world, it is in vain to note them for deficient : deficient they are no
doubt, consisting most of fables and fragments, but the deficience
cannot be holpcn ; for antiquity is like fame, caput inter nubila condit,
her head is muffled from our sight. For the history of the exemplar
states, it is extant in good perfection. Not but I could wish there
were a perfect course of history for Graecia from Theseus to Philopce-
men, what time the affairs of Graecia were drowned and extinguished
in the affairs of Rome ; and for Rome from Romulus to Justinianus,
who may be *ruly said to be ultimus Romanorum. In which sequences
of story the text of Thucyclides and Xenophon in the one, and the
text of Livus, Polybius, Salustius, Caesar, Appianus, Tacitus, Hero-
dianus, in the other, to be kept entire, without any diminution
at all, and only to be supplied and continued. But this is matter
of magnificence, rather to be commended than required ; and
we speak now of parts of learning supplemental, and not of
supererogation.
But for Modern Histories, whereof there are some few very worthy,
but the greater part beneath mediocrity, leaving the care of foreign
stories to foreign states, because I will not be curioms in alicna
republica^ I cannot fail to represent to your majesty the unworthiness
of the history of England in the main continuance thereof, and the
partiality and obliquity of that of Scotland, in the latest and largest
author that I have seen ; supposing that it would be honour for your
majesty, and a work very memorable, if this island of Great Britain,
as it is now joined in monarchy for ages to come, so were joined in
one history for the times passed, after the manner of the sacred
history, which draweth down the story of the ten tribes, and of the
two tribes, as twins, together. And if it shall seem that the greatness
of this work may make it less exactly performed, there is an excellent
period of a much smaller compass of time, as to the story of England ;
that is to say, from the uniting of the roses to the uniting of the king
doms : a portion of time, wherein to my understanding, there hath
been the rarest vaiieties, that in like number of successions of any
hereditary monarchy hath been known : for it beginneth with the
mixed adoption of a crown by arms and title ; an entry by battle, an
establishment by marriage ; and therefore times answerable, like
waters after a tempest, full ot working and swelling, though without
extremity of storm : but well passed through by the wisdom of the
pilot,1 being one of the most sufficient kings of all the number. Therx
followeth the reign of a king,2 whose actions, howsoever conducted,
had much intermixture with the affairs of Europe, balancing and in
clining them variably ; in whose time also began that great alteration
in ^K*. state ecclesiastical, an action which seldom cometh upon the
MIepryVIlI.
N a
I8o ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
stage. Then the reign of a minor : l then an offer of ztn usurpation,
though it was but as febris ephemera:* then the reign of a queen
matched with a foreigner : 3 then of a queen that lived solitary and
unmarried,4 and yet her government so masculine, as it had greater
impression and operation upon the states abroad than it any ways
received from thence. And now last, this most happy and glorious
event, that this island of Britain, divided from all the world, should be
united in itself: and that oracle of rest, given to /Eneas, " Antiqiiam
exqitirite matrcm" should now be performed and Skilled upon the
nations of England and Scotland, being now reunited in the ancient
mother name of Britain, as a full period of all instability and pere
grinations : so that as it cometh to pass in massive bodies, that they
have certain trepidations and waverings before they fix and settle ; so
it seemeth that by the providence of God this monarchy, before it was
to settle in your majesty and your generations, in which I hope it is
now established for ever, it had these prelusive changes and varieties.
For Lives ; I do find 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 although there be not many sovereign
princes or absolute commanders, and that states are most collected
into monarchies, yet there are many worthy personages that deserve
better than dispersed report or barren elogies. For herein the inven
tion of one of the late poets is proper, and doth well enrich the ancient
fiction : for he feigneth, that at the end of the thread or web of every
man's life there was a little medal containing the person's name, and
that Time waited upon the shears ; and as soon as the thread was cut,
caught the medals, and carried them to the river of Lethe ; and
about the bank there were many birds flying up and down, that
would get the medals, and carry them in their beak a little while,
and then let them fall into the river : only there were a few swans,
which if they got a name, would carry it to a temple, where it was
consecrated.
And though many men, more mortal in their affections than in
their bodies, do esteem desire of name and memory but as a vanity
and ventosity,
Animi nil magnce laudis egentis ,
which opinion cometh from the root, " non prius laudcs contempsimus
quam laudanda facere desivimus : " yet that will not alter Solomon's
judgment, " Mcmoria justi aim laudibits, at impiontm women pit*
trescet;"3 the one flourished!, the other either consumeth to present
oblivion, or turneth to an ill odour.
And therefore in that style or addition, which is and hath been
long well received and brought in use, " folia 's memories, pier,
viemoricc, bonce memorial? we do acknowledge that which Cicero
saith, borrowing it from Demosthenes, that "dona fama propria
fosscssio dcfunctorum ; " which possession I cannot but note, that
in our time it lieth much wait.', and that therein there is a deficience.
1 Edward VI. * Jane Grey's. » Mary.
* Elizabeth. & PreorrU i. 7.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 181
For Narrations and Relations of particular actions, there were also
to be wished a greater diligence therein ; common way, before we
come where the ways part, for there is no great action but hath some
go*)d pen which attends it.
And because it is an ability not common to write a good history, us
may well appear by the small number of them ; yet 'f particularity of
actions memorable were but tolerably reported as they pass, the com
piling of a complete history of times might be the 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.
There is yet another partition of history which Cornelius Tacitus
maketh, which is not to be forgotten, especially with that application
which he accouplieth it witha/, Annals and Journals : appropriating
to the former, matters of state ; and to the latter, acts and accidents
of a meaner nature. For giving but a touch of certain magnificent
buildings, he addeth, " Cuvi ex dignitate populi Romani repertitm sit,
res illustres annalibus, talia dinrnis urbis actis mandare" So as there
is a contemplative kind of heraldry, as well as civil. And as nothing
doth derogate from the dignity of a state more than confusion of
degrees ; so it doth not a little embase the authority of an history, to
intermingle matters of triumph, or matters of ceremony, or matters of
novelty, with matters of state. But the use of a journal hath not only
been in the history of time, but likewise in the history of persons, and
chiefly of actions ; for princes in ancient time had, upon point of
honour and policy both, journals kept, what passed day by day : for
we see the chronicle which was read before Ahasuerus, when he could
not take rest, contained matters of affairs indeed, but such as had
passed in his own time, and very lately before : but the journal of
Alexander's house expressed every small particularity even concerning
his person and court ; and it is yet an use well received in enterprises
memorable, as expeditions of war, navigations, and the like, to keep
diaries of that which passeth continually.
I cannot likewise be ignorant of a form of writing, which some
grave and wise ipen have used, containing a scattered history of those
actions which they have thought worthy of memory, with politic
discourse and observation thereupon ; not incorporated into the
history, but separately, and as the more principal in their intention ;
which kind of ruminated history I think more fit to place amongst
books of policy, whereof we shall hereafter speak, than amongst
books of history : for it is the true office of history to represent
the events themselves together with the counsels, and to leave the
observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of
every man's judgment ; but mixtures are things irregular, whereof no
man can define.
So also is there another kind of history manifoldly mixed, and that
is History of Cosmography, being compounded of natural history, in
respect of the regions themselves ; of history civil, in respect of the
habitations, regiments, and manners of the people ; and the mathe
matics, in respect of the climates and configurations towards the
heavens : which part of learning of all others, in this later time, hath
I8a ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
obtained most proficience. For it may be truly affirmed to the hcnouf
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 : for although they had knowledge of
the antipodes,
Nosqiie ubi primus eqnis oriens afflavit anhelis,
lllic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper ;
-ot that might be by demonstration, and not in fact ; and if by travel,
f requircth the voyage but of half the globe. But to circle the earth,
as the heavenly bodies do, was not done or enterprised till these later
times r1 and therefore these times may justly bear in their word, not
only plus ultra in precedence of the ancient non ultra, and imitabiit
fulment in precedence of the ancient non imitabile fulrncn,
Demens qui nitnbos et non imitalile fulmen, etc.,
but likewise imitabilc ccel:un : in respect of the many memorable
voyages, after the manner of heaven, about the globe of the
earth.
And this proficience in navigation and discoveries may plant also
an expectation of the farther proficience and augmentation of all
sciences ; because, it may seem, they are ordained by God to be
coevals, that is, to meet in one age. For so the prophet Daniel,
speaking of the latter times, foretelleth ; " Plurimi pertransibutu, et
multiplex: erit sciential as if the openness and thorough passage
of the world, and the increase of knowledge, were appointed to be in
the same ages, as we see it is already performed in great part ; the
learning of these latter times not much giving place to the former two
periods or returns of learning, the one of the Grecians, the other of
the Romans.
History ecclesiastical receiveth the same divisions with history
civil ; but farther, in the propriety thereof, may be divided into the
History of the Church, by a general name ; History of Prophecy ; and
History of Providence.
The first dcscribeth the times of the militant Church, whether it be
fluctuant, as the ark of Noah ; or moveable, as the ark in the
wilderness ; or at rest, as the ark in the temple ; that is, the slate of
the Church in persecution, in remove, and in peace. This part I
ought in no sort to note as deficient, only I would the virtue and sin
cerity of it were according to the mass and quantity. But I am not
now in hand with censures, but with omissions.
The second, which is history of prophecy, consisteth of two
relatives, the prophecy, and the accomplishment ; and therefore the
nature of such a work ought to be, that every prophecy of the
Scripture be sorted with the event fulfilling the same, throughout
the ages of the world; both for the better confirmation of faith,
and for the better illumination of the Church touching those
parts of prophecies which are yet unfulfilled : allowing neverthe-
1 By Sir Francis Drake, then recently. » Daniel xii. 4.
ADVANCEMENT Of LEARNING. 183
less that latitude which is agreeable and familiar unto divine pro
phecies, being of the nature of their Author, with whom a thou
sand years are but as one day, and therefore are not fulfilled
punctually at once, but have springing and germinant accomplish
ment throughout many ages ; though the height or fulness of them
may refer to some one age.
This is a work which I find deficient, but is to be done with wisdom,
sobriety, and reverence, or not at all.
The third, which is history of providence, containeth that excellent
correspondence which is between God's revealed will and His secret
will : which though it be so obscure, as for the most part it is not
legible to the natural man ; no, nor many times to those that behold it
from the tabernacle ; yet at some times it pleaseth God, for our better
establishment, and the confuting of those which are as without God in
the world, to write it in such text and capital letters, that, as the
prophet saith, " he that runneth by may read it ; " that is, mere
sensual persons, which hasten by God's judgments, and never bend or
fix their cogitations upon them, are nevertheless in their passage and
race urged to discern it. Such are the notable events and examples of
God's judgments, chastisements, deliverances, and blessings : and this
is a work which hath passed through the labours of many, and there
fore I cannot present as omitted.
There are also other parts of learning which are Appendices to
history ; for all the exterior proceedings of man consist of words and
deeds ; whereof history doth properly receive and retain in memory
the deeds ; and if words, yet but as inducements and passages to
deeds : so are there other books and writings, which are appropriate
to the custody and receipt of words only, which likewise are of three
sorts ; Orations, Letters, and Brief Speeches or Sayings.
Orations are pleadings, speeches of counsel, laudatives, invec
tives, apologies, reprehensions ; orations of formality or ceremony,
and the like.
Letters are according to all the variety of occasions, advertise
ments, advices, directions, propositions, petitions, commendatory,
expostulatory, satisfactory ; of compliment, of pleasure, of discourse,
and all other passages of action. And such as are written from wise
men, are of all the words of man, in my judgment, the best ; for they
are more natural than orations and public speeches, and more ad
vised than conferences or present speeches. So again letters of affairs
from such as manage them or are privy to them, are of all others the
best instructions for history, and to a diligent reader the best
histories in themselves.
For Apophthegms, it is a great loss of that book of Caesar's ; for as
his history, and those few letters of his which we have, and those
apophthegms which were of his own, excel all men's else, so I suppose
would his collection of apophthegms have done ; for as for those which
are collected by others, either I have no taste in such matters, or else
their choice hath not been happy. But upon these three kinds of
writings I do not insist, because I have no deficiencies to propound
concerning them.
Thus much therefore concerning History, which is that part of
184 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
learning which answereth to one of the cells, domiciles, or offices of
the mind of man, which is that of the Memory.
Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words for the most part
restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly
refer to the imagination ; which being not tied to the laws of matter,
may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever that
which nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and divorces
of things, Fictoribus atque poet is, etc. It is taken in two senses, in
respect of words, or matter ; in the first sense, it is but a character of
style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the
present : in the latter it is, as hath been said, one of the principal
portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned history •which may
be styled as well in prose as in verse.
The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of
satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of
things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul ;
by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a more
ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety,
than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, 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
hcroical: because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of
actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore
poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to
revealed providence, because true history representeth actions and
events more ordinary, and less interchanged ; therefore poesy endueth
them with more rareness, and more unexpected and alternative
variation : so as it appeareth that poesy serveth and conferred! to
magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was ever
thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth
raise and erect the mind, by submitting the show of things to the
desires of the mind ; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind
unto the nature of things.
And we see, that by these insinuations and congruities with man's
nature and pleasure, joined also with the agreement and consort it
hath with music, it hath had access and estimation in rude times and
barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded.
The division of poesy, which is aptest in the propriety thereof,
besides those divisions which are common unto it with history ; as
feigned chronicles, feigned lives, and the appendices of hi&tory, as
feigned epistles, feigned orations, and the rest, is into Poesy Narrative,
Representative, and Allusive.
The Narrative is a mere imitation of history, with the excesses
xjefoi e remembered, choosing for subject commonly wars and love ;
rarely state, and sometimes pleasure and mirth.
Representative is as a visible history, and is an image of actions as
Jf they were present, as history is of actions in nature as they are, that
is, past.
Allusive, or parabolical, is a narration applied only to express some
special purpose or conceit ; which latter kind of parabolical wisdom
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 185
was much more in use in the ancient times, as by the fables of Esop,
and the brief sentences of the Seven, and the use of hieroglyphics, may
appear. And the cause was, for that it was then of necessity to express
any point of reason, which was more sharp or subtile than the vulgar,
in that manner, because men in those times wanted both variety of
examples and subtilty of conceit : and as hieroglyphics were before
letters, so parables we're before arguments. And nevertheless now, and
at all times, they do retain much life and vigour, because reason can
not be so sensible 1 nor examples so fit.
But there remaineth yet another use of poesy parabolical, opposite
to that which we last mentioned : for that tendeth to demonstrate and
illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and this other to retire and
obscure it : that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy,
and philosophy are involved in fables and parables.
Of this in divine poesy, we see the use is authorized. In heathen
poesy, we see, the exposition of fables doth fall out sometimes with
great felicity, as in the fable that the giants being overthrown in their
war against the gods, the Earth their mother, in revenge thereof,
brought forth Fame :
Illam Terra parcns ira irritata deorum,
Extremam, ut perhibent, Coeo Enceladoque sorortitt
Progcnuit.
Expounded, that when princes and monarchies have suppressed actual
and open rebels, then the malignity of people, which is the mother of
rebellion, doth bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations of the
states, which is of the same kind with rebellion, but more feminine.
So in the fable, that the rest of the gods having conspired to bind
Jupiter, Pallas called Briareus with his hundred hands to his aid:
expounded, that monarchies need not fear any curbing of their abso
luteness by mighty subjects, as long as by wisdom they keep the hearts
of the people, who will be sure to come in on their side. So in the
fable, that Achilles was brought up under Chiron the Centaur, who was
part a man and part a beast : expounded ingeniously, but corruptly by
Machiavel, that it belongeth to the education and discipline of princes,
to know as well how to play the part of the lion in violence, and the
fox in guile, as of the man in virtue and justice.
Nevertheless in many the like encounters, I do rather think that the
fable was first, and the exposition devised, than that the moral was
first, and thereupon the fable framed. For I find it was an ancient
vanity in Chrysippus,2 that troubled himself with great contention to
fasten the assertion of the Stoics upon the fictions of the ancient poets ;
but yet that all the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure
and not figure, I interpose no opinion.
Surely of those poets which are now extant, even Homer himself,
notwithstanding he was made a kind of Scripture by the latter schools
of the Grecians, yet I should without any difficulty pronounce, that his
fables had no such inwardness in his own meaning ; but what they
1 So vivid.
* A Stoic philosopher, \\hose aim was to check the prevalent scepticism ; died $07 B.C.
i86 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
might have, upon a more original tradition, is not easy to affirm, foi
he was not the inventor of many of them.
In this third part of learning, which is poesy, I can report no defi-
cience.1 For being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the eartl^
without a formal seed, it hath sprung up and spread abroad more than
any other kind : but to ascribe unto it that which is due, for the ex
pression of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are
beholden to poets more than to the philosophers' works ; and for wit
and eloquence, not much less than to orators' harangues. But it
is not good to stay too long in the theatre. Let us now pass on to the
judicial place or palace of the mind, which we are to approach and
view with more reverence and attention.
THE knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from
above, and some springing from beneath ; the one informed by the
light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation.
The light of nature consisteth in the notions of the mind, and the
reports of the senses ; for as for knowledge which man receiveth by
teaching, it is cumulative, arid not original, as in a water, that, besides
his own spring-head, is fed with other springs and streams. So then,
according to these two differing illuminations or originals, knowledge
is first of all divided into Divinity and Philosophy.
In philosophy, the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto
God, or are circumferred unto nature, or are reflected or reverted upon
himse]f. Out of which several inquiries there do arise three know
ledges, Divine philosophy, Natural philosophy, and Human philosophy
or humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with this triple
character, of the power of God, the difference of nature, and the use
of man. But because the distributions and partitions of knowledge
are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a
point ; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath
a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come
to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs ; therefore it is
good, before we enter into the former distribution, to erect and con
stitute one universal science, by the name of Philosophia prima, primi
tive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way, before we
come where the ways part and divide themselves ; which science.
whether I should report as deficient or no, I stand doubtful.
For I find a certain rhapsody of natural theology, and of divers
parts of logic ; and of that other part of natural philosophy, which
concerneth the principles ; and of that other part of natural philosophy,
which concerneth the soul or spirit ; all these strangely commixed and
confused : but being examined, it seemeth to me rather a depredation
of other sciences, advanced and exalted unto some height of terms,
than anything solid or substantive of itself.
Nevertheless I cannot be ignorant of the distinction which is current,
that the same things are handled but in several respects. As for
example, that logic considereth of many things as they are in notion ;
and this philosophy, as they are in nature ; the one in appearance, the
other in existence : but I find this difference better made than pursued.
Justly said, for Spenser had been dead only seven years, and Shakespeare was still living.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 187
For if they had considered quantity, similitude, diversity, and the rest of
those external characters of things, as philosophers, and in nature ; their
inquiries must offeree have been of a far other kind than they are.
For doth any of them, in handling quantity, speak of the force of
union, how, and how far it multiplied) virtue? Doth any give the
reason, why some things in nature are so common and in so great
mass, and others so rare, and in so small quantity? Doth any, in
handling similitude and diversity, assign the cause why iron should
not move to iron, which is more like, but move to the loadstone, which
is less like? Why, in all diversities of things, there should be certain
participles in nature, which are almost ambiguous, to which kind they
should be referred? But there is a mere and deep silence touching
the nature and operation of those common adjuncts of things, as in
nature ; and only a resuming and repeating of the force and use of
them, in speech or argument.
Therefore because in a writing of this nature I avoid all subtilty, my
meaning touching this original or universal philosophy is thus, in a
plain and gross description by negative ; " That it be a receptacle for
all such profitable observations and axioms, as fall not within the
compass of any of the special parts of philosophy or sciences, but are
more common and of a higher stage."
Now that there are many of that kind, need not to be doubted. For
example : is not the rule, " Si infpqualibus aqualia addas, oinnia erunt
inaqualia? an axiom as well of justice as of the mathematics? And
is there not a true coincidence between commutative and distributive
justice, and arithmetical and geometrical proportion? Is not that
other rule, " Quce in eodem tertio conveniunt, et inter se convcniunt? a
rule taken from the mathematics, but so potent in logic, as all syllog
isms are built upon it ? Is not the observation, " Oninia mutantur, nil
interit? a contemplation in philosophy thus, that the quantum of
nature is eternal ? in natural theology thus ; that it requireth the same
omnipotence to make somewhat nothing, which at the first made
nothing somewhat ? according to the Scripture, " Didici quod omnia
opera, qua fecit Deus, persevcrent in perpetitumj non possumus eis
quicquam addere, nee auferre"1
Is not the ground, which Machiavel wisely and largely discourseth
concerning governments, that the way to establish and preserve them,
is to reduce them ad principia, a rule in religion and nature, as well
as in civil administration ? Was not the Persian magic a reduction
or correspondence of the principles and architectures of nature, to the
rules and policy of governments? Is not the precept of a musician,
to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a concord or sweet accord,
alike true in affection? Is not the trope of music, to avoid or slide
from the close or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric, of
deceiving expectation? Is not the delight of the quavering upon a
stop in music, the same with the playing of light upon the water?
Splendet tremulo sub lumine pontus.
Are not the organs of the senses of one kind with the organs of reflec
tion, the eye with a glass, the ear with a cave or strait determined and
1 Foclesiastes iii. 14.
188 ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING.
bounded? Neither are these only similitudes, as men of narrow ob
servation may conceive them to be, but the same footsteps of nature,
treading or printing upon several subjects or matters.
This science therefore, as I understand it, I may justly report as
deficient ; for I see sometimes the profounder sort of wits, in handling
some particular argument, will now and then draw a bucket of water
out of this well for their present use ; but the springhead thereof
seemeth to me not to have been visited ; being of so excellent use,
both for the disclosing of nature, and the abridgment of art.
This science being therefore first placed as a common parent, like
unto Uerecynthia,1 which had so much heavenly issue, " Omnes ca?H-
colas, oinnes supcra alta tenentes" we may return to the former
distribution of the three philosophies, divine, natural, and human.
And as concerning divine philosophy, or Natural Theology, it is
that knowledge or rudiment of knowledge concerning God, which may
be obtained by the contemplation of His creatures ; which knowledge
may be truly termed divine, in respect of the object, and natural in
respect of the light.
The bounds of this knowledge are, that it sufficeth to convince
atheism, but not to inform religion : and therefore there was never
miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of
nature might have led him to confess a God : but miracles have been
wrought to convert idolaters and the superstitious, because no light
of nature extendeth to declare the will and true worship of God.
For as all works do show forth the power and skill of the workman,
and not his image, so it is of the works of God, which do show the
omnipotency and wisdom of the Maker, but not His image : and there
fore therein the heathen opinion differeth from the sacred truth ; for
they supposed the world to be the image of God, and man to be an
extract or compendious image of the world ; but the Scriptures never
vouchsafe to attribute to the world that honour, as to be the image of
God, but only the work of His hands ; neither do they speak of any
other image of God, but man : wherefore by the contemplation of
nature, to induce and enforce the acknowledgment of God, and to
demonstrate His power, providence, and goodness, is an excellent
argument, and hath been excellently handled by divers.
But on the other side, out of the contemplation of nature or ground
of human knowledges, to induce any verity or persuasion concerning
the points of faith, is in my judgment not safe : " Da jidei, qua; f.dci
sunt.n For the heathen themselves conclude as much in that excellent
and divine fable of the golden chain ; " That men and gods were not
able to draw Jupiter down to the earth ; but contrariwise, Jupiter was
able to draw them up to heaven."
So as we ought not to attempt to draw down or submit the mysteries
of God to our reason ; but contrariwise, to raise and advance our reason
to the divine truth. So as in this part of knowledge, touching divine
philosophy, I am so far from noting any deficience, as I rather note
an excess ; whercunto I have digressed, because of the extreme preju
dice which both religion and philosophy hath received, and may
1 Eerecynthia — a surname for Cybele, who was worshipped on Mount Berecynthus, in
PhryRia. The earth is typified bv Cybele.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 189
receive, by being commixed together; as that which undoubtedly will
make an heretical religion, and an imaginary and fabulous philosophy.
Otherwise it is of the nature of angels and spirits, which is an
appendix of theology, both divine and natural, and is neither inscrut
able nor interdicted : for although the Scripture saith, " Let no man
deceive you in sublime discourse touching the worship of angels,
pressing into that he knoweth not,"1 etc., yet notwithstanding, if you
observe well that precept, it may appear thereby that there be two
things only forbidden, adoration of them, and opinion fantastical of
them, either to extol them farther than appertaineth to the degree of a
creature, or to extol a man's knowledge of them farther than he hath
ground. But the sober and grounded inquiry, which may arise out of
the passages of Holy Scriptures, or out of the gradations of nature, is
not restrained. So of degenerate and revolted spirits, the conversing
with them, or the employment of them, is prohibited, much more any
veneration towards them. But the contemplation or science of their
nature, their power, their illusions, either by Scripture or reason, is a
part of spiritual wisdom. For so the apostle saith, " We are not
ignorant of his stratagems." 2 And it is no more unlawful to inquire
the nature of evil spirits, than to inquire the force of poisons in nature,
or the nature of sin and vice in morality. But this part, touching
angels and spirits, I cannot note as deficient, for many have occupied
themselves in it : I may rather challenge it, in many of the writers
thereof, as fabulous and fantastical.
LEAVING therefore divine philosophy or natural theology, not
divinity, or inspired theology, which we reserve for the last of all, as
the haven and sabbath of all man's contemplations, we will now
proceed to Natural Philosophy.
If then it be true that Democritus said, " That the truth of nature
licth hid in certain deep mines and caves :" and if it be true likewise,
that the alchemists do so much inculcate, that Vulcan is a second
nature, and imitateth that dexterously and compendiously, which
nature worketh by ambages3 and length of time ; it were good to
divide natural philosophy into the mine and the furnace, and to make
two professions or occupations of natural philosophers, some to be
pioneers, and some smiths ; some to dig, and some to refine and
hammer : and surely I do best allow of a division of that kind, though
in more familiar and scholastical terms : namely, that these be the t\vo
parts of natural philosophy, the inquisition of causes, and the produc
tion of effects : speculative and operative ; natural science, and natural
prudence.
For as in civil matters there is a wisdom of discourse, and a wisdom
of direction ; so is it in natural. And here I will make a request, thai
for the latter, or at least for a part thereof, I may revive and reintegrate
the misapplied and abused name of natural magic, which, in the true
sense, is but natural wisdom, or natural prudence ; taken according to
the ancient acception, purged from vanity and superstition.
1 Colossians ii. 18. 2 2 Corinthians u. n.
s Circumlocutions, gradual processes.
J9o ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
Now although it be true, and I know it well, that there is an inter
course between causes and effects, so as both these knowledges, specu
lative and operative, have a great connexion between themselves ; yet
because all true and fruitful natural philosophy hath a double scale 01
fadder, ascendent and descendent ; ascending from experiments, to
the invention of causes ; and descending from causes, to the invention
of new experiments ; therefore I judge it most requisite that these two
parts be severally considered and handled.
Natural science, or theory, is divided into Physic and Metaphysic ;
wherein I desire it may be conceived, that I use the word Metaphysic
in a differing sense from that that is received : and, in like manner,
I doubt not but it will easily appear to men of judgment, that in this
and other particulars, wheresoever my conception and notion may
differ from the ancient, yet I am studious to keep the ancient terms.
For hoping well to deliver myself from mistaking, by the order and
perspicuous expressing of that I do propound ; I am otherwise zealous
and affectionate to recede as little from antiquity, either in terms or
opinions, as may stand with truth, and the proficience of knowledge.
And herein I cannot a little marvel at the philosopher Aristotle that
did proceed in such a spirit of difference and contradiction towards
all antiquity, undertaking not only to frame new words of science at
pleasure, but to confound and extinguish all ancient wisdom : insomuch
as he never nameth or mentioneth an ancient author or opinion, but
to confute and reprove ; wherein for glory, and drawing followers and
disciples, he took the right course.
For certainly there comcth to pass, and hath place in human truth,
that which was noted and pronounced in the highest truth, " Veni in
nomine Patris, nee rccipitis me j si quis vcncrit in nomine sua, eum
recipietis? * But in this divine aphorism, considering to whom it was
applied, namely to Antichrist, the highest deceiver, we may discern
well, that the coming in a man's own name, without regard of antiquity
or paternity, is no good sign of truth, although it be joined with the
fortune and success of an " Eum recipietis"
But for this excellent person, Aristotle, I will think of him, that he
learned that humour of his scholar,- with whom, it scemeth, he did
emulate, the one to conquer all opinions, as the other to conquer all
nations : wherein nevertheless, it may be, he may at some men's hands,
that are of a bitter disposition, get a like title as his scholar did.
Felix ierrarum prcedo, non iitile mii7ido
Edit us exempium, etc.
So
Felix doctrines prccdo.
But to me, on the other side, that do desire as much as lieth in my
pen to ground a sociable intercourse between antiquity and proficience,
U scemeth best to keep way with antiquity usque ad arus; and there
fore to retain the ancient terms, though I sometimes alter the uses and
definitions ; according to tiie moderate proceeding in civil government,
Alexander tne Gre^t.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 191
where although there be some alteration, yet that holdeth which Tacitus
wisely noteth, " eadeui magistratuutn vocabula"
To return therefore to the use and acception of the term metaphysic,
as I do now understand the word ; it appeareth, by that which hath
been already said, that I intend philosophia prima, summary philo
sophy, and metaphysic, which heretofore have been confounded as
one, to be two distinct things. For the one I have made as a parent,
or common ancestor, to all knowledge ; and the other I have now
brought in, as a branch, or descendant, of natural science. It ap
peareth likewise that I have assigned to summary philosophy the
common principles and axioms which are promiscuous and indifferent
to several sciences : I have assigned unto it likewise the inquiry
touching the operation of the relative and adventive characters of
essences, as quantity, similitude, diversity, possibility, and the rest ;
with this distinction and provision ; that they be handled as they have
efficacy in nature, and not logically. It appeareth likewise, that
natural theology, which heretofore hath been handled confusedly with
metaphysic, I have inclosed and bounded by itself.
It is therefore now a question, what is left remaining for metaphysic ;
wherein I may without prejudice preserve thus much of the conceit of
antiquity, that physic should contemplate that which is inherent in
matter, and therefore transitory ; and metaphysic, that which is
abstracted and fixed.
And again, that physic should handle that which supposeth in
nature only a being and moving ; and metaphysic should handle that
which supposeth farther in nature a reason, understanding, and plat
form. But the difference perspicuously expressed, is most familiar
and sensible.
For as we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of
causes, and productions of effects ; so that part which concerneth the
inquiry of causes, we do subdivide according to the received and
sound division of causes ; the one part which is physic, inquireth and
handleth the material and efficient causes ; and the other, which is
metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes.
Physic, taking it according to the derivation, and not according to
our idiom for medicine, is situate in a middle term, or distance,
between natural history and metaphysic. For natural history de-
scribeth the variety of things, physic the causes, but variable or
respective causes ; and metaphysic, the fixed and constant causes.
Limus ut hie durescit, et h<sc ut cere, quiescit,
Una eodemqrie igni.
Fire is the cause of induration, but respective to clay : fire is the
cause of colliquation,1 but respective to wax. But fire is no constant
cause either of induration or colliquation : so then the physical causes
are but the efficient and the matter.
Physic hath three parts, whereof" two respect nature united or
Collected, the third contrmplateth nature diffused or distributed.
Nature is collected cither into one entire total, or else into the sain*
* The act of melting.
rpa ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
principles or seeds. So as the first doctrine is touching the contex'
ture or configuration of things, as de mitndo, de universitate reruni.
The second is the doctrine concerning the principles or originals of
things.
The third is the doctrine concerning all variety and particularity o!
things ; whether it be of the differing substances, or their differing
qualities and natures ; whereof there needeth no enumeration, this
part being but as a gloss, or paraphrase, that attendeth upon the text
of natural history.
Of these three I cannot report any as deficient. In what truth or
perfection they are handled, I make not now any judgment : but they
are parts of knowledge not deserted by the labour of men.
For Metaphysic, we have assigned unto it the inquiry of formal and
final causes ; which assignation, as to the former of them, may seem
to be nugatory and void, because of the received and inveterate
opinion, that the inquisition of man is not competent to find out
essential forms, or true differences : of which opinion we will take this
hold, that the invention of forms is of all other parts of knowledge
the worthiest to be sought, -if it be possible to be found.
As for the possibility, they are ill discoverers that think there is no
land, when they can see nothing but sea.
But it is manifest, that Plato, in his opinion of ideas, as one that
had a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff, did descry, " That forms
were the true object of knowledge ; " but lost the real fruit of his
opinion, by considering of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter,
and net confined and determined by matter ; and so turning his
opinioTi upon theology, wherewith all his natural philosophy is
infected.
But if any man shall keep a continual watchful and severe eye upon
action, operation, and the use of knowledge, he may advise and take
notice what are the forms, the disclosures whereof are fruitful and im
portant to the state of man. For as to the forms of substances, man
only except, of whom it is said, " Formcmit hominem de limo terrce, et
spiravit in faciem ejus spiraculum vitce" * and not as of all other
creatures, " Producant aquae, producat terra;" the forms of substances,
I say, as they arc now by compounding and transplanting multiplied,
are so perplexed, as they are not to be inquired ; no more than it
were either possible or to purpose, to seek in gross the forms of those
sounds which make words, which by composition and transposition of
letters are infinite.
But, on the other side, to inquire the form of thosf. sounds or voices,
which make simple letters, is easily comprehensible ; and being
known, induceth and manifested! the forms of words, which consist
and are compounded of them. In the same manner to inquire the
form of a lion, of an oak, of gold ; nay, of water, of air, is a vain
pursuit ; but to inquire the forms of sense, of voluntary motion, ot
vegetation, of colours, of gravity and levity, of density, of tenuity, of
heat, of cold, and all other natures and qualities, which, like an alpha-
bet, are not many, and of which the essences, upheld by matter, c/ all
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 193
creatures do consist : to inquire, I say, the true forms of these, is that
part of metaphysic which we now define of.
Not but that physic doth make inquiry, and take consideration of
the same natures : but how ? Only as to the material and efficient
causes of them, and not as to the forms. For example ; if the cause
of whiteness in snow or froth be inquired, and it be rendered thus ;
that the subtile intermixture of air and water is the cause, it is well
rendered ; but nevertheless, is this the form of whiteness ? No ; but
it is the efficient, which is ever but vehiculum formce.
This part of metaphysic I do not find laboured and performed,
whereat I marvel not : because I hold it not possible to be invented
by that course of invention which hath been used, in regard that men.
which is the root of all error, have made too untimely a departure, and
too remote a recess from particulars.
But the use of this part of metaphysic which I report as deficient,
is of the rest the most excellent in two respects : the one, because it is
the duty and virtue of all knowledge to abridge the infinity of indi
vidual experience, as much as the conception of truth will permit, and
to remedy the complaint vivita brevis^ ars longa; which is performed
by uniting the notions and conceptions of sciences : for knowledges
are as pyramids, whereof history is the basis. So of natural philo
sophy, the basis is natural history ; the stage next the basis is physic ;
the stage next the vertical point is metaphysic. As for the vertical
point, " Opus quod operatur Deus a principle usque ad finem" the
summary law of nature, we know not whether man's inquiry can attain
unto it. But these three be the true stages of knowledge, and are to
them that are depraved no better than the giants' hills.
Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossant
Scilicet, atque Ossa frondosum involvere Olympum.
But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they are as
the three acclamations, Sancte, sancte, sancte, holy in the description
or dilatation of His works ; holy in the connexion or concatenation of
them ; and holy in the union of them in a perpetual and uniform
law.
And therefore the speculation was excellent in Parmenides * and
1'lato, although but a speculation in them, that all things by scale did
ascend to unity.2 So then always that knowledge is worthiest, which
is charged with the least multiplicity ; which appeareth to be meta
physic, as that which considereth the simple forms or differences of
tilings, which are few in number, and the degrees and co-ordinations
thereof make all this variety.
The second respect which valueth and commendeth this part of
metaphysic is, that it doth enfranchise the power of man unto the
greatest liberty and possibility of works and effects. For physic
iarrieth men in narrow and restrained ways, subject to many acci
dents of impediments, imitating the ordinary flexuous courses ot
nature ; but " lata undique sunt sapientibus via :" to sapience, which
1 A Greek philosopher of the Eleatic School who lived in the fifth century B.c lie was
the teacher and friend of Zeno the founder of the Stoic philosophy.
* See 3 f ne passage in Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, Aphorism 36.
194 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
was anciently defined to be " rerum divinarum et humanarum
sciential there is ever choice of means : for physical causes give light
to new invention in simili materia. But whosoever knoweth any
form, knoweth the utmost possibility of super-inducing that nature
upon any variety of matter, and so is less restrained in operation,
either to the basis of the matter, or the condition of the efficient :
which kind of knowledge Solomon likewise, though in a more divine
sense, elegantly described : " Non arctabuntur gressus tui, et current,
non habebis offendiculum" l The ways of sapience are not much liable
either to particularity or chance.
The second part of metaphysic is the inquiry of final causes, which
I am moved to report, not as omitted, but as misplaced ; and yet if it
were but a fault in order, I would not speak of it : for order is matter
of illustration, but pertaineth not to the substance of sciences. But
this misplacing hath caused a deficience, or at least a great impro-
ficience in the sciences themselves. For the handling of final causes,
mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe
and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the
occasion to stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to the
great arrest and prejudice of farther discovery.
For this I find done not only by Plato, who ever anchoreth upon
that shore, but by Aristotle, Galen, and others, which do usually like
wise fall upon these flats of discoursing causes. For to say that the
hairs of the eyelids are for a quickset and fence about the sight ; or,
that the firmness of the skins and hides of living creatures is to defend
them from the extremities of heat or cold ; or, that the bones are for
the columns or beams, whereupon the frame of the bodies of living
creatures is built ; or, that the leaves of trees are for the protecting
of the fruit ; or, that the clouds are for watering of the earth ; or, that
the solidness of the earth is for the station and mansion of living crea
tures, and the like, is well inquired and collected in metaphysic ; but
m physic they are impertinent. Nay, they are indeed but remoras 2
and hinderances to stay and slug the ship from farther sailing, and
have brought this to pass, that the search of the physical causes hath
been neglected, and passed in silence.
And therefore the natural philosophy of Democritus, and some
others, who did not suppose a mind or reason in the frame of things,
but attributed the form thereof, able to maintain itself, to infinite
essays or proofs of nature, which they term fortune : seemeth to me,
as far as I can judge by the recital and fragments which remain unto
us, in particularities of physical causes, more real and better inquired
than that of Aristotle and Plato ; whereof both intermingled final
causes, the one as a part of theology, the other as a part of logic,
which were the favourite studies respectively of both those persons.
Not because those final causes are not true, and worthy to be inquired,
being kept within their own province ; but because their excursions
into the limits of physical causes have bred a vastness and solitude in
that track. For, otherwise, keeping their precincts and borders, men
• Prov. iv. 12.
* Delays or hindrances— from the name of the sucking-fish, which impedes the course of th«
imp lu which it clings.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 195
are extremely deceived if they think there is an enmity or repugnancy
at all between them. For the cause rendered, that the hairs about the
eyelids are for the safeguard of the sight, doth not impugn the cause
rendered, that pilosity is incident to orifices of moisture ; Muscosi
fontes, etc. Nor the cause rendered, that the firmness of hides is for
the armour of the body against extremities of heat or cold, doth not
impugn the cause rendered, that contraction of pores is incident to
the outwardest parts, in regard of their adjacence to foreign or unlike
bodies ; and so of the rest : both causes being true and compatible,
the one declaring an intention, the other a consequence only.
Neither doth this call in question, or derogate from divine provi
dence, but highly confirm and exalt it. For as in civil actions he is
the greater and deeper politician, that can make other men the instru
ments of his will and ends, and yet never acquaint them with his pur
pose, so as they shall do it, and yet not know what they do ; than he
that imparteth his meaning to those he employeth : so is the wisdom
of God more admirable, when nature intendeth one thing, and provi
dence draweth forth another ; than if He had communicated to par
ticular creatures, and motions, the characters and impressions of His
providence. And thus much for metaphysic ; the latter part whereof
I allow as extant, but wish it confined to its proper place.
Nevertheless there remaineth yet another part of natural philosophy,
which is commonly made a principal part, and holdeth rank with
physic special, and metaphysic, which is mathematic ; but I think it
more agreeable to the nature of things, and to the light of order, to
place it as a branch of metaphysic : for the subject of it being
quantity, not quantity indefinite, which is but a relative, and belongeth
to philosophia prima, as hath been said, but quantity determined, or
proportionable, it appeareth to be one of the essential forms of
things ; as that that is causative in nature of a number of effects :
insomuch as we see, in the schools both of Democritus and Pytha
goras, that the one did ascribe Figure to the first seeds of things, and
the other did suppose Numbers to be the principles and originals of
things ; and it is true also, that of all other forms, as we understand
forms, it is the most abstracted and separable from matter, and there
fore most proper to metaphysic ; which hath likewise been the cause
why it hath been better laboured and inquired, than any of the other
forms, which are more immersed into matter.
For it being the nature of the mind of man (to the extreme pre
judice of knowledge,) to delight in the spacious liberty of generalities,
as in a champaign region, and not in the inclosures of particularity ;
the mathematics of all other knowledge were the goodliest fields to
satisfy the appetite.
But for the placing of these sciences, it is not much material ; only
we have endeavoured, in these our partitions, to observe a kind of per
spective, that one part may cast light upon another.
The Mathematics are either pure or mixed. To the pure mathe
matics are those sciences belonging which handle quantity determi
nate, merely severed from any axioms of natural philosophy; and these
are two, Geometry, and Arithmetic ; the one handling quantity con
tinued, and the other dissevered
o a
196 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
Mixed hath for subject some axioms or parts of natural philosophy,
and considereth quantity determined, as it is auxiliary and incident
unto them.
For many parts of nature can neither be invented with sufficient
subtilty, nor demonstrated with sufficient perspicuity, nor accommo
dated unto use with sufficient dexterity, without the aid and intervening
of the mathematics ; of which sort are perspective, music, astronomy,
cosmography, architecture, enginery, and divers others.
In the mathematics I can report no deficience, except it be that men
do not sufficiently understand the excellent use of the pure mathe
matics, in that they do remedy and cure many defects in the wit and
faculties intellectual. For, if the wit be dull, they sharpen it ; if too
wandering, they fix it ; if too inherent in the sense, they abstract it.
So that as tennis is a game of no use in itself, but of great use in
respect it maketh a quick eye, and a body ready to put itself into all
postures ; so in the mathematics, that use which is collateral and
intervenient, is no less worthy than that which is principal and
intended.
And as for the mixed mathematics, I may only make this predic
tion, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them as nature grows
further disclosed.
Thus much of natural science, or the part of nature speculative.
For Natural Prudence, or the part operative of natural philosophy,
we will divide it into three parts, experimental, philosophical, and
magical ; which three parts active have a correspondence and analogy
with the three parts speculative, natural history, physic, and meta-
physic ; for many operations have been invented sometimes by a
casual incidence and occurrence, sometimes by a purposed experi
ment ; and of those which have been found by an intentional experi
ment, some have been found out by varying or extending the same
experiment, some by transferring and compounding divers experi
ments, the one into the other, which kind of invention an empiric may
manage.
Again, by the knowledge of physical causes, there cannot fail to
follow many indications and designations of new particulars, if men in
their speculation will keep one eye upon use and practice. But these
are but coastings along the shore, premendo littus iniquum : for,
it seemeth to me, there can hardly be discovered any radical or funda
mental alterations and innovations in nature, either by the fortune
and essays of experiments, or by the light and direction of physical causes.
If therefore we have reported metaphysic deficient, il must fellow,
that we do the like of natural magic, which hath relation thereunto.
For as for the natural magic whereof now there is mention in books,
containing certain credulous and superstitious conceits and observa
tions of sympathies, and antipathies, and hidden proprieties, and some
frivolous experiments, strange rather by disguisement, than in them
selves : it is as far differing in truth of nature from such a knowledge
as we require, as the story of King Arthur of Britain, or Hugh of
Bourdeaux,1 differs from Caesar's commentaries in truth of story. For
1 Huon or Hugh of Bordeaux was one of the legendary knights of the days of Charl&
majne, who was assisted in bis wonderful exploits by the King of the Fairi- s, Oberoa.
ADVANCRMRNT Of LEARX1XG. 197
it is manifest that Caesar did greater things de vero, than those imagi
nary heroes were feigned to do ; but he did them not in that fabulous
manner. Of this kind of learning the fable of Ixion was a figure, who
designed to enjoy Juno, the goddess of power ; and instead of her had
copulation with a cloud, of which mixture were begotten centaurs and
chimeras.
So whosoever shall entertain high and vaporous imaginations,
instead of a laborious and sober inquiry of truth, shall beget hopes
and beliefs of strange and impossible shapes. And therefore we may
note in these sciences, which hold so much of imagination and belief,
as this degenerate natural magic, alchemy, astrology, and the like, that,
in their propositions, the description of the means is ever more
monstrous than the pretence or end.
For it is a thing more probable, that he that knoweth well the
natures of weight, of colour, of pliant and fragile in respect of the
hammer, of volatile and fixed in respect of the fire, and the rest, may
superinduce upon some metal the nature and form of gold by such
mechanic as longeth to the production of the natures afore rehearsed,
than that some grains of the medicine projected should in a few
moments of time turn a sea of quicksilver, or other material, into gold :
so it is more probable, that he, that knoweth the nature of arefaction,
the nature of assimilation, of nourishment to the thing nourished, the
manner of increase and clearing of spirits, the manner of the depre
dations which spirits make upon the humours and solid parts ; shall,
by ambages l of diets, bathings, anointings, medicines, motions, and
the like, prolong life, or restore some degree of youth or vivacity, than
that it can be done with the use of a few drops, or scruples of a liquor
or receipt. To conclude therefore, the true natural magic, which is
that great liberty and latitude of operation which dependeth upon the
knowledge of forms, I may report deficient, as the relative thereof is ;
to which part, if we be serious, and incline not to vanities and plausible
discourse, besides the deriving and deducing the operations themselves
from metaphysic, there are pertinent two points of much purpose, the
one by way of preparation, the other by way of caution : the first is,
that there be made a kalendar resembling an inventory of the estate
of man, containing all the inventions, being the works or fruits of
nature or art, which are now extant, and whereof man is
already possessed, out of which doth naturally result a note, what
things are yet held impossible or not invented : which kalendar will
be the more artificial and serviceable, if to every reputed impossibility
you add what thing is extant, which cometh the nearest in degree to
that impossibility ; to the end, that by these operatives and potentials
man's inquiry may be the more awake in deducing direction of works
from the speculation of causes ; and secondly, that those experiments
be not only esteemed which have an immediate and present use, but
those principally which are of most universal consequence for inven«
tion of other experiments, and those which give most light to the in«
vention of causes : for the invention of the mariner's needle, which
givcth the direction, is of no less benefit for navigation, than 'he inven
tion of the sails, which give the motion.
1 Numbers.
i98 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
Thus have I passed through natural philosophy, and the deficiencies
thereof, wherein if I have differed from the ancient and received
doctrines, and thereby shall move contradiction, for my part as I affect
not to dissent, so I purpose not to contend. If it be truth,
Non canimus surdis, respondent omnia sylvce :
the voice of nature will consent, whether the voice of man do or no.
And as Alexander Borgia was wont to say of the expedition of the
French for Naples, that they came with chalk in their hands to mark
up their lodgings, and not with weapons to fight : so I like better that
entry of truth, which cometh peaceably with chalk to mark up those
minds which are capable to lodge and harbour it, than that which
cometh with pugnacity and contention.
But there remaineth a division of natural philosophy according to
the report of the inquiry, and nothing concerning the matter or subject ;
and that is positive and considerative ; when the inquiry reporteth
either an assertion, or a doubt. These doubts, or non liquets, are of
two sorts, particular, and total. For the first, we see a good example
thereof in Aristotle's Problems, which deserved to have had a better
continuance ; but so nevertheless, as there is one point whereof warn
ing is to be given and taken. The registring of doubts hath two excel
lent uses : the one, that it saveth philosophy from errors and false
hoods, when that which is not fully appearing is not collected into
assertion, whereby error might draw error, but reserved in doubt.
The other, that the entry of doubts are as so many suckers or sponges
to draw use of knowledge ; insomuch, as that which, if doubts had not
preceded, a man should never have advised, but passed it over without
note, by the suggestion and solicitation of doubts is made to be at
tended and applied. But both these commodities do scarcely counter
vail an inconvenience which will intrude itself, if not debarred ; which
is, that, when a doubt is once received, men labour rather how to keep
it a doubt still, than how to solve it, and accordingly bend their wits.
Of this we see the familiar example in lawyers and scholars, both which,
if they have once admitted a doubt, it goeth ever after authorized for
a doubt. But that use of wit and knowledge is to be allowed, which
laboureth to make doubtful things certain, and not those which labour
to make certain things doubtful. Therefore these kalendars of doubts
I commend as excellent things, so that there be this caution used, that
when they be thoroughly sifted and brought to resolution, they be from
thenceforth omitted, discarded, and not continued to cherish and
encourage men in doubting. To which kalendar of doubts or problems,
I advise to be annexed another kalendar, as much or more material,
which is a kalendar of popular errors, I mean chiefly in natural history,
such as pass in speech and conceit, and are nevertheless detected and
convicted of untruth, that man's knowledge be not weakened nor
embased by such dross and vanity.
As for the doubts or non liquets general or in total, I understand
those differences of opinions touching the principles of nature, and the
fundamental points of the same, which have caused the diversity of
sects, schools, and philosophies, as that of Empedocles, Pythagoras,
Democritus, Parmenides, and the rest. For although Aristotle, as
ADVANCEMENT Of LEARNING. 199
Chough he had been of the race of the Ottomans, thought he could not
reign, except the first thing he did he killed all his brethren ; yet to
those that seek truth and not magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter
of great profit, to see before them the several opinions touching the
foundations of nature : not for any exact truth that can be expected in
those theories : for as the same phoenomena in astronomy are satis
fied by the received astronomy of the diurnal motion and the proper
motions of the planets, with their eccentrics, and epicycles ; and like
wise by the theory of Copernicus, who supposed the earth to move,
ftnd the calculations are indifferently agreeable to both : so the ordinary
face and view of experience is many times satisfied by several theories
and philosophies ; whereas to find the real truth requireth another
manner of severity and attention. For, as Aristotle saith, that children
at the first will call every woman mother, but afterwards they come to
distinguish according to truth : so experience, if it be in childhood,
will call every philosophy mother, but when it cometh to ripeness it
will discern the true mother ; so as in the mean-time it is good to see
the several glosses and opinions upon nature, whereof it may be every
one in some one point hath seen clearer than his fellows ; therefore I
wish some collection to be made painfully and understandingly de
antiquis philosophiis, out of all the possible light which remaineth to
us of them : which kind of work I find deficient. But here I must
give warning, that it be done distinctly and severally, the philosophies
of every one throughout by themselves, and not by titles packed and
fagotted up together, as hath been done by Plutarch. For it is the
harmony of a philosophy itself, which giveth it light and credence ;
whereas if it be singled and broken, it will seem more foreign and
dissonant. For as when I read in Tacitus the actions of Nero or
Claudius, with circumstances of times, inducements and occasions, I
find them not so strange ; but when I read them in Suetonius Tran-
quillus, gathered into titles and bundles, *»nd not in order of time, they
seem more monstrous and incredible ; so it is of any philosophy
reported entire, and dismembered by articles. Neither do I exclude
opinions of latter times to be likewise represented in this kalendar of
sects of philosophy, as that of Theophrastus Paracelsus,1 eloquently
reduced into an harmony by the pen of Severinus the Dane, and that
of Telesius, and his scholar Donius. being as a pastoral philosophy,
full of sense, but of no great depth : and that of Fracastorius,2 who
though he pretended not to make any new philosophy, yet did use the
absoluteness of his own sense upon the old : and that of Gilbertus,3
our countryman, who revived, with some alterations and demon
strations, the opinions of Xenophanes : 4 and any other worthy to be
admitted.
Thus have we now dealt with two of the three beams of man's know
ledge, that is Radius directus, which is referred to nature ; Radius
refractus, which is referred to God, and cannot report truly because of
1 Physician and chemist, born at Einsiedeln, Zurich, in 1493. His real name was Von
Hohenheim. He was an astrologer and alchemist, but to him chemistry owes gratitude for
the importance he gave it as a real science.
2 Girolamo Fracastorio was a celebrated Italian savant, born 1483, died 1553. He wrota
poems, and also philosophical and astronomical works. 3 See p. 1515 note.
* The founder of the Eleatic School ; contemporary with Pythagoras.
200 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
the inequality of the medium ; there resteth Radius reflexus, whereby
man beholdeth and contemplateth himself.
WE come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient
oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves ; which de«
serveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more
nearly. This knowledge, as it is the end and term of natural philo
sophy in the intention of man, so, notwithstanding, it is but a portion
of natural philosophy in the continent of nature ; and generally let this
be a rule, that all partitions of knowledges be accepted rather for lines
and veins, than for sections and separations ; and that the continuance
and entireness of knowledge be preserved. For the contrary hereof
hath made particular sciences to become barren, shallow, and erro
neous, while they have not been nourished and maintained from the
common fountain. So we see Cicero the orator complained of Socrates
and his school, that he was the first that separated philosophy and
rhetoric, whereupon rhetoric became an empty and verbal art. So we
may see, that the opinion of Copernicus touching the rotation of the
earth, which astronomy itself cannot correct, because it is not repug
nant to any of the phenomena, yet natural philosophy may correct.1
So we see also that the science of medicine, if it be destitute and for
saken by natural philosophy, it is not much better than an empirical
practice.
With this reservation therefore we proceed to Human Philosophy,
or humanity, which hath two parts : the one considereth a man segre
gate or distributively ; the other congregate or in society. So as human
philosophy is either simple and particular, or conjugate and civil.
Humanity particular consisteth of the same parts whereof man con-
sistcth, that is, of knowledges which respect the body, and of know
ledges that respect the mind ; but before we distribute so far, it is good
to constitute. For I do take the consideration in general, and at large,
of human nature to be fit to be emancipated and made a knowledge
by itself; not so much in regard to those delightful and elegant dis
courses which have been made of the dignity of man, of his miseries,
of his state and life, and the like adjuncts of his common and un
divided nature ; but chiefly in regard of the knowledge concerning the
sympathies and concordances between the mind and body, which being
mixed, cannot be properly assigned to the sciences of either.
This knowledge hath two branches : for as all leagues and amities
consist of mutual intelligence and mutual offices, so this league of mind
and body hath these two parts, how the one discloseth the other, and
how the one worketh upon the other ; Discovery, and Impression.
The former of these hath begotten two arts, both of prediction or
prenotion, whereof the one is honoured with the inquiry of Aristotle,
and the other of Hippocrates. And although they have of later time
been used to be coupled with superstitious and fantastical arts, yet
being purged and restored to their true state, they have both of them
a solid ground in nature, and a profitable use in life. The first is
physiognomy, which discovereth the disposition of the mind by the
1 Bacon never accepted the Copernfcan theory, but believed the rotation of the planets wai
caused by tne Primum mobile.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. aoi
lineaments of the body. The second is the exposition of natural
dreams, which discovereth the state of the body by the imaginations
of the mind. In the former of these I note a deficience, for Aristotle
hath very ingeniously and diligently handled the features of the body
but not the gestures of the body, which are no less comprehensible by
art, and of greater use and advantage. For the lineaments of the body
do disclose the disposition and inclination of the mind in general ; but
the motions of the countenance and parts do not only so, but do farther
disclose the present humour and state of the mind and will. For, as
your majesty saith most aptly and elegantly, "As the tongue speaketh
to the ear, so the gesture speaketh to the eye." And therefore a number
of subtle persons, whose eyes do dwell upon the faces and fashions of
men, do well know the advantage of this observation, as being most
part of their ability ; neither can it be denied but that it is a great
discoverer of dissimulations, and a great direction in business.
The latter branch, touching impression, hath not been collected
into art, but hath been handled dispersedly ; and it hath the same
relation or antistrophe that the former hath. For the consideration is
double ; " Either how, and how far the humours and effects of the body
do alter or work upon the mind ; or again, How, and how far the
passions or apprehensions of the mind do alter or work upon the body."
The former of these hath been inquired and considered, as a part and
appendix of medicine, but much more as a part of religion or super
stition : for the physician ! prescribeth cures of the mind in frenzies
and melancholy passions, and pretendeth also to exhibit medicines to
exhilarate the mind, to confirm the courage, to clarify the wits, to cor
roborate the memory, and the like : but the scruples and superstitions
of diet, and other regiment of the body, in the sect of the Pythagoreans,
in the heresy of the Manicheans, and in the law of Mahomet, do exceed :
so likewise the ordinances in the ceremonial law, interdicting the eat
ing of the blood and the fat, distinguishing between beasts clean and
unclean for meat, are many and strict. Nay the faith itself, being
clear and serene from all clouds of ceremony, yet retaineth the use of
fastings, abstinences, and other macerations and humiliations of the
body, as things real and not figurative. The root and life of ail which
prescripts is, besides the ceremony, the consideration of that depen
dency which the affections of the mind are submitted unto upon the
state and disposition of the body. And if any man of weak judgment
do conceive, that this suffering of the mind from the body, doth either
question the immortality, or derogate from the sovereignty of the soul,
he may be taught in easy instances, that the infant in the mother's
womb is compatible with the mother, and yet separable : and the most
absolute monarch is sometimes led by his servants, and yet without
subjection. As for the reciprocal knowledge, which is the operation
of the conceits and passions of the mind upon the body ; we see all
wise physicians in their prescriptions of their regiments,2 to their
patients, do ever consider accidentia animt, as of great force to further
or hinder remedies, or recoveries ; and more especially it is an inquiry
of great depth and worth concerning imagination, how, and how far i|
1 See Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. Burton was born 1576 ; died 1640.
* Rp.pimens.
202 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
alteretli the body proper of the imaginant. For although it hath a
manifest power to hurt, it followeth not it hath the same degree of
power to help ; no more than a man can conclude, that because there
be pestilent airs, able suddenly to kill a man in health, therefore there
should be sovereign airs, able suddenly to cure a man in sickness. But
the inquisition of this part is of great use, though it needeth, as Socrates
said, " a Delian diver," being difficult and profound. But unto all this
knowledge de communi vinculo > of the concordances between the mind
and the body, that part of inquiry is most necessary, which considereth
of the seats and domiciles, which the several faculties of the mind do
take and occupate in the organs of the body ; which knowledge hath
been attempted, and is controverted, and deserveth to be much better
inquired. For the opinion of Plato, who placed the understanding in
the brain, animosity (which he did unfitly call anger, having a greater
mixture with pride) in the heart, and concupiscence or sensuality in
the liver, deserveth not to be despised, but much less to be allowed.
So then we have constituted, as in our own wish and advice, the
inquiry touching human nature entire, as a just portion of knowledge
to be handled apart.
The knowledge that concerneth man's Body, is divided as the good
of man's body is divided, unto which it referreth. The good of man's
body is of four kinds, health, beauty, strength, and pleasure : so the
knowledges are medicine, or art of cure ; art of decoration, which is
called cosmetic ; art of activity, which is called athletic ; and art
voluptuary, which Tacitus truly calleth " eruditus luxus? This subject
of man's body is of all other things in nature most susceptible of
remedy ; but then that remedy is most susceptible of error. For the
same subtility of the subject doth cause large possibility, and easy
failing ; and therefore the inquiry ought to be the more exact.
To speak therefore of medicine, and to resume that we have said,
ascending a little higher. The ancient opinion that man was micro-
cosmus, an abstract or model of the world, hath been fantastically
strained by Paracelsus and the alchemists, as if there were to be found
in man's body certain correspondences and parallels, which should
have respect to all varieties of things, as stars, planets, minerals, which
are extant in the great world. But thus much is evidently true, that
of all substances which nature hath produced, man's body is the most
extremely compounded. For we see herbs and plants are nourished
by earth and water ; beasts for the most part by herbs and fruits ;
man by the flesh of beasts, birds, fishes, herbs, grains, fruits, water,
and the manifold alterations, dressings, and preparations of these
several bodies, before they come to be his food and aliment. Add
hereunto, that beasts have a more simple order of life, and less change
of affections to work upon their bodies ; whereas man, in his mansion,
sleep, exercise, passions, hath infinite variations ; and it cannot be
denied, but that the body of man of all other things is of the most
compounded mass. The soul on the other side is the simplest of
substances, as is well expressed :
Purumque reliquit
m sensum, atque aura'i simplicis ignein.
So that it is no marvel though the soul so placed enjoy no rest, if that
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 203
principle be true, that (' Motus rerum estrapidus extra locum, placidus
in loco," But to the purpose: this variable composition of man's body
hath made it as an instrument easy to distemper, and therefore the
poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because the
office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man's body, and
to reduce it to harmony. So then the subject being so variable, hath
made the art by consequence more conjectural ; and the art being
conjectural, hath made so much the more place to be left for imposture.
For almost all other arts and sciences are judged by acts or master
pieces, as I may term them, and not by the successes and events.
The lawyer is judged by the virtue of his pleading, and not by the
issue of the cause. The master of the ship is judged by the directing
his course aright, and not by the fortune of the voyage. But the
physician, and perhaps the politician, hath no particular acts demon
strative of his ability, but is judged most by the event ; which is ever
but as it is taken : for who can tell, if a patient die or recover, or if a
state be preserved or ruined, whether it be art or accident? And
therefore many times the impostor is prized, and the man of virtue
taxed. Nay, we see the weakness and credulity of men is such, as
they will often prefer a mountebank or witch before a learned physician.
And therefore the poets were clear-sighted in discerning this extreme
folly, when they made ^Esculapius and Circe brother and sister, both
children of the sun, as in the verses; ALn. vii. 772.
Ipse repertorem medicines tails et artis
Fulmine Phoebigenam Stygias detrusit ad undas ;
And again,
Dives inaccessos vbi Solisfilia lucos, etc. JEn. vii. n.
For in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches, and old
women, and impostors, have had a competition with physicians. And
what followeth ? Even this ; that physicians say to themselves, as
Solomon expresseth it upon an higher occasion ; " If it befal to me,
as befalleth to the fools, why should I labour to be more wise ? " 1 And
therefore I cannot much blame physicians, that they use commonly to
intend some other art or practice, which they fancy more than their
profession. For you shall have of them, antiquaries, poets, humanists,
statesmen, merchants, divines, and in every of these better seen than
in their profession ; and no doubt, upon this ground, that they find
that mediocrity and excellency in their art maketh no difference in
profit or reputation towards their fortune ; for the weakness of patients,
and sweetness of life, and nature of hope, maketh men depend on
physicians with all their defects. But, nevertheless, these things,
which we have spoken of, are courses begotten between a little occa
sion, and a great deal of sloth and default ; for if we will excite and
awake our observation, we shall see, in familiar instances, what a pre
dominant faculty the subtilty of spirit hath over the variety of matter
or form : nothing more variable than faces and countenances, yet men
can bear in memory the infinite distinctions of them ; nay, a painter
with a few shells of colours, and the benefit of his eye, and habit of his
1 Ecclesiastes ii. 15.
804 ADVANCEMENT Of LEARNING.
imagination, can imitate them all that ever have been, are, or may be,
if they were brought before him. Nothing more variable than voices,
yet men can likewise discern them personally ; nay, you shall have a
buffoon, or pantomimus, will express as many as he pleaseth. Nothing
more variable than the differing sounds of words, yet men have found
the way to reduce them to a few simple letters. So that it is not the
insufficiency or incapacity of man's mind, but it is the remote standing
or placing thereof, that breedeth these mazes and incomprehensions :
for as the sense afar off is full of mistaking, but is exact at hand, so it
is of the understanding ; the remedy whereof is not to quicken or
strengthen the organ, but to go nearer to the object ; and therefore
there is no doubt, but if the physicians will learn and use the true
approaches and avenues of nature, they may assume as much as the
poet saith :
Et quorum variant morbi, variabimus artes :
Mills mali species, mille salutis erunt.
Which that they should do, the nobleness of their art doth deserve,
well shadowed by the poets, in that they made yEsculapius to be the
son of the Sun, the one being the fountain of life, the other as the
second stream ; but infinitely more honoured by the example of our
Saviour, who made the body of man the object of His miracles, as the
soul was the object of His doctrine. For we read not that ever He
vouchsafed to do any miracle about honour or money, except that one
for giving tribute to Caesar, but only about the preserving, sustaining,
and healing the body of man.
Medicine is a science which hath been, as we have said, more
professed than laboured, and yet more laboured than advanced ; the
labour having been, in my judgment, rather in circle than in progres
sion. For I find much iteration, but small addition. It considereth the
causes of diseases, with the occasions or impulsions ; the diseases
themselves, with the accidents ; and the cures, with the preservations;
The deficiences which I think good to note, being a few of many, and
those such as are of a more open and manifest nature, I will enumerate
and not place.
The first is the discontinuance of the ancient and serious diligence
of Hippocrates, which used to set down a narrative of the special cases
of his patients, and how they proceeded, and how they were judged by
recovery or death. Therefore having an example proper in the father
of the art, I shall not need to allege an example foreign, of the wisdom
of the lawyers, who are careful to report new cases and decisions for
the direction of future judgments. This continuance of Medicinal
History I find deficient, which I understand neither to be so infinite as
to extend to every common case, nor so reserved, as to admit none but
wonders ; for many things are new in the manner, which are not new
m the kind ; and if men will intend to observe, they shall find much
worthy to observe.
In the inquiry which is made by anatomy, I find much deficience :
for they inquire of the parts, and their substances, figures, and collo
cations ; but they inquire not of the diversities of the parts, the secre
cies of the passages, and the seats or nestlings of the humours, nor
much of the footsteps and impressions of diseases ; the reason of which
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 305
omission I suppose to be, because the first inquiry may be satisfied in
the view of one or a few anatomies ; but the latter, being comparative
and casual, must arise from the view of many. And as to the diversity
of parts, there is no doubt but the facture or framing of the inward
parts is as full of difference as the outward, and in that is the cause
continent of many diseases, which not being observed, they quarrel
many times with the humours, which are not in fault, the fault being
in the very frame and mechanic of the part, which cannot be removed
by medicine alterative, but must be accommodated and palliated by
diets and medicines familiar. And for the passages and pores, it is
true, which was anciently noted, that the more subtile of them appear
not in anatomies, because they are shut and latent in dead bodies,
though they be open and manifest in life : which being supposed,
(though the inhumanity of anatomia vivorum was by Celsus justly
approved) ; yet in regard of the great use of this observation, the
inquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been relinquished
altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery, but might
have been well diverted upon dissection of beasts alive, which, not
withstanding the dissimilitude of their parts, may sufficiently satisfy
this inquiry. And for the humours, they are commonly passed over in
anatomies as purgaments, whereas it is most necessary to observe,
what cavities, nests, and receptacles the humours do find in the parts,
with the differing kind of the humour so lodged and received. And as
for the footsteps of diseases, and their devastations of the inward parts,
impostumations, exulcerations, discontinuations, putrefactions, con
sumptions, contractions, extensions, convulsions, dislocations, obstruc
tions, repletions, together with all preternatural substances, as stones,
carnosities, excrescences, worms, and the like ; they ought to have
been exactly observed by multitude of anatomies, and the contribution
of men's several experiences, and carefully set down, both historically,
according to the appearances, and artificially, with a reference to the
diseases and symptoms which resulted from them, in case where the
anatomy is of a defunct patient : whereas now, upon opening of bodies,
they are passed over slightly and in silence.
In the inquiry of diseases they do abandon the cures of many, some
as in their nature incurable, and others as past the period of cure ; so
that Sylla and the triumvirs never proscribed so many men to die, as
they do by their ignorant edicts, whereof numbers do escape with less
difficulty, than they did in the Roman proscriptions. Therefore I will
not doubt to note as a deficience, that they inquire not the perfect cures
of many diseases, or extremities of diseases, but pronouncing them
incurable, do enact a law of neglect, and exempt ignorance from dis
credit.
Nay farther, I esteem it the office of a physician not only to restore
health, but to mitigate pain and dolors, and not only when such
mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a
fair and easy passage : for it is no small felicity which Augustus Caesar
was wont to wish to himself, that same euthanasia, and which was
specially noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death was after
the fashion and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sleep. So it is
written of Epicurus, that after his disease was judged desperate, he
so6 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
drowned his stomach and senses with a large draught and ingurgitation
of wine ; whereupon the epigram was made, " Hinc Stygias ebrius
liausit aquas ;" he was not sober enough to taste any bitterness of the
Stygian water. But the physicians, contrariwise, do make a kind o)
scruple and religion to stay with the patient after the disease it
deplored ; whereas, in my judgment, they ought both to inquire the
skill, and to give the attendances for the facilitating and asswaging of
the pains and agonies of death.
In the consideration of the cures of diseases, I find a deficience in
the receipts of propriety, respecting the particular cures of diseases :
for the physicians have frustrated the fruit of tradition and experience
by their magistralities, in adding, and taking out, and changing quid
pro quo, in their receipts, at their pleasures, commanding so over the
medicine, as the medicine cannot command over the disease; for
except it be treacle, and Mithridatum, and of late diascordium, and a
few more, they tie themselves to no receipts severely and religiously :
for as to the confections of sale which are in the shops, they are for
readiness, and not for propriety ; for they are upon general intentions
of purging, opening, comforting, altering, and not much appropriated
to particular diseases ; and this is the cause why empirics and old
women are more happy many times in their cures than learned
physicians, because they are more religious in holding their medicines.
Therefore here is the deficience which I find, that physicians have not,
partly out of their own practice, partly out of the constant probations
reported in books, and partly out of the traditions of empirics, set down
and delivered over certain experimental medicines for the cure of par
ticular diseases, besides their own conjectural and magistral de
scriptions. For as they were the men of the best composition in the
state of Rome, which either being consuls inclined to the people, or
being tribunes inclined to the senate ; so in the matter we now
handle, they be the best physicians, which being learned, incline to the
traditions of experience, or being empirics, incline to the methods of
learning.
In preparation of medicines, I do find strange, especially, consider
ing how mineral medicines have been extolled, and that they are safer
for the outward than inward parts, that no man hath sought to make
an imitation by art of natural baths, and medici-nable fountains, which
nevertheless are confessed to receive their virtues from minerals ; and
not so only, but discerned and distinguished from what particular
mineral they receive tincture, as sulphur, vitriol, steel, or the like ;
which nature, if it may be reduced to compositions of art, both the
variety of them will be increased, and the temper of them will be more
commanded.
But lest I grow to be more particular than is agreeable, either to my
intention or to proportion, I will conclude this part with the note of one
deficience more, which seemeth to me of greatest consequence ; which
is, that the prescripts in use are too compendious to attain their end ;
for to my understanding, it is a vain and flattering opinion to think
any medicine can be so sovereign, or so happy, as that the receipt or
use of it can work any great effect upon the body of man : it were a
strange speech, which spoken, or spoken oft, should reclaim a man
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 207
from a vice to which he were by nature subject ; it is order, pursuit,
sequence, and interchange of application, which is mighty in nature ;
which although it require more exact knowledge in prescribing, and
more precise obedience in observing, yet is recompensed with tha
magnitude of effects. And although a man would think by the daily
visitations of the physicians, that there were a pursuance in the cure ;
yet let a man look into their prescripts and ministrations, and he shall
find them but inconstancies, and every day's devices, without any
settled providence or project ; not that every scrupulous or superstitious
prescript is effectual, no more than every strait way is the way to
heaven, but the truth of the direction must precede severity of
observance.
For Cosmetic, it hath parts civil, and parts effeminate : for cleanness
of body was ever esteemed to proceed from a due reverence to God, to
society, and to ourselves. As for artificial decoration, it is well worthy
of the deficiences which it hath ; being neither fine enough to deceive,
nor handsome to use, nor wholesome to please.
For Athletic, I take the subject of it largely, that is to say, for any
point of ability, whereunto the body of man may be brought, whethei
it be of activity, or of patience; whereof activity hath two parts,
strength and swiftness : and patience likewise hath two parts, hardness
against wants and extremities, and indurance of pain and torment,
whereof we see the practices in tumblers, in savages, and in those that
suffer punishment : nay, if there be any other faculty which falls not
within any of the former divisions, as in those that dive, that obtain a
strange power of containing respiration, and the like, I refer it to this
part. Of these things the practices are known, but the philosophy that
concerneth them is not much inquired ; the rather, I think, because
they are supposed to be obtained, either by an aptness of nature, which
cannot be taught, or only by continual custom, which is soon pre
scribed ; which though it be not true, yet I forbear to note any
deficiences, for the Olympian games are down long since, and the
mediocrity of these things is for use ; as for the excellency of them, it
serveth for the most part but for mercenary ostentation.
For arts of Pleasure sensual, the chief deficience in them is of laws
Jo repress them. For as it hath been well observed, that the arts
vhich flourish in times while virtue is in growth, are military, and
tthile virtue is in state, are liberal, and while virtue is in declination,
are voluptuary ; so I doubt, that this age of the world is somewhat
upon the descent of the wheel. With arts voluptuary I couple practices
jocular ; for the deceiving of the senses is one of the pleasures of the
senses. As for games of recreation, I hold them to belong to civil life
and education. And thus much of that particular human philosophy
which concerns the body, which is but the tabernacle of the mind.
FOR Human Knowledge, which concerns the Mind, it hath two
parts, the one that inquireth of the substance or nature of the soul or
mind ; the other that inquireth of the faculties or functions thereof.
Unto the first of these, the considerations of the original of the soul,
whether it be native or adventive, and how far it is exempted from laws
of matter, and of the immortality thereof, and many other points, do
Io8 ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING.
appertain ; which have been not more laboriously inquired than
Variously reported ; so as the travel therein taken, seemeth to have
oeen rather in a maze than in a way. But although I am of opinion,
that this knowledge may be more really and soundly inquired even in
nature than it hath been ; yet I hold, that in the end it must be
bounded by religion, or else it will be subject to deceit and delusion :
for as the substance of the soul in the creation was not extracted out
of the mass of heaven and earth, by the benediction of ^producat, but
was immediately inspired from God ; so it is not possible that it should
be, otherwise than by accident, subject to the laws of heaven and earth,
which are the subject of philosophy ; and therefore the true knowledge
of the nature, and state of the soul, must come by the same inspiration
that gave the substance. Unto this part of knowledge touching the
soul there be two appendixes, which, as they have been handled, have
rather vapoured forth fables than kindled truth — divination, and fasci
nation.
Divination hath been anciently and fitly divided into artificial, and
natural ; whereof artificial is, when the mind maketh a prediction by
argument, concluding upon signs and tokens : natural is, when the
mind hath a presentation by an internal power, without the inducement
of a sign. Artificial is of two sorts, either when the argument is coupled
with a derivation of causes, which is rational ; or when it is only
grounded upon a coincidence of the effect, which is experimental ;
whereof the latter for the most part is superstitious : such as were the
heathen observations upon the inspection of sacrifices, the flights of
birds, the swarming of bees, and such as was the Chaldean astrology,
and the like. For artificial divination, the several kinds thereof are
distributed amongst particular knowledges. The astronomer hath his
predictions, as of conjunctions, aspects, eclipses, and the like. The
physician hath his predictions, of death, of recovery, of the accidents
and issues of diseases. The politician hath his predictions ; " O
urbem venalem, et cito perituram, si emptorem invenerit!" which
stayed not long to be performed in Sylla first, and after in Caesar ; so
as these predictions are now impertinent, and to be referred over. But
the divination which springeth from the internal nature of the soul, is
that which we now speak of, which hath been made to be of two sorts,
primitive, and by influxion. Primitive is grounded upon the sup
position, that the mind, when it is withdrawn and collected into itself,
and not diffused into the organs of the body, hath some extent and
latitude of prenotion, which therefore appeareth most in sleep, in
extasies, and near death, and more rarely in waking apprehensions ;
and is induced and furthered by those abstinences and observances
which make the mind most to consist in itself. By influxion, is
grounded upon the conceit that the mind, as a mirror or glass, should
take illumination from the foreknowledge of God and spirits : unto
which the same regiment doth likewise conduce. For the retiring of
the -mind within itself, is the state which is most susceptible of divine
influxions, save that it is accompanied in this case with a fervency and
elevation, which the ancients noted by fury, and not with a repose and
quiet, as it is in the other.
Fascination is the power and act of imagination more intensive
ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. *o$
upon other bodies than the body of the imaginant : for of that we
speak in the proper place ; wherein the school of Paracelsus, and the
disciples of pretended natural magic, have been so intemperate, as
they have exalted the power of the imagination to be much one with
the power of miracle-working faith : others, that draw nearer to
probability, calling to their view the secret passages of things, and
especially of the contagion that passeth from body to body, do con
ceive it should likewise be agreeable to nature, that there should be
some transmissions and operations from spirit to spirit without the
mediation of the senses : whence the conceits have grown, now almost
made civil, of the mastering spirit, and the force of confidence, and the
like. Incident unto this is the inquiry how to raise and fortify the
imagination ; for if the imagination fortified have power, then it is
material to know how to fortify and exalt it. And herein comes in
crookedly and dangerously, a palliation of a great part of ceremoni il
magic. For it may be pretended, that ceremonies, characters, and
charms, do work, not by any tacit or sacramental contract with evil
spirits, but serve only to strengthen the imagination of him that useth
it ; as images are said by the Roman church to fix the cogitations, and
raise the devotions of them that pray before them. But for mine own
judgment, if it be admitted that imagination hath power, and that
ceremonies fortify imagination, and that they be used sincerely and
intentionally for that purpose ; yet I should hold them unlawful, as
opposing to that first edict which God gave unto man, " In sudore
vultus comedes pane in tuum" For they propound those noble effects,
which God hath set forth unto man to be bought at the price of labour,
to be attained by a few easy and slothful observances. Deficiencies
in these knowledges I will report none, other than the general de-
ficience, that it is not known how much of them is verity, and how
much vanity.
The knowledge which respecteth the faculties of the mind of
man, is of two kinds ; the one respecting his understanding and
reason, and the other his will, appetite, and affection ; whereof the
former produceth direction or decree, the latter action or execution.
It is true that the imagination is an agent or nuncius in both pro
vinces, both the judicial and the ministerial. For sense sendeth over
to imagination before reason have judged, and reason sendeth over
to imagination before the decree can be acted : for imagination ever
precedeth voluntary motion, saving that this Janus of imagination
hath, differing faces ; for the face towards reason hath the print of
truth, but the face towards action hath the print of good, which never
theless are faces,
Quales decet esst sororum.
Neither is the imagination simply and only a messenger, but is in
vested with, or at leastwise usurpeth no small authority in itself,
besides the duty of the message. For it was well said by Aristotle,
" That the mind hath over the body that commandment, which the
lord hath over a bondman ; but that reason hath over the imagination
that commandment, which a magistrate hath over a free citizen," wha
may come also to rule in his turn. For we see that, in mattets of
P
210 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
faith and religion, we raise our imagination above our reason, which is
the cause why religion sought ever access to the mind by similitudes,
types, parables, visions, dreams. And again, in all persuasions, that
are wrought by eloquence, and other impressions of like nature, which
do paint and disguise the true appearance of things, the chief reconv
mendation unto reason is from the imagination. Nevertheless,
because I find not any science that doth properly or fitly pertain to
the imagination, I see no cause to alter the former division. For as
for poesy, it is rather pleasure, or play of imagination, than a work or
duty thereof. And if it be a work, we speak not now of such parts of
learning as the imagination produceth, but of such sciences as handle
and consider of the imagination ; no more than we shall speak now of
such knowledges as reason produceth, for that extendeth to all philo
sophy, but of such knowledges as do handle and inquire of the faculty
of reason ; so as poesy had its true place. As for the power of the
imagination in nature, and the manner of fortifying the same, we have
mentioned it in the doctrine " De anima" whereunto most fitly it
belongeth : and lastly for imaginative or insinuative reason, which is
the subject of rhetoric, we think it best to refer it to the arts of reason.
So therefore we content ourselves with the former division, that
Human Philosophy, which respecteth the faculties of the mind of man,
hath two parts, Rational and Moral.
The part of Human Philosophy which is rational, is of all know
ledges, to the most wits, the least delightful, and seemeth but a net of
subtilty and spinosity : for as it was truly said, that knowledge is
"pabulum animi /" so in the nature of men's appetite to this food,
most men are of the taste and stomach of the Israelites in the desert,
that would fain have returned " ad alias carnhtm" and were weary of
manna ; which though it were celestial, yet seemed less nutritive and
comfortable. So generally men taste well knowledges that are
drenched in flesh and blood, civil history, morality, policy, about the
which men's affections, praises, fortunes, do turn and are conversant :
but this same "lumen siccum" doth parch and offend most men's
watery and soft natures. But to speak truly of things as they are in
worth, "rational knowledges" are the keys of all other arts ; for as
Aristotle saith aptly and elegantly, " that the hand is the instrument
of instruments, and the mind is the form of forms ;" so these be
truly said to be the art of arts ; neither do they only direct, but
likewise confirm and strengthen : even as the habit of shooting doth
not only enable to shoot a nearer shoot, but also to draw a stronger
bow.
The arts intellectual are four in number, divided according to the
ends whereunto they are referred ; for man's labour is to invent that
which is sought or propounded ; or to judge that which is invented ;
or to retain that which is judged ; or to deliver over that which is
retained. So as the arts must be four ; art of inquiry or invention ;
art of examination or judgment ; art of custody or memory ; and art
of elocution or tradition.
Invention is of two kinds, much differing ; the one of arts and
sciences, and the other of speech and arguments. The former of
these I do report deficient ; which sccmeth to me to be such a defi-
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 211
cience, as if in the making of an inventory, touching the state of a
defunct, it should be set down, that there is no ready money. For as
money will fetch all other commodities, so this knowledge is that
which should purchase all the rest. And like as the West Indies l had
never been discovered, if the use of the mariner's needle had not
been first discovered, though the one be vast regions, and the other a
small motion ; so it cannot be found strange, if sciences be no farther
discovered, if the art itself of invention and discovery hath been
passed over.
That this part of knowledge is wanting, to my judgment, standeth
plainly confessed : for first, logic doth not pretend to invent sciences,
or the axioms of sciences, but passeth it over with a cuique in sua
arte credendum. And Celsus acknowledgeth it gravely, speaking of
the empirical and dogmatical sects of physicians, " That medicines
and cures were first found out, and then after the reasons and causes
were discoursed ; and not the causes first found out, and by light from
them the medicines and cures discovered." And Plato, in his
ThecEtetus, noteth well, " That particulars are infinite, and the higher
generalities give no sufficient direction : and that the pith of all
sciences, which maketh the artsman differ from the inexpert, is in the
middle propositions, which in every particular knowledge are taken
from tradition and experience." And therefore we see, that they which
discourse of the inventions and originals of things, refer them rather
to chance than to art, and rather to beasts, birds, fishes, serpents, than
to men.
Dictamnum genetrix Cretcea carpit ab Ida,
Puberibus caulemfoliis, etflore comantem
Purpureo ; non illaferis incognita capris,
Gramina cunt tergo volucres hcesere sagittce.
So that it was no marvel, the manner of antiquity being to con
secrate inventors, that the Egyptians had so few human idols in their
temples, but almost all brute ;
Omnigenumque Deum monstra, et latrator Anubis,
Contra Neptunum, et Venerem, contraque Minervatn, etc.
And if you like better the tradition of the Grecians, and ascribe the
first inventions to men, yet you will rather believe that Prometheus
first struck the flints, and marvelled at the spark, than that when he
first struck the flints he expected the spark ; and therefore we see the
West Indian Prometheus had no intelligence with the European,
because of the rareness with them of flint, that gave the first occasion :
so as it should seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild
goat for surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some
part of physic, or to the potlid2 that fled open for artillery, or generally
to chance, or anything else, than to logic, for the invention of arts and
sciences. Neither is the form of invention which Virgil describeth
much other.
Ut varias usus meditando extunderet artes
Paulatim.
1 America in general is included in this term.
* Still true — as in the case of the invention of steam.
2i2 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
For if you observe the words well, it is no other method than that
which brute beasts are capable of and do put in ure : which is a per
petual tending or practising some one thing, urged and imposed by an
absolute necessity of conservation of being ; for so Cicero saith very
truly, " Usus uni rei deditns> et naturam et artem scepe vincit? And
therefore if it be said of men,
Labor omnia vincit
ImprobuSt et duris urgens in rebus egestas ;
it is likewise said of beasts, " Quis psittaco docuit suum x^P* >"
Who taught the raven in a drought to throw pebbles into an hollow
tree, where she espied water, that the water might rise so as she might
some to it ? Who taught the bee to sail through such a vast sea of
air, and to find the way from a field in flower, a great way off, to her
hive ? Who taught the ant to bite every grain of corn that she burieth
in her hill, lest it should take root and grow ? Add then the word
extundcre, which importeth the extreme difficulty ; and the word
paulatim, which importeth the extreme slowness ; and we are where
we were, even amongst the Egyptian gods ; there being little left to
the faculty of reason, and nothing to the duty of art, for matter of
invention.
Secondly, the induction which the logicians speak of, and which
seemeth familiar with Plato, whereby the principles of sciences may be
pretended to be invented, and so the middle propositions by derivation
from the principles ; their form of induction, I say, is utterly vicious
and incompetent ; wherein their errand is the fouler, because it is the
duty of art to perfect and exalt nature ; but they contrariwise have
wronged, abused, and traduced nature. For he that shall atten
tively observe how the mind doth gather this excellent dew of
knowledge, like unto that which the poet speaketh of, " Aerei mellis
ccelestia dona" distilling and contriving it out' of particulars natural
and artificial, as the flowers of the field and garden, shall find, that
the mind of herself by nature doth manage and act an induction much
better than they describe it. For to conclude upon an enumeration
of particulars without instance contradictory, is no conclusion, but a
conjecture ; for who can assure, in many subjects, upon those par
ticulars which appear of a side, that there are not other on the con
trary side which appear not. As if Samuel should have rested upon
those sons of Jesse, which were brought before him, and failed of
David which was in the field. And this form, to say truth, is so gross,
as it had not been possible for wits so subtile, as have managed
these things, to have offered it to the world, but that they hasted
to their theories and dogmaticals, and were imperious and scornful
toward particulars, which their manner was to use but as lictores and
t'iatores, for Serjeants and whifflers, ad summovendam turbam, to
make way and make room for their opinions, rather than in their true
use and service : certainly it is a thing may touch a man with a
religious wonder to see how the footsteps of seducement are the very
same in divine and human truth ; for as in divine truth man cannot
endure to become as a child ; so in hum an, they reputed the attending
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. «3
the inductions, whereof we speak, as if it were a second infancy
or childhood.
Thirdly, allow some principles or axioms were rightly induced, yet
nevertheless certain it is that middle propositions cannot be deduced
from them in subject of nature by syllogism, that is, by touch and
reduction of them to principles in a middle term. It is true that iir
sciences popular, as moralities, laws, and the like, yea and divinity,
because it pleaseth God to apply Himself to the capacity of the
simplest, that form may have use, and in natural philosophy likewise,
by way of argument or satisfactory reason, " Qua assensum parit^
operis effceta est ;" but the subtilty of nature and operations will not
be enchained in those bonds ; for arguments consist of propositions,
and propositions of words, and words are but the current tokens or
marks of popular notions of things ; which notions, if they be grossly
and variably collected out of particulars, it is not the laborious exami
nation either of consequences of arguments, or of the truth of propo
sitions, that can ever correct that error, being, as the physicians speak,
in the first digestion ; and therefore it was not without cause, that
so many excellent philosophers became sceptics and academics,
and denied any certainty of knowledge or comprehension, and held
opinion, that the knowledge of man extended only to appearances and
probabilities. It is true that in Socrates it was supposed to be but a
form of irony, " Scientiam dissimulando simulavit : " for he used to
disable his knowledge, to the end to enhance his knowledge, like the
humour of Tiberius in his beginnings, that would reign, but would not
acknowledge so much ; and in the latter academy, which Cicero
embraced, this opinion also of acatalepsia, I doubt, was not held
sincerely : for that all those which excelled in copy of speech, seem
to have chosen that sect as that which was fittest to give glory
to their eloquence, and variable discourses ; being rather like pro
gresses of pleasure, than journeys to an end. But assuredly many
scattered in both academies did hold it in subtilty and integrity. But
here was their chief error ; they charged the deceit upon the senses,
which in my judgment, notwithstanding all their cavillations, are very
sufficient to certify and report truth, though not always immediately,
jet by comparison, by help of instrument, and by producing and
urging such things as are too subtile for the sense, to some effect com
prehensible by the sense, and other like assistance. But they ought to
have charged the deceit upon the weakness of the intellectual powers,
and upon the manner of collecting and concluding upon the reports of
the senses. This I speak not to disable the mind of man, but to stir it
up to seek help : for no man, be he never so cunning or practised,
can make a straight line or perfect circle by steadiness of hand, which
may be easily done by help of a ruler or compass.
This part of invention, concerning the invention of sciences, I pur
pose, if God give me leave, hereafter to propound, having digested it
into two parts ; whereof the one I term experientia literata, and the
other interpretatio natures : the former being but a degree and rudi
ment of the latter. But I will not dwell too long, nor speak too great
upon a promise.
The invention of speech or argument is not properly an invention?
*A4 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
for to invent, is to discover that we know not, and not to recover or
rcsummon that which we already know, and the use of this invention
is no other, but out of the knowledge, whereof our mind is already
possessed, to draw forth or call before us that which may be pertinent
to the purpose which we take into our consideration. So as, to speak
truly, it is no invention, but a remembrance or suggestion, with an
application ; which is the cause why the schools do place it after judg
ment, as subsequent and not precedent. Nevertheless, because we
do account it a chase, as well of deer in an enclosed park, as in a
forest at large, and that it hath already obtained the name ; let it be
called invention, so as it be perceived and discerned that the scope
and end of this invention is readiness and present use of our know
ledge, and not addition or amplification thereof.
To procure this ready use of knowledge there are two courses, pre
paration and suggestion. The former of these seemeth scarcely a
part of knowledge, consisting rather of diligence than of any artificial
erudition. And herein Aristotle wittily, but hurtfully, doth deride the
sophists near his time, saying, " They did as if one that professed the
art of shoemaking should not teach how to make up a shoe, but only
exhibit in a readiness a number of shoes of all fashions and sizes."
But yet a man might reply, that if a shoemaker should have no shoes
in his shop, but only work as he is bespoken, he should be weakly
customed. But our Saviour, speaking of divine knowledge, saith,
" that the kingdom of heaven is like a good householder, that bringeth
forth both new and old store ;" and we see the ancient writers of
rhetoric do give it in precept that pleaders should have the places
whereof they have most continual use, ready handled in all the variety
that may be ; as that, to speak for the literal interpretation of the law
against equity, and contrary ; and to speak for presumptions and
inferences against testimony, and contrary. And Cicero himself,
being broken unto it by great experience, delivereth it plainly ; that
whatsoever a man shall have occasion to speak of, if he will take the
pains, may have it in effect premeditate, and handled in thesi : so that
when he cometh to a particular, he shall have nothing to do, but to
put to names, and times, and places, and such other circumstances
of individuals. We see likewise the exact diligence of Demosthenes,
who in regard of the great force that the entrance and access into
causes hath to make a good impression, had ready framed a number
of prefaces for orations and speeches. All which authorities and
precedents may overweigh Aristotle's opinion, that would have us
change a rich wardrobe for a pair of shears.
But the nature of the collection of this provision or preparatory
store, though it be common both to logic and rhetoric, yet having
made an entry of it here, where it came first to be spoken of, I think
fit to refer over the farther handling of it to rhetoric.
The other part of invention, which I term Suggestion, doth assign
and direct us to certain marks or places, which may excite our mind
to return and produce such knowledge, as it hath formerly collected,
to the end we may make use thereof. Neither is this use, truly taken,
only to furnish argument to dispute probably with others, but likewise
to minister unto oxir judgment to conclude aright within ourselves.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 315
Neither may these places serve only to prompt our invention, but also
to direct our inquiry. For a faculty of wise interrogating is half a
knowledge. For as Plato saith, " Whosoever seeketh, knoweth that
which he seeketh for in a general notion, else how shall he know it
when he hath found it ? " And therefore the larger your anticipation is,
the more direct and compendious is your search. But the same places
which will help us what to produce of that which we know already, will
also help us, if a man of experience were before us, what questions to
ask : or, if we have books and authors to instruct us, what points to
search and revolve : so as I cannot report, that this part of invention,
which is that which the schools call topics, is deficient.
Nevertheless topics are of two sorts, general and special. The
general we have spoken to, but the particular hath been touched by
some, but rejected generally as inartificial and variable. But leaving
the humour which hath reigned too much in the schools, which is, t<(
be vainly subtile in a few things, which are within their command, and
to reject the rest, I do receive particular topics, that is, places or direc
tions of invention and inquiry in every particular knowledge, as things
of great use, being mixtures of logic with the matter of sciences : for
in these it holdeth, " Ars inveniendi adolescit cum inventis j " for as
in going of a way, we do not only gain that part of the way which is
passed, but we gain the better sight of that part of the way which
remaineth ; so every degree of proceeding in a science giveth a light
to that which followeth, which light if we strengthen, by drawing it
forth into questions or places of inquiry, we do greatly advance our
pursuit.
Now we pass unto the arts of judgment, which handle the natures
of proofs and demonstrations, which as to induction hath a coincidence
with invention : for in all inductions, whether in good or vicious form,
the same action of the mind which inventeth, judgeth ; all one as in
the sense: but otherwise it is in proof by syllogism; for the proof
being not immediate, but by mean, the invention of the mean is one
thing, and the judgment of the consequence is another ; the one
exciting only, the other examining. Therefore, for the real and exact
form of judgment, we refer ourselves to that which we have spoken of
interpretation of nature.
For the other judgment by syllogism, as it is a thing most agreeable
to the mind of man, so it hath been vehemently and excellently
laboured : for the nature of man doth extremely covet to have some
what in his understanding fixed and unmoveable, and as a rest and
support of the mind. And therefore as Aristotle endeavoureth to
prove, that in all motion there is some point quiescent ; and as he
elegantly expoundeth the ancient fable of Atlas, that stood fixed, and
bare up the heaven from falling, to be meant of the poles or axle-tree
of heaven, whereupon the conversion is accomplished ; so assuredly
men have a desire to have an Atlas or axle-tree within, to keep them
from fluctuation, which is like to a perpetual peril of falling ; therefore
men did hasten to set down some principles about which the variety
of their disputations might turn.
So then this art of judgment is but the reduction of propositions
to principles in a middle term. The principles to be agreed by all,
ai6 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
and exempted from argument : the middle term to be elected at the
liberty of every man's invention : the reduction to be of two kinds,
direct and inverted ; the one when the proposition is reduced to the
principle, which they term a probation ostensive ; the other, when the
contradictory of the proposition is reduced to the contradictory of the
principle, which is that which they call per incommodum, or pressing
an absurdity ; the number of middle terms to be as the proposition
standeth degrees more or less removed from the principle.
But this art hath two several methods of doctrine, the one by way
of direction, the other by way of caution ; the former frameth and
setteth down a true form of consequence, by the variations and deflec
tions from which errors and inconsequences may be exactly judged.
Toward the composition and structure of which form it is incident
to handle the parts thereof, which are propositions, and the parts of
propositions, which are simple words ; and this is that part of logic
which is comprehended in the analytics.
The second method of doctrine was introduced for expedite use
and assurance sake discovering the more subtile forms of sophisms
and illaqueations, with their redargutions, which is that which is
termed Elenches. For although in the more gross sorts of fallacies it
happeneth, as Seneca maketh the comparison well, as in juggling
feats, which though we know not how they are done, yet we know
well it is not as it seemeth to be, yet the more subtile sort of them
doth not only put a man besides his answer, but doth many times
abuse his judgment.
This part concerning Elenches is excellently handled by Aristotle
in precept, but more excellently by Plato in example ; not only in the
persons of the sophists, but even in Socrates himself, who professing
to affirm nothing, but to infirm that which was affirmed by another,
hath exactly expressed all the forms of objection, fallacy, and redar-
gution. And although we have said that the use of this doctrine is
tor redargution : yet it is manifest, the degenerate and corrupt use is
for caption and contradiction, which passeth for a great faculty, and
no doubt is of very great advantage, though the difference be good
which was made between orators and sophisters, that the one is as
the greyhound, which hath his advantage in the race, and the other
as the hare, which hath her advantage in the turn, so as it is the
advantage of the weaker creature.
But yet farther, this doctrine of Elenches hath a more ample
latitude and extent, than is perceived ; namely, unto divers parts of
knowledge ; whereof some are laboured, and others omitted. For
first, I conceive, though it may seem at first somewhat strange, that
that part which is variably referred, sometimes to logic, sometimes
to metaphysic, touching the common adjuncts of essences, is but an
Elenche ; for the great sophism of all sophisms being equivocation
or ambiguity of words and phrase, especially of such words as are
most general and intervene in every inquiry : it seemeth to me that
the true and fruitful uses, leaving vain subtilties and speculations, of
the inquiry of majority, minority, priority, posteriority, identity, diver
sity, possibility, act, totality, parts, existence, privation, and the like,
are but wise cautions against ambiguities of speech. So again, the
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 917
distribution of things into certain tribes, which we call categories or
predicaments, are but cautions against the confusion of definitions
and divisions.
Secondly, there is a sedu cement that worketh by the strength of the
impression, and not by the subtilty of the illaqueation, not so much
perplexing the reason, as over-ruling it by power of the imagination.
But this part I think more proper to handle, when I shall speak of
rhetoric.
But lastly, there is yet a much more important and profound kind
of fallacies in the mind of man, which I find not observed or inquired
at all, and think good to place here, as that which of all others apper-
taineth most to rectify judgment : the force whereof is such, as it doth
not dazzle or snare the understanding in some particulars, but doth
more generally and inwardly infect and corrupt the state thereof.
For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass,
wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true
incidence ; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition
and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced. For this purpose,
let us consider the false appearances that are imposed upon us by the
general nature of the mind, beholding them in an example or two ;
as first in that instance which is the root of all superstition, namely,
that to the nature of the mind of all men it is consonant for the
affirmative or active to effect, more than the negative or privative.
So that a few times hitting, or presence, countervails oft-times failing,
or absence ; as was well answered by Diagoras l to him that showed
him, in Neptune's temple, the great number of pictures of such as had
escaped shipwreck, and had paid their vows to Neptune, saying,
" Advise now, you that think it folly to invocate Neptune in tempest."
"Yea, but," saith Diagoras, " where are they painted that are drowned?"
Let us behold it in another instance, namely, " That the spirit of man,
being of an equal and uniform substance, doth usually suppose and
feign in nature a greater equality and uniformity than is in truth."
Hence it cometh, that the mathematicians cannot satisfy themselves,
except they reduce the motions of the celestial bodies to perfect circles,
rejecting spiral lines, and labouring to be discharged of eccentrics.
Hence it cometh, that whereas there are many things in nature, as it
were, monodica, sui juris ; yet the cogitations of man do feign unto
them relatives, parallels, and conjugates, whereas no such thing is ;
as they have feigned an element of fire to keep square with earth,
water, and air, and the like ; nay, it is not credible, till it be opened,
what a number of fictions and fantasies, the similitude of human
actions and arts, together with the making of man communis mensitra,
have brought into natural philosophy, not much better than the heresy
of the Anthropomorphites,3 bred in the cells of gross and solitary
monks, and the opinion of Epicurus, answerable to the same in
heathenism, who supposed the gods to be of human shape. And
therefore Velleius the Epicurean needed not to have asked why God
should have adorned the heavens with stars, as if he had been an
1 See page 30, note 4.
1 A ««ct of ancient heretics, who taught that God had a human body human passions. &Q
2i8 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
yEdilis ; one that should have set forth some magnificent shows ot
plays. For if that great work-master had been of an human disposi
tion, he would have cast the stars into some pleasant and beautiful
works and orders, like the frets in the roofs of houses ; whereas one
can scarce find a posture in square, or triangle, or straight line,
amongst such an infinite number ; so differing an harmony there is
between the spirit of man, and the spirit of nature.
Let us consider, again, the false appearances imposed upon us by
every man's own individual nature and custom, in that feigned suppo
sition that Plato maketh of the cave ; for, certainly, if a child were
continued in a grot or cave under the earth until maturity of age, and
came suddenly abroad, he would have strange arid absurd imagina
tions. So in like manner, although our persons live in the view
of heaven, yet our spirits are included in the caves of our own com
plexions and customs, which minister unto us infinite errors and vain
opinions, if they be not recalled to examination. But hereof we have
given many examples in one of the errors, or peccant humours, which
we ran briefly over in our first book.
And lastly, let us consider the false appearances that are imposed
upon us by words, which are framed and applied according to the
conceit and capacities of the vulgar sort ; and although we think we
govern our words, and prescribe it well, " Loquendum ut vulgus,
sentiendum ut sapientes ;" yet certain it is, that words, as a Tartar's
bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily
intangle and pervert the judgment ; so as it is almost necessary in all
controversies and disputations, to imitate the wisdom of the mathe
matics, in setting down in the very beginning the definitions of our
very words and terms, that others may know how we accept and
understand them, and whether they concur with us or no. For it
cometh to pass, for want of this, that we are sure to end there where
we ought to have begun, which is in questions and differences about
words. To conclude therefore, it must be confessed that it is not
possible to divorce ourselves from these fallacies and false appear
ances, because they are inseparable from our nature and condition of
life ; so yet nevertheless the caution of them (for all clenches, as was
said, are but cautions), doth extremely import the true conduct of
human judgment. The particular clenches or cautions against these
three false appearances, I find altogether deficient.
There remaineth one part of judgment of great excellency, which
to mine understanding is so slightly touched, as I may report that also
deficient ; which is, the application of the differing kinds of proofs to
the differing kinds of subjects ; for there being but four kinds of
demonstrations, that is, by the immediate consent of the mind or
sense, by induction, by syllogism, and by congruity ; which is that
which Aristotle called demonstration in orb, or circle, and not a
notioribus ; every of these hath certain subjects in the matter of
sciences, in which respectively they have chiefest use ; and certaifl
others, from which respectively they ought to be excluded, and the
rigour and curiosity in requiring the more severe proofs in some
things, and chiefly the facility in contenting ourselves with the more
remiss proofs in others, hath been amongst the greatest causes of
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 319
detriment and hindrance to knowledge. The distributions and
assignations of demonstrations, according to the analogy of sciences I
note as deficient.
The custody or retaining of knowledge is either in writing or
memory ; whereof writing hath two parts, the nature of the character,
and the order of the entry : for the art of characters, or other visible
notes of words or things, it hath nearest conjugation with grammar ;
and therefore I refer it to the due place: for the disposition and
collocation of that knowledge which we preserve in writing, it con-
sisteth in a good digest of common-places wherein I am not ignorant
of the prejudice imputed to the use of common-place books, as causing
a retardation of reading, and some sloth or relaxation of memory.
But because it is but a counterfeit thing in knowledges to be forward
and pregnant, except a man be deep and full, I hold the entry of com
mon-places to be a matter of great use and essence in studying, as
that which assureth copy of invention, and contracteth judgment to a
strength. But this is true, that of the methods of common-places that
I have seen, there is none of any sufficient worth, all of them carrying
merely the face of a school, and not of a world, and referring to
vulgar matters, and pedantical divisions, without all life, or respect to
action.
For the other principal part of the custody of knowledge, which is
memory, I find that faculty in my judgment weakly inquired of. An
art there is extant of it ; but it seemeth to me that there are better
precepts than that art, and better practices of that art, than those
received. It is certain the art, as it is, may be. raised to points of
ostentation prodigious ; but in use, as it is now managed, it is barren,
not burdensome, nor dangerous to natural memory, as is imagined,
but barren ; that is, not dexterous to be applied to the serious use of
business and occasions. And therefore I make no more estimation of
repeating a great number of names or words upon once hearing, or the
pouring forth of a number of verses or rhymes ex tempori, Or the
making of a satirical simile of every thing, or the turning of every
thing to a jest, or the falsifying or contradicting of every thing by
cavil, or the like, whereof in the faculties of the mind there is great
copia, and such as by device and practice may be exalted to an ex
treme degree of wonder, than I do of the tricks of tumblers, funam-
buloes, baladines ; the one being the same in the mind, that the other
is in the body ; matters of strangeness without worthiness.
This art of memory is but built upon two intentions ; the one
prenotion, the other emblem. Prenotion dischargeth the indefinite
seeking of that we would remember, and directeth us to seek in a
narrow compass ; that is, somewhat that hath congruity with our
place of memory. Emblem reduceth conceits intellectual to images
sensible, which strike the memory more ; out of which axioms may be
drawn much better practice than that in use ; and besides which
axioms, there are divers more touching help of memory, not inferior to
them. But I did in the beginning distinguish, not to report those
things deficient, which are but only ill managed.
There remaineth the fourth kind of rational knowledge, which is
transitive concerning the expressing or transferring our knowledge to
22o ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING.
others, which I will term by the general name of tradition or delivery
Tradition hath three parts : the first concerning the organ of tradi
tion ; the second, concerning the method of tradition ; and the third,
loncerning the illustration of tradition.
For the organ of tradition, it is either speech or writing : for
.Aristotle saith well, "Words are the images of cogitations, and letters
are the images of words ;" but yet it is not of necessity that cogita
tions be expressed by the medium of words. For whatsoever is
capable of sufficient differences, and those perceptible by the sense, is
in nature competent to express cogitations. And therefore we see in
the commerce of barbarous people, that understand not one another's
language, and in the practice of divers that are dumb and deaf, that
men's minds are expressed in gestures, though not exactly, yet to
serve the turn. And we understand farther, that it is the use of China,
and the kingdoms of the High Levant, to write in characters real,
which express neither letters nor words in gross, but things or notions;
insomuch as countries and provinces, which understand not one
another's language, can nevertheless read one another's writings,
because the characters are accepted more generally than the languages
do extend ; and therefore they have a vast multitude of characters, as
many, I suppose, as radical words.
These notes of cogitations are of two sorts ; the one when the note
hath some similitude or congruity with the notion ; the other ad
placitum, having force only by contract or acceptation. Of the former
sort are hieroglyphics and gestures. For as to hieroglyphics, things
of ancient use, and embraced chiefly by the Egyptians, one of the
most ancient nations, they are but as continued impresses and
emblems. And as for gestures, they are as transitory hieroglyphics,
and are to hieroglyphics as words spoken are to words written, in that
they abide not ; but they have evermore, as well as the other, an
affinity with the things signified ; as Periander,1 being consulted with,
how to preserve a tyranny newly usurped, bid the messenger attend
and report what he saw him do, and went into his garden and topped
all the highest flowers ; signifying, that it consisted in the cutting off
and keeping low of the nobility and grandees. Ad placitum are the
characters real before mentioned, and words : although some have
been willing by curious inquiry, or rather by apt feigning, to have
derived imposition of names from reason and intendment ; a specula
tion elegant, and, by reason it searcheth into antiquity, reverent ; but
sparingly mixed with truth, and of small fruit. This portion of know
ledge, touching the notes of things, and cogitations in general, I find
not inquired, but deficient. And although it may seem of no great
use, considering that words and writings by letter do far excel all the
other ways ; yet because this part concerneth, as it were, the mint of
knowledge, for words are the tokens current and accepted for conceits,
as moneys are for values, and that it is fit men be not ignorant that
moneys may be of another kind than gold and silver, I thought to
propound it to better inquiry.
Concerning speech and words, the consideration of them hath pro-
1 Tyrant of Corinth. He was counted amongst the seven wise men of Gretce ; died 585 B,C.
Tbe same story is told ef the Tarquins.
ADVANCEMENT OP LEAKNhVG. oai
triced the science of Grammar ; for man still striveth to reintegrate
himself in those benedictions, from which by his fault he hath been
deprived ; and as he hath striven against the first general curse, by
the invention of all other arts ; so hath he sought to come forth of the
second general curse, which was the confusion of tongues, by the art
of grammar, whereof the use in a mother tongue is small ; in a foreign
tongue more ; but most in such foreign tongues as have ceased to be
vulgar tongues, and are turned only to learned tongues. The duty of
it is of two natures ; the one popular, which is for the speedy and per
fect attaining languages, as well for intercourse of speech, as for
understanding of authors ; the other philosophical, examining the
power and nature of words, as they are the footsteps and prints of
reason : which kinds of analogy between words and reason is handled
sparsim, brokenly, though not entirely ; and therefore I cannot report
it deficient, though I think it very worthy to be reduced into a science
by itself.
Unto grammar also belongeth, as an appendix, the consideration of
the accidents of words, which are measure, sound, and elevation or
accent, and the sweetness and harshness of them : whence hath issued
some curious observations in rhetoric, but chiefly poesy, as we
consider it, in respect of the verse, and not of the argument ; wherein
though men in learned tongues do tie themselves to the ancient
measures, yet in modern languages it seemeth to me, as free to make
new measures of verses as of dances ; for a dance is a measured pace,
as a verse is a measured speech. In these things the sense is better
judge than the art ;
Ccence fercula nostrce,
Mallem convivis, quant placuisse cods.
And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and unfit subject,
it is well said, " Quod tempore antiquum videtur, id incongruitate est
maxime novum"
For cyphers, they are commonly in letters or alphabets, but may be
in words. The kinds of cyphers, besides the simple cyphers, with
changes, and intermixtures of nulls and non-significants, are many,
according to the nature or rule of the infolding : wheel- cyphers, key-
cyphers, doubles, etc. But the virtues of them, whereby they are
to be preferred, are three ; that they be not laborious to write and
read ; that they be impossible to decipher ; and in some cases, that
they be without suspicion. The highest degree whereof is to write
omnia per omnia ; which is undoubtedly possible with a proportion
quincuple at most, of the writing infolding to the writing infolded, and
no other restraint whatsoever. This art of ciphering hath for relative
an art of deciphering, by supposition unprofitable, but, as things are,
of great use. For suppose that cyphers were well managed, there be
multitudes of them which exclude the decipherer. But in regard o/
\he rawness and unskilfulness of the hands through which they pass^
.he greatest matters are many times carried in the weakest cyphers.
In the enumeration of these private and retired arts, it may be
thought I seek to make a great muster-roll of sciences, naming them
for show and ostentation, and to little otber purpose. But let those
25,55 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
which are skilful in them judge, whether I bring them in only for ap
pearance, or whether in that which I speak of them, though in few
words, there be not some seed of proficience. And this must be
remembered, that as there be many of great account in their countries
and provinces, which when they come up to the seat of the estate, are
but of mean rank, and scarcely regarded ; so these arts being here
placed with the principal and supreme sciences, seem petty things ;
yet to such as have chosen them to spend their labours and studies in
them, they seem great matters.
For the method of tradition, I see it hath moved a controversy in
our time. But as in civil business, if there be a meeting, and men
fall at words, there is commonly an end of the matter for that time,
and no proceeding at all : so in learning, where there is much contro
versy, there is many times little inquiry. For this part of knowledge
of method seemeth to me so weakly inquired, as I shall report it de
ficient.
Method hath been placed, and that not amiss, in logic, as a part
of judgment : for as the doctrine of syllogisms comprehendeth the
rules of judgment upon that which is invented, so the doctrine of
method containeth the rules of judgment upon that which is to be
delivered ; for judgment precedeth delivery, as it followeth invention.
Neither is the method or the nature of the tradition material only to
the use of knowledge, but likewise to the progression of knowledge :
for since the labour and life of one man cannot attain to perfection of
knowledge, the wisdom of the tradition is that which inspireth the
felicity of continuance and proceeding. And therefore the most real
diversity of method, is of method referred to use, and method referred
to progression, whereof the one may be termed magistral, and the
other of probation.
The latter whereof seemeth to be via deserta et interclusa. For as
knowledges are now delivered, there is a kind of contract of error,
between the deliverer and the receiver ; for he that delivereth know
ledge, desireth to deliver it in such form as may be best believed, and
not as may be best examined : and he that receiveth knowledge,
desireth rather present satisfaction, than expectant inquiry : and so
rather not to doubt, than not to err ; glory making the author not to
lay open his weakness, and sloth making the disciple not to know his
strength.
But knowledge, that is delivered as a thread to be spun on, ought
to be delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same method
wherein it was invented, and so is it possible of knowledge induced.
But in this same anticipated and prevented knowledge, no man
knoweth how he came to the knowledge which he hath obtained. But
yet nevertheless, secundum majus et minus, a man may revisit and
descend unto the foundations of his knowledge and consent ; and so
transplant it into another, as it grew in his own mind. For it is in
knowledges, as it is in plants, if you mean to use the plant, it is no
matter for the roots ; but if you mean to remove it to grow, then it is
more assured to rest upon roots than slips : so the delivery of know
ledges, as it is now used, is as of fair bodies of trees without the roots ;
good for the carpenter, but not for the planter. But if vou will have
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 223
sciences grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so you
look well to the taking up of the roots : of which kind of delivery the
method of the mathematics, in that subject, hath some shadow ; but
generally I see it neither put in use nor put in inquisition, and there
fore note it for deficient.
Another diversity of method there is, which hath some affinity with
the former, used in some cases by the discretion of the ancients, but
disgraced since by the impostures of many vain persons, who have
made it as a false light for their counterfeit merchandizes ; and that
is, enigmatical and disclosed. The pretence whereof is to remove the
vulgar capacities from being admitted to the secrets of knowledges,
and to reserve them to selected auditors, or wits of such sharpness as
can pierce the veil.
Another diversity of method, whereof the consequence is great, is
the delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods ; wherein we
may observe, that it hath been too much taken into custom, out of a
few axioms or observations upon any subject to make a solemn and
formal art, filling it with some discourses, and illustrating it with
examples, and digesting it into a sensible method ; but the writings in
aphorisms hath many excellent virtues, whereto the writing in method
doth not approach.
For first it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial or solid : for
aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of
the pith and heart of sciences ; for discourse of illustration is cut off,
recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and order is
cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off; so there remaineth nothing
to fill the aphorisms, but some good quantity of observation : and there
fore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt to write aphorisms,
but he that is sound and grounded. But in methods,
Tantum series juncturaque pallet,
Tanium de media sumptis accedit honoris ;
as a man shall make a great show of an art, which, if it were disjointed,
would come to little. Secondly, methods are more fit to win consent,
or belief, but less fit to point to action ; for they carry a kind of
demonstration in orb or circle, one part illuminating another, and
therefore satisfy. But particulars being dispersed, do best agree with
dispersed directions. And lastly, aphorisms, representing a knowledge
broken, do invite men to inquire farther ; whereas methods carrying
the show of a total, do secure men as if they were at farthest.
Another diversity of method, which is likewise of great weight, is the
handling of knowledge by assertions, and their proofs ; or by questions,
and their determinations ; the latter kind whereof, if it be immoderately
followed, is as prejudicial to the proceeding of learning, as it is to the
proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or hold.
For if the field be kept, and the sum of the enterprise pursued, those
smaller things will come in of themselves ; but indeed a man would
not leave some important piece of the enemy at his back. In like
manner, the use of confutation in the delivery of sciences ought to be
very sparing ; and to serve to remove strong preoccupations and
prejudgments, and not to minister and excite disputations and doubts.
124 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
Another diversity of methods is according to the subject or matter
which is handled ; for there is a great difference in delivery of the
mathematics, which are the most abstracted of knowledges, and policy,
which is most immersed ; and howsoever contention hath been re-
moved, touching the uniformity of method in multiformity of matter,
yet we see how that opinion, besides the weakness of it, hath been of
ill desert towards learning, as that which taketh the way to reduce
learning to certain empty and barren generalities ; being but the very
husks and shells of sciences, all the kernel being forced out and expulsed
with the torture and press of the method. And therefore as I did allow
well of particular topics of invention, so do I allow likewise of particular
methods of tradition.
Another diversity of judgment in the delivery and teaching of know
ledge, is according unto the light and presuppositions of that which is
delivered ; for that knowledge which is new and foreign from opinions
received, is to be delivered in another form than that that is agreeable
and familiar ; and therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax Democritus,
doth in truth commend him, where he saith, " If we shall indeed
dispute, and not follow after similitudes," etc. For those, whose
conceits l are seated in popular opinions, need only but to prove or dis
pute ; but those whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a
double labour ; the one to make themselves conceived, and the other
to prove and demonstrate : so that it is of necessity with them to have
recourse to similitudes and translations to express themselves. And
therefore in the infancy of learning, and in rude times, when those con
ceits which are now trivial were then new, the world was full of parables
and similitudes; for else would men either have passed over without
mark, or else rejected for paradoxes, that which was offered, before they
had understood or judged. So in divine learning, we see how frequent
parables and tropes are : for it is a rule, " That whatsoever science is
not consonant to presuppositions, must pray in aid of similitudes."
There be also other diversities of methods vulgar and received : as
that of resolution or analysis, of constitution or sy stasis, of concealment
or cryptic, etc., which I do allow well of, though I have stood upon
those which are least handled and observed. All which I have remem
bered to this purpose, because I would erect and constitute one general
inquiry, which seems to me deficient, touching the wisdom of tradition.
But unto this part of knowledge concerning method, doth farther
belong, not only the architecture of a whole frame of work, but also
the several beams and columns thereof, not as to their stuff, but as
to their quantity and figure : and therefore method considereth not
only the disposition of the argument or subject, but likewise the pro
positions ; not as to their truth or matter, but as to their limitation and
manner. For herein Ramus 2 merited better a great deal in reviving the
good rules and propositions, Ka^oAov Trpcoroi/ Kara iravrbs, etc., than he did
in introducing the canker of epitomes ; and yet, as it is the condition
1 Conceptions.
* Peter Ramus, or rather Pierre de la Rame'e, was a French philosopher, born in a village
of the Vermaudois in about 1500. He was Royal Professor of Rhetoric and Philosophy in the
University of Paris in 1551 ; became a Protestant, and perished in the massacre of S. Ba; -
tholomew.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 225
of human things, that, according to the ancient fables, " The most
precious things have the most pernicious keepers ;" it was so, that the
attempt of the one made him fall upon the other. For he had need be
well conducted, that should design to make axioms convertible ; if he
make them not withal circular, and non promovent or incurring into
themselves : but yet the intention was excellent.
The other considerations of method concerning propositions are
chiefly touching the utmost propositions, which limit the dimensions
of sciences ; for every knowledge may be fitly said, (besides the pro
fundity, which is the truth and substance of it that makes it solid,) to
have a longitude and a latitude, accounting the latitude towards other
sciences, and the longitude towards action ; that is, from the greatest
generality, to the most particular precept : the one giveth rule how far
one knowledge ought to intermeddle within the province of another
which is the rule they call Kadavro : the other giveth rule unto what
degree of particularity a knowledge should descend : which latter I find
passed over in silence, being in my judgment the more material : for
certainly there must be somewhat left to practice ; but how much is
worthy the inquiry. We see remote and superficial generalities do but
offer knowledge to scorn of practical men, and are no more aiding to
practice, than an Ortelius's l universal map is to direct the way between
London and York. The better sort of rules have been not unfitly com
pared to glasses of steel unpolished ; where you may see the images of
things, but first they must be filed : so the rules will help, if they be
laboured and polished by practice. But how crystalline they may be
made at the first, and how far forth they may be polished aforehand, is
the question ; the inquiry whereof seemeth to me deficient.
There hath been also laboured, and put in practice, a method, whic&
is not a lawful method, but a method of imposture, which is, to deliver
knowledges in such a manner as men may speedily come to make a
show of learning, who have it not : such was the travail 2 of Raymundus
Lullius 3 in making that art, which bears his name, not unlike to some
books of typocosmy4 which have been made since, being nothing but
a mass of words of all arts, to give men countenance, that those which
use the terms might be thought to understand the art ; which collec
tions are much like a fripper's or broker's shop, that hath ends of
everything, but nothing of worth.
Now we descend to that part which concerneth the illustration of
tradition, comprehended in that science which we call Rhetoric, or art
of eloquence ; a science excellent, and excellently well laboured. For
although in true value it is inferior to wisdom, as it is said by God to
Moses, when he disabled himself for want of this faculty, " Aaron shall
be thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God : " Yet with people it
is the more mighty : for so Solomon saith, " Sapiens corde appellabitur
prudens, sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet; " 5 signifying, that profound-
1 Abraham Ortell (the name is Latinised as usual) was a learned geographer, born at Antwerp
1327. He was geographer to Philip II. His principal work, here alluded to, is "Theatrum.
Orbis Terrarum." Died 1598.
* What would Bacon have said to our modern " cramming ? "
8 Raymond Lully was a distinguished writer of the thirteenth century. His method, which
prevailed in Europe during three centu-ies, was known by the title " Ars Lulliana."
* A representation of thd worl<t « Prov. 16, 21.
Q
2z6 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
ness of wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration, but that it is
eloquence that prevaileth in an active life ; and as to the labouring of
it, the emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of his time, and the
experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works of rhetorics exceed
themselves. Again, the excellency of examples of eloquence in the
orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, added to the perfection of the
precepts of eloquence, hath doubled the progression in this art : and
therefore the deficiencies which I shall note, will rather be in some
collections, which may as handmaids attend the art, than in the rules
or use of the art itself.
Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about the roots of this
science, as we have done of the rest ; the duty and office of rhetoric is
to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will : for
we see reason is disturbed in the administration thereof by three
means : by illaqueation or sophism, which pertains to logic ; by
imagination or impression, which pertains to rhetoric ; and by passion
or affection, which pertains to morality. And as in negociation with
others, men are wrought by cunning, by importunity, and by vehe-
mency ; so in this negociation within ourselves, men are undermined
by inconsequences, solicited and importuned by impressions or obser
vations, and transported by passions. Neither is the nature of man so
unfortunately built, as that those powers and arts should have force to
disturb reason, and not to establish and advance it ; for the end of
logic is to teach a form of argument to secure reason, and not to
entrap it. The end of morality, is to procure the affections to obey
reason, and not to invade it. The end of rhetoric, is to fill the imagi
nation to second reason, and not to oppress it ; for these abuses
of arts come in but ex obliquo for caution.
And therefore it was great injustice in Plato, though springing out
of a just hatred of the rhetoricians of his time, to esteem of rhetoric
but as a voluptuary art, resembling it to cookery, that did mar whole
some meats, and help unwholesome by variety of sauces, to the plea
sure of the taste. For we see that speech is much more conversant in
adorning that which is good, than in colouring that which is evil ; for
there is no man but speaketh more honestly than he can do or think ;
and it was excellently noted by Thucydides in Cleon, that because he
used to hold on the bad side in causes of estate, therefore he was ever
inveighing against eloquence and good speech, knowing that no man
can speak fair of courses sordid and base. And therefore as Plato
said elegantly, " That Virtue, if she could be seen, would move great
love and affection :" so seeing that she cannot be showed to the sense
by corporal shape, the next degree is, to show her to the imagination
in lively representation : for to show her to reason only in subtilty of
argument, was a thing ever derided in Chrysippus,1 and many of the
Stoics, who thought to thrust virtue upon men by sharp disputations
and conclusions, which have no sympathy with the will of man.
Again, if the affections in themselves were pliant and obedient
to reason, it were true, there should be no great use of persuasions
and insinuations to the will, more than of naked proposition and
1 A Stoic philosopher of Tarsus. He died 207 B.C
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 227
proofs : but in regard of the continual mutinies and seditions of the
affections,
Video meliora, proboqtte;
Deteriora sequor ;
Reason would become captive and servile, if eloquence of persuasions
did not practise and win the imagination from the affections' part, and
contract a confederacy between the reason and imagination against
the affections ; for the affections themselves carry ever an appetite to
good, as reason doth. The difference is, that the affection beholdeth
merely the present, reason beholdeth the future and sum of time. And
therefore the present filling the imagination more, reason is commonly
vanquished ; but after that force of eloquence and persuasion hath
made things future and remote appear as present, then upon the re
volt of the imagination reason prevaileth.
We conclude therefore, that rhetoric can be no more charged with
the colouring of the worst part, than logic with sophistry, or morality
with vice. For we know the doctrines of contraries are the same,
though the use be opposite. It appeareth also, that logic differeth
from rhetoric, not only as the fist from the palm, the one close,
the other at large ; but much more in this, that logic handleth reason
exact, and in truth : and rhetoric handleth it as it is planted in
popular opinions and manners. And therefore Aristotle doth wisely
place rhetoric as between logic on the one side, and moral or civil
knowledge on the other, as participating of both : for tke proofs and
demonstrations of logic are toward all men indifferent ancFthe same :
but the proofs and persuasions of rhetoric ought to differ according to
the auditors :
Orpheus in sylvis, inter delphinas Arion.
Which application, in perfection of idea, ought to extend so far, that
if a man should speak of the same thing to several persons, he should
speak to them all respectively, and several ways : though this politic
part of eloquence in private speech, it is easy for the greatest orators
to want ; whilst by the observing their well graced forms of speech,
they lose the volubility of application : and therefore it shall not be
amiss to recommend this to better inquiry, not being curious whethef
we place it here, or in that part which concerneth policy.
Now therefore will I descend to the deficiencies, which, as I said,
are but attendances : and first, I do not find the wisdom and diligence
of Aristotle well pursued, who began to make a collection of the
popular signs and colours of good and evil, both simple and compara
tive, which are as the sophisms of rhetoric, as I touched before. For
example ;
sormsMA.
Quod laudatur, bonum : quod vituperatur, malum.
i
REDARGUTIO.
Laudat venales qui vult extruderc metres.
Malum est, malum est, inquit emptor ; sed cum recesserit, turn gloriabitvr,
The defects in the labour of Aristotle are three ; one, that there be
Q 2
9i8 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
but a few of many ; another, that their elenchuses are not annexed ;
and the third, that he conceived but a part of the use of them : for
their use is not only in probation, but much more in impression For
many forms are equal in signification, which are differing in impres
sion ; as the difference is great in the piercing of that which is sharp,
and that which is flat, though the strength of the percussion be the
same : for there is no man but will be a little more raised by hearing
it said ; " Your enemies will be glad of this ;"
Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mcrcentur Atridce ;
than by hearing it said only ; " This is evil for you."
Secondly, I do resume also that which I mentioned before, touching
provision or preparatory store, for the furniture of speech and readi
ness of invention, which appeareth to be of two sorts ; the one in
resemblance to a shop of pieces unmade up, the other to a shop of
things ready made up, both to be applied to that which is frequent and
most in request : the former of these I will call antitheta^ and the
latter formula.
Antitheta are theses argued pro et contra, wherein men may be
more large and laborious ; but, in such as are able to do it, to avoid
prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of the several arguments to be cast
up into some brief and acute sentences, not to be cited, but to be
as skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they
come to be used ; supplying authorities and examples by reference.
PRO VERBIS LEGIS.
Non est interpretatio , sed divinatio, quce recedit a lit era.
Cum receditur a litera judex transit in legislatorem.
PRO SENTENTIA LEGIS.
Ex omnibus verbis est eliciendus sensus, qui interpretatur singula.
Formula are but decent and apt passages or conveyances of
speech, which may serve indifferently for differing subjects ; as of
preface, conclusion, digression, transition, excusation, etc. For as in
buildings there is great pleasure and use in the well-casting of the
staircases, entries, doors, windows, and the like ; so in speech, the
conveyances and passages are of special ornament and effect.
A CONCLUSION IN A DELIBERATIVE.
So may we redeem the faults passed, and prevent the inconveniences future.
There remain two appendices touching the tradition of knowledge,
the one critical, the other pedantical ; for all knowledge is either
delivered by teachers, or attained by men's proper endeavours : and
therefore as the principal part of tradition of knowledge concerneth
ihiefly writing of books, so the relative part thereof concerneth read
ing of books : whereunto appertain incidently these considerations.
The first is concerning the true correction and edition of authors,
wherein nevertheless rash diligence hath done great prejudice. For
these critics have often presumed that that which they understand not,
is false set down. As the priest, that where he found it written of St.
ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. 229
Paul, " Demissus est per sportatn" mended his book, and made it
" Demissus est per portam" because sporta was an hard word, and out
of his reading : and surely their errors, though they be not so
palpable and ridiculous, yet are of the same kind. And therefore as it
hath been wisely noted, the most corrected copies are commonly the
least correct.
The second is concerning the exposition and explication of authors,
which resteth in annotations and commentaries, wherein it is over
usual to blanch1 the obscure places, and discourse upon the plain.
The third is concerning the times, which in many cases give great
light to true interpretations.
The fourth is concerning some brief censure and judgment of the
authors, that men thereby may make some election unto themselves
what books to read.
And the fifth is concerning the syntax and disposition of studies,
that men may know in what order or pursuit to read.
For pedantical knowledge, it containeth that difference of tradition
which is proper for youth, whereunto appertain divers considerations
of great fruit.
As first the timing and seasoning of knowledges ; as with what to
initiate them, and from what, for a time, to refrain them.
Secondly, the consideration where to begin with the easiest, and so
proceed to the more difficult, and in what courses to press the more
difficult, and then to turn them to the more easy ; for it is one method
to practise swimming with bladders, and another to practise dancing
with heavy shoes.
A third is the application of learning according unto the pro
priety of the wits ; for there is no defect in the faculties intellectual
but seemetri to have a proper cure contained in some studies : as
for example, if a child be bird-witted,2 that is, hath not the faculty
of attention, the mathematics give a remedy thereunto, for in them,
if the wit be caught away but a moment, one is new to begin .
and as sciences have a propriety towards faculties for cure ana
help, so faculties or powers have a sympathy towards sciences for
excellency or speedy profiting ; and therefore it is an inquiry of
great wisdom what kinds of wits and natures are most proper for
what sciences.
Fourthly, the ordering of exercises is matter of great consequence
to hurt or help : for, as is well observed by Cicero, men in exercising
their faculties, if they be not well advised, do exercise their faults, and
get ill habits as well as good ; so there is a great judgment to be had
in the continuance and intermission of exercises. It were too long to
particularize a number of other considerations of this nature ; things
but of mean appearance, but of singular efficacy : for as the wronging
or cherishing of seeds or young plants, is that that is most important
to their thriving ; and as it' was noted, that the first six kings, being in
truth as tutors of the state of Rome in the infancy thereof, were the
principal cause of the immense greatness of that state which fol
lowed ; $o the culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a
J To slur or pass over.
' \Va use now the term '' feather-pated " for bird-witted.
230 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
forcible, though unseen, operation, as hardly any length of time
or contention of labour can countervail it afterwards. And it is
not amiss to observe also, how small and mean faculties gotten
by education, yet when they fall into great men or great matters,
do work great and important effects ; whereof we see a notable
example in Tacitus, of two stage players, Percennius and Vibulenus,
who by their faculty of playing put the Pannonian armies into an
extreme tumult and combustion ; for there arising a mutiny amongst
them, upon the death of Augustus Caesar, Bltesus the lieutenant
had committed some of the mutineers, which were suddenly rescued ;
whereupon Vibulenus got to be heard speak, which he did in this
manner : " These poor innocent wretches appointed to cruel death,
you have restored to behold the light : but who shall restore my
brother to me, or life unto my brother, that was sent hither in message
from the legions of Germany, to treat of the common cause? And
he hath murdered him this last night by some of his fencers and
ruffians, that he hath about him for his executioners upon soldiers.
Answer, Blassus, what is done with his body? The mortalest enemies
do not deny burial ; when I have performed my last duties to the
corpse with kisses, with tears, command me to be slain besides him,
so that these my fellows, for our good meaning and our true hearts to
the legions, may have leave to bury us." With which speech he put
the army into an infinite fury and uproar ; whereas truth was he had
no brother, neither was there any such matter, but he played it merely
as if he had been upon the stage.
But to return, we are now come to a period of rational knowledges,
wherein if 1 have made the divisions other than those that are re
ceived, yet would I not be thought to disallow all those divisions which
I do not use ; for there is a double necessity imposed upon me of
altering the divisions. The one, because it differeth in end and
purpose, to sort together those things which are next in nature, and
those things which are next in use ; for if a secretary of estate should
sort his papers, it is like in his study, or general cabinet, he would sort
together things of a nature, as treaties, instructions, etc., but in his
boxes, or particular cabinet, he would sort together those that he were
like to use together, though of several natures ; so in this general
cabinet of knowledge it was necessary for me to follow the divisions of
the nature of things ; whereas if myself had been to handle any par
ticular knowledge I would have respected the divisions fittest for use.
The other, because the bringing in of the deficiencies did by con
sequence alter the partitions of the rest : for let the knowledge extant,
for demonstration sake, be fifteen, let the knowledge with the de
ficiencies be twenty, the parts of fifteen are not the parts of twenty, for
the parts of fifteen are three and five, the parts of twenty are two, four,
five, and ten ; so as these things are without contradiction, and could
not otherwise be.
WE proceed now to that knowledge which considereth of the Ap
petite and Will of Man, whereof Solomon saith, " Ante omnia, fill,
custcdi cor tunm^ nam inde procedunt actiones mice." 1 In the handling
1 Prov. iv. 23.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 23*
of this science, those which have written seem to me to have done as
if a man that professed to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies of
alphabets, and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions
for the carriage of the hand and framing of the letters ; so have they
made good and fair exemplars and copies, carrying the draughts and
portraitures of good, virtue, duty, felicity; propounding them well
described as the true objects and scopes of man's will and desires ; but
how to attain these excellent marks, and how to frame and subdue the
will of man to become true and conformable to these pursuits, they
pass it over altogether, or slightly and unprofitably ; for it is not the
disputing that moral virtues are in the mind of man by habit and not
by nature, or the distinguishing that generous spirits are won by
doctrines and persuasions, and the vulgar sort by reward and punish
ment, and the like scattered glances and touches, that can excuse the
absence of this part.
The reason of this omission I suppose to be that hidden rock where
upon both this and many other barks of knowledge have been cast
away ; which is, that men have despised to be conversant in ordinary
and common matters, the judicious direction whereof nevertheless is
the wisest doctrine ; for life consisteth not in novelties nor subtilties.
But contrariwise they have compounded sciences chiefly of a certain
resplendent or lustrous mass of matter, chosen to give glory either to
the subtlety of disputations, or to the eloquence of discourses. But
Seneca giveth an excellent check to eloquence : " Nocet Hits eloqtientia,
quibtis non rerum cupiditatem facit, sed sui? Doctrine should be such
as should make men in love with the lesson, and not with the teacher,
being directed to the auditor's benefit, and not to the author's com
mendation ; and therefore those are of the right kind which may be
concluded as Demosthenes concludes his counsel, " Qu<z si feceritis,
non oratorem duittaxat in prcesentia laudabitis, sed vosinet ipsos etiam,
non ita multo post statu rerum vcstrarum meliore" Neither needed
men of so excellent parts to have despaired of a fortune, which the poet
Virgil promised himself, and indeed obtained, who got as much glory
of eloquence, wit, and learning in the expressing of the observations of
husbandry, as of the heroical acts of -/Eneas :
Nee sum animi dubius, verbis ea vincere magnum
Quant sit, et angustis hunc addert rebus honorem.
Georg. iii. 289.
And surely if the purpose be in good earnest not to write at leisure
that which men may read at leisure, but really to instruct and suborn
action and active life, these georgics of the mind concerning the
husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical
descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity. Wherefore the main and
primitive division of moral knowledge seemeth to be into the Exemplar
or Platform of Good, and the Regiment or Culture of the Mind ; the
one describing the nature of good, the other prescribing rules how td
subdue, apply, and accommodate the will of man thereunto.
The doctrine touching the Platform or Nature of Good considereth
it either simple or compared, either the kinds of good, or the degrees
of good; in th~ latter whereof those infinite disputations which were
832 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
touching the supreme degree thereof, which they term felicity, beati
tude, or the highest good, the doctrines concerning which were as the
heathen divinity, are by the Christian faith discharged. And, as
Aristotle saith, " That young men may be happy, but not otherwise
but by hope ; " so we must all acknowledge our minority, and embrace
the felicity which is by hope of the future world.
Freed therefore, and delivered from this doctrine of the philosophers'
heavep, whereby they feigned an higher elevation of man's nature than
was, for we see in what an height of style Seneca writeth, " Vere mag-
mini, habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei" we may with more
sobriety and truth receive the rest of their inquiries and labours ;
wherein for the nature of good, positive or simple, they have set it
down excellently, in describing the forms of virtue and duty with their
situations and postures, in distributing them into their kinds, parts,
provinces, actions, and administrations, and the like ; nay farther, they
have commended them to man's nature and spirit, with great quick
ness of argument and beauty of persuasions ; yea, and fortified and
entrenched them, as much as discourse can do, against corrupt and
popular opinions. Again, for the degrees and comparative nature of
good, they have also excellently handled it in their triplicity of good ;
in the comparison between a contemplative and an active life ; in the
distinction between virtue with reluctation, and virtue secured ; in their
encounters between honesty and profit ; in their balancing of virtue
with virtue, and the like ; so as this part deserveth to be reported for
excellently laboured.
Notwithstanding if before they had come to the popular and received
notions of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, and the rest, they had
stayed a little longer upon the inquiry concerning the roots of good
and evil, and the strings of those roots, they had given, in my opinion,
a great light to that which followed ; and specially if they had con
sulted with nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix and more
profound : which being by them in part omitted and in part handled
with much confusion, we will endeavour to resume and open in a more
clear manner.
There is formed in everything a double nature of good, the one as
everything is a total or substantive tn- itself, the other as it is a part
or member of a greater body ; whereof the latter is in degree the
greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a
more general form : therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy
moveth to the loadstone, but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it
forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot
moveth to the earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies ;
so may we go forward and see that water and massy bodies move to
the centre of the earth, but rather than to suffer a divulsion in the
continuance of nature they will move upwards from the centre of the
earth, forsaking their duty to the earth in regard of their duty to the
world. This double nature of good and the comparative thereof is
much more engraven upon man, if he degenerate not, unto whom the
conservation of duty to the public ought to be much more precious
than the conservation of life and being ; according to that memorable
speech of Pompeius Magnus, when being in commission of purveyance
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 833
for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded with great vehemency and
instance by his friends about him, that he should not hazard himself
to sea in an extremity of weather, he said only to them " Necesse est ut
earn, non tft vivam :" but it may be truly affirmed that there was never
Any philosophy, religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly ana
highly exalt the good which is communicative, and depress the good
which is private and particular, as the holy faith : well declaring, that
it was the same God that gave the Christian law to men, who gave
those laws of nature to inanimate creatures that we spake of before ;
for we read that the elected saints of God have wished themselves
anathematized and razed out of the book of life, in an ecstacy of
charity, and infinite feeling of communion.
This being set down and strongly planted, doth judge and determine
most of the controversies wherein moral philosophy is conversant.
For first, it decideth the question touching the preferment of the
contemplative or active life, and decideth it against Aristotle • for all
the reasons which he bringeth for the contemplative, are private, and
respecting the pleasure and dignity of a man's self, in which respects,
no question, the contemplative life hath the pre-eminence ; not much
unlike to that comparison, which Pythagoras made for the gracing and
magnifying of philosophy and contemplation ; who being asked what
he was, answered, "That if Hiero were ever at the Olympian games,
he knew the manner, that some came to try their fortune for the prizes,
and some came as merchants to utter their commodities, and some
came to make good cheer and meet their friends, and some came to
look on, and that he was one of them that came to look on." But men
must know, that in this theatre of man's life, it is reserved only for
God and angels to be lookers on : neither could the like question ever
have been received in the Church, notwithstanding their " Pretiosa in
oculis Domini mors sanctorum ejusj" by which place they would exalt
their civil death and regular professions, but upon this defence, that
the monastical life is not simply contemplative, but performeth the
duty either of incessant prayers and supplications, which hath been
truly esteemed as an office in the Church, or else of writing or taking
instructions for writing concerning the law of God ; as Moses did when
he abode so long in the mount. And so we see Enoch the seventh
from Adam, who was the first contemplative, and walked with God ;
yet did also endow the Church with prophecy, which St. Jude citeth.
But for contemplation which should be finished in itself, without cast
ing beams upon society, assuredly divinity knoweth it not.
It decideth also the controversies between Zeno and Socrates, and
their schools and successions on the one side, who placed felicity in
virtue simply or attended ; the actions and exercises whereof do chiefly
embrace and concern society ; and on the other side, the Cyrenaics
and Epicureans, who placed it in pleasure, and made virtue, as it is
used in some comedies of errors, wherein the mistress and the maid
change habits, to be but as a servant, without which pleasure cannot
be served and attended : and the reformed school of the Epicureans,
which placed it in serenity of mind and freedom from perturbation ;
as if they would have deposed Jupiter again, and restored Saturn and
the first age, when there was no summer nor winter, spring nor autumn,
234 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
but all after one air and season ; and Herillus,1 who placed felicity in
extinguishment of the disputes of the mind, making no fixed nature of
good and evil, esteeming things according to the clearness of the
desires, or the reluctation ; which opinion was revived in the heresy
of the Anabaptists, measuring things according to the motions of the
spirit, and the constancy or wavering of belief : all which are manifest
to tend to private repose and contentment, and not to point of society.
It censureth also the philosophy of Epictetus, which presupposeth
that felicity must be placed in those things which are in our power,
lest we be liable to fortune and disturbance ; as if it were not a thing
much more happy to fail in good and virtuous ends for the public,
than to obtain all that we can wish to ourselves in our proper fortune ;
as Consalvo said to his soldiers, showing them Naples and protesting,
<l He had rather die one foot forwards, than to have his life secured for
long, by one foot of retreat." Whereunto the wisdom of that heavenly
leader hath signed, who hath affirmed "that a good conscience is a
continual feast ; " 2 showing plainly, that the conscience of good inten
tions, howsoever succeeding, is a more continual joy to nature, than all
the provision that can be made for security and repose.
It censureth likewise that abuse of philosophy, which grew general
about the time of Epictetus, in converting it into an occupation or
profession ; as if the purpose had been not to resist or extinguish per
turbations, but to fly and avoid the causes of them, and to shape a
particular kind and course of life to that end, introducing such an
health of mind, as was that health of body of which Aristotle speaketh
of Herodicus, who did nothing all his life long but intend his health :
whereas if men refer themselves to duties of society, as that health of
body is best, which is ablest to endure all alterations and extremities ;
so likewise that health of mind is most proper, which can go through
the greatest temptations and perturbations. So as Diogenes's opinion
is to be accepted, who commended not them which abstained, but them
which sustained, and could refrain their mind in prccdpitio^ and could
give unto the mind, as is used in horsemanship, the shortest stop or
turn.
Lastly, it censureth the tenderness and want of application in some
of the most ancient and reverend philosophers and philosophical men,
that did retire too easily from civil business, for avoiding of indignities
and perturbations ; whereas the resolution of men truly moral, ought
to be such as the same Consalvo said the honour of a soldier should
be, e tela crassiore, and not so fine, as that everything should catch in
it and endanger it.
To resume private or particular good, it falleth into the division of
good active and passive : for this difference of good, not unlike to that
which amongst the Romans was expressed in the familiar or household
terms of Promus and Condus, is formed also in all things, and is best
disclosed in the two several appetites in creatures ; the one to preserve
or continue themselves, and the other to dilate or multiply themselves ;
whereof the latter seemeth to be worthier ; for in nature the heavens,
which are the more worthy, are the agent ; and the earth, which is the
1 A philosopher of Chaleedon, the pupil of Zeno.
*. frov. xv. 15. In our translation, "A merry heart," &c
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 235
less worthy, is the patient : in the pleasures of living creatures, that of
generation is greater than that of food : in divine doctrine, " Beatius
est dare, quam accipere : " and in life there is no man's spirit so soft,
but esteemeth the effecting of somewhat that he hath fixed in his
desire, more than sensuality. Which priority of the active good is
much upheld by the consideration of our estate to be mortal and
exposed to fortune : for if we might have a perpetuity and certainty
in our pleasures, the state of them would advance their price ; but
when we see it is but " Magni ccstimamus mori tardius? and "Ak
glorieris de crastino, nescis partum diei" it maketh us to desire to
have somewhat secured and exempted from time, which are only our
deeds and works ; as it is said " Opera eorum sequuntur eos" The
pre-eminence likewise of this active good is upheld by the affection
which is natural in man towards variety and proceeding, which in the
pleasures of the sense, which is the principal part of passive good, can
have no great latitude. " Cogita quamdiu eadcni feceris : cibus, somnus,
ludus per hunc circulum curritur. Mori velle non tantum fortis , aut
miser ; aut prudens, sed etiam fastidiosus potest" But in enterprises,
pursuits, and purposes of life, there is much variety, whereof men are
sensible with pleasure in their inceptions, progressions, recoils, re-
integrations, approaches and attainings, to their ends. So as it was
well said, " Vita sine proposito languida et vaga est" Neither hath
this active good any identity with the good of society, though in some
case it hath an incidence into it : for although it do many times bring
forth acts of beneficence, yet it is with a respect private to a man's own
power, glory, amplification, continuance ; as appeareth plainly, when
it findeth a contrary subject. For that gigantine state of mind which
possesseth the troublers of the world, such as was Lucius Sylla, and
infinite other in smaller model, who would have all men happy or un
happy as they were their friends or enemies, and would give form to
the world according to their own humours, which is the true theomachy,
pretendeth, and aspireth to active good, though it recedeth farthest
from good of society, which we have determined to be the greater.
To resume passive good ; it receiveth a subdivision of conservative
and perfective. For let us take a brief review of that which we have
said. We have spoken first of the good of society, the intention whereof
embraceth the form of human nature, whereof we are members and
portions, and not our own proper and individual form ; we have spoken
of active good, and supposed it as a part of private and particular
good. And rightly, for there is impressed upon all things a triple
desire or appetite proceeding from love to themselves ; one of preserv
ing and continuing their form ; another of advancing and perfecting
their form ; and a third of multiplying and extending their form upon
other things ; whereof the multiplying or signature of it upon other
things, is that which we handled by the name of active good. So a»
there remaineth the conserving of it, and perfecting or raising of it ;
which latter is the highest degree of passive good. For to preserve
in state is the less, to preserve with advancement is the greater. So
in man,
Igneus est ollis vigor, et coelestis origo.
His approach or assumption to divine or angelical nature is the per-
236 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING,
fection of his form ; the error or false imitation of which good, is that
which is the tempest of human life, while man, upon the instinct of an
advancement formal and essential, is carried to seek an advancement
local. For as those which are sick, and find no remedy, do tumble up
and down and change place, as if by a remove local they could obtain
a remove internal : so is it with men in ambition, when failing of the
means to exalt their nature, they are in a perpetual estuation to exalt
their place. So then passive good is, as was said, either conservative
or perfective.
To resume the good of conservation or comfort, which consisteth in
the fruition of that which is agreeable to our natures ; it seemeth to be
the most pure and natural of pleasures, but yet the softest and the
lowest. And this also receiveth a difference, which hath neither been
well judged of nor well inquired. For the good of fruition and con
tentment, is placed either in the sincereness of the fruition, or in the
quickness and vigour of it ; the one superinduced by equality, the
other by vicissitude ; the one having less mixture of evil, the other
more impression of good. Whether of these is the greater good, is a
question controverted ; but whether man's nature may not be capable
of both, is a question not inquired.
The former question being debated between Socrates and a sophist,
Socrates placing felicity in an equal and constant peace of mind, and
the sophist in much desiring and much enjoying, they fell from argu
ment to ill words : the sophist saying that Socrates's felicity was the
felicity of a block or stone ; and Socrates saying that the sophist's
felicity was the felicity of one that had the itch, who did nothing but
itch and scratch. And both these opinions do not want their sup
ports : for the opinion of Socrates is much upheld by the general con
sent even of the Epicures themselves, that virtue beareth a great part
in felicity : and if so, certain it is, that virtue hath more use in clear
ing perturbations, than in compassing desires. The sophist's opinion
is much favoured by the assertion we last spake of, that good of
advancement is greater than good of simple preservation ; because
every obtaining a desire hath a show of advancement, as motion
though in a circle hath a show of progression.
But the second question decided the true way maketh the former
superfluous : for can it be doubted but that there are some who take
more pleasure in enjoying pleasures, than some other, and yet never
theless are less troubled with the loss or leaving of them : so as this
same, " Non uti, ut non appetas ; non appetere, ut non nietuas ; sunt
animi pusilli et dijfidentis" And it seemeth to me that most of the
doctrines of the philosophers are more fearful and cautionary than the
nature of things requireth : so have they increased the fear of death in
offering to cure it : for when they would have a man's whole life to be
but a discipline or preparation to die, they must needs make men
think that it is a terrible enemy against whom there is no end of pre
paring. Better saith the poet,
Quifinem vitce extremum inter mitnera ponat
Natures ;
So have they sought to make men's minds too uniform and harmoracfd
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. »37
by not breaking them sufficiently to contrary motions : the reason
Whereof I suppose to be, because they themselves were men dedicated
to a private, free, and unapplied course of life. For as we see, upon
the lute or like instrument, a ground, though it be sweet and have
show of many changes, yet breaketh not the hand to such strange and
hard stops and passages, aS a set song or voluntary : much after the
same manner was the diversity between a philosophical and a civil
life. And therefore men are to imitate the wisdom of jewellers, who if
there be a grain, or a cloud, or an ice which may be ground forth
without taking too much of the stone, they help it ; but if it should
Jessen and abate the stone too much, they will not meddle with it ; so
ought men so to procure serenity, as they destroy not magnanimity.
Having therefore deduced the good of man, which is private and
particular, as far as seemeth fit, we will now return to that good of
man which respecteth and beholdeth Society, which we may term
duty ; because the term of duty is more proper to a mind well framed
and disposed towards others, as the term of virtue is applied to a
mind well formed and composed in itself; though neither can a man
understand virtue without some relation to society, nor duty without
an inward disposition. This part may seem at first to pertain to
science civil and politic, but not if it be well observed ; for it con-
cerneth the regiment and government of every man over himself, and
not over others. And as in architecture the direction of the framing
the posts, beams, and other parts of building, is not the same with the
manner of joining them and erecting the building; and in mechanicals,
the direction how to frame an instrument or engine, is not the same
with the manner of setting it on work and employing it ; and yet
nevertheless in expressing of the one, you incidentally express the apt
ness towards the other : so the doctrine of conjugation of men in
society dirTereth from that of their conformity thereunto.
This part of duty is subdivided into two parts ; the common duty of
every man as a man or member of a state, the other the respective or
special duty of every man in his profession, vocation, and place. The
first of these is extant and well laboured, as hath been said. The
second likewise I may report rather dispersed, than deficient ; which
manner of dispersed writing in this kind of argument I acknowledge
to be best. Who can take upon him to write of the proper duty,
virtue, challenge, and right of every several vocation, profession, and
place ? For although sometimes a looker on may see more than
a gamester, and there be a proverb more arrogant than sound, " That
the vale best discovereth the hills ;" yet there is small doubt but that
men can write best, and most really and materially in their own pro
fessions ; and that the writing of speculative men of active matter, for
tfie most part, doth seem to men of experience, as Phormio's argu
ment of the wars seemed to Hannibal, to be but dreams and dotage.
Only there is one vice which accompanieth them that write in their
own professions— that they magnify them in excess ; but generally it
were to be wished, as that which would make learning indeed solid
And fruitful, that active men would or could become writers.
In which I cannot but mention, honoris causa, your majesty's
excellent book touching the duty of a king, a work richly compounded
938 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
of divinity, morality, and policy, with great aspersion of all other art§,
and being in mine opinion one of the most sound and healthful
writings that I have read; not distempered in the heat of invention, nor
in the coldness of negligence ; not sick of business, as those are who
lose themselves in their order, nor of convulsions, as those which
cramp in matters impertinent ; not savouring of perfumes and paint
ings, as those do who seek to please the reader more than nature
beareth ; and chiefly well disposed in the spirits thereof, being agree
able to truth, and apt for action, and far removed from that natural in
firmity whereunto I noted those that write in their own professions to
be subject, which is, that they exalt it above measure : for your
majesty hath truly described, not a king of Assyria, or Persia, in their
extern glory, but a Moses, or a David, pastors of their people.
Neither can I ever lose out of my remembrance, what I heard your
majesty in the same sacred spirit of government deliver in a great
cause of judicature, which was, " That kings ruled by their laws as
God did by the laws of nature, and ought as rarely to put in use their
supreme prerogative, as God doth His power of working miracles."
And yet, notwithstanding, in your book of a free monarchy, you do
well give men to understand, that you know the plenitude of the
power and right of a king, as well as the circle of his office and duty.
Thus have I presumed to allege this excellent writing of your majesty,
as a prime or eminent example of Tractates concerning special and
respective duties, wherein I should have said as much if it had been
written a thousand years since : neither am I moved with certain
courtly decencies, which esteem it flattery to praise in presence ; no,
it is flattery to praise in absence, that is, when either the virtue is
absent, or the occasion is absent, and so the praise is not natural but
forced, either in truth or in time. But let Cicero be read in his
oration pro Marcello, which is nothing but an excellent table of
Caesar's virtue, and made to his face ; besides the example of many
other excellent persons wiser a great deal than such observers, and we
will never doubt, upon a full occasion, to give just praises to present or
absent.
But to return, there belongeth farther to the handling of this part,
touching the duties of professions and vocations, a relative or opposite
touching the frauds, cautels, impostures, and vices of every profession,
which hath been likewise handled. But how ? Rather in a satire and
cynically, than seriously and wisely ; for men have rather sought by
wit to deride and traduce much of that which is good in professions,
than with judgment to discover and sever that which is corrupt. For,
as Solomon saith,he that cometh to seek after knowledge with a mind
to scorn and censure, shall be sure to find matter for his humour, but
no matter for his instruction : " Qucerenti derisori scientiam, ipsa se
abscondit: sed studioso fit obviam"1 But the managing of this argu
ment with integrity and truth, which I note as deficient, seemeth to me
to be one of the best fortifications for honesty and virtue that can be
planted. For, as the fable goeth of the basilisk, that if he see you first,
you die for it ; but if you see him first, he dieth : so is it with deceits
1 Prov. xiv. 6.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 139
and evil arts, which, if they be first espied, lose their life ; but if they
prevent, they endanger. So that we are much beholden to Machiavel
and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do :
for it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the columbine
innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent ;
his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his
envy and sting, and the rest ; that is, all forms and natures of evil :
for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced. Nay, an honest
man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them,
without the help of the knowledge of evil : for men of corrupted minds
presuppose that honesty groweth out of simplicity of manners, and
believing of preachers, schoolmasters, and men's exterior language.
So as, except you can make them perceive that you know the utmost
reaches of their own corrupt opinions, they despise all morality ;
" Non recipit stultus verba prudentics^ nisi ea dixeris, qua versantur
in corde ejus"
Unto this part touching respective duty do also appertain the
duties between husband and wife, parent and child, master and
servant : so likewise the laws of friendship and gratitude, the civil
bond of companies, colleges, and politic bodies, of neighbourhood,
and all other proportionate duties ; not as they are parts of govern
ment and society, but as to the framing of the mind of particular
persons.
The knowledge concerning good respecting society doth handle
it also not simply alone, but comparatively, whereunto belongeth the
weighing of duties between person and person, case and case,
particular and public : as we see in the proceeding of Lucius Brutus
against his own sons, which was so much extolled ; yet what was
said?
Infelix, utcunque ferent ea fata minores.
So the case was doubtful, and had opinion on both sides. Again, we
see when M. Brutus and Cassius invited to a supper certain whose
opinions they meant to feel, whether they were fit to be made their
associates, and cast forth the question touching the killing of a tyrant
being an usurper, they were divided in opinion ; some holding that
servitude was the extreme of evils, and others that tyranny was better
than a civil war. And a number of the like cases there are of com
parative duty : amongst which that of all others is the most frequent,
where the question is of a great deal of good to ensue of a small
injustice, which Jason of Thessalia determined against the truth :
" Aliqua sunt injuste facie tida^ ut multa juste fieri possint." But the
reply is good, " Auctorem prcesentis justitice hades, sponsorent futures
non habes _;" men must pursue things which are just in the present, and
leave the future to the Divine Providence. So then we pass on from
this general part touching the exemplar and description of good.
Now therefore that we have spoken of this fruit of life, it remaineth
to speak of the husbandry that belongeth thereunto, without which
part the former seemeth to be no better than a fair image, or
statua, which is beautiful to contemplate, but is without life and
motion : whereunto Aristotle hirasslf subscribeth in these words,
240 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
" Nccessc est scilicet de wrtute dicere, et quid sit, et ex quibus
gi^natur. Inutile enintfere fuerit, liirtutem quidem nosse, acquirenda
auteni ejus modos et vias ignorare : non enim de virtute tantum, qua
specie sit, quccrendum est, sed et quomodo sui copiam faciat ; utrumque
enim volumiis, et rem ipsam nosse et ejus compotes fieri; hoc autem ex
voto non succedet, nisi sciamus et ex quibus et quomodo" In such full
words and with such iteration doth he inculcate this part: so saith
Cicero in great commendation of Cato the second, that he had applied
himself to philosophy, " non ita disputandi causa, sed ita vivendi?'
And although the neglect of our times, wherein few men do hold any
consultations touching the reformation of their life, as Seneca excel
lently saith, " De partibus vitce quisque deliberat, de summa nemo"
may make this part seem superfluous ; yet I must conclude with that
aphorism of Hippocrates, " Qui gravi morbo correpti dolores non sen-
tiu?it, us mens agrotatj " they need medicine not only to assuage the
disease, but to awake the sense. And if it be said, that the cure of
men's minds belongeth to sacred divinity, it is most true : but yet
moral philosophy may be preferred unto her as a wise servant and
humble handmaid. For as the Psalm saith, that " the eyes of the
handmaid look perpetually towards the mistress," and yet no doubt
many things are left to the discretion of the handmaid, to discern of
the mistress's will ; so ought moral philosophy to give a constant
attention to the doctrines of divinity, and yet so as it may yield of
herself, within due limits, many sound and profitable directions.
This part therefore, bed.. _»e of the excellency thereof, I cannot but
find exceeding strange that it is not reduced to written inquiry, the
rather because it consisteth of much matter, wherein both speech and
action is often conversant, and such wherein the common talk of men,
which is rare, but yet cometh sometimes to pass, is wiser than their
books. It is reasonable therefore that we propound it in the more
particularity, both for the worthiness, and because we may acquit our
selves for reporting it deficient, which seemeth almost incredible, and
is otherwise conceived and presupposed by those themselves that have
written. We will therefore enumerate some heads or poirts thereof,
that it may appear the better what it is, and whether it be extant.
First, therefore, in this, as in all things which are practical, we
ought to cast up our account, what is in our power, and what not ; for
the one may be dealt with by way of alteration, but the other by way
of application only. The husbandman cannot command, neither the
nature of the earth, nor the seasons of the weather, no more can the
physician the constitution of the patient, nor the variety of accidents.
So in the culture and cure of the mind of man, two things are without
our command ; points of nature, and points of fortune ; for to the
basis of the one, and the conditions of the other, our work is limited
and tied. In these things therefore, it is left unto us to proceed by
application ;
Vincenda est omnis fortuna ferendo :
and so likewise,
Vincenda est omnis natura ferendo.
But when that we speak of suffering, we do not speak of a dull
ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. 041
neglected suffering, but of a wise and industrious suffering which
draweth and contriveth use and advantage out of that which seemeth
adverse and contrary, which is that properly which we call accom
modating or applying. Now the wisdom of application resteth princi
pally in the exact and distinct knowledge of the precedent state or
disposition, unto which we do apply ; for we cannot fit a garment,
except we first take measure of the body.
So then the first article of this knowledge is to set down sound and
true distributions, and descriptions of the several characters and
tempers of men's natures and dispositions, specially having regard to
those differences which are most radical, in being the fountains and
causes of the rest, or most frequent in concurrence or commixture ;
wherein it is not the handling of a few of them in passage, the better
to describe the mediocrities of virtues, that can satisfy this intention :
for if it deserve to be considered, " that there are minds which are
proportioned to great matters, and others to small," which Aristotle
handleth or ought to have handled by the name of magnanimity, doth
it not deserve as well to be considered, " that there are minds pro
portioned to intend many matters, and others to few ?" So that some
can divide themselves, others can perchance do exactly well, but it
must be but in few things at once ; and so there cometh to be a narrow
ness of mind, as well as a pusillanimity. And again, " that some
minds are proportioned to that which may be despatched at once, or
within a short return of time ; others to that which begins afar off, and
is to be won with length of pursuit,"
-Jam turn tenditqve fovetquc.
So that there may be fitly said to be a longanimity, which is commonly
ascribed to God, as a magnanimity. So farther deserved it to be con
sidered by Aristotle, "that there is a disposition in conversation, sup
posing it in things which do in no sort touch or concern a man's self,
to sooth and please ; and a disposition contrary to contradict and
cross ; " and deserveth it not much better to be considered, " that there
is a disposition, not in conversation or talk, but in matter of more
serious nature, and supposing it still in things merely indifferent, to
take pleasure in the good of another, and a disposition contrariwise, to
take distaste at the good of another ; " which is that property which we
call good-nature or ill-nature, benignity or malignity. And therefore I
cannot sufficiently marvel, that this part of knowledge, touching the
several characters of natures and dispositions, should be omitted both
in morality and policy, considering it is of so great ministry and sup-
peditation1 to them both. A man shall find in the traditions of astro
logy some pretty and apt divisions of men's natures, according to the
predominances of the planets ; lovers of quiet, lovers of action, lovers
of victory, lovers of honour, lovers of pleasure, lovers of arts, lovers of
change, and so forth. A man shall find in the wisest sort of these
relations, which the Italians make touching conclaves, the natures ot
the several cardinals handsomely and lively painted forth ; a man shall
meet with, in every day's conference, the denominations of sensitive,
1 Aid, help, supply.
043 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
dry, formal, real, humourous, certain " huomo di prima impressions,
huoino di ultima impressione" and the like : and yet nevertheless this
kind of observations wandereth in words, but is not fixed in inquiry.
For the distinctions are found, many of them, but we conclude no
precepts upon them : wherein our fault is the greater, because both
history, poesy, and daily experience, are as goodly fields where these
observations grow ; whereof we make a few poesies to hold in our
hands, but no man bringeth them to the confectionary, that receipts
might be made of them for the use of life.
Of much like kind are those impressions of nature, which are
imposed upon the mind by the sex, by the age, by the region, by health
and sickness, by beauty and deformity, and the like, which are inherent,
and not extern ; and again, those which are caused by extern fortune ;
as sovereignty, nobility, obscure birth, riches, want, magistracy, private-
ness, prosperity, adversity, constant fortune, variable fortune, rising
per saltum, per gradus, and the like. And therefore we see that Plautus
maketh it a wonder to see an old man beneficent, " benignitas hitjus ul
adolescentuli cst" St. Paul concludeth, that severity of discipline was
to be used to the Cretans, " Increpa eos dure" upon the disposition of
their country, " Cretenses semper mendaces, mala besti<z, venires pigri? *
Sallust noteth, " that it is usual with kings to desire contradictories ; "
<; Sed plerumque regies vbluntates, ut vehementes sunt, sic mobiles,
sapeqtie ipsce sibi adverstz" Tacitus observeth how rarely raising of
the fortune mendeth the disposition, " Solus Vespasianus mutatus in
melius." Pindarus2 maketh an observation, that great and sudden
fortune for the most part defeateth men, " Qui magnam felicitatem
concoquere non possunt" So the Psalm showeth it is more easy to keep
a measure in the enjoying of fortune, than in the increase of fortune :
" Divitice si affluant, nolite cor apponere" 3 These observations, and
the like, I deny not but are touched a little by Aristotle, as in passage
in his Rhetorics, and are handled in some scattered discourses ; but
they were never incorporate into moral philosophy to which they do
essentially appertain ; as the knowledge of the diversity of grounds
and moulds doth to agriculture, and the knowledge of the diversity of
complexions and constitutions doth to the physician ; except we mean
to follow the indiscretion of empirics, which minister the same medi
cines to all patients.
Another article of this knowledge, is the inquiry touching the affec
tions ; for as in medicining of the body, it is in order first to know the
divers complexions and constitutions ; secondly, the diseases ; and
lastly, the cures ; so in medicining of the mind, after knowledge of the
divers characters of men's natures, it followeth, in order, to know the
diseases and infirmities of the mind, which are no other than the per
turbations and distempers of the affections. For as the ancient poli
ticians in popular estates were wont to compare the people to the sea,
and the orators to the winds ; because as the sea would of itself be
calm and quiet, if the winds did not move and trouble it ; so the people
would be peaceable and tractable if the seditious orators did not set
them in working and agitation : so it may be fitly said, that the mind
1 Titus i. i» 2 The poet Pindar.
• Psalm Ixii. 10.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 243
In the nature thereof would be temperate and stayed, if the affection^,
as winds, did not put it into tumult and perturbation. And here again
I find strange as before, that Aristotle should have written divers
volumes of Ethics, and never handled the affections, which is the
principal subject thereof; and yet in his Rhetorics, where they are
considered but collaterally, and in a second degree, as they may be
moved by speech, he findeth place for them, and handleth them well
for the quantity ; but where their true place is, he pretermitteth them.
For it is not his disputations about pleasure and pain that can satisfy
this inquiry, no more than he that should generally handle the nature
of light, can be said to handle the nature of colours ; for pleasure and
pain are to the particular affections as light is to particular colours.
Better travails, I suppose, had the Stoics taken in this argument, as far
as I can gather by that which we have at second hand. But yet, it is
like, it was after their manner, rather in subtility of definitions, which,
in a subject of this nature, are but curiosities, than in active and ample
descriptions and observations. So likewise I find some particular
writings of an elegant nature, touching some of the affections ; as of
anger, of comfort upon adverse accidents, of tenderness, of counte
nance,1 and other. But the poets and writers of histories are the best
doctors of this knowledge, where we may find painted forth with great
life how affections are kindled and incited ; and how pacified and
refrained ; and how again contained from act, and farther degree : how
they disclose themselves ; how they work ; how they vary ; how they
gather and fortify ; how they are inwrapped one within another ; ana
how they do fight and encounter one with another ; and other the like
particularities. Amongst the which, this last is of special use in moral
and civil matters : how, I say, to set affection against affection, and to
master one by another, even as we use to hunt beast with beast, and
fly bird with bird, which otherwise percase we could not so easily
recover : upon which foundation is erected that excellent use of
premium and flcena, whereby civil states consist, employing the pre
dominant affections of fear and hope, for the suppressing and bridling
the rest. For, as in the government of states, it is sometimes neces
sary to bridle one faction with another, so it is in the government
within.
Now come we to those points which are within our own command,
and have force and operation upon the mind, to affect the will and
appetite, and to alter manners : wherein they ought to have handled
custom, exercise, habit, education, example, imitation, emulation, com
pany, friends, praise, reproof, exhortation, fame, laws, books, studies :
these as they have determinate use in moralities, for from these the
mind suffereth, and of these are such receipts and regiments com
pounded and described, as may serve to recover or preserve the health
and good estate of the mind, as far as pertaineth to human medicine ;
of which number we will insist upon some one or two, as an example
of the rest, because it were too long to prosecute all ; and therefore we
do resume custom and habit fro speak of.
The opinion of Aristotle seemeth to me a negligent opinion, that of
1 Kindness or patronage.
R 2
244 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
those things which consist by nature, nothing can be changed by cus-
:om ; using for example, that if a stone be thrown ten thousand times
up, it will not learn to ascend, and that by often seeing or hearing, we
do not learn to hear or see the better. For though this principle be
•rue in things wherein nature is peremptory, the reason whereof we
cannot now stand to discuss, yet it is otherwise in things wherein
nature admitteth a latitude. For he might see that a strait glove
will come more easily on with use ; and that a wand will by use bend
otherwise than it grew ; and that by use of the voice we speak louder
and stronger ; and that by use of enduring heat or cold, we endure it
the better, and the like ; which latter sort have a nearer resemblance
unto that subject of manners he handleth, than those instances which
he allegeth. But allowing his conclusion, that virtues and vices
consist in habit, he ought so much the more to have taught the manner
of superinducing that habit : for there be many precepts of the wise
ordering the exercises of the mind, as there are of ordering the exercises
of the body, whereof we will recite a few.
The first shall be, that we beware we take not at the first either too
high a strain, or too weak : for if too high in a diffident nature you dis
courage ; in a confident nature you breed an opinion of facility, and so
a sloth : and in all natures you breed a farther expectation than can
hold out, and so an insatisfaction in the end : if too weak of the other
side, you may not look to perform and overcome any great task.
Another precept is, to practise all things chiefly at two several times,
the one when the mind is best disposed, the other when it is worst
disposed ; that by the one you may give a great step, by the other you
may work out the knots and stonds of the mind, and make the middle
times the more easy and pleasant.
Another precept is that which Aristotle mentioneth by the way,
which is, to bear ever towards the contrary extreme of that whereunto
we are by nature inclined : like unto the rowing against the stream, or
making a wand straight, by binding him contrary to his natural
crookedness.
Another precept is, that the mind is brought to anything better, and
with more sweetness and happiness, if that, whereunto you pretend, be
not first in the intention, but tanquam aliud agenda, because of the
natural hatred of the mind against necessity and constraint. Many
other axioms there are touching the managing of exercise and custom ;
which being so conducted, doth prove indeed another nature ; but
being governed by chance, doth commonly prove but an ape of nature,
and bringeth forth that which is lame and counterfeit.
So if we should handle books and studies, and what influence and
operation they have upon manners, are there not divers precepts of
great caution and direction appertaining thereunto ? Did not one of
the fathers * in great indignation call poesy vinum d<zmonum, because
it increaseth temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions ? Is not
the opinion of Aristotle worthy to be regarded, wherein he saith, " That
young men are no fit auditors of moral philosophy, because they are
not settled from the boiling heat of their affections, nor attempered
1 St. Augustine. See Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Democritus, Junior, to the Reader.
What is poetry itself but (as Austin holds) vinum erroris ad ebriis doctoribus propinatum
ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. «4S
with time and experience ? " And doth it not hereof come, that those
excellent books and discourses of the ancient writers, whereby they
have persuaded unto virtue most effectually, by representing her in
state and majesty ; and popular opinions against virtue in their para
sites' coats, fit to be scorned and derided, are of so little effect towards
honesty of life, because they are not read and revolved by men in their
mature and settled years, but confined almost to boys and beginners ?
But is it not true also, that much less young men are fit auditors of
matters of policy, till they have been thoroughly seasoned in religion
and morality, lest their judgments be corrupted, and made apt to think
that there are no true differences of things, but according to utility and
fortune, as the verse describes it?
Prospe; ~:im etfelix scelus virtus vocatur.
And again,
I lie crucem pretium sceleris tulit, hie diadema :
which the poets do speak satirically, and in indignation on virtue's
behalf: but books of policy do speak it seriously and positively ; for it
so plcaseth Machiavel to say, " that if Caesar had been overthrown, he
would have been more odious than ever was Catiline : " as if there had
been no difference, but in fortune, between a very fury of lust and blood,
and the most excellent spirit, (his ambition reserved,) of the world ?
Again, is there not a caution likewise to be given of the doctrines of
moralities themselves, some kinds of them, lest they make men too
precise, arrogant, incompatible, as Cicero saith of Cato in Marco
Catone : " HCBC bona, qua videmus, dimna et egregia^ ipsius scitote esse
propria : qua nonnunquam requirimus, ea sunt omnia non a natura^
sed a magistro?" Many other axioms and advices there are touching
those proprieties and effects, which studies do infuse and instil into
manners. And so likewise is there touching the use of all those other
points, of company, fame, laws, and the rest, which we recited in the
beginning in the doctrine of morality.
But there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth yet more
accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon this ground :
that the minds of all men are sometimes in a state more perfect, and
at other times in a state more depraved. The purpose, therefore, of
this practice is, to fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to
obliterate and take forth the evil. The fixing of the good hath been
practised by two means, vows or constant resolutions, and observances
or exercises ; which are not to be regarded so much in themselves, as
because they keep the mind in continual obedience. The obliteration
?f the evil hath been practised by two means, some kind of redemption
or expiation of that which is past, and an inception or account de novo,
for the time to come : but this part seemeth sacred and religious, and
justly ; for all good moral philosophy, as was said, is but an handmaid
to religion.
Wherefore we will conclude with that last point, which is of all
other means the most compendious and summary ; and, again, the
most noble and effectual to the reducing of the mind unto virtue and
good estate ; which is, the electing and propounding unto a man's self
good and virtuous ends of his life, such as maybe in a reasonable sort
a46 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
within his compass to attain. For if these two things be supposed,
that a man set before him honest and good ends, and again that he be
resolute, constant, and true unto them ; it will follow, that he shall
mould himself into all virtue at once. And this is indeed like the
work of nature, whereas the other course is like the work of the hand :
for as when a carver makes an image, he shapes only that part where
upon he worketh, as if he be upon the face, that part which shall be
the body is but a rude stone still, till such, time as he comes to it : but
contrariwise, when nature makes a flower or living creature, she
formeth rudiments of all the parts at one time : so in obtaining virtue
by habit, while a man practiseth temperance, he doth not profit much
to fortitude, nor the like ; but when he dedicateth and applieth him
self to good ends, look, what virtue soever the pursuit and passage
towards those ends doth commend unto him, he is invested of
a precedent disposition to conform himself thereunto. Which state of
mind Aristotle doth excellently express himself, that it ought not to be
called virtuous, but divine : his words are these, " Immanitati autem
consent aneum est, oppo?iere earn, qua supra hunianitatem est, heroicam
sive divinam virtutem." And a little after, " Nam ut fera neque
vitium neque virtus est, sic neque Dei. Sed hie quidem stattis altius
quiddam iiirtute est, tile aliud quiddam a viHo" And therefore we
may see what celsitude of honour Plinius Secundus attributeth to
Trajan in his funeral oration ; where he said, u that men needed make
no other prayers to the gods, but that they would continue as good
lords to them as Trajan had been ;" as if he had not been only
an imitation of divine nature, but a pattern of it. But these be
heathen and profane passages, having but a shadow of that divine
state of mind, which religion and the holy faith doth conduct men
unto, by imprinting upon their souls charity, which is excellently called
the bond of perfection, because it comprehendeth and fasteneth all
virtues together. And as it is elegantly said by Menander, of vain
love, which is but a false imitation of divine love, "Amor melior
sophista Icevo ad humanam vitam" that love teacheth a man to carry
himself better than the sophist or preceptor, which he calleth left-
handed, because, with all his rules and preceptions, he cannot form
a man so dexterously, nor with that facility, to prize himself, and
govern himself, as love can do. So certainly if a man's mind be truly
inflamed with Charity, it doth work him suddenly into greater perfec
tion than all the doctrine of morality can do, which is but a sophist in
comparison of the other. Nay farther, as Xenophon observed truly,
that all other affections, though they raise the mind, yet they do it by
distorting and uncomeliness of ecstasies or excesses ; but only love
doth exalt the mind, and nevertheless at the same instant doth settle
and compose it : so in all other excellencies, though they advance
nature, yet they are subject to excess. Only Charity admitteth no
excess ; for so we see by aspiring to be like God in power the angeli
transgressed and fell; " Ascendam, et ero similis Altissimo j" by
aspiring to be like God in knowledge man transgressed and fell ;
" Eritis sicut Dii, scicntes bonum et malum ;" but by aspiring to
a similitude of God in goodness, or love, neither man nor angel ever
transgressed, or shall transgress. For unto that imitation we are
ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. 247
called ; " Diligite inimicos vestros, benefacite eis qui oderunt vos>
et orate pro persequentibus et calumniantibus vos, ut sitis filii Patris
vestri, qui in ccclis est, qui solem suum oriri facit super bonos et vialos,
et pluit super justos et mjustos"1 So in the first platform of the
divine nature itself, the heathen religion speaketh thus, " Optimus
Maximus ;" and the sacred Scriptures thus, " Misericordia ejus super
omnia opera ejus"
Wherefore I do conclude this part of moral knowledge, concerning
the culture and regiment of the mind ; wherein if any man, considering
the parts thereof, which I have enumerated, do judge that my labour
is but to collect into an art or science that which hath been pre-
termitted by others, as matters of common sense and experience, he
judgeth well : but as Philocrates sported with Demosthenes, " You
may not marvel, Athenians, that Demosthenes and I do differ, for he
drinketh water, and I drink wine." And like as we read of an ancient
parable of the two gates of sleep,
Sunt gemince somni portce, quarum alterafertur
Cornea, qua verisfacilis datur exit/is umbris ;
A If era candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
Sed falsa ad ccelum mittunt insomnia manes :
so if we put on sobriety and attention, we shall find it a sure maxim in
knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor, of wine, is the more vapor
ous, and the braver gate of ivory sendeth forth the falser dreams.
But we have now concluded that general part of human philosophy
which contemplateth man segregate, and as he consisteth of body and
spirit. Wherein we may farther note, that there seemeth to be a rela
tion or conformity between the good of the mind and the good of the
body. For as we divided the good of the body into health, beauty,
strength, and pleasure ; so the good of the mind, inquired in rational
and moral knowledges, tendeth to this : to make the mind sound and
without perturbation ; beautiful and graced with decency ; and strong
and agile for all duties of life. These three, as in the body, so in the
mind, seldom meet, and commonly sever. For it is easy to observe,
that many have strength of wit and courage, but have neither health
from perturbations, nor any beauty or decency in their doings : some
again have an elegancy and fineness of carriage, which have neither
soundness of honesty, nor substance of sufficiency : and some again
have honest and reformed minds, that can neither become themselves
nor manage business. And sometimes two of them meet, and rarely
all three. As for pleasure, we have likewise determined, that the
mind ought not to be reduced to stupidity, but to retain pleasure ;
confined rather in the subject of it, than in the strength and vigour
of it.
CIVIL Knowledge is conversant about a subject which of all others is
most immersed in matter, and hardliest reduced to axiom. Neverthe
less, as Cato the Censor said, " that the Romans were like sheep,
for that a man might better drive a flock of them, than one of them ;
for in a flock, if you could get but some few to go right, the rest would
1 St. Matt. v. 44 and 45.
248 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
follow:'* so in that respect moral philosophy is more difficile than
policy. Again, moral philosophy propounded! to itself the framing of
internal goodness ; but civil knowledge requireth only an external
goodness ; for that as to society sufficeth. And therefore it cometh oft
to pass that there be evil times in good governments: for so we find in
the holy story, when the kings were good ; yet it is added, " Sed
adJnic populus non direxerat cor suum ad Dominum Deum patrum
suortim" Again, states, as great engines, move slowly, and are not
so soon put out of frame : for as in Egypt the seven good years
sustained the seven bad, so governments for a time well grounded, do
bear out errors following. But the resolution of particular persons is
more suddenly subverted. These respects do somewhat qualify
the extreme difficulty of civil knowledge.
This knowledge hath three parts, according to the three summary
actions of society, which are, Conversation, Negotiation, and Govern
ment. For man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection : and
they be three wisdoms of divers natures, which do often sever ; wisdom
of behaviour, wisdom of business, and wisdom of state.
The wisdom of conversation ought not to be over much affected,
but much less despised : for it hath not only an honour in itself,
but an influence also into business and government. The poet saith,
" Nee vultu destrtie verba tuo" A man may destroy the force cf his
words with his countenance : so may he of his deeds, saith Cicero,
recommending to his brother affability and easy access, "Nil interest
Jiabere ostiiim apcrtum, vultum claiisum" It is nothing won to admit
men with an open door, and to receive them with a shut and reserved
countenance. So we see, Atticus,1 before the first interview between
Caesar and Cicero, the war depending, did seriously advise Cicero
touching the composing and ordering of his countenance and gesture.
And if the government of the countenance be of such effect, much
more is that of the speech, and other carriage appertaining to conver
sation ; the true model whereof seemeth to me well expressed by Livy,
though not meant for this purpose ; " Ne aut arrogans videar, aut ob-
noxius j quorum alterum est alienee libertatis obliti, alterum sues:"
"The sum of behaviour is to retain a man's own dignity, without in
truding upon the liberty of others." On the other side, if behaviour
and outward carriage be intended too much, first it may pass into
affectation, and then " Quid deformius qitam scenam in vitam trans-
ferre," to act a man's life ? But although it proceed not to that
extreme, yet it consumeth time, and employeth the mind too muck.
And therefore as we use to advise young students from company keep
ing, by saying, " Amici,fures temporis j " so certainly the intending of
the discretion of behaviour is a great thief of meditation. Again, such
as are accomplished in that form of urbanity, please themselves in it,
and seldom aspire to higher virtue ; whereas those that have defect in
it, do seek comeliness by reputation ; for where reputation is, almost
everything becometh ; but where that is not, it must be supplied by
puntos- and compliments. Again, there is no greater impediment of
action, than an over-curious observance of decency, and the guide of
1 The friend and correspondent of Cicero. * Punctilios.
ADVANCEMENT OP LEARNING. 34$
decency, which is time and season. For as Solomon saith, u Qui
respitit ad ventos, non seminat j et qui re spirit ad nubes, non metet: l
a man must make his opportunity as oft as find it. To conclude ; be
haviour seemeth to me as a garment of the mind, and to have the
conditions of a garment. For it ought to be made in fashion ; it
ought not to be too curious ; it ought to be shaped so as to set forth
any good making of the mind, and hide any deformity ; and above all,
it ought not to be too strait, or restrained for exercise or motion. But
this part of civil knowledge hath been elegantly handled, and there
fore I cannot report it for deficient.
The wisdom touching Negotiation or Business hath not been
hitherto collected into writing, to the great derogation of learning, and
the professors of learning. For from this root springeth chiefly that
note or opinion, which by us is expressed in adage to this effect ; that
there is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom. For of
the three wisdoms which we have set down to pertain to civil life, for
wisdom of behaviour, it is by learned men for the most part despised,
as an inferior to virtue, and an enemy to meditation ; for wisdom of
government, they acquit themselves well when they are called to it,
but that happeneth to few ; but for the wisdom of business, wherein
man's life is most conversant, there be no books of it, except some few
scattered advertisements, that have no proportion to the magnitude of
this subject. For if books were written of this, as the other, I doubt
not but learned men, with mean experience, would far excel men
of long experience, without learning, and outshoot them in their
own bow.
Neither needeth it at all to be doubted, that this knowledge should
be so variable, as it falleth not under precept ; for it is much less infinite
than science of government, which, we see, is laboured, and in some
part reduced. Of this wisdom, it seemeth, some of the ancient
Romans, in the saddest and wisest times, were professors ; for Cicero
reporteth, that it was then in use for senators that had name and
opinion for general wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, Ladius, and
many others, to walk at certain hours in the place, and to give audience
to those that would use their advice ; and that the particular citizens
would resort unto them, and consult with them of the marriage of a
daughter, or of the employing of a son, or of a purchase or bargain, or
of an accusation, and every other occasion incident to man's life. So
as there is a wisdom of counsel and advice even in private cases,
arising out of an universal insight into the affairs of the world ; which
is used indeed upon particular cases propounded, but is gathered by
general observation of cases of like nature. For so we see in the book
which Q. Cicero writeth to his brother, " De petitione consulatus?
being the only book of business, that I know, written by the ancients,
although it concerned a particular action then on foot, yet the sub
stance thereof consisteth of many wise and politic axioms, which
sontain not a temporary, but a perpetual direction in the case of popular
elections. But chiefly we may see in those aphorisms which have place
amongst divine writings, composed by Solomon the king, of whom the
Scriptures testify, that his heart was as the sands of the sea, encom-
1 Eccles. xi. 4.
250 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
passing the world and all worldly matters : we see, I say, not a few
profound and excellent cautions, precepts, positions, extending to much
variety of occasions ; whereupon we will stay a while, offering to con
sideration some number of examples.
Sed et cunctis sermonibus, qui dicuntur, ne accommodes aurent tuam, ne forte
audias servum tuum maledicentem tibi.^
Here is recommended the provident stay of inquiry of that which
we would be loth to find : as it was judged great wisdom in Pompeius
Magnus that he burned Sertorius's papers unperused.
Vir sapiens, si cum stultv contenderit, sive irascatur, sive rideat, ncn irrveniet
requiem.'1
Here is described the great disadvantage which a wise man hath in
undertaking a lighter person than himself, which is such an engage
ment, as whether a man turn the matter to jest, or turn it to heal, or
howsoever he change copy, he can no ways quit himself well of it.
Qui delicate a pueritia nutrit servum suum, postea sentiet eum contumacem?
Here is signified, that if a man begin too high a pitch in his favours,
it doth commonly end in unkindness and unthankfulness.
Vidisti virum velocem in opere suo, coram regibus stabit, nee erit inter ignobiles*
Here is observed, that of all virtues for rising to honour, quickness
of despatch is the best ; for superiors many times love not to have
those they employ too deep or too sufficient, but ready and diligent.
Vidi cunctos mventes, qui ambulant sub sole, cum adolescents secundo, qui con~
wirgit pro eo?
Here is expressed that which was noted by Sylla first, and after
him by Tiberius ; " P hires adorant solem orientem, quam ocddentem
vd meridianum."
Si spiritus potestatem habentis ascenderit super te, loc^tm tuum ne dimiseris,
quia curatio faciet cessare peccata maxima.*
Here caution is given, that upon displeasure, retiring is of all courses
the unfittest ; for a man leaveth things at worst, and depriveth himself
of means to make them better.
Erat civitas parva, et pauci in ea viri ; venit contra earn rex magnus, tt vadavii
earn, instruxitque munitiones per gyrum, et perfecta est obsidio ; inventusque est in
ea vi r pauper et sapiens, et liberavit earn per sapientiam stiam, et nullus deince.ps
recordatus est hominis illius
Here the corruption of states is set forth, that esteem not virtue
or merit longer than they have use of it.
Mollis responsio frangit tram.9
Here is noted, that silence or rough answer exasperateth ; but
an answer present and temperate pacifieth.
Iter pigrorum, quasi sepes spinarum.9
1 Eccles. vii. 21." z Prov. xxix. 9.
1 Prov. xxix. 21. Eacon quotes from the Vulgate, as we have said before : our translation of
this verse differs greatly from it. * Prov. xxii. 29. 5 Eccles. iv. 15.
« Eccles. x. 4. i Eccles. ix. 14 and 15. 8 Prov. xv. i. • Pr«v. xv. 19.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. c$i
Here is lively represented how laborious sloth proveth in the end ;
for when things are deferred to the last instant, and nothing prepared
beforehand, every step findeth a brier or an impediment, which
catcheth or stoppeth.
Melior est finis orationis, quam prlncipium.^
Here is taxed the vanity of formal speakers, that study more about
prefaces and inducements, than upon the conclusions and issues of
speech.
Qui cognoscit in judicio faciem, ncn bene Jacit ; iste et pro iniccella pants deseret
veritatem,*
Here is noted, that a judge were better be a briber, than a
respecter of persons ; for a corrupt judge offendeth not so lightly as a
facile.
Vir pauper calumnians pauperes, simills est imbri vehement!, in quo paraluf
fames*
Here is expressed the extremity of necessitous extortions, figured in
the ancient fable of the full and the hungry horse-leech.
Fans turbatus pede, et vena corrupta, est Justus cadens coram impio.*
Here is noted, that one judicial and exemplar iniquity in the face
of the world, doth trouble the fountains of justice more than many
particular injuries passed over by connivance.
Qui subtrahit aliquid a patre et a matre, et dicit hoc non esse peccatum, particeps
est homicidii*
Here is noted, that whereas men in wronging their best friends, use
to extenuate their fault, as if they might presume or be bold upon
them, it doth contrariwise indeed aggravate their fault, and turneth it
from injury to impiety.
Noli esse amicus homini iracundo, nee ambulato cum homine fiirioso. •
Here caution is given, that in the election of our friends we do
principally avoid those which are impatient, as those that will espouse
us to many factions and quarrels.
Qui conturbat domum sttam, possidebit ventum."1
Here is noted, that in domestical separations and breaches men do
promise to themselves quieting of their mind and contentment, but
still they are deceived of their expectation, and it turneth to wind.
Filius sapiens Icetificat patrem : filius vero stultus mcestitia est matri sutp. 8
Here is distinguished, that fathers have most comfort of the good
proof of their sons ; but mothers have most discomfort of their ill
proof, because women have little discerning of virtue, but of fortune.
Qui celat delict urn, qucerit amicitiam ; sed qui altcro sermone refetlt, scparai
faderatos.9
1 Eccles. vii. 9 (Vulgate). 2 prov. xxv;ii. ax. s prov> xxviiL 3.
* Prov. xxv. 26. 5 Prov. xxviii. 24. « Prov. xxii. 24.
» Prov. xi. 29. 8 prov> Xi ,. 9 |->roVi xvjjt ^
253 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
Here caution is given, that reconcilement is better managed by an
amnesty, and passing over that which is past, than by apologies and
excusations.
In oiani opere bono erit abundantia ; ubi autein verbasunt plurima, ibi frequenter
tqestas, *
Here is noted that words and discourse abound most, where there is
idleness and want.
Primus in sua causa Justus ; sed venit altera pars, et inquirit in eutn.*
Here is observed that in all causes the first tale possesseth much, in
such sort, that the prejudice thereby wrought will be hardly removed,
except some abuse or falsity in the information be detected.
Verba bilinguis quasi simplicia, et ipsa perveniunt ad interioria ventris*
Here is distinguished, that flattery and insinuation, which seemeth
set and artificial, sinketh not far ; but that entereth deep which hath
show of nature, liberty, and simplicity.
Qui erudit dertsorem, ipse sibi injuriam facit; et qui arguit impium, sibi
maculam generat.*
Here caution is given how we tender reprehension to arrogant and
scornful natures, whose manner is to esteem it for contumely, and
accordingly to return it.
Da sapienti occasionem, et addetur ei sapiential
Here is distinguished the wisdom brought into habit, and that
which is but verbal, and swimming only in conceit ; for the one upon
the occasion presented is quickened and redoubled, the other is
amazed and confused.
Quomodo in aquis resplendent vultus prospicientium, sic corda hominum mani-
festa sunt prudentibus.*
Here the mind of a wise man is compared to a glass, wherein the
images of all diversity of natures and customs are represented, from
which representation proceedeth that application,
Qui sapit, innumeris moribus aptus erit.
Thus have I stayed somewhat longer upon these sentences politic of
Solomon than is agreeable to the proportion of an example, led with a
desire to give authority to this part erf knowledge, which I noted
as deficient, by so excellent a precedent ; and have also attended them
with brief observations, such as to my understanding offer no violence
to the sense, though I know they may be applied to a more divine
use : but it is allowed even in divinity, that some interpretations, yea,
and some writings, have more of the eagle than other : but taking
them as instructions for life, they might have received large discourse,
if I would have broken them and illustrated them by deducements and
examples.
Neither was this in use only with the Hebrews, but it is generally to
be found in the wisdom of the more ancient times : that as men found
1 Prov. xiv. 23. * Prov. xviii. 17. 8 Prov. xviii. 8 or xxvi. 22.
* Prov. ix. 7. - • Prov. ix. 9 (Vulgate). 6 Prov. xxvii. 19 (Vulgate).
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 253
out any observation that they thought was good for life, they would
gather it and express it in parable, or aphorism, or fable. But for
fables, they were vicegerents and supplies where examples failed : now
that the times abound with history, the aim is better when the mark is
alive. And therefore the form of writing, which of all others is the
fittest for this variable argument of negotiation and occasions, is that
which Machiavel chose widely and aptly for government ; namely dis
course upon histories or examples : for knowledge drawn freshly, and
in our view, out of particulars, knoweth the way best to particulars
again ; and it hath much greater life for practice when the discourse
attendeth upon the example, than when the example attendeth upon
the discourse. For this is no point of order, as it seemeth at first, but
of substance : for when the example is the ground being set down in
an history at large, it is set down with all circumstances, which may
sometimes control the discourse thereupon made, and sometimes
supply it as a very pattern for action : whereas the examples alleged
for the discourse's sake, are cited succinctly, and without particularity,
and carry a servile aspect towards the discourse which they are
brought in to make good.
But this difference is not amiss to be remembered, that as history
of times is the best ground for discourse of government, such as
Machiavel handleth, so history of lives is the most proper for discourse
of business, because it is more conversant in private actions. Nay,
there is a ground of discourse for this purpose fitter than them both,
which is discourse upon letters ; such as are wise and weighty, as
many are of Cicero " ad Atticum" and others. For letters have a
great and more particular representation of business than either
chronicles or lives. Thus have we spoken both of the matter and
form of this part of civil knowledge, touching negotiation, which we
note to be deficient.
But yet there is another part of this part, which differeth as much
from that whereof we have spoken, as sapere and sibi sapere ; the one
moving as it were to the circumference, the other to the centre : for
there is a wisdom of counsel, and again there is a wisdom of pressing
a man's own fortune, and they do sometimes meet, and often sever ;
for many are wise in their own ways that are weak for government or
counsel ; like ants, which is a wise creature for itself, but very hurtful
for the garden. This wisdom the Romans did take much knowledge
of : " Nam pol sapiens" saith the comical poet, "fingit fortunam
sibi;" and it grew to an adage, " Faber quisque fortunes proprice : "
and Livy attributeth it to Cato the first, " in hoc iriro tanta vis animi
et ingenii inerat ut quocunque loco natus esset, sibi ipse fortunam fac-
i'urus -videretur"
This conceit or position, if it be too much declared and pro
fessed, hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as was
observed in Timotheus the Athenian ; l who having done many great
services to the estate in his government, and giving an account thereof
to the people, as the manner was, did conclude every particular with
this clause, " and in *his Fortune had no part." And it came so to pass
1 See Essay 40, p. 74, note a.
254 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
that he never prospered in anything he took in hand afterwards ; for
this is too high and too arrogant, savouring of that which Ezekiel
saith of Pharaoh, "Diets, Fluvius est metis, et ego fed memetipsum :" J
or of that which another prophet speaketh, that " men offer sacrifices
to their nets and snares ; "2 and that which the poet expresseth,
Dextra. mi hi Dens, et telum, quod missile libra,
Nunc adsint.
For these confidences were ever unhallowed and unblessed : and
therefore those that were great politicians indeed ever ascribed their
successes to their felicity, and not to their skill or virtue. For so Sylla
surnamed himself Felix not Magnus : so Csesar said to the master of
the ship, " Ccesarem portas et fortunam ejus^
But yet nevertheless these positions, " Faber quisque fortuncc suce ;
Sapiens dominabitur astris; Invia virtuti nulla est -via;" and the like,
being taken and used as spurs to industry, and not as stirrups to inso-
lency, rather for resolution than for presumption or outward declara
tion, have been ever thought sound and good, and are, no question,
imprinted in the greatest minds, who are so sensible of this opinion, as
they can scarce contain it within. As we see in Augustus Caesar, who
was rather diverse from his uncle, than inferior in virtue, how when he
died, he desired his friends about him to give him a Plaudite, as if he
were conscient to himself that he had played his part well upon the
stage. This part of knowledge we do report also as deficient ; not but
that it is practised too much, but it hath not been reduced to writing.
And therefore lest it should seem to any that it is not comprehensible
by axiom, it is requisite, as we did in the former, that we set down
some heads or passages of it.
Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted argument
to teach men how to raise and make their fortune : a doctrine, wherein
every man perchance will be ready to yield himself a disciple till he
seeth difficulty ; for fortune layeth as heavy impositions as virtue, and
it is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician, as to be truly
moral. But the handling hereof concerneth learning greatly, both in
honour and in substance. In honour, because pragmatical men may
not go away with an opinion that learning is like a lark, that can
mount, and sing, and please herself, and nothing else ; but may know
that she holdeth as well of the hawk, that can soar aloft, and can also
descend and strike upon the prey. In substance, because it is the
perfect law of inquiry of truth, " that nothing be in the globe of matter,
which should not be likewise in the globe of crystal, or form ; " that is,
that there be not anything in being and action, which should not be
drawn and collected into contemplation and doctrine. Neither doth
learning admire or esteem of this architecture of fortune, otherwise
than as of an inferior work : for no man's fortune can be an end worthy
of his being, and many times the worthiest men do abandon their
fortune willingly for better respects ; but nevertheless fortune, as an
organ of virtue and merit, deserveth the consideration.
First, therefore, the precept which I conceive to be most summary
towards the prevailing in fortune, is to obtain that window which
1 Ezekiel xxix. 3. 2 Hab. i. 16.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 055
Momus did require ; who seeing in the frame of man's heart such
angles and recesses, found fault there was not a window to look into
them ; that is, to procure good informations of particulars touching
persons, their natures, their desires and ends, their customs and
fashions, their helps and advantages, and whereby they chiefly stand ;
so again their weaknesses and disadvantages, and where they lie most
open and obnoxious ; their friends, factions, and dependencies ; and
again their opposites, enviers, competitors, their moods and times,
"Sola viri inolles aditus et teinpora noras;" their principles, rules, and
observations, and the like : and this not only of persons but of actions ;
what are on foot from time to time, and how they are conducted,
favoured, opposed, and how they import, and the like. For the know
ledge of present actions is not only material in itself, but without it
also the knowledge of persons is very erroneous ; for men change with
the actions, and whilst they are in pursuit they are one, and when they
return to their nature, they are another. These informations of parti
culars, touching persons and actions, are as the minor propositions in
every active syllogism, for no excellency of observations, which are as
the major propositions, can suffice to ground a conclusion if there be
error and mistaking in the minors.
That this knowledge is possible, Solomon is our surety, who saith,
" Consilium in corde viri^ tanquam aqua profunda, sed vir prudens
exhauriet illud:" * And although the knowledge itself falleth not under
precept, because it is of individuals, yet the instructions for the obtain
ing of it may.
We will begin therefore with this precept, according to the ancient
opinion ; that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief and distrust :
that more trust be given to countenances and deeds than to words ;
and in words rather to sudden passages and surprised words than to
set and purposed words. Neither let that be feared which is said,
Fronti nulla fides; which is meant of a general outward behaviour,
and not of the private and subtle motions and labours of the counte
nance and gesture ; which, as Q. Cicero2 elegantly saith, is animi janua,
" the gate of the mind." None more close than Tiberius, and yet
Tacitus saith of Gallus, " Etenim vultu offensionem conjectaverat"
So again, noting the differing character and manner of his commending
Gennanicus and Drusus in the senate, he saith, touching his fashion,
wherein he carried his speech of Germanicus, thus ; " Ma°is in spericin
adornatis verbis^quam tit pejiitus sentire videretur;" but of Drusus
thus, " PaucioribuS) sed intentwr, et fi da oratione:" and in another
place, speaking of this character of speech when he did anything that
v/as gracious and popular, he saith, tb«t in other things he was '• velut
eluctantiitm verboruin:" but then again, " Solntius vero loquebatur
quando subveniret" So that there is no such artificer of dissimulation,
nor no such commanded countenance, vultits jussus, that can sever
from a feigned tale some of these fashions, either a more slight and
careless fashion, or more set and formal, or more tedious and wander
ing, or coming from a man more drily and hardly.
Neither are deeds such assured pledges, as that they may be trusted
1 Prov. xx. 5. « The brother of the Orator.
•56 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
without a judicious consideration of their magnitude and nature;
" Fraus sibi in par-iris fidem prastruit, ut majore emolumento fallat :*
and the Italian thinketh himself upon the point to be bought and sold,
when he is better used than he was wont to be, without manifest cause.
For small favours, they do but lull men asleep both as to caution and
as to industry, and are, as Demosthenes calleth them, " Alimenta
socordia? So again we see how false the nature of some deeds is, in
that particular which Mutianus practised upon Antonius Primus, upOR
that hollow and unfaithful reconcilement which was made between
them : whereupon Mutianus advanced many of the friends of Antonius :
" simul amicis ejus prtzfecturas ct tribunatus largitur : " wherein, under
pretence to strengthen him, he did desolate him, and won from him his
dependencies.
As for words, though they be, like waters to physicians, full of flattery
and uncertainty, yet they are not to be despised, specially with th&
advantage of passion and affection. For so we see Tiberius, upon a
stinging and incensing speech of Agrippina, came a step forth of his
dissimulation, when he said, " You are hurt because you do not reign ;"
of which Tacitus saith, " Audit a h<zc rararn occulti pectoris vocem
elicuere, correptamque Grceco versu admonuit : idea Icedi, qtiia non
regnaret." And therefore the poet doth elegantly call passions, tor
tures, that urge men to confess their secrets :
Vino tortus et ira.
And experience showeth, there are few men so true to themselves, and
so settled, but that sometimes upon heat, sometimes upon bravery,1
sometimes upon kindness, sometimes upon trouble of mind and weak
ness, they open themselves ; specially if they be put to it with a counter-
dissimulation, according to the proverb of Spain, " Dimentira^y sacaras
uerdad? " Tell a lie, and find a truth."
As lor the knowing of men, which is at second hand from reports :
men's weakness and faults are best known from their enemies, their
virtues and abilities from their friends, their customs and times from
their servants, their conceits and opinions from their familiar friends,
with whom they discourse most. General fame is light, and the
opinions conceived by superiors or equals are deceitful ; for to such,
men are more masked, " Verior fama e domesticis emanat?
But the soundest disclosing and expounding of men is, by their
natures and ends ; wherein the weakest sort of men are best inter
preted by their natures, and the wisest by their ends. For it was both
pleasantly and wisely said, though I think very untruly, by a nuncio of
the pope, returning from a certain nation, where he served as lieger ;
whose opinion being asked touching the appointment of one to go in
his place, he wished that in any case they did not send one that was
too wise ; because no very wise man would ever imagine, what they in
that country were like to do. And certainly it is an error frequent for men
to shoot over, and to suppose deeper ends, and more compass reaches
than are : the Italian proverb being elegant, and for the most part true,
Di danari, di se.nno, e di fcde
Ct ne vianco eke uon credi :
1 Boasting.
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 357
" Then is commonly less money, less wisdom, and less good faith,
than m^n do account upon."
But princes, upon a far other reason, are best interpreted by their
natures, and private persons by their ends : for princes being at the
top of human desires, they have for the most part no particular ends
whereto they aspire, by distance from which a man might take measure
and scale of the rest of their actions and desires ; which is one of the
causes that maketh their hearts more inscrutable. Neither is it suffi
cient to inform ourselves in men's ends and natures of the variety of
them only, but also of the predominancy, what humour reigneth most,
and what end is principally sought. For so we see, when Tigellinus1
saw himself out-stripped by Petronius Turpilianus in Nero's humours
of pleasures; "metus ejus rimatur? he wrought upon Nero's fears,
whereby he broke the other's neck.
But to all this part of inquiry, the most compendious way resteth
in three things ; the first, to have general acquaintance and inwardness
with those which have general acquaintance, and look most into the
world ; and especially according to the diversity of business, and the
diversity of persons, to have privacy and conversation with some one
friend at least, which is perfect and well intelligenced in every several
kind. The second is, to keep a good mediocrity in liberty of speech
and secrecy : in most things liberty, secrecy where it importeth ; for
liberty of speech inviteth and provoketh liberty to be used again, and
so bringeth much to a man's knowledge ; and secrecy, on the other
side, induceth trust and inwardness. The last is the reducing of a
man's self to this watchful and serene habit, as to make account and
purpose, in every conference and action, as well to observe as to act.
For as Epictetus would have a philosopher in every particular action
to say to himself, " Et hoc volo, et etiam institutum servare:" so a
politic man in everything should say .to himself, " Et hoc volo, ac etiam
aliquid addiscere" I have stayed the longer upon this precept of
obtaining good information ; because it is a main part by itself, which
answereth to all the rest. But above all things caution must be taken,
that men have a good stay and hold of themselves, and that this much
knowing do not draw on much meddling : for nothing is more unfor-
*,unate than light and rash intermeddling in many matters. So that
riiis variety of knowledge tendeth in conclusion but only to this, to
make a better and freer choice of those actions which may concern us,
and to conduct them with the less error and the more dexterity.
The second precept concerning this knowledge, is for men to take
good information touching their own persons, and well to understand
themselves : knowing that, as St. James saith, though men look oft in
a glass, yet they do suddenly forget themselves ; wherein as the divine
glass is the word of God, so the politic glass is the state of the world,
or times wherein we live, in the which we are to behold ourselves.
For men ought to take an impartial view of their own abilities and
1 Tigellinus was noted for his perfidies. Petronius as consul behaved with dignity, but in
private life was as vicious as the Emperor. He was a poet of some renown : his poem
on the civil wars of Pompey and Caesar being considered superior even to Lucan's Pharsalia.
Petronius escaped the vengeance of Nero by a voluntary death ; having his veirs opened^
ciosed, and re-opened, thus dying slowly.
258 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
virtues ; and again of their wants and impediments ; accounting these
with the most ; and those other with the least ; and from this view and
examination, to frame the considerations following.
First, to consider how the constitution of their nature sorteth with
the general state of the times ; which if they find agreeable and fit then
in all things to give themselves more scope and liberty ; but if differing
and dissonant, then in the whole course of their life to be more close,
retired, and reserved : as we see in Tiberius, who was never seen at a
play, and came not into the senate in twelve of his last years ; whereas
Augustus Caesar lived ever in men's eyes, which Tacitus observeth :
" Alia Tiber w mortem via?
Secondly, to consider how their nature sorteth with professions and
courses of life, and accordingly to make election, if they be free ; and,
if engaged, to make the departure at the first opportunity, as we see
was clone by duke Valentine, that was designed by his father to
a sacerdotal profession, but quitted it soon after in regard of his parts
and inclination ; being such nevertheless, as a man cannot tell well
whether they were worse for a prince or for a priest.
Thirdly, to consider how they sort with those whom they are like to
have competitors and concurrents, and to take that course wherein
there is most solitude, and themselves like to be most eminent ;
as Julius Caesar did, who at first was an orator or pleader ; but when
he saw the excellency of Cicero, Hortensius, Catulus, and others,
for eloquence, and saw there was no man of reputation for the wars
but Pompeius, upon whom the state was forced to rely ; he forsook his
course begun toward a civil and popular greatness, and transferred
his designs to a martial greatness.
Fourthly, in the choice of their friends and dependences, to proceed
according to the composition of their own nature ; as we may see in
Caesar ; all whose friends and followers were men active and effectual,
but not solemn, or of reputation.
Fifthly, to take special heed how they guide themselves by examples,
in thinking they can do as they see others do ; whereas perhaps their
natures and carriages are far differing. In which error it seemeth
Pompey was, of whom Cicero saith, that he was wont often to say,
" Sylla potnit, ego non potero ?" Wherein he was much abused, the
natures and proceedings of himself and his example being the unlikest
in the world ; the one being fierce, violent, and pressing the fact ; the
other solemn, and full of majesty and circumstance ; and therefore the
less effectual.
But this precept touching the politic knowledge of ourselves, hath
many other branches whereupon we cannot insist.
Next to the well understanding and discerning of a man's self,
there followeth the well opening and revealing a man's self ; wherein
we see nothing more usual than for the more able man to make
the less show. For there is a great advantage in the well setting forth
of a man's virtues, fortunes, merits ; and again, in the artificial cover
ing of a man's weaknesses, defects, disgraces, staying upon the one,
sliding from the other ; cherishing the one by circumstances, gracing
the other by exposition, and the like ; wherein we see what Tacitus
saith of Mutianus, who was the greatest politician of his time,
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 259
* Omnium, quce dixerat, feceratque, arte quadam ostentator;" which
rcquireth indeed some art, lest it turn tedious and arrogant ; but yet
so, as ostentation, though it be to the first degree of vanity, secmcth to
me rather a vice in manners than in policy : for as it is said,
"Audactur calumniare, semper aliquid hccyetj" so except it be in
a ridiculous degree of deformity, " Audactur te vendita, semper aliquid
hceret" For it will stick with the more ignorant and inferior sort
of men, though men of wisdom and rank do smile at it, and despise it ;
and yet the authority won with many, doth countervail the disdain of
a few. But if it be carried with decency and government, as with
a natural, pleasant, and ingenuous fashion, or at times when it is
mixed with some peril and unsafety, as in military persons, or at times
when others are most envied ; or with easy and careless passage to
it and from it, without dwelling too long, or being too serious ;
or with an equal freedom of taxing a man's self, as well as gracing
himself; or by occasion of repelling or putting down others' injury or
insolence ; it doth greatly add to reputation : and surely not a few
solid natures that want this ventosity, and cannot sail in the height of
the winds, are not without some prejudice and disadvantage by their
moderation.
But for these flourishes and enhancements of virtue, as they are not
perchance unnecessary, so it is at least necessary that virtue be not
disvalued and embased under the just price, which is done in three
manners ; by offering and obtruding a man's self, wherein men think
he is rewarded, when he is accepted : by doing too much, which will
not give that which is well done leave to settle, and in the end
induceth satiety: and by finding too soon the fruit of a man's virtue in
commendation, applause, honour, favour ; wherein if a man be pleased
with a little, let him hear what is truly said ; " Cave ne insuetus rebus
majoribus videaris, si hczc te res parva, sicuta magna, delectat."
But the covering of defects is of no less importance than the valuing
of good parts : which may be done likewise in three manners, by
caution, by colour, and by confidence. Caution is, when men do
ingeniously and discreetly avoid to be put into those things for which
they are not proper : whereas contrariwise, bold and unquiet spirits
will thrust themselves into matters without difference, and so publish
and proclaim all their wants : colour is, when men make a way for
themselves, to have a construction made of their faults or wants,
as proceeding from a better cause, or intended for some other pur
pose : for of the one it is well said,
ScBpe latet vitium i>roximitate boni.
And therefore whatsoever want a man hath, he must see that he pre
tend the virtue that shadoweth it ; as if he be dull, he must affect
gravity ; if a coward, mildness ; and so the rest. For the second, a
man must frame some probable cause why he should not do his
best and why he should dissemble his abilities ; and for that purpose
must use to dissemble those abilities which are notorious in him,
to give colour that his true wants are but industries and dissimulations.
For confidence, it is the last, but surest remedy ; namely, to depress
and seem to despise whatsoever a man cannot attain, observing
S 2
26o ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
the good principle of the merchants, who endeavoured to raise the
price of their own commodities and to beat down the price of others.
But there is a confidence that passeth this other, which is to face out a
man's own defects, in seeming to conceive that he is best in those
things wherein he is failing ; and, to help that again, to seem on
the other side that he hath least opinion of himself in those things
wherein he is best ; like as we shall see it commonly in poets, that if
they show their verses, and you except to any, they will say, "that
that line cost them more labour than any of the rest ;" and presently
will seem to disable and suspect rather some other line, which they
£now well enough to be the best in the number. But arove all,
in this righting and helping of a man's self in his own carriage, he
must take heed he show not himself dismantled, and exposed to
scorn and injury, by too much dulceness, goodness, and facility of
nature, but show some sparkles of liberty, spirit, and edge: which
kind of fortified carriage, with a ready rescuing of a man's self
from scorns, is sometimes of necessity imposed upon men by some
what in their person or fortune, but it ever succeedeth with good
felicity.
Another precept of this knowledge is, by all possible endeavour
to frame the mind to be pliant and obedient to occasion ; for nothing
hindereth men's fortunes so much as this : " Ide?n manebat, neque
idem decebat" Men are where they were, when occasions turn ; and
therefore to Cato, whom Livy maketh such an architect of fortune, he
addeth, that he hath 'versatile ingenium. And therefore it cometh,
that these grave solemn wits, which must be like themselves, and can
not make departures, have more dignity than felicity. But in some it
is nature to be somewhat viscous and inwrapped, and not easy to turn.
In some it is a conceit, that is almost a nature, which is, that men can
hardly make themselves believe that they ought to change their course,
when they have found good by it in former experience ; for Machiavel
noteth wisely, how Fabius Maximus would have been temporizing still,
according to his old bias, when the nature of the war was altered, and
required hot pursuit. In some other it is want of point and penetra
tion in their judgment, that they do not discern when things have
a period, but come in too late after the occasion ; as Demosthenes
compareth the people of Athens to country fellows, when they play in
a fence school, that if they have a blow, then they remove their weapon
to that ward, and not before. In some other it is a loathness to lose
labours passed, and a conceit that they can bring about occasions
to their ply ; and yet in the end, when they see no other remedy, then
they come to it with disadvantage ; as Tarquinius, that gave for the
third part of Sibylla's books the treble price, when he might at first
have had all three for the simple. But from whatsoever root or cause
this restiveness of mind proceedeth, it is a thing most prejudicial, and
nothing is more politic than to make the wheels of our mind con
centric and voluble with the wheels of fortune.
Another precept of this knowledge, which hath some affinity with
that we last spake of, but with difference, is that which is well ex
pressed, "falls accede deisque? that men do not only turn with
the occasions, but also run with the occasions, and no; sL-ain their
AWANCEl/ENT OF LEARXfXG. 261
credit or strength to over-hard or extreme points ; but choose in their
action that which is most passable : for this will preserve men
from foil, and not occupy them too much about one matter, win
opinion of moderation, please the most, and make a show of a
perpetual felicity in all they undertake ; which cannot but mightily
increase reputation.
Another part of thi<> knowledge seemeth to have some repugnancy
\\ith the former two, but not as I understand it, and it is that which
Demosthenes uttcied in high terms: " Et quemadmodiim recc.pt ur,:
est, ut exercitutn ducat iinperator, sic et a cordatis viris res ipscz
d«.icend<zj ut qua ipsis videntur, ea gerantur, et non ipsi event us
tantuin persequi cogantur? For, if we observe, we shall find
two differing kinds of sufficiency in managing of business : some
can make use of occasions aptly and dexterously, but plot little :
some can urge and pursue their own plots well, but cannot accom
modate nor take in ; either of which is very imperfect without the
other.
Another part of this knowledge is the observing a good mediocrity
in the declaring, or not declaring a man's self: for although depth of
secrecy, and making way, " qualis est via navis in mart" which the
French calleth "sourdes ?nene'es" when men set things in work without
opening themselves at all, be sometimes both prosperous and ad
mirable, yet many times " Dissimulatio errores parit, qui dissimU-
latorem ipsum illaqueant." And therefore, we see, the greatest politi
cians have in a natural and free manner professed their desires, rather
than been reserved and disguised in them : for so we see that Lucius
Sylla made a kind of profession, " that he wished all men happy
or unhappy, as they stood his friends or enemies." So Caesar, when
he went first into Gaul, made no scruple to profess, " that he had
rather be first in a village than second at Rome.1' So again, as soon
as he had begun the war, we see what Cicero saith of him, "Alter"
meaning of Caesar, "non recusat, sed quodamodo posttilat, utt ut
est, sic appelletur, tyrannus" So we may see in a letter of Cicero to
Atticus, that Augustus Caesar, in his very entrance into affairs, when
he was a darling of the senate, yet in his harangues .to the people
would swear, " Ita parentis honores consequi liceat " (which was no
less than the tyranny), save that, to help it, he would stretch forth his
hand towards a statue of Caesar's, that was erected in the same place :
and men laughed, and wondered, and said, Is it possible, or, Did you
ever hear the like? and yet thought he meant no hurt, he did it
so handsomely and ingenuously. And all these were prosperous,
whereas Pompey, who tended to the same ends, but in a more
dark and dissembling manner, as Tacitus saith of him, " Occultior, non
melior" wherein Sallust concurreth, " ore probo, cuiimo inverecundo?
made it his design, by infinite secret engines, to cast the state into an
absolute anarchy and confusion, that the state might cast itself into
his arms for necessity and protection, and so the sovereign power be
put upon him, and he never seen in it : and when he had brought it,
as he thought, to that point when he was chosen consul alone, as
never any was, yet he could make no great malter of it, because men
understood him not ; but was fain in the end to go the beaten track of
262 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
getting arms into his hands, by colour of the doubt of Caesar's designs:
so tedious, casual, and unfortunate are these deep dissimulations ;
whereof, it seemeth, Tacitus made this judgment, that they were
a cunning of an inferior form in regard of true policy, attributing
the one to Augustus, the other to Tiberius, where, speaking of Livia,
he saith, " Et cum artibus mariti simulation e filii bene composita ;" for
surely the continual habit of dissimulation is but a weak and sluggish
cunning, and not greatly politic.
Another precept of this architecture of fortune is, to accustom our
minds to judge of the proportion or value of things, as they conduce
and are material to our particular ends ; and that to do substantially
and not superficially. For we shall find the logical part, as I may
term it, of some men's minds good, but the mathematical part
erroneous ; that is, they can well judge of consequences, but not of
proportions and comparisons, preferring things of show and sense
before things of substance and effect. So some fall in love with access
to princes, others with popular fame and applause, supposing they are
things of great purchase ; when, in many cases, they are but matters
of envy, peril, and impediment.
So some measure things according to the labour and difficulty, or
assiduity, which are spent about them ; and think if they be ever
moving, that they must needs advance and proceed : as Caesar saith
in a despising manner of Cato the second, when he describeth how
laborious and indefatigable he was to no great purpose ; " H<zc omnia
magno studio agebat" So in mcst things men are ready to abuse
themselves in thinking the greatest means to be best, when it should
be the fittest.
As for the tme marshalling of men's pursuits towards their fortune,
as they are more or less material, I hold them to stand thus : first, the
amendment of their own minds ; for the remove of the impediments of
the mind will sooner clear the passages of fortune, than the obtaining
fortune will remove the impediments of the mind. In the second place
I set down wealth and means, which, I know, most men would have
placed first, because of the general use which it beareth towards all
variety of occasions. But that opinion I may condemn with like reason
as Machiavel doth that other, that moneys were the sinews of the wars,
whereas, saith he, the true sinews of the wars are the sinews of men's
arms, that is, a valiant, populous, and military nation ; and he voucheth
aptly the authority of Solon, who, when Crcesus showed him his
treasury of gold, said to him, that if another came that had better iron,
he would be master of his gold. In like manner it may be truly
affirmed, that it is not moneys that are the sinews of fortune, but it is
the sinews and steel of men's minds, wit, courage, audacity, resolution,
temper, industry, and the like. In third place I set down reputation,
because of the peremptory tides and currents it hath, which, if they be
not taken in their due time, are seldom recovered, it being extreme
hard to play an after-game of reputation. And lastly I place honour,
which is more easily won by any of the other three, much more by all,
than any of them can be purchased by honour. To conclude this
precept, as there is order and priority in matter, so is there in time,
the preposterous placing whereof is one of the commonest errors, while
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 263
men fly to their ends when they should intend their beginnings ; and
do not take things in order of time as they come on, but marshal them
according to greatness, and not according to instance, not observing
the good precept, " Quod nunc instat agamus."
Another precept of this knowledge is, not to embrace any matters
which do occupy too great a quantity of time, but to have that sound
ing in a man's ears, " Sed fugit interea* fugit irreparabile tewpus :"
and that is the cause why those which take their course of rising bv
professions of burden, as lawyers, orators, painful divines, and the like,
are not commonly so politic for their own fortunes, otherwise than in
their ordinary way, because they want time to learn particulars, to wait
occasions, and to devise plots.
Another precept of this knowledge is, to imitate nature, which doth
nothing in vain: which surely a man may do if he do well interlace his
business, and bend not his mind too much upon that which he princi
pally intendeth. For a man ought in every particular action so to
carry the motions of his mind, and so to have one thing under another,
as if he cannot have that he seeketh in the best degree, yet to have it
in a second, or so in a third ; and if he can have no part of that which
he purposed, yet to turn the use of it to somewhat else; and if he
cannot make anything of it for the present, yet to make it as a seed of
somewhat in time to come ; and if he can contrive no effect or substance
from it, yet to win some good opinion by it, or the like. So that he
should exact an account of himself of every action, to reap somewhat,
and not to stand amazed and confused if he fail of that he chiefly
meant : for nothing is more impolitic than to mind actions wholly one
by one ; for he that doth so, loseth infinite occasions which intervene,
and are many times more proper and propitious for somewhat that he
shall need afterwards, than for that which he urgeth for the present ;
and therefore men must be perfect in that rule, " HCBC oportet facere,
et ilia non omittere"
Another precept of this knowledge is, not to engage a man's self
peremptorily in anything, though it seem not liable to accident, but
ever to have a window to fly out at, or a way to retire ; following the
wisdom in the ancient fable of the two frogs, which consulted when
their plash was dry whither they should go, and the one moved to go
down into a pit, because it was not likely the water would dry there,
but the other answered, " True, but if it do, how shall we get out
again ? "
Another precept of this knowledge is, that ancient precept of Bias,
construed not to any point of perfidiousness, but only to caution and
moderation, " Et ama tanquam inimicus futurus, et odi tanquam
amaturus :" for it utterly betrayeth all utility, for men to embark them
selves too far into unfortunate friendships, troublesome spleens, and
childish and humorous envies or emulations.
But I continue this beyond the measure of an example, led, because
I would not have such knowledges, which I note as deficient, to be
thought things imaginative, or in the air ; or an observation or two
much made of, but things of bulk and mass, whereof an end is hardlier
made than a beginning. It must be likewise conceived that in those
points which I mention and set down, they are far from complete
264 ADVANCEMENT OF
tractates of them, but only as small pieces for patterns : and lastly,
no man, I suppose, will think that I mean fortunes are not obtained
without all this ado • for I know they come tumbling into some men's
laps, and a number obtain good fortunes by diligence in a plain way,
little intermeddling, and keeping themselves from gross errors.
But as Cicero, .when he setteth down an idea of a perfect orator,
doth not mean that every pleader should be such ; and so likewise,
\vhen a prince or a courtier hath been described by such as have
handled those subjects, the mould hath used to be made according to
the perfection of the art, and not according to common practice : so I
understand it, ^hat it ought to be done in the description of a politic
man, I mean ]/olitic for his own fortune.
But it must be remembered all this while, that the precepts which
we have set down are of that kind which may be counted and called
bones artes. As for evil arts, if a man would set down for himself that
principle of Machiavel, "that a man seek not to attain virtue itself,
but the appearance only thereof; because the credit of virtiie is a help,
but the use of it is cumber :" or that other of his principles, "that he
presuppose that men are not fitly to be wrought otherwise but by fear,
and therefore that he seek to have every man obnoxious, low. and in
strait," which the Italians call " seminar spine" to sow thorns : or that
other principle contained in the verse which Cicero citeth, " Cudant
amid, dummodo inimici intercidant" as the Triumvirs, which sold,
every one to other, the lives of their friends, for the deaths of their
enemies : or that other protestation of L. Catilina, to set on fire, and
trouble states, to the end to fish in droumy1 waters, and to unwrap
their fortunes, "Ego si quid in fortunis meis extitatum sit incendium,
id non aqua, sed ruina restingiiam :" or that other principle of Ly-
sander,2 " that children are to be deceived with comfits, and men with
oaths :" and the like evil and corrupt positions, whereof, as in all
things, there are more in number than of the good : certainly, with
these dispensations from the laws of charity and integrity, the pressing
of a man's fortune may be more hasty and compendious. But it is in
life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and
surely the fairer way is not much about.
But men, if they be in their own power, and do bear and sustain
themselves, and be not carried away with a whirlwind or tempest of
ambition, ought, in the pursuit of their own fortune, to set before their
eyes, not only that general map of the world, that " all things are
vanity and vexation of spirit," but many other more particular cards
and directions : chiefly that, that being, without well-being, is a curse,
and the greater being the greater curse ; and that all virtue is most
rewarded, and all wickedness most punished in itself: according as
the poet saith excellently :
Qua vobis, qua digna, viri, pro laudibus istis
Pr<smia posse rear solvi ? pulcherrima primurn
Dii morcsque dabunt vestri.
And so of the contrary. And, secondly, they ought to look up to (he
1 Troubled, muddy — the same as the Scottish "drumlv "
* General of Spaita, the conqueror of Athens
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 2*5
Eternal providence and divine judgment, which often subvorteth the
wisdom of evil plots and imaginations, according to that Scripture,
" He hath conceived mischief, and shall bring forth a vain thing.'"
And although men should refrain themselves from injury and evil arts,
yet this incessant and Sabbathless pursuit of a man's fortune leaveth
not that tribute which we owe to God of our time: who, we see,
demandeth a tenth of our substance, and a seventh, which is more
strict, of our time : and it is to small purpose to have an erected face
towards heaven, and a perpetual grovelling spirit upon earth, eating
dust, as doth the serpent, " Atque affigit humo divines particulam
aura" And if any man flatter himself that he will employ his fortune
well, though he should obtain it ill, as was said concerning Augustus
Caesar, and after of Septimius Severus, "that either they should never
have been born, or else they should never have died," they did so much
mischief in the pursuit and ascent of their greatness, and so much
good when they were established : yet these compensations and satis
factions are good to be used, but never good to be purposed. And,
lastly, it is not amiss for men in their race towards their fortune, to
cool themselves a little with that conceit which is elegantly expressed
by the emperor Charles the fifth, in his instructions to the king his
son, " that fortune hath somewhat of the nature of a woman, that if she
be too much wooed, she is the farther off." But this last is but a
remedy for those whose tastes are corrupted: let men rather build
upon that foundation which is as a corner-stone of divinity and philo
sophy, wherein they join close, namely, that same Primum qiuzrite.
For divinity saith, "Primum qucerite regnum Dei, et ista omnia adji-
cientur vobis :"* and philosophy saith, " Primum qucerite bonaanimi^
c&tera aut aderunt, atft non oberunt.n And although the human foun
dation hath somewhat of the sands, as we see in M. Brutus, when he
brake forth into that speech,
Te colui, virtus, ut rent : ast tu nomen inane es :
yet the divine foundation is upon the rock. But this may serve for a
taste of that knowledge which I noted as deficient.
Concerning government, it is a part of knowledge, secret and
retired in both these respects, in which things are deemed secret ; for
some things are secret because they are hard to know, and some
because they are not fit to utter ; we see all governments are obscure
and invisible.
Totamque infusa. per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.
Such is the description of governments : we see the government of
God over the world is hidden, insomuch as it seemeth to participate of
much irregularity and confusion : the government of the soul in mov
ing the body is inward and profound, and the passages thereof hardly
to be reduced to demonstration. Again, the wisdom of antiquity, the
shadows whereof are in the poets, in the description of torments and
pains, next unto the crime of rebellion, which was the giants' offence,
doth detest the crime of futility, as in Sisyphus and Tantalus But
1 Psalm vii. 14. * S. Luke xii. ^i.
265 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
this was meant of particulars; nevertheless, even unto the general
rules and discourses of policy and government there is due a reverent
and reserved handling.
But, contrariwise, in the governors towards the governed, all things
ought, as far as the frailty of man permitteth, to be manifest and re
vealed. For so it is expressed in the Scriptures touching the govern
ment of God, that this globe which seemeth to us a dark and shady
body, is in the view of God as crystal, " Et in conspectu sedis tanquam
mare vitrettm simile crystalled So unto princes and states, specially
towards wise senates and councils, the natures and dispositions of the
people, their conditions and necessities, their factions and combina
tions, their animosities and discontents, ought to be, in regard of the
variety of their intelligences, the wisdom of their observations, and the
height of the station where they kept sentinel, in great part clear and
transparent. Wherefore, considering that I write to a king that is a
master of this science, and is so well assisted, I think it decent to pass
over this part in silence, as willing to obtain the certificate which one
of the ancient philosophers aspired unto : who being silent, when others
contended to make demonstration of their abilities by speech, desired
it might be certified for his part, " that there was one that knew how to
hold his peace."
Notwithstanding, for the more public part of government, which is
laws, I think good to note only one deficience : which is, that all those
which have written of laws, have written either as philosophers, or as
lawyers, and none as statesmen. As for the philosophers, they make
imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses
are as the stars, which give little light, because they are so high. For
the lawyers, they write according to the states where they live, what is
received law, and not what ought to be law ; for the wisdom of a law
maker is one, and of a lawyer is another. For there are in nature
certain fountains of justice, whence all civil laws are derived but as
streams : and like as waters do take tinctures and tastes from the soils
through which they run, so do civil laws vary according to the regions
and governments where they are planted, though they proceed from
the same fountains. Again, the wisdom of a law-maker consisteth not
only in a platform of justice, but in the application thereof; taking
into consideration by what means laws may be made certain, and what
are the causes and remedies of the doubtfulness and incertainty of law;
by what, means law may be made apt and easy to be executed, and
what are the impediments and remedies in the execution of laws ; what
influence laws touching private right of meum and tuum have into the
public stute. and how they may be made apt and agreeable ; how laws
arc to be penned and delivered, whether in texts or in acts, brief or
large, with preambles or without ; how they are to be pruned and re
formed from time to time, and what is the best means to keep them
from being too vast in volumes, or too full of multiplicity or crossness :
how they are to be expounded, when upon causes emergent, and judi
cially discussed : and when upon responses and conferences touching
general points or questions ; how they are to be pressed, rigorously or
tenderly ; how they are to be mitigated by equity and good con
science, and whether discretion and strict law are to be mingled in
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 86?
.he same courts, or kept apart in several courts ; again, how the
practice, profession, and erudition of law is to be censured and go
verned ; and many other points touching the adminisration, and, as I
may term it, animation of laws. Upon which 1 insist the less, because
I propose, if God give me leave, having begun a work of this nature,
in aphorisms, to propound it hereafter, noting it in the meantime for
deficient.
And for your majesty's laws of England, I could say much of tncif
dignity, and somewhat of their defect; but they cannot but excel the
civil laws in fitness for the government : for the civil law was, " Non hos
qtia>situm munus in usus ;" it was not made for the countries which it
governeth : hereof I cease to speak, because I will not intermingle
matter of action with matter of general learning.
THUS have I concluded this portion of learning touching civil
knowledge, and with civil knowledge have concluded human philo
sophy ; and with human philosophy, philosophy in general ; and
being now at some pause, looking back into that I have passed
through, this writing seemeth to me, si nimquam fallit imago, as far
as a man can judge of his own work, not much better than that noise
or sound which musicians make while they are in tuning their instru
ments, which is nothing pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the
music is sweeter afterwards. So have I been content to tune the
instrument of the Muses, that they may play that have better hands.
And surely, when I set before me the condition of these times, in
which learning hath made her third visitation or circuit in all the
qualities thereof; as the excellency and vivacity of the wits of this
age ; the noble helps and lights which we have by the travails of ancient
writers ; the art of printing, which communicateth books to men of all
fortunes : the openness of the world by navigation, which hath dis
closed multitudes of experiments, and a mass of natural history ;
the leisure wherewith these times abound, not employing men so
generally in civil business, as the states of Graecia did, in respect
of their popularity and the state of Rome in respect of the
greatness of their monarchy ; the present disposition of these times
at this instant to peace; the consumption of all that ever can be
said in controversies of religion, which have so much diverted men
from other sciences ; the perfection of your majesty's learning, which
as a phoenix may call whole volleys of wits to follow you ; and the
inseparable propriety of time which is ever more and more to disclose
truth ; I cannot but be raised to this persuasion, this third period
of time will far surpass that of the Graecian and Roman learning.
Only if men will know their own strength, and their own weakness
both ; and take, one from the other, light of invention, and not fire ol
contradiction ; and esteem of the inquisition of truth, as ol an enter
prise, and not as of a quality or ornament ; and employ wit and
magnificence to things of worth and excellency, and not to things
vulgar and of popular estimation. As for my labours, if any man
should please himself, or others, in the reprehension of them, they
shall make that ancient and patient request, " Verbera, sed audi"
Let men reprehend them, so they observe and weigh them. For the
268 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
appeal is lawful, though it may be it shall not be needful, from the
first cogitations of men to their second, and from the nearer times to
the times farther off. Now let us come to that learning, which both
the former times were not so blessed as to know, sacred and inspired
Divinity, the sabbath and port of all men's labours and peregrinations.
THE prerogative of God extendeth as well to the reason, as to the
will of man ; so that as we are to obey His law, though we find a re-
luctation in our will ; so we are to believe His word, though we find a
relucfration in our reason. For if we believe only that which is agree
able to our sense, we give consent to the matter, and not to the author,
which is no more than we would do towards a suspected and dis
credited witness : but that faith which was " accounted to Abraham
for righteousness," was of such a point, as whereat Sarah laughed,
who therein was an image of natural reason.
Howbeit, if we will truly consider it, more worthy it is to believe than
to know as we now know. For in knowledge man's mind sr.ffereth
from sense, but in belief it suffereth from spirit, such one as it holdeth
for more authorized than itself; and so suffereth from the worthier
agent. Otherwise it is of the state of man glorified, for then faith shall
cease, and " we shall know as we are known."
Wherefore we conclude, that sacred theology, which in our idiom we
call divinity, is grounded only upon the word and oracle of God, and
not upon the light of nature: for it is written, " Caeli enarrant gloriam
Dei: " ' but it is not written, " Cccli enarrant voluntatem Dei : " but of
that it is said, " Ad legem et testiinonium, si non fecerint secundum
•uerbum istud? etc. This holdeth not only in those points of faith
which concern the great mysteries of the Deity, of the creation, of the
redemption, but likewise those which concern the law moral truly
interpreted ; " Love your enemies : do good to them that hate you : be:
like to your heavenly Father, that suffereth his rain to fall upon the
just and unjust."2 To this it ought to be applauded, " Nee vox homi-
nem sonat? it is a voice beyond the light of nature. So we see the
heathen poets, when they fall upon a libertine passion, do still expos
tulate with laws and moralities, as if they were opposite and malignant
to nature ; " Et quod natura remittit Invida jura negant?' So said
Dendamis the Indian unto Alexander's messengers; "that he had
heard somewhat of Pythagoras, and some other of the wise men of
Graecia, and that he held them for excellent men : but that they had a
fault, which was, that they had in too great reverence and veneration a
thing they called law and manners." So it must be confessed that a
great part of the law moral is of that perfection, whereunto the light of
nature cannot aspire ; how then is it, that man is said to have, by the
light and law of nature, some notions and conceits of virtue and vice,
justice and wrong, good and evil? Thus : because the light of nature
is used in two several senses ; the one, that which springeth from
reason, sense, induction, argument, according to the laws of heaven
and earth ; the other, that which is imprinted upon the spirit of man
by an inward instinct, according to the law of conscience, which is a
3 "salm xix. i. » S. Matthew /. 44 and 45,
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 269
sparkle of the purity of his first estate : in which latter sense only he
is paiticipant of some light and discerning touching the perfection of
the moral law: but how? Sufficient to check the vice, but not to
inform the duty. So then the doctrine of religion, as well moral as
mystical, is not to be attained, but by inspiration and revelation from
God.
The use, notwithstanding, of reason, in spiritual things, and the
latitude thereof, is very great and general ; for it is not for nothing that
the apostle calleth religion our reasonable service of God, insomuch as
the very ceremonies and figures of the old law were full of reason and
signification, much more than the ceremonies of idolatry and magic,
that are full of non-significants and surd1 characters. But most espe
cially the Christian faith, as in all things, so in this, deserveth to be
highly magnified, holding and preserving the golden mediocrity in this
point, between the law of the heathen, and the law of Mahomet, which
have embraced the two extremes. For the religion of the heathen had
no constant belief or confession, but left all to the liberty of argument :
and the religion of Mahomet, on the other side, interdicteth argument
altogether : the one having the very face of error, and the other of
imposture ; whereas the faith doth both admit and reject disputation
with difference.
The use of human reason in religion is of two sorts: the former, in
the conception and apprehension of the mysteries of God to us
revealed ; the other, in the inferring and deriving of doctrine and
direction thereupon. The former exrendeth to the mysteries them
selves ; but how ? By way of illustration, and not by way of argument.
The latter consisteth indeed of probation and argument. In the
former, we see, God vouchsafeth to descend to our capacity, in the
expressing of His mysteries in sort as may be sensible unto us ; and
doth graft His revelations and holy doctrine upon the notions of our
reason, and applieth His inspirations to open our understanding, as
the form of the key to the ward of the lock. For the latter there is
allowed us an use of reason and argument, secondary and respective,
although not original and absolute. For after the articles and principles
of religion are placed and exempted from examination of reason, it is
then permitted unto us to make derivations and inferences from, and
according to the analogy of them, for our better direction. In nature
this holdeth not, for both the principles are examinable by induction,
though not by a medium or syllogism ; and besides, those principles
or first positions have no discordance with that reason, which draweth
down and deduceth the inferior positions. But yet it holdeth not in
religion alone, but in many knowledges, both of greater and smaller
nature, namely, wherein there are not only posita \>\\i placita ; for in
such there can be no use of absolute reason. We see it familiarly in
games of wit, as chess, or the like ; the draughts and first laws of 'the
>,ame are positive, but how? merely adplacitum^ and not examinable
by reason : but then how to direct our play thereupon with best
advantage to win the game, is artificial and rational. So in human
b*vs, there be many grounds and maxims, which are plarita juris}
S70 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
positive upon authority and not upon reason, and therefore not to be
disputed : but what is most just, not absolutely, but relatively and
according to those maxims, that affordeth a long field of disputation.
Such therefore is that secondary reason, which hath place in divinity,
which is grounded upon the placets of God.
Here therefore I note this deficience, that there hath not been,
to my understanding, sufficiently inquired and handled the true limits
and use of reason in spiritual things, as a kind of divine dialectic •
which for that it is not done, it seemeth to me a thing usual, by
pretext of true conceiving that which is revealed, to search and mine
into that which is not revealed, and, by pretext of enucleating1
inferences and contradictories, to examine that which is positive : the
one sort falling into the error of Nicodemus, demanding to have
things made more sensible than it pleaseth God to reveal them,
" Quomodo possit homo nasci cum sit senex?"'* the other sort into the
error of the disciples, which were scandalized at a show of contradic
tion, " Quid est hoc ^ quod dicit nobis ? Modicum et non videbitis me,
et iterum modicum, et videbitis me" etc.3
Upon this I have insisted the more, in regard of the great and
blessed use thereof ; for this point, well laboured and defined of,
would, in my judgment, be an opiate to stay and bridle not only
the vanity of curious speculations, wherewith the schools labour,
but the fury of controversies, wherewith the Church laboureth. For it
cannot but open men's eyes, to see that many controversies do merely
pertain to that which is either not revealed, or positive, and that many
others do grow upon weak and obscure inferences or derivations ;
which latter sort, if men would revive the blessed style of that great
doctor of the Gentiles,4 would be carried thus; Ego, non D o minus ;
and again, Secundum co?icilium meum j in opinions and counsels, and
not in positions and oppositions. But men are now over-ready to
usurp the style, Non ego, sed Dominus ; and not so only, but to bind
it with the thunder and denunciation of curses and anathemas, to the
terror of those which have not sufficiently learned out of Solomon, that
" the causeless curse shall not come."5
Divinity hath two principal parts ; the matter informed or revealed,
and the nature of the information or revelation : and with the latter
we will begin, because it hath most coherence with that which we have
now last handled. The nature of the information consisteth of three
branches ; the limits of the information, the sufficiency of the informa
tion, and the acquiring or obtaining the information. Unto the limits
of the information belong these considerations ; how far forth par-
ticular persons continue to be inspired ; how far forth the Church
is inspired ; and how far forth reason may be used : the last point
whereof I have denoted as deficient. Unto the sufficiency of the in
formation belong two considerations ; what points of religion are
fundamental, and what perfective, being matter of farther building and
perfection upon one and the same foundation ; and again, howr
the gradations of light, according to the dispensation of times, are
material to the sufficiency of belief.
1 Disentangling, explaining. 3 S. John iii. 4. • S. John xvi. 17.
* S. Paul. * Prov. xxvL 9,
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. «;z
Here again I may rather give it in advice, than note it as deficient,
that the points fundamental, and the points of farther perfection, only
ought to be with piety and wisdom distinguished ; a subject tending to
much like end, as that I noted before ; for as that other were likely to
abate the number of controversies, so this is like to abate the heat of
many of them. We see Moses when he saw the Israelite and the
Egyptian fight, he did not say, "Why strive you?" but drew his
sword, and slew the Egyptian ; but when he saw the two Israelites
fight, he said, "You are brethren, why strive you?" If the point
of doctrine be an Egyptian, it must be slain by "the sword of the
Spirit," and not reconciled : but if it be an Israelite, though in the
wrong, then, " Why strive you ?" We see of the fundamental points,
^ur Saviour penneth the league thus ; " He that is not with us, is
against us;"1 but of points not fundamental, thus; "He that is
not against us, is with us."2 So we see the coat of our Saviour
was entire, without seam, and so is the doctrine of the Scriptures
in itself; but the garment of the Church was of divers colours,
and yet not divided : we see the chaff may and ought to be severed
from the corn in the ear, but the tares may not be pulled up from the
corn in the field. So as it is a thing of great use well to define, what,
and of what latitude those points are, which do make men merely
aliens and disincorporate from the Church of God.
For the obtaining of the information, it resteth upon the true
and sound interpretation of the Scriptures, which are the fountains of
the water of life. The interpretations of the Scriptures are of two
sorts : methodical, and solute or at large. For this divine water,
which excelleth so much that of Jacob's well, is drawn forth much in
the same kind, as natural water useth to be out of wells and fountains ;
either it is first forced up into a cistern, and from thence fetched
and derived for use ; or else it is drawn and received into buckets and
vessels immediately where it springeth. The former sort whereof,
though it seem to be the more ready, yet, in my judgment, is
more subject to corrupt. This is that method which hath exhibited
unto us the scholastical divinity, whereby divinity hath been reduced
into an art as into a cistern, and the streams of doctrine or positions
fetched and derived from thence.
In this men have sought three things, a summary brevity, a com
pacted strength, and a complete perfection ; whereof the two firs4" they
fail to find, and the last they ought not to seek. For as to brevicy, we
see, in all summary methods, while men purpose to abridge, they give
cause to dilate. For the sum, or abridgment, by contraction becometh
obscure : the obscurity requireth exposition, and the exposition is
deduced into large commentaries, or into commonplaces and titles,
which grow to be more vast than the original writings, whence
the sum was at first extracted. So, we see, the volumes of the
schoolmen are greater much than the first writings of the fathers,
whence the master of the sentences made his sum or collection. So,
in like manner, the volumes of the modern doctors of the civil law
exceed those of the ancient jurisconsults, of which Trebonian compiled
1 S. Matt. xii. 30. * S. Mark ix. 40.
*7» ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
the digest. So as this course of sums and commentaries is that which
doth infallibly make the body of sciences more immense in quantity,
and more base in substance.
And for strength, it is true, that knowledges reduced into exact
methods have a show of strength, in that each part seemeth to support
and sustain the other ; but this is more satisfactory than substantial ;
like unto buildings which stand by architecture and compaction, which
are more subject to ruin, than those that are built more strong in their
several parts, though less compacted. But it is plain, that the more
you recede from your grounds, the weaker do you conclude : and as ii
nature, the more you remove yourself from particulars, the greater
peril of error you do incur ; so much more in divinity, the more yoi
recede from the Scriptures, by inferences and consequences, the mort
weak and dilute are your positions.
And as for perfection, or completeness in divinity, it is not to be
sought ; which makes this course of artificial divinity the more suspect,
For he that will reduce a knowledge into an art, will make it round
and uniform : but, in divinity, many things must be left abrupt and
concluded with this : " O altitude sapientice et scienticE Dei / quam
incomprehensibilia sunt judicia ejus, et non investigabiles vice ejus?" l
So again the apostle saith, " Ex parte scivius j" and to have the form
of a total, where there is but matter for a part, cannot be without
supplies by supposition and presumption. And therefore I conclude,
that the true use of these sums and methods hath place in institutions
or introductions preparatory unto knowledge ; but in them, or by de-
ducement from them, to handle the main body and substance of a
knowledge, is in all sciences prejudicial, and in divinity dangerous.
As to the interpretation of the Scriptures solute and at large, there
have been divers kinds introduced and devised ; some of them rather
curious and unsafe, than sober and warranted. Notwithstanding, thus
much must be confessed, that the Scriptures being given by inspira
tion, and not by human reason, do differ from all other books in the
author ; which by consequence doth draw on some difference to be
used by the expositor. For the inditer of them did know four things
which no man attains to know ; which are, the mysteries of the king
dom of glory, the perfection of the laws of nature, the secrets of the
heart of man, and the future succession of all ages. For as to the first
it is said, " He that presseth into the light, shall be oppressed of the
glory." And again, " No man shall see my face and live."2 To the
second, " When he prepared the heavens I was present, when by law
and compass he enclosed the deep."3 To the third, " Neither was it
needful that any should bear witness to him of man, for he knew well
what was in man."4 And to the last, " From the beginning are known
to the Lord all his works."5
From the former of these two have been drawn certain senses and
txpositions of Scriptures, which had need be contained within the
bounds of sobriety ; the one anagogical, and the other philosophical.
But as to the former, man is not to prevent6 his time, " Videmus mine
l Rom. xi. 3> > Exodu* xxxiii. 20. s Prov. viii. ?;.
* ii. John ij» -5. » Acts xv. 18. * I/O before, fuKSUUJ.
AbVANC&MRNT Of L£A/?NJM?. 573
Per tpecutum in aniginate, tune aut cm facie ad facie m?1 wherein,
nevertheless, there seemeth to be a liberty granted, as far forth as the
polishing of this glass, or some moderate explication of this enigma.
But to press too far into it, cannot but cause a dissolution and over
throw of the spirit of man : for in the body there are three degrees ot
that we receive into it, aliment, medicine, and poison ; whereof aliment
is that which the nature of man can perfectly alter and overcome ;
medicine is that which is partly converted by nature, and partly con-
verteth nature ; and poison is that which worketh wholly upon nature,
without that, that nature can in any part work upon it : so in the mind,
whatsoever knowledge reason cannot at all work upon and convert, is
a mere intoxication, and indangereth a dissolution of the mind and
understanding.
But for the latter, it hath been extremely set on foot of late time by
the school of Paracelsus, and some others, that have pretended to find
the truth of all natural philosophy in the Scriptures ; scandalizing an.i
traducing all other philosophy as heathenish and profane. But there
is no such enmity between God's Word and His works ; neither do
they give honour to the Scriptures, as they suppose, but much embasj
them. For to seek heaven and earth in the Word of God, whereof it
is said, " heaven and earth shall pass, but my Word shall not pass," is
to seek temporary things amongst eternal ; and as to seek divinity in
philosophy, is to seek the living amongst the dead ; so to seek philoso
phy in divinity, is to seek the dead amongst the living ; neither are the
pots or lavers, whose place was in the outward part of the temple, to
be sought in the holiest place of all, where the ark of the testimony was
seated.'2 And again the scope or purpose of the Spirit of God is not to
express matters of nature in the Scriptures, otherwise than in passage,
and for application to man's capacity, and to matters moral or divine.
And it is a true rule, " Auctoris aliud agentis parva auctoritas :" for
it were a strange conclusion, if a man should use a similitude for orna
ment or illustration sake, borrowed from nature or history, according
to vulgar conceit, as of a basilisk, an unicorn, a centaur, a Briareus,
a Hydra, or the like, that therefore he must needs be thought to affirm
the matter thereof positively to be true. To conclude therefore, these
two interpretations, the one by reduction or enigmatical, the other
philosophical or physical, which have been received and pursued in
imitation of the rabbins and cabalists, are to be confined with a " noli
altum sapere, sed time?
But the two latter points, known to God, and unknown to man,
touching the secrets of the heart, and the successions of time, do make
a just and sound difference between the manner of the exposition of
the Scriptures and all pther »>ooks. For it is an excellent observation
which hath been made upon the answers of our Saviour Christ to
many of the questions which were propounded to him, how that they
are impertinent to the state of the question demanded ; the reason
whereof is, because not being like man, which knows man's thoughts
by his words, but k:i owing man's thoughts immediately, he nsver
1 i Corinth, xiii. 12.
* A very wise observatiorf worthy of notice, especially in thc
a;4 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
answered their words but their thoughts : much in the like manner it
is with the Scriptures, which being written to the thoughts of men, and
to the succession of all ages, with a foresight of all heresies, contradic
tions, differing estates of the Church, yea, and particularly of the elect,
are not to be interpreted only according to the latitude of the proper
sense of the place, and respectively towards that present occasion,
whereupon the words were uttered, or in precise congruity, or contex
ture with the words before or after, or in contemplation of the principal
scope of the place ; but have in themselves, not only totally or collec
tively, but distributively in clauses and words, infinite springs and
streams of doctrine to water the Church in every part : and therefore
as the literal sense is, as it were, the main stream or river, so the moral
sense chiefly, and sometimes the allegorical or typical, are they whereof
the Church hath most use : not that I wish men to be bold in allego
ries, or indulgent or light in allusions ; but that I do much condemn
that interpretation of the Scripture, which is only after the manner as
men use to interpret a profane book.
In this part, touching the exposition of the Scriptures, I can report
no deficience ; but by way of remembrance, this I will add : in perusing
books of divinity, I find many books of controversies, and many of
commonplaces, and treatises, a mass of positive divinity, as it is made
an art ; a number of sermons and lectures, and many prolix comment
aries upon the Scriptures, with harmonies and concordances. But that
form of writing in divinity, which in my judgment is of all others most
rich and precious, is positive divinity, collected upon particular texts
of Scriptures in brief observations, not dilated into commonplaces ;
not chasing after controversies ; not reduced into method of art ; a
thing abounding in sermons, which will vanish, but defective in books
which will remain, and a thing wherein this age excelleth. For I am
persuaded, and I may speak it, with an " Absit inmdia verbo" and no
ways in derogation of antiquity, but as in a good emulation between
the vine and the olive, that if the choice and best of those observa
tions upon texts of Scriptures, which have been made dispersedly in
sermons within your mt-v s*.y's island of Britain, by the space of these
forty years and more, lev. i. >g out the largeness of exhortations and
applications thereupon, 1 a i been set down in a continuance, it had
been the best work in di\ i i\ v, which had been written since the apos
tles' times.
The matter informed by uLinity is of two kinds : matter of belief,
and truth of opinion ; and matter of service and adoration ; which is
also judged and directed by the former ; the one being as the internal
soul of religion, and the other as the external body thereof. And
therefore the heathen religion was not only a worship of idols, but the
whole religion was an idol in itself, for it had no soul ; that is, no cer
tainty of belief or confession ; as a man may well think, considering
the chief doctors of their church were the poets : and the reason was,
because the heathen gods were no jealous gods, but were glad to be
admitted into part, as they had reason. Neither did they respect the
pureness of heart, so they might have external honour and rites.
But out of these two do result and issue four main branches of
divinity : Faith, Manners, Liturgy, and Government. Faith containetb
ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 275
the doctrine of the nature of God, of the attributes of God, and of the
works of God. The nature of God consisteth of three persons in unity
of Godhead. The attributes of God are either common to the Deity,
or respective to the persons. The works of God summary are two,
that of the creation, and that of the redemption ; and both these works,
as in total they appertain to the unity of the Godhead, so in their parts
they refer to the three persons : that of the creation, in the mass of the
matter, to the Father ; in the disposition of the form, to the Son ; and
in the continuance and conversation of the being, to the Holy Spirit ;
so that of the redemption, in the election and counsel, to the Father ;
in the whole act and consummation, to the Son ; and in the application,
to the Holy Spirit : for by the Holy Ghost was Christ conceived in
flesh, and by the Holy Ghost are the elect regenerate in spirit. This
work likewise we consider either effectually, in the elect ; or privately,
in the reprobate ; or, according to appearance, in the visible Church.
For manners, the doctrine thereof is contained in the Law, which
discloseth sin. The Law itself is divided, according to the edition
thereof, into the law of nature, the law moral, and the law positive ;
and, according to the style, into negative and affirmative, prohibitions
and commandments. Sin, in the matter and subject thereof, is divided
according to the commandments ; in the form thereof, it referreth to
the three persons in Deity. Sins of infirmity against the Father, whose
more special attribute is power ; sins of ignorance against the Son,
whose attribute is wisdom ; and sins of malice against the Holy Ghost,
whose attribute is grace or love. In the motions of it, it either moveth
to the right hand or to the left, either to blind devotion, or to profane
and libertine transgression ; either in imposing restraint where God
granteth liberty, or in taking liberty where God imposeth restraint. In
the degrees and progress of it, it divideth itself into thought, word, or
act. And in this part I commend much the deducing of the law of
God to cases of conscience, for that I take indeed to be a breaking,
and not exhibiting whole, of the bread of life. But that which quick-
eneth both these doctrines of faith and manners, is the elevation and
consent of the heart; whereunto appertain books of exhortation, holy
meditation, Christian resolution, and the like.
For the liturgy or service, it consisteth of the reciprocal acts
between God and man : which, on the part of God, are the preaching
of the word, and the sacraments, which are seals to the covenant, or
as the visible word ; and on the part of man, invocation of the name
of God ; and, under the law, sacrifices ; which were as visible prayers
or confessions ; but now the adoration being in spiritu et -veritate,
there remaineth only vituli labiorum, although the use of holy vows
of thankfulness and retribution may be accounted also as sealed
petitions.
And for the government of the Church, it consisteth of the patrimony
of the Church, the franchises of the Church, and the offices and juris
dictions of the Church, and the laws of the Church directing the whole;
all which have two considerations, the one in themselves, the other how
they stand compatible and agreeble to the civil estate.
This matter of divinity is handled either in form of instruction of
truth, or in form of confutation of falsehood. The declinations from
a;6 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.
religion, besides the privative, which is atheism, and the branch 's
thereof, are three ; heresies, idolatry, and witchcraft : heresies, when
»ve serve the true God with a false worship ; idolatry, when we worship
false gods, supposing them to be true ; and witchcraft, when we adore
false gods, knowing them to be wicked and false. For so your majesty
doth excellently well observe, that witchcraft is the height of idolatry.1
And yet we see though these be true degrees, Samuel teacheth us that
they are all of a nature, when there is once a receding from the word
of God ; fcr so he saith, " Quasi peccatuin ariolandi est repugnare, et
quasi scelus idololatria nolle acquzescere" 2
These things 1 have passed over so briefly, because I can report no
deficience concerning them : for I can find no space or ground that
lieth vacant and unsown in the matter of divinity ; so diligent have
been men, either in sowing of good seed, or in sowing of tares.
THUS have I made, as it were, a small globe of the intellectual
world, as truly and faithfully as I could discover, with a note and
description of those parts which seem to me not constantly occupate, or
not well converted by the labour of man. In which if I have in any point
receded from that which is commonly received, it hath been with a
purpose of proceeding in melius, and not in aliud : a mind of amend
ment and proficience, and not of change and difference. For I could
not be true and constant to the argument I handle, if I were not will
ing to go beyond others, but yet not more willing than to have others
go beyond me again; which may the better appear by this, that I have
propounded my opinions naked and unarmed, not seeking to preoccu-
pate the liberty of men's judgments by confutations. For in any thing
which is well set down, I am in good hope, that if the first reading
move an objection, the second reading will make an answer. And in
those things wherein I have erred, I am sure, I have not prejudiced the
right by litigious arguments, which certainly have this contrary effect
and operation, that they add authority to error, and destroy the au
thority of that which is well invented. For question is an honour and
preferment to falsehood, as on the other side it is a repulse to truth.
But the errors I claim and challenge to myself as my own. The good,
if any be, is due tanquam adeps sacrificii, to be incensed to the honour
first of the Divine Majesty, and next of your majesty, to whom on earth
I am most bounden.
1 In James's Daemonologia.
* t Sain. xv. 23 — iu the Vulgate, i King?, JMT. 13.
THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS.
THE PREFACE.
THE earliest antiquity lies buried in silence and oblivion, excepting
the remains we have of it in sacred writ. This silence was succeeded
by poetical fables, and these, at length, by the writings we now enjoy ;
so that the concealed and secret learning of the ancients seems
separated from the history and knowledge of the following ages by a
veil, or partition-wall of fables, interposing between the things that are
lost and those that remain.
Many may imagine that I am here entering upon a work of fancy,
or amusement, and design to use a poetical liberty, in explaining
poetical fables. It is true, fables in general are composed of ductile
matter, that may be drawn into great variety by a witty talent or an
inventive genius, and be delivered of plausible meanings which they
never contained. But this procedure has already been carried to
excess ; and great numbers, to procure the sanction of antiquity to
their own notions and inventions, have miserably wrested and abused
the fables of the ancients.
Nor is this only a late or unfrequent practice, but of ancient date,
and common even to this day. Thus Chrysippus,1 like an interpreter
of dreams, attributed the opinions of the Stoics to the poets of old ;
and the chemists, at present, more childishly apply the poetical trans
formations to their experiments of the furnace. And though I have
well weighed and considered all this, and thoroughly seen into the
levity which the mind indulges for allegories and allusions, yet I cannot
but retain a high value for the ancient mythology. And, certainly, it
were very injudicious to suffer the fondness and licentiousness of a few
to detract from the honour of allegory and parable in general. This
would be rash, and almost profane ; for, since religion delights in such
shadows and disguises, to abolish them were, in a manner, to prohibit
all intercourse betwixt things divine and human.
Upon deliberate consideration., my judgment is, that a concealed
instruction and allegory was originally intended in many of the ancient
fables. This opinion may, in some respect, be owing to the veneration
* have for antiquity, but more to observing that some fables discover
a great and evident similitude, relation, and connection with the thing
they signify, as well in the structure of the fable as in the propriety of
the names whereby the persons or actors are characterized; insomuch,
that no one could positively deny a sense and meaning to be from the
* Set p. 185, not* »,
278 THE PREFACE.
first intended, and purposely shadowed out in them. For who can
hear that Fame, after the giants were destroyed, sprung up as their
posthumous sister, and not apply it to the clamour of parties and the
seditious rumours which commonly fly about for a time upon the quell
ing of insurrections ? Or who can read how the giant Typhon cut out
and carried away Jupiter's sinews— which Mercury afterwards stole and
again restored to Jupiter — and not presently observe that this allegory
denotes strong and powerful rebellions, which cut away from kings
their sinews, both of money and authority ; and that the way to have
them restored is by lenity, affability, and prudent edicts, which soon
reconcile, and as it were steal upon the affections of the subject ? Or
who, upon hearing that memorable expedition of the gods against the
giants, when the braying of Silenus's ass greatly contributed in putting
the giants to flight, does not clearly conceive that this directly points
at the monstrous enterprises of rebellious subjects, which are frequently
frustrated and disappointed by vain fears and empty rumours ?
Again, the conformity and purport of the names is frequently mani
fest and self-evident. Thus Metis, the wife of Jupiter, plainly signifies
counsel; Typhon, swelling ; Pan, universality ; Nemesis, revenge, &c.
Nor is it a wonder, if sometimes a piece of history or other things are
introduced, by way of ornament ; or if the times of the action are
confounded ; or if part of one fable be tacked to another ; or if the
allegory be new turned ; for all this must necessarily happen, as the
fables were the inventions of men who lived in different ages and had
different views ; some of them being ancient, others more modern ;
some having an eye to natural philosophy, and others to morality or
civil policy.
It may pass for a farther indication of a concealed and secret mean
ing, that some of these fables are so absurd and idle in their narration
as to show and proclaim an allegory, even afar off. A fable that
carries probability with it may be supposed invented for pleasure, or
in imitation of history ; but those that could never be conceived or
related in this way must surely have a different use. For example,
what a monstrous fiction is this, that Jupiter should take Metis to wife,
and as soon as he found her pregnant eat her up, whereby he also
conceived, and out of his head brought forth Pallas armed. Certainly
no mortal could, but for the sake of the moral it couches, invent such
an absurd dream as this, so much out of the road of thought !
But the argument of most weight with me is this, that many of
these fables by no means appear to have been invented by the persons
who relate and divulge them, whether Homer, Hesiod, or others ; for
if 1 were assured they first flowed from those later times and authors
that transmit them to us, I should never expect anything singularly
great or noble from such an origin. But whoever attentively considers
the thing, will find that these fables are delivered down and related
by those writers, not as matters then first invented and proposed, but
as things received and embraced in earlier ages. Besides, as they are
differently related by writers nearly of the same ages, it is easily per
ceived that the relators drew from the common stock of ancient tradi
tion, and varied but in point of embellishment, which is their own.
And this principally raises my esteem of these fables, which I receive,
THE PRHFACR. 279
not as the product of the age, or invention of the poets, but as sacred
relics, gentle whispers, and the breath of better times, that from the
traditions of more ancient nations came, at length, into the flutes and
trumpets of the Greeks. But if any one shall, notwithstanding this,
contend that allegories are always adventitious, or imposed upon the
ancient fables, and no way native or genuinely contained in them, we
might here leave him undisturbed in that gravity of judgment he
affects (though we cannot help accounting it somewhat dull and phleg
matic), and if u were worth the trouble, proceed to another kind of
argument.
Men have proposed to answer two different and contrary ends by
the use of parable ; for parables serve as well to instruct or illustrate
as to wrap up and envelop, so that though, for the present, we drop the
concealed use, and suppose the ancient fables to be vague, undeter-
minate things, formed for amusement, still the other use must remain,
and can never be given up. And every man of any learning, must
readily allow that this method of instructing is grave, sober, or exceed
ingly useful, and sometimes necessary in the sciences, as it opens an
easy and familiar passage to the human understanding, in all new dis
coveries that are abstruse and out of the road of vulgar opinions.
Hence, in the first ages, when such inventions and conclusions of the
human reason as are now trite and common were new and little known,
all things abounded with fables, parables, similes, comparisons, and
allusions, which were not intended to conceal, but to inform and teach,
whilst the minds of men continued rude and unpractised in matters of
subtilty and speculation, or even impatient, and in a manner uncapable
of receiving such things as did not directly fall under and strike the
senses. For as hieroglyphics were in use before writing, so were
parables in use before arguments. And even to this day, if any man
would let new light in upon the human understanding, and conquer
prejudice, without raising contests, animosities-, opposition, or disturb
ance, he must still go in the same path, and have recourse to the like
method of allegory, metaphor, and allusion.
To conclude, the knowledge of the early ages was either great or
happy ; great, if they by design made this use of trope and figure ;
happy, if, whilst they had other views, they afforded matter and occa
sion to such noble contemplations. Let either be the case, our pains,
perhaps, will not be misemployed, whether we illustrate antiquity or
things themselves.
The like has been attempted by others ; but to speak ingenuously,
their great and voluminous labours have almost destroyed the energy,
the efficacy, and grace of the thing, whilst, being unskilled in nature,
and their learning no more than that of common-place, they have
applied the sense of the parables to certain general and vulgar matters,
without reaching to their real purport, genuine interpretation, and full
depth. For myself, therefore, I expect to appear new in these common
things, because, leaving untouched such as are sufficiently plain and
open, I shall drive only at those that are either deep or rich.
*8o PAN, OR NATURE.
PAN, OR NATURE.
EXPLAINED OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
THE ancients have, with great exactness, delineated universal nature
under the person of Pan.1 They leave his origin doubtful ; some as
serting him the son of Mercury, and others the common offspring of
all Penelope's suitors. The latter supposition doubtless occasioned
some later rivals to entitle this ancient fable Penelope ; a thing fre
quently practised when the earlier relations are applied to more modern
characters and persons, though sometimes with great absurdity and
ignorance, as in the present case ; for Pan was one of the ancientest
gods, and long before the time of Ulysses ; besides, Penelope was
venerated by antiquity for her matronal chastity. A third sort will
have him the issue of Jupiter and Hybris, that is, Reproach ; but
whatever his origin was, the Destinies are allowed his sisters.
He is described by antiquity, with pyramidal horns reaching up to
heaven, a rough and shaggy body, a very long beard, of a biform
figure, human above, half brute below, ending in goat's feet. His
arms, or ensigns of power, are a pipe in his left hand, composed of
seven reeds ; in his right a crook ; and he wore for his mantle a
leopard's skin.
His attributes and titles were: the god of hunters, shepherds, and all
the rural inhabitants ; president of the mountains ; and, after Mercury,
the next messenger of the gods. He was also held the leader and
ruler of the Nymphs, who continually danced and frisked about him,
attended with the Satyrs and their elders, the Sileni. He had also
the power of striking terrors, especially such as were vain and super
stitious ; whence they came to be called panic terrors.
Few actions are recorded of him, only a principal one is, that he
challenged Cupid at wrestling, and was worsted. He also catched the
giant Typhon in a net, and held him fast. They relate farther of him,
that when Ceres, growing disconsolate for the rape of Proserpine, hid
herself, and all the gods took the utmost pains to find her, by going
out different ways for that purpose, Pan only had the good fortune to
meet her, as he was hunting, and discovered her to the rest. He
likewise had the assurance to rival Apollo in music ; and in the judg
ment of Midas was preferred ; but the judge had, though with great
privacy and secrecy, a pair of ass's ears fastened on him for bis
sentence.
There is very liule said of his amours ; which may seerr. strafe
among such a multitude of gods, so profusely amorous. He is only
reported to have been very fond of !Echo, who was also e^eemed his
wife ; and one nymph more, called Syrinx," with the love of whom
Cupid inflamed him for his insolent challenge ; so he is reported once
1 Universality.
8 Flying from Pan she was turned into a reea : am.1 from reeds Pan cocstructed 3 pipe — stiU
called a Pandean pipe.
PAN, OR NATURE.
281
to have solicited the moon to accompany him apart into the deep
woods.
Lastly, Pan had no descendant, which also is a wonder, when the
male gods were so extremely prolific ; only he was the reputed father
of a servant-girl called lambe, who used to divert strangers with her
ridiculous prattling stories.
This fable is perhaps the noblest of all antiquity, and pregnant with
the mysteries and secrets of nature. Pan, as the name imports, repre
sents the universe, about whose origin there are two opinions, viz., that
it either sprung from Mercury, that is, the divine word, according to
the Scriptures and philosophical divines, or from the confused seeds of
things. For they who allow only one beginning of all things, either
ascribe it to God ; or, if they suppose a material beginning, acknow
ledge it to be various in its powers ; so that the whole dispute comes
to these points ; viz., either that nature proceeds from Mercury, or
from Penelope and all her suitors.1
The third origin of Pan seems borrowed by the Greeks from the
Hebrew mysteries, either by means of the Egyptians or otherwise ; for
it relates to the state of the world, not in its first creation, but as made
subject to death and corruption after the fall ; and in this state it was
and remains, the offspring of God and Sin, or Jupiter and Reproach.
And therefore these three several accounts of Pan's birth may seem
true, if duly distinguished in respect of things and times. For this
Pan, or the universal nature of things, which we view and contemplate,
had its origin from the divine Word and confused matter, first created
by God Himself, with the subsequent introduction of sin, and conse
quently corruption.
The Destinies, or the natures and fates of things, are justly made
Pan's sisters, as the chain of natural causes links together the rise,
duration, and corruption ; the exaltation, degeneration, and workings ;
the processes, the effects, and changes, of all that can any way happen
to things.
Horns are given him, broad at the roots, but narrow and sharp at
the top, because the nature of ail things seems pyramidal ; for indi
viduals are infinite, but being collected into a variety of species, they
rise up into kinds, and these again ascend, and are contracted into
generals, till :it length nature may seem collected to a point. And no
wonder if Pan's horns reach to the heavens, since the sublimities of
nature, or abstract ideas, reach in a manner to things divine ; for there
is a short and ready passage from metaphysics to natural theology.
Pan's body, or the body of nature, is, with great propriety and
elegance, painted shaggy and hairy, as representing the rays of things ;
for rays are as the hair, or fleece of nature, and more or less worn by
all bodies. This evidently appears in vision, and in all effects or
operations at a distance ; for whatever operates thus may be properly
said to emit rays. But particularly the beard of Pan is exceeding long,
> See Virgi! : -
" Namque canebat uti magnum per inane coacta
Semina terrarumque anim;eque marisque fuissent ;
I'.t liquidi simul ignis ; ut his exordia primis
iia, et jps^ tent* njuucji cgncn:v£rij :>rb}sj."— Eel. vj.
282 PAN, OR NATURE.
because the rays of the celestial bodies penetrate, and act to a prodigious
distance, and have descended into the interior of the earth so far as to
change its surface ; and the sun himself, when clouded on its upper
part, appears to the eye bearded.
Again, the body of nature is justly described biform, because of the
difference between its superior and inferior parts, as the former, for
their beauty, regularity of motion, and influence over the earth, may
be properly represented by the human figure, and the latter, because of
their disorder, irregularity, and subjection to the celestial bodies, are
by the brutal. This biform figure also represents the participation of
one species with another ; for there appear to be no simple natures ;
but all participate or consist of two : thus man has somewhat of the
brute, the brute somewhat of the plant, the plant somewhat of the
mineral ; so that all natural bodies have really two faces, or consist of
a superior and an inferior species.
There lies a curious allegory in the making of Pan goat-footed, on
account of the motion of ascent which the terrestrial bodies have
towards the air and heavens ; for the goat is a clambering creature,
that delights in climbing up rocks and precipices ; and in the same
manner the matters destined to this lower globe strongly affect to rise
upwards, as appears from the clouds and meteors.
Pan's arms, or the ensigns he bears in his hands, are of two kinds — -
the one an emblem of harmony, the other of empire. His pipe, com
posed of seven reeds, plainly denotes the consent and harmony, or the
concords and discords of things, produced by the motion of the seven
planets. His crook also contains a fine representation of the ways of
nature, which are partly straight and partly crooked ; thus the staff,
having an extraordinary bend towards the top, denotes that the works
of Divine Providence are generally brought about by remote means,
or in a circuit, as if somewhat else were intended rather than the effect
produced, as in the sending of Joseph into Egypt, etc. So likewise in
human government, they who sit at the helm manage and wind the
people more successfully by pretext and oblique courses, than they
could by such as are direct and straight ; so that, in effect, all sceptres
are crooked at the top.
Pan's mantle, or clothing, is with great ingenuity made of a leopard's
skin, because of the spots it has ; for in like manner the heavens are
sprinkled with stars, the sea with islands, the earth with flowers, and
almost each particular thing is variegated, or wears a mottled coat.
The office of Pan could not be more livelily expressed than by making
him the god of hunters ; for every natural action, every motion and
process, is no other than a chase : thus arts and sciences hunt out
their works, and human schemes and counsels their several ends ;
and all living creatures either hunt out their aliment, pursue their
prey, or seek their pleasures, and this in a skilful and sagacious
manner. He is also styled the god of the rural inhabitants, because
men in this situation live more according to nature than they do
in cities and courts, where nature is so corrupted with effeminate arts,
that the saying of the poet may be verified —
pars minima est ipsa puella suit
PAN, OR NATURE. **3
He is likewise particularly styled President of the Mountains, because
in mountains and lofty places the nature of things lies more open and
exposed to the eye and the understanding.
In his being called the messenger of the gods, next after Mercury,
lies a divine allegory, as next after the Word of God, the image of the
world is the herald of the Divine power and wisdom, according to the
expression of the Psalmist, " The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament showeth his handiwork."1
Pan is delighted with the company of the Nymphs ; that is, the
souls of all living creatures are the delight of the world ; and he
is properly called their governor, because each of them follows its own
nature as a leader, and all dance about their own respective rings,
with infinite variety and never-ceasing motion. And with these con
tinually join the Satyrs and Sileni ; that is, youth and age : for
all things have a kind of young, cheerful, and dancing time ; and again
their time of slowness, tottering, and creeping. And whoever, in a
true light, considers the motions and endeavours of both these ages,
like another Democritus, will perhaps find them as odd and strange
as the gesticulations and antic motions of the Satyrs and Sileni.
The power he had of striking terrors contains a very sensible doc
trine ; for nature has implanted fear in all living creatures ; as well to
keep them from risking their lives, as to guard against injuries
and violence ; and yet this nature or passion keeps not its bounds, but
with just and profitable fears always mixes such as are vain and sense
less ; so that all things, if we could see their insides, would appear full
of panic terrors. Thus mankind, particularly the vulgar, labour under
a high degree of superstition, which is nothing more than a panic-
dread that principally reigns in unsettled and troublesome times.
The presumption of Pan in challenging Cupid to the conflict, denotes
that matter has an appetite and tendency to a dissolution of the
world, and falling back to its first chaos again, unless this depravity
and inclination were restrained and subdued by a more powerful con
cord and agreement of things, properly expressed by Love or Cupid ;
it is therefore well for mankind, and the state of all things, that Pan
was thrown and conquered in the struggle.
His catching and detaining Typhon in the net receives a similar ex
planation ; for whatever vast and unusual swells, which the word
typhon signifies, may sometimes be raised in nature, as in the sea, the
clouds, the earth, or the like, yet nature catches, entangles, and holds
all such outrages and insurrections in her inextricable net, wove as it
were of adamant.
That part of the fable which attributes the discovery of lost Ceres to
Pan whilst he was hunting— a happiness denied the other gods,
though they diligently and expressly sought her — contains an ex
ceeding just and prudent admonition ; viz., that we are not to expect
the discovery of things useful in common life, as that of corn, denoted
by Ceres, from abstract philosophies, as if these were the gods of the
first order, — no, not though we used our utmost endeavours this way,
—but only from Pan, that is, a sagacious experience and general
1 Psalm xuc. i.
284 CCELUAI, OR BEGINNINGS
knowledge of nature, which is often found, even by accident, to
stumble upon such discoveries whilst the pursuit was directed another
way.
The event of his contending with Apollo in music affords us a
useful instruction, that may help to humble the human reason and
judgment, which is too apt to boast and glory in itself. There seem to
be two kinds of harmony — the one of Divine Providence, the other of
human reason ; but the government of the world, the administration of
its affairs, and the more secret Divine judgments, sound harsh
and dissonant to human ears or human judgment ; and though this
ignorance be justly rewarded with ass's ears, yet they are put on and
worn, not openly, but with great secrecy ; nor is the deformity of the
thing seen or observed by the vulgar.
We must not find it strange if no amours are related of Pan besides
his marriage with Echo ; for nature enjoys itself, and in itself all other
things. He that loves desires enjoyment, but in profusion there is no
room for desire : and therefore Pan, remaining content with himself,
has no passion unless it be for discourse, which is well shadowed out
by Echo or talk, or when it is more accurate, by Syrinx or writing.1
But Echo makes a most excellent wife for Pan, as being no other than
genuine philosophy, which faithfully repeats his words, or only
transcribes exactly as nature dictates ; thus representing the true
image and reflection of the world without adding a tittle.
It tends also to the support and perfection of Pan or nature to
be without offspring ; for the world generates in its parts, and not in
the way of a whole, as wanting a body external to itself wherewith to
generate.
Lastly, for the supposed or spurious prattling daughter of Pan, it is
an excellent addition to the fable, and aptly represents the talkative
philosophies that have at all times been stirring, and filled the world
with idle tales, being ever barren, empty, and servile, though some
times indeed diverting and entertaining, and sometimes again trouble
some and importunate.
CCELUM, OR BEGINNINGS.
EXPLAINED OF THE CREATION, OR ORIGIN OF ALL THINGS.
THE poets relate, that Ccelum was the most ancient of all the gods;
that his parts of generation were cut off by his son Saturn ; that Saturn
had a numerous offspring, but devoured all his sons as soon as
they were born ; that Jupiter at length escaped the common fate ; and
when grown up, drove his father Saturn into Tartarus ; usurped the
kingdom ; cut off" his father's genitals, with the same knife wherewith
Saturn had dismembered Ccelum, and throwing them into the sea,
thence sprung Venus.
• The reed into -which the nymph Syrinx was metamorphosed formed the ancie
CCELUM, OR BEGINNINGS. 285
rtefore Jupiter was well established in his empire, two memorable
wars were made upon him : the first by the Titans, in subduing
of whom, Sol, the only one of the Titans who favoured Jupiter, per
formed him singular service; the second by the giants, who being
destroyed and subdued by the thunder and arms of Jupiter, he
now reigned secure.
EXPLANATION. — This fable appears to be an enigmatical account
of the origin of all things, not greatly differing from the philosophy
afterwards embraced by Democritus, who expressly asserts the
eternity of matter, but denies the eternity of the world ; thereby
approaching to the truth of sacred writ, which makes chaos, or unin
formed matter, to exist before the six days' work.
The meaning of the fable seems to be this : Ccelum denotes
the concave space, or vaulted roof that incloses all matter, and Saturn
the matter itself, which cuts off all power of generation from his
father ; as one- and the same quantity of matter remains invariable in
nature, without addition or diminution. But the agitations and
struggling motions of matter, first produced certain imperfect and ill-
joined compositions of things, as it were so many first rudiments, or
essays of worlds ; till, in process of time, there arose a fabric capable
of preserving its form and structure. Whence the first age was
shadowed out by the reign of Saturn ; l who, on account of the
frequent dissolutions, and short durations of things, was said to devour
his children. And the second age was denoted by the reign of
Jupiter ; who thrust, or drove those frequent and transitory changes
into Tartarus — a place expressive of disorder. This place seems to be
the middle space, between the lower heavens and the internal parts of
the earth, wherein disorder, imperfection, mutation, mortality, destruc
tion, and corruption, are principally found.
Venus was not born during the former generation of things,
under the reign of Saturn ; for whilst discord and jar had the
upper hand of concord and uniformity in the matter of the universe, a
change of the entire structure was necessary. And in this manner
things were generated and destroyed, before Saturn was dismembered.
But when this manner of generation ceased, there immediately fol
lowed another, brought about by Venus, or a perfect and established
harmony of things ; whereby changes were wrought in the parts,
whilst the universal fabric remained entire and undisturbed. Saturn,
however, is said to be thrust out and dethroned, not killed, and
become extinct ; because, agreeably to the opinion of Democritus, the
world might relapse into its old confusion and disorder, which Lucre
tius hoped would not happen in his time.
But now, when the world was compact, and held together by its own
bulk and energy, yet there was no rest from the beginning ; for first,
there followed considerable motions and disturbances in the celestial
regions, though so regulated and moderated by the power of the Sui\
prevailing over the heavenly bodies, as to continue the world in
its state. Afterwards there followed the like in the lower parts, by
Tim«.
288 PKOM&THEUS.
inundations, storms, winds, general earthquakes, &c., which, however,
being subdued and kept under, there ensued a more peaceable and
lasting harmony, and consent of things.
It may be said of this fable, that it includes philosophy ; and again,
that philosophy includes the fable ; for we know, by faith, that
all these things are but the oracle of sense, long since ceased and
decayed ; but the matter and fabric of the world being justly attributed
to a creator.
PROMETHEUS.
EXPLAINED OF AN OVER-RULING PROVIDENCE, AND OF HUMAN
NATURE.
THE ancients relate that man was the work of Prometheus, and
formed of clay ; only the artificer mixed in with the mass particles
taken from different animals. And being desirous to improve his
workmanship, and endow, as well as create, the human race, he stole
up to heaven, with a bundle -of birch-rods, and kindling them at the
chariot of the Sun, thence brought down fire to the earth for the ser
vice of men.
They add, that for this meritorious act Prometheus was repaid
with ingratitude by mankind, so that, forming a conspiracy, they
arraigned both him and his invention before Jupiter. But the matter
was otherwise received than they imagined ; for the accusation proved
extremely grateful to Jupiter and the gods, insomuch that, delighted
with the action, they not only indulged mankind the use of tire, but
moreover conferred upon them a most acceptable and desirable pre
sent, viz., perpetual youth.
But men, foolishly overjoyed hereat, laid this present of the gods
upon an ass, who, in returning back with it, being extremely thirsty,
Strayed to a fountain. The serpent, who was guardian thereof, would
Hot suffer him to drink, but upon condition of receiving the burden he
carried, whatever it should be. The silly ass complied, and thus the
perpetual renewal of youth was, for a drop of water, transferred from
men to the race of serpents.
Prometheus, not desisting from his unwarrantable practices, though
now reconciled to mankind, after they were thus tricked of their pre
sent, but still continuing inveterate against Jupiter, had the boldness to
attempt deceit, even in a sacrifice, and is said to have once offered up
two bulls to Jupiter, but so as in the hide of one of them to wrap all
ihe riesh and fat of both, and stuffing out the other hide only with the
bones ; then in a religious and devout manner gave Jupiter his choice
of the two. Jupiter, detesting this sly fraud and hypocrisy, but having
thus an opportunity of punishing the offender, purposely chose the
mock bull.
And now giving way to revenge, but finding he could not chastise
the insolence of Prometheus without afflicting the human race (in the
PROMETHEUS. j8"
production whereof Prometheus had strangely and insufferably prided
himself), he commanded Vulcan to form a beautiful and graceful
woman, to whom every god presented a certain gift, whence she was
called Pandora.1 They put into her hands an elegant box, containing
all sorts of miseries and misfortunes ; but Hope was placed at the
bottom of it. With this box she first goes to Prometheus, to try if
she could prevail upon him to receive and open it ; but he, being
upon his guard, warily refused the offer. Upon this refusal she comes
to his brother Epimetheus, a man of a very different temper, who
rashly and inconsiderately opens the box. When finding all kinds of
miseries and misfortunes issued out of it, he grew wise too late, and
with great hurry and struggle endeavoured to clap the cover on again ;
but with all his endeavour could scarce keep in Hope, which lay at
the bottom.
Lastly, Jupiter arraigned Prometheus of many heinous crimes : as
that he formerly stole fire from heaven ; that he contemptuously and
deceitfully mocked him by a sacrifice of bones ; that he despised his
present,2 adding withal a new crime, that he attempted to ravish
Pallas : for all which, he was sentenced to be bound in chains, and
doomed to perpetual torments. Accordingly, by Jupiter's command,
he was brought to Mount Caucasus, and there fastened to a pillar, so
firmly that he could no way stir. A vulture or eagle stood by him,
which in the daytime gnawed andco-nsumed his liver ; but in the night
the wasted parts were supplied again ; whence matter for his pain was
never wanting.
They relate, however, that his punishment had an end ; for Hercules
sailing the ocean, in a cup, or pitcher, presented him by the Sun, came
at length to Caucasus, shot the eagle with his arrows, and set Pro
metheus free. In certain nations, also, there were instituted particular
games of the torch, to the honour of Prometheus, in which they who
ran for the prize carried lighted torches ; and as any one of these
torches happened to go out, the bearer withdrew himself, and gave
way to the next ; and that person was allowed to win the prize who
first brought in his lighted torch to the goal.
EXPLANATION. — This fable contains and enforces many just and
serious considerations ; some whereof have been long since well
observed, but some again remain perfectly untouched. Prometheus
clearly and expressly signifies Providence ; for of all the things in
nature, the formation and endowment of man was singled out by the
ancients, and esteemed the peculiar work of Providence. The reason
hereof seems, I. That the nature of man includes a mind and under
standing, which is the seat of Providence. 2. That it is harsh and
incredible to suppose reason and mind should be raised, and drawn
out of senseless and irrational principles ; whence it becomes almost
inevitable, that providence is implanted in the human mind in con
formity with, and by the direction and the design of the greater over
ruling Providence. But, 3. The principal cause is this : that man
seems to be the thing in which the whole world centres, with respect
* *U gifted. » Viz., that by Pandora.
288 PRO ME THE US.
to final causes ; so that if he were away, all other things would stray
and fluctuate, without end or intention, or become perfectly disjointed,
and out of frame ; for all things are made subservient to man, and he
receives use and benefit from them all. Thus the revolutions, places,
and periods, of the celestial bodies, serve him for distinguishing times
and seasons, and for dividing the world into different regions ; the
meteors afford him prognostications of the weather ; the winds saij
our ships, drive our mills, and move our machines ; and the vege
tables and animals of all kinds either afford us matter for houses and
habitations, clothing, food, physic, or tend to ease, or delight, to sup
port, or refresh us : so that everything in nature seems not ,made for
itself, but for man.
And it is not without reason added, that the mass of matter
whereof man was formed, should be mixed up with particles taken
from different animals, and wrought in with the clay, because it is
certain, that of all things in the universe, man is the most compounded
and recompounded body ; so that the ancients not improperly styled
him a Microcosm, or little world within himself. For although the
chemists have absurdly, and too literally, wrested and perverted the
elegance of the term microcosm, whilst they pretend to find all kind
of mineral and vegetable matters, or something corresponding to
them, in man, yet it remains firm and unshaken, that the human body
is of all substances the most mixed and organical ; whence it has sur
prising powers and faculties : for the powers of simple bodies are but
few, though certain and quick ; as being little broken, or weakened,
and not counterbalanced by mixture : but excellence and quantity of
energy reside in mixture and composition.
Man, however, in his first origin, seems to be a defenceless naked
creature, slow in assisting himself, and standing in need of numerous
things. Prometheus, therefore, hastened to the invention of fire, which
supplies and administers to nearly all human uses and necessities;
insomuch that, if the soul may be called the form of forms, if the
hand may be called the instrument of instruments, fire may, as pro
perly, be called the assistant of assistants, or the helper of helps ; for
hence proceed numberless operations, hence all the mechanic arts, and
hence infinite assistances are afforded to the sciences themselves.
The manner wherein Prometheus stole this fire is properly described
from the nature of the thing ; he being said to have done it by apply
ing a rod of birch to the chariot of the Sun : for birch is used in
striking and beating, which clearly denotes the generation of fire to be
from the violent percussions and collisions of bodies : whereby the
matters struck are subtilized, rarefied, put into motion, and so prepared
to receive the heat of the celestial bodies; whence they, in a clandes
tine and secret manner, collect and snatch fire, as it were by stealth,
from the chariot of the Sun.
The next is a remarkable part of the fable, which represents that
men, instead of gratitude and thanks, fell into indignation and expos
tulation, accusing both Prometheus and his fire to Jupiter, — and yet
the accusation proved highly pleasing to Jupiter ; so that he, for this
reason, crowned these benefits of mankind with a new bounty. Here
it may seem strange that the sin of ingratitude to a creator and bene-
PROME THE US 2*9
factor, a sin so heinous as to include almost all others, should meet
with approbation and reward. But the allegory has another view, and
denotes, that the accusation and arraignment, both of human nature
and human art among mankind, proceeds from a most noble and
laudable temper of the mind, and tends to a very good purpo se ;
whereas the contrary temper is odious to the gods, and unbeneftcial in
vtself. For they who break into extravagant praises of human nature,
and the arts in vogue, and who lay themselves out in admiring the
things they already possess, and will needs have the sciences culti
vated among them, to be thought absolutely perfect and complete, in
the first place, show little regard to the Divine Nature, whilst they
extol their own inventions almost as high as His perfection. In the
next place, men of this temper are unserviceable and prejudicial in life,
whilst they imagine themselves already got to the top of things, and
there rest, without farther inquiry. On the contrary, they who arraign
and accuse both nature and art, and are always full of complaints
against them, not only preserve a more just and modest sense of mind,
but are also perpetually stirred up to fresh industry and new dis
coveries. Is not, then, the ignorance and fatality of mankind to be
extremely pitied, whilst they remain slaves to the arrogance of a few
of their own fellows, and are dotingly fond of that scrap of Grecian
knowledge, the Peripatetic philosophy ; and this to such a degree, as
not only to think all accusation or arraignment thereof useless, but
even hold it suspect and dangerous? Certainly the procedure of
Empedocles, though furious — but especially that of Democritus (who
with great modesty complained that all things were abstruse ; that we
know nothing ; that truth lies hid in deep pits ; that falsehood is
strangely joined and twisted along with truth, &c.) — is to be preferred
before the confident, assuming, and dogmatical school of Aristotle.
Mankind are, therefore, to be admonished, that the arraignment of
nature and of art is pleasing to the gods ; and that a sharp and vehe
ment accusation of Prometheus, though a creator, a founder, and a
master, obtained new blessings and presents from the divine bounty,
and proved more sound and serviceable than a diffusive harangue of
praise and gatulation. And let men be assured, that the fond opinion
that they have already acquired enough, is a principal reason why
they have acquired so little.
That the perpetual flower ot youth should be the present which
mankind received as a reward for their accusation, carries this moral :
that the ancients seem not to have despaired of discovering methods,
and remedies, for retarding old age, and prolonging the period of
human life, but rather reckoned it among those things which, through
sloth and want of diligent inquiry, perish and come to nothing, after
having been once undertaken, than among such as are absolutely im
possible, or placed beyond the reach of the human power. For they
signify and intimate from the true use of fire, and the just and strenu
ous accusation and conviction of the errors of art, that the divine
bounty is not wanting to men in such kind of presents, but that men
indeed are wanting to themselves, and lay such an inestimable gift upon
the back of a slow-paced ass ; that is, upon the back of the heavy,
dull, lingering thing, experience ; from whose sluggish and tortoise-
U
290 PROMETHEUS.
pace proceeds that ancient complaint of the shortness of life, and the
slow advancement of arts. And certainly it may well seem, that the
two faculties of reasoning and experience are not hitherto properly
joined and coupled together, but to be still new gifts of the gods, sepa
rately laid, the one upon the back of a light bird, or abstract philo
sophy, and the other upon an ass, or slow-paced practice and trial
And yet good hopes might be conceived of this ass if it were not for
his thirst and the accidents of the way. For we judge, that if any one
would constantly proceed, by a certain law and method, in the road of
experience, and not by the way thirst after such experiments as make
for profit or ostentation, nor exchange his burden, or quit the original
design for the sake of these, he might be an useful bearer of a new and
accumulated divine bounty to mankind.
That this gift of perpetual youth should pass from men to serpents,
seems added by way of ornament and illustration to the fable ; per
haps intimating, at the same time, the shame it is for men, that they,
with their fire, and numerous arts, cannot procure to themselves those
things which nature has bestowed upon many other creatures.
The sudden reconciliation of Prometheus to mankind, after being
disappointed of their hopes, contains a prudent and useful admonition.
It points out the levity and temerity of men in new experiments, when,
not presently succeeding, or answering to expectation, they precipi-
tantly quit their new undertakings, hurry back to their old ones, and
grow reconciled thereto.
After the fable has described the state of man, with regard to arts
and intellectual matters, it passes on to religion, for after the inventing
and settling of arts, follows the establishment of divine worship, which
hypocrisy presently enters into and corrupts. So that by the two
sacrifices we have elegantly painted the person of a man truly religious,
and of an hypocrite. One of these sacrifices contained the fat, or the
portion of God, used for burning and incensing ; thereby denoting
affection and zeal, offered up to His glory. It likewise contained the
bowels, which are expressive of charity, along with the good and use
ful flesh. But the other contained nothing more than dry bones,
which nevertheless stuffed out the hide, so as to make it resemble a
fair, beautiful, and magnificent sacrifice ; hereby finely denoting the
external and empty rites and barren ceremonies, wherewith men bur
den and stuff out the divine worship, — things rather intended for show
and ostentation than conducing to piety : — Nor are mankind simply-
content with this mock-worship of God, but also impose, and father it
upon Him, as if He had chosen and ordained it. Certainly the prophet,
in the person of God, has a fine expostulation, as to this matter of
choice : — " Is this the fasting which I have chosen, that a man should
afflict his soul for a day, and bow down his head like a bulrush?"1
After thus touching the state of religion, the fable next turns to
manners, and the conditions of human life. And though it be a very
common, yet is it a just interpretation, that Pandora denotes the plea
sures and licentiousness which the cultivation and luxury of the arts
of civil life introduce, as it were, by the instrumental efficacy of fire ;
1 Isaiah, tviii. j.
PROMETHEUS. 291
whence the works of the voluptuary arts are properly attributed to
Vulcan, the God of Fire. And hence infinite miseries and calamities
have proceeded to the minds, the bodies, and the fortunes of men,
together with a late repentance ; and this not only in each man's par
ticular, but also in kingdoms and states ; for wars, and tumults, and
tyrannies, have all arisen from this same fountain, or box of Pandora.
It is worth observing, how beautifully and elegantly the fable has
drawn two reigning characters in human life, and given two examples,
or tablatures of them, under the persons of Prometheus and Epime-
theus. The followers of Epimetheus are improvident, see not far
before them, and prefer such things as are agreeable for the present ;
whence they are oppressed with numerous straits, difficulties, and cala
mities, with which they almost continually struggle ; but in the mean
time gratify their own temper, and, for want of a better knowledge of
things, feed their minds with many vain hopes ; and as with so many
pleasing dreams, delight themselves, and sweeten the miseries of life.
But the followers of Prometheus are the prudent, wary men, that
look into futurity, and cautiously guard against, prevent, and under
mine many calamities and misfortunes. But this watchful, provident
temper, is attended with a deprivation of numerous pleasures, and the
loss of various delights, whilst such men debar themselves the use
even of innocent things, and what is still worse, rack and torture them
selves with cares, fears, and disquiets ; being bound fast to the pillar
of necessity, and tormented with numberless thoughts (which for their
swiftness are well compared to an eagle), that continually wound, tear,
and gnaw their liver or mind, unless, perhaps, they find some small
remission by intervals, or as it were at nights ; but then new anxieties,
dreads, and fears, soon return again, as it were in the morning. And,
therefore, very few men of either temper, have secured to themselves
the advantages of providence, and kept clear of disquiets, troubles,
and misfortunes.
Nor indeed can any man obtain this end without the assistance of
Hercules ; that is, of such fortitude and constancy of mind as stands
prepared against every event, and remains indifferent to every change ;
looking forward without being daunted, enjoying the good without dis
dain, and enduring the bad without impatience. And it must be ob
served, that even Prometheus had not the power to free himself, but
owed his deliverance to another ; for no natural inbred force and forti
tude could prove equal to such a task. The power of releasing him
came from the utmost confines of the ocean, and from the sun : that
is, from Apollo, or knowledge ; and again, from a due consideration of
the uncertainty, instability, and fluctuating state of human life, which
is aptly represented by sailing the ocean. Accordingly, Virgil has pru
dently joined these two together, accounting him happy who knows
the causes of things, and has conquered all his fears, apprehensions,
and superstitions.1
It is added, with great elegance, for supporting and confirming the
human mind, that the great hero who thus delivered him sailed the
1 " Felix que potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Quique metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari."— Georg 2—490.
u a
29*
PROMETHEUS.
ocean in a. cup, or pitcher, to prevent fear, or complaint ; as if, through
Ihe narrowness of our nature, or a too great fragility thereof, we were
absolutely incapable of that fortitude and constancy to which Seneca
finely alludes, when he says, " It is a noble thing, at once to participate
in the frailty of man and the security of a god."
We have hitherto, that we might not break the connection of things,
designedly omitted the last crime of Prometheus — that of attempting
the chastity of Minerva— which heinous offence it doubtless was, that
caused the punishment of having his liver gnawed by the vulture. The
meaning seems to be this,— that when men are puffed up with arts and
knowledge, they often try to subdue even the divine wisdom and bring
it under the dominion of sense and reason, whence inevitably follows
a perpetual and restless rending and tearing of the mind. A sober and
humble distinction must, therefore, be made betwixt divine and human
things, and betwixt the oracles of sense and faith, unless mankind had
rather choose an heretical religion, and a fictitious and romantic philo
sophy.
The last particular in the fable is the Games of the Torch, insti
tuted to Prometheus, which again relates to arts and sciences, as well
as the invention of fire, for the commemoration and celebration
whereof these games were held. And here we have an extremely pru
dent admonition, directing us to expect the perfection of the sciences
from succession, and not from the swiftness and abilities of any single
person ; for he who is fleetest and strongest in the course may perhaps
be less fit to keep his torch a-light, since there is danger of its going
out from too rapid as well as from too slow a motion. But this kind
of contest, with the torch, seems to have been long dropped and
neglected ; the sciences appearing to have flourished principally in
their first authors, as Aristotle, Galen, Euclid, Ptolemy, &c. ; whilst
their successors have done very little, or scarce made any attempts.
But it were highly to be wished that these games might be renewed,
to the honour of Prometheus, or human nature, and that they might
excite contest, emulation, and laudable endeavours, and the design
meet with such success as not to hang tottering, tremulous, and
hazarded, upon the torch of any single person. Mankind, therefore,
should be admonished to rouse themselves, and try and exert their own
strength and chance, and not place all their dependence upon a few
men, whose abilities and capacities, perhaps, are not greater than their
own.
These are the particulars which appear to us shadowed out by this
trite and vulgar fable, though without denying that there may be con
tained in it several intimations that have a surprising correspondence
with the Christian mysteries. In particular, the voyage of Hercules,1
made in a pitcher, to release Prometheus, bears an allusion to the word
of God, coming in the frail vessel of the flesh to redeem mankind. But
we indulge ourselves no such liberties as these, for fear of using strange
fire at the altar of the Lord.
1 Archbishop Trench also discovers a Christian allegory in Hercules wearing the poisoned
mantle : — " The garment spotted with the flesh." — See " Unconscious Prophecies of Heathen*
dorn,"
PROTEUS. «93
PROTEUS, OR MATTER.
EXPLAINED OF MATTER AND ITS CHANGES.
PROTEUS, according to the poets, was Neptune's herdsman j an old
man, and a most extraordinary prophet, who understood things past
and present, as well as future ; so that besides the business of divina
tion, he was the revealer and interpreter of all antiquity, and secrets of
every kind. He lived in a vast cave, where his custom was to tell over
his herd of sea-calves at noon, and then to sleep. Whoever consulted
him, had no other way of obtaining an answer, but by binding him
with manacles and fetters ; when he, endeavouring to free himself,
would change into all kinds of shapes and miraculous forms ; as of
fire, water, wild beasts, &c. ; till at length he resumed his own shape
again.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems to point at the secrets of nature,
and the states of matter. For the person of Proteus denotes matter,
the oldest of all things, after God himself; that resides, as in a cave,
under the vast concavity of the heavens. He is represented as the
servant of Neptune, because the various operations and modifications
of matter are principally wrought in a fluid state. The herd, or flock
of Proteus, seems to be no other than the several kinds of animals,
plants, and minerals, in which matter appears to diffuse and spend
itself; so that after having formed these several species, and as it were
finished its task, it seems to sleep and repose, without otherwise
attempting to produce any new ones. And this is the moral of Pro-
teus's counting his herd, then going to sleep.
This is said to be done at noon, not in the morning or evening ; by
which is meant the time best fitted and disposed for the production of
species, from a matter duly prepared, and made ready beforehand, and
now lying in a middle state, between its first rudiments and decline ;
vhich, we learn from sacred history, was the case at the time of the
creation ; when by the efficacy of the divine command, matter directly
came together, without any transformation or intermediate chang s,
which it affects ; instantly obeyed the order, and appeared in the form
of creatures.
And thus far the fable reaches of Proteus, and his flock, at liberty
and unrestrained. For the universe, with the common structures and
fabrics of the creatures, is the face of matter, not under constraint, or
as the flock wrought upon and tortured by human means. But if any
skilful minister of nature shall apply force to matter, and by design
torture and vex it, in order to its annihilation, it, on the contrary,
being brought under this necessity, changes and transforms itself into
a strange variety of shapes and appearances ; for nothing but the
power of the Creator can annihilate, or truly destroy it ; so that at
length, running through the whole circle of transformations, and com
pleting its period, it in some degree restores itself, if the force be con
tinued. And that method of binding, torturing, or detaining, wili
prove the most effectual and expedi.ious, which makes use of manacles
894 CUPID.
and fetters ; that is, lays hold and works upon matter in the extremest
degrees.
The addition in the fable that makes a Proteus a prophet, who had
the knowledge of things past, present, and future, excellently agrees
•with the nature of matter ; as he who knows the properties, the changes,
and the processes of matter, must of necessity understand the effects
and sum of what it does, has done, or can do, though his knowledge
extends not to all the parts and particulars thereof.
CUPID, OR ATOMS.
EXPLAINED OF THE CORPUSCULAR PHILOSOPHY.
THE particulars related by the poets of Cupid, or Love, do not pro
perly agree to the same person ; yet they differ only so far, that if the
confusion of persons be rejected, the correspondence may hold. They
say that Love was the most ancient of all the gods, and existed before
everything else, except Chaos, which is held coeval therewith. But to
Chaos, the ancients never paid divine honours, nor gave the title of a
god thereto. Love is represented absolutely without progenitor, ex
cepting only that he is said to have proceeded from the egg of Nox ,
but that himself begot the gods, and all things else on Chaos. His
attributes are four : viz. : i. perpetual infancy ; 2. blindness j 3. naked
ness ; and 4. archery.
There was also another Cupid, or Love, the youngest son of the gods,
born of Venus, and upon him the attributes of the elder are transferred,
with some degree of correspondence.
EXPLANATION.— This fable points at, and enters, the cradle of
nature. Love seems to be the appetite, or incentive, of the primitive
matter ; or, to speak more distinctly, the natural motion, or moving
principle, of the original corpuscles, or atoms ; this being the most
ancient and only power that made and wrought all things out of matter.
It is absolutely without parent, that is, without cause ; for causes are
as parents to effects ; but this power or efficacy could have no natural
cause ; for, excepting God, nothing was before it ; and therefore it
could have no efficient in nature. And as nothing is more inward with
nature, it can neither be a genus nor a form ; and therefore, whatever
it is, it must be somewhat positive, though inexpressible. And if it
were possible to conceive its modus and process, yet it could not
be known from its cause, as being, next to God, the cause of causes,
and itself without a cause. And perhaps we are not to hope that the
modus of it should fall, or be comprehended, under human inquiry.
Whence it is properly feigned to be the egg of Nox, or laid in the
dark.
The divine philosopher declares, that " God has made everything
beautiful in its season ; and has given over the world to our disputes
and inquiries : but that man cannot find out the work which God has
wrought, from its beginning up to its end." 1 Thus the summary or
1 Ecclesiastes iii., u.
CUPID. *)<
collective law of nature, or the principle of love, impressed by God
upon the original particles of all things, so as to make them attack
each other and come together, by the repetition and multiplication
whereof all the variety in the universe is produced, can scarce possibly
find full admittance in the thoughts of men, though some faint notion
may be had thereof. The Greek philosophy is subtile, and busied in
discovering the material principles of things, but negligent and languid
in discovering the principles of motion, in which the energy and
efficacy of every operation consists. And here the Greek philosophers
seem perfectly blind and childish ; for the opinion of the Peripatetics,1
as to the stimulus of matter, by privation, is little more than words, or
rather sound than signification. And they who refer it to God, though
they do well therein, yet they do it by a start, and not by proper
degrees of assent ; for doubtless there is one summary, or capital
law, in which nature meets, subordinate to God, viz., the law men
tioned in the passage above quoted from Solomon ; or the work which
God has wrought from its beginning up to its end.
Democritus, who farther considered this subject, having first sup
posed an atom, or corpuscle, of some dimension or figure, attributed
thereto an appetite, desire, or first motion simply, and another com
paratively, imagining that all things properly tended to the centre of
the world ; those containing more matter falling faster to the centre,
and thereby removing, and in the shock driving away, such as held
less. But this is a slender conceit, and regards too few particulars ;
for neither the revolutions of the celestial bodies, nor the contractions
and expansions of things, can be reduced to this principle. And for
the opinion of Epicurus, as to the declination and fortuitous agitation
of atoms, this only brings the matter back again to a trifle, and wraps
it up in ignorance and night.
Cupid is elegantly drawn a perpetual child ; for compounds are
larger things, and have their periods of age ; but the first seeds or
atoms of bodies are small, and remain in a perpetual infant state.
He is again justly represented naked ; as all compounds may
properly be said to be dressed and clothed, or to assume a personage ;
whence nothing remains truly naked, but the original particles of
things.
The blindness of Cupid contains a deep allegory ; for this same
Cupid, Love, or appetite of the world, seems to have very little fore
sight, but directs his steps and motions conformably to what he finds
next him, as blind men do when they feel out their way ; which
renders the divine and over-ruling Providence and foresight the more
surprising ; as by a certain steady law, it brings such a beautiful order
and regularity of things out of what seems extremely casual, void of
design, and, as it were, really blind.
The last attribute of Cupid is archery, viz., a virtue or power ope
rating at a distance ; for everything that operates at a distance, may
seem, as it were, to dart, or shoot with arrows. And whoever allow;
of atoms and vacuity^ necessarily supposes that the virtue of atoms
1 The disciples of Aristotle, who was of so restless and vivacious a temperament that Le
taught walking up and down the shady paths of the Lyceum. Hence his disciples were called
Peripatetics, or walking philosopher*.
296 CASSANDRA, OR DIVINATION.
oijciatos at a distance ; for without this operation no motion could be
excited, on account of the vacuum interposing, but all things would
remain sluggish and unmoved.
As to the other Cupid, he is properly said to be the youngest son of
the gods, as his power could not take place before the formation of
species, or particular bodies. The description given us of him transfers
the allegory to morality, though he still retains some resemblance with
the ancient Cupid ; for as Venus universally excites the affection of
association, and the desire of procreation, her son Cupid applies the
affection to individuals ; so that the general disposition proceeds from
Venus, but the more close sympathy from Cupid. The former depends
upon a near approximation of causes, but the latter upon deeper, more
necessitating and uncontrollable principles, as if they proceeded from
the ancient Cupid, on whom all exquisite sympathies depend.
CASSANDRA, OR DIVINATION.
EXPLAINED OF TOO FREE AND UNSEASONABLE ADVICE.
THE Poets relate, that Apollo, falling in love with Cassandra, was
still deluded and put off by her, yet fed with hopes, till she had got
from him the gift of prophecy ; and having now obtained her end, she
flatly rejected his suit. Apollo, unable to recall his rash gift, yet en
raged to be outwitted by a girl, annexed this penalty to it, that though
she should always prophesy true, she should never be believed ; whence
her divinations were always slighted, even when she again and agaia
predicted the ruin of her country.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems invented to express the insignifi
cance of unseasonable advice. For they who are conceited, stubborn,
or intractable, and listen not to the instructions of Apollo, the god of
harmony, so as to learn and observe the modulations and measures of
affairs, the sharps and flats of discourse, the difference between judicious
and vulgar ears, and the proper times of speech and silence, let them
be ever so intelligent, and ever so frank of their advice, or their counsels
ever so good and just, yet all their endeavours, either of persuasion or
force, are of little significance, and rather hasten the ruin of those they
advise. But, at last, when the calamitous event has made the sufferers
feel the effect of their neglect, they too late reverence their advisers, as
deep, foreseeing, and faithful prophets.
Of this we have a remarkable instance in Cato of Utica, who dis
covered afar off, and long foretold, the approaching ruin of his country,
both in the first conspiracy, and as it was prosecuted in the civil war
between Caesar and Pompey, yet did no good the while, but rather
hurt the commonwealth, and hurried on its destruction, which Cicero
wisely observed in these words : " Cato, indeed, judges excellently,
but prejudices the state ; for he speaks as in the commonwealth of
Hato, and not as in £he dregs of Romulus,"
t TYPHON, OK A REBEL. 29?
TYPHON, OR A REBEL.
EXPLAINED OF REBELLION.
THE fable runs, that Juno, enraged at Jupiter's bringing forth Pallas
without her assistance, incessantly solicited all the gods and goddesses
that she might produce without Jupiter : and having by violence and
importunity obtained the grant, she struck the earth, and thence im
mediately sprung up Typhon, a huge and dreadful monster, whom she
committed to the nursing of a serpent. As soon as he was grown up,
this monster waged war on Jupiter, and taking him prisoner in the
battle, carried him away on his shoulders, into a remote and obscure
quarter : and there cutting out the sinews of his hands and feet, he
bore them off, leaving Jupiter behind miserably maimed and mangled.
But Mercury afterwards stole these sinews from Typhon, and re
stored them to Jupiter. Hence, recovering his strength, Jupiter again
pursues the monster ; first wounds him with a stroke of his thunder,
when serpents arose from the blood of the wound : and now the monster
being dismayed, and taking to flight, Jupiter next darted Mount ^tna
upon him, and crushed him with the weight.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems designed to express the various
fates of kings, and the turns that rebellions sometimes take, in king
doms. For princes may be justly esteemed married to their states, as
Jupiter to Juno : but it sometimes happens, that, being depraved by
long wielding of the sceptre, and growing tyrannical, they would engross
all to themselves ; and slighting the counsel of their senators and
nobles, conceive by themselves ; that is, govern according to their
own arbitrary will and pleasure. This inflames the people, and makes
them endeavour to create and set up some head of their own. Such
designs are generally set on foot by the secret motion and instigation
of the peers and nobles, under whose connivance the common sort are
prepared for rising: whence proceeds a swell in the state, which is
appositely denoted by the nursing of Typhon. This growing posture
of affairs is fed by the natural depravity, and malignant dispositions of
the vulgar, which to kings is an envenomed serpent. And now the
disaffected, uniting their force, at length break out into open rebellion,
which, producing infinite mischiefs, both to prince and people, is repre
sented by the horrid and multiplied deformity of Typhon, with his
hundred heads, denoting the divided powers ; his flaming mouths,
denoting fire and devastation ; his girdles of snakes, denoting sieges
and destruction ; his iron hands, slaughter and cruelty ; his eagle's
talons, rapine and plunder ; his plumed body, perpetual rumours, con
tradictory accounts, etc. And sometimes these rebellions grow so
high, that kings are obliged, as if carried on the backs of the rebels, to
quit the throne, and retire to some remote and obscure part of their
dominions, with the loss of their sinews, both of money and majesty.
But if now they prudently bear this reverse of fortune, they may, in
a short time, by the assistance of Mercury, recover their sinews again ;
that is, by becoming moderate and affable ; reconciling the minds and
affections of the people to them, by gracious speeches, and prudent
proclamations, which will win over the subject cheerfully to afford new
298 NARCISSUS, OR SELF-LOVE.
aids and supplies, and add fresh vigour to authority. But prudent
and wary princes here seldom incline to try fortune by a war, yet
do their utmost, by some grand exploit, to crush the reputation of the
rebels : and if the attempt succeeds, the rebels, conscious of the
wound received, and distrustful of their cause, first betake themselves
to broken and empty threats, like the hissings of serpents ; and next,
when matters are grown desperate, to flight. And now, when they
thus begin to shrink, it is safe and seasonable for kings to pursue
them with their forces, and the whole strength of the kingdom ; thus
effectually quashing and suppressing them, as it were by the weight of
a mountain.
THE CYCLOPS. OR THE MINISTERS OF TERROR.
EXPLAINED OF BASE COURT OFFICERS.
IT is related that the Cyclops, for their savageness and cruelty,
were by Jupiter first thrown into Tartarus, and there condemned
to perpetual imprisonment : but that afterwards, Tellus persuaded
Jupiter it would be for his service to release them, and employ them in
forging thunderbolts. This he accordingly did; and they, with un
wearied pains and diligence, hammered out his bolts, and other instru
ments of terror, with a frightful and continual din of the anvil.
It happened long after, that Jupiter was displeased with yEscu-
lapius, the son of Apollo, for having, by the art of medicine, restored
a dead man to life : but concealing his indignation, because the action
in itself was pious and illustrious, he secretly incensed the Cyclops
against him, who, without remorse, presently slew him with their
thunderbolts : in revenge whereof, Apollo, with Jupiter's connivance,
shot them all dead with his arrows.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems to point at the behaviour of
princes, who, having cruel, bloody, and oppressive ministers, first
punish and displace them ; but afterwards, by the advice of Tellus,
that is, some earthly-minded and ignoble person, employ them again,
to serve a turn, when there is occasion for cruelty in execution, or
severity in exaction : but these ministers being base in their nature,
whet by their former disgrace, and well aware of what is expected from
them, use double diligence in their office ; till, proceeding unwarily,
and over-eager to gain favour, they sometimes, from the private nods,
and ambiguous orders of their prince, perform some odious or
execrable action, When princes, to decline the envy themselves, and
knowing they shall never want such tools at their back, drop them,
and give them up to the friends and followers of the injured person ;
thus exposing them, as sacrifices to revenge and popular odium :
whence with great applause, acclamations, and good wishes to the
prince, these miscreants at last meet with their desert.
NARCISSUS, OR SELF-LOVE.
NARCISSUS is said to have been extremely beautiful and comely, but
intolerably proud and disdainful ; so that, pleased with himself, and
PERSEUS, OR WAR. 299
•corning the world, he led a solitary life in the woods ; hunting only
with a few followers, who were his professed admirers, amongst whom
the nymph Echo was his constant attendant. In this method of life it
was once his fate to approach a clear fountain, where he laid himself
down to rest, in the noonday heat ; when, beholding his image in the
water, he fell into such a rapture and admiration of himself, that
he could by no means be got away, but remained continually fixed and
gazing, till at length he was turned into a flower, of his own name,
which appears early in the spring, and is consecrated to the infernal
"deities, Pluto, Proserpine, and the Furies.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems to paint the behaviour and for
tune of those, who, for their beauty, or other endowments, wherewith
nature (-vithout any industry of their own) has graced and adorned
them, are extravagantly fond of themselves : for men of such a dispo
sition generally affect retirement, and absence from public affairs ; as
a life of business must necessarily subject them to many neglects and
contempts, which might disturb and ruffle their minds : whence such
persons commonly lead a solitary, private, and shadowy life ; see little
company, and those only such as highly admire and reverence them ;
or, like an echo, assent to all they say.
And they who are depraved, and rendered still fonder of themselves
by this custom, grow strangely indolent, unactive, and perfectly stupid.
The Narcissus, a spring flower, is an elegant emblem of this temper,
which at first flourishes, and is talked of, but when ripe, frustrates the
expectation conceived of it.
And that this flower should be sacred to the infernal powers, carries
out the allusion still farther; because men of this humour are perfectly
useless in all respects : for whatever yields no fruit, but passes, and is
no more, like the way of a ship in a sea, was by the ancients con
secrated to the infernal shades and powers.
PERSEUS, OR WAR.
EXPLAINED OF THE PREPARATION AND CONDUCT NECESSARY
TO WAR.
THE fable relates, that Perseus was despatched from the east by
Pallas, to cut off Medusa's head, who had committed great ravage
upon the people of the west ; for this Medusa was so dire a monster as
to turn into stone all those who but looked upon her. She was
a Gorgon, and the only mortal one of the three, the other two being in
vulnerable. Perseus, therefore, preparing himself for this grand
enterprise, had presents made him from three of the gods : Mercury
gave him wings for his heels ; Pluto, a helmet ; and Pallas, a shield
and a mirror. But though he was now so well equipped, he posted
rot directly to Medusa, but first turned aside to the Greae, who were
half-sisters to the Gorgons. These Greae were grey-headed, and like
old women from their birth, having among them all three but one eye,
and one tooth, which, as they had occasion to go out, they each wore
by turns, and laid them down again upon coming back. This eye and
300 PERSEUS, OR WAR.
this tooth they lent to Perseus, who now judging himself sufficiently
furnished, he, without farther stop, flies swiftly away to Medusa, and
finds her asleep. But not venturing his eyes, for fear she should wake,
he turned his head aside, and viewed her in Pallas's mirror ; and thus
directing his stroke, cut off her head ; when immediately from the
gushing blood, there darted Pegasus winged. Perseus now inserted
Medusa's head into Pallas's shield, which thence retained the faculty
of astonishing and benumbing all who looked on it.
'1 his fable seems invented to show the prudent method of choosing,
undertaking, and conducting a war ; and, accordingly, lays down three
useful precepts about it, as if they were the precepts of Pallas.
The first is, that no prince should be over-solicitous to subdue a
neighbouring nation ; for the method of enlarging an empire is very
different from that of increasing an estate. Regard is justly had to
contiguity, or adjacency, in private lands and possessions ; but in the
extending of empire, the occasion, the facility, and advantage of a war,
are to be regarded instead of vicinity. It is certain that the Romans,
at the time they stretched but little beyond Liguria to the west, had by
their arms subdued the provinces as far as Mount Taurus to the east.
And thus Perseus readily undertook a very long expedition, even from
the east to the extremities of the west.
The second precept is, that the cause of the war be just and honour
able ; for this adds alacrity both to the soldiers, and the people who
find the supplies ; procures aids, alliances, and numerous other con
veniences. Now there is no cause of war more just and laudable,
than the suppressing of tyranny, by which a people are dispirited,
benumbed, or left without life and vigour, as at the sight of Medusa.
1 astly, it is prudently added, that as there were three of the
Gorgons, who represent war, Perseus singled her out for his expedition
that was mortal ; which affords this precept, that such kind of wars
should be chose as may be brought to a conclusion, without pursuing
vast and infinite hopes.
Again, Perseus's setting-out is extremely well adapted to his under
taking, and in a manner commands success. He received despatch
from Mercury, secrecy from Pluto, and foresight from Pallas. It also
contains an excellent allegory, that the wings given him by Mercury
were for his heels, not for his shoulders ; because expedition is not so
much required in the first preparations for war, as in the subsequent
matters, that administer to the first ; for there is no error more fre
quent in war, than, after brisk preparations, to halt for subsidiary
iorces and effective supplies.
The allegory of Pluto's helmet, rendering men invisible and secret,
is sufficiently evident of itself; but the mystery of the shield and the
mirror lk?s deeper, and denotes, that not only a prudent caution must
be had to defend, like the shield, but also such an address and pene
tration as may discover the strength, the motions, the counsels, and
designs of the enemy ; like the mirror of Pallas.
P>ut though Perseus may now seem extremely well prepared, there
still remains the most important thing of all ; before he enters upon
the war, he must of necessity consult the Grea?. These Grea2 are
treasons : half, -but degenerate sisters of the Gorgons who are
&NDYMION, OR A FAVOURITE. 301
Sentatives of war : for wars are generous and noble ; but treasons base
and vile. The Greae are elegantly described as hoary-headed, and
like old women from their birth ; on account of the perpetual cares,
fears, and trepidations attending traitors. Their force, also, before it
breaks out into open revolt, consists either in an eye or a tooth ; for
all faction, alienated from a state, is both watchful and biting ; and
this eye and tooth are, as it were, common to all the disaffected ;
because whatever they learn and know is transmitted from one to
another as by the hands of faction. And for the tooth, they all bite
with the same ; and clamour with one throat ; so that each of them
singly expresses the multitude.
These Greas, therefore, must be prevailed upon by Perseus to lend
him their eye and their tooth ; the eye to give him indications, and
make discoveries ; the tooth for sowing rumours, raising envy, and
stirring up the minds of the people. And when all these things are
thus disposed and prepared, then follows the action of the war.
He finds Medusa asleep ; for whoever undertakes a war with
prudence, generally falls upon the enemy unprepared, and nearly in a
state of security ; and here is the occasion for Pallas's mirror : for it is
common enough, before the danger presents itself, to see exactly into
the state and posture of the enemy ; but the principal use of the glass
is, in the very instant of danger, to discover the manner thereof, and
prevent consternation ; which is the thing intended by Perseus's
turning his head aside, and viewing the enemy in the glass.
Two effects here follow the conquest: I. The darting forth of
Pegasus ; which evidently denotes fame, that flies abroad, proclaiming
the victory far and near. 2. The bearing of Medusa's head in the
shield, which is the -greatest possible defence and safeguard ; for one
grand ard memorable enterprise, happily accomplished, bridles all the
motions and attempts of the enemy, stupifies disaffection, and quells
commotions.
ENDYMION, OR A FAVOURITE.
EXPLAINED OF COURT FAVOURITES.
THE goddess Luna is said to have fallen in love with the shepherd
Endymion, and to have carried on her amours with him in a new and
singular manner ; it being her custom, whilst he lay reposing in his
native cave, under Mount Latmus, to descend frequently from her
sphere, enjoy his company whilst he slept, and then go up to heaven
a0rain. Anu all this while, Enclymion's fortune was no way prejudiced
by his unactive and sleepy life, the goddess causing his flocks to thrive,
and grow so exceeding numerous, that none of the other shepherds
could compare with him.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems to describe the tempers and dis
positions of princes, who, being thoughtful and suspicious, do not
easily admit to their privacies such men as are prying, curious, and
vigilant, or, as it were, sleepless ; but rather such as are of an easy,
obliging nature, and indulge them in their pleasures, without seeking
•nythmg farther ; but sesming ignorant, insensible, or, as it were
303 ACTEON AND PENTHEUS, OR A CURIOUS MAN.
lulled asleep before them. Princes usually treat such persons faml*
liarly ; and, quitting their throne like Luna., think they may with
safety unbosom to them. This temper was very remarkable in Ti
berius, a prince exceeding difficult to please, and who had no
'favourites but those that perfectly understood his way, and, at the
same time, obstinately dissembled their knowledge, almost to a degree
of stupidity.
The cave is not improperly mentioned in the fable ; it being a
common thing for the favourites of a prince to have their pleasant
retreats, whither to invite him, by way of relaxation, though without
prejudice to their o\vn fortunes ; these favourites usually making a
good provision for themselves.
For though their prince should not, perhaps, promote them to
dignities, yet, out of real affection, and not only for convenience, they
generally feel the enriching influence of his bounty.
THE SISTER OF THE GIANTS, OR FAME.
EXPLAINED OF PUBLIC DETRACTION.
THE poets relate, that the giants, produced from the earth, made
war upon Jupiter, and the other gods, but were repulsed and conquered
by thunder ; whereat the earth, provoked, brought forth Fame, the
youngest sister of the giants, in revenge for the death of her sons.
EXPLANATION. — The meaning of the fable seems to be this : the
earth denotes the nature of the vulgar, who are always swelling, and
rising against their rulers, and endeavouring at changes This dis
position, getting a fit opportunity, breeds rebels and traitors, who,
with impetuous rage, threaten and contrive the overthrow ana
destruction of princes.
And when brought under and subdued, the same vile and restless
nature of the people, impatient of peace, produces rumours, detractions,
slanders, libels, &c., to blacken those in authority ; so that rebellious
actions and seditious rumours, differ not in origin and stock, but only
as it were in sex ; treasons and rebellions being the brothers, and
scandal or detraction the sister.
ACTEON AND PENTHEUS, OR A CURIOUS MAN.
EXPLAINED OF CURIOSITY, OR PRYING INTO THE SECRETS OF
PRINCES AND DIVINE MYSTERIES.
THE ancients afford us two examples for suppressing the imperti
nent curiosity of mankind, in diving into secrets, and imprudently
longing and endeavouring to discover them. The one of these is in
the person of Acteon, and the other in that of Pentheus. Acteon,
undesignedly chancing to see Diana naked, was turned into a stag, and
torn to pieces by his own hounds. And Pentheus, desiring to pry into
the hidden mysteries of Bacchus's sacrifice, and climbing a tree for
ORPHEUS, OR PHILOSOPHY. 303
that purpose, was struck with a frensy. This frensy of Pentheus
caused him to see things double, particularly the sun, and his own city
Thebes, so that running homewards, and immediately espying another
Thebes, he runs towards that; and thus continues incessantly tending
first to the one, and then to the other, without coming at either.
EXPLANATION.— The first of these fables may relate to the secrets
of princes, and the second to divine mysteries. For they who are not
intimate with a prince, yet against his will have a knowledge of his
secrets, inevitably incur his displeasure ; and therefore, being aware that
they are singled out, and all opportunities watched against them, they
lead the life of a stag, full of fears and suspicions. It likewise fre
quently happens that their servants and domestics accuse them, and
plot their overthrow, in order to procure favour with the prince ; for
whenever the king manifests his displeasure, the person it falls upon
must expect his servants to betray him, aud worry him down, as
Acteon was worried by his own dogs.
The punishment of Pentheus is of another kind ; for they who,
unmindful of their mortal state, rashly aspire to divine mysteries, by
climbing the heights of nature and philosophy, here represented by
climbing a tree, — their fate is perpetual inconstancy, perplexity, and
instability of judgment. For as there is one light of nature, and
another light that is divine, they see, as it were, two suns. And as the
actions of Itfe, and the determinations of the will, depend upon the
understanding, they are distracted as much in opinion as in will ; and
therefore judge very inconsistently, or contradictorily ; and see, as it
were, Thebes double ; for Thebes being the refuge and habitation of
Pentheus, here denotes the ends of actions : whence they know not
what course to take, but remaining undetermined and unresolved in
their views and designs, they are merely driven about by every sudden
gust and impulse of the mind.
ORPHEUS, OR PHILOSOPHY.
EXPLAINED OF NATURAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
INTRODUCTION. — The fable of Orpheus, though trite and common,
has never been well interpreted, and seems to hold out a picture of
universal philosophy ; for to this sense may be easily transferred what
is said of his being a wonderful and perfectly divine person, skilled in
all kinds of harmony, subduing and drawing all things after him by
sweet and gentle methods and modulations. For the labours of
Orpheus exceed the labours of Hercules, both in power and dignity, as
the works of knowledge exceed the works of strength.
FABLE. — Orpheus having his beloved wife snatched from him by
sudden death, resolved upon descending to the infernal regions, to try
if, by the power of his harp, he could reobtain her. And, in effect, he
so appeased and soothed the infernal powers by the melody and sweet
ness of his harp and voice, that they indulged him the liberty of taking
her back, on condition that she should follow him behind, and he nol
304 O&Pt/EVS, OR PHILOSOPHY.
turn to look upon her till they came into open day ; but he, through
the impatience of his care and affection, and thinking himself almost
past danger, at length looked behind him, whereby the condition was
violated, and she again precipitated to Pluto's regions. From this
time Orpheus grew pensive and sad, a hater of the sex, and went into
.solitude, where, by the same sweetness of his harp and voice, he first
drew the wild beasts of all sorts about him ; so that, forgetting their
natures, they were neither actuated by revenge, cruelty, lust, hunger,
or the desire of prey, but stood gazing about him, in a tame and gentle
manner, listening attentively to his music. Nay, so great was the
power and efficacy of his harmony, that it even caused the trees and
stones to remove, and place themselves in a regular manner about
him. When he had for a time, and with great admiration, continued
to do this, at length the Thracian women, raised by the instigation of
Bacchus, first blew a deep and hoarse-sounding horn, in such an
outrageous manner, that it quite drowned the music of Orpheus. And
thus the power which, as the link of their society, held all things in
order, being dissolved, disturbance reigned anew ; each creature
returned to its own nature, and pursued and preyed upon its fellow, as
before. The rocks and woods also started back to their former places ;
and even Orpheus himself vvas at last torn to pieces by these female
furies, and his limbs scattered all over the desert. Butr in sorrow and
revenge for his death, the river Helicon, sacred to the Muses, hid its
waters underground, and rose again in other places.
EXPLANATION. — The fable receives this explanation. The music of
Orpheus is of two kinds ; one that appeases the infernal powers, and
the other that draws together the wild beasts and trees. The former
properly relates to natural, and the latter to moral philosophy, or civil
society. The reinstatement and restoration of corruptible things is
the noblest work of natural philosophy ; and, in a less degree, the pre
servation of bodies in their own state, or a prevention of their dissolu
tion and corruption. And if this be possible, it can certainly be
effected no other way than by proper and exquisite attemperations of
nature ; as it were by the harmony and fine touching of the harp. But
as this is a thing of exceeding great difficulty, the end is seldom obtained ;
and that, probably, for no reason more than a curious and unseasonable
impatience and solicitude.
And, therefore, philosophy, being almost unequal to the task, has
cause to grow sad, and hence betakes itself to human affairs, insinuat
ing into men's minds the love of virtue, equity, and peace, by means
of eloquence and persuasion ; thus forming men into societies ; bring
ing them under laws and regulations ; and making them forget their
unbridled passions and affections, so long as they hearken to precepts
and submit to discipline. And thus they soon after build themselves
habitations, form cities, cultivate lands, plant orchards, gardens, &c.
So that they may not improperly be said to remove and call the trees
and stones together.
And this regard to civil affairs is justly and regularly placed after
diligent trial made for restoring the mortal body ; the attempt being
frustrated in the end — because the unavoidable necessity of death, thu»
MEMNON, OK A YOUTH TOO FORWARD. 305
evidently laid before mankind, animates them to seek a kind of eternity
by works of perpetuity, character, and fame.
It is also prudently added, that Orpheus was afterwards averse to
women and wedlock, because the indulgence of a married state, and
the natural affections which men have for their children, often prevent
them from entering upon any grand, noble, or meritorious enterprise
for the public good ; as thinking it sufficient to obtain immortality by
their descendants, without endeavouring at great actions.
And even the works of knowledge, though the most excellent among
human things, have their periods ; for after kingdoms and common
wealths have flourished for a time, disturbances, seditions, and wars,
often arise, in the din whereof, first the laws are silent, and not heard ;
and then men return to their own depraved natures — whence cultivated
lands and cities soon become desolate and waste. And if this dis
order continues, learning and philosophy is infallibly torn to pieces ;
so that only some scattered fragments thereof can afterwards be found
up and down, in a few places, like planks after shipwreck. And bar
barous times succeeding, the river Helicon dips under-ground ; that
is, letters are buried, till things having undergone their due course of
changes, learning rises again, and shows its head, though seldom in
the same place, but in some other nation.
MEMNON, OR A YOUTH TOO FORWARD.
EXPLAINED OF THE FATAL PRECIPITANCY OF YOUTH.
THE poets make Memnon the son of Aurora, and bring him to
the Trojan war in beautiful armour, and flushed with popular praise ;
where, thirsting after farther glory, and rashly hurrying on to the
greatest enterprises, he engages the bravest warrior of all the Greeks,
Achilles, and falls by his hand in single combat. Jupiter, in com
miseration of his death, sent birds to grace his funeral, that perpetually
chanted certain mournful and bewailing dirges. It is also reported,
that the rays of the rising sun, striking his statue, used to give a
lamenting sound.
EXPLANATION. — This fable regards the unfortunate end of those
promising youths, who, like sons of the morning, elate with empty
hopes and glittering outsides, attempt things beyond their strength ;
challenge the bravest heroes ; provoke them to the. combat ; and
proving unequal, die in their high attempts.
The death of such youths seldom fails to meet with infinite pity ; as
no mortal calamity is more moving and afflicting, than to see the
flower of virtue cropped before its time. Nay, the prime of life enjoyed
to the full, or even to a degree of envy, does not assuage or moderate
the grief occasioned by the untimely death of such hopeful youths ;
but lamentations and bewailings fly, like mournful birds, about their
tombs, for a long while after ; especially upon all fresh occasions, new
commotions, and the beginning of great actions, the passionate desire
of them is renewed, as by the sun's morning rays.
3o6 D10MED, OR ZEAL.
TITHONUS, OR SATIETY.
EXPLAINED OF PREDOMINANT PASSIONS.
IT is elegantly fabled of Tithonus, that being exceedingly beloved
by Aurora, she petitioned Jupiter that he might prove immortal,
thereby to secure herself the everlasting enjoyment of his company ;
but through female inadvertence she forgot to add, that he might
never grow old ; so that, though he proved immortal, he became
miserably worn and consumed with age, insomuch that Jupiter, out of
pity, at length transformed him to a grasshopper.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems to contain an ingenious descrip
tion of pleasure : which at first, as it \vcrc in the morning of the day.
is so welcome, that men pray to have it everlasting, but forget that
satiety and weariness of it will, like old age, overtake them, though
they think not of it; so that at length, when their appetite for
pleasureable actions is gone, their desires and affections often continue ;
whence we commonly find that aged persons delight themselves with
the discourse and remembrance of the things agreeable to them in
their better days. This is very remarkable in men of a loose, and men
of a military life ; the former whereof are always talking over their
amours, and the latter the exploits of their youth ; like grasshoppers,
that show their vigour only by their chirping.
JUNO'S SUITOR, OR BASENESS.
EXPLAINED OF SUBMISSION AND ABJECTION.
THE poets tell us, that Jupiter, to carry on his love-intrigues,
assumed many different shapes ; as of a bull, an eagle, a swan, a
golden shower, &c. ; but when he attempted Juno, he turned himself
into the most ignoble and ridiculous creature,— even that of a wretched,
wet, weather-beaten, affrighted, trembling, and half-starved cuckoo.
EXPLANATION.— This is a wise fable, and drawn from the very
entrails of morality. The moral is, that men should not be conceited
of themselves, and" imagine that a discovery of their excellences will
always render them acceptable ; for this can only succeed according
to the nature and manners of the person they court, or solicit ; who, if
he be a man not of the same gifts and endowments, but altogether of
a haughty and contemptuous behaviour, here represented by the per
son of Juno, they must entirely drop the character that carries the
least show of worth, or gracefulness : if they proceed upon any other
footing, it is downright folly ; nor is it sufficient to act the deformity
of obsequiousness, unless they really change themselves, and become
abject and contemptible in their persons.
DIOMED, OR ZEAL.
EXPLAINED OF PERSECUTION, OR ZEAL FOR RELIGION.
DIOMED acquired great glory and honour at the Trojan war, and
was highly favoured by Pallas, who encouraged and excited him by
DIOMED, OR ZEAL. yf\
no means to spare Venus, if he should casually meet her in fight.
He followed the advice with too much eagerness and intrepidity,
and accordingly wounded that goddess in her hand. This pre
sumptuous action remained unpunished for a time, and when the
war was ended he returned with great glory and renown to his own
country, where, rinding himself embroiled with domestic affairs, he
retired into Italy. Here also at first he was well received and nobly
entertained by King Daunus, who, besides other gifts and honours,
erected statues for him over all his dominions. But upon the first
calamity that afflicted the people after the stranger's arrival, Daunus
immediately reflected that he entertained a devoted person in his
palace, an enemy to the gods, and one who had sacrilegiously wounded
a goddess with his sword, whom it was impious but to touch. To
expiate, therefore, his country's guilt, he, without regard to the laws
of hospitality, which were less regarded by him than the laws of
religion, directly slew his guest, and commanded his statues and all
his honours to be razed and abolished. Nor was it safe for others to
commiserate or bewail so cruel a destiny ; but even his companions
in arms, whilst they lamented the death of their leader, and filled all
places with their complaints, were turned into a kind of swans, which
are said, at the approach of their own death, to chant sweet melancholy
dirges.
EXPLANATION. — This fable intimates an extraordinary and almost
singular thing, for no hero besides Diomed is recorded to have
wounded any of the gods. Doubtless we have here described the
nature and fate of a man who professedly makes any divine worship
or sect of religion, though in itself vain and light, the only scope of his
actions, and resolves to propagate it by fire and sword. For although
the bloody dissensions and differences about religion were unknown to
the ancients, yet so copious and diffusive was their knowledge, that
what they knew not by experience they comprehended in thought and
representation. Those, therefore, who endeavour to reform or estab
lish any sect of religion, though vain, corrupt, and infamous (which is
here denoted under the person of Venus), not by the force of reason,
learning, sanctity of manners, the weight of arguments, and examples,
but would spread or extirpate it by persecution, pains, penalties,
tortures, fire and sword, may perhaps be instigated hereto by
Pallas, that is, by a certain rigid, prudential consideration, and
a severity of judgment, by the vigour and efficacy whereof they see
thoroughly into the fallacies and fictions of the delusions of this
kind ; and through aversion to depravity and a well-meant zeal, these
men usually for a time acquire great fame and glory, and are by the
vulgar, to whom no moderate measures can be acceptable, extolled
and almost adored, as the only patrons and protectors of truth and
religion, men of any other disposition seeming, in comparison with
these, to be lukewarm, mean-spirited, and cowardly. This fame and
felicity, however, seldom endures to the end ; but all violence, unless
it escapes the reverses and changes of things by untimely death, is
commonly unprosperous in the issue ; and if a change of affairs
.happens, and that sect of religion which was persecuted and oppressed
X 2
3o8 DAEDALUS, OR MECHANICAL SKILL.
gains strength and rises again, then the zeal and warm endeavours of
this sort of men are condemned, their very name becomes odious, and
all their honours terminate in disgrace.
As to the point that Diomed should be slain by his hospitable enter
tainer, this denotes that religious dissensions may cause treachery,
bloody animosities, and deceit, even between the nearest friends.
That complaining or bewailing should not, in so enormous a case,
be permitted to friends affected by the catastrophe without punishment,
includes this prudent admonition, that almost in all kinds of wickedness
and depravity men have still room left for commiseration, so that they
who hate the crime may yet pity the person and bewail his calamity,
from a principle of humanity and good nature ; and to forbid the
overflowings and intercourses of pity upon such occasions were the
extremest of evils ; yet in the cause of religion and impiety the very
commiserations of men are noted and suspected. On the other hand,
the lamentations and complainings of the followers and attendants of
Diomed, that is, of men of the same sect or persuasion, are usually
very sweet, agreeable, and moving, like the dying notes of swans, or
the birds of Diomed. This also is a noble and remarkable part of the
allegory, denoting that the last words of those who suffer for the sake
of religion strongly affect and sway men's minds, and leave a lasting
impression upon the sense and memory.
DAEDALUS, OR MECHANICAL SKILL.
EXPLAINED OF ARTS AND ARTISTS IN KINGDOMS AND STATES.
THE ancients have left us a description of mechanical skill, industry,
and curious arts converted to ill uses, in the person of Daedalus, a
most ingenious but execrable artist. This Daedalus was banished for
the murder of his brother artist and rival, yet found a kind reception
in his banishment from the kings and states where he came. He
raised many incomparable edifices to the honour of the gods, and
invented many new contrivances for the beautifying and ennobling of
cities and public places, but still he was most famous for wicked
inventions. Among the rest, by his abominable industry and destruc
tive genius, he assisted in the fatal and infamous production of the
monster Minotaur, that devourer of promising youths. And then, to
cover one mischief with another, and provide for the security of this
monster, he invented and built a labyrinth ; a work infamous for its
end and design, but admirable and prodigious for art and workman
ship. After this, that he might not only be celebrated for wicked
inventions, but be sought after, as well for prevention, as for instru
ments of mischief, he formed that ingenious device of his clue, which
led directly through all the windings of the labyrinth. This Daedalus
was persecuted by Minos with the utmost severity, diligence, and
inquiry ; but he always found refuge and means of escaping. Lastly,
endeavouring to teach his son Icarus the art of flying, the novice,
trusting too much to his wings, fell from his towering flight, and wa^
drowned in the sea,
D&DALUS. OK MECHANICAL SfClLf.. 3°9
EXPI ANATION. — The sense of the fable runs thus. It first denotes
envy, which is continually upon the watch, and strangely prevails
among excellent artificers ; for no kind of people are observed to be
more implacably and destructively envious to one another than these.
In the next place, it observes an impolitic and improvident kind of
punishment inflicted upon Daedalus, — that of banishment ; for good
workmen are gladly received everywhere, so that banishment to an
excellent artificer is scarce any punishment at all ; whereas other
conditions of life cannot easily flourish from home. For the admiration
of artists is propagated and increased among foreigners and strangers ;
it being a principle in the minds of men to slight and despise the
mechanical operators of their own nation.
The succeeding part of the fable is plain, concerning the use of
mechanic arts, whereto human life stands greatly indebted, as re
ceiving from this treasury numerous particulars for the service of
religion, the ornament of civil society, and the whole provision and
apparatus of life ; but then the same magazine supplies instruments
of lust, cruelty, and death. For, not to mention the arts of luxury
and debauchery, we plainly see how far the business of exquisite
poisons, guns, engines of war, and such kind of destructive inventions,
exceeds the cruelty and barbarity of the Minotaur himself.
The addition of the labyrinth contains a beautiful allegory, repre
senting the nature of mechanic arts in general ; for all ingenious and
accurate mechanical inventions may be conceived as a labyrinth,
which, by reason of their subtilty, intricacy, crossing, and interfering
with one another, and the apparent resemblances they have among
themselves, scarce any power of the judgment can unravel and dis
tinguish ; so that they are only to be understood and traced by the
clue of experience.
It is no less prudently added, that he who invented the windings of
the labyrinth, should also show the use and management of the clue ;
for mechanical arts have an ambiguous or double use, and serve as
well to produce as to prevent mischief and destruction ; so that their
virtue almost destroys or unwinds itself.
Unlawful arts, and indeed frequently arts themselves, are persecuted
by Minos, that is, by laws, which prohibit and forbid their use among
the people ; but notwithstanding this, they are hid, concealed, retained,
and everywhere find reception and skulking-places : a thing well
observed by Tacitus of the astrologers and fortune-tellers of his time.
" These," says he, " are a kind of men that will always be prohibited,
and yet will always be retained in our city.*
But lastly, all unlawful and vain arts, of what kind soever, lose theit
reputation in tract of time ; grow contemptible and perish, through
their over-confidence, like Icarus ; being commonly unable to perform
what they boasted. And to say the truth, such arts are better sup
pressed by their own vain pretension*, than checked or restrained by
the bridle of laws.
3io DEUCALION, OR RESTITUTION.
ERICTHONIUS, OR IMPOSTURE.
EXPLAINED OF THE IMPROPER USE OF FORCE IN NATURAL
PHILOSOPHY.
THE poets feign that Vulcan attempted the chastity of Minerva,
and impatient of refusal, had recourse to force ; the consequence of
which was the birth of Ericthonius, whose body from the middle
upwards was comely and well-proportioned, but his thighs and legs
small, shrunk, and deformed, like an eel. Conscious of this defect,
he became the inventor of chariots, so as to show the graceful, but
conceal the deformed part of his body.
EXPLANATION. — This strange fable seems to carry this meaning.
Art is here represented under the person of Vulcan, by reason of the
various uses it makes of fire ; and nature under the person of Minerva,
by reason of the industry employed in her works. Art, therefore,
whenever it offers violence to nature, in order to conquer, subdue, and
bend her to its purpose, by tortures and force of all kinds, seldom
obtains the end proposed : yet upon great struggle and application,
there proceed certain imperfect births, or lame abortive works, specious
in appearance, but weak and unstable in use ; which are, nevertheless,
with great pomp and deceitful appearances, triumphantly carried
about, and shown by impostors. A procedure very familiar, and re
markable in chemical productions, and new mechanical inventions ;
especially when the inventors rather hug their errors than improve
upon them, and go on struggling with nature, not courting her.
DEUCALION, OR RESTITUTION.
EXPLAINED OF A USEFUL HINT IN NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.
THE poets tell us, that the inhabitants of the old world being
totally destroyed by the universal deluge, excepting Deucalion and
Pyrrha, these two, desiring with zealous and fervent devotion to
restore mankind, received this oracle for answer, that " they should
succeed by throwing their mother's bones behind them." This at first
cast them into great sorrow and despair, because, as all things were
levelled by the deluge, it was in vain to seek their mother's tomb ; but
at length they understood the expression of the oracle to signify the
stones of the earth, which is esteemed the mother of all things.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems to reveal a secret of nature, and
correct an error familiar to the mind ; for men's ignorance leads them
to expect the renovation or restoration of things from their corruption
and remains, as the phoenix is said to be restored out of its ashes ;
which is a very improper procedure, because such kind of materials
have finished their course, and are become absolutely unfit to supply
the first rudiments of the same things again ; whence, in cases of
renovation, recourse should be had to more common principles.
NEMESIS, OR THE VICISSITUDE OF THINGS. 311
NEMESIS, OR THE VICISSITUDE OF THINGS.
EXPLAINED OF THE REVERSES OF FORTUNE.
NEMESIS is represented as a goddess venerated by all, but feared
by the powerful and the fortunate. She is said to be the daughter of
Nox and Oceanus. She is drawn with wings, and a crown ; a javelin
of ash in her right hand ; a glass containing Ethiopians in her left ;
and riding upon a stag.
EXPLANATION. — The fable receives this explanation. The word
Nemesis manifestly signifies revenge, or retribution ; for the office of
this goddess consisted in interposing, like the Roman tribunes, with
an " I forbid it " in all courses of constant and perpetual felicity, so as
not only to chastise haughtiness, but also to repay even innocent and
moderate happiness with adversity ; as if it were decreed, that none
of human race should be admitted to the banquet of the gods, but for
sport. And, indeed, to read over that chapter of Pliny wherein he has
collected the miseries and misfortunes of Augustus Caesar, whom of
all mankind one would judge most fortunate, — as he had a certain art
of using and enjoying prosperity, with a mind no way tumid, light,
effeminate, confused, or melancholic, — one cannot but think this a
very great and powerful goddess, who could bring such a victim to her
altar.
The parents of this goddess were Oceanus and Nox; that is, the
fluctuating change of things, and the obscure and secret divine
decrees. The changes of things are aptly represented by the Ocean,
on account of its perpetual ebbing and flowing ; and secret provi
dence is justly expressed by Night. Even the heathens have observed
this secret Nemesis of the night, or the difference betwixt divine and
human judgment.
Wings are given to Nemesis, because of the sudden and unforeseen
changes of things ; for, from the earliest account of time, it has been
common for great and prudent men to fall by the dangers they most
despised. Thus Cicero, when admonished by Brutus of the infidelity
and rancour of Octavius, coolly wrote back, " I cannot, however, but
be obliged to you, Brutus, as I ought, for informing me, though of such
a trifle."
Nemesis also has her crown, by reason of the invidious and malignant
nature of the vulgar, who generally rejoice, triumph, and crown her,
at the fall of the fortunate and the powerful. And for the javelin in
her right hand, it has regard to those whom she has actually struck
and transfixed. But whoever escapes her stroke, or feels not actual
calamity or misfortune, she affrights with a black and dismal sight in
her left hand ; for doubtless, mortals on the highest pinnacle of felicity
have a prospect of death, diseases, calamities, perfidious friends,
undermining enemies, reverses of fortune, &c., represented by the
Ethiopians in her glass. Thus Virgil, with great elegance, describing
the battle of Actium, says of Cleopatra, that, " she did not yet perceive
the two asps behind her;"1 but soon after, which way soever she
turned, she saw whole troops of Ethiopians still before her.
1 M Regina in mediis patrio vocat agmina sistro ;
Necdum etiam geminos a tergo respicit angues." — JEn. viii. 696.
DIONYSUS, Ok BACCHUS.
Lastly, it is significantly added, that Nemesis rides upon a stag,
which is a very long-lived creature ; for though perhaps some, by an
untimely death in youth, may prevent or escape this goddess, yet they
who enjoy a long flow of happiness and power, doubtless 'become
subject to her at length, and are brought to yield.
ACHELOUS, OR BATTLE.
EXPLAINED OF WAR BY INVASION.
THE ancients relate, that Hercules and Achelous being rivals in
the courtship of Deianira, the matter was contested by single combat ;
when Achelous having transformed himself, as he had power to do,
into various shapes, by way of trial ; at length, in the form of a fierce
wild bull, prepares himself for the fight ; but Hercules still retains
his human shape, engages sharply with him, and in the issue broke off
one of the bull's horns ; and now Achelous, in great pain and Iright,
to redeem his horn, presents Hercules with the cornucopia.
EXPLANATION. — This fable relates to military expeditions and pre
parations ; for the preparation of war on the defensive side, here
denoted by Achelous, appears in various shapes, whilst the invading
side has but one simple form, consisting either in an army, or perhaps
a fleet. But the country that expects the invasion is employed infinite
ways, in fortifying towns, blockading passes, rivers, and ports, raising
soldiers, disposing garrisons, building and breaking down bridges,
procuring aids, securing provisions, arms, ammunition, &c. So that
there appears a new face of things every day ; and at length, when
the country is sufficiently fortified and prepared, it represents to the
life the form and threats of a fierce fighting bull.
On the other side, the invader presses on to the fight, fearing to be
distressed in an enemy's country. And if after the battle he remains
master of the field, and has now broke, as it were, the horn of his
enemy, the besieged, of course, retire inglorious, affrighted, and dis
mayed, to their stronghold, there endeavouring to secure themselves,
and repair their strength ; leaving, at the same time, their country a
prey to the conqueror, which is well expressed by the Amalthean
horn, or cornucopia.
DIONYSUS, OR BACCHUS.
EXPLAINED OF THE PASSIONS.
THE fable runs, that Semele, Jupiter's mistress, having bound him
by an inviolable oath, to grant her an unknown request, desired he
would embrace her in the same form and manner he used to embrace
J uno ; and the promise being irrevocable she was burnt to death with
'ightning in the performance. The embryo, however, was sewed up,
and carried in Jupiter's thigh till the complete time of its birth ; but
the burthen thus rendering the father lame, and causing him pain, the
, OK BACCHUS. 313
child was thence called Dionysus. When born, he was committed,
for some years, to be nursed by Proserpina ; and when grown up,
appeared with so effeminate a face, that his sex seemed somewhat
doubtful. He also died, and was buried for a time, but afterwards
revived. When a youth, he first introduced the cultivation and
dressing of vines, the method of preparing wine, and taught the use
thereof ; whence, becoming famous, he subdued the world, even to
the utmost bounds of the Indies. He rode in a chariot drawn by
tigers. There danced about him certain deformed demons called
Cobali, &c. The Muses also joined in his train. He married Ariadne,
who was deserted by Theseus. The ivy was sacred to him. He was
also held the inventor and institutor of religious rites and ceremonies,
but such as were wild, frantic, and full of corruption and cruelty. He
had also the power of striking men with frenzies. Pentheus and
Orpheus were torn to pieces by the .frantic women at his orgies ; the
first for climbing a tree to behold their outrageous ceremonies, and
the other for the music of his harp. But the acts of this god are much
entangled and confounded with those of Jupiter.
EXPLANATION.— This fable seems to contain a little system of
morality, so that there is scarce any better invention in all ethics.
Under the history of Bacchus is drawn the nature of unlawful desire
or affection, and disorder ; for the appetite and thirst of apparent good
is the mother of all unlawful desire, though ever so destructive, and all
unlawful desires are conceived in unlawful wishes or requests, rashly
indulged or granted before they are well understood or considered,
and when the affection begins to grow warm, the mother of it (the
nature of good) is destroyed and burnt up by the heat. And whilst
an unlawful desire lies in the embryo, or unripened in the mind, which
is its father, and here represented by Jupiter, it is cherished and con
cealed, especially in the inferior part of the mind, corresponding to
the thigh of the body, where pain twitches and depresses the mind so
far as to render its resolutions and actions imperfect and lame. And
even after this child of the mind is confirmed, and gains strength by
consent and habit, and comes forth into action, it must still be nursed
by Proserpina1 for a time ; that is, it skulks and hides its head in a
clandestine manner, as it were, underground, till at length, when the
checks of shame and fear are removed, and the lequisite boldness
acquired, it either assumes the pretext of some virtue, or openly
despises infamy. And it is justly observed, that every vehement
passion appears of a doubtful sex, as having the strength of a man at
first, but at last the impotence of a woman. It is also excellently
added, that Bacchus died and rose again ; for the affections sometimes
seem to die and be no more ; but there is no trusting them, even
though they were buried, being always apt and ready to rise again
whenever the occasion or object offers.
That Bacchus should be the inventor of wine carries a fine allegory
with it ; for every affection is cunning and subtile in discovering a
proper matter to nourish and feed it ; and of all things known to
1 The Que<sn of HelL
314 DIONYSUS, OR BACCHUS.
mortals, wine is the most powerful and effectual for exciting and
inflaming passions of all kinds, being indeed like a common fuel to all.
It is again with great elegance observed of Bacchus, that he subdued
provinces, and undertook endless expeditions, for the affections never
rest satisfied with what they enjoy, but with an endless and insatiable
appetite thirst after something further. And tigers are prettily feigned
to draw the chariot ; for as soon as any affection shall, from going on
foot, be advanced to ride, it triumphs over reason, and exerts its
cruelty, fierceness, and strength against all that oppose it.
It is also humorously imagined, that ridiculous demons dance and
frisk about this chariot ; for every passion produces indecent, dis
orderly, interchangeable, and deformed motions in the eyes, coun
tenance, and gesture, so that the person under the impulse, whether
of anger, insult, love, &c., though to himself he may seem grand, lofty,
or obliging, yet in the eyes of others appears mean, contemptible, or
ridiculous.
The Muses also are found in the train of Bacchus, for there is
scarce any passion without its art, science, or doctrine to court and
flatter it ; but in this respect the indulgence of men of genius has
greatly detracted from the majesty of the Muses, who ought to be
the leaders and conductors of human life, and not the handmaids
of the passions.
The allegory of Bacchus falling in love with a cast mistress, is
extremely noble ; for it is certain that the affections always court and
covet what has been rejected upon experience. And all those who by
serving and indulging their passions immensely raise the value of
enjoyment, should know, that whatever they covet and pursue, whether
riches, pleasure, glory, learning, or anything else, they only pursue
those things that have been forsaken and cast off with contempt by
great numbers in all ages, after possession and experience.
Nor is it without a mystery that the ivy was sacred to Bacchus, and
this for two reasons : first, because ivy is an evergreen, or flourishes
in the winter ; and secondly, because it winds and creeps about so
many things, as trees, walls, and buildings, and raises itself above
them. As to the first, every passion grows fresh, strong, and vigorous
by opposition and prohibition, as it were by a kind of contrast or
antiperistasis, like the ivy in the winter. And for the second, the
predominant passion of the mind throws itself, like the ivy, round all
human actions, entwines all our resolutions, and perpetually adheres
to, and mixes itself among, or even overtops them.
And no wonder that superstitious rites and ceremonies are attributed
to Bacchus, when almost every ungovernable passion grows wanton
and luxuriant in corrupt religions ; nor again, that fury and frenzy
should be sent and dealt out by him, because every passion is a short
frenzy, and if it be vehement, lasting, and take deep root, it terminates
in madness. And hence the allegory of Pentheus and Orpheus being
torn to pieces is evident ; for every headstrong passion is extremely
bitter, severe, inveterate, and revengeful upon all curious inquiry,
wholesome admonition, free counsel and persuasion.
Lastly, the confusion between the persons of Jupiter and Bacchus
will justly admit of an allegory, because noble and meritorious
ATALANTA AND HIPPOMENES, OR GAIN. 315
actions may sometimes proceed from virtue, sound reason, and mag
nanimity, and sometimes again from a concealed passion and secret
desire of ill, however they may be extolled and praised, insomuch that
it is not easy to distinguish betwixt the acts of Bacchus and the acts
cf J'.ipitcr.
ATALANTA AND HIPPOMENES, OR GAIN.
EXPLAINED OF THE CONTEST BETWIXT ART AND NATURE.
ATALANTA, who was exceeding fleet, contended with Hippomenes
in the course, on condition that if Hippomenes won, he should espouse
her, or forfeit his life if he lost. The match was very unequal, for
Atalanta had conquered numbers, to their destruction. Hippomenes,
therefore, had recourse to stratagem. He procured three golden
apples, and purposely carried them with him : they started ; Atalanta
outstripped him soon ; then Hippomenes bowled one of his apples
before her, across the course, in order not only to make her stoop, but
ts draw her out of the path. She, prompted by female curiosity, and
the beauty of the golden fruit, starts from the course to take up the
apple. Hippomenes, in the mean time, holds on his way, and steps
before her ; but she, by her natural swiftness, soon fetches up her lost
ground, and leaves him again behind. Hippomenes, however, by
rightly timing his second and third throw, at length won the race, not
by his swiftness, but his cunning.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems to contain a noble allegory of
the contest betwixt art and nature. For art, here denoted by Atalanta,
is much swifter, or more expeditious in its operations than nature,
when all obstacles and impediments are removed, and sooner
arrives at its end. This appears almost in every instance. Thus
fruit comes slowly from the kernel, but soon by inoculation or incision;
clay, left to itself, is a long time in acquiring a stony hardness, but is
presently l burnt by fire into brick. So again in human life, nature
is a long while in alleviating and abolishing the remembrance of
pain, and assuaging the troubles of the mind ; but moral philosophy,
which is the art of living, performs it presently. Yet this prerogative
and singular efficacy of art is stopped and retarded to the infinite
detriment of human life, by certain golden apples ; for there is no
one science or art that constantly holds on its true and proper course
to the end, but they are all continually stopping short, forsaking the
track, and turning aside to profit and convenience, exactly like
Atalanta. Whence it is no wonder that art gets not the victory over
nature, nor, according to the condition of the contest, brings her
under subjection ; but, on the contrary, remains subject to her, as a
wife to a husband.
i Soon.
316 ICARUS, OR THE MIDDLE WAY.
ICARUS AND SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS, OR
THE MIDDLE WAY.
EXPLAINED OF MEDIOCRITY IN NATURAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY.
MEDIOCRITY, or the holding a middle course, has been highly ex
tolled in morality, but little in matters of science, though no less useful
and proper here; whilst in politics it is held suspected, and ought to be
employed with judgment. The ancients described mediocrity in man
ners by the course prescribed to Icarus ; and in matters of the under
standing by the steering betwixt Scylla and Charybdis, on account of
the great difficulty and danger in passing those straits.
Icarus, being to fly across the sea, was ordered by his Hither neither
to soar too high nor fly too low, for, as his wings were fastened together
with wax, there was danger of its melting by the sun's h^at in toa high
a flight, and of its becoming less tenacious by the moisture if he kept
too near the vapour of the sea. But he, with a juvenile confidence,
soared aloft, and fell down headlong.
EXPLANATION. — The fable is vulgar, and easily interpreted ; for
the path of virtue lies straight between excess on the one side, and
defect on the other. And no wonder that excess should prove the
bane of Icarus, exulting in juvenile strength and vigour ; for excess is
the natural vice of youth, as defect is that of old age ; and if a man
must perish by either, Icarus chose the better of the two ; for all
defects are justly esteemed more depraved than excesses. There is
some magnanimity in excess, that, like a bird, claims kindred with the
heavens ; but defect is a reptile, that basely crawls upon the earth.
It was excellently said by Heraclitus,1 "A dry light makes the best
soul ;" for if the soul contracts moisture from the earth, it perfectly
degenerates and sinks. On the other hand, moderation must be
observed, to prevent this fine light from burning, by its too great sub-
tilty and dryness. But these observations are common.
In matters of the understanding, it requires great skill and a parti
cular felicity to steer clear of Scylla and Charybdis. If the ship
strikes upon Scylla, it is dashed in pieces against the rocks ; if upon
Charybdis, it is swallowed outright. This allegory is pregnant with
matter ; but we shall only observe the force of it lies here, that a mean
be observed in every doctrine and science, and in the rules and axioms
thereof, between the rocks of distinctions and the whirlpools of uni
versalities; for these two are the bane and shipwreck of fine geniuses
and arts.
SPHINX, OR SCIENCE.
EXPLAINED OF THE SCIENCES.
THEY relate that Sphinx was a monster, variously formed, having
the face and voice of a virgin, the wings of a bird, and the talons of a
1 Heraclitui was called the weeping philosopher, as Democritus was the laughing.
Modern criticism pronounces both these characteristics fabulous, but there must surely have
been some ground for the fable. Heraclitus was born at Ephesus in the 6gth Olympiad. He
was of a haughty and melancholy temper, and expressed himself in such enigmatical ttrma
that he was called the Obscure. — Sect. 50.
SPHINX, OR SCIENCE. 31?
griffin. She resided on the top of a mountain, near the city Thebes,
and also beset the highways. Her manner was to lie in ambush and
seize the travellers, and having them in her power, to propose to them
certain dark and perplexed riddles, which it was thought she received
from the Muses, and if her wretched captives could not solve and
interpret these riddles, she with great cruelty fell upon them, in their
hesitation and confusion, and tore them to pieces. This plague having
reigned a long time, the Thebans at length offered their kingdom to
the man who could interpret her riddles, there being no other way to
subdue her. (Edipus, a penetrating and prudent man, though lame in
his feet, excited by so great a reward, accepted the condition, and with
a good assurance of mind, cheerfully presented himself before the
monster, who directly asked him, " What creature that was, which
being born four-footed, afterwards became two-footed, then three-
footed, and lastly four-footed again?" (Edipus, with presence of mind,
replied it was ma\i, who, upon his first birth and infant state, crawled
upon all fours in endeavouring to walk ; but not long after, went up
right upon his two nitural feet : again, in old age walked three-footed,
with a stick : and at last, growing decrepit, lay four-footed confined to
his bed ; and having by this exact solution obtained the victory, he
slew the monster, and laying the carcase upon an ass, led her away in
triumph ; and upon this he was, according to the agreement, made
king of Thebes.
EXPLANATION. — This is an elegant, instructive fable, and seems
invented to represent science, especially as joined with practice. For
science may, without absurdity, be called a monster, being strangely
gazed at and admired by the ignorant and unskilful. Her figure and
form is various, by reason of the vast variety of subjects that science
considers ; her voice and countenance are represented female, by
reason of her gay appearance and volubility of speech ; wings are
added, because the sciences and their inventions run and fly about in
a moment, for knowledge, like light communicated from one torch to
another, is presently caught and copiously diffused ; sharp and hooked
talons are elegantly attributed to her, because the axioms and argu
ments of science enter the mind, lay hold of it, fix it down, and keep it
from moving or slipping away. This the sacred philosopher observed,
when he said, " The words of the wise are like goads or nails driven
far in."1 Again, all science seems placed on high, as it were on the
tops of mountains that are hard to climb ; for science is justly
imagined a sublime and lofty thing, looking down upon ignorance
from an eminence, and at the same time taking an extensive view on
all sides, as is usual on the tops of mountains. Science is said to
beset the highways, because through all the journey and peregrination
of human life there is matter and occasion offered of contemplation.
Sphinx is said to propose various difficult questions and riddles to
men, which she received from the Muses ; and these questions, so lonsj
as they remain with the Muses, may very well be unaccompanied with
severity, for while there is no other end of contemplation and inquiry
but that of knowledge alone, the understanding is not oppressed, 01
1 Eccles. xij. ;i.
318 PROSERPINE, OR SPIRIT.
driven to straits and difficulties, but expatiates and ranges at large, and
even receives a degree of pleasure from doubt and variety ; but after
the Muses have given over their riddles to Sphinx, that is,' to practice
which urges and impels to action, choice, and determination, then it is
that they become torturing, severe, and trying, and, unless solved and
interpreted, strangely perplex and harass the human mind, rend it
every way, and perfectly tear it to pieces. All the riddles of Sphinx,
therefore, have two conditions annexed, viz., dilaceration to those who
do not solve them, and empire to those that do. For he who under
stands the thing proposed obtains his end, and every artificer rules
over his work.
Sphinx has no more than two kinds of riddles, one relating to the
nature of things, the other to the nature of man ; and correspondent
to these, the prizes of the solution are two kinds of empire,— the
empire over nature, and the empire over man. For the true and
ultimate end of natural philosophy is dominion over natural things,
natural bodies, remedies, machines, and numberless other particulars,
though the schools, contented with what spontaneously offers, and
swollen with their own discourses, neglect, and in a manner despise,
both things and works.
But the riddle proposed to CEdipus, the solution whereof acquired
him the Theban kingdom, regarded the nature of man ; for he who
has thoroughly looked into and examined human nature, may in a
manner command his own fortune, and seems born to acquire dominion
and rule. Accordingly, Virgil properly makes the arts of government
to be the arts of the Romans. It was, therefore, extremely apposite in
Augustus Cassar to use the image of Sphinx in his signet, whether this
happened by accident or by design ; for he of all men was deeply
versed in politics, and through the course of his life very happily-
solved abundance of new riddles with regard to the nature of men ;
and unless he had done this with great dexterity and ready address,
he would frequently have been involved in imminent danger, if not
destruction.
It is with the utmost elegance added in the fable, that when Sphinx
was conquered, her carcase was laid upon an ass ; for there is nothing
so subtile and abstruse, but after being once made plain, intelligible,
and common, it may be received by the slowest capacity.
We must not omit that Sphinx was conquered by a lame man, and
impotent in his feet ; for men usually make too much haste to the
solution of Sphinx's riddles ; whence it happens, that she prevailing,
their minds are rather racked and torn by disputes, than invested with
command by works and effects.
PROSERPINE, OR SPIRIT.
EXPLAINED OF THE SPIRIT INCLUDED IN NATURAL BODIES.
THEY tell us, Pluto having, upon that memorable division of empire
among the gods, received the infernal regions for his share, despaired
of winning any one of the goddesses in marriage by an obsequious
PROSERPINE, OR SPIRIT. 319
courtship, and therefore through necessity resolved upon a rape.
Having watched his opportunity, he suddenly seized upon Proserpine,
a most beautiful virgin, the daughter of Ceres, as she was gathering
narcissus flowers in the meads of Sicily, and hurrying her to his
chariot, carried her with him to the subterraneal regions, where she
was treated with the highest reverence, and styled the Lady of Dis.
But Ceres missing her only daughter, whom she extremely loved, grew
pensive and anxious beyond measure, and taking a lighted torch in
her hand, wandered the world over in quest of her daughter,— but all
to no purpose, till, suspecting she might be carried to the infernal
regions, she, with great lamentation and abundance of tears, impor
tuned Jupiter to restore her : and with much ado prevailed so far as to
recover and bring her away, if she had tasted nothing there. This
proved a hard condition upon the mother, for Proserpine was found to
have eaten three kernels of a pomegranate. Ceres, however, desisted
not, but fell to her entreaties and lamentations afresh, insomuch that
at last it was indulged her that Proserpine should divide the year
betwixt her husband and her mother, and live six months with the one
and as many with the other. After this, Theseus and Perithous, with
uncommon audacity, attempted to force Proserpine away from Pluto's
bed, but happening to grow tired in their journey, and resting them
selves upon a stone in the realms below, they could never rise from it
again, but remain sitting there for ever. Proserpine, therefore, still
continued queen of the lower regions, in honour of whom there was
also added this grand privilege, that though it had never been per
mitted any one to return after having once descended thither, a
particular exception was made, that he who brought a golden bough
as a present to Proserpine, might on that condition descend and
return. This was an only bough, that grew in a large dark grove, not
from a tree of its own, but like the mistletoe, from another, and when
plucked away a fresh one always shot out in its stead.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems to regard natural philosophy,
and searches deep into that rich and fruitful virtue and supply in sub
terraneous bodies, from whence all the things upon the earth's surface
spring, and into which they again relapse and return. By Proserpine
the ancients denoted that ethereal spirit shut up and detained within
the earth, here represented by Pluto, — the spirit being separated from
the superior globe, according to the expression of the poet.1 This
spirit is conceived as ravished, or snatched up by the earth, because it
can no way be detained, when it has time and opportunity to fly off,
but is only wrought together and fixed by sudden intermixture and
comminution, in the same manner as if one should endeavour to mix
air with water, which cannot otherwise be done than by a quick and
rapid agitation, that joins them together in froth whilst the air is thus
caught up by the water. And it is elegantly added, that Proserpine
was ravished whilst she gathered narcissus flowers, which have their
name from numbedness or stupefaction ; for the spirit we speak of is
in the fittest disposition to be embraced by terrestrial matter when it
begins to coagulate, or grow torpid as it were.
1 Ovid : — " Sive recens tellus, seductaque nuper ab alta
Althere, cognati retinebat semina cccli." — Meta1^ i. 80.
3ao PROSERPINE. OR SPIRIT.
If is an honour justly attributed to Proserpine, and not to any other
wife of the gods, that of being the lady or mistress of her husband,
because this spirit performs all its operations in the subterraneal
regions, whilst Pluto, or the earth, remains stupid, or as it were
ignorant of them.
The aether, or the efficacy of the heavenly bodies, denoted by Ceres,
endeavours with infinite diligence to force out this spirit, and restore it
to its pristine state. And by the torch in the hand of Ceres, or the
aether, is doubtless meant the sun, which disperses light over th»e
whole globe of the earth, and if the thing were possible, must have the
greatest share in recovering Proserpine, or reinstating the subterraneal
spirit. Yet Proserpine still continues and dwells below, af*Qr Hie
manner excellently described in the condition betwixt Jupittv and
Ceres. For first, it is certain that there are two ways of detaining the
spirit, in solid and terrestrial matter, — the one by condensation or
obstruction, which is mere violence and imprisonment ; the other by
administering a proper aliment, which is spontaneous and free. For
after the included spirit begins to feed and nourish itself, it is not in a
hurry to fly off, but remains as it were fixed in its own earth. And
this is the moral of Proserpine's tasting the pomegranate : and were it
not for this, she must long ago have been carried up by Ceres, who
with her torch wandered the world over, and so the earth have been
left without its spirit. For though the spirit in metals and minerals
may perhaps be, after a particular manner, wrought in by the solidity
of the mass, yet the spirit of vegetables and animals has open passages
to escape at, unless it be willingly detained, in the way of sipping and
tasting them.
The second article of agreement, that of Proserpine's remaining six
months with her mother and six with her husband, is an elegant
description of the division of the year ; for the spirit diffused through
the earth lives above-ground in the vegetable world during the summer
months, but in the winter returns under-ground again.
The attempt of Theseus and Perithous to bring Proserpine away,
denotes that the more subtile spirits, which descend in many bodies to
the earth, may frequently be unable to drink in, unite with themselves,
and carry off the subterraneous spirit, but on the contrary be coagu
lated by :t, and rise no more, so as to increase the inhabitants and add
to the dominion of Proserpine.
The alchemists will be apt to fall in with our interpretation of the
golden bough, whether we will or no, because they promise golden
mountains, and the restoration of natural bodies from their stone, as
from the gates of Pluto ; but we are well assured that their theory has
no just foundation, and suspect they have no very encouraging or
practical proofs of its soundness. Leaving, therefore, their conceits to
themselves, we shall freely declare our own sentiments upon this last
part of the fable. We are certain, from numerous figures and expres
sions of the ancients, that they judged the conservation, and in some
degree the renovation, of natural bodies to be no desperate or impos-
sib'e thing, but rather abstruse and out of the common road than
wholly impracticable. And this seems to be their opinion in the
present case, as they have placed this bough among an infinite numbet
METIS, OR COUNSEL. 38 1
of shrubs, in a spacious and thick wood. They supposed it. of gold,
because gold is the emblem of duration. They feigned it adventitious,
not native, because such an effect is to be expected from art, and not
from any medicine or any simple or mere natural way of working.
METIS, OR COUNSEL.
EXPLAINED OF PRINCES AND THEIR COUNCIL.
THE ancient poets relate that Jupiter took Metis to wife, whose
name plainly denotes counsel, and that he, perceiving she was preg
nant by him, would by no means wait the time of her delivery, but
directly devoured her ; whence himself also became pregnant, and was
delivered in a wonderful manner ; for he from his head or brain
brought forth Pallas armed.
EXPLANATION. — This fable, which in its literal sense appears
monstrously absurd, seems to contain a state secret, and shows with
what art kings usually carry themselves towards their council, in order
to preserve their own authority and majesty not only inviolate, but so
as to have it magnified and heightened among the people. For kings
commonly link themselves as it were in a nuptial bond to their council,
and deliberate and communicate with them after a prudent and
laudable custom upon matters of the greatest importance, at the same
time justly conceiving this no diminution of their majesty ; but when
the matter once ripens to a decree or order, which is a kind of birth,
the king then suffers the council to go on no further, lest the act
should seem to depend upon their pleasure. Now, therefore, the king
usually assumes to himself whatever was wrought, elaborated, or
formed, as it were, in the womb of the council (unless it be a matter of
an invidious nature, which he is sure to put from him), so that the
decree and the execution shall seem to flow from himself. And as
this decree or execution proceeds with prudence and power, so as to
imply necessity, it is elegantly wrapt up under the figure of Pallas
armed.
Nor are kings content to have this seem the effect of their own
authority, free will, and uncontrollable choice, unless they ako take
the whole honour to themselves, and make the people imagine that all
good and wholesome decrees proceed entirely from their own head,
that is, their own sole prudence and judgment.
THE SIRENS, OR PLEASURES.
EXPLAINED OF MEN'S PASSION FOR PLEASURES.
INTRODUCTION.— The fable of the Sirens is, in a vulgar sense,
justly enough explained of the pernicious incentives to pleasure ; but
the ancient mythology seems to us like a vintage ill-pressed and trod ;
for though something has been drawn from it, yet all the more excel
lent parts remain behind in the grapes that are untouched.
3M THE SIRENS, OR PLEASURES.
FABLE. — The Sirens are said to be the daughters of Achelous1 and
Terpsichore,2 one of the Muses, In their early days they had wings,
but lost them upon being conquered by the Muses, with whom they
rashly contended ; and with the feathers of these wings the Muses
made themselves crowns, so that from this time the Muses wore wings
on their heads, excepting only the mother to the Sirens.
These Sirens resided in certain pleasant islands, and when, from
their watch-tower, they saw any ship approaching, they first detained
the sailors by their music, then, enticing them to shore, destroyed
them.
Their singing was not of one and the same kind, but they adapted
their tunes exactly to the nature of each person, in order to captivate
and secure him. And so destructive had they been, that these islands
of the Sirens appeared, to a very great distance, white with the bones
of their unburied captives.
Two different remedies were invented to protect persons against
them, the one by Ulysses, the other by Orpheus. Ulysses commanded
his associates to stop their ears close with wax ; and he, determining
to make the trial, and yet avoid the danger, ordered himself to be tied
fast to a mast of the ship, giving strict charge not to be unbound, even
though himself should entreat it ; but Orpheus, without any binding at
all, escaped the danger by loudly chanting to his harp the praises of
the gods, whereby he drowned the voices of the Sirens.
EXPLANATION. — This fable is of the moral kind, and appears no
less elegant than easy to interpret. For pleasures proceed from
plenty and affluence, attended with activity or exaltation of the mind.
Anciently their first incentives were quick, and seized upon men as if
they had been winged, but learning and philosophy afterwards pre
vailing, had at least the power to lay the mind under some restraint,
and make it consider the issue of things, and thus deprived pleasures
of their wings.
This conquest redounded greatly to the honour and ornament of the
Muses ; for after it appeared, by the example of a few, that philosophy
could introduce a contempt of pleasures, it immediately seemed to be
a sublime thing that could raise and elevate the soul, fixed in a manner
down to the earth, and thus render men's thoughts, which reside in
the head, winged as it were, or sublime.
Only the mother of the Sirens was not thus plumed on the head,
which doubtless denotes superficial learning,3 invented and used for
delight and levity ; an eminent example whereof we have in Petronius,
who, after receiving sentence of death, still continued his gay frothy
humour, and, as Tacitus observes, used his learning to solace or divert
himself, and instead of such discourses as give firmness and constancy
of mind, read nothing but loose poems and verses. Such learning as
this seems to pluck the crowns again from the Muses' heads, and
restore them to the Sirens.
The Sirens are said to inhabit certain islands, because pleasures
generally seek retirement, and often shun society. And for their
1 A river. 2 The muse of dancing.
3 The dancing muse is well thus distinguished.
THE RIVER STYX. 323
son^s, with the manifold artifice and destructiveness thereof, this is
too obvious and common to need explanation. But that particular of
the bones stretching like white cliffs along the shores, and appearing
afar off, contains a more subtile allegory, and denotes that the exam
ples of others' calamity and misfortunes, though ever so manifest and
apparent, have yet but little force to deter the corrupt nature of man
from pleasures.
The allegory of the iemedies against the Sirens is not difficult, but
very wise and noble : it proposes, in effect, three remedies, as well
against subtile as violent mischiefs, two drawn from philosophy, and
one from religion.
The first means of escaping is to resist the earliest temptation in the
beginning, and diligently avoid and cut off all occasions that may
solicit or sway the mind ; and this is well represented by shutting up
the ears, a kind of remedy to be necessarily used with mean and
vulgar minds, such as the retinue of Ulysses.
But nobler spirits may converse, even in the midst of pleasures, if
the mind be well guarded with constancy and resolution. And thus
some delight to make a severe trial of their own virtue, and thoroughly
acquaint themselves with the folly and madness of pleasures, without
complying or being wholly given up to them ; which is what Solomon
professes of himself when he closes the account of all the numerous
pleasures he gave a loose to, with this expression : " But wisdom still
continued with me."1 Such heroes in virtue may, therefore, remain
unmoved by the greatest incentives to pleasure, and stop themselves
on the very precipice of danger ; if, according to the example of
Ulysses, they turn a deaf ear to pernicious counsel, and the flatteries
of their friends and companions, which have the greatest power to
shake and unsettle the mind.
But the most excellent remedy, in every temptation, is that of
Orpheus, who, by loudly chanting and resounding the praises of the
gods, confounded the voices, and kept himself from hearing the music
of the Sirens ; for divine contemplations exceed the pleasures of sense,
not only in power but also in sweetness.
THE RIVER STYX.
EXPLAINED OF NECESSITY, IN THE OATHS OR SOLEMN LEAGUES
OF PRINCES.
THE only solemn oath, by which the gods irrevocably obliged them
selves, is a well-known thing, and makes a part of many ancient fables.
To this oath they did not invoke any celestial divinity, or divine attri
bute, but only called to witness the river Styx ; which, with many
meanders, surrounds the infernal court of Dis. For this form alone,
and none but this, was held inviolable and obligatory : and the punish-
1 Ecclesiastes ii. 9.
Y 2
3*4 THE RIVER STYX.
ment of falsifying it, was that dreaded one of being excluded, for a
certain number of years, from the table of the gods.
EXPLANATION. — This fable seems invented to show the nature of
the compacts and confederacies of princes : which, though ever so
solemnly and religiously sworn to, prove but little the more binding
for it : so that oaths in this case seem used, rather for decorum, repu
tation, and ceremony, than for fidelity, security, and effectuating. And
though these oaths were strengthened with the bonds of affinity, which
are the links and ties of nature, and again, by mutual services and good
offices, yet we see all this will generally give way to ambition, conve
nience, and the thirst of power: the rather, because it is easy for
princes under various specious pretences, to defend, disguise, and
conceal their ambitious desires and insincerity ; having no judge to
call them to account. There is, however, one true and proper con
firmation of their faith, though no celestial divinity ; but that great
divinity of princes, Necessity ; or, the danger of the state ; and the
securing of advantage.
This necessity is elegantly represented by Styx, the fatal river, that
can never be crossed back. And this deity it was, which Iphicrates
the Athenian invoked in making a league : and because he roundly
and openly avows what most others studiously conceal, it may be
proper to give his own words. Observing that the Lacedaemonians
were inventing and proposing a variety of securities, sanctions, and
bond^ of alliance, he interrupted them thus : " There may indeed, my
friends, be one bond and means of security between us : and that is,
for you to demonstrate you have delivered into our hands, such things
as that if you had the greatest desire to hurt us you could not be able."
Theretore, if the power of offending be taken away, or if by a breach
of compact there be danger of destruction or diminution to the state
or tribute, then it is that covenants will be ratified, and confirmed, as
it were by the Stygian oath, whilst there remains an impending danger
of being prohibited and excluded the banquet of the gods ; by which
expression the ancients denoted the rights and prerogatives, the affluence
and the felicities, of empire and dominion.
NEW ATLANTIS.
A WORK UNFINISHED.
TO THE READER.
This fable my lord devised, to the end that he might exhibit therein a model ci
description of a college, instituted for the interpreting of nature, and the producing
of great and marvellous works for the benefit of man, under the name of Solomon's
House, or the College of the Six Days' Works. And even so far his lordship hath
proceeded as to finish that part. Certainly the model is more vast and high than
can possibly be imitated in all things, notwithstanding most things therein are
within men's power to effect. His lordship thought also in this present fable to
have composed a frame of laws, or of the best state or mould of a commonwealth ;
but foreseeing it would be a long work, his desire of collecting the natural history
diverted him, which he preferred many degrees before it. RAWLEY.
NEW ATLANTIS.
WE sailed from Peru, where we had continued for the space of one
whole year, for China and Japan, by the South Sea, taking with us
victuals for twelve months, and had good winds from the east, though
soft and weak, for five months' space and more ; but then the wind
came about, and settled in the west for many days, so as we could
make little or no way, and were sometimes in purpose to turn back.
But then again there arose strong and great winds from the south,
with a point east, which carried us up, for all that we could do, towards
the north ; by which time our victuals failed us, though we had made
good spare of them. So that, finding ourselves in the midst of the
greatest wilderness of waters in the world, without victuals, we gave
ourselves for lost men, and prepared for death. Yet we did lift up
our hearts and voices to God above, " who showeth his wonders in
the deep," beseeching Him of His mercy, that as in the beginning He
discovered the face of the deep, and brought forth dry land, so He
would now discover land to us, that we might not perish. And it
came to pass that the next day about evening we saw, within a kenning
before us, towards the north, as it were, thicker clouds, which did put
us in some hope of land ; knowing how that part of the South Sea
was utterly unknown, and might have islands or continents that
hitherto were not come to light. Wherefore we bent our course
thither, where we saw the appearance of land all that night ; and in
the dawning of the next day we might plainly discern that it was a
land flat to our sight, and full of boscage, which made it show the
more dark : and after an hour and a half's sailing we entered into a
good haven, being the port of a fair city, not great indeed, but
325 NEW ATLANTIS.
built; and that gave a pleasant view from the sea. And we, thinking
every minute long till we were on land, came close to the shore, and
offered to land ; but straightways we saw divers of the people with
batons in their hands, as it were forbidding us to land, yet without
any cries or fierceness, but only as warning us off by signs that they
made. Whereupon, being not a little disconcerted, we were advising
with ourselves what we should do. During which time there made
forth to us a small boat with about eight persons in it, whereof one of
them had in his hand a tipstaff of a yellow cane, tipped at both ends
with blue, who made aboard our ship without any show of distrust at
all. And when he saw one of our number present himself somewhat
afore the rest, he drew forth a little scroll of parchment, somewhat
yellower than our parchment, and shining like the leaves of writing-
tables, but otherwise soft and flexible, and delivered it to our foremost
man. In which scroll were written, in ancient Hebrew, and in ancient
Greek, and in good Latin of the school, and in Spanish, these words :
" Land ye not, none of you, and provide to be gone from this coast
within sixteen days, except you have further time given you : mean
while, if you want fresh water, or victual, or help for your sick, or that
your ship needeth repair, write down your wants, and you shall have
that which belongeth to merey." This scroll was signed with a stamp
of cherubim's wings, not spread, but hanging downwards, and by them
a cross. This being delivered, the officer returned, and left only a
servant with us to receive our answer. Consulting hereupon amongst
ourselves, we were much perplexed. The denial of landing, and hasty
warning us away, troubled us much. On the other side, to find that
the people had languages, and were so full of humanity, did comfort
us not a little ; and, above all, the sign of the cross to that instrument
was to us a great rejoicing, and, as it were, a certain presage of good.
Our answer was in the Spanish tongue: "That for our ship it was
well, for we had rather met with calms and contrary winds than any
tempests. For our sick, they were many, and in very ill case, so that
if they were not permitted to land, they ran in danger of their lives."
Our other wants we set down in particular, adding : " That we had
some little store of merchandise, which, if it pleased them to deal for,
it might supply our wants without being chargeable unto them." We
offered some reward in pistolets unto the servant, and a piece of
crimson velvet to be presented to the officer ; but the servant took
them not, nor would scarce look upon them ; and so left us, and went
back in another little boat which was sent for him.
About three hours after we had despatched our answer, there came
towards us a person, as it seemed, of place. He had on him a gown,
with wide sleeves of a kind of water-camlet, of an excellent azure
colour, far more glossy than ours ; his under-apparel was green, and
so was his hat, being in the form of a turban, daintily made, and not
so huge as the Turkish turbans ; and the locks of his hair came down
below the brims of it. A reverend man was he to behold. He came
in a boat, gilt in some part of it, with four persons more only in that
boat, and was followed by another boat, wherein were some twenty.
When he was come within a flight-shot of our ship, signs were made
to us that we should send forth some to meet him upon the water :
which we presently did in our ship's boat, sending the orincipal man
NEW ATLANTIS. 327
amongst us, save one, and four of our number with him. When we
were come within six yards of their boat, they called to us to stay,
and not to approach further, which we did. And thereupon the man
whom I before described stood up, and with a loud voice, in Spanish,
asked : " Are ye Christians ? " We answered : " We were ; " fearing
the less because of the cross we had seen in the subscription. At
which answer the said person lifted up his right hand towards heaven,
and drew it softly to his mouth, which is the gesture they use when
they thank God, and then said : " If you will swear, all of you, by the
merits of the Saviour, that ye are no pirates, nor have shed blood,
lawfully or unlawfully, within forty days past, you may have licence
to come on land." We said : "We were all ready to take that oath."
Whereupon one of those that were with him, being, as it seemed, a
notary, made an entry of this act. Which done, another of the
attendants of the great person, who was with him in the same boat,
after his lord had spoken a little to him, said aloud : " My lord would
have you know that it is not of pride or greatness that he cometh
not aboard your ship ; but for that in your answer you declare that
you have many sick amongst you, he was warned by the conservator
of health of the city that he should keep at a distance." We bowed
ourselves towards him, and answered: "We were his humble servants;
and accounted for great honour and singular humanity towards us
that which was already done ; but hoped well that the nature of the
sickness of our men was not infectious." So he returned ; and a while
after came the notary to us aboard our ship, holding in his hand a
fruit of that country, like an orange, but of colour between orange-
tawny and scarlet, which casts a most excellent odour : he used it, as
it seemeth, for a preservative against infection. He gave us our oath,
" By the name of Jesus and his merits ; " and after told us, that the
next day by six o'clock in the morning we should be sent to, and
brought to the Strangers'-House, so he called it, where we should be
accommodated of things both for our whole and for our sick. So he
left us ; and when we offered him some pistolets, he, smiling, said :
" He must not be twice paid for one labour ; " meaning, as I take
it, that he had salary sufficient of the state for his service ; for, as I
after learned, they call an officer that taketh rewards " twice paid."
The next morning early there came to us the same officer that
came to us at first with his cane, and told us : " He came to con
duct us to the Strangers'-House, and that he had prevented the
hour, because we might have the whole day before us for our busi
ness : for," said he, " if you will follow my advice, there shall first
go with me some few of you and see the place, and how it may be
made convenient for you ; and then you may send for your sick, and
the rest of your number, which ye will bring on land." We thanked
him, and said : " That this care which he took of desolate strangers
God would reward." And so six of us went on land with him ; and
when we were on land he went before us, and turned to us, and said :
" He was but our servant and our guide." He led us through three
fair streets, and all the way we went there were gathered some people
on both sides, standing in a row, but in so civil a fashion, as if it had
been not to wonder at us, but to welcome us ; and divers of them, as
we passed by them, put their arms a little abroad, which is their
3Sd NEW ATLAXTlb.
gesture when they bid any welcome. The Strangers'-House is a fair
and spacious house, built of brick, of somewhat a bluer colour than
our brick, and with handsome windows, some of glass, some of a
kind of cambric oiled. He brought us first into a fair parlour
above- stairs, and then asked us : " What number of persons we were,
and how many sick ? " We answered : " We were in all, sick and
whole, one-and-lifty persons, whereof our sick were seventeen." He
desired us to have patience a little, and to stay till he came back to
us, which was about an hour after ; and then he led us to see the
chambers which were provided for us, being in number nineteen.
They having cast it, as it seemeth, that four of those chambers, which
were better than the rest, might receive four of the principal men
of our company, and lodge them alone by themselves ; and the other
fifteen chambers were to lodge us, two and two together. The
chambers were handsome and cheerful chambers, and furnished
civilly. Then he led us to a long gallery, like a dortoir, where he
showed us all along the one side (for the other side was but wall and
window) seventeen cells, very neat ones, having partitions of cedar-
wood. Which gallery and cells, being in all forty, many more than
we needed, were instituted as an infirmary for sick persons. And
he told us withal, that as any of our sick waxed well, he might be
removed from his cell to a chamber ; for which purpose there were
set jorth ten spare chambers, besides the number we spake of before.
This done, he brought us back to the parlour, and lifting up his cane
a little, as they do when they give any charge or command, said to
us : " Ye are to know, that the custom of the land requireth that after
this day and to-morrow, which we give you for removing your people
from your ship, you are to keep within doors for three days. But let
it not trouble you, nor do not think yourselves restrained, but rather
left to your rest and ease. You shall want nothing ; and there are six
of our people appointed to attend you for any business you may have
abroad." We gave him thanks with all affection and respect, and
said : " God surely is manifested in this land." We offered him also
twenty pistolets ; but he smiled, and only said : " What, twice paid?"
and so he left us.
Soon after our dinner was served in, which was right good viands,
both for bread and meat, better than any collegiate diet that I have
known in Europe. We had also drink of three sorts, all wholesome
and good ; wine of the grape, a drink of grain, such as is with us our
ale, but more clear ; and a kind of cider made of a fruit of that
country, a wonderful pleasing and refreshing drink. Besides, there
wfe brought in to us great store of those scarlet oranges for our
sick, which, they said, were an assured remedy for sickness taken at
sea. There was given us also a box of small gray or whitish pills,
which they wished our sick should take, one of the pills every night
before sleep, which, they said, would hasten their recovery.
The next day, after that our trouble of carriage and removing of
our men and goods out of our ship was somewhat settled and quiet, I
thought good to call our company together, and when they were
assembled said unto them : " My clear friends, let us know ourselves,
and how it stahdeth with us. We arc men cast on land, as Jonas
was out of the whale's belly, when we were as buried in the deep,
ATLANTIS. 329
And no\v we are on land, we are but between death and life : for we
arc beyond both the Old World and New ; and whether ever we shall
see Europe God only knoweth : it is a kind of miracle hath brought u:
hither, and it must be little less that shall bring us hence. Therefor* •
in regard of our deliverance past, and our danger present and to com
let us look up to God, and every man reform his own ways. Beside
we are come here amongst a Christian people, full of piety anu
humanity ; let us not bring that confusion of face upon ourselves as
to show our vices or unworthiness before them. Yet there is more ;
for they have by commandment, though in form of courtesy, cloistered
us within these walls for three days : who knoweth whether it be not
to take some taste of our manners and conditions ; and if they find
them bad, to banish us straightways ; if good, to give us further
time ? For these men that they have given us for attendance may
withal have an eye upon us. Therefore for God's love, and as we
love the weal of our souls and bodies, let us so behave ourselves as
we may be at peace with God, and may find grace in the eyes of this
people." Our company with one voice thanked me for my good
admonition, and promised me to live soberly and civilly, and without
giving any the least occasion of offence. So we spent our three days
joyfully, and without care, in expectation what would be done with us
when they were expired ; during which time we had every hour joy
of the amendment of our sick, who thought themselves cast into some
divine pool of healing, they mended so kindly and so fast.
The morrow after our three days were past, there came to us a new
man that we had not seen before, clothed in blue as the former was,
save that his turban was white, with a small red cross on the top ;
he had also a tippet of fine linen. At his coming in he did bend to
us a little, and put his arms abroad. We of our parts saluted him in
a very lowly and submissive manner, as looking that from him we
should receive sentence of life or death. He desired to speak with
some few of us ; whereupon six of us only stayed, and the rest avoided
the room. He said : " I am by office governor of this House of
Strangers, and by vocation I am a Christian priest ; and therefore am
come to you to offer you my service both as strangers, and chiefly as
Christians. Some things 1 may tell you, which I think you will not
be unwilling to hear. The state hath given you licence to stay on land
for the space of six weeks. And let it not trouble you if your occasions
ask further time, for the law in this point is not precise ; and I do
not doubt but myself shall be able to obtain for you such further time
as shall be convenient. Ye shall also understand that the Strangers'-
House is at this time rich and much aforehand, for it hath laid up
revenue these thirty-seven years ; for so long it is since any stranger
arrived in this part. And, therefore, take ye no care, the state will
defray you all the time you stay, neither shall you stay one day less
for that. As for any merchandise you have brought, ye shall be well
used, and have your return either in merchandise, or in gold and
silver ; for to us it is all one. And if you have any other request to
make, hide it not, for ye shall find we will not make your countenance
to fall by the answer ye shall receive. Only this I must tell you, that
none of you must go above a karan [that is with them a mile and a
half] from the walls of the city without special leave." We answered,
333 NEW ATLANTIS.
after we had looked awhile upon one another, admiring this gracious
and parent-like usage: "That we could not tell what to say, for we
wanted words to express our thanks, and his noble free offers left us
nothing to ask. It seemed to us that we had before us a picture of
our salvation in heaven ; for we that were awhile since in the jaws of
death, were now brought into a place where we found nothing but
consolations. For the commandment laid upon us, we would not fail
to obey it, though it was impossible but our hearts should be inflamed
to tread further upon this happy and holy ground." We added : "That
our tongues should first cleave to the roofs of our mouths ere we
should forget either this reverend person, or this whole nation in our
prayers." We also most humbly besought him to accept of us as his
true servants, by as just a right as ever men on earth were bounden,
laying and presenting both our persons and all we had at his feet. He
said : " He was a priest, and looked for a priest's reward, which was
our brotherly love, and the good of our souls and bodies." So he
went from us, not without tears of tenderness in his eyes ; and left us
also confused with joy and kindness, saying amongst ourselves :
"That we were come into a land of angels which did appear to us
daily, and present us with comforts which we thought not of, much
less expected."
The next day, about ten o'clock, the governor came to us again, and
after salutations said familiarly : " That he was come to visit us," and
called for a chair, and sat him down : and being some ten of us (the
rest were of the meaner sort, or else gone abroad), sat down with him.
And when we were seated, he began thus : " We of this island of Ben-
salem [for so they call it in their language] have this, that by means
of our solitary situation, and the laws of secrecy which we have for
our travellers, and our rare admission of strangers, we know well most
part of the habitable world, and are ourselves unknown. Therefore,
because he that knoweth least is fittest to ask questions, it is more
reason, for the entertainment of the time, that ye ask me questions
than that I ask you." We answered : " That we humbly thanked him
that he would give us leave so to do, and that we conceived, by the
taste we had already, that there was no worldly thing on earth more
worthy to be known than the state of that happy land. But above
all," we said, " since that we were met from the several ends of the
world, and hoped assuredly that we should meet one day in the king
dom of heaven, for that we were both parts Christians, we desired to
know, in respect that land was so remote, and so divided by vast and
unknown seas from the land where our Saviour walked on earth, who
was the apostle of that nation, and how it was converted to the faith ?"
It appeared in his face that he took great contentment in this our
question. He said : "Ye knit my heart to you by asking this question
in the first place, for it showeth that you ' first seek the kingdom of
heaven ; ' and I shall gladly and briefly satisfy your demand : —
" About twenty years after the ascension of our Saviour, it came to
pass that there was seen by the people of Renfusa, a city upon the
eastern coast of our island, within night (the night was cloudy and
calm), as it might be some miles in the sea, a great pillar of light, not
sharp, but in form of a column or cylinder, rising from the sea, a great
way up towards heaven, and on the top of it was seen a large cross of
NE W A TLANTIS. 331
light, more bright and resplendent than the body of the pillar : upon
which so strange a spectacle the people of the city gathered apace
together upon the sands to wonder, and so after put themselves into a
number of small boats to go nearer to this marvellous sight. But
when the boats were come within about sixty yards of the pillar, the}
found themselves all bound, and could go no further, yet so as they
might move to go about, but might not approach nearer ; so as the
boats stood all as in a theatre, beholding this light as a heavenly sign.
It so fell out that there was in one of the boats of the wise men of the
Society of Solomon's House (which house or college, my good brethren,
is the very eye of this kingdom), who having a while attentively and
devoutly viewed and contemplated this pillar and cross, fell down
upon his face, and then raised himself upon his knees, and lifting up
his hands to heaven, made his prayers in this manner : —
" ' Lord God of heaven and earth, thou hast vouchsafed of thy grace
to those of our order to know thy works of creation, and true secrets of
them, and to discern (as far as appertaineth to the generations [of
men) between divine miracles, works of nature, works of art, and im
postures and illusions of all sorts ! I do here acknowledge and testify
before this people, that the thing we now see before our eyes is thy
finger and a true miracle. And forasmuch as we learn in our books
that thou never workest miracles but to a divine and excellent end (for
the laws of nature are thine own laws, and thou exceedest them not
but upon good cause), we most humbly beseech thee to prosper
this great sign, and to give us the interpretation and use of it in
mercy, which thou dost in some part secretly promise by sending it
unto us.'
" When he had made his prayer, he presently found the boat he was
in moveable and unbound, whereas all the rest remained still fast ;
and taking that for an assurance of leave to approach, he caused the
boat to be softly and with silence rowed towards the pillar : but ere he
came near it, the pillar and cross of light brake up, and cast itself
abroad, as it were, into a firmament of many stars ; which also
vanished soon after, and there was nothing left to be seen but a small
ark or chest of cedar, dry, and not wet at all with water, though it
swam ; and in the fore-end of it, which was towards him, grew a small
green branch of palm. And when the wise man had taken it with all
reverence into his boat, it opened of itself, and there was found in it a
book and a letter, both written in fine parchment, and wrapped in
sindons of linen. The book contained all the canonical books of the
Old and New Testament, according as you have them (for we know well
what the churches with you receive), and the Apocalypse itself; and
some other books of the New Testament which were not at that time
written, were nevertheless in the book. And for the letter, it was in
these words : —
" ' I, Bartholomew, a servant of the Highest, and apostle of Jesus
Christ, was warned by an angel that appeared to me in a vision of
glory, that I should commit this ark to the floods of the sea. There
fore I do testify and declare unto that people where God shall ordain
this ark to come to land, that in the same day is come unto them
salvation, and peace, and goodwill from the Father, and from the
Lord Jesus.'
332 NEW ATT.ANT1S.
" There were also in both these writings, as well the book as the
letter, wrought a great miracle, conformable to that of the apostles in
the original gift of tongues. For there being at that time in this land
Hebrews, Persians, and Indians, besides the natives, every one read
upon the book and letter as if they had been written in his own
language. And thus was this land saved from infidelity, as the remain
of the old world was from water, by an ark, through the apostolical
and miraculous evangelism of St. Bartholomew/' And here he paused,
and a messenger came and called him forth from us. So this was all
that passed in that conference.
The next day the same governor came again to us immediately after
dinner, and excused himself, saying : " That the day before he was
called from us somewhat abruptly, but now he would make us amends,
and spend some time with us, if we held his company and conference
agreeable. ' We answered : " That we held it so agreeable and pleasing
to us, as we forgot both dangers past and fears to come, for the time
we heard him speak, and that we thought an hour spent with him was
worth years of our former life." He bowed himself a little to us, and
after we were set again he said : " Well, the questions are on your
part." One of our number said, after a little pause : " There was a
matter we were no less desirous to know than fearful to ask, lest we
might presume too far ; but encouraged by his rare humanity towards
us, that we could scarce think ourselves strangers, being his vowed
•md professed servants, we would take the hardiness to propound it ;
humbly beseeching him, if he thought it not fit to be answered, that he
would pardon it, though he rejected it." We said : " We well observed
those his words which he formerly spake, that this happy island where
we now stood was known to few, and yet knew most of the nations of
the world ; which we found to be true, considering they had the
languages of Europe, and knew much of our state and business : and
yet we m Europe, notwithstanding all the remote discoveries and
navigations of this last age, never heard any of the least inkling or
glimpse of this island. This we found wonderful strange, for that all
nations have interknowledge one of another, either by voyage into
foreign parts, or by strangers that come to them : and though the
traveller into a foreign country doth commonly know more by the eye
than he that stayeth at home can by relation of the traveller, yet both
ways suffice to make a mutual knowledge in some degree on both
parts. But for this island, we never heard tell of any ship of theirs
that had been seen to arrive upon any shore of Europe, no, nor of
either the East or West Indies, nor yet of any ship of any other part of
the world that had made return from them. And yet the marvel
rested not in this, for the situation of it, as his lordship said, in the
secret conclave of such a vast sea, might cause it : but then, that they
should have knowledge of the languages, books, affairs of those that lie
such a distance from them, it was a thing we could not tell what to
make of ; for that it seemed to us a condition and property of divine
powers and beings, to be hidden and unseen to others, and yet to have
others open and as in a light to them." At this speech the governor
gave a gracious smile, and said : " That we did well to ask pardon for
this question we now asked, for that it imported as if we thought this
land 3 l;md of m.'igicians. that sent forth spirits of the air into all parts
NEW ATLANTIS. 333
to bring them news and intelligence ot other countries." It wa.<=
answered by us all in all possible humbleness, but yet with a counte
nance taking knowledge that we knew that he spake it but merrily ;
"That we were apt enough to think there was somewhat supernatural
in this island, but yet rather as angelical than magical. But to let his
lordship know truly what it was that made us tender and doubtful to
ask this question, it was not any such conceit, but because we remem
bered he had given a touch in his former speech, that this land had
laws of secrecy touching strangers." To this he said : " You remember
it right : and therefore in that I shall say to you, I must reserve some
particulars, which it is not lawful for me to reveal ; but there will be
enough left to give you satisfaction.
" You shall understand, that which perhaps you will scarce think
credible, that about three thousand years ago, or somewhat more, the
navigation of the world, especially for remote voyages, was greater
than at this day. Do not think with yourselves that I know not how
much it is increased with you within these sixscore years ; I know it
well : and yet I say, greater then than now. Whether it was that the
example of the ark that saved the remnant of men from the universal
deluge, gave men confidence to adventure upon the waters, or what it
was, but such is the truth. The Phoenicians, and especially the
Tynans, had great fleets1 ; so had the Carthaginians their colony,
which is yet further west. Toward the east the shipping of Egypt and
of Palestina was likewise great ; China also, and the great Atlantis,
that you call America, which have now but junks and canoes,
abounded then in tall ships. This island, as appeareth by faithful
registers of those times, had then fifteen hundred strong ships of great
content. Of all this there is with you sparing memory, or none ; but
we have large knowledge thereof.
" At that time, this land was known and frequented by the ships and
vessels of all the nations before named, and, as it cometh to pass, they
had many times men of other countries that were no sailors that came
with them ; as Persians, Chaldeans, Arabians ; so as almost all
nations of might and fame resorted hither, of whom we have some
stirps and little tribes with us at this day. And for our own ships,
they went sundry voyages, as well to your straits, which you call the
Pillars of Hercules, as to other parts in the Atlantic and Mediterra
nean seas ; as to Pegu, which is the same with Cambalu, and Quinsay
jpon the Oriental seas, as far as to the borders of East Tartary.
"At the same time, and an age after or more, the inhabitants of the
great Atlantis did flourish. For though the narration and description
which is made by a great man,2 with you, of the descendants of Nep
tune planted there, and of the magnificent temple, palace, city, and
hill, and the manifold streams of goodly navigable rivers, which, as so
many chains, environed the same site and temple, and the several
degrees of ascent, whereby men did climb up to the same, as if it had
been a scala ca'li, be all poetical and fabulous ; yet so much is true,
that the said country of Atlantis, as well as that of Peru, then called
Coy a, as that of Mexico, then named Tyrambel, were mighty and
proud kingdoms in arms, shipping, and riches ; so mighty, as at one
1 They traded with Britain for tin.
' Plato describes the Island of Atlantis in Critias.
334 NEW ATLANTIS.
tims, or at least within the space of ten years, they both made two
great expeditions : they of Tyrambel through the Atlantic to the
Mediterranean Sea, and they of Coya, through the South Sea, upon
this our island. And for the former of these, which was into Europe,
the same author amongst you, as it seemeth, had some relation from
the Egyptian priest whom he citeth, for assuredly such a thing there
was. But whether it were the ancient Athenians that had the glory
of the repulse and the resistance of those forces, I can say nothing ;
but certain it is, there never came back either ship or man from that
voyage. Neither had the other voyage of those of Coya upon us had
better fortune, if they had not met with enemies of greater clemency.
For the king of this island, by name Altabin, a wise man and a great
warrior, knowing well both his own strength and that of his enemies,
handled the matter so, as he cut off their land-forces from their ships,
and entoiled both their navy and their camp with a greater power than
theirs, both by sea and land, and compelled them to render themselves
without striking stroke ; and after they were at his mercy, contenting
himself only with their oath that they should no more bear arms
against him, dismissed them all in safety. But the Divine revenge
overtook riot long after those proud enterprises ; for within less than
the space of one hundred years, the great Atlantis was utterly
lost and destroyed, not by a great earthquake, as your man saith, for
that whole tract is little subject to earthquakes, but by a particular
deluge or inundation, those countries having at this day far greater
rivers, and far higher mountains to pour down waters, than any part
of the old world. But it is true, that the same inundation was not
deep ; not past forty foot in most places from the ground : so that
although it destroyed man and beast generally, yet some few wild
inhabitants of the wood escaped. Birds also were saved by flying to
the high trees and woods. For as for men, although they had build
ings in many places higher than the depth of the water, yet that
inundation, though it were shallow, had a long continuance, whereby
they of the vale that were not drowned, perished for want of food, and
other things necessary. So as marvel you not at the thin population
of America, nor at the rudeness and ignorance of the people ; for you
must account your inhabitants of America as a young people, younger
a thousand years at the least than the rest of the world, for that there
was so much time between the universal flood, and their particular
inundation. For the poor remnant of human seed which remained in
their mountains, peopled the country again slowly by little and little ;
and being simple and a savage people, not like Noah and his sons,
•which was the chief family of the earth, they were not able to leave
letters, arts, and civility to their posterity. And having likewise, in
their mountainous habitations, been used, in respect of the extreme
cold of those regions, to clothe themselves with the skins of tigers,
bears, and great hairy goats that they have in those parts ; when, after
they came down into the valley, and found the intolerable heats which
are there, and knew no means of lighter apparel, they were forced to
begin the custom of going naked, which continueth at this day : only
they take great pride and delight in the feathers of birds ; and this
also they took from those their ancestors of the mountains, who were
invited unto it by the infinite flight of birds that came up to the high
NEW ATLANTIS. 335
grounds while the waters stood below. So you see by this main
accident of time we lost our traffic with the Americans, with whom, of
all others, in regard they lay nearest to us, we had most commerce.
As for the other parts of the world, it is most manifest that in the ages
following, whether it were in respect of wars, or by a natural revolution
of time, navigation did everywhere greatly decay, and especially far
voyages, the rather by the use of galleys and such vessels as could
hardly brook the ocean, were altogether left and omitted. So then,
that part of the intercourse which could be from other nations to sail
to us, you see how it hath long since ceased, except it were by some
rare accident, as this of yours. But now of the cessation of that other
part of intercourse, which might be by our sailing to other nations, I
must yield you some other cause ; for I cannot say, if I shall say truly,
but our shipping for number, strength, mariners, pilots, and all things
that appertain to navigation, is as great as ever ; and therefore why
we should sit at home I shall now give you an account by itself, and
it will draw nearer to give you satisfaction to your principal question.
" There reigned in this island, about one thousand nine hundred
years ago, a king, whose memory of all others we most adore, not
superstitiously, but as a divine instrument, though a mortal man : his
name was Solomona, and we esteem him as the lawgiver of our
nation. This king had a large heart, inscrutable for good, and was
wholly bent to make his kingdom and people happy. He therefore,
taking into consideration how sufficient and substantive this land
was to maintain itself without any aid at all of the foreigner, being
five thousand six hundred miles in circuit, and of rare fertility of soil
in the greatest part thereof; and finding also the shipping of this
country might be plentifully set on work, both by fishing and by
transportations from port to port, and likewise by sailing unto some
small islands that are not far from us, and are under the crown and
laws of this state, and recalling into his memory the happy and
flourishing estate wherein this land then was, so as it might be a
thousand ways altered to the worse, but scarce any one way to the
better ; thought nothing wanted to his noble and heroical intentions,
but only, as far as human foresight might reach, to give perpetuity to
that which was in his time so happily established. Therefore amongst
his other fundamental laws of this kingdom he did ordain the inter
dicts and prohibitions which we have touching the entrance of strangers,
which at that time, though it was after the calamity of America, was
frequent : doubting novelties and commixture of manners. It is true,
the like law against the admission of strangers without licence is an
ancient law in the kingdom of China, and yet continued in use ; but
there it is a poor thing, and hath made them a curious, ignorant,
fearful, foolish nation. But our lawgiver made his law of another
temper. For, first, he hath preserved all points of humanity, in taking
order and making provision for the relief of strangers distressed,
whereof you have tasted." At which speech, as reason was, we all
rose up and bowed ourselves. He went on : " That king also— still
desiring to join humanity and policy together, and thinking it against
humanity to detain strangers here against their wills, and against
policy, that they should return and discover their knowledge of this
state, he took this course. He did ordain, that of the strangers that
336 AJSIV ATLANTIS.
should be permitted to land, as many, at all times, might depart as
would, but as many as would stay should have very good conditions
and means to live from the state. Wherein he saw so far, that now
in so many ages since the prohibition, we have memory not of one
ship that ever returned, and but of thirteen persons only at several
times that chose to return in our bottoms. What those few that
returned may have reported abroad, I know not ; but you must think,
whatsoever they have said could be taken where they came but for a
dream. Now for our travelling from hence into parts abroad, our
lawgiver thought fit altogether to restrain it. So is it not in China,
for the Chinese sail where they will, or can ; which showeth that
their law of keeping out strangers is a law of pusillanimity and fear.
But this restraint of ours hath only one exception, which is admirable,
preserving the good which cometh by communicating with strangers, and
avoiding the hurt ; and I will now open it to you. And here I shall
Seem a little to digress, out you will, by-and-by, find it pertinent. You
Shall understand, my dear friends, that amongst the excellent acts of
that king, one above all hath the pre-eminence. It was the erection
wid institution of an order or society, which M call Solomon's House,
the noblest foundation, as we think, that ever was upon the earth,
and the lantern of this kingdom. It is dedicated to the study of the
works and creatures of God. Some think it beareth the founder's
name a little corrupted, as if it should be Solomona's House ; but
the records write it as it is spoken. So as I take it to be denominate
of the king of the Hebrews, which is famous with you, and no stranger
to us, for we have some parts of his works which with you are lost ;
namely, that natural history which he wrote of all plants, ' from the
cedar of Lebanon to the moss that groweth out of the wall/ and of all
things that have life and motion. This maketh me think that our
king, finding himself to symbolize in many things with that king of
the Hebrews which lived many years before him, honoured him with
the title of this foundation. And I am the rather induced to be of
this opinion, for that I find in ancient records this order or society is
sometimes called Solomon's House, and sometimes the College of the
Six Days' Works ; whereby I am satisfied that our excellent king
had learned from the Hebrews that God had created the world, and
all that therein is, within six days, and therefore he instituting that
house for the finding out of the true nature of all things, whereby
God might have the more glory in the workmanship of them, and
men the more fruit in their use of them, did give it also that second
name. But now, to come to our present purpose. When the king
had forbidden to all his people navigation in any part that was not
under his crown, he made nevertheless this ordinance, that every
twelve years thcie should be set forth out of this kingdom two ships
appointed to several voyages ; that in either of these ships there
should be a mission of three of the fellows or brethren of Solomon's
House, whose errand was only to give us knowledge of the affairs and
state of those countries to which they were designed, and especially
of the sciences, arts, manufactures, and inventions of all the world ;
and withal to bring unto us books, instruments, and patterns in every
kind : that the ships, after they had landed the brethren, should return,
and that the brethren should .stay abroad till the new mission. The
A TLANTIS. 337
ships are not otherwise fraught than with store of victuals, and good
quantity of treasure, to remain with the brethren for the buying of
such things and rewarding of such persons as they should think fit.
Now for me to tell you, how the vulgar sort of mariners are contained
from being discovered at land, and how they that must be put on
shore for any time, colour themselves under the names of other
nations, and to what places these voyages have been designed, and
what places of rendezvous are appointed for the new missions, and
the like circumstances of the practice, I may not do it, neither is it
much to your desire. But thus you see we maintain a trade, not for
gold, silver, or jewels, nor for silks, nor for spices, nor any other com
modity of matter, but only for God's first creature, which was light;
to have light, I say, of the growth of all parts of the world."
And when he had said this he was silent, and so were we all ; for
indeed we were all astonished to hear so strange things so probably
told. And he, perceiving that we were willing to say somewhat, but
had it not ready, in great courtesy took us off, and descended to ask
us questions of our voyage and fortunes; arid in the end concluded,
that we might do well to think with ourselves what time of stay we
would demand of the state ; and bade us not to scant ourselves, for
he would procure such time as we desired. Whereupon we all rose
up, and presented ourselves to kiss the skirt of his tippet ; but he
would not suffer us, and so took his leave. But when it came once
amongst our people, that the state used to offer conditions to strangers
that would stay, we had work enough to get any of our men to look to
our ship, and to keep them from going presently to the governor to
crave conditions ; but with much ado we refrained them, till we might
agree what course to take.
We took ourselves now for free men, seeing there was no danger of
our utter perdition, and lived most joyfully, going abroad, and seeing
what was to be seen in the city and places adjacent within our tedder,
and obtaining acquaintance with many of the city, not of the meanest
quality, at whose hands we found such humanity, and such a freedom
and desire to take strangers as it were into their bosom, as was enough
to make us forget all that was dear to us in our own countries ; and
continually we met with many things right worthy of observation and
relation ; as indeed, if there be a mirror in the world worthy to hold
men's eyes, it is that country. One day there were two of our company
bidden to a feast of the family, as they call it; a most natural, pious,
and reverend custom it is, showing that nation to be compounded of
all goodness. This is the manner of it : it is granted to any man that
shall live to see thirty persons descended of his body alive together,
and all above three years old, to make this feast, which is done at the
cost of the state. The father of the family, whom they call the tirsan,
two days before the feast, taketh to him three of such friends as he
liketh to choose, and is assisted also by the governor of the city or
place where the feast is celebrated ; and all the persons of the family
of both sexes are summoned to attend him. These two days the tirsan
sitteth in consultation concerning the good estate of the family. There,
if there be any discord or suits between any of the family, they are
compounded and appeased ; there, if any of the family be distressed
Or decayed, order is taker for their relief, and competent means to
Z
33$ NRW ATLANTIS.
live ; there, if any be subject to vice or take ill courses, they are
reproved and censured. So likewise, direction is given touching
marriages, and the courses of life which any of them should take, with
divers other the like orders and advices. The governor assisteth to
the end, to put in execution by his public authority the decrees and
orders of the tirsan, if they should be disobeyed, though that seldom
needeth, such reverence and obedience they give to the order of nature.
The tirsan doth also then ever choose one man from amongst his sons
to live in house with him, who is called ever after the son of the vine :
the reason will hereafter appear. On the feast-day, the father or tirsan
cometh forth, after divine service, into a large room where the feast is
celebrated, which room hath an half-pace at the upper end. Against
the wall, in the middle of the half-pace, is a chair placed for him, with
a table and carpet before it : over the chair is a state made round or oval,
and it is of ivy ; an ivy somewhat whiter than ours, like the leaf of a
silver asp, but more shining, for it is green all winter. And the state
is curiously wrought with silver and silk of divers colours, broiding
or binding in the ivy, and is ever of the work of some of the daughters
of the family, and veiled over at the top with a fine net of silk and
silver : but the substance of it is true ivy, whereof, after it is taken
down, the friends of the family are desirous to have some leaf or sprig
to keep. The tirsan cometh forth with all his generation or lineage,
the males before him, and the females following him. And if there
be a mother from whose body the whole lineage is descended, there
is a traverse placed in a loft above on the right hand of the chair, with
a private door, and a carved window of glass, leaded with gold and
blue, where she sitteth, but is not seen. When the tirsan is come
forth, he sitteth down in the chair, and all the lineage place themselves
against the wall, both at his back, and upon the return of the half-pace,
in order of their years, without difference of sex, and stand upon their
feet. When he is set, the room being always full of company, but
well kept, and without disorder, after some pause there cometh in
from the lower end of the room a taratan, which is as much as an
herald, and on either side of him two young lads, whereof one carrieth
a scroll of their shining yellow parchment, and the other a cluster of
grapes of gold, with a long foot or stalk ; the herald and children are
clothed with mantles of sea-water green satin, but the herald's mantle
is streamed with gold, and hath a train. Then the herald, with three
jourtesies, or rather inclinations, cometh up as far as the half-pace,
and there first taketh into his hand the scroll. This scroll is the king's
charter, containing gift of revenue, and many privileges, exemptions,
and points of honour granted to the father of the family ; and it is
ever styled and directed, to such an one, our well-beloved friend and
creditor, which is a title proper only to this case ; for they say, the
king is debtor to no man, but for propagation of his subjects. The
seal set to the king's charter is the king's image, embossed or moulded
in gold. And though such charters be expedited of course, and as of
right, yet they are varied by discretion, according to the number and
dignity of the family. This charter the herald readeth aloud ; and
while it is read, the father or tirsan standeth up, supported by two of
his sons, such as he chooseth. Then the herald mounteth the half-
pace, and delivereth the charter into his hand; and with that there is
NEW ATLANTIS. 339
an acclamation by all that are present, in their language, which is
thus much, " Happy are the people of Bensalem." Then the herald
taketh into his hand from the other child the cluster of grapes, which
is of gold, both the stalk and the grapes, but the grapes are daintily
enamelled : and if the males of the family be the greater number, the
grapes are enamelled purple, with a little sun set on the top ; if the
females, then they are enamelled into a greenish yellow, with a crescent
on the top. The grapes are in number as many as there are descend
ants of the family. This golden cluster the herald delivereth also to
the tirsan, who presently delivereth it over to that son that he had
formerly chosen to be in house with him, who beareth it before his
father, as an ensign of honour when he goeth in public ever after, and
is thereupon called the son of the vine. After this ceremony ended,
the father or tirsan retireth, and after some time cometh forth again
to dinner, where he sitteth alone under the state as before ; and none
of his descendants sit with him, of what degree or dignity soever,
except he hap to be of Solomon's House. He is served only by his
own children, such as are male, who perform unto him all service of
the table upon the knee, and the women only stand about him, leaning
against the wall. The room below his half-pace hath tables on the
sides for the guests that are bidden, who are served with great and
comely order ; and toward the end of dinner, which in the greatest
feasts with them lasteth never above an hour and a half, there is a
hymn sung, varied according to the invention of him that composed
it, for they have excellent poetry, but the subject of it is always the
praises of Adam, and Noah, and Abraham ; whereof the former two
peopled the world, and the last was the father of the faithful : con
cluding ever with a thanksgiving for the nativity of our Saviour, in
whose birth the births of all are only blessed. Dinner being done,
the tirsan retireth again, and having withdrawn himself alone into a
place where he maketh some private prayers, he cometh forth the
third time to give the blessing, with all his descendants, who stand
about him as at the first. Then he calleth them forth one by one, by
name, as he pleaseth, though seldom the order of age be inverted. The
person that is called, the table being before removed, kneeleth down
before the chair, and the father layeth his hand upon his head, or her
head, and giveth the blessing in these words : " Son of Bensalem, or
daughter of Bensalem, thy father saith it, the man by whom thou hast
breath and life speaketh the word ; the blessing of the everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace, and the Holy Dove be upon thee, and
make the days of thy pilgrimage good and many." This he saith to
every of them : and that done, if there be any of his sons of eminent
merit and virtue, so they be not above two, he calleth for them again,
and sayeth, laying his arm over their shoulders, they standing, " Sons,
it is well you are born ; give God the praise, and persevere to the
end:" and withal delivereth to either of them a jewel, made in the
figure of an ear of wheat, which they ever after wear in the front of
their turban or hat. This done, they fall to music and dances, and
other recreations after their manner, for the rest of the day. This is
the full order of that feast.
By that time six or seven clays were spent, I was fallen into strait
acquaintance with a merchant of that city, whose name was Joabin :
Z 2
340 NEW ATLANTIS.
he was a Jew, and circumcised, for they have some few stirps of jews
yet remaining among them, whom they leave to their own religion,
which they may the better do, because they are of a far different dis
position from the Jews in other parts. For whereas they hate the
name of Christ, and have a secret inbred rancour against the people
among whom they live ; these contrariwise give unto our Saviour
many high attributes, and love the nation of Bensalem extremely.
Surely this man of whom I speak, would ever acknowledge that
Christ was born of a virgin, and that he was more than a man ;
and he would tell how God made Him ruler of the seraphims
which guard his throne : and they call him also the Milken Way,
and the Eliah of the Messiah, and many other high names ;
which, though they be inferior to his Divine Majesty, yet they
are far from the language of other Jews. And for the country of Ben
salem, this man would make no end of commending it, being desirous,
by tradition among the Jews there, to have it believed, that the people
thereof were of the generations of Abraham by another son, whom
they call Nachoran ; and that Moses by a secret cabala ordained the
laws of Bensalem, which they now use ; and that when the Messiah
should come and sit in his throne at Jerusalem, the king of Bensalem
should sit at his feet, whereas other kings should keep at a great
distance. But yet, setting aside these Jewish dreams, the man was a
wise man and learned, and of great policy, and excellently seen in the
laws and customs of that nation. Amongst other discourses, one day
I told him, I was much affected with the relation I had from some of
the company, of their custom in holding the feast of the family, for
that methought I had never heard of a solemnity wherein nature did
so much preside. And because propagation of families proceedeth
from the nuptial copulation, I desired to know of him what laws and
customs they had concerning marriage, and whether they kept
marriage well, and whether they were tied to one wife. For that
where population is so much affected, and such as with them it seemed
to be, there is commonly permission of plurality of wives. To this he
said, "You have reason to commend that excellent institution of the
feast of the family ; and indeed we have experience that those families
that are partakers of the blessings of that feast do flourish and prosper
ever after in an extraordinary manner. But hear me now, and I will
tell you what I know. You shall understand that there is not under
the heavens so chaste a nation as this of Bensalem, nor so free from
all pollution or foulness ; it is the virgin of the world. I remember I
have read in one of your European books, of an holy hermit amongst
you that desired to see the spirit of fornication, and there appeared
to him a a little foul ugly Ethiop. But if he had desired to see the
spirit of chastity of Bensalem, it would have appeared to him in the
likeness of a fair beautiful cherubim ; for there is nothing amongst
mortal men more fair and admirable than the chaste minds of this
people. Know, therefoie, that with them there are no stews, no dis
solute houses, no courtezans, nor anything of that kind ; nay, they
wonder with detestation at you in Europe which permit such things.
They say you have put marriage out of office ; for marriage is ordained
a remedy for unlawful concupiscence, and natural concupiscence
gecmeth as a spur to marriage : but when men have at hand a remedy
NE W A TLANTIS. 341
more agreeable to their corrupt will, marriage is almost expulsed,
And therefore there are with you seen infinite men that marry not,
but choose rather a libertine and impure single life than to be yoked
in marriage ; and many that do marry, marry late, when the prime
and strength of their years is past ; and when they do marry, what is
marriage to them but a very bargain, wherein is sought alliance, or
portion, or reputation, with some desire almost indifferent of issue, and
not the faithful nuptial union of man and wife that was first instituted.
Neither is it possible that those that have cast away so basely so much
of their strength, should greatly esteem children, being of the same
matter, as chaste men do. So neither during marriage is the case
much amended, as it ought to be if those things were tolerated only
for necessity. No, but they remain still as a very affront to marriage ;
the haunting of those dissolute places, or resort to courtezans, is no
more punished in married men than in bachelors : and the depraved
custom of change, arid the delight in meretricious embracements,
where sin is turned into art, maketh marriage a dull thing, and a kind
of imposition or tax. They hear you defend these things as done to
avoid greater evils, as advoutries, deflowering of virgins, unnatural
lust, and the like : but they say this is a preposterous wisdom, and
they call it Lot's offer, who, to save his guests from abusing, offered
his daughters. Nay, they say further, that there is little gained in
this, for that the same vices and appetites do still remain and abound,
unlawful lust being like a furnace, that if you stop the flames alto
gether, it will quench, but if you give it any vent, it will rage. As for
masculine love, they have no touch of it ; and yet there are not so
faithful and inviolate friendships in the world again as are there : and
to speak generally, as I said before, I have not read of any such
chastity in any people as theirs. And their usual saying is, that who
soever is unchaste cannot reverence himself. And they say, that the
reverence of a man's self is, next religion, the chiefest bridle of all
vices." And when he had said this, the good Jew paused a little.
Whereupon I, far more willing to hear him speak on than to speak
myself, yet thinking it decent that upon his pause of speech I should
not be altogether silent, said only this, " That I would say to him as
the widow of Sarepta said to Elias, tha.t he was come to bring to
memory our sins ; and that I confess the righteousness of Bensalem
was greater than the righteousness of Europe." At which speech he
bowed his head, and went on in this manner : " They have also many
wise and excellent laws touching marriage. They allow no polygamy.
They have ordained that none do intermarry or contract until a month
be past from their first interview. Marriage without consent of parents
they do not make void, but they mulct it in the inheritors ; for the
children of such marriages are not admitted to inherit above a third
part of their parents' inheritance. I have read in a book of one of
your men of a feigned commonwealth,1 where the married couple are
permitted, before they contract, to see one another naked. This they
dislike, for they think it a scorn to give a refusal after so familiar
knowledge : but because of many hidden defects in men and women's
bodies, they have a more civil way ; for they have near every town a
1 Sir Thomas More's Utopia,
342 NEW ATLANTIS.
couple of pools, which they call Adam and Eve's pools, where it is
permitted to one of the friends of the man, and another of the friends
of the woman, to see them severally bathe naked."
And as we were thus in conference, there came one that seemed to
be a messenger, in a rich huke,1 that spake with the Jew ; whereupon,
he turned to me, and said, " You will pardon me, for I am com
manded away in haste."
The next morning he came to me again, joyful, as it seemed, and
said, " There is word come to the governor of the city, that one of the
fathers of Solomon's House will be here this day seven-night ; we
have seen none of them this dozen years. His coming is in state,
but the cause of his coming is secret. I will provide you and your
fellows of a good standing to see his entry." I thanked him, and told
him, " I was most glad of the news."
The day being come, he made his entry. He was a man of middle
Stature and age, comely of person, and had an aspect as if he pitied
men. He was clothed in a robe of fine black cloth, with wide sleeves
and a cape : his under-garment was of excellent white linen down to
the foot, girt with a girdle of the same, and a sindon or tippet of the
same about his neck : he had1 gloves that were curious, and set with
stone, and shoes of peach-coloured velvet ; his neck was bare to the
shoulders : his hat was like a helmet or Spanish montera, and his
locks curled below it decently, — they were of colour brown : his beard
was cut round, and of the same colour with his hair, somewhat lighter.
He was carried in a rich chariot, without wheels, litter-wise, with two
horses at either end, richly trapped in blue velvet, embroidered, and
two footmen on either side in the like attire. The chariot was all of
cedar, gilt, and adorned with crystal, save that the fore-end had
panels of sapphires set in borders of gold, and the hinder-end the
like of emeralds of the Peru colour. There was also a sun of gold,
radiant upon the top, in the midst ; and on the top before a small
cherub of gold, with wings displayed. The chariot was covered with
cloth of gold, tissued upon blue. He had before him fifty attendants,
young men all, in white satin loose coats up to the mid-leg, and
stockings of white silk, and shoes of blue velvet, and hats of blue
velvet, with fine plumes of divers colours set round like hatbands.
Next before the chariot went two men bareheaded, in linen garments
down to the foot, girt, and shoes of blue velvet, who carried the one a
crosier, the other a pastoral staff, like a sheep-hook ; neither of them
of metal, but the crosier of balm-wood, the pastoral staff of cedar.
Horsemen he had none, neither before nor behind his chariot, as it
seemeth, to avoid all tumult and trouble. Behind his chariot went all
the officers and principals of the companies of the city. He sat alone
upon cushions of a kind of excellent plush, blue, and under his foot
curious carpets of silk of divers colours, like the Persian, but far finer.
He held up his bare hand as he went, as blessing the people, but in
silence. The street was wonderfully well kept ; so that there was
never any army had their men stand in better battle-array than the
people stood. " The windows likewise were not crowded, but every
one stood in them as if they had been placed. When the show was
Cloaft
NEW A TLANTIS. 343
past, the Jew said to me, " I shall not be able to attend you as I would,
in regard of some charge the city hath laid upon me, for the enter
taining of this great person."
Three days after, the Jew came to me again, and said, " Ye are
happy men ! for the father of Solomon's House taketh knowledge of
your being here, and commanded me to tell you, that he will admit
all your company to his presence, and have private conference with
one of you that ye shall choose ; and for this hath appointed the next
day after to-morrow. And, because he meaneth to give you his
blessing, he hath appointed it in the forenoon."
We came at our day and hour, and I was chosen by my fellows for
the private access. We found him in a fair chamber, richly hung,
and carpeted under-foot, without any degrees 1 to the state. He was
seated upon a low throne, richly adorned, and a rich cloth of state
over his head, of blue satin, embroidered. He was alone, save that
he had two pages of honour, on either hand, one finely attired in
white. His under-garments were the like that we saw him wear in
the chariot ; but instead of his gown, he had on him a mantle, with a
cape of the same fine black, fastened about him. When we came in,
as we were taught, we bowed low at our first entrance ; and when we
were come near his chair, he stood up, holding forth his hand un
gloved, and in posture of blessing ; and we every one of us stooped
down and kissed the hem of his tippet. That done, the rest departed,
and I remained. Then he warned the pages forth of the room, and
caused me to sit down beside him, and spake to me thus in the
Spanish tongue : —
" God bless thee, my son, I will give thee the greatest jewel I have ;
for I will impart unto thee, for the love of God and men, a relation of
the true state of Solomon's House. Son, to make you know the true
state of Solomon's House, I will keep this order : — first, I will set
forth unto you the end of our foundation ; secondly, the preparations
and instruments we have for our works ; thirdly, the several employ
ments and functions whereto our fellows are assigned ; and fourthly,
the ordinances and rites which we observe.
" The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes and secret/A
motions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of human empireJU
to the effecting of all things possible.
" The preparations and instruments are these. We have large and
deep caves of several depths : the deepest are sunk six hundred
fathoms, and some of them are digged and made under great hills and
mountains ; so that if you reckon together the depth of the hill and
the depth of the cave, they are (some of them) above three miles deep :
for we find that the depth of a hill and the depth of a cave from the
flat is the same thing, both remote alike from the sun and heaven's
beams and from the open air. These caves we call " the lower
region," and we use them for all coagulations, indurations, refrigera
tions, and conservations of bodies. We use them likewise for the
imitation of natural mines, and the producing also of new artificial
metals, by compositions and materials which we use and lay there
for many years. We use them also sometimes (which may seem
strange) for curing of some diseases, and for prolongation of life in
1 Steps
344 KEW ATLANTIS.
some hermits that choose to live there, well accommodated of all
things necessary, and, indeed, live very long ; by whom also we learn
many things.
" We have burials in several earths, where we put divers cements,
as the Chinese do their porcelain ; but we have them in greater
variety, and some of them finer. We also have great variety of com
posts and soils for making of the earth fruitful.
" We have high towers, the highest about half a mile in height, and
some of them likewise set upon high mountains ; so that the advan
tage of the hill with the tower is, in the highest of them, three miles
at least. And these places we call the upper region, accounting the
air between the high places and the low as a middle region. We use
these towers, according to their several heights and situations,
for insolation, refrigeration, conservation, and for the view of divers
meteors ; as winds, rain, snow, hail, and some of the fiery meteors
also. And upon them, in some places, are dwellings of hermits, whom
we visit sometimes, and instruct what to observe.
" We have great lakes, both salt and fresh, whereof we have use
for the fish a.nd fowl. We use them also for burials of some natural
bodies ; for we find a difference in things buried in earth, or in air
below the earth, and things buried in water. We have also pools of
which some do strain fresh water out of salt,1 and others by art do
turn fresh water into salt. We have also some rocks in the midst of
the sea, and some bays upon the shore for some works wherein are
required the air and vapour of the sea. We have likewise violent
streams and cataracts, which serve us for many motions ; and like
wise engines for multiplying and enforcing of winds, to set also agoing
divers motions.
"We have also a number of artificial wells and fountains, made in
imitation of the natural sources and baths ; as tincted upon vitriol,
sulphur, steel, brass, lead, nitre, and other minerals. And again, we
have little wells for infusions of many things, where the waters take
the virtue quicker and better than in vessels or basins. And amongst
them we have a water which we call ' water of paradise,' being by that
we do to it made very sovereign for health and prolongation of life.
" We have also great and spacious houses, where we imitate and
demonstrate meteors, as snow, hail, rain, some artificial rains of
bodies, and not of water, thunders, lightnings ; also generations of
bodies in air, as frogs, flies, and divers others.
" We have also certain chambers, which we call * chambers of
health,' where we qualify the air, as we think good and proper for the
cure of divers diseases, and preservation of health.
"We have also fair and large baths, of several mixtures, for the
cure of diseases, and the restoring of man's body from arefaction ;
and others for the confirming of it in strength of sinews, vital parts,
and the very juice and substance of the body.
" We have also large and various orchards and gardens, wherein we
do not so much respect beauty as variety of ground and soil, proper
for divers trees and herbs ; and some very spacious, where trees and
berries are set, whereof we make divers kinds of drinks, besides ihe
vineyards. Jn these we practise likewise all conclusions of grafting
1 An art now common.
NEW ATLANTIS. 345
and inoculating, as well of wild trees as fruit-trees, which procluceth
many effects. And we make, by art, in the same orchards and
gardens, trees and flowers to come earlier or later than their seasons,
and to come up and bear more speedily than by their natural course
they do ; we make them also, by art, much greater than their nature,
and their fruit greater and sweeter, and of differing taste, smell, colour,
and figure from their nature ; and many of them we so order that they
become of medicinal use.
" We have also means to make divers plants rise by mixtures of
earths without seeds ; and likewise to make divers new plants differing
from the vulgar, and to make one tree or plant turn into another.
" We have also parks and inclosures of all sorts of beasts and birds ;
which we use not only for view or rareness, but likewise for dissections
and trials, that thereby we may take light what may be wrought upon
the body of man ; wherein we find many strange effects : as, con
tinuing life in them, though divers parts, which you account vital, be
perished and taken forth ; resuscitating of some that seem dead in
appearance, and the like. We try also poisons and other medicines
upon them, as well of surgery as physic. By art likewise we make
them greater or taller than their kind is, and contrariwise dwarf them
and stay their growth ; we make them more fruitful and bearing than
their kind is, and contrariwise barren and not generative. Also we
make them differ in colour, shape, activity, many ways. We find
means to make commixtures and copulations of divers kinds, which
have produced many new kinds, and them not barren, as the general
opinion is. We make a number of kinds of serpents, worms, flies,
fishes, of putrefaction ; whereof some are advanced (in effect) to be
perfect creatures, like beasts or birds, and have sexes, and do propa
gate. Neither do we this by chance, but we know beforehand of what
matter and commixture, what kind of those creatures will arise.
" We have also particular pools where we make trials upon fishes,
as we have said before of beasts and birds.
" We have also places for breed and generation of those kinds of
worms and flies which are of special use, such as are with you, your
silkworms and bees.
" I will not hold you long with recounting of our brewhouses, bake
houses, and kitchens, where are made divers drinks, breads, and
meats, rare and of special effects. Wines we have of grapes, and
drinks of other juice, of fruits, of grains, and of roots ; and of mixtures
with honey, sugar, manna, and fruits dried and decocted ; also of the
tears, or woundings of trees, and of the pulp of canes. And these
drinks are of several ages, some to the age or last of forty years. We
have drinks also brewed with several herbs and roots and spices, yea,
with several fleshes and white-meats ; whereof some of the drinks are
such, as they are in effect meat and drink both, so that divers, espe
cially in age, do desire to live with them ; with little or no meat or
bread. And above all we strive to have drinks of extreme thin parts,
to insinuate into the body, and yet without all biting, sharpness, or
fretting ; insomuch as some of them put upon the back of your hand
will, with a little stay, pass through to the palm, and yet taste mild to
the mouth. We have also waters which we ripen in that fashion as
they become nourishing, so that they are indeed excellent drink ; and
34$ NEW ATLANTIS.
many will use no other. Breads we have of several grains, roots, and
kernels ; yea, and some of flesh and fish dried, with divers kinds ot
leavenings and seasonings ; so that some do extremely move appetites;
some do nourish so, as divers do live on them, without any other
meat, who live very long. So for meats, we have some of them so
beaten and made tender and mortified, yet without all corrupting, as
a weak heat of the stomach will turn them into good chylus, as well
as a strong heat would meat otherwise prepared. We have some
meats also, and breads and drinks, which taken by men enable them
to fast long after ; and some other that, used, make the very flesh of
men's bodies sensibly more hard and tough, and their strength far
greater than otherwise it would be.
" We have dispensatories, or shops of medicines, wherein you may
easily think, if we have such variety of plants and living creatures
more than you have in Europe (for we know what you have), the
simples, drugs, and ingredients of medicines must likewise be in so
much the greater variety. We have them likewise of divers ages, and
long fermentations. And for their preparations, we have not only all
manner of exquisite distillations and separations, and especially by
gentle heats, and percolations through divers strainers, yea and sub
stances ; but also exact forms of composition, whereby they incorporate
almost as they were natural simples.
" We have also divers mechanical arts which you have not, and
stuffs made by them ; as papers, linen, silks, tissues, dainty works of
feathers of wonderful lustre, excellent dyes, and many others ; and
shops likewise as well for such as are not brought into vulgar use
amongst us, as for those that are. For you must know, that of the
things before recited many are grown into use throughout the kingdom ;
but yet, if they did flow from our invention, we have of them also for
patterns and principles.
"We have also furnaces of great diversities, and that keep great
diversity of heats, fierce and quick, strong and constant, soft and mild,
blown, quiet, dry, moist, and the like. But, above all, we have heats
in imitation of the sun's and heavenly bodies' heats, that pass divers
inequalities, and, as it were, orbs, progresses, and returns, whereby we
may produce admirable effects. Besides, we have heats of dungs, and
of bellies and maws of living creatures, and of their bloods and bodies ;
and of hays and herbs laid up moist ; of lime unquenched, and such
like. Instruments, also, which generate heat only by motion ; and
further, places for strong insolations ; and, again, places under the
earth which by nature or art yield heat. These divers heats we use as
the nature of the operation which we intend requireth.
" We have also perspective-houses, where we make demonstration
of all lights and radiations, and of all colours ; and of things un-
coloured and transparent, we can represent unto you all several
colours, not in rainbows, as it is in gems and prisms, but of themselves
single. We represent, also, all multiplications of light, which we carry
to great distance, and make so sharp as to discern small points and
lines ; also all colorations of light, all delusions and deceits of the
sight, in figures, magnitudes, motions, colours ; all demonstrations of
shadows. We find, also, divers means yet unknown to you of procur
ing of light 01 iginally from divers bodies. We procure means of seeing
NEW ATLANTIS. 347
objects afar off, as in the heavens, and remote places ; and represent
things near as afar off, and things afar off as near, making feigned
distances. We have also helps for the sight far above spectacles and
glasses in use. We have also glasses and means to see small and
minute bodies perfectly and distinctly, as the shapes and colours of
small flies and worms, grains and flaws in gems, which cannot other
wise be seen ; observations in urine and, blood, not otherwise to be
seen. We make artificial rainbows, halos, and circles about light.
We represent also all manner of reflections, refractions, and multipli
cation of visual beams of objects.
" We have also precious stones of all kinds, many of them of great
beauty, and to you unknown ; crystals likewise, and glasses of divers
kinds, and amongst them some of metals vitrificated, and other mate
rials, besides those of which you make glass. Also a number of fossils
and imperfect minerals which you have not ; likewise loadstones of
prodigious virtue, and other rare stones both natural and artificial.
" We have also sound-houses, where we practise and demonstrate
all sounds and their generation. We have harmonies, which you have
not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds ; divers instruments
likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have ; with bells
and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as
great and deep, likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp. We make
divers tremblings and warbling of sounds, which in their original are
entire ; we represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and
the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have certain helps,
which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also
divers strange and artificial echos reflecting the voice many times, and
as it were tossing it ; and some that give back the voice louder than it
came, some shriller, and some deeper ; yea, some rendering the voice
differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We
have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes in strange lines
and distances.
" We have also perfume-houses, wherewith we join also practises of
taste : we multiply smells, which may seem strange ; we imitate smells,
making all smells to breathe out of other mixtures than those that give
them. We make divers imitations of taste likewise, so that they willj
decejye any man's taste. And in this house we contain also a con
fiture-House, where we make all sweetmeats dry and moist, and divers
pleasant wines, milks, broths, and salads, in far greater variety than
you have.
" We also have engine-houses, where are prepared engines and in
struments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate and practise to
make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets,
or any engine that you have ; and to make them and multiply them
more easily, and with small force, by wheels and other means ; and to
make them stronger and more violent than yours are, exceeding your
greatest cannons and basilisks. We represent also ordnance and in
struments of war, and engines of all kinds ; and likewise new mixtures
and compositions of gunpowder, wildfires burning in water, and un
quenchable ; also fireworks of all variety, both for pleasure and use. We
imitate also flights of birds : we have some degrees of flying in the air:
we have ships and boats for going under water, and brooking of seas ;
348 NEW ATLANTIS.
also swimming-girdles and supporters. We have divers curious clocks,
and other like motions of return, and some perpetual motions. We
imitate also motions of living creatures by images of men, beasts,
birds, fishes, and serpents : we have also a great number of other
various motions, strange for quality, fineness, and subtilty.
" We have also a mathematical house, where are represented all in
struments, as well of geometry as astronomy, exquisitely made.
" We have also houses of deceits of the senses, where we represent
all manner of feats of juggling, false apparitions, impostures, and
illusions and their fallacies. And surely you will easily believe that
we that have so many things truly natural, which induce admiration,
could in a world of particulars deceive the senses, if we would disguise
those things, and labour to make them more miraculous. But we do
hate all impostures and lies, insomuch as we have severely forbidden
it to all our fellows, under pain of ignominy and fines, that they do not
show any natural work or thing adorned or swelling, but only pure as
it is, and without all affectation of strangeness.
" These are, my son, the riches of Solomon's House.
" For the several employments and offices of our fellows, we have
twelve that sail into foreign countries under the names of other nations
(for our own we conceal), who bring us the books and abstracts, and
patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call 'merchants
of light/
" We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books.
These we call ' depredators.'
" We have three that collect the experiments of all mechanical arts
and also of liberal sciences, and also of practices which are not brought
into arts. These we call * mystery men.'
" We have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think
good. These we call ' pioneers ' or ' miners.'
" We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into
titles and tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observa
tions and axioms out of them. These we call ' compilers.'
" We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments
of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use
and practice for man's life and knowledge, as well for works as for
plain demonstration of causes, means of natural divinations, and the
easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we
call ' dowry men/ or ' benefactors/
" Then, after divers meetings and consults of our whole number,
to consider of the former labours and collections, we have three
that take care out of them to direct new experiments of a higher
light, more penetrating into nature than the former. These we call
-lamps.'
" We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed,
and report them. These we call ' inoculators.'
" Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experi
ments into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms. These we
call ' interpreters of nature/
" We have -also, as you must think, novices and apprentices, that
the succession of the former employed men do not fail ; besides a
great number of servants and attendants, men and women. And this
NEW ATLANTIS 349
fre clo also ; we have consultations which of the inventions and
experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which
not ; and take all an oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which
we think meet to keep secret, though some of those we do reveal
sometimes to the state, and some not.
" For our ordinances and rites, we have two very long and fair
galleries. In one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner
of the more rare and excellent inventions ; in the other we place the
statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your
Columbus, that discovered the West Indies ; also the inventor of
ships ; your monk1 that was the inventor of ordnance and of gun
powder ; the inventor of music; the inventor of letters ; the inventor
of printing ; the inventor of observations of astronomy; the inventor
of works in metal ; the inventor of glass ; the inventor of silk of the
worm ; the inventor of wine ; the inventor of corn and bread ; the in
ventor of sugars : and all these by more certain tradition than you
have. Then we have divers inventors of our own, of excellent works,
which, since you have not seen, it were too long to make descriptions
of them ; and besides, in the right understanding of those descriptions
you might easily err. For upon every invention of value, we erect a
statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward.
These statues are some of brass ; some of marble and touch-stone ;
some of cedar, and other special woods gilt and adorned ; some
of iron ; some of silver ; some of gold.
" We have certain hymns and services, which we say daily of laud
and thanks to God for His marvellous works ; and forms of prayers
imploring His aid and blessing for the illumination of our labours, and
the turning them into good and holy uses.
" Lastly, we have circuits or visits of divers principal cities of the
kingdom, where, as it cometh to pass, we do publish such new profit
able inventions as we think good. And we do also declare natural
divinations of diseases, plagues, swarms of hurtful creatures, scarcity,
tempests, earthquakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of the
year, and divers other things ; and we give counsel thereupon what
the people shall do for the prevention and remedy of them."
And when he had said this, he stood up ; and I, as I had been
taught, kneeled down, and he laid his right hand upon my head, and
said, " God bless thee, my son, and God bless this relation which
I have made ; I give thee leave to publish it for the good of other
nations, for we here are in God's bosom, a land unknown." And so
he left me, having assigned a value of about two thousand ducats for
a bounty to me and my fellows ; for they give great largesses where
they come upon all occasions.
(The rest was not perfected?)
1 Roger Bacon.
A COLLECTION OF APOPHTHEGMS,
NEW AND OLD.
PREFACE,
JULIUS OESAR did write a collection of apophthegms, as appears
in an epistle of Cicero ; so did Macrobius, a consular man. I need
say no more for the worth of a writing of that nature. It is pity
Caesar's book is lost : for I imagine they were collected with judgment
and choice ; whereas that of Plutarch and Stobaeus, and much more
the modern ones, draw much of the dregs. Certainly they are of
excellent use. They are mucrones verborum, pointed speeches. " The
words of the wise are as goads," saith Solomon. Cicero prettily
calleth them salinas, salt-pits, that you may extract salt out of,
and sprinkle it where you will. They serve to be interlaced in con
tinued speech. They serve to be recited upon occasion of themselves.
They serve, if you take out the kernel of them, and make them your
own. I have, for my recreation amongst more serious studies,
collected some few of them i1 therein fanning the old ; not omitting
any, because they are vulgar, for many vulgar ones are excellent good ;
nor for the meanness of the person, but because they are dull and flat ;
and adding many new, that otherwise would have died.
QUEEN ELIZABETH, the morrow of her coronation, it being the
custom to release prisoners at the inauguration of a prince, went
to the chapel ; and in the great chamber, one of her courtiers, who was
well known to her, either out of his own motion, or by the instigation
of a wiser man, presented her with a petition ; and before a great
number of courtiers, besought her with a loud voice, " That now this
good time, there might be four or five principal prisoners more
released. Those were the four evangelists and the apostle St. Paul,
who had been long shut up in an unknown tongue, as it were in
prison ; so as they could not converse with the common people. The
Queen answered very gravely, " That it was best first to inquire
of them, whether they would be released or no."
Queen Ann Bullen, at the time when she was led to be beheaded in
the Tower, called one of the king's privy chamber to her, and said unto
him, " Commend me to the king, and tell him, that he hath been ever
1 This collection his lordship made out of his memory, without turning any book.
Rawley.
APOPHTHEGMS.
as*
constant in his course of advancing me : from a private gentlewoman
he made me a marchioness ; and from a marchioness a queen ; and
now, that he hath left no higher degree of earthly honour, he intends
to crown my innocency with the glory of martyrdom."
His majesty James the first, king of Great Britain, having made unto
his parliament an excellent and large declaration, concluded thus : " I
have now given you a clear mirror of my mind ; use it therefore like a
mirror, and take heed how you let it fall, or how you soil it with your
breath."
• A great officer in France was in danger to have lost his place ; but
his wife, by her suit and means making, made his peace ; whereupon a
pleasant fellow said, " That he had been crushed, but that he saved
himself upon his horns."
His majesty said to his Parliament at another time, rinding there
were some causeless jealousies sown amongst them : " That the king
and his people, whereof the parliament is the representative body, were
as husband and wife ; and therefore that of all other things jealousy
between them was the most pernicious."
His majesty, when he thought his council might note in him some
variety in businesses, though indeed he remained constant, would say,
" That the sun many times shineth watery ; but it is not the sun which
causeth it, but some cloud rising betwixt us and the sun : and when
that is scattered, the sun is as it was, and comes to his former bright
ness."
His majesty, in his answer to the book of the cardinal Evereux, who
had in a grave argument of divinity sprinkled many witty ornaments of
poesy and humanity, saith ; " That these flowers were like blue, and
yellow, and red flowers in the corn, which make a pleasant show
to those that look on, but they hurt the corn."
Sir Edward Coke being vehement against the two provincial coun
cils of Wales, and the North, said to the king : " There was nothing
there but a kind of confusion and hotch-potch of justice : one while
they were a star-chamber ; another while a king's bench ; another, a
common-pleas ; another, a commission of oyer and terminer." His
majesty answered : " Why, Sir Edward Coke, they be like houses in
progress, where I have not, nor can have, such distinct rooms of state,
as I have here at Whitehall, or at Hampton-court."
The commissioners of the treasury moved the king, for the relief
of his estate, to disafforest some forests of his, explaining themselves
of such forests as lay out of the way, not near any of the king's houses,
nor in the course of his progress j whereof he should never have use
nor pleasure. " Why," saith the king, " do you think that Solomon
had use and pleasure of all his three hundred concubines ?"
His majesty, when the committees of both houses of parliament
presented unto them the instrument of union of England and Scotland,
was merry with them ; and amongst other pleasart speeches, showed
unto them the laird of Lawreston, a Scotchman, who was the tallest
and greatest man that was to be seen, and said, " Well, now we are all
one, yet none of you will say, But here is one Scotchman greater than
any Englishman ; " which was an ambiguous speech : but it was
thought he meant it of himself.
352 APOPHTHEGMS.
His majesty would say to the lords of his council, when they sat
upon any great matter, and came from council in to him, " Well, you
have sat, but what have you hatched?"
When the archduke did raise his siege from the Grave, the then
secretary came to Queen Elizabeth. The queen, having first intelli
gence thereof, said to the secretary, " Wot you what ? The archduke
has risen from the Grave." He answered, "What, without the trumpet
of the archangel ?" The queen replied, " Yes, without the sound of
trumpet."
Queen Elizabeth was importuned much by my lord of Essex, to
supply divers great offices that had been long void ; the queen
answered nothing to the matter, but rose up on the sudden, and said,
" I am sure my office will not be long void." And yet at that time
there was much speech of troubles, and divisions about the crown, to
be after her decease : but they all vanished ; and king James came in,
in a profound peace.
The council did make remonstrance unto Queen Elizabeth of the
continual conspiracies against her life ; and namely, that a man was
lately taken, who stood ready in a very dangerous and suspicious
manner to do the deed : and they showed her the weapon wherewith
he thought to have acted it. And therefore they advised her that she
should go less abroad to take the air weakly attended, as she used.
But the queen answered, " That she had rather be dead, than put in
custody. "
The lady Paget, that was very private with Queen Elizabeth,
declared herself much against the match with Monsieur. After Mon
sieur's death, the queen took extreme grief, at least as she made show,
and kept in within her bed-chamber and one ante-chamber for three
weeks' space, in token of mourning : at last she came forth into the
privy-chamber, and admitted her ladies to have access unto her ; and
amongst the rest my lady Paget presented herself, and came to her
with a smiling countenance. The queen bent her brows, and seemed
to be highly displeased, and said to her, " Madam, you are not
ignorant of my extreme grief, and do you come to me with a coun
tenance of joy ?" My lady Paget answered, " Alas, if it please your
majesty, it is impossible for me to be absent from you three weeks,
but that when I see you, I must look cheerfully." " No, no," saith the
queen, not forgetting her former averseness to the match, "you have
some other conceit in it, tell me plainly." My lady answered, " I must
obey you ; it is this. I was thinking how happy your majesty was,
you married not Monsieur : for seeing you take such thought for h.s
death, being but your friend ; if he had been your husband, sure
it would have cost you your life."
King Henry the Fourth of France was so punctual of his word, after
it was once passed, that they called him, " The king of the faith." l
The said king Henry the Fourth was moved by his Parliament to a
war against the Protestants : he answered, "Yes, I mean it; I will
make every one of you captains ; you shall have companies assigned
you." The Parliament observing whereunto his speech tended, gave
over, and deserted his motion.
1 A play on the term for the Huguenots, who called themselves " of the Faith."
APOPHTHEGMS. 353
Queen Elizabeth was wont to say, upon the commission of sales,
** That the commissioners used her like strawberry wives, that laid two
or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest
were little ones ; so they made her two or three good prizes of the first
particulars, but fell straightways."
Queen Elizabeth used to say of her instructions to great officers,
" That they were like to garments, strait at the first putting on, but did
by and by wear loose enough."
A great officer at court, when my lord of Essex was first in trouble,
and that he and those that dealt for him would talk much of my lord's
friends, and of his enemies, answered to one of them, " I will tell you,
I know but one friend and one enemy my lord hath, and that one
friend is the queen, and that one enemy is himself."
The book for deposing king Richard the Second, and the coming in
of Henry the Fourth, supposed to be written by Dr. Hayward, who was
committed to the Tower for it, had much incensed queen Elizabeth ;
and she asked Mr. Bacon, being then of her counsel learned, " Whether
there were any treason contained in it ? " Who intending to do him a
pleasure, and to take off the queen's bitterness with a merry conceit,
answered, " No, Madam, for treason I cannot deliver an opinion that
there is any, but very much felony." The queen, apprehending it
gladly, asked, " How? and wherein?" Mr. Bacon answered, " Because
he had stolen many of his sentences and conceits out of Cornelius
Tacitus."
Queen Elizabeth being to resolve upon a great office, and being by
some, that canvassed for others, put in some doubt of that person
whom she meant to advance, called for Mr. Bacon, and told him,
" She was like one with a lanthorn seeking a man ; " and seemed
unsatisfied in the choice she had of a man for that place. Mr. Bacon
answered her, "That he had heard that in old time there was usually
painted on the church walls the day of doom, and God sitting in jud-
ment, and St. Michael by him, with a pair of balances ; and the soul
and the good deeds in the one balance, and the faults and the evil
deeds in the other : and the soul's balance went up tat '.oo light. Then
was our lady painted with a great pair of beads, who cast them into the
light balance, and brought down the scale : so, he said, place and
authority, which were in her majesty's hands to give, were like our
lady's beads, which though men, through any imperfections, were too
light before, yet when they were cast in, made weight competent."
Queen Elizabeth was dilatory enough in suits, of her own nature ;
and the lord treasurer Burleigh being a wise man, and willing therein
to feed her humour, would say to her, " Madam, you do well to let
suitors stay ; for I shall tell you, ' bis dat, qui cito dat; 3 if you grant
them speedily, they will come again the sooner."
Sir Nicholas Bacon, who was keeper of the great seal of England,
when queen Elizabeth in her progress came to his house at Gor-
hambury, and said to him, " My lord, what a little house have you
gotten !" answered her, "Madam, my house is well, but it is you that
have made me too great for my house."
There was a conference in parliament between the Lords' house
and the house of Common?- about a bill of accountants, which came
A A
354
APOPHTHEGMS.
clown from the Lords to the Commons ; which bill prayed, " That the
lands of accountants, whereof they were seized when they entered upon
their office, might be liable to their arrears to the queen." But the
Commons desired, " That the bill might not look back to accountant*
that were already, but extend only to accountants hereafter." But th*
lord treasurer said, " Why, I pray you, if you had lost your purse by
the way, would you look forwards, or would you look back ? Ths
queen hath lost her purse."
The lord keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was asked his opinion by
my lord of Leicester concerning two persons whom the queen seemed
to think well of: " By my troth, my lord," said he, " the one is a grave
counsellor ; the other is a proper young man ; and so he will be as
long as he lives."
My lord of Leicester, favourite to queen Elizabeth, was making
a large chase about Cornbury-park, meaning to inclose it with posts
and rails ; and one day was casting up his charge what it would come
to. Mr. Goldingham, a free spoken man, stood by, and said to my
lord, " Methinks your lordship goeth not the cheapest way to work."
" Why, Goldingham ?" said my lord. " Marry, my lord," said Golding
ham, " count you but upon the posts, for the country will find you
railing."
The lord keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon, was asked his opinion by
queen Elizabeth of one of these monopoly licenses ? And he an
swered, " Madam, will you have me speak the truth ? Licentia omnes
deteriores sumus" We are all the worse for licenses.
My lord of Essex, at the succour of Roan, made twenty-four knights,
which at that time was a great number. Divers of those gentlemen
were of weak and small means ; which when queen Elizabeth heard,
she said, " My lord might have done well to have built his almshouse,
before he made his knights."
The deputies of the reformed religion, after the massacre which
was at Paris upon St. Bartholomew's day, treated with the king and
queen-mother, and some other of the council, for a peace. Both sides
were agreed upon the articles. The question was, upon the security
for the performance. After some particulars propounded and rejected,
the queen-mother said, "Why, is not the word of a king sufficient
security ? " One of the deputies answered, " No, by St. Bartholomew,
Madam."
There was a French gentleman speaking with an English, of
the law Salique : that women were excluded from inheriting the crown
of France. The English said, " Yes ; but that was meant of the
women themselves, not of such males as claimed by women." The
French gentleman said, "Where do you find that gloss?" The
English answered, " I'll tell you, Sir ; look on the backside of the
record of the law Salique, and there you shall find it indorsed ; "
implying there was no such thing as the law Salique, but that it is a
mere fiction.
A friar of France, being in an earnest dispute about the law Salique,
would needs prove it by Scripture ; citing that verse of the Gospel :
k' Lilia agra non laborant neque nent : " the lilies of the field do neither
labour ncr spin ; applying it thus : That the flower-de-luces of France
APOr-HTHEGMS. 355
cannot descend, neither to the distaff nor to the spade : that is, not to
a woman, nor to a peasant.
When peace was renewed with the French in England, divers of
the great counsellors were presented from the French with jewels ;
the lord Henry Howard, being then earl of Northampton, and a coun
sellor, was omitted. Whereupon the king said to him, " My lord, how
happens it that you have not a jewel as well as the rest ? " My lord
answered, according to the fable in ./Esop : " Non sum Gallus, itaque.
non reperi gemmam."
The same earl of Northampton, then lord privy seal, was asked by
king James, openly at the table, where commonly he entertained
the king with discourse ; the king asked him upon the sudden, *' My
lord, have you not a desire to see Rome?" My lord privy seal an
swered, " Yes, indeed, sir." The king said, " And why ? " My lord
answered, " Because, if it please your majesty, it was the seat of the
greatest monarchy, and the seminary of the bravest men of the world,
whilst it was heathen : and then, secondly, because afterwards it was
the see of so many holy bishops in the primitive Church, most of them
martyrs." The king would not give it over, but said, " And for nothing
else?" My lord answered, "Yes, if it please your Majesty, for two
things more : the one, to see him, who, they say, hath so great power
to forgive other men their sins, to confess his own sins upon his knees
before a chaplain or priest : and the other, to hear Antichrist say his
creed."
Sir Nicholas Bacon being appointed a judge for the northern circuit,
and ^having brought his trials that came before him to such a pass,
as the passing of sentence on malefactors, he was by one of the
malefactors mightily importuned for to save his life ; which, when
nothing that he had said did avail, he at length desired his mercy on
account of kindred. " Prithee," said my lord judge, " how came that
in ? " " Why, if it please you, my lord, your name is Bacon, and mine
is Hog, and in all ages Hog and Bacon have been so near kindred,
that they are not to be separated." " Ay, but," replied judge Bacon,
" you and I cannot be kindred except you be hanged ; for Hog is not
Bacon until it be well hanged."
Two scholars and a countryman travelling upon the road, one
night lodged all in one inn, and supped together, where the scholars
thought to have put a trick upon the countryman, which was thus : the
Scholars appointed for supper two pigeons, and a fat capon, which
oeing ready was brought up, and they having sat down, the one scholar
took up one pigeon, the other scholar took the other pigeon, thinking
thereby that the countryman should have sat still, until that they were
ready for the carving of the capon ; which he perceiving, took the
capon and laid it on his trencher, and thus said, " Daintily contrived,
every man a bird."
Jack Roberts was desired by his tailor, when the reckoning grew
somewhat high, to have a bill of his hand. Roberts said, " I am con
tent, but you must let no man know it." When the tailor brought him
the bill, he tore it as in choler, and said to him, " You use me not
well ; you promised me that no man should know it, and here you have
put in, ' Be it known unto all men by these presents.' "
\ A 2
356 APOPHTHEGMS.
Sii Walter Raleigh was wont to say of the ladies of queen Elizabeth's
privy-chamber and bed-chamber, "that they were like witches, they
could do no hurt, but they could do no good."
There was a minister deprived for inconformity, who said to some of
his friends, " that if they deprived him, it should cost an hundred
men's lives." The party understood it, as if, being a turbulent fellow,
he would have moved sedition, and complained of him ; whereupon
being convented and apposed upon that speech, he said his meaning
was, " that if he lost his benefice, he would practise physic, and then
he thought he would kill an hundred men in time."
When Rabelais, the great jester of France, lay on his death-bed, and
they gave him the extreme unction, a familiar friend came to him
afterwards, and asked him how he did? Rabelais answered, "Even
going my journey, they have greased my boots already."
Mr. Bromley, solicitor, giving in evidence for a deed, which was
impeached to be fraudulent, was urged by the counsel on the other
side with this presumption, " That in two former suits, when title was
made, that deed was passed over in silence, and some other convey
ance stood upon." Mr. Justice Catline taking in with that side, asked
the solicitor, " I pray thee, Mr. Solicitor, let me ask you a familiar
question ; I have two geldings in my stable ; I have divers times
business of importance, and still I send forth one of my geldings, and
not the other ; would you not think I set him aside for a jade?" "No,
my lord," said Bromley, "I would think you spared him for your own
saddle."
Thales, as he looked upon the stars, fell towards water ; whereupon
it was after said, " that if he had looked into the water he might have
seen the stars, but looking up to the stars he could not see the
water."
A thief being arraigned at the bar for stealing a mare, in his plead
ing urged many things in his own behalf, and at last nothing availing,
he told the bench, the mare rather stole him, than he the mare ; which
in brief he thus related : That passing over several grounds about his
lawful occasions, he was pursued close by a fierce mastiff dog, and so
was forced to save himself by leaping over a hedge, which being of an
agile body he effected ; and in leaping, a mare standing on the other
side of the hedge, leaped upon her back, who running furiously away
with him, he could not by any means stop her, until he came to the
next town, in which town the owner of the mare lived, and there was
he taken, and here arraigned.
Master Mason of Trinity college, sent his pupil to another of the
fellows, to borrow a book of him, who told him, '' 1 am loth to lend my
books out of my chamber, but if it please thy tutor to come and read
upon it in my chamber, he shall as long as he will." It was winter,
and some days after the same fellow sent to Mr. Mason to borrow his
bellows ; but Mr. Mason said to his pupil, " I am loth to lend my
bellows out of my chamber, but if thy tutor would come and blow the
fire in my chamber, he shall as long as he will."
A notorious rogue being brought to the bar, and knowing his case
to be desperate, instead of pleading, took to himself the liberty of
jesting, and thus said. ' i c harge you in the king's name, to seize and
APOPHTHEGMS.
357
take away that man (meaning the judge) in the red gown, for 1 go in
danger of my life because of him."
In Flanders by accident a Flemish tiler fell from the top of a house
upon a Spaniard, and killed him, though he escaped himself; the next
01 the blood prosecuted his death with great violence, and when he
was offered pecuniary recompence, nothing would serve him but lex
talionis : whereupon the judge said to him, "that if he did urge that
sentence, it must be that he go up to the top of the house, and then
fall down upon the tiler."
A rough-hewn seaman, being brought before a wise just-ass for some
misdemeanor, was by him sent away to prison, and being somewhat
refractory after he heard his doom, insomuch as he would not stir a
foot from the place where he stood, saying, " it were better to stand
where he was than go to a worse place : " the justice thereupon to show
the strength of his learning, took him by the shoulder, and said, " Thou
shalt go nogus vo&usf instead of nolens volens.
Francis the First of France used for his pleasure sometimes to go
disguised : so walking one day in the company of the cardinal of
Bourbon near Paris, he met a peasant with a new pair of shoes upon
his arm : so he called unto him and said ; " By our lady, these be good
shoes, what did they cost thee ?" The peasant said, " Guess." The
king said, " I think some five sols." Saith the peasant, " You have
lied ; but a carlois." " What, villain," said the cardinal of Bourbon,
" thou art dead, it is the king." The peasant replied ; " The devil take
him of you and me, that knew so much."
There was a young man in Rome that was very like Augustus
Ccesar ; Augustus took knowledge of him, and sent for the man, and
asked him, " Was your mother ever at Rome ? " He answered ; " No
Sir, but my father was."
A physician advised his patient that had sore eyes, that he should
abstain from wine ; but the patient said, "I think, rather, Sir, front
wine and water ; for I have often marked it in blue eyes, and I have
seen water come forth, but never wine."
A debauched seaman being brought before a justice of the peace
upon the account of swearing, was by the justice commanded to deposit
his fine in that behalf provided, which was two shillings ; he thereupon
plucking out of his pocket half a crown, asked the justice what was the
rate he was to pay for cursing ; the justice told him sixpence : quoth
he, " Then you are all a company of knaves and fools, and there's a
half a crown for you, I will never stand changing of money."
Augustus Caesar was invited to supper bv one of his old friends, that
had conversed with mm in nis less lortunes, ana naa out ordinary
entertainment ; whereupon at his going away, he said, " I did not
know that you and I were so familiar."
Agathocles, after he had taken Syracuse, the men whereof, during
the siege, had in a bravery spoken of him all the villany that might be,
sold the Syracusans for slaves, and said ; " Now if you use such words
of me, I will tell your masters of you."
Dionysius the elder, when he saw his son in many things very in
ordinate, said to him, "Did you ever know me do such things?"
His son answered, " No, but you had not a tyrant to your father.*
358 APOPHTHEGMS.
The father replied, "No, nor you, if you take these courses, will have
a tyrant to your son."
Callisthenes, the philosopher, that followed Alexander's court, and
hated the king, being asked by one, how one should become the
famousest man in the world, answered, " By taking away him that is."
Agesilaus, when one told him there was one did excellently counter
feit a nightingale, and would have had him hear him, said ; " Why I
have heard the nightingale herself."
A great nobleman, upon the complaint of a servant of his, laid a
citizen by the heels, thinking to bend him to his servant's desire ; but
the fellow being stubborn, the servant came to his lord, and told him,
"Your lordship, I know, hath gone as far as well you may, but it works
not ; for yonder fellow is more perverse than before." Said my lord,
u Let's forget him awhile, and then he will remember himself."
One came to a cardinal in Rome, and told him, that he had brought
his lordship a dainty white palfrey, but he fell lame by the way. Saith
the cardinal to him, " I'll tell thee what thou shalt do ; go to such a
cardinal, and such a cardinal," naming him half-a-dozen cardinals,
" and tell them as much ; and so whereas by thy horse, if he had been
sound, thou couldest have pleased but one, with thy lame horse thou
mayest please half-a-dozen.>;
A witty rogue coming into a lace-shop, said, he had occasion for
some lace ; choice whereof being showed him, he at last pitched upon
one pattern, and asked them, how much they would have for so much
as would reach from ear to ear, for so much he had occasion for.
They told him, for so much : so some few words passing between
them, he at last agreed, and told down his money for it, and began to
measure on his own head, thus saying ; one ear is here, and the other
is nailed to the pillory at Bristol, and I fear you have not so much of
this lace by you at present as will perfect my bargain : therefore this
piece of lace shall suffice at present in part of payment, and provide
the rest with all expedition."
Iphicrates the Athenian, in a treaty that he had with the Lace
daemonians for peace, in which question was about security for observ
ing the same, said, " The Athenians would not accept of any security,
except the Lacedaemonians did yield up unto them those things,
whereby it might be manifest, that they could not hurt them if they
would."
Euripides would say of persons that were beautiful, and yet in some
years, " In fairest bodies not only the spring is pleasant, but also the
autumn."
There was a captain sent to an exploit by his general with forces
that were not likely to achieve the enterprise ; the captain said to him,
"Sir, appoint but half so many." "Why?" saith the general. The
captain answered, " Because it is better fewer die than more."
There was a harbinger who had lodged a gentleman in a very ill
room, who expostulated with him somewhat rudely ; but the harbinger
carelessly said : " You will take pleasure in it when you are out of it."
There is a Spanish adage, " Love without end hath no end : n
meaning, that if it were begun not upon particular ends it would last.
A woman being suspected by her husband for dishonesty, and being
APOPHTHEGMS. 359
by him at last pressed very hard about it, made him quick answer
with many protestations, " that she knew no more of what he said
than the man in the moon." Now the captain of the ship called the
Moon, was the very man she so much loved.
Demosthenes when he fled from the battle, and that it was reproached
to him, said, " that he that flies might fight again."
Gonsalvo1 would say, "The honour of a soldier ought to be of a strong
web ; " meaning, that it should not be so fine and curious, that every
little disgrace should catch and stick in it.
Bias gave in precept, " Love as if you should hereafter hate : and
hate as if you should hereafter love/'
Cineas was an excellent orator and statesman, and principal friend
and counsellor to Pyrrhus ; and falling in inward talk with him, and
discerning the king's endless ambition, Pyrrhus opened himself unto
hirn, that he intended first a war upon Italy, and hoped to achieve it :
Cineas asked him, " Sir, what will you do then ? " " Then," saith he,
"we will attempt Sicily." Cineas said, "Well, Sir, what then?"
Saith Pyrrhus, " If the gods favour us, we may conquer Africa and
Carthage." "What then, Sir?" saith Cineas. "Nay, then," saith
Pyrrhus, " we may take our rest, and sacrifice and feast every day, and
make merry with our friends." " Alas, Sir," said Cineas, " may we not
do so now without all this ado ? "
Lamia the courtezan had all power with Demetrius king of Macedon,
and by her instigations he did many unjust and cruel acts ; whereupon
Lysimachus said, "that it was the first time that ever he knew a
courtezan play in a tragedy."
Epaminondas, when his great friend and colleague in war was suitor
to him to pardon an offender, denied him ; afterwards, when a concu
bine of his made the same suit, he granted it to her ; which, when
Pelopidas seemed to take unkindly, he said " Such suits are not to be
granted to personages of worth."
Thales being asked when a man should marry, said, " Young men
not yet, old men not at all."
A company of scholars going together to catch conies, carried one
scholar with them which had not much more wit than he was born
with ; and to him they gave in charge, that if he saw any, he should
be silent, for fear of scaring of them. But he no sooner espied a com
pany of rabbits, before the rest, but he cried aloud, " Ecce multi cuni-
culi," which in English signifies, " Behold many conies ; " which he
had no sooner said, but the conies ran to their burrows : and he being
checked by them for it, answered, " Who the devil would have thought
that the rabbits understood Latin ? "
A Welchman being at a sessions-house, and seeing the prisoners
hold up hands at the bar, related to some of his acquaintance there,
" that the judges were good fortune-tellers ; for if they did but look
upon their hands, they could certainly tell whether they should live or die."
Solon compared the people unto the sea, and orators and coun
sellors to the winds : for that the sea would be calm and quiet, if the
winds did not trouble it.
' The famous Spanish general called The Great Captain. He died 151
360 APOPHTHEGMS.
Socrates wai pronounced by the oracle of Delphos to be the
wisest man of Greece, which he would put from himself ironically,
saying, " there would be nothing in him to verify the oracle, except
this, that he was not wise, and knew it ; and others were not wise, and
knew it not."
Socrates, when there was showed him the book ot Heraclitus the
obscure, and was asked his opinion of it, answered, " Those things
which I understood were excellent, I imagine so were those I under
stood not ; but they require a diver of Delos."
Bion asked an envious man that was very sad, " what harm had be
fallen unto him, or what good had befallen unto another man ?"
Stilpo the philosopher, when the people flocked about him, and that
one said to him, " The people come wandering about you as if it were
to see some strange beast !" "No," saith he, "it is to see a man
which Diogenes sought with his lanthorn at noon-day."
A citizen of London passing the streets very hastily, came at
last where some stop was made by carts, and some gentlemen talking
together, who knew him : where being in some passion that he could
not suddenly pass, one of them in this wise spoke unto him, " that
others had passed by, and there was room enough, only they could not
tell whether their horns were so wide as his."
A tinker passing Cheapside with his usual tone, " Have you any
work for a tinker ?" an apprentice standing at a door opposite to
a pillory there set up, called the tinker, with an intent to put a jest
upon him, and told him, " that he should do very well if he would stop
those two holes in the pillory ;" to which the tinker answered, " that
if he would but put in his head and ears a while in that pillory,
he would bestow both brass and nails upon him to hold him in,
and give him his labour into the bargain."
There was in Oxford a cowardly fellow that was a very good archer.
He was abused grossly by another, and moaned himself to Sir Walter
Raleigh, then a scholar, and asked his advice, what he should do
to repair the wrong had been offered him ; Raleigh answered, " Why,
challenge him at a match of shooting/'
Whitehead, a grave divine, was much esteemed by queen Elizabeth;
but not preferred, because he was against the government of bishops ;
he was of blunt stoical nature : he came one day to the queen, and the
queen happened to say to him, " I like thee the better, Whitehead,
because thou livest unmarried." He answered, " In troth, Madam, I
like you the worse for the same cause."
Dr. Laud said, " that some hypocrites and seeming mortified men,
that held down their heads like bulrushes, were like the little images
that they place in the very bowing of the vaults of churches, that look
as^if they held up the church, but are but puppets."
There was a page that his master whipt naked, and when he had
been whipt, would not put on his clothes : and when his master bade
him, said, '" Take them you, for they are the hangman's fees/'
There was a lady of the west country, that gave great entertainment
at her house to most of the gallant gentlemen thereabouts, and
amongst others Sir Walter Raleigh was one. This lady, though
otherwise a stately dame, was a notable good housewife ; and in the
APOPHTHEGMS. 361
morning betimes she called to one of her maids that looked to the
swine, and asked, "Are the pigs served?" Sir Walter Raleigh's
chamber was fast by the lady's, so as he heard her : a little before
dinner, the lady came down in great state into the great chamber,
which was full of gentlemen : and as soon as Sir Walter Raleigh set
eye upon her, " Madam," saith he, " are the pigs served ?" The lady
answered, " You know best whether you have had your breakfast."
There were fishermen drawing the river at Chelsea : Mr. Bacon
came thither by chance in the afternoon, and offered to buy their
draught : they were willing. He asked them what they would take ?
They asked thirty shillings. Mr. Bacon offered them ten. They
refused it. " WThy, then," saith Mr. Bacon, " I will be only a looker on."
They drew, and catched nothing. Saith Mr. Bacon, " Are not you mad
fellows now, that might have had an angel in your purse, to have made
merry withal, and to have warmed you thoroughly, and now you must
go home with nothing." "Ay but," saith the fishermen, " we had hope
then to make a better gain of it." Saith Mr. Bacon, <% Well, my
master, then I will tell you, hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad
supper."
A lady, walking with Mr. Bacon in Gray's Inn walks, asked him,
" Whose that piece of ground lying next under the walls was ? " He
answered, " Theirs." Then she asked him, "If those fields beyond the
walks were theirs too ? " He answered, " Yes, Madam, those are ours,
as you are ours, to look on, and no more."
His lordship, when he was newly made lord Keeper, was in Gray's
Inn walks with Sir Walter Raleigh : one came and told him that the
earl of Exeter was above. He continued upon occasion still walking a
good while. At last when he came up, my lord of Exeter met him,
and said, " My lord, I have made a great venture, to come up so high
stairs, being a gouty man." His lordshp answered, " Pardon me, my
lord, I have made the greatest venture of all ; for I have ventured upon
your patience."
When Sir Francis Bacon was made the king's attorney, Sir
Edward Coke was put up from being Lord Chief Justice of the common
pleas, to be Lord Chief Justice of the king's bench ; which is a place
of greater honour but of less profit ; and withal was made privy coun<
sellor. After a few days, the Lord Coke meeting with the' king's
attorney, said unto him, " Mr. Attorney, this is all your doing ; it is
you that have made this stir." Mr. Attorney answered, " Ah, my lord !
your lordship all this while has grown in breadth ; you must needs
now grow in height, or else you would be a monster."
One day queen Elizabeth told Mr. Bacon that my lord of Essex,
after great protestation of penitence and affection, fell in the end but
upon the suit of renewing of his farm of sweet wines. He answered
"I read that in nature there be two kinds of motions or appetites in
sympathy ; the one as of iron to the adamant, for perfection ; the
other as of the vine to the stake, for sustentation ; that her majesty
was the one, and his suit the other."
Mr. Bacon, after he had been vehement in parliament against
depopulation and inclosures ; and that soon after the queen told hint
that she had referred the hearing of Mr. Mill's cause to certain coun-
363 APOPHTHEGMS.
sellers and judges ; and asked him how he liked of it? answered, " Oh,
Madam, my mind is known ; I am against all inclosurcs, and especially
against inclosed justice."
When Sir Nicholas Bacon the lord keeper lived, every room in
Gorhambury was served with a pipe of water from the ponds, dis
tant about a mile off. In the lifetime of Mr. Anthony Bacon, the
water ceased. After whose death, his lordship coming to the inheri
tance, could not recover the water without infinite charge : when he
was lord chancellor, he built Verulam house, close by the pond yard,
for a place of privacy when he was called upon to dispatch any urgent
business. And being asked, why he had built that house there ; his
lordship answered, " that since he could not carry the water to his
house, he would carry his house to the water."
When my lord president of the council came first to be lord
treasurer, he complained to my lord chancellor of the troublesomeness
of the place ; for that the exchequer was so empty ; the lord chan
cellor answered, " My lord, be of good cheer, for now you shall see the
bottom of your business at the first."
When his lordship was newly advanced to the great seal, Gondomar l
came to visit him. My lord said, that he was to thank God and the
king for that honour ; but yet, so he might be rid of the burden, he
could very willingly forbear the honour ; and that he formerly had a
desire, and the same continued with him still, to lead a private life.
Gondomar answered, that he would tell him a tale of an old rat, that
would needs leave the world, and acquainted the young rats that he
would retire into his hole, and spend his days solitarily, and would
enjoy no more comfort ; and commanded them upon his high dis
pleasure, not to offer to come in unto him. They forbore two or three
days ; at last, one that was more hardy than the rest incited some of
his fellows to go in with him, and he would venture to see how his
father did ; for he might be dead. They went in, and found the old
rat sitting in the midst of a rich Parmesan cheese. So he applied the
fable after his witty manner.
Rabelais tells a tale of one that was very fortunate in com
pounding differences. His son undertook the said course, but could
never compound any. Whereupon he came to his father, and asked
him, what art fle had to reconcile differences ? He answered, " he had
no other but this : to watch when the two parties weie much wearied,
and their hearts were too great to seek reconcilement at one another's
hands ; then to be a means betwixt them, and upon no other terms.'*
After which the son went home and prospered in the same under
takings.
Alonso Cartilio was informed by his steward of the greatness
of his expense, being such as he could not hold out therewith. The
bishop asked him, wherein it chiefly arose ? His steward told him, in
the multitude of his servants. The bishop bade him to make him a
note of those that were necessary, and those that might be spared.
Which he did. And the bishop taking occasion to read it before most
of his servants, said to his steward, " Well, let these remain because I
1 The Spanish ambassador, whose influence sent Raleigh to the block.
APOPHTHEGMS. 363
have need of them ; and these other also because they have need of
me."
Mr. Marbury the preacher would say, " that God was fain to do with
wicked men, as men do with frisking jades in a pasture, that cannot
take them up, till they get them at a gate. So wicked men will not be
taken up till the hour of death."
Pope Sixtus the fifth, who was a very poor man's son, and his
father's house ill thatched, so that the sun came in in many places,
would sport with his ignobility, and say, " that he was nato di casa
illustre : son of an illustrious house."
When the king of Spain conquered Portugal, he gave special
charge to his lieutenant that the soldiers should not spoil, lest he
should alienate the hearts of the people : the army also suffered much
scarcity of victual. Whereupon the Spanish soldiers would afterwards
say, " that they had won the king a kingdom on earth, as the kingdom
of heaven used to be won : by fasting and abstaining from that which
is another man's."
They feigned a tale of Sixtus Quintus, whom they called Size-ace,
that after his death he went to hell, and the porter of hell said to him,
" You have some reason to offer yourself to this place, because you
were a wicked man ; but yet, because you were a pope, I have order
not to receive you : you have a place of your own, purgatory ; you
may go thither." So he went away, and sought about a great while
for purgatory, and could find no such place. Upon that he took heart,
and went to heaven, and knocked ; and St. Peter asked, " Who was
there?" He said, "Sixtus pope." Whereunto St. Peter said, "Why
do you knock ? you have the keys." Sixtus answered, " It is true ;
but it is so long since they were given, that I doubt the wards of the
lock be altered."
Charles, king of Sweden, a great enemy of the Jesuits, when he took
any of their colleges, he would hang the old Jesuits, and put the young
to his mines, saying, " that since they wrought so hard above ground,
he would try how they could work under ground."
In chancery, at one time when the counsel of the parties set forth
the boundaries of the land in question, by the plot : and the counsel of
one part said, " We lie on this side, my lord ;" and the counsel of the
other part said, " And we lie on this side ;" the lord chancellor Hatton
stood up and said ; " If you lie on both sides, whom will you have me
to believe?"
Sir Edward Coke was wont to say, when a great man came to
dinner to him, and gave him no knowledge of his coming, '* Sir, since
you sent me no word of your coming, you must dine with me ; but if I
had known of it in due time, I would have dined with you."
Pope Julius the third, when he was made pope, gave his hat unto a
youth, a favourite of his, with great scandal. Whereupon, at one
time, a cardinal that might be free with him, said modestly to him,
"What did your holiness see in that young man, to make him
cardinal ?" Julius answered, " What did you see in me to make me
pope?"
The same Julius, upon like occasion of speech, why he should bear
so great affection to the same young man ? would say, " that he found
<tf>4 APOPHTHEGMS.
by a Urology that it was the youth's destiny to be a great prelate j
which was impossible except himself were pope. And therefore that
he did raise him, as the driver on of his own fortune."
Sir Thomas More had only daughters at the first, and his wife
did ever pray for a boy. At last she had a boy, which being come
to man's estate, proved but simple. Sir Thomas said to his wife,
'; Thou prayedst so long for a boy, that he will be a boy as long as he
lives."
Sir Fulk Grevil, afterwards lord Brook, in parliament, when the
House of Commons, in a great business, stood much upon precedents,
said unto them, "Why do you stand so much upon precedents? The
times hereafter will be good or bad. If good, precedents will do
no harm ; if bad, power will make a way where it finds none."
Sir Thomas More on the day that he was beheaded, had a barber
sent to him, because his hair was long ; which was thought would
make him more commiserated with the people. The barber came to
him, and asked him, " Whether he would be pleased to be trimmed ?"
" In good faith, honest fellow," saith Sir Thomas, " the king and I
have a suit for my head ; and till the title be cleared, I will do no cost
upon it."
Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, a great champion of the
popish religion, was wont to say of the Protestants who ground upon
the Scripture, " That they were like posts, that bring truth in their
letters, and lies in their mouths."
The former Sir Thomas More had sent him by a suitor in chancery
two silver flagons. When they were presented by the gentleman's
servant, he said to one of his men, " Have him to the cellar, and let
him have of my best wine :" and, turning to the servant, said, " Tell
thy master, if he like it, let him not spare it."
Michael Angelo, the famous painter, painting in the pope's chapel
the portraiture of hell and damned souls, made one of the damned
souls so like a cardinal that was his enemy, as everybody at first sight
knew it. Whereupon the cardinal complained to Pope Clement,
humbly praying it might be defaced. The pope said to him, " Why,
you know very well, I have power to deliver a soul out of purgatory,
but not out of hell."
There was an agent here for the Dutch, called Carroon ; and when
he used to move the queen for farther succours and more men, my
lord Henry Howard would say, "That he agreed well with the name
of Charon, ferryman of hell ; for he came still for more men, to
increase regnum umbranim"
They were wont to call referring to the masters in chancery, com
mitting. My lord keeper Egerton, when he was master of the
rolls, was wont to ask, " What the cause had done that it should be
committed?"
They feigned a tale, principally against doctors' reports in the
chancery, that Sir Nicholas Bacon, when he came to heaven gate, was
opposed, touching an unjust decree which had been made in the
chancery. Sir Nicholas desired to see the order, whereupon the
decree was drawn up ; and finding it to begin, " Veneris" &c., "Why,"
saith he, " 1 was then sitting in the star-chamber ; this concerns the
APOPHTHEGMS. 365
of the rolls : let him answer it." Soon after came the master
of the rolls, Cordal, who died indeed a small time after Sir Nicholas
Bacon ; and he was likewise stayed upon it : and looking into the order
he found, that upon the reading of a certificate of Dr. Gibson, it was
ordered that his report should be decreed. And so he put it upon Dr.
Gibson, and there it stuck.
Sir Nicholas Bacon, when a certain nimble-witted counsellor
at the bar, who was forward to speak did interrupt him often, said
unto him, " There is a great difference betwixt you and me : a pain to
me to speak, and a pain to you to hold your peace."
The same Sir Nicholas Bacon, upon bills exhibited to discover
where lands lay, upon proof that they had a certain quantity of land,
but could not set it forth, was wont to say : " And if you cannot
find your land in the country, how will you have me find it in the
chancery ? "
Mr. Rowland, in conference with a young student, arguing a case,
happened to say, " I would ask you but this question." The student
presently interrupted him, to give him an answer. Whereunto Mr.
Howland gravely said, "Nay, though I ask you a question, yet I did
not mean you should answer me ; I mean to answer myself." '
Pope Adrian the sixth was talking with the duke of Sesa, " that
Pasquil l gave great scandal, and that he would have him thrown into
the river : " but Sesa answered, " Do it not, holy father, for then he
will turn frog ; and whereas now he chants but by day, he will then
chant both by day and night."
There was a gentleman in Italy that wrote to a great friend of his,
whom the pope had newly advanced to be cardinal, that he was very
glad of his advancement, for the cardinal's own sake ; but he was sorry
that himself had lost a good friend.
There was a king of Hungary 2 took a bishop in battle, and kept him
prisoner ; whereupon the pope writ a monitory to him, for that he had
broken the privilege of holy church, and taken his son. The king sent
an embassage to him, and sent withal the armour wherein the bishop
was taken, and this only in writing, " Vide num hcuc sit vestis filii tui :
— Know now whether this be thy son's coat."
Sir Amyas Pawlet, when he saw too much haste made in any
matter, was wont to say, " Stay a while, that we may make an end the
sooner."
A master of the requests to Queen Elizabeth had divers times moved
for audience, and been put off. At last he came to the queen in a pro
gress, and had on a new pair of boots. The queen, who loved not the
smell of new leather, said to him, " Fy, sloven, thy new boots stink."
;< Madam," said he, " it is not my new boots that stink ; but it is the
stale bills that I have kept so long."
At an act of the commencement, the answerer gave for his question,
that an aristocracy was better than a monarchy. The replier, who
was a dissolute man, did tax him, that being a private bred man,
1 Pasquil was a statue which stood in the Roman Forum, on which the citizens used to affix
•atirical jests on public men and public occurrences.
2 It was Richard Cceur de Lion who sent this message to the Pope with the armoi'r of tht
Bishop of Beauvais.
366 APOPHTHEGMS.
he would give a question of state. The answerer said, that the
replier did much wrong the privilege of scholars, who would be
much straitened if they should give questions of nothing but such
things wherein they are practised : and added, " We have heard
yourself dispute of virtue, which no man will say you put much in
practice."
Queen Isabella of Spain used to say, " Whosoever hath a good
presence and a good fashion, carries continual letters of recommenda
tion."
Alonso of Arragon was wont to say in commendation of age, " That
age appeared to be best in four things : old wood best to burn ; old
wine to drink ; old friends to trust ; and old authors to read."
It was said of Augustus, and afterwards the like was said of Septimius
Severus, both which did infinite mischief in their beginnings, and
infinite good towards their ends, " that they should either have never
been born or never died."
Constantine the Great, in a kind of envy, himself being a great
builder, as Trajan likewise was, would call Trajan Parietaria : wall
flower ; because his name was upon so many walls.
Alonso of Arragon was wont to say of himself, " That he was a great
necromancer, for that he used to ask counsel of the dead ; " meaning of
books.
Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, in a famine, sold all the rich vessels
and ornaments of the church, to relieve the poor with bread ; and said,
" there was no reason that the dead temples of God should be sump
tuously furnished, and the living temples suffer penury."
Many men, especially such as affect gravity, have a manner after
other men's speech to shake their heads. A great officer of this land
would say, " It was as men shake a bottle, to see if there were any wit
in their heads or no."
After a great fight, there came to the camp of Gonsalvo the great
captain, a gentleman, proudly horsed and armed. Diego de Mendoza
asked the great captain, " Who is this ?" Who answered, " It is Saint
Ermin, who never appears but after a storm."
There was one that died greatly in debt : when it was reported in
some company, where divers of his creditors casually were, that he
was dead, one began to say, " Well, if he be gone, then he hath carried
five hundred ducats of mine with him into the other world ; " and
another said, '•' And two hundred of mine ;" and a third spake of great
sums of his. Whereupon one that was amongst them said, " I per
ceive now, that though a man cannot carry any of his own with him
into the next world, yet he may carry away that which is another man's."
Francis Carvajal, that was the great captain of the rebels of
Peru, had often given the chase to Diego Centeno, a principal com
mander of the emperor's party : he was afterwards taken by the
emperor's lieutenant Gasca, and committed to the custody of Diego
Centeno, who used him with all possible courtesy ; insomuch as Car
vajal asked him, " I pray, Sir, who are you that use me with this
courtesy ? " Centeno said,' " Do not you know Diego Centeno ?" Car
vajal answered, " Truly, Sir, I have been so used to see your back, as
I knew not your face."
APOPHTHEGMS.
367
There was a merchant died that was very far in debt ; his goods and
household stuff were set forth to sale. A stranger would needs buy a
pillow there, saying, " This pillow sure is good to sleep upon, since he
could sleep that owed so many debts."
A lover met his lady in a close chair, she thinking to have
gone unknown ; he came and spake to her. She asked him, " How
did you know me ?" He said, " Because my wounds bleed afresh,
alluding to the common tradition, that the wounds of a body slain wil]
bleed afresh upon the approach of the murderer.
A gentleman brought music to his lady's window. She hated him,
and had warned him often away ; and when he would not desist, she
threw stones at him. Whereupon a gentleman said unto him that was
in his company, " What greater honour can you have to your music,
than that stones come about you, as they did to Orpheus ?"
Coranus the Spaniard, at a table at dinner, fell into an extolling his
own father, saying, " If he could have wished of God, he could
not have chosen amongst men a better father." Sir Henry Savil said,
" What, not Abraham ?" Now Coranus was doubted to descend o: a
race of Jews.
Bresquet, jester to Francis the first of France, did keep a calendar
of fools, wherewith he did use to make the king sport, telling him ever
the reason why he put any one into his calendar. When Charles the
fifth, emperor, upon confidence of the noble nature of Francis, passed
through France, for the appeasing of the rebellion of Gaunt,1 Bresquet
put him into his calendar. The king asked him the cause. He
answered, " Because you having suffered at the hands of Charles the
greatest bitterness that ever prince did from another, nevertheless he
would trust his person into your hands." "Why, Bresquet," said the
king, " what wilt thou say, if thou seest him pass back in as great
safety, as if he marched through the midst of Spain?" Saith Bres
quet, " Why then I will put him out, and put in you."
Archbishop Grindall was wont to say, " that the physicians here in
England were not good at the cure of particular diseases ; but had
only the power of the Church, to bind and loose."
Cosmus duke of Florence was wont to say of perfidious friends,
" that we read, that we ought to forgive our enemies ; but we do not
read that we ought our friends."
A papist being opposed by a protestant, "that they had no Scripture
for images," answered, " Yes ; for you read that the people laid their
sick »n the streets, that the shadow of St. Peter might come upon
them ; and that a shadow was an image, and the obscurest of all
irasges."
Sir Edward Dyer, a grave and wise gentleman, did much believe in
Kelly the alchemist, that he did indeed the work, and did make gold ;
insomuch that he went into Germany, where Kelly then was, to in
form himself fully thereof. After his return, he dined with my lord of
Canterbury ; where at that time was at the table Dr. Brown the phy
sician. They fell in talk of Kelly. Sir Edward Dyer, turning to the
archbishop, said, " I do assure your grace, that what I shall tell you is
Ghent
$68 APOPHTHEGMS
truth ; I am an eye-witness thereof ; and if I had not seen it, I should
not have believed it. I saw Mr. Kelly put of the base metal into the
crucible ; and after it was set a little upon the fire, and a very small
quantity of the medicine put in, and stirred with a stick of wood, it
came forth in great proportion, perfect gold ; to the touch, to the
hammer, and to the test." My lord archbishop said ; "You had need
take heed what you say, Sir Edward Dyer, for here is an infidel at the
board." Sir Edward Dyer said again pleasantly, " I should have
looked for an infidel sooner in any place than at your grace's table."
"What say you, Dr. Brown?" said the archbishop. Dr. Brown
answered, after his blunt and huddling manner ; "The gentleman hath
spoken enough for me." " Why," said the archbishop, "what hath he
said?" "Marry," saith Dr. Brown, "he said, he would not have
believed it, except he had seen it : and no more will I."
Doctor Johnson said, that in sickness there were three things that
were material ; the physician, the disease, and the patient : and if any
two of these joined, then they get the victory; for " Ne Herctiles
quidem contra duos}'' If the physician and the patient join, then down
goes the disease ; for then the patient recovers : if the physician and
the disease join, that is a strong disease ; and the physician mistaking
the cure, then down goes the patient : if the patient and the disease
join, then down goes the physician ; for he is discredited.
Mr. Bettenham said, that virtuous men were like some herbs and
spices, that give not out their sweet smell, till they be broken or
crushed.
There was a painter became a physician : whereupon one said to
him ; " You have done well ; for before the faults of your work were
seen ; but now they are unseen."
There was a gentleman that came to the tilt all in orange-tawney,
and ran very ill. The next day he came again all in green, and ran
worse. There was one of the lookers-on asked another ; " What is
the reason that this gentleman changeth his colours?" The other
answered, " Sure, because it may be reported, that the gentleman
in the green ran worse than the gentleman in the orange-tawney."
Zelim was the first of the Ottomans that did shave his beard,
whereas his predecessors wore it long. One of his bashaws asked him
why he altered the custom of his predecessors? He answered,
" Because you bashaws may not lead me by the beard, as you did
them."
^Eneas Sylvius, that was Pope Pius Secundus, was wont to say :
that the former popes did wisely to set the lawyers a-work to debate,
whether the donation of Constantine the Great to Sylvester, of St.
Peter's patrimony, were good or valid in law or no ? the better to skip
over the matter in fact, whether there was ever any such thing at all
or no.
The lord bishop Andrews was asked at the first coming over of the
archbishop of Spalato, whether he were a protestant or no? He
answered : " Truly I know not ; but I think he is a detestant ;" that
was, of most of the opinions of Rome.
It was said amongst some of the gtfave prelates of the council
of Trent, in which the school-divines bare the sway, that the school-
APOPHTHEGMS. 3^9
men were like astronomers, who, to save the phenomena, framed
to their conceit eccentrics and epicycles, and a wonderful engine of
orbs, though no such things were : so they, to save the practice of the
church, had devised a great number of strange positions.
yEneas Sylvius would say, that the Christian faith and law,
though it had not been l confirmed by miracles, yet was worthy to be
received for the honesty thereof.
Mr. Bacon would say, that it was in his business, as it is frequently
in the ways : that the next * way is commonly the foulest ; and that i
a man will go the fairest way, he must go somewhat about.
Mr. Bettenham, reader of Gray's Inn, used to say, that riches were
like muck ; when it lay in a heap it gave but a stench and ill odour ;
but when it was spread upon the ground, then it was cause of much
fruit.
Cicero married his daughter to Dolabella, that held Caesar's party :
Pompey had married Julia, that was Caesar's daughter. After, when
Caesar and Pompey took arms one against the other, and Pompey
had passed the seas, and Caesar possessed Italy, Cicero stayed some
what long in Italy, but at last sailed over to join with Pompey ;
when he came to him, Pompey said, u You are welcome ; but where
left you your son-in-law ? " Cicero answered, *' With your father-in-
law."
Vespasian and Titus his eldest son were both absent from Rome
when the empire was cast upon Vespasian ; Domitian his younger son
was at Rome, who took upon him the affairs ; and being of a
turbulent spirit, made many changes, and displaced divers officers
and governors of provinces, sending them successors. So when
Vespasian returned to Rome, and Domitian came into his presence,
Vespasian said to him : " Son, I looked when you would have sent me
a successor."
Galba succeeded Nero, and his age being despised, there was much
licence and confusion in Rome during his empire ; whereupon a senator
said in full senate : "It were better to live where nothing is lawful,
than where all things are lawful."
Augustus Caesar did write to Livia, who was over-sensible of some
ill words that had been spoken of them both : " Let it not trouble thee,
my Livia, if any man speak ill of us ; for we have enough that no man
can do ill unto us."
Chilon said, that kings' friends, and favourites, were like casting
counters, that sometimes stood for one, sometimes for ten, sometimes
for an hundred.
Theodosius, when he was pressed by a suitor, and denied him, the
suitor said, " Why, sir, you promised it." He answered : " 1 said it,
but I did not promise it, if it be unjust."
The Romans, when they spake to the people, were wont to style
them, Ye Romans : when commanders in war spake to their army,
they styled them, My soldiers. There was a mutiny in Caesars army,
and somewhat the soldiers would have had, yet they would not declare
themselves in it, but only demanded a mission, or discharge ; though
i Even if it had not been. • Nearest.
B B
37o APOPHTHEGMS.
with no intention it should be granted : but, knowing- that Qesar had
at that time great need of their service, thought by that means to
wrench him to their other desires : whereupon with one cry they asked
mission. Caesar, after silence made, said : " I for my part, ye Romans.'*
This title did actually speak them to be dismissed : which voice they
had no sooner heard, but they mutinied again, and would not suffer
him to go on with his speech until he had called them by the name of
his soldiers : and so with that one word he appeased the sedition.
Caesar would say of Sylla, for that he did resign his dictatorship :
" Sylla was ignorant of letters, he could not dictate."
Seneca said of Caesar, " that he did quickly show the sword, but
never leave it off."
Diogenes begging, as divers philosophers then used, did beg more of
a prodigal man, than of the rest which were present. Whereupon one
said to him : " See your baseness, that when you find a liberal mind,
you will take most of him." " No," said Diogenes, "but I mean to
beg of the rest again."
Themistocles, when an ambassador from a mean estate did
speak great matters, said to him, " Friend, thy words would require a
city."
They would say of the Duke of Guise, Henry, "that he was the
greatest usurer in France, for that he had turned all his estate into
obligations." Meaning, that he had sold and oppignerated all his
patrimony to give large donatives to other men.
Caesar Borgia, after long division between him and the lords of
Romagna, fell to accord with them. In this accord there was an
article, that he should not call them at any time all together in person.
The meaning was, that knowing his dangerous nature, if he meant
them treason, he might have opportunity to oppress them all together
at once. Nevertheless, he used such fine art, and fair carriage, that he
won their confidence to meet all together in council at Cinigaglia ;
where he murdered them all. This act when it was related unto pope
Alexander, his father, by a cardinal, as a thing happy, but very perfi
dious ; the pope said, " It was they that broke their covenant first, in
coming all together."
Titus Quinctius was in the council of the Achaians, what time
they deliberated, whether in the war then to follow, betsveen the
Romans and king Antiochus, they should confederate themselves with
the Romans, or with king Antiochus ? In that council the ^Etolians,
who incited the Achaians against the Romans, to disable their forces,
gave great words, as if the late victory the Romans had obtained
against Philip king of Macedon, had been chiefly by the strength of
forces of the ^Etolians themselves : and on the other side the ambassador
of Antiochus did extol the forces of his master ; sounding what an
innumerable company he brought in his army ; and gave the nations
strange names ; as Elymaeans, Caducians, and others. After both
their harangues, Titus Quinctius, when he rose up, said : " It was an
easy matter to perceive what it was that had joined Antiochus and the
>£tolians together ; that it appeared to be by the reciprocal lying of
each, touching the other's forces."
The Lacedaemonians were besieged by the Athenians in the port of
APOPHTHE CMS. 37 1
Pyle, which was won, and some slain, and some taken. There was
one said to one of them that was taken, by way of scorn, " Were they
not brave men that lost their lives at the port of Pyle?" He an
swered, " Certainly a Persian arrow is much to be set by, if it can
choose out a brave man."
Clodius was acquitted by a corrupt jury, that had palpably taken
shares of money : before they gave up their verdict, they prayed of the
senate a guard, that they might do their consciences, for that Clodius
was a very seditious young nobleman. Whereupon all the world gave
him for condemned. But acquitted he was. Catulus, the next day
seeing some of them that had acquitted him together, said to them,
" What made you ask of us a guard ? Were you afraid your money
should be taken from you ?"
At the same judgment, Cicero gave in evidence upon oath : and
when the jury, which consisted of fifty-seven, had passed against his
evidence, one day in the senate Cicero and Clodius being in alterca
tion, Clodius upbraided him, and said, " The jury gave you no credit."
Cicero answered, " Five-and-twenty gave me credit : but there were
two-and-thirty that gave you no credit, for they had their money
beforehand."
Sir Henry Savil was asked by my lord of Essex his opinion touching
poets ? He answered my lord : " that he thought them the best
writers, next to them that writ prose."
Diogenes, having seen that the kingdom of Macedon, which before
was contemptible and low, began to come aloft when he died, was
asked, how he would be buried ? He answered, " With my face down
wards ; for within a while, the world will be turned upside down, and
then I shall lie right."
Cato the elder was wont to say, that the Romans were like sheep ;
a man were better to drive a flock of them, than one of them.
When Lycurgus was to reform and alter the state of Sparta, in con
sultation one advised, that it should be reduced to an absolute popular
equality : but Lycurgus said to him, " Sir, begin it in your own
house."
Bion, that was an atheist, was showed in a port city, in a temple of
Neptune, many tables of pictures, of such as had in tempests made
their vows to Neptune, and were saved from shipwreck : and was
asked, " How say you now ? Do you not acknowledge the power of
the gods ?" But saith he, " Ay, but where are they painted that have
been drowned after their vows ?"
Cicero was at dinner, where there was an ancient lady that spake of
her own years, and said, " she was but forty years old." One that sat
by Cicero rounded him in the ear, and said, " She talks of forty years
old ; but she is far more out of question/' Cicero answered him
again, " I must believe her, for I have heard her say so any time
these ten years."
There was a soldier that vaunted before Julius Caesar of the hurts he
had received in his face. Julius Caesar, knowing him to be but a
coward, told him, " You were best take heed next time you run away,
how you look back."
There was a suitor to Vespasian, who, to lay his suit lairer, said it
B B 2
37* APOPHTHEGMS.
was for his brother ; whereas indeed it was for a piece of money.
Some about Vespasian told the emperor to cross him, that the party
his servant spoke for, was not his brother ; but that he did it upon a
bargain. Vespasian sent for the party interested, and asked him,
** Whether his mean employed by him was his brother or no ?" He
durst not tell untruth to the emperor, and confessed he was not his
brother. Whereupon the emperor said, " This do, fetch me the money
and you shall have your suit despatched." Which he did. The
courier, which was the mean, solicited Vespasian soon after about his
suit : " Why," saith Vespasian, " I gave it last day to a brother of
mine."
Vespasian asked of Apollonius, what was the cause of Nero's ruin ?
Who answered, " Nero could tune the harp well, but in government
he did always wind up the strings too high, or let them down too
low."
Dionysius the tyrant, after he was deposed and brought to Corinth,
kept a school. Many used to visit him ; and amongst others,, one,
when he came in, opened his mantle and shook his clothes ; thinking
to give Dionysius a gentle scorn ; because it was the manner to do so
for them that came in to see him while he was a tyrant. But Diony
sius said to him, " I prithee do so, rather, when thou goest out, that
we may see thou stealest nothing away."
Diogenes, one terrible frosty morning, came into the market-place,
and stood naked, to show his tolerance.1 Many of the people came
about him pitying him : Plato passing by, and knowing he did it to be
seen, said to the people as he went by, " If you pity him indeed, let
him alone to himself."
Aristippus was earnest suitor to Dionysius for some grant, who
would give no ear to his suit. Aristippus fell at his feet, and then
Dionysius granted it. One that stood by said afterwards to Aris
tippus, " You a philosopher, and be so base as to throw yourself at the
tyrant's feet to get a suit." Aristippus answered, " The fault is not
mine, but the fault is in Dionysius, that carries his ears in his feet."
Solon, when he wept for his son's death, and one said to him,
" Weeping will not help ;" answered, "Alas, therefore I weep, because
weeping will not help."
The same Solon being asked, whether he had given the Athenians
the best laws ? answered, " The best of those that they would have re
ceived."
One said to Aristippus, " 'Tis a strange thing, why men should
rather give to the poor, than to philosophers." He answered, " Because
they think themselves may sooner come to be poor, than to be philo
sophers."
Trajan would say of the vain jealousy of princes, that seek to make
away those that aspire to their succession, " that there was never king
that did put to death his successor."
When it was represented to Alexander, to the advantage of Anti«
pater, who was a stern and imperious man, that he only of all his
lieutenants wore no purple, but kept the Macedonian habit of black;
Alexander said, " Yea, but Antipater is all purple within."
1 His power of endurance.
APOPHTHEGMS. 373
Alexander used to say of his two friends, Craterus and Hephaestion,
that Hephasstion loved Alexander, and Craterus loved the king.
It fell out so, that as Livia went abroad in Rome, there met her
naked young men that were sporting in the streets, which Augustus
went about severely to punish in them ; but Livia spake for them, and
said, " It was no more to chaste women than so many statues."
Philip of Macedon was wished to banish one for speaking ill of him ;
but Philip answered, " Better he speak where we are both known, than
where we are both unknown."
Lucullus entertained Pompey in one of his magnificent houses :
Pompey said, "This is a marvellous fair and stately house for the
summer ; but methinks it should be very cold for winter." Lucullus
answered, " Do you not think me as wise as divers fowls are, to change
my habitation in the winter season?"
Plato entertained some of his friends at a dinner, and had in the
chamber a bed, or couch,1 neatly and costly furnished. Diogenes
came in, and got up upon the bed, and trampled it, saying, " I trample
upon the pride of Plato." Plato mildly answered, " But with greater
pride, Diogenes."
Pompey being commissioner for sending grain to Rome in time of
dearth, when he came to the sea, found it very tempestuous and
dangerous, insomuch as those about him advised him by no means to
embark ; but Pompey said, " It is of necessity that I go, not that 1
live."
Demosthenes was upbraided by ^schines, that his speeches did
smell of the lamp. But Demosthenes said, " Indeed there is a great
deal of difference between that which you and I do by lamp-light."
Demades the orator, in his old age was talkative, and would eat
hard : Antipater would say of him, that he was like a sacrifice, that
nothing was left of it but the tongue and the paunch.
Themistocles, after he was banished, and had wrought himself into
great favour afterwards, so that he was honoured and sumptuously
served, seeing his present glory, said unto one of his friends, " If I had
not been undone, I had been undone."
Philo Judseus saith, that the sense is like the sun ; for the sun seals
up the globe of heaven, and opens the globe of earth ; so the sense
doth obscure heavenly things, and reveals earthly things.
Alexander, after the battle of Granicum, had very great offers made
him by Darius ; consulting with his captains concerning them, Par-
menio said, " Sure I would accept of these offers, if I were as Alex
ander." Alexander answered, " So would I if I were as Parmenio."
Augustus Caesar would say, that he wondered that Alexander feared
he should want work, having no more worlds to conquer : as if it were
not as hard a matter to keep as to conquer.
Antigonus, when it was told him that the enemy had such volleys of
arrows that they did hide the sun, said, " That falls out well, for it is
hot weather, and so we shall fight in the shade."
Cato the elder, being aged, buried his wife, and married a young
woman. His son came to him, said, " Sir, what have I offended, that
1 The custom of the ancient* was to recline on couches at meal*
374 APOPHTHEGMS.
you have brought a step-mother into your house?" The old man
answered, " Nay, quite contrary, son : thou pleasest me so well, as 1
would be glad to have more such."
Crassus the orator had a fish which the Romans called Mureena^
that he made very tame and fond of him ; the fish died, and Crassus
wept for it. One day falling in contention with Domitius in the senate,
Domitius said, " Foolish Crassus, you wept for your Mur<zna?
Crassus replied, " That is more than you did for both your wives."
Philip, Alexander's father, gave sentence against a prisoner what
time he was drowsy, and seemed to give small attention. The prisoner,
after sentence was pronounced, said, " I appeal." The king, somewhat
stirred, said, "To whom do you appeal?" The prisoner answered,
" From Philip when he gave no ear, to Philip when he shall give
ear."
There was a philosopher that disputed with the emperor Adrian,
and did it but weakly. One of his friends that stood by, afterwards
said unto him, " Methinks you were not like yourself last day, in
argument with the emperor ; I could have answered better myself."
"Why," said the philosopher, "would you have me contend with him
that commands thirty legions?"
When Alexander passed into Asia, he gave large donatives to his
captains, and other principal men of virtue ; insomuch as Parmenio
asked him, "Sir, what do you keep for yourself?" He answered,
" Hope."
Vespasian set a tribute upon urine ; Titus his son emboldened him
self to speak to his father of it : and represented it as a thing indign
and sordid. Vespasian said nothing for the time ; but a while after,
when it was forgotten, sent for a piece of silver out of the tribute-
money, and called to his son, bidding him to smell to it ; and asked
him, whether he found any offence ? Who said, " No." " Why so ? "
saith Vespasian again ; " yet this comes out of urine."
Nerva the emperor succeeded Domitian, who had been tyrannical ;
and in his time many noble houses were overthrown- by false accu
sations ; the instruments whereof were chiefly Marcellto and Regulus.
The emperor Nerva one night supped privately with some six or seven :
amongst whom there was one that was a dangerous man ; and began
to take the like courses as Marcellus and Regulus had done. The
emperor fell into discourse of the injustice and tyranny of the former
time ; and by name of the two accusers ; and said, " What should we
do with them, if we had them now ?" One of them that was at supper,
and was a free-spoken senator, said, " Marry, they should sup with us."
There was one that found a great mass of money, digging under
ground in his grandfather's house ; and being somewhat doubtful of
the case, signified it to the emperor that he had found such treasure.
The emperor made a rescript thus : " Use it." He writ back again,
that the sum was greater than his estate or condition could use. The
emperor writ a new rescript, thus : " Abuse it."
Julius Caesar, as he passed by, was, by acclamation of some that
stood in the way, termed King, to try how the people would take it.
The people showed great murmur and distaste at it. Crcsar, finding
\vherc the wind stood, slighted it, and said, " I am not king but Co^sar;"
APOPHTHE CMS.
37S
as if they had miataken his name. For Rex was a surname among
the Romans, as King is with us.
When Croesus, for his glory, showed Solon his great treasures of
gold, Solon said to him, " If another king come that hath better iron
than you, he will be master of all this gold."
Aristippus being reprehended of luxury by one that was not rich, for
that he gave six crowns for a small fish, answered, " Why, what would
you have given : " The other said, " Some twelve pence." Aristippus
said again, " And six crowns is no more with me."
Plato reprehended severely a young man for entering into a dissolute
house. The young man said to him, " Why reprehend so sharply for
so small a matter?'1 Plato replied, " But custom is no small matter."
Archidanius, king of Lacedasmon, having received from Philip, king
of Macedon, after Philip had won the victory of Chasronea upon the
Athenians, proud letters, writ back to him, " That if he measured his
own shadow, he would find it no longer than it was before his victory."
Pyrrhus, when his friends congratulated to him his victory over the
Romans, under the conduct of Fabricius, but with great slaughter of
his own side, said to them again, " Yes, but if we have such another
victory, we are undone."
Plato was wont to say of his master Socrates, that he was like the
apothecaries' gallypots : that had on the outside apes, and owls, and
satyrs ; but within precious drugs.
Alexander sent to Phocion a great present of money. Phocion said
to the messenger, " Why doth the king send to me, and to none else ?"
The messenger answered, " Because he takes you to be the only good
man in Athens." Phocion replied, " If he thinks so, pray let him suffer
me to be so still."
At a banquet where those that were called the seven wise men of
Greece were invited by the ambassador of a barbarous king, the
ambassador related, that there was a neighbour mightier than his
master, picked quarrels with him, by making impossible demands,
otherwise threatening war : and now at that present had demanded of
him, to drink up the sea. Whereunto one of the wise men said, " I
would have him undertake it." " Why," saith the ambassador, " how
shall he come off?" " Thus," saith the wise man ; "let that king first
stop the rivers which run into the sea, which are no part of the bargain,
and then your master will perform it."
At the same banquet, the ambassador desired the seven, and some
other wise men that were at the banquet, to deliver every one of them
some sentence or parable, that he might report to his king the wisdom
of Graecia, which they did : only one was silent ; which the ambassador
perceiving, said to him, " Sir, let it not displease you ; why do not you
say somewhat that I may report?" He answered, "Report to your
lord, that there are of the Grecians that can hold their peace."
The Lacedaemonians had in custom to speak very short, which Deing
an empire, they might do at pleasure : but after their defeat at Leuctra,
in an assembly of the Grecians, they made a long invective against
Epaminondas ; who stood up, and said no more than this ; " I am
glad we have brought you to speak long."
Fabius Maximus being resolved to draw the war in length, still
376 APOPHTHEGMS.
waited upon Hannibal's progress to curb him ; and for that purpose
he encamped upon the high ground: but Terentius his colleague fought
with Hannibal, and was in great peril of overthrow : but then Fabius
came down from the high grounds, and got the day. Whereupon
Hannibal said, "that he did ever think that that same cloud that
hanged upon the hills, would at one time or other give a tempest."
Hanno the Carthaginian was sent commissioner by the state, after
the second Carthaginian war, to supplicate for peace, and in the end
obtained it ; yet one of the sharp senators said, " You have often
broken with us the peaces whereunto you have been sworn ; I pray,
by what god will you swear?" Hanno answered ; " By the same gods
that have punished the former perjury so severely."
Caesar, when he first possessed Rome, Pompey being fled, offered to
enter the sacred treasury to take the moneys that were there stored ;
and Metellus, tribune of the people, did forbid him : and when Metel-
lus was violent in it, and would not desist, Caesar turned to him, and
said ; " Presume no farther, or I will lay you dead." And when Metel
lus was with those words somewhat astonished, Caesar added ; " Young
man, it had been easier for me to do this, than to speak it."
Caius Marius was general of the Romans against the Cimbers, who
came with such a sea of people upon Italy. In the fight there was a
band of the Cadurcians of a thousand, that did notable service ;
whereupon, after the fight, Marius did denison them all for citizens of
Rome, though there was no law to warrant it. One of his friends did
present it unto him, that he had transgressed the law, because that
privilege was not to be granted but by the people. Whereunto Marius
answered ; " that for the noise of arms he could not hear the laws."
Pompey did consummate the war against Sertorius, when Metellus
had brought the enemy somewhat low. He did also consummate the
war against the fugitives, whom Crassus had before defeated in a
great battle. So when Lucullus had had great and glorious victories
against Mithridates and Tigranes ; yet Pompey, by means his friends
made, was sent to put an end to that war. Whereupon Lucullus
taking indignation, as a disgrace offered to himself, said ; " that
Pompey was a carrion crow : when others had strucken down the
bodies, then Pompey came and preyed upon them."
Aritisthenes being asked of one what learning was most necessary
for man's life ? answered ; " To unlearn that which is nought."
Alexander visited Diogenes in his tub ; and when he asked him,
what he would desire of him ? Diogenes answered ; " That you would
stand a little aside, that the sun may come to me."
The same Diogenes, when mice came about him as he was eating,
said ; " I see, that even Diogenes nourisheth parasites."
Hiero visited by Pythagoras, asked him, " of what condition he
was?" Pythagoras answered; "Sir, I know you have been at the
Olympian games.'' "Yes," sailh Hiero. "Thither," saith Pythagoras,
"come some to win the prizes. Some come to sell their merchandize,
because it is a kind of mart of all Greece. Some come to meet their
friends, and to make merry ; because of the great confluence of all
sorts. Others come only to look on. I am one of them that come to
look on." Meaning it, of philosophy, and the contemplative life.
APOPHTHEGMS. 377
Heraclitus the obscure said ; " The dry light is the best soul : "
meaning, when the faculties intellectual are in vigour, not drenched,
or, as it were, blooded by the affections.
One of the philosophers was asked ; " what a wise man differed
from a fool?" He answered, "Send them both naked to those that
know them not, and you shall peiceive."
There was a law made by the Romans against the bribery and
extortion of the governors of provinces. Cicero saith in a speech of
his to the people, *5 that he thought the provinces would petition to the
state of Rome to ha Te that law repealed. For," saith he, " before the
governors did bribe and extort as much as was sufficient for them
selves ; but now they bribe and extort as much as may be enough not
only for themselves, but for the judges, and jurors, and magistrates."
Aristippus sailing in a tempest, showed signs of fear. One of the
seamen said to him, in an insulting manner : " We that are plebeians
are not troubled ; you that are a philosopher are afraid." Aristippus
answered ; " That there is not the like wager upon it, for you to perish,
and for me."
There was an orator that defended a cause of Aristippus, and pre
vailed. Afterwards he asked Aristippus ; " Now, in your distress,
what did Socrates do you good ? " Aristippus answered ; " Thus, in
making that which you said of me to be true."
There was an Epicurean vaunted, that divers of other sects of
philosophers did after turn Epicureans ; but there never were any
Epicureans that turned to any other sect. Whereupon a philosopher
that was of another sect, said ; " The reason was plain, for that cocks
may be made capons, but capons could never be made cocks."
Chilon would say, " That gold was tried with the touchstone, and
men with gold."
Simonides being asked of Hiero, " what he thought of God ? " asked
a seven-night's time to consider of it ; and at the seven-night's end,
he asked a fortnight's time ; at the fortnight's end, a month. At which
Hiero marvelling, Simonides answered ; " that the longer he thought
upon the matter, the more difficult he found it."
A Spaniard was censuring to a French gentleman the want of devo
tion amongst the French ; in that, whereas in Spain, when the
sacrament goes to the sick, any that meets with it turns back and waits
upon it to the house whither it goes ; but in France they only do
reverence, and pass by. But the French gentleman answered him,
" There is reason for it ; for here with us Christ is secure amongst
His friends ; but in Spain there be so many Jews and Moranos,1 that
't is not amiss for him to have a convoy."
Mr. Popham, afterwards lord chief justice Popham, when he was
speaker, and the house of commons had sat long, and done in effect
nothing, coming one day to queen Elizabeth, she said to him, " Now,
Mr. Speaker, what hath passed in the commons house?" He
answered, " If it please your majesty, seven weeks."
Themistocles in his lower fortune, loved a young gentleman who
scorned him ; but when he grew to his greatness, which was soon after,
» Moors.
378 APOPHTHEGMS.
he sought him : Themistocles said, " We are both grown wise, but too
late."
Bion was sailing, and there fell out a great tempest ; and the
mariners, that were wicked and dissolute fellows, called upon the gods;
but Bion said to them, " Peace, let them not know you are here."
The Turks made an expedition into Persia; and because of the
strait jaws of the mountains of Armenia, the bashaws consulted which
way they should get in. One that heard the debate said, " Here is
much ado how you shall get in ; but I hear nobody take care how you
should get out."
Philip king of Macedon maintained arguments with a musician in
points of his art, somewhat peremptorily ; but the musician said to
him, " God forbid, Sir, your fortune were so hard, that you should
know these things better than myself/'
Antalcidas, when an Athenian said to him, " Ye Spartans are
unlearned," said again, "True, for we have learned no evil nor vice of
you/'
Pace, the bitter fool, was not suffered to come at queen Elizabeth,
because of his bitter humour. Yet at one time, some persuaded the
queen that he should come to her ; undertaking for him that he should
keep within compass : so he was brought to her, and the queen said,
" Come on, Pace ; now we shall hear of our faults." Saith Pace, " I
do not use to talk of that that all the town talks of."
Bishop Latimer said, in a sermon at court, "That he heard
great speech that the king was poor ; and many ways were propounded
to make him rich : for his part he had thought of one way, which was,
that they should help the king to some good office, for all his officers
were rich."
After the defeat of Cyrus the younger, Falinus was sent by the king
to the Grecians, who had for their part rather victory than otherwise,
to command them to yield their arms : which when it was denied,
Falinus said to Clearchus, " Well, then, the king lets you know, that if
you remove from the place where you are now encamped, it is war : if
you stay, it is truce. What shall I say you will do ?" Clearchus
answered, " It pleaseth us, as it pleaseth the king," " How is that ?"
saith Falinus. Saith Clearchus, " If we remove, war : if we stay,
truce ;" and so would not disclose his purpose.
Alcibiades came to Pericles, and stayed a while ere he was ad
mitted. When he came in, Pericles civilly excused it, and said : " I
was studying how to give mine account." But Alcibiades said to him,
" If you will be ruled by me, study rather how to give no account."
Mendoza, that was viceroy of Peru, was wont to say, " That the
government of Peru was the best place that the king of Spain gave,
save that it was somewhat too near Madrid."
When Vespasian passed from Jewry to take upon him the empire,
he went by Alexandria, where remained two famous philosophers,
Apollonius and Euphrates. The emperor heard them discourse touch
ing matter of state, in the presence of many. And when he was weary
of them, he brake off, and in secret derision, finding their discourses
but speculative, and not to be put in practice, said, " O that I might
govern wise men, and wise men govern me."
APOPHTHEGMS. 379
Cardinal Ximenes, upon a muster, which was taken against the
Moors, was spoken to by a servant of his to stand a little out of the
smoke of the harquebus : but he said again, " that that was his
incense."
Nero was wont to say of his master, Seneca, " That his style was
like mortar without lime."
Augustus Cassar, out of great indignation against his two daughters,
and Posthumus Agrippa, his grandchild ; whereof the two first were
infamous, and the last otherwise unworthy ; would say, " That they
were not his seed, but some imposthumes that had broken from him."
A seaman coming before the judges of the admiralty for admittance
into an office of a ship bound for the Indies, was by one of the judges
much slighted, as an insufficient person for that office he sought to
obtain ; the judge telling him, " that he believed he could not say the
points of his compass." The seaman answered ; " that he could say
them, under favour, better than he could say his Pater-noster" The
judge replied, u that he would wager twenty shillings with him upon
that." The seaman taking him up, it came to trial : and the seaman
began, and said all the points of his compass very exactly : the judge
likewise said his Pater-noster : and when he had finished it, he re
quired the wager according to agreement : because the seaman was to
say his compass better than he his Pater-noster ; which he had not
performed. " Nay, I pray, Sir, hold," quoth the seaman, " the wager
is not finished ; for I have but half done : " and so he immediately
said his compass backward very exactly ; which the judge failing of in
his Pater-noster^ the seaman carried away the prize.
There was a conspiracy against the emperor Claudius by Scribo-
nianus, examined in the senate ; where Claudius sat in his chair, and
one of his freed servants stood at the back of his chair. In the
examination, that freed servant, who had much power with Claudius,
very saucily, had almost all the words : and amongst other things, he
asked in scorn one of the examinates, who was likewise a freed servant
of Scribonianus ; " I pray, Sir, if Scribonianus had been emperor,
what would you have done?" He answered; "I would have stood
behind his chair and held my peace/'
One was saying that his great-grandfather, and grandfather, and
father, died at sea : said another that heard him, " And I were as you,
I would never come at sea." "Why," saith he, "where did your
great-grandfather, and grandfather, and father die?" He answered ;
"Where but in their beds?" He answered; "And I were you, I
would never come in bed."
There was a dispute, whether great heads or little heads had the
better wit ? And one said, " It must needs be the little : for that it is
a maxim, ' Omne majus continet in se minus.' "
Sir Thomas More, when the counsel of the party pressed him for a
longer day to perform the decree, said ; " Take saint Barnaby's day,
which is the longest day in the year." Now saint Barnaby's day was
within few days following.
One of the fathers saith, " That there is but this difference between
the death of old men and young men ; that old men go to death, and
death comes to young men."
383 APOPHTHEGMS.
Cassius, after the defeat of Crassus by the Parthians, whose weapons
were chiefly arrows, fled to the city of Cnarras, where he durst not stay
any time, doubting to be pursued and besieged ; he had with him an
astrologer, who said to him, " Sir, I would not have you go hence,
while the moon is in the sign of Scorpio." Cassius answered, * 'I am
more afraid of that of Sagittarius."
Jason the Thessalian was wont to say, "that some things must be
done unjustly, that many things may be done justly."
Cato Major would say, " That wise men learned more by fools, than
fools by wise men."
When it was said to Anaxagoras ; " The Athenians have condemned
you to die ; " he said again, "And Nature them."
Alexander, when his father wished him to run for the prize of the race
at the olympian games, for he was very swift, answered : " He would,
it" he might run with kings.'7
Antigonus used often to go disguised, and to listen at the tents of his
soldiers ; and at a time heard some that spoke very ill of him. Where
upon he opened the tent a little, and said to them : " If you would speak
ill of me, you should go a little farther off."
Aristippus said : " That those that studied particular sciences, and
neglected philosophy, were like Penelope's wooers, that made love to
the waiting woman."
The ambassadors of Asia Minor came to Antonius, after he had im
posed upon them a double tax, and said plainly to him ; " That if he would
have two tributes in one year, he must give them two seed-times and
two harvests."
An orator of Athens said to Demosthenes ; "The Athenians will kill
you if they wax mad." Demosthenes replied, "And they will kill you
if they be in good sense."
Epictetus used to say ; " That one of the vulgar, in any ill that
happens to him, blames others ; a novice in philosophy blames himself;
and a philosopher blames neither the one nor the other."
Caesar, in his book that he made against Cato, which is lost, did
write, to show the force of opinion and reverence of a man that had
once obtained a popular reputation ; "There were some that found Cato
drunk, and were ashamed instead of Cato."
There was a nobleman said of a great counsellor, " that he would
have made the worse farrier in the world ; for he never shod horse
but he cloyed him : for he never commended any man to the king
for service, or upon occasion of suit, or otherwise, but that he
would come in in the end with a but, and drive in a nail to his
disadvantage."
Diogenes called an ill physician, Cock. "Why?" saith he. Diogenes
answered ; " Because when you crow men used to rise."
There was a gentleman fell very sick, and a friend of his said to him ;
" Surely you are in danger ; I pray send for a physician." But the sick
man answered ; " It is no matter, for if I die, I will die at leisure."
Cato the elder, what time many of the Romans had statues erected
in their honour, was asked by one in a kind of wonder, " Why he had
none?" He answered, "He had much rather men should ask and
wonder why he had no statue, than why he had a statue."
APOPHTHEGMS 381
A certain friend of Sir Thomas More's, taking great pains about a
book, which he intended to publish, being well conceited of his own
v.it, which no man else thought worthy of commendation, brought it to
Sir Thomas More to peruse it, and pass his judgment upon it : which
he did ; and finding nothing therein worthy the press, he said to him
with a grave countenance ; "That if it were in verse it would be more
worthy." Upon which words, he went immediately and turned it into
verse, and then brought it to Sir Thomas again ; who looking thereon,
said soberly ; " Yes, marry, now it is somewhat, for now it is rhyme :
whereas before it was neither rhyme nor reason."
Sir Henry Wotton used to say, " That critics were like brushers of
noolemen's clothes."
Hannibal said of Fabius Maximus, and of Marcellus, whereof the
former waited upon him, that he could make no progress, and the latter
had many sharp fights with him ; " That he feared Fabius like a tutor
and Marcellus like an enemy."
When King Edward the second was amongst his torturers, who hur
ried him to and fro, that no man should know where he was, they set
him down upon a bank ; and one time, the more to disguise his face,
shaved him, and washed him with cold water of a ditch by : the king
said ; " Well, yet I will have warm water for my beard ; " and so shed
abundance of tears.
One of the Seven was wont to say ; " That laws were like cobwebs ;
where the small flies were caught, and the great break through."
Lewis the eleventh of France, having much abated the greatness and
power of the peers, nobility, and court of parliament, would say, "That
he had brought the crown out of ward."
There was a cowardly Spanish soldier, that in a defeat the Moors
gave, ran away with the foremost. Afterwards, when the army gene
rally fled, the soldier was missing. Whereupon k was said by some
that he was slain. "No sure," said one, "he is alive ; for the Moors
eat no hare's flesh."
A gentleman that was punctual of his word, and loved the same in
others, when he heard that two persons had agreed upon a meeting
about serious affairs, at a certain time and place ; and that the one
party failed in the performance, or neglected his hour : would usually
say of him, " He is a young man then."
Anacharsis would say, concerning the popular estates of Grascia,
that "he wondered how at Athens wise men1 did propose, and fools
dispose."
When Queen Elizabeth had advanced Raleigh, she was one day
playing on the virginals, and my lord of Oxford and another noble'
man stood by. It fell out so, that the ledge before the jacks2 was
taken away, so as the jacks were seen : my lord of Oxford and the
other nobleman smiled, and a little whispered. The queen marked it,
and would needs know what the matter was ? My lord of Oxford
inswered ; " That they smiled to see that when jacks went up, heads
went down."
Sir Thomas More, who was a man, in all his lifetime, that had
1 Wise men of Greece. ' The hammers.
382 APOPHTHEGMS.
an excellent vein in jesting, at the very instant of his death, having a
pretty long beard, after his head was upon the block, lift it up again,
and gently drew his beard aside, and said ; " this hath not offended
the king."
Demonax the philosopher, when he died, was asked touching his
burial. He answered, " Never take care for burying me, for stink will
bury me." He that asked him said again : " Why, would you have
your body left to the dogs and ravens to feed upon ?" Demonax
answered ; " Why, what great hurt is it if, having sought to do good,
when I lived, to men, my body do some good to beasts, when I am
dead."
Phocion the Athenian, a man of great severity, and no ways
flexible to the will of the people, one day, when he spake to the people,
in one part of his speech, was applauded : whereupon he turned to one
of his friends, and asked, " What have I said amiss ?"
Bion l was wont to say ; " That Socrates, of all the lovers of
Alcibiades, only held him by the ears."
There was a philosopher about Tiberius, that looking into the
nature of Caius, said of him ; "that he was mire mingled with blood."
There was a bishop that was somewhat a delicate person, and
bathed twice a day. A friend of his said to him ; " My lord, why do
you bathe twice a day ?" The bishop answered ; " Because I cannot
conveniently bathe thrice."
When Sir Thomas More was lord chancellor, he did use, at mass,
to sit in the chancel ; and his lady in a pew. And because the pew
stood out of sight, his gentleman-usher, ever after service, came to
the lady's pew, and said, " Madam, my lord is gone." So when the
chancellor's place was taken from him, the next time they went to
church, Sir Thomas himself came to his lady's pew, and said, " Madam,
my lord is gone."
A Grecian captain advising the confederates that were united
against the Lacedaemonians, touching their enterprise, gave opinion,
that they should go directly upon Sparta, saying, " That the state of
Sparta was like rivers ; strong when they had run a great way, and
weak towards their head."
One was examined upon certain scandalous words spoken against
the king. He confessed them, and said, " It is true, I spake them,
and if the wine had not failed, I had said much more."
Trajan would say, " That the king's exchequer was like the spleen ;
for when that did swell, the whole body did pine.;'
Charles the Bald allowed one, whose name was Scottus, to sit at the
table with him, for his pleasure : Scottus sat on the other side of the
table. One time the king being merry with him, said to him, " What is
there between Scott and sot?'; Scottus answered, " The table only."
There was a marriage between a widow of great wealth and a gentle
man of a great house, that had no estate or means. Jack Roberts
said, " That marriage was like a black pudding ; the one brought
blood, and the other brought suet and oatmeal."
Crcesus said to Cambyses, " That peace was better than war ;
1 One of the seven wise men.
APOPHTHEGMS. 383
because in peace the sons did bury their fathers, but in the wars the
fathers did bury their sons."
Carvajal,1 when he was drawn to execution, being fourscore and five
years old, and laid upon the hurdle, said, " What ! young in cradle,
old in cradle!"
Diogenes was asked in a kind of scorn, " What was the matter, that
philosophers haunted rich men, and not rich men philosophers ?" He
answered, " Because the one knew what they wanted, the other did
not."
Demetrius, king of Macedon, had a petition offered him divers
times by an old woman, and still answered, " He had no leisure."
Whereupon the woman said aloud, " Why then give over to be king."
There were two gentlemen, otherwise of equal degree, save that the
one was of the ancienter house. The other in courtesy asked his
hand to kiss : which he gave him ; and he kissed it : but said withal,
to right himself by way of friendship, " Well, I and you against any two
of them : " putting himself first.
Themistocles would say of himself, " That he was like a plane tree,
that in tempests men fled to him, and in fair weather men were ever
cropping his leaves."
Themistocles said of speech, " That it was like arras, that spread
abroad shows fair images, but contracted is but like packs."
Lycurgus would say of divers of the heroes of the heathen, " That
he wondered that men should mourn upon their days for them as
mortal men, and yet sacrifice to them as gods."
Fabricius, in conference with Pyrrhns, was tempted to revolt to
him ; Pyrrhus telling him that he should be partner of his fortunes,
and second person to him. But Fabricius answered, in a scorn, to
such a motion, " Sir, that would not be good for yourself : for if the
Epirotes once knew me, they will rather desire to be governed by me
than by you."
Thales said, "that life and death were all one." One that was
present asked him, " Why do not you die, then ?" Thales said again,
" Because they are all one."
An Egyptian priest having conference with Solon, said to him,
"You Grecians are ever children; you have no knowledge of antiquity,
nor antiquity of knowledge."
Diogenes was one day in the market-place with a candle in his
hand ; and being asked, "What he sought?" he said, " He sought a
man."
Bias being asked, " How a man should order his life?" answered,
u As if a man should live long, or die quickly."
Queen Elizabeth was entertained by my lord Burleigh at Theobalds;
and at her going away, my lord obtained of the queen to make seven
knights. They were gentlemen of the country, of my lord's friends
and neighbours. They were placed in a rank, as the queen should
pass by the hall, and to win antiquity of knighthood, in order, as my
lord favoured : though indeed the more principal gentlemen were
placed lowest. The queen was told of it, and said nothing ; but
* CoptaUi of "he rebels in Peru.
384 APOPHTHEGMS.
when she went along, she passed them all by, as far as the skreen, as
if she ha»l forgot it: and when she came to the skreen, she seemed
to take hf rself with the manner, and said, "I had almost forgot what I
promised " With that she turned back, and knighted the lowest first,
and so upward. Whereupon Mr. Stanhope, of the privy-chamber, a
while aft-^r told her, " Your majesty was too fine for my lord Burleigh.*
She answered, " I have but fulfilled the Scripture ; ' the first shall be
last, an 1 the last first/ "
Sir I ulke Grevill had much and private access to Queen Elizabeth,
which he used honourably, and did many men good ; yet he would
say m'jrrily of himself, " That he was like Robin Goodfellow ; for
when t he maids split the milkpans, or kept any racket, they would lay
it upo i Robin : so what tales the ladies about the queen told her, or
other bad offices that they did, they would put it upon him."
There was a politic sermon, that had no divinity in it, preached
before the king. The king, as he came forth, said to bishop Andrews,
" Call you this a sermon ? " The bishop answered, " And it please
your majesty, by a charitable construction it may be a sermon."
Henry Noel would say, " That courtiers were like fasting-days ; they
were next the holy-days, but in themselves they were the most meagre
days of the week."
Cato said, " The best way to keep good acts in memory, was to
refresh them with new."
Aristippus said, " He took money of his friends, not so much to use
it himself, as to teach them how to bestow their money."
Democritus said, " That truth did lie in profound pits, and when it
was got, it needed much refining."
Diogenes said of a young man that danced daintily, and was much
commended, " The better, the worse."
There was a nobleman that was lean of visage, but immediately
after his marriage he grew pretty plump and fat. One said to him,
" Your lordship doth contrary to other married men ; for they at the
first wax lean, and you wax fat." Sir Walter Raleigh stood by, and
said, " Why, there is no beast, that if you take him from the common,
and put him into the several, but he will wax fat."
Plutarch said well, " It is otherwise in a commonwealth of men than
of bees : the hive of a city or kingdom is in best condition when there
is least of noise or buzz in it."
The same Plutarch said of men of weak abilities set in great place.
" That they were like little statues set on great bases, made to appear
the less by their advancement."
He said again, " Good fame is like fire. When you have kindled
it, you may easily preserve it ; but if once you extinguish it, you will
not easily kindle it again ; at least, not make it burn as bright as it
did."
Queen Elizabeth seeing Sir Edward in her garden, looked out
at her window/and asked him in Italian, "What does a man think of
v.'hen he thinks of nothing?" Sir Edward, who had not had the effect
of some of the queen's grants so soon as he hoped and desired, paused
a little ; and then made answer, " Madam, he thinks of a woman's
promise." Th* queen shrunk in her head , but was bsard to say,
APOPHTHEGMS. 385
u Well, Sir Edward, I must not confute you. Anger makes dull men
witty, but it keeps them poor."
When any great officer, ecclesiastical or civil, was to be made, the
queen would inquire after the piety, integrity, and learning of the man.
Arid when she was satisfied in these qualifications, she would consider
of his personage. And upon such an occasion, she pleased once to
say to me, " Bacon, how can the magistrate maintain his authority,
when the man is despised ?"
In eighty-eight, when the queen went from Temple-bar along Fleet-
street, the lawyers were ranked on one side, and the companies of the
city on the other ; said Mr. Bacon to a lawyer who stood next to him,
" Do but observe the courtiers ; if they bow first to the citizens, they
are in debt ; if first to us, they are in law."
King James was wont to be very earnest with the country gentlemen
to go from London to their country houses. And sometimes he would
say thus to them, " Gentlemen, at London you are like ships at sea,
which show like nothing ; but in your country villages you are like
ships in a river, which look like great things."
Soon after the death of a great officer, who was judged no advancer
of the king's matters, the king said to his solicitor Bacon, who was his
kinsman, " Now tell me truly, what say you of your cousin that is
gone?" Mr. Bacon answered, " Sir, since your majesty doth charge
me, I'll e'en deal plainly with you, and give you such a character of
him, as if I were to write his story. I do think he was no fit coun
sellor to make your affairs better ; but yet he was fit to have kept them
from growing worse." The king said, " On my so'l, man, in the first
thou speakest like a true man, and in the latter like a kinsman."
King James, as he was a prince of great judgment, so he was a
prince of a marvellous pleasant humour ; and there now come into my
mind two instances of it. As he was going through Lusen, by Green
wich, he asked what town it was ? They said, Lusen. He asked a
good while after, " What town is this we are now in ? " They said still,
'twas Lusen. " On my so'l," said the king, " I will be king of Lusen."
In some other of his progresses, he asked how far it was to a town
whose name I have forgotten. They said, Six miles. Half an hour
after, he asked again. One said, Six miles and a half. The king
alighted out of his coach and crept under the shoulder of his led horse.
And when some asked his majesty what he meant ? "I must stalk,"
said he, " for yonder town is shy, and flies me."
Count Gondomar sent a compliment to my lord St. Alban, wishing
him a good Easter. My lord thanked the messenger, and said, " He
could not at present requite the count better than in returning him the
like ; that he wished his lordship a good Passover." l
My lord Chancellor Elsmere, when he had read a petition which he
disliked, would say, " What, you would have my hand to this now ? "
And the party answering, " Yes ;" he would say farther, " Well, so you
shall : nay, you shall have both my hands to it." And so would, with
both his hands, tear it in pieces.
Sir Francis Bacon was wont to say of an angry man who sup-
* Gondomar the Spanish ambassador, was thought to be a Jew.
c c
386 APOPHTHEGMS.
pressed his passion, "That he thought worse than he spake;" and
of an angry man that would chide, " That he spoke worse than he
thought."
He was wont also to say, " That power in an ill man was like the
power of a black witch ; he could do hurt, but no good with it." Anc?
he would add, " That the magicians could turn water into blood, but
could not turn the blood again to water."
When Mr. Attorney Coke, in the exchequer, gave high words to Sir
Francis Bacon, and stood much upon his higher place ; Sir Francis
said to him, " Mr. Attorney, the less you speak of your own greatness,
the more I shall think of it ; and the more the less/'
Sir Francis Bacon coming into the Earl of Arundel's garden, where
there were a great number of ancient statues of naked men and women,
made a stand, and, as astonished, cried out, " The resurrection."
Sir Francis Bacon, who was always for moderate counsels, when
one was speaking of such a reformation of the Church of England,
as would in effect make it no Church ; said thus to him, " Sir, the
subject we talk of is the eye of England ; and if there be a speck
or two in the eye, we endeavour to take them off; but he were a strange
oculist who would pull out the eye."
The same Sir Francis Bacon was wont to say, "That those who left
useful studies for useless scholastic speculations, were like the Olympic
tamesters, who abstained from necessary labours, that they might be
t for such as were not so."
He likewise often used this comparison : " The empirical philo
sophers are like to pismires ; they only lay up and use their store. The
rationalists are like the spiders ; they spin all out of their own bowels.
But give me a philosopher, who like the bee hath a middle faculty,
gathering from abroad, but digesting that which is gathered by his own
virtue."
The lord St. Alban, who was not over hasty to raise theories, but
proceeded slowly by experiments, was wont to say to some philosophers
who would not go his pace, " Gentlemen, nature is a labyrinth, in
which the very haste you move with will make you lose your way."
The same lord, when he spoke of the Dutchmen, used to say, " That
we could not abandon them for our safety, nor keep them for oul
profit." And sometimes he would express the same sense in this
manner : " We hold the Belgic lion by the ears."
The same lord, when a gentleman seemed not much to approve of
his liberality to his retinue, said to him, " Sir, I am all of a piece ; if
the head be lifted up, the inferior parts of the body must too."
The lord Bacon was wont to commend the advice of the plain old
man at Buxton, that sold besoms ; a proud lazy young fellow came
to him for a besom upon trust ; to whom the old man said, " Friend,
hast thou no money ? borrow of thy back, and borrow of thy belly,
they'll ne'er ask thee again, I shall be dunning thee every day."
Jack Weeks said of a great man, just then dead, who pretended
to some religion, but was none of the best livers, " Well, I hope he is
tn heaven. Every man thinks as he wishes ; but if he be in heaven,
'iwere pity it were known."
THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF KING
HENRY THE SEVENTH.
To the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent PRINCE CHARLES, Prince of Walcs%
Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Chester, &c.
IT MAY PLEASE YOUR HIGHNESS, — In part of my acknowledgment to your
Highness, I have endeavoured to do honour to the memory of the last king of
England, that was ancestor to the king your father and yourself ; and was that
king to whom both unions may in a sort refer : that of the roses being in him
consummate, and that of the kingdoms by him begun : besides, his times deserve it.
For he was a wise man, and an excellent king ; and yet the times were rough and
full of mutations and rare accidents. And it is with times as it is with ways : some
are more uphill and downhill, and some are more flat and plain ; and the one is
better for the liver, and the other for the writer. I have not flattered him, but took
him to life as well as I could, sitting so far off, and having no better light. It is
true your highness hath a living pattern, incomparable, of the king your father ;
but it is not amiss for you also to see one of these ancient pieces. God preserve
your Highness. — Your Highness's most humble and devoted servant, - v
FRANCIS ST. ALBAN.
AFTER that Richard, the third of that name, king in fact only, but
tyrant both in title and regiment, and so commonly termed and reputed
in all times since, was, by the Divine revenge, favouring the design of
an exiled man, overthrown and slain at Bos worth-field, there succeeded
in the kingdom the earl of Richmond, thenceforth styled Henry the
Seventh. The king immediately after the victory, as one that had been
bred under a devout mother, and was in his nature a great observer ol
religious forms, caused " Te Deum laudamus " to be solemnly sung in
the presence of the whole army upoii the place, and was himself with
general applause and great cries of joy, in a kind of military election
or recognition, saluted king. Meanwhile the body of Richard, after
many indignities and reproaches, the diriges and obsequies of the
common people towards tyrants, was obscurely buried. For .hough
the king of his nobleness gave charge unto the friars of Leicester to
see an honourable interment to be given to it, yet the religious people
themselves, being not free from the humours of the vulgar, neglected
it ; wherein nevertheless they did not then incur any man's blame or
censure : no man thinking any ignominy or contumely unworthy of
him that had been the executioner of King Henry the Sixth, that
innocent prince, with his own hands ; the contriver of the death of the
duke of Clarence, his brother ; the murderer of his two nephews, one
of them his lawful kir?& in the present, and the other in the future,
C C 2
388 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
failing of him ; and vehemently suspected to have been the impoisoner
of his wife, thereby to make vacant his bed, for a marriage within the
degrees forbidden. And although he were a prince in military virtue
approved, jealous of the honour of the English nation, and likewise a
good law-maker, for the ease and solace of the common people ; yet
his cruelties and parricides, in the opinion of all men, weighed down
his virtues and merits ; and, in the opinion of wise men, even those
virtues themselves were conceived to be rather feigned and affected
things to serve his ambition, than true qualities ingenerate in his
judgment or nature. And therefore it was noted by men of great
understanding, who, seeing his after-acts, looked back upon his former
proceedings, that even in the time of King Edward his brother he was
not without secret trains and mines to turn envy and hatred upon his
brother's government ; as having an expectation and a kind of divina
tion, that the king, by reason of his many disorders, could not be of
long life, but was like to leave his sons of tender years ; and then he
knew well, how easy a step it was, from the place of a protector, and
first prince of the blood, to the crown. And that out of this deep root
of ambition it sprung, that as well at the treaty of peace that passed
between Edward the Fourth and Lewis the Eleventh of France con
cluded by interview of both kings at Piqueny, as upon all other occa
sions, Richard, then duke of Gloucester, stood ever upon the side of
honour, raising his own reputation to the disadvantage of the king his
brother, and drawing the eyes of all, especially of the nobles and
soldiers, upon himself; as if the king, by his voluptuous life and mean
marriage, were become effeminate and less sensible of honour and
reason of state than was fit for a king. And as for the politic and
wholesome laws which were enacted in his time, they were interpreted
to be but the brokage of an usurper, thereby to woo and win the hearts
of the people, as being conscious to himself, that the true obligations
of sovereignty in him failed, and were wanting. But King Henry, in
the very entrance of his reign, and the instant of time when the
kingdom was cast into his arms, met with a point of great difficulty, and
knotty to solve, able to trouble and confound the wisest king in the
newness of his estate ; and so much the more, because it could not
endure a deliberation, but must be at once deliberated and determined.
There were fallen to his lot, and concurrent in his person, three several
titles to the imperial crown. The first, the title of the Lady Elizabeth,
with whom by precedent pact with the party that brought him in, he
was to marry. The second, the ancient and long-disputed title both by
plea and arms, of the house of Lancaster, to which he was inheritor in
his own person. The third, the title of the sword or conquest, for that
he came in by victory of battle, and that the king in possession was
slain in the field. The first of these was fairest, and most like to give
contentment to the people, who by two-and-twenty years' reign of King
Edward the Fourth, had been fully made capable of the clearness of
the title of the white rose, or house of York ; and by the mild and
plausible reign of the same king towards his latter time, were become
affectionate to that line. But then it lay plain before uis eyes, that if
he relied upon that title, he could be but a king at courtesy, and have
rather a matrimonial than a regal power ; the right remaining in his
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 389
queen, upon whose decease, either with issue or without issue, he was
to give place and be removed. And though he should obtain by
parliament to be continued, yet he knew there was a very great
difference between a king that holdeth his crown by a civil act of
estates, and one that holdeth it originally by the law of nature and
descent of blood. Neither wanted there even at that time secret
rumours and whisperings, which afterwards gathered strength and
turned to great troubles, that the two young sons of King Edward the
Fourth, or one of them, which were said to be destroyed in the Tower,
were not indeed murdered, but conveyed secretly away, and were yet
living : which, if it had been true, had prevented the title of the Lady
Elizabeth. On the other side, if he stood upon his own title of the
house of Lancaster, inherent in his person, he knew it was a titlf
condemned by parliament, and generally prejudged in the common
opinion of the realm, and that it tended directly to the disinherison of
the line of York, held then the indubitate heirs of the crown. So that
if he should have no issue by the Lady Elizabeth, which should bt.
descendants of the double line, then the ancient flames of discord and
intestine wars, upon the competition of both houses, would again return
and revive,
As for conquest, notwithstanding Sir William Stanley, after some
acclamations of the soldiers in the field, had put a crown of ornament,
which Richard wore in the battle, and was found amongst the spoils,
upon King Henry's head, as if there were his chief title ; yet he
remembered well upon what conditions and agreements he was brought
in ; and that to claim as conqueror, was to put as well his own party,
as the rest, into terror and fear ; as that which gave him power of
disannulling of laws, and disposing of men's fortunes and estates, and
the like points of absolute power, being in themselves so harsh and
odious, as that William himself, commonly called the Conqueror, how
soever he used and exercised the power of a conqueror to reward his
Normans, yet he forbore to use that claim in the beginning, but mixed
it with a titulary pietence, grounded upon the will and designation of
Edward the Confessor. But the king, out of the greatness of his own
mind, presently cast the die ; and the inconveniences appearing unto
him on all parts, and knowing there could not be any interreign, or
suspension of title, and preferring his affection to his own line and
blood, and liking that title best which made him independent ; and
being in his nature and constitution of mind not very apprehensive or
forecasting of future events afar off, but an entertainer ot fortune by the
day ; resolved to rest upon the title of Lancaster as the main, and to
use the other two, that of marriage and that of battle, but as supporters,
the one to appease secret discontents, and the other to beat down open
murmur and dispute : not forgetting that the same title of Lancaster
had formerly maintained a possession of three descents in the crown,
and mi^ht have proved a perpetuity, had it not ended in the weakness
and inability of the last prince. Whereupon the king presently that
very day, being the two-and-twentieth of August, assumed the style of
king in his own name, without mention of the Lady Elizabeth at all,
or any relation thereunto. In which course he ever after persisted :
which did spin him a thread of many seditions and troubles. The
39° HENRY THE SEVENTH.
king, full of these thoughts, before his departure froai Leicester,
despatched Sir Robert Willoughby to the castle of SherifT-Hutton, in
Yorkshire, where were kept in safe custody, by King Richard's com
mandment, both the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of King Edward, and
Edward Plantagenet, son and heir to George, duke of Clarence. This
Edward was by the king's warrant delivered up from the constable of
the castle to the hand of Sir Robert Willoughby, and by him with all
safety and diligence conveyed to the Tower of London, where he was
shut up close prisoner. Which act of the king's, being an act merely
of policy and power, proceeded not so much from any apprehension he
had of Dr. Shaw's tale at Paul's Cross for the bastarding of Edward
the Fourth's issues, in which case this young gentleman was to succeed,
for that fable was ever exploded, but upon a settled disposition to
depress all eminent persons of the line of York. Wherein still the
king out of strength of will, or weakness of judgment, did use to show
a little more of the party than of the king.
For the Lady Elizabeth, she received also a direction to repair with
all convenient speed to London, and there to remain with the queen
dowager her mother ; which accordingly she soon after did, accom
panied with many noblemen and ladies of honour. In the mean
season the king set forward by easy journeys to the city of London,
receiving the acclamations and applauses of the people as he went,
which indeed were true and unfeigned, as might well appear in the
very demonstrations and fulness of the cry. For they thought gene
rally, that he was a prince, as ordained and sent down from heaven, to
unite and put to an end the long dissensions of the two houses ; which
although they had had, in the times of Henry the Fourth, Henry the
Fifth, and a part of Henry the Sixth, on the one side, and the times of
Edward the Fourth on the other, lucid intervals and happy pauses ;
yet they did ever hang over the kingdom, ready to break forth into
new perturbations and calamities. And as his victory gave him the
knee, so his purpose of marriage with the Lady Elizabeth gave him the
heart ; so that both knee and heart did truly bow before him.
He on the other side with great wisdom, not ignorant of the affections
and fears of the people, to disperse the conceit and terror of a conquest,
had given order, that there should be nothing in his journey like unto
a warlike march or manner ; but rather like unto the progress of a
king in full peace and assurance.
He entered the city upon a Saturday, as he had also obtained the
victory upon a Saturday ; which day of the week, first upon an obser
vation, and after upon memory and fancy, he accounted and chose as a
day prosperous unto him.
The mayor and companies of the city received him at Shoreditch ;
whence with great and honourable attendance, and troops of noblemen,
and persons of quality, he entered the city ; himself not being on horse
back, or in any open chair or throne, but in a close chariot, as one thaf
having been sometimes an enemy to the whole state, and a proscribed
person, chose rather to keep state, and strike a reverence into the
people, than to fawn upon them.
He went first into St. Paul's Church, where, not meaning that the
people should forget too soon that he came in by battle, he made
fiENRY THE SEVENTH. 391
oflertory of his standards, and had orisons and "Te Deum" again
sung ; and went to his lodging prepared in the bishop of London's
palace, where he stayed for a time.
During his abode there, he assembled his council and other principal
persons, in presence of whom he did renew again his promise to marry
with the Lady Elizabeth. This he did, the rather, because having at
his coming out of Britain * given artificially, for serving his own turn,
some hopes, in case he obtained the kingdom, to marry Anne,
inheritress to the duchy of Britain, whom Charles the Eighth of France
soon after married, it bred some doubt and suspicion amongst divers
•.hat he was not sincere, or at least not fixed in going on with the match
-){ England so much desired : which conceit also, though it were but
talk and discourse, did much afflict the poor Lady Elizabeth herself. But
howsoever he both truly intended it, and desired it, and desired also it
should be so believed, the better to extinguish envy and contradiction
to his other purposes, yet was he resolved in himself not to proceed to
the consummation thereof, till his coronation and a parliament were
past. The one, lest a joint coronation of himself and his queen might
give any countenance of participation of title ; the other, lest in the
entailing of the crown to himself, which he hoped to obtain by parlia
ment, the votes of the parliament might any ways reflect upon her.
About this time in autumn, towards the end of September, there
began and reigned in the city, and other parts of the kingdom, a
disease then new : which by the accidents and manner thereof they
called the sweating sickness. This disease had a swift course, both
in the sick body, and in the time and period of the lasting thereof ;
for they that were taken with it, upon four and twenty hours escaping,
were thought almost assured. And as to the time of the malice and
reign of the disease ere it ceased, it began about the one-and-twentieth
of September, and cleared up before the end of October, insomuch as
it was no hindrance to the king's coronation, which was the last of
October ; nor, which was more, to the holding of the parliament,
which began but seven days after. It was a pestilent fever, but, as it
seemeth, not seated in the veins or humours, for that there followed no
carbuncio, no purple or livid spots, or the like, the mass of the body
being not tainted ; only a malign vapour flew to the heart, and seized
the vital spirits ; which stirred nature to strive to send it forth by an
extreme sweat. And it appeared by experience, that this disease was
rather a surprise of nature than obstinate to remedies, if it were in time
looked unto. For if the patient were kept in an equal temper,8
both for clothes, fire, and drink, moderately warm, with temperate
cordials, whereby nature's work were neither irritated by heat, nor
turned back by cold, he commonly recovered. But infinite persons
died suddenly of it, before the manner of the cure and attendance was
known. It was conceived not to be an epidemic disease, but to proceed
from a malignity in the constitution of the air, gathered by the predis
positions of seasons ; and the speedy cessation declared as much.
On Simon and Jude's eve, the king dined with Thomas Bourchier,
archbishop of Canterbury and cardinal ; and from Lambeth went by
land over the bridge to the Tower, where the morrow after he made
1 Brittany. 8 Temperature.
392 HhNRY THE SEVENTH.
twelve knights bannerets. But for creations he dispensed them with a
sparing hand. For notwithstanding a field so lately fought, and a
coronation so near at hand, he only created three : Jasper, earl of
Pembroke, the king's uncle, was created duke of Bedford ; Thomas,
the Lord Stanley, the king's father-in-law, earl of Derby ; and Edward
Courtney, earl of Devon ; though the king had then nevertheless a
purpose in himself to make more in time of parliament ; bearing a wise
and decent respect to distribute his creations, some to honour his
coronation, and some his parliament.
The coronation followed two days after, upon the thirtieth day of
October, in the year of our Lord, 1485 ; at which time Innocent the
Eighth was pope of Rome ; Frederick the Third, emperor of Almain j1
and Maximilian his son, newly chosen king of the Romans ; Charles
the Eighth, king of France ; Ferdinando and Isabella, kings of Spain ;
and James the Third, king of Scotland : with all which kings and
states the king was at that time in good peace and amity. At which
day also, as if the crown upon his head had put perils into his thoughts,
he did institute, for the better security of his person, a band of fifty
archers, under a captain to attend him, by the name of yeomen of his
guard : and yet, that it might be thought to be rather a matter of
dignity, after the imitation of what he had known abroad, than any
matter of diffidence appropriate to his own case, he made it to be
understood for an ordinance not temporary, but to hold in succession
for ever after. The seventh of November the king held his parliament
at Westminster, which he had summoned immediately after his coming
to London. His ends in calling a parliament, and that so speedily,
were chiefly three : first, to procure the crown to be entailed upon him
self ; next, to have the attainders of all his party, which were in no
small number, reversed, and all acts of hostility by them done in his
quarrel remitted and discharged ; and on the other side, to attaint by
parliament the heads and principals of his enemies ; the third, to calm
and quiet the fears of the rest of that party by a general pardon : not
being ignorant in how great a danger a king stands from his subjects,
when most of his subjects are conscious in themselves that they stand
in his danger. Unto these three special motives of a parliament was
added, that he, as a prudent and moderate prince, made this judgment,
that it was fit for him to hasten to let his people see, that he meant to
govern by law, howsoever he came in by the sword ; and fit also to
reclaim them to know him for their king, whom they had so lately
talked of as an enemy or banished man. For that which concerned the
entailing of the crown, more than that he was true to his own will, that
he would not endure any mention of the Lady Elizabeth, no not in the
nature of special entail, he carried it otherwise with great wisdom and
measure : for he did not press to have the act penned by way of
declaration or recognition of right ; as, on the other side, he avoided
to have it by new law or ordinance, but chose rather a kind of middle
way, by way of establishment, and that under covert and indifferent
words : " that the inheritance of the crown should rest, remain, and
abide in the king," &c., which words might be easily applied, that the
crown should continue to him ; but whether as having former right to
1 Germany.
HEXRY THE SEVENTH. 393
it, which was doubtful, or having it then in fact and possession, which
no man denied, was left fair to interpretation either way. And again,
for the limitation of the entail, he did not press it to go farther than to
himself and to the heirs of his body, not speaking of his right heirs ;
but leaving that to the law to decide : so as the entail might seem
rather a personal favour to him and his children, than a total disinheri-
son to the house of York. And in this form was the law drawn and
passed. Which statute he procured to be confirmed by the pope's bull
the year following, with mention nevertheless, by the way of recital, of
his other titles, both of descent and conquest. So as now the wreath
of three, was made a wreath of five ; for to the first three titles of the
two houses, or lines, and conquest, were added two more, the authorities
parliamentary and papal.
The king likewise, in the reversal of the attainders of his partakers,
and discharging them of all offences incident to his service and succour,
had his will ; and acts did pass accordingly. In the passage whereof,
exception was taken to divers persons in the House of Commons, for
that they were attainted, and thereby not legal, nor habilitate to serve
in parliament, being disabled in the highest degree ; and that it should
be a great incongruity to have them to make laws, who themselves
were not inlawed. The truth was, that divers of those which had in
the time of King Richard been strongest, and most declared for the
king's party, were returned knights and burgesses for the parliament ;
whether by care or recommendation from the state, or the voluntary
inclination of the people ; many of which had been by Richard the
Third attainted by outlawries, or otherwise. The king was somewhat
troubled with this ; for though it had a grave and specious show, yet
it reflected upon his party. But wisely not showing himself at all
moved therewith, he would not understand it but as a case in law, and
wished the judges to be advised thereupon ; who for that purpose were
forthwith assembled in the exchequer-chamber, which is the council-
chamber of the judges, and upon deliberation they gave a grave and
safe opinion and advice, mixed with law and convenience ; which was,
that the knights and burgesses attainted by the course of law should
forbear to come into the house, till a law were passed for the reversal
of their attainders.
It was at that time incidently moved amongst the judges in their con
sultation, what should be done for the king himself, who likewise was
attainted ? But it was with unanimous consent resolved, " That the
crown takes away all defects and stops in blood ; and that from the
time the king did assume the crown, the fountain was cleared, and all
attainders and corruption of blood discharged." But nevertheless, for
honour's 'sake, it was ordained by parliament, that all records, wherein
there was any memory or mention of the king's attainder, should be
defaced, cancelled, and taken off the file.
But on the part of the king's enemies there were by parliament
attainted, the late duke of Gloucester, calling himself Richard the
Third ; the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Surrey, Viscount Lovel, the
Lord Ferrers, the Lord Zouch, Richard Ratcliffe, William Catesby, and
many others of degree and quality. In which bills of attainder, never
theless, there were contained many just and temperate clauses, savings,
394 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
and provisoes, well showing and fore-tokening the wisdom, stay, and
moderation of the king's spirit of government. And for the pardon of
the rest, that had stood against the king, the king, upon a second
advice thought it not fit it should pass by parliament, the better,
being matter of grace, to impropriate the thanks to himself; using
only the opportunity of a parliament time, the better to disperse it into
the veins of the kingdom. Therefore during the parliament he
published his royal proclamation, offering pardon and grace of resti
tution to all such as had taken arms, or been participant of any
attempts against him, so as they submitted themselves to his mercy
by a day, and took the oath of allegiance and fidelity to him. Where
upon many came out of sanctuary, and many more came out of fear,
no less guilty than those that had taken sanctuary.
As for money or treasure, the king thought it not seasonable or fit to
demand any of his subjects at this parliament ; both because he had
received satisfaction from them in matters of so great importance, and
because he could not remunerate them with any general pardon, being
prevented therein by the coronation pardon passed immediately
before ; but chiefly, for that it was in every man's eye, what great for
feitures and confiscations he had at that present to help himself;
whereby those casualties of the crown might in reason spare the purses
of the subject ; especially in a time when he was in peace with all his
neighbours. Some few laws passed at that parliament, almost for form
sake : amongst which there was one, to reduce aliens, being made
denizens, to pay strangers' customs ; and another, to draw to himself
the seizures and compositions of Italians' goods, for not employment ;
being points of profit to his coffers, whereof from the very beginning he
was not forgetful, and had been more happy at the latter end, if his early
providence, which kept him from all necessity of exacting upon his
people, could likewise have attempered his nature therein. He added,
during parliament, to his former creations, the ennoblement or advance
ment in nobility of a few others : the Lord Chandos of Britain was
made earl of Bath ; Sir Giles Daubeney was made Lord Daubeney ;
and Sir Robert Willoughby, Lord Brook.
The king did also, with great nobleness and bounty, which virtues
at that time had their turns in his nature, restore Edward Stafford,
eldest son to Henry, duke of Buckingham, attainted in the time of
King Richard, not only to his dignities, but to his fortunes and
possessions, which were great : to which he was moved also by a kind
of gratitude, for that the duke was the man that moved the first stone
against the tyranny of King Richard, and indeed made the king a
bridge to the crown upon his own ruins. Thus the parliament broke
up.
The parliament being dissolved, the king sent forthwith money to
redeem the Marquis Dorset, and Sir John Bourchier ; whom he had
left as his pledges at Paris, for money which he had borrowed, when
he made his expedition for England. And thereupon he took fit occa
sion to send the lord treasurer and master Bray, whom he used as
counsellor, to the lord mayor of London, requiring of the city a prest1
of six thousand marks ; but after many parleys, he could obtain but
i A loan
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 395
two thousand pounds ; which nevertheless the king took in good part,
as men use to do, that practise to borrow money when they have no
need. About this time the king called unto his privy-council John
Morton and Richard Fox, the one bishop of Ely, the other bishop of
Exeter ; vigilant men, and secret, and such as kept watch with him
almost upon all men else. They had been both versed in his affairs,
before he came to the crown, and were partakers of his adverse fortune.
This Morton soon after, upon the death of Bourchier, he made arch
bishop of Canterbury. And for Fox, he made him lord keeper of his
privy-seal, and afterwards advanced him by degrees, from Exeter to
Bath and Wells, thence to Durham, and last to Winchester. For
although the king loved to employ and advance bishops, because
having rich bishoprics, they carried their reward upon themselves ;
yet he did use to raise them by steps, that he might not lose the profit
of the first fruits, which by that course of gradation was multiplied.
At last, upon the eighteenth of January, was solemnized the so long
expected and so much desired marriage, between the king and the Lady
Elizabeth ; which day of marriage was celebrated with greater triumph
and demonstrations, especially on the people's part, of joy and glad
ness, than the days either of his entry or coronation ; which the king
rather noted than liked. And it is true, that all his lifetime, while the
Lady Elizabeth lived with him, for she died before him, he showed
himself no very indulgent husband towards her, though she was
beautiful, gentle, and fruitful. But his aversion towards the house of
York was so predominant in him, as it found place not only in his wars
and councils, but in his chamber and bed.
Towards the middle of the spring, the king, full of confidence and
assurance, as a prince that had been victorious in battle, and had pre
vailed with his parliament in all that he desired, and had the ring of
acclamations fresh in his ears, thought the rest of his reign should be
but play, and the enjoying of a kingdom : yet, as a wise and watchful
king, he would not neglect anything for his safety ; thinking neverthe
less to perform all things now, rather as an exercise than as a labour.
So he being truly informed that the northern parts were not only
affectionate to the house of York, but particularly had been devoted to
King Richard the Third, thought it would be a summer well spent to
visit those parts, and by his presence and application of himself to
reclaim and rectify those humours. But the king, in his account of
peace and calms, did much overcast his fortunes, which proved for
many years together full of broken seas, tides, and tempests. For he
was no sooner come to Lincoln, where he kept his Easter, but he
received news, that the Lord Lovel, Humphrey Stafford, and Thomas
Stafford, who had formerly taken sanctuary at Colchester, were
departed out of sanctuary, but to what place no man could tell ; which
advertisement the king despised, and continued his journey to York.
At York there came fresh and more certain advertisement, that the
Lord Lovel was at hand with a great power of men, and that the
Staffords were in arms in Worcestershire, and had made their
approaches to the city of Worcester, to assail it. The king, as a prince
of great and profound judgment, was not much moved with it , for
that he thought it was but a rag or remnant of Bosworth-field, and
396 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
had nothing in it of the main party of the house of York. But he was
more doubtful of the raising of forces to resist the rebels, than of the
resistance itself ; for that he was in a core of people, whose affections
he suspected. But the action enduring no delay, he did speedily levy
and send against the Lord Lovel, to the number of three thousand
men, ill armed, but well assured, being taken some few out of his own
train, and the rest out of the tenants and followers of such as were safe
to be trusted, under the conduct of the duke of Bedford. And as his
manner was to send his pardons rather before the sword than after,
he gave commission to the duke to proclaim pardon to all that would
come in : which the duke, upon the approach to the Lord Level's
camp, did perform. And it fell out as the king expected ; the heralds
were the great ordnance. For the Lord Lovel, upon proclamation of
pardon, mistrusting his men, fled into Lancashire, and lurking for a
time with Sir Thomas Broughton, after sailed over into Flanders to
the lady Margaret.1 And his men, forsaken of their captain, did
presently submit themselves to the duke. The Staflbrds likewise, and
their forces, hearing what had happened to the Lord Lovel, in whose
success their chief trust was, despaired and dispersed. The two
brothers taking sanctuary at Colnham, a village near Abingdon ;
which place, upon view of their privilege in the King's Bench, being
judged no sufficient sanctuary for traitors, Humphrey was executed
at Tyburn ; and Thomas, as being led by his elder brother, was
pardoned. So this rebellion proved but a blast, and the king having
by this journey purged a little the dregs and leaven of the northern
people, that were before in no good affection towards him, returned
to London.
In September following, the queen was delivered of her first son,
whom the king, in honour of the British race, of which himself was,
named Arthur, according to the name of that ancient worthy king of
the Britons, in whose acts there is truth enough to make him famous,
besides that which is fabulous. The child was strong and able, though
he was born in the eighth month, which the physicians do prejudge.
There followed this year, being the second of the king's reign, a
strange accident of state, whereof the relations which we have are so
naked, as they leave it scarce credible ; not for the nature of it, for it
hath fallen out often, but for the manner and circumstance of it,
especially in the beginnings. Therefore we shall make our judgment
upon the things themselves, as they give light one to another, and, as
we can, dig truth out of the mine. The king was green in his estate ;
and, contrary to his own opinion and desert both, was not without
much hatred throughout the realm. The root of all was the discounte
nancing of the house of York, which the general body of the realm still
affected. This did alienate the hearts of the subjects from him daily
more and more, especially when they saw, that, after his marriage, and
after a son born, the king did nevertheless not so much as proceed to
the coronation of the queen, not vouchsafing her the honour of a
1 Margaret of York, sister to Edward IV., who had married, and was now the widow of
Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, the opponent of Louis XI. of France, and father of the
beautiful Mary of Burgundy, of whose children the dowager duchess took the tenderest care
Margaret was greatly btloved in the Low Countries for her "irtues.
HENRY THE SEVENTH.
S97
maln'monial crown ; for the coronation of her was not till almost two
years after, when danger had taught him what to do. But much more
when it was spread abroad, whether by error, or the cunning of male-
contents, that the king had a purpose to put to death Edward
Plantagenet closely in the Tower : whose case was so nearly paralleled
with that of Edward the Fourth's children, in respect of the blood, like
age, and the very place of the Tower, as it did refresh and reflect upon
the king a most odious resemblance, as if he would be another King
Richard. And all this time it was still whispered everywhere, that at
least one of the children of Edward the Fourth was living : which
bruit was cunningly fomented by such as desired innovation. Neither
was the king's nature and customs greatly fit to disperse these mists,
but contrariwise, he had a fashion rather to create doubts than
assurance. Thus was fuel prepared for the spark : the spark, that
afterwards kindled such a fire and combustion, was at the first con
temptible.
There was a subtile priest called Richard Simon,1 that lived in
Oxford, and had to his pupil a baker's son, named Lambert Simnell,
of the age of some fifteen years, a comely youth, and well favoured,
not without some extraordinary dignity and grace of aspect. It came
into the priest's fancy, hearing what men talked, and in hope to raise
himself to some great bishopric, to cause this lad to counterfeit and
personate the second son of Edward the Fourth, supposed to be
murdered ; and afterwards, (for he changed his intention in the
manage,) the Lord Edward Plantagenet,2 then prisoner in the Tower ;
and accordingly to frame him and instruct him in the part he was to
play. This is that which, as was touched before, seemeth scarcely
credible ; not that a false person should be assumed to gain a kingdom,
for it hath been seen in ancient and late times ; nor that it should
come into the mind of such an abject fellow, to enterprise so great a
matter ; for high conceits do sometimes come streaming into the
imaginations of base persons, especially when they are drunk with
news and talk of the people. But here is that which hath no appear
ance : that this priest, being utterly unacquainted with th<5 true person,
according to whose pattern he should shape his counterfeit, should
think it possible for him to instruct his player, either in gesture and
fashions ; or in recounting past matters of his life and education ; or
in fit answers to questions, or the like ; any ways to come near the
resemblance of him whom he was to represent. For this lad was not
to personate one, that had been long before taken out of his cradle, or
conveyed away in his infancy, known to few ; but a youth, that till the
age almost of ten years had been brought up in a court where infinite
eyes had been upon him. For King Edward, touched with remorse of
his brother the duke of Clarence's death, would not indeed restore his
son, of whom we speak, to be duke of Clarence, but yet created him
earl of Warwick, reviving his honour on the mother's side ;3 and used
him honourably during his time, though Richard the Third afterwards
1 The priest's name was William Simonds, and the youth was the son of an organ-
maker in Oxford, as the priest declared before the whole convocation of the clergy at Lambeth,
Feb. 17, 1486. Vide Reg. Morton, f. 34. MS. Bancroft.
' Clarence's son. * Clarence had married Warwick's eldest daughter Isabel
398 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
confined him. Sjo that it cannot be, but that some great person that
knew particularly and familiarly Edward Plantagenet, had a hand in
the business, from whom the priest might take his aim. That which is
most probable, out of the precedent and subsequent acts, is, that it was
the queen dowager, from whom this action had the principal source and
motion. For certain it is, she was a busy negotiating woman, and in
her withdrawing-chamber had the fortunate conspiracy for the king
against King Richard the Third been hatched : which the king knew, and
remembered perhaps but too well ; and [she] was at this time extremely
discontent with the king, thinking her daughter, as the king handled
the matter, not advanced but depressed : and none could hold the
book so well to prompt and instruct this stage-play as she could.
Nevertheless, it was not her meaning, nor no more was it the meaning
of any of the better and sager sort that favoured this enterprise, and
knew the secret, that this disguised idol should possess the crown ; but
at his peril to make way to the overthrow of the king ; and that done,
they had their several hopes and ways. That which doth chiefly
fortify this conjecture is, that as soon as the matter brake forth in any
strength, it was one of the king's first acts to cloister the queen
dowager in the nunnery of Bermondsey, and to take away all her
lands and estate : and this by a close council, without any legal pro
ceeding, upon far-fetched pretences that she had delivered her two
daughters out of sanctuary to King Richard, contrary to promise.
Which proceeding being even at that time taxed for rigorous and un
due, both in matter and manner, makes it very probable there was
some greater matter against her, which the king, upon reason of policy,
and to avoid envy, would not publish. It is likewise no small argu
ment that there was some secret in it, and some suppressing of
examinations, for that the priest Simon himself, after he was taken,
was never brought to execution ; no, not so much as to public trial,
as many clergymen were upon less treasons, but was only shut up
close in a dungeon. Add to this, that after the earl of Lincoln,
a principal person of the house of York, was slain in Stoke-field, the
king opened himself to some of his council that he was sorry for the
earl's death, because by him, he said, he might have known the
bottom of his danger.
But to return to the narration itself : Simon did first instruct his
scholar for the part of Richard, duke of York, second son to King
Edward the Fourth ; and this was at such a time as it was voiced that
the king purposed to put to death Edward Plantagenet, prisoner in
the Tower, whereat there was great murmur. But hearing soon after
a general bruit that Plantagenet had escaped out of the Tower, and
thereby finding him so much beloved amongst the people, and such
rejoicing at his escape, the cunning priest changed his copy, and
chose now Plantagenet to be the subject his pupil should personate,
because he was more in the present speech and votes of the people ;
and it pieced better, and followed more close and handsomely upon
tie bruit of Plantagenet's escape. But yet doubting that there would
le too near looking, and too much perspective into his disguise, if hft
should show it here in England ; he thought good, after the manner of
scenes in stage-plays and masks, to show it afar off ; and therefore
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 399
sailed with his scholar into Ireland, where the affection to the house
of York was most in height. The king had been a little improvident
in the matters of Ireland, and had not removed officers and counsellors,
and put in their places, or at least intermingled, persons of whom he
stood assured, as he should have done, since he knew the strong bent
of that country towards the house of York ; and that it was a ticklish
and unsettled state, more easy to receive distempers and mutations
than England was. But trusting to the reputation of his victories and
successes in England, he thought he should have time enough to
extend his cares afterwards to that second kingdom.
Wherefore through this neglect, upon the coming of Simon with his
pretended Plantagenet into Ireland, all things were prepared for
revolt and sedition, almost as if they had been set and plotted before
hand. Simon's first address was to the Lord Thomas Fitzgerard, earl
of Kildare, and deputy of Ireland, before whose eyes he did cast such
a mist, by his own insinuation, and by the carriage of his youth, that
expressed a natural princely behaviour, as joined perhaps with some
inward vapours of ambition and affection in the earl's own mind, left
him fully possessed that it was the true Plantagenet. The earl
presently communicated the matter with some of the nobles and others
there, at the first secretly ; but finding them of like affection to himself,
he suffered it of purpose to vent and pass abroad, because they thought
it not safe to resolve till they had a taste of the people's inclination.
But if the great ones were in forwardness, the people were in fury,
entertaining this airy body or phantasm with incredible affection,
partly out of their great devotion to the house of York, partly out of a
proud humour in the nation, to give a king to the realm of England.
Neither did the party, in this heat of affection, much trouble them
selves with the attainder of George, duke of Clarence, having newly
learned, by the king's example, that attainders do not interrupt the
conveying of title to the crown. And as for the daughters of King
Edward the Fourth, they thought King Richard had said enough for
them, and took them to be but as of the king's party, because they
were in his power and at his disposing. So that with marvellous
consent and applause this counterfeit Plantagenet was brought with
great solemnity to the castle of Dublin, and there saluted, served, and
honoured as king ; the boy becoming it well, and doing nothing that
did betray the baseness of his condition. And within a few days after
he was proclaimed king in Dublin, by the name of King Edward the
Sixth, there being not a sword drawn in King Henry's quarrel.
The king was much moved with this unexpected accident when it
came to his ears, both because it struck upon that string which ever
he most feared, as also because it was stirred in such a place where
he could not with safety transfer his own person to suppress it. For
partly through natural valour, and partly through an universal sus
picion, not knowing whom to trust, he was ever ready to wait upon all
his achievements in person. The king, therefore, first called his
council together at the charter-house at Shine ; 1 which council was
held with great secrecy, but the open decrees thereof, which presently
came abroad, were three.
1 Sheen— a favourite palace near Richmond.
400 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
The first was, that the queen dowager, for that she, contrary to her
pact and agreement with.those that had concluded with her concerning
the marriage of her daughter Elizabeth with King Henry, had never
theless delivered her daughters out of sanctuary into King Richard's
hands, should be cloistered in the nunnery of Bermondsey, and forfeit
all her lands and goods.
The next was, that Edward Plantagenet, then close prisoner in the
Tower, should be, in the most public and notorious manner that
could be devised, showed unto the people ; in part to discharge the
king of the envy of that opinion and bruit, how he had been put to
death privily in the Tower, but chiefly to make the people see the
levity and imposture of the proceedings in Ireland, and that their
Plantagenet was indeed but a puppet or a counterfeit.
The third was, that there should be again proclaimed a general
pardon to all that would reveal their offences, and submit themselves
by a day. And that this pardon should be conceived in so ample and
liberal a manner, as no high-treason, no not against the king's own
person, should be excepted. Which though it might seem strange,
yet was it not so to a wise king, that knew his greatest dangers were
not from the least treasons, but from the greatest. These resolutions
of the king and his council were immediately put in execution. And
first, the queen dowager was put into the monastery of Bermondsey,
and all her estates seized into the king's hands ; whereat there was
much wondering, that a weak woman, for the yielding to the menaces
and promises of a tyrant, after such a distance of time, wherein the
king had shown no displeasure nor alteration, but much more after so
happy a marriage between the king and her daughter, blessed with
issue male, should, upon a sudden mutability or disclosure of the
king's mind, be so severely handled.
This lady was amongst the examples of great variety of fortune.
She had first, from a distressed suitor and desolate widow, been taken
to the marriage bed of a bachelor king, the goodliest personage of his
time ; and even in his reign she had endured a strange eclipse by the
king's flight, and temporary depriving from the crown. She was also
very happy in that she had by him fair issue, and continued his nuptial
love, helping herself by some obsequious bearing and dissembling of
his pleasures to the very end. She was much affectionate to her own
kindred, even unto faction, which did stir great envy in the lords of
the king's side, who counted her blood a disparagement to be mingled
with the king's. With which lords of the king's blood joined also the
king's favourite, the Lord Hastings, who, notwithstanding the king's
great affection to him, was thought at times, through her malice and
spleen, not to be out of danger of falling. After her husband's death
she was matter of tragedy, having lived to see her brother beheaded,
and her two sons deposed from the crown, bastarded in their blood,
and cruelly murdered. All this while, nevertheless, she enjoyed her
liberty, state, and fortunes ; but afterwards again, upon the rise of the
wheel, when she had a king to her son-in-law, and was made grand
mother to a grandchild of the best sex ; yet was she, upon dark and
unknown reasons, and no less strange pretences, precipitated and
banished the world into a nunnery, where it was almost thought
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 401
dangeidus to visit her or see her, and where not long after she ended
^er life, but was bv thf» king's commandment buried wifh the king,
her nu s oana, at Windsor. C«e ^-as loundresb 01 Queen's College in
Cambridge. For this act the king sustained great obloquy, which
nevertheless, besides the reason of state, was somewhat sweetened to
him by a great confiscation.
About this time also, Edward Plantagenet was upon a Sunday
brought throughout all the principal streets of London, to be seen of
the people. And having passed the view of the streets, was conducted
to Paul's church in solemn procession, where great store of people
were assembled. And it was provided also in good fashion, that
divers of the nobility, and others of quality, especially of those that the
king most suspected, and knew the person of Plantagenet best, had
communication with the young gentleman by the way, and entertained
him with speech and discourse, which did in effect mar the pageant in
Ireland with the subjects here, at least with so many as out of error,
and not out of malice, might be misled. Nevertheless, in Ireland,
where it was too late to go back, it wrought little or no effect. But
contrariwise, they turned the imposture upon the king, and gave out
that the king, to defeat the true inheritor, and to mock the world, and
blind the eyes of simple men, had tricked up a boy in the likeness of
Edward Plantagenet, and showed him to the people, and not sparing
to profane the ceremony of a procession the more to countenance the
fable.
The general pardon likewise near the same time came forth, and the
king therewithal omitted no diligence in giving strait order for the
keeping of the ports, that fugitives, malecontents, or suspected persons,
might not pass over into Ireland and Flanders.
Meanwhile the rebels in Ireland had sent privy messengers both
into England and into Flanders, who in both places had wrought
effects of no small importance. For in England they won to their
party John, earl of Lincoln, son of John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk,
and of Elizabeth, King Edward the Fourth's eldest sister. This earl
was a man of great wit and courage, and had his thoughts highly
raised by hopes and expectations for a time ; for Richard the Third
had a resolution, out of his hatred to both his brethren, King Edward
and the duke of Clarence, and their lines, having had his hand in both
their bloods, to disable their issues upon false and incompetent
pretexts — the one of attainder, the other of illegitimation ; and to
design this gentleman, in case himself should die without children, for
inheritor of the crown. Neither was this unknown to the king, who
had secretly an eye upon him. But the king, having tasted the envy
of the people for his imprisonment of Edward Plantagenet, was
doubtful to heap up any more distastes of that kind, by the imprison
ment of De la Pole also ; the rather thinking it policy to conserve him
as a co-rival unto the other. The earl of Lincoln was induced to
participate with the action of Ireland, not lightly upon the strength of
the proceedings there, which was but a bubble, but upon letters from
the Lady Margaret of Burgundy, in whose succours and declaration
<br the enterprise there seemed to be a more solid foundation, both for
reputation and forces. Neither did the earl refrain the business, for
D D
40A HENRY THE SEVENTH.
that he knew the pretended Plantagenet to be but an idol.1 But
contrariwise, he was more glad it should be the false Plantagenet than
the true, because the false being sure to fall away of himself, and the
true to be made sure by the king, it might open and pave a fair and
prepared way to his own title. With this resolution he sailed secretly
into Flanders, where was a little before arrived the Lord Lovel, leaving
a correspondence here in England with Sir Thomas Broughton, a
man of great power and dependencies in Lancashire. For before this
time, when the pretended Plantagenet was first received in Ireland,
secret messengers had been also sent to the Lady Margaret, adver
tising her what was passed in Ireland, imploring succours in an
enterprise, as they said, so pious and just, that God had so miraculously
prospered the beginning thereof, and making offer that all things
should be guided by her will and direction, as the sovereign patroness
and protectoress of the enterprise. Margaret was second sister to
King Edward the Fourth, and had been second wife to Charles,
surnamed the Hardy, duke of Burgundy, by whom having no children
of her own, she did with singular care and tenderness intend the
education of Philip and Margaret, grandchildren to her former
husband, which won her great love and authority among the Dutch.
This princess, having the spirit of a man and malice of a woman,
abounding in treasure by the greatness of her dower and her provident
government, and being childless and without any nearer care, made it
her design and enterprise to see the majesty royal of England once
again replaced in her house, and had set up King Henry as a mark, at
whose overthrow all her actions should aim and shoot ; insomuch as
all the counsels of his succeeding troubles came chiefly out of that
quiver. And she bare such a mortal hatred to the house of Lancaster,
and personally to the king, as she was no ways mollified by the
conjunction of the houses in her niece's marriage, but rather hated her
niece, as the means of the king's ascent and assurance therein.
Wherefore with great violence of affection she embraced this overture.
And upon counsel taken with the earl of Lincoln, and the Lord Lovel,
and some other of the party, it was resolved with all speed, that the
two lords, assisted with a regiment of two thousand Almains,2 being
choice and veteran bands, under the command of Martin Swart, a
valiant and experimented captain, should pass over into Ireland to the
new king, hoping that when the action should have the face of a
received and settled regality, with such a second person as the earl of
Lincoln, and the conjunction and reputation of foreign succours, the
fame of it would embolden and prepare all the party of the confederates
and malecontents within the realm of England to give them assist
ance when they should come over there. And for the person of the
counterfeit, it was agreed that if all things succeeded well he should
be put down, and the true Plantagenet received, wherein, nevertheless,
the earl of Lincoln had his particular hopes. After they were come
into Ireland, and that the party took courage, by seeing themselves
together in a body, they grew very confident of success, conceiving
and discoursing amongst themselves, that they went in upon far better
cards to overthrow King Henry, than King Henry had to overthrow
1 A mere representative of a reality. - Germans, or more probably Fler:;!n£S
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 403
King Richard, and that if there were not a sword drawn against them
in Ireland, it was a sign the swords in England would be soon
sheathed or beaten down. And first, for a bravery upon this accession
of power, they crowned their new king in the cathedral church o<
Dublin, who formerly had been but proclaimed only ; and then sat in
council what should farther be done. At which council, though it
were propounded by some, that it were the best way to establish them
selves first in Ireland, and to make that the seat of the war, and to
draw King Henry thither in person, by whose absence they thought
there would be great alterations and commotions in England ; yet
because the kingdom there was poor, and they should not be able to
keep their army together, nor pay their German soldiers, and for that
also the sway of the Irishmen, and generally of the men of war, which,
as in such cases of popular tumults is usual, did in effect govern their
leaders, was eager, and in affection to make their fortunes upon
England, it was concluded with all possible speed to transport their
forces into England. The king, in the mean time, who at the first
when he heard what was done in Ireland, though it troubled him, yet
thought he should be well enough able to scatter the Irish as a flight
of birds, and rattle away this swarm of bees with their king : when he
heard afterwards that the earl of Lincoln was embarked in the action,
and that the Lady Margaret was declared for it, he apprehended the
danger in a true degree as it was, and saw plainly that his kingdom
must again be put to the stake, and that he must fight for it. And
first he did conceive, before he understood of the earl of Lincoln's
sailing into Ireland out of Flanders, that he should be assailed both
upon the east parts of the kingdom of England, by some impression
from Flanders, and upon the north-west out of Ireland. And,
therefore, having ordered musters to be made in both parts, and
having provisionally designed two generals, Jasper, earl of Bedford,
and John, earl of Oxford, meaning himself also to go in person where
the affairs should most require it, and nevertheless not expecting any
actual invasion at that time, the winter being far on, he took his
journey himself towards Suffolk and Norfolk, for the confirming of
those parts. And being come to St. Edmond's-Bury, he understood
that Thomas, Marquis Dorset, who had been one of the pledges in
France, was hasting towards him, to purge himself of some accusations
which had been made against him. But the king, though he kept an
ear for him, yet was the time so doubtful, that he sent the earl of
Oxford to meet him, and forthwith to carry him to the Tower, with a
fair message, nevertheless, that he should bear that disgrace with
patience, for that the king meant not his hurt, but only to preserve him
from doing hurt either to the king's service or to himself, and that the
king should always be able, when he had cleared himself, to make
him reparation.
From St. Edmond's-Bury he went to Norwich, where he kept his
Christmas. And from thence he went, in a manner of pilgrimage, to
Walsingham, where he visited Our Lady's church famous for miracles,
and made his prayers and vows for help and deliverance. And from
thence he returned by Cambridge to London. Not long after, the
rebels, with their king, under the leading of the earl of Lincoln, the
D D 2
404 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
earl of Kildare, the Lord Lovel, and Colonel Swart, landed at
Fouldrey in Lancashire ; whither there repaired to them Sir Thomas
Broughton, with some small company of English. The king, by that
time, knowing now the storm would not divide, but fall in one place,
had levied forces in good number ; and in person, taking with him his
two designed generals, the duke of Bedford and the earl of Oxford,
was come on his way towards them as far as Coventry, whence he
sent forth a troop of light horsemen for discovery, and to intercept
some stragglers of the enemies, by whom he might the better under
stand the particulars of their progress and purposes, which was
accordingly done ; though the king otherwise was not without intel
ligence from espials in the camp.
The rebels took their way towards York, without spoiling the
country, or any act of hostility, the better to put themselves into
favour of the people, and to personate their king ; who, no doubt, out
of a princely feeling, was sparing and compassionate towards his
subjects ; but their snow-ball did not gather as it went. For the
people came not in to them ; neither did any rise or declare themselves
in other parts of the kingdom for them ; which was caused partly by
the good taste that the king had given his people of his government,
joined with the reputation of his felicity ; and partly for that it was an
odious thing to the people of England, to have a king brought in to
them upon the shoulders of Irish and Dutch, of which their army was
in substance compounded. Neither was it a thing done with any
great judgment on the party of the rebels, for them to take their way
towards York : considering that howsoever those parts had formerly
been a nursery of their friends, yet it was there, where the Lord Lovel
had so lately disbanded, and where the king's presence had a little
before qualified discontents. The earl of Lincoln, deceived of his
hopes of the country's concourse unto him, in which case he would have
temporized ; and seeing the business past retract, resolved to make on
where the king was, and to give him battle ; and thereupon marched
towards Newark, thinking to have surprised the town. But the king
was somewhat before this time come to Nottingham, where he called
a council of war, at which was consulted whether it were best to pro
tract time, or speedily to set upon the rebels. In which council the
king himself, whose continual vigilancy did suck in sometimes cause
less suspicions, which few else knew, inclined to the accelerating a
battle ; but this was presently put out of doubt, by the great aids that
came in to him in the instant of this consultation, partly upon missives,
and partly voluntaries from many parts of the kingdom.
The principal persons that came then to the king's aid, were the
earl of Shrewsbury, and Lord Strange, of the nobility ; and of knights
and gentlemen, to the number of at least threescore and ten persons,
with their companies, making in the whole, at the least, six thousand
fighting men, besides the forces that were with the king before. Where
upon the king, finding his army so bravely reinforced, and a great
alacrity in al] his men to fight, was confirmed in his former resolution,
and marched speedily, so as to put himself between the enemies' camp
and Newark ; being loth their army should get the commodity of that
town. The earl, nothing dismayed, came forwards that day unto a
HEKRY THE SEVENTH. 405
little village called Stoke, and there encamped that night, upon the
brow or hanging of a hill. The king the next day presented him battle
upon the plain, the fields there being open and champain. The earl
courageously came down and joined battle with him. Concerning
which battle the relations that are left unto us are so naked and
negligent, though it be an action of so recent memory, as they rather
declare the success of the day, than the manner of the fight. They
say, that the king divided his army into three battails ; whereof the
vant-guard l only, well strengthened with wings, came to fight : that the
fight was fierce and obstinate, and lasted three hours, before the
victory inclined either way ; save that judgment might be made by
that, the king's vant-guard 2 of itself maintained fight against the whole
power of the enemies, the other two battails remained out of action,
what the success was like to be in the end : that Martin Swart with
his Germans performed bravely, and so did those few English that were
on that side ; neither did the Irish fail in courage or fierceness ; but
being almost naked men, only armed with darts and skeins, 3 it was
rather an execution than a fight upon them ; insomuch as the furious
slaughter of them was a great discouragement and appalment to the
rest : that there died upon the place all the chieftains ; that is, the earl
of Lincoln, the earl of Kildare, Francis Lord Lovel, Martin Swart, and
Sir Thomas Broughton ; all making good the fight, without any ground
given. Only of the Lord Lovel there went a report, that he fled,
and swam over Trent on horseback, but could not recover the farther
side, by reason of the steepness of the bank, and so was drowned in
the river. But another report leaves him not there, but that he lived
long after in a cave or vault.4 The number that was slain in the field
was of the enemies' part, four thousand at the least ; and of the king's
part one half of his vant-guard, besides many hurt, but none of name.
There were taken prisoners, amongst others, the counterfeit Plantagenet,
now Lambert Simnell again, and the crafty priest his tutor. For
Lambert, the king would not take his life, both out of magnanimity,
taking him but as an image of wax, that others had tempered and
moulded; and likewise out of wisdom, thinking that if he suffered death,
he would be forgotten too soon ; but being kept alive, he would be a
continual spectacle, and a kind of remedy against the like enchant
ments of people in time to come. For which cause he was taken into
service in his court to a base office in his kitchen ; so that, in a kind
olmattarina of human fortune, he turned a broach, that had worn a
crown ; whereas fortune commonly doth not bring in a comedy or
farce after a tragedy. And afterwards he was preferred to be one of
the king's falconers. As to the priest, he was committed close prisoner,
and heard of no more ; the king loving to seal up his own dangers.
After the battle the king went to Lincoln, where he caused supplica*
1 Van— i.e. Avant-guard — led by the Earl of Oxford.
* Henry prudently remained with the rear guard, which never came into action.
* A short sword or knife.
* Nearly two hundred years after this battle, some workmen accidentally discovered a
subterranean room at Minster Lovel, Cambridgeshire, Lord Level's seat. In the chamber
was the skeleton of a man sitting on a chair, its head resting on the table. This discovery,
made long after Bacon's time, seems to explain the fate of the unfortunate man, who was
probably starved in his hiding-place
406 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
tions and thanksgivings to be made for his deliverance and victory.
And that his devotions might go round in circle, he sent his banner to
be offered to our Lady of Walsingham, where before he made his vows.
And thus delivered of this so strange an engine, and new invention of
fortune, he returned to his former confidence of mind ; thinking now,
*hat all his misfortunes had come at once. But it fell out unto him
according to the speech of the common people in the beginning of his
reign, that said, It was a token he should reign in labour, because his
reign began with a sickness of sweat. But howsoever the king thought
himself now in a haven, yet such was his wisdom, as his confidence did
seldom darken his foresight, especially in things near hand. And there
fore, awakened by so fresh and unexpected dangers, he entered into due
consideration, as well how to weed out the partakers of the former
rebellion, as to kill the seeds of the like in time to come : and withal to
take away all shelters and harbours for discontented persons, where
they might hatch and foster rebellions, which afterwards might gather
strength and motion. And first, he did yet again make a progress
from Lincoln to the northern parts, though it were indeed rather an
itinerary circuit of justice than a progress. For all along as he went,
with much severity and strict inquisition, partly by martial law, and
partly by commission, were punished the adherents and aiders of the
late rebels. Not all by death, for the field had drawn much blood, but
by fines and ransoms, which spared life, and raised treasure. Amongst
other crimes of this nature, there was diligent inquiry made of such as
had raised and dispersed a bruit and rumour, a little before the field
fought, " that the rebels had the day ; and that the king's army was
overthrown, and the king fled." Whereby it was supposed that
many succours, which otherwise would have come unto the king, were
cunningly put off and kept back. Which charge and accusation,
though it had some ground, yet it was industriously embraced and put
on by divers, who having been in themselves not affected to the king's
part, nor forward to come to his aid, were glad to apprehend this
colour to cover their neglect and coldness, under the pretence of such
discouragements. Which cunning nevertheless the king would not
understand, though he lodged it, and noted it in some particulars, as
his manner was.
But for the extirpating of the roots and causes of the like commo
tions in time to come, the king began to find where his shoe did wring
him, and that it was his depressing the house of York that did rankle
and fester the affections of his people. And therefore being now too
wise to disdain perils any longer, and willing to give some content
ment in that kind, at least in ceremony, he resolved at last to proceed
to the coronation of his queen. And, therefore, at his coming to
London, where he entered in state, and in a kind of triumph, and
celebrated his victory with two days of devotion (for the first day he re
paired to Paul's and had the hymn of" Te Deum " sung, and the morrow
after he went in procession, and heard the sermon at the cross), the
queen was with great solemnity crowned at Westminster, the five-and-
twentieth of November, in the third year of his reign, which was about
two years after the marriage ; like an old christening that had stayed
long for god-fathers. Which strange and unusual distance of time made
HENRY THE SEVENTH.
407
it subject to every man's note, that it was an act against his stomach,
and put upon him by necessity and reason of state. Soon after, to
show that it was now fair weather again, and that the imprisonment
of Thomas, Marquis Dorset, was rather upon suspicion of the time,
than of the man, he, the said marquis, was set at liberty, without ex
amination or other circumstance. At that time also the king sent
an ambassador unto Pope Innocent, signifying unto him this his
marriage ; and that now, like another ^Eneas, he had passed through
the floods of his former troubles, and travels, and was arrived unto a
safe haven : and thanking his Holiness that he had honoured the
celebration of his marriage with the presence of his ambassador ; and
offering both his person and the forces of his kingdom, upon all occa
sions, to do him service.
The ambassador making his oration to the pope, in the presence of
the cardinals, did so magnify the king and queen, as was enough to
glut the hearers. But then he did again so extol and deify the pope,
as made all that he had said in praise of his master and mistress seem
temperate and passable. But he was very honourably entertained,
and extremely much made on by the pope : who knowing himself to be
lazy and unprofitable to the Christian world, was wonderfully glad to
hear that there were such echoes of him sounding in remote parts.
He obtained also of the pope a very just and honourable bull,
qualifying the privileges of sanctuary wherewith the king had been
extremely galled, in three points.
The first, that if any sanctuary man did by night, or otherwise, get
out of sanctuary privily, and commit mischief and trespass, and then
come in again, he should lose the benefit of sanctuary for ever after.
The second, that howsoever the person of the sanctuary man was
protected from his creditors, yet his goods out of sanctuary should not.
The third, that if any took sanctuary for case of treason, the king might
appoint him keepers to look to him in sanctuary.
The king also, for the better securing of his estate against mutinous
and malecontented subjects, whereof he saw the realm was full, who
might have their refuge into Scotland, which was not under key, as the
ports were ; for that cause, rather than for any doubt of hostility from
those parts, before his coming to London, when he was at Newcastle,
had sent a solemn ambassage unto James the Third, king of Scotland,
to treat and conclude a peace with him. The ambassadors were,
Richard Fox, bishop of Exeter, and Sir Richard Edgcombe,
comptroller of the king's house, who were honourably received and
entertained there. But the king of Scotland labouring of the same
disease that king Henry did, though more mortal, as afterwards
appeared, that is, discontented subjects, apt to rise and raise tumult,
although in his own affection he did much desire to make a peace with
the king ; yet finding his nobles averse, and not daring to displease
them, concluded only a truce for seven years ; giving nevertheless
promise in private, that it should be renewed from time to time during
the two kings' lives.
Hitherto the king had been exercised in settling his affairs at home,
But about this time brake forth an occasion that drew him to look
abroad, and to hearken to foreign business. Charles the Eighth, the
408 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
French king, by the virtue and good fortune of his two immediate
predecessors, Charles the Seventh, his grandfather, and Lewis the
Eleventh, his father, received the kingdom of France in more
flourishing and spread estate than it had been of many years before :
being redintegrate in those principal members, which anciently had
been portions of the crown of France, and were afterward dissevered,
so as they remained only in homage, and not in sovereignty, being
governed by absolute princes of their own ; Anjou, Normandy,
Provence, and Burgundy. There remained only Britain l to be
reunited, and so the monarchy of France to be reduced to the ancient
terms and bounds.
King Charles was not a little inflamed with an ambition to re
purchase and re-annex that duchy ; which his ambition was a wise
and well-weighed ambition ; not like unto the ambitions of his
succeeding enterprises of Italy. For at that time, being newly come
to the crown, he was somewhat guided by his father's counsels, counsels
not counsellors, for his father was his own council, and had few able
men about him. And that king, he knew well, had ever distasted the
designs of Italy, and in particular had an eye upon Britain. There
were many circumstances that did feed the ambition of Charles with
pregnant and apparent hopes of success : the duke of Britain old, and
entered into a lethargy, and served with mercenary counsellors, father
of two only daughters,2 the one sickly and not like to continue ; King
Charles himself in the flower of his age, and the subjects of France at
that time well trained for war, both for leaders and soldiers ; men of
service being not yet worn out since the wars of Lewis against
Burgundy. He found himself also in peace with all his neighbour
princes. As for those that might oppose to his enterprise, Maximilian,
king of the Romans, his rival in the same desires (as well for the
duchy, as the daughter), feeble in means : and King Henry of
England, as well somewhat obnoxious to him for his favours and
benefits, as busied in his particular troubles at home. There was also
a fair and specious occasion offered him to hide his ambition, and to
justify his warring upon Britain ; for that the duke had received and
succoured Lewis duke of Orleans, and other of the French nobility,
which had taken arms against their king. Wherefore King Charles,
being resolved upon that war, knew well he could not receive any
opposition so potent, as if King Henry should, either upon policy of
state, in preventing the growing greatness of France, or upon gratitude
unto the duke of Britain for his former favours in the time of his
distress, espouse that quarrel, and declare himself in aid of the duke.
Therefore he no sooner heard that King Henry was settled by
his victory, but forthwith he sent ambassadors unto him to pray his
assistance, or at least that he would stand neutral. Which ambassa
dors found the king at Leicester, and delivered their ambassage to
this effect : They first imparted unto the king the success that their
master had had a little before against Maximilian, in recovery of
certain towns from him : which was done in a kind of privacy, and
inwardness towards the king ; as if the French king did not esteem
him for an outward or formal confederate, but as one that had part
1 Brittany. * Anne and Isabella.
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 409
In his affections and fortunes, and with whom he took pleasure
to communicate his business. After this compliment, and some
gratulation for the king's victory, they fell to their errand ; declaring
to the king, That their master was enforced to enter into a just and
necessary war with the duke of Britain, for that he had received
and succoured those that were traitors and declared enemies unto
his person and state. That they were no mean, distressed, and
calamitous persons that fled to him for refuge, but of so great quality,
as it was apparent that they came not thither to protect their own
fortune, but to infest and invade his ; the head of them being the duke
of Orleans, the first prince of the blood, and the second person
of France. That therefore, rightly to understand it, it was rather on
their master's part a defensive war than an offensive ; as that that could
not be omitted or forborne, if he tendered the conservation of his own.
estate ; and that it was not the first blow that made the war invasive,
for that no wise prince would stay for, but the first provocation, or at
least the first preparation ; nay, that this war was rather a suppression
of rebels, than a war with a just enemy ; where the case is, that his
subjects, traitors, are received by the duke of Britain his homager.
That King Henry knew well what went upon it in example, if neighbour
princes should patronize and comfort rebels against the law of nations
and of leagues. Nevertheless, that their master was not ignorant,
that the king had been beholden to the duke of Britain in his
adversity ; as on the other side, they knew he would not forget also
the readiness of their king, in aiding him when the duke of Britain, or
his mercenary counsellors, failed him, and would have betrayed him ;
and that there was a great difference between the courtesies received
from their master, and the duke of Britain : for that the duke might
have ends of utility and bargain ; whereas their master could not have
proceeded but out of entire affection ; for that, if it had been measured
by a politic line, it had been better for his affairs, that a tyrant should
have reigned in England, troubled and hated, than such a prince,
whose virtues could not fail to make him great and potent, whensoever
he was come to be master of his affairs. But howsoever it stood for
the point of obligation which the king might owe to the duke of
Britain, yet their master was well assured, it would not divert King
Henry of England from doing that that was just, nor ever embark him
in so ill-grounded a quarrel. Therefore, since this war, which their
master was now to make, was but to deliver himself from imminent
dangers, their king hoped the king would show the like affection to the
conservation cf their master's estate, as their master had, when time
was, showed to the king's acquisition of his kingdom. At the least,
that according to the inclination which the king had ever professed of
peace, he would look on, and stand neutral; for that their master
could not with reason press him to undertake part in the war, being so
newly settled and recovered from intestine seditions. But touching
the mystery of re-annexing of the duchy of Britain to the crown
of France, either by war, or by marriage with the daughter of Britain,
the ambassadors bare aloof from it as from a rock, knowing that
it made most against them. And therefore by all means declined any
mention thereof, but contrariwise interlaced, in their conference with
4X0 HENR\ THE SEVENTH.
the king, the assured purpose of their master to match with the
daughter of Maximilian ; and entertained the king also with some
wandering discourses of their king's purpose, to recover by arms his
right to the kingdom of Naples, by an expedition in person ; all to
remove the king from all jealousy of any design in these hither parts
upon Britain, otherwise than for quenching of the fire which he feared
might be kindled in his own estate.
The king, after advice taken with his council, made answer to the
ambassadors : and first returned their compliment, showing he was
right glad of the French king's reception of those towns from
Maximilian. Then he familiarly related some particular passages of
his own adventures and victory passed. As to the business of Britain,
the king answered in few words ; that the French king, and the duke
of Britain, were the two persons to whom he was most obliged of all
men ; and that he should think himself very unhappy if things should
go so between them, as he should not be able to acquit himself in
gratitude towards them both ; and that there was no means for him
as a Christian king, and a common friend to them, to satisfy all
obligations both to God and man, but to offer himself for a mediator
of an accord and peace between them ; by which course he doubted
not but their king's estate, and honour both, would be preserved with
more safety and less envy than by a war ; and that he would spare no
costs or pains, no, if it were to go on pilgrimage, for so good an effect ;
and concluded, that in this great affair, which he took so much to
heart, he would express himself more fully by an ambassage, which he
would speedily despatch unto the French king for that purpose. And
in this sort the French ambassadors were dismissed : the king avoiding
to understand anything touching the reannexing of Britain, as the
ambassadors had avoided to mention it ; save that he gave a little
touch of it in the word envy. And so it was, that the king was neither
so shallow, nor so ill advertised, as not to perceive the intention of the
French for the investing himself of Britain. But first, he was utterly
unwilling, howsoever he gave out, to enter into war with France. A
fame of a war he liked well, but not an achievement ; for the one he
thought would make him richer, and the other poorer ; and he was
possessed with many secret fears touching his own people, which he
was therefore loth to arm, and put weapons into their hands. Yet
notwithstanding, as a prudent and courageous prince, he was not so
averse from a war, but that he was resolved to choose it, rather than
to have Britain carried by France, being so great and opulent a duchy,
and situate so opportunely to annoy England, either for coast or trade.
But the king's hopes were, that partly by negligence, commonly imputed
to the French, especially in the court of a young king, and partly by
the native power of Britain itself, which was not small ; but chiefly in
respect of the great party that the duke of Orleans had in the kingdom
of France, and thereby means to stir up civil troubles, to divert the
French king from the enterprise of Britain. And lastly, in regard of
the power of Maximilian, who was co-rival to the French king in that
pursuit, the enterprise would either bow to a peace, or break in itself.
In all which the king measured and valued things amiss, as afterwards
appeared. He sent therefore forthwith to the French king Christopher
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 411
Urswick, his chaplain, a person by him much trusted and em
ployed ; choosing him the rather, because he was a churchman, as
best sorting with an ambassy of pacification : and giving him also a
commission, that if the French king consented to treat, he should
thence repair to the duke of Britain, and ripen the treaty on both
parts. Urswick made declaration to the French king, much to the
purpose of the king's answer to the French ambassadors here, instilling
also tenderly some overture of receiving to grace the duke of Orleans,
and some taste of conditions of accord. But the French king on the
other side proceeded not sincerely, but with a great deal of art and
dissimulation in this treaty ; having for his end, to gain time, and so
put off the English succours under hope of peace, till he had got good
footing in Britain by force of arms. Wherefore he answered the
ambassador, that he would put himself into the king's hands, and
make him arbiter of the peace ; and willingly consented, that the
ambassador should straightways pass into Britain, to signify this his
consent, and to know the duke's mind likewise ; well foreseeing that
the duke of Orleans, by whom the duke of Britain was wholly led,
taking himself to be upon terms irreconcileable with him, would admit
of no treaty of peace. Whereby he should in one, both generally abroad
veil over his ambition, and win the reputation of just and moderate
proceedings : and should withal endear himself in the affections of the
king of England, as one that had committed all to his will ; nay, and
which was yet more fine, make faith in him, that although he went on
with the war, yet it should be but with the sword in his hand, to bend
the stiffness of the other party to accept of peace ; and so the king
should take no umbrage of his arming and prosecution ; but the treaty
to be kept on foot till the very last instant, till he were master of the
field.
Which grounds being by the French king wisely laid, all things fell
out as he expected. For when the English ambassador came to the
court of Britain, the duke was then scarcely perfect in his memory,
and all things were directed by the duke of Orleans, who gave
audience to the chaplain Urswick, and upon his ambassage delivered
made answer in somewhat high terms : That the duke of Britain
having been an host, and a kind of parent or foster-father to the king,
in his tenderness of age and weakness of fortune, did look for at this
time from King Henry, the renowned king of England, rather brave
troops for his succours, than a vain treaty of peace. And if the king
could forget the good offices of the duke done unto him aforetime ;
yet, he knew well, he would in his wisdom consider of the future, how
much it imported his own safety and reputation, both in foreign parts,
and with his own people, not to suffer Britain, the old confederate of
England, to be swallowed up by France, and so many good ports and
strong towns upon the coast be in the command of so potent a
neighbour king, and so ancient an enemy. And therefore humbly
desired the king to think of this business as his own : and therewith
brake off, and denied any farther conference for treaty.
Urswick returned first to the French king, and related to him what
had passed. Who, finding things to sort to his desire, took hold of
them, and said : That the ambassador might perceive now that which
4ia HENRY THE SEVENTH.
ne for his part partly imagined before. The considering in what hand
the duke of Britain was, there would be no peace but by a mixed treaty
of force and persuasion : and therefore he would go on with the one,
and desired the king not to desist from the other. But for his own
part, he did faithfully promise to be still in the king's power, to rule him
in the matter of peace. This was accordingly represented unto the
king by Urswick at his return, and in such a fashion, as if the treaty
were in no sort desperate, but rather stayed for a better hour, till the
hammer had wrought and beat the party of Britain more pliant.
Whereupon there passed continually packets and despatches between
the two kings, from the one out of desire, and the other out of
dissimulation, about the negotiation of peace. The French king
meanwhile invaded Britain with great forces, and distressed the city
of Nantz with a strait siege, and, as one, who though he had no great
judgment, yet had that, that he could dissemble at home, the more he
did urge the prosecution of the war, the more he did, at the same time,
urge the solicitation of the peace. Insomuch as during the siege of
Nantz, after many letters and particular messages, the better to
maintain his dissimulation, and to refresh the treaty, he sent Bernard
d'Aubigney, a person of good quality, to the king, earnestly to desire
him to make an end of the business howsoever.
The king was no less ready to revive and quicken the treaty ; and
thereupon sent three commissioners, the abbot of Abingdon, Sir
Richard Tunstal, and chaplain Urswick formerly employed, to do
their utmost endeavours to manage the treaty roundly and strongly.
About this time the Lord Woodvile, uncle to the queen, a valiant
gentleman and desirous of honour, sued to the king that he might raise
some power of voluntaries underhand, and without license or passport
(wherein the king might any ways appear), go to the aid of the duke
of Britain. The king denied his request, or at least seemed so to do,
and laid strait commandment upon him, that he should not stir, for
that the king thought his honour would suffer therein, during a
treaty, to better a party. Nevertheless this lord, either being unruly,
or out of conceit that the king would not inwardly dislike that, which
he would not openly avow, sailed directly over into the Isle of Wight,
whereof he was governor, and levied a fair troop of four hundred men,
and with them passed over into Britain, and joined himself with the
duke's forces. The news whereof, when it came to the French court,
put divers young bloods into such a fury, as the English ambassadors
were not without peril to be outraged. But the French king, both to
preserve the privilege of ambassadors, and being conscious to himself,
that in the business of peace he himself was the greater dissembler of
the two, forbad all injuries of fact or word against their persons or
followers. And presently came an agent from the king, to purge him
self touching the Lord Woodvile's going over ; using for a principal
argument, to demonstrate that it was without his privity, for that the
troops were so small, as neither had the face of a succour by authority
nor could much advance the Britain affairs. To whicf^ message
although the French king gave no full credit, yet he made fair weather
with the king, and seemed satisfied. Soon after the English ambassa
dors returned, having two of them been likewise with the duke of
THE SEVENTH. 413
Britain, and found things in no other terms than they wefe before.
Upon their retnrn they informed the king of the state of affairs, and
how far the French king was from any true meaning of peace ; and
therefore he was now to advise of some other course ; neither was the
king himself led all this while with credulity merely, as was generally
supposed ; but his error was not so much facility of belief, as an ill
measuring of the forces of the other party.
For, as was partly touched before, the king had cast the business
thus with himself. He took it for granted in his own judgment, that
the war of Britain, in respect of the strength of the towns and of the
party, could not speedily come to a period. For he conceived, that
the counsels of a war, that was undertaken by the French king, then
childless, against an heir apparent of France, would be very faint and
slow : and, besides, that it was not possible, but that the state of
France should be embroiled with some troubles and alterations in
favour of the duke of Orleans. He conceived likewise, that Maximi
lian, king of the Romans, was a prince warlike and potent ; who, he
made account, would give succours to the Britons roundly. So then
judging it would be a work of time, he laid his plot, how he might
best make use of that time for his own affairs. Wherein first he
thought to make his vantage upon his parliament ; knowing that they
being affectionate unto the quarrel of Britain, would give treasure
largely : which treasure, as a noise of war would draw forth, so a peace
succeeding might coffer up. And because he knew his people were
hot upon the business, he chose rather to seem to be deceived, and
lulled asleep by the French, than to be backward in himself ; con
sidering his subjects were not so fully capable of the reasons of state,
which made him hold back. Wherefore to all these purposes he saw no
other expedient, than to set and keep on foot a continual treaty of peace,
laying it down, and taking it up again, as the occurrence required.
Besides, he had in consideration the point of honour, in bearing the
blessed person of a pacificator. He thought likewise to make use of
che envy the French king met with, by occasion of this war of Britain,
in strengthening himself with new alliances ; is namely, that of Ferdi-
nando of Spain, with whom he had ever a consent ^ven in nature and
customs ; and likewise with Maximilian, who was particularly in
terested. So that in substance he promised himself money, honour,
friends, and peace in the end. But those things were too fine to be
fortunate and succeed in all parts ; for that great affairs are common!;
too rough and stubborn to be wrought upon by the finer edges or
points of wit. The king was likewise deceived in his two main
grounds. For although he had reason to conceive that the council ot
France would be wary to put the king into a war against the heir
apparent of France ; yet he did not consider that Charles was not
guided by any of the principal of the blood or nobility, but by merm
men, who would make it their master-piece of credit and favour, to
tfive venturous counsels, which no great or wise man durst or would.
And for Maximilian, he was thought then a greater matter than he
was ; his unstable and necessitious courses being not then known.
After consultation with the ambassadors, who brought him no other
new -\Saan he expected before, though he would not seem to know it
414 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
till then, he presently summoned his parliament, and in open parlia*
ment propounded the cause of Britain to both houses, by his chancellor
Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, who spake to this effect.
" My lords and masters, the king's grace, our sovereign lord, hath
commanded me to declare unto you the causes that have moved him
at this time to summon this his parliament ; which I shall do in a few
words, craving pardon of his grace, and you all, if I perform it not as
I would.
" His grace doth first of all let you know, that he retaineth in thank
ful memory the love and loyalty showed to him by you, at your last
meeting, in establishment of his royalty ; freeing and discharging of
his partakers, and confiscation of his traitors and rebels ; more than
which could not come from subjects to their sovereign, in one action.
This he taketh so well at your hands, as he hath made it a resolution
to himself, to communicate with so loving and well approved subjects,
in all affairs that are of public nature, at home or abroad.
" Two therefore are the causes of your present assembling : the one,
a foreign business ; the other, matter of government at home.
" The French king, as no doubt ye have heard, maketh at this pre
sent hot war upon the duke of Britain. His army is now before
Nantz, and holdeth it straitly besieged, being the principal city, if not
in ceremony and pre-eminence, yet in strength and wealth, of that
duchy. Ye may guess at his hopes, by his attempting of the hardest
part of the war first. The cause of this war he knoweth best. He
allegeth the entertaining and succouring of the duke of Orleans, and
some other French lords, whom the king taketh for his enemies.
Others divine of other matters. Both parts have, by their ambassa
dors, divers times prayed the king's aids ; the French king, aids or
neutrality ; the Britons, aids simply : for so their case requireth. The
king, as a Christian prince, and blessed son of the holy church,
hath offered himself, as a mediator, to treat of peace between them.
The French king yielded to treat, but will not stay the prosecution of
the war. The Britons, that desire peace most, hearken to it least ; not
upon confidence or stiffness, but upon distrust of true meaning, seeing
the war goes on. So as the king, after as much pains and care to
effect a peace, as ever he took in any business, not being able to remove
the prosecution on the one side, nor the distrust on the other, caused
by that prosecution, hath let fall the treaty ; not repenting of it, but
despairing of it now, as not likely to succeed. Therefore by this
narrative you now understand the state of the question, whereupon
the king prayeth your advice ; which is no other, but whether he shall
enter into an auxiliary and defensive war for the Britons against France?
" And the better to open your understandings in this affair, the king
hath commanded me to say somewhat to you from him, of the persons
that do intervene in this business ; and somewhat of the consequence
thereof, as it hath relation to this kingdom, and somewhat of the ex
ample of it in general : making nevertheless no conclusion or judg
ment of any point, until his Grace hath received your faithful and
politic advices.
" First, for the king our sovereign himself, who is the principal
person you are to eye in this business ; his grace doth profess, that he
HEtt&Y THE SEVENTH. 415
\ruly and constantly desireth to reign in peace. But his grace saith,
he v«ill neither buy peace with dishonour, nor take it up at interest of
danger to ensue ; but shall think it a good change, if it please God to
change the inward troubles and seditions, wherewith he hath been
hitherto exercised, into an honourable foreign war. And for the other
two persons in this action, the French king and the duke of Britain,
his grace doth declare unto you, that they be the men unto whom he
is of all other friends and allies most bounden : the one having held
over him his hand of protection from the tyrant ; the other having
reached forth unto him his hand of help for the recovery of his king
dom. So that his affection toward them in his natural person is upon
equal terms. And whereas you may have heard, that his grace was
enforced to fly out of Britain into France, for doubts of being betrayed :
his grace would not in any sort have that reflect upon the duke of
Britain, in defacement of his former benefits ; for that he is throughly
informed, that it was but the practice of some corrupt persons about
him, during the time of his sickness, altogether without his consent or
privity.
" But howsoever these things do interest his grace in this particular,
yet he knoweth well, that the higher bond that tieth him to procure by
all means the safety and welfare of his loving subjects, doth disinterest
him of these obligations of gratitude, otherwise than thus ; that if
his grace be forced to make a war, he do it without passion or am
bition.
" For the consequence of this action towards this kingdom, it is
much as the French king's intention is. For if it be no more, but to
range his subjects to reason, who bear themselves stout upon the
strength of the duke of Britain, it is nothing to us. But if it be in the
French king's purpose, or if it should not be in his purpose, yet if it
shall follow all one as if it were sought, that the French king shall
make a province of Britain, and join it to the crown of France ; then
it is worthy the consideration, how this may import England, as well
in the increasement of the greatness of France, by the addition of such
a country, that stretcheth his boughs unto our seas, as in depriving
this nation, and leaving it naked of so firm and assured confederates as
the Britons have always been. For then it will come to pass, that
whereas not long since this realm was mighty upon the continent, first
in territory, and after in alliance, in respect of Burgundy and Britain,
which were confederates indeed, but dependent confederates ; now the
one being already cast, partly into the greatness of France, and partly
into that of Austria, the other is like wholly to be cast into the great
ness of France ; and this island shall remain confined in effect
within the salt waters, and girt about with the coast countries of two
mighty monar^hs.
" For the example, it resteth likewise upon the same question, upon
the French king's intent. For if Britain be carried and swallowed up
by France, as the world abroad, apt to impute and construe the actions
of princes to ambition, conceive it will ; then it is an example very
dangerous and universal, that the lesser neighbour state should be
devoured of the greater. For this may be the case of Scotland to
wards England ; of Portugal towards Spain ; of the smaller estates of
416 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
Italy towards the greater ; and so of Germany ; or as if some of yor
of the commons might not live and dwell safely besides some of these
great lords. And the bringing in of this example will be chiefly laid
,o the king's charge, as to him that was most interested, and most
«ible to forbid it. But then on the other side, there is so fair a pretext
on the French king's part (and yet pretext is never wanting to power),
in regard the danger imminent to his own estate is such, as may make
/his enterprise seem rather a work of necessity than of ambition, as
doth in reason correct the danger of the example. For that the
example of that which is done in a man's own defence cannot be
dangerous ; because it is in another's power to avoid it. But in all
this business, the king remits himself to your grave and mature advice,
whereupon he purposeth to rely."
This was the effect of the lord chancellor's speech touching tne
cause of Britain ; for the king had commanded him to carry it so, as
to affect the parliament towards the business ; but without engaging
the king in any express declaration.
The chancellor went on : —
" For that which may concern the government at home, the king had
commanded me to say unto you ; that he thinketh there was never
any king, for the small time that he hath reigned, had greater and
juster cause of the two contrary passions of joy and sorrow, than his
grace hath. Joy, in respect of the rare and visible favours of Almighty
God, in girding the imperial sword upon his side, and assisting the
same his sword against all his enemies ; and likewise in blessing him
with so many good and loving servants and subjects which have never
failed to give him faithful counsel, ready obedience, and courageous
defence. Sorrow, for that it hath not pleased God to suffer him to
sheath his sword, as he greatly desired, otherwise than for adminis
tration of justice, but that he hath been forced to draw it so oft, to
cut off traitorous and disloyal subjects, whom, it seems, God hath left,
a few among so many good, as the Canaanites amongst the people of
Israel, to be thorns in their sides, to tempt and try them ; though the
end hath been always, God's name be blessed therefore, that the
destruction hath fallen upon their own heads.
" Wherefore his grace saith, That he seeth that it is not the blood
spilt in the field that will save the blood in the city : nor the marshal's
sword that will set this kingdom in perfect peace : but that the true
way is, to stop the seeds of sedition and rebellion in their beginnings ;
and for that purpose to devise, confirm, and quicken good and whole
some laws against riots, and unlawful assemblies of people, and all
combinations and confederacies of them, by liveries, tokens, and other
badges of factious dependence ; that the peace of the land may by
these ordinances, as by bars of iron, be soundly bound in and
strengthened, and all force, both in court, country, and private houses,
be supprest. The care hereof, which so much concerneth yourselves,
and which the nature of the times doth instantly call for, his grace
commends to your wisdoms.
" And because it is the king's desire, that this peace, wherein he
hopeth to govern and maintain you, do not bear only unto you leaves,
for you to sit under the shade of them in safety ; but also should bear
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 417
you fruit of riches, wealth, and plenty : therefore his grace prays you to
take into consideration matter of trade, as also the manufactures of
the kingdom, and to repress the bastard and barren employment of
moneys to usury and unlawful exchanges ; that they may be, as their
natural use is, turned upon commerce, and lawful and royal trading.
And likewise that our people be set on work in arts and handicrafts ;
that the realm may subsist more of itself; that idleness be avoided,
and the draining out of our treasure for foreign manufactures stopped.
But you are not to rest here only, but to provide farther, that whatso
ever merchandise shall be brought in from beyond the seas, may be
employed upon the commodities of this land ; whereby the kingdom's
stock of treasure may be sure to be kept from being diminished by
any over-trading of the foreigner.
" And lastly, because the king is well assured, that you would not
have him poor, that wishes you rich ; he doubteth not but that you
will have care, as well to maintain his revenues of customs and all
other natures, as also to supply him with your loving aids, if the case
shall so require. The rather, for that you know the king is a good
husband,1 and but a steward in effect for the public ; and that what
comes from you, is but as moisture drawn from the earth, which
gathers into a cloud, and falls back upon the earth again. And you
know well, how the kingdoms about you grow more and more in
greatness, and the times are stirring ; and therefore not fit to find the
king with an empty purse. More I have not to say to you ; and wish,
that what hath been said, had been better expressed : but that
your wisdoms and good affections will supply. God bless your
doings."
It was no hard matter to dispose and affect the parliament in this
business ; as well in respect of the emulation between the nations, and
the envy at the late growth of the French monarchy ; as in regard of
the danger to suffer the French to make their approaches upon
England, by obtaining so goodly a maritime province, full of sea-towns
and havens, that might do mischief to the English, either by invasion,
or by interruption of traffic. The parliament was also moved with the
point of oppression ; for although the French seemed to speak reason,
ret arguments are ever with multitudes too weak for suspicions.
Wherefore they did advise the king roundly to embrace the Britons'
quarrel, and to send them speedy aids ; and with much alacrity and
forwardness granted to the king a great rate of subsidy, in contempla
tion of these aids. But the king, both to keep a decency towards the
French king, to whom he profest himself to be obliged, and indeed
desirous rather to show war than to make it, sent new solemn
ambassadors to intimate unto him the decree of his estates, and to
iterate his motion, that the French would desist from hostility ; or if
war must follow, to desire him to take it in good part, if at the motion
of his people, who were sensible of the cause of the Britons as their
ancient friends and confederates, he did send them succours ; with
protestation nevertheless, that, to save all treaties and laws of friend
ship, he had limited his forces, to proceed in aid of the Britons, but in
no wise to war upon the French, otherwise than as they maintained
Economical — "to husband," is to save.
E 1
418 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
the possession of Britain. But before this formal ambassage arrived,
the party of the duke had received a great blow, and grew to manifest
declaration. For near the town of St. Alban in Britain, a battle had
been given, where the Britons were overthrown, and the Duke of
Orleans and the prince of Orange taken prisoners, there being slain
on the Britons' part six thousand men, and amongst them the Lord
Woodvile, and almost all his soldiers, valiantly fighting. And of the
French part, one thousand two hundred, with their leader, James
Galeot, a great commander.
When the news of this battle came over into England, it was time for
the king, who had now no subterfuge to continue'/arther treaty, and saw
before his eyes that Britain went so speedily for lost, contrary to his
hopes : knowing also that with his people, and foreigners both, he
sustained no small envy and disreputation for his former delays, to
despatch with all possible speed his succours into Britain ; which he
did under the conduct of Robert, Lord Brooke, to the number of
eighty thousand choice men well armed ; who having a fair wind, in
few hours landed in Britain, and joined themselves forthwith to those
Briton forces that remained after the defeat, and marched straight on
to find the enemy, and encamped fast by them. The French wisely
husbanding the possession of a victory, well acquainted with the
courage of the English, especially when they are fresh, kept themselves
within their trenches, being strongly lodged, and resolved not to give
battle. But meanwhile, to harass and weary the English, they did
upon all advantages set upon them with their light horse ; wherein
nevertheless they received commonly loss, especially by means of the
English archers.
But upon these achievements Francis, duke of Britain, deceased ;
an accident that the king might easily have foreseen, and ought to
have reckoned upon and provided for, but that the point of reputation,
when news first came of the battle lost, that somewhat must be done,
did overbear the reason of war.
After the duke's decease, the principal persons of Britian, partly
bought, partly through faction, put all things into confusion ; so as
the English not finding head or body with whom to join their forces,
and being in jealousy of friends, as well as in danger of enemies, and
the winter begun, returned home five months after their landing. So
the battle of St. Alban, the death of the duke, and the retire of the
English succours, were, after some time, the causes of the loss of that
duchy ; which action some accounted as a blemish of the king's judg
ment, but most but as the misfortune of his times.
But howsoever the temporary fruit of the parliament, in their aid
and advice given for Britain, took not nor prospered not ; yet the
lasting fruit of parliament, which is good and wholesome laws, did
prosper, and doth yet continue to this day. For according to the lord
chancellor's admonition, there were that parliament divers excellent
laws ordained concerning the points which the king recommended.
First, the authority of the Star-chamber, which before subsisted by
the ancient common laws of the realm, was confirmed in certain cases
by act of parliament. This court is one of the sagest and noblest
institutions of this kingdom. For in the distribution of courts of
&ENKY THR SRVENlfr. 4*9
ordinary justice, besides the high court of Parliament, in which distri
bution the King's Bench holdeth the pleas of the crown, thr Common
Pleas pleas civil, the Exchequer pleas concerning the king's revenue,
and the Chancery the pretorian power for mitigating the rigour of law,
in case of extremity, by the conscience of a good man ; there was,
nevertheless, always reserved a high and pre-eminent power to the
king's council in causes that might in example or consequence con
cern the state of the commonwealth, which if they were criminal the
council used to sit in the chamber called the Star-chamber, if civil in
the white-chamber or white-hall. And as the Chancery had the pre
torian power for equity, so the Star-chamber had the censorian power
for offences under the degree of capital. This court of Star-chamber
is compounded of good elements, for it consisteth of four kinds of
persons — counsellors, peers, prelates, and chief judges. It discerneth
also principally of four kinds of causes — forces, frauds, crimes various
of stellionate, and the inchoations or middle acts towards crimes
capital or heinous, not actually committed or perpetrated. But that
which was principally aimed at by this act was force, and the two
chief supports of force, combination of multitudes, and maintenance
or headship of great persons.
From the general peace of the country the king's care went on to
the peace of the king's house, and the security of his great officers and
counsellors. But this law was somewhat of a strange composition and
temper. That if any of the king's servants under the degree of a lord
do conspire the death of any of the king's council or lord of the realm,
it is made capital. This law was thought to be procured by the lord
chancellor, who being a stern and haughty man, and finding he had
some mortal enemies in court, provided for his own safety, drowning
the envy of it in a general law, by communicating the privilege with
all other counsellors and peers, and yet not daring to extend it farther
than to the king's servants in check-roll, lest it should have been too
harsh to the gentlemen and other commons of the kingdom, who might
have thought their ancient liberty and the clemency of the laws of
England invaded, if the will in any case of felony should be made the
deed. And yet the reason which the act yieldeth, that is to say, that
he that conspireth the death of counsellors may be thought indirectly,
and by a mean, to conspire the death of the king himself, is indifferent
to all subjects, as well as to servants in court. But it seemeth thi^
sufficed to serve the lord chancellor's turn at this time. But yet he
lived to need a general law, for that he grew afterwards as odious to
the country as he was then to the court.
From the peace of the king's house the king's care extended to the
peace of private houses and families. For there was an excellent
moral law moulded thus : the taking and carrying away of women,
forcibly and against their will, except female-wards and bond-women
was made capital. The parliament wisely and justly conceiving that
the obtaining of women by force into possession, howsoever afterwards
assent might follow by allurements, was but a rape drawn forth in
length, because the first force drew on all the rest.
There was made also another law for peace in general, and repress-
ir-> of murders and manslaughters, and was in amendment of the
£ £ 2
4«o HENRY THE SEVENTH .
common laws of the realm, being this : That whereas by the Common
law the king's suit, in case of homicide, did expect the year and the day,
allowed to the party's suit by way of appeal ; and that it was found by
experience that the party was many times compounded with, and
many times wearied with the suit, so that in the end such suit was let
fall, and by that time the matter was in a manner forgotten, and
thereby prosecution at the king's suit by indictment, which is ever
best, flagrante crimine, neglected ; it was ordained that the suit by
indictment might be taken as well at any time within the year and the
day, as after, not prejudicing nevertheless the party's suit.
The king began also then, as well in wisdom as in justice, to pare a
little the privilege of clergy, ordaining that clerks convict should be
burned in the hand, both because they might taste of some corporal
punishment and that they might carry a brand of infamy. But for
this good act's sake, the king himself was after branded, by Perkin's
proclamation, for an execrable breaker of the rites of holy church.
Another law was made for the better peace of the country ; by
which Uw the king's officers and farmers were to forfeit their places
and holds, in case of unlawful retainer, or partaking in routs and un
lawful assemblies.
These were the laws that were made for repressing of force, which
those times did chiefly require ; and were so prudently framed, as
they are found fit for all succeeding times, and so continue to this day.
There were also made good and politic laws that parliament, against
usury, which is the bastard use of money ; and against unlawful
chievances1 and exchanges, which is bastard usury ; and also for the
security of the king's customs; and for the employment of the pro
cedures of foreign commodities, brought in by merchant strangers,
upon the native commodities of the realm ; together with some other
laws of less importance.
But howsoever the laws made in that parliament did bear good and
wholesome fruit ; yet the subsidy granted at the same time bare a
fruit that proved harsh and bitter. All was inned at last into the
king's barn, but it was after a storm. For when the commissioners
entered into the taxation of the subsidy in Yorkshire, and the bishopric
of Duresm 2 ; the people upon a sudden grew into great mutiny, and
said openly, That they had endured of late years a thousand miseries,
and neither could nor would pay the subsidy. This, no doubt, pro
ceeded not simply of any present necessity, but much by reason of the
old humour of those countries, where the memory of King Richard
was so strong, that it lay like lees in the bottom of men's hearts ; and
if the vessel was but stirred, it would come up. And, no doubt, it was
partly also by the instigation of some factious malcontents, that bare
principal stroke amongst them. Hereupon the commissioners being
somewhat astonished, deferred the matter unto the earl of Northumber
land, who was the principal man of authority in those parts. The earl
forthwith wrote unto the court, signifying to the king plainly enougi
in what flame he found the people of those countries, and praying the
king's direction. The king wrote back peremptorily, That he would
not have one penny abated, of that which had been granted to him by
1 Unlawful bargains— traffic in which money is extorted. * Durham.
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 4St
parliament ; both because it might encourage other countries to pray
the like release or mitigation ; and chiefly because he would never
endure that the base multitude should frustrate the authority of the
parliament, wherein their votes and consents were concluded. Upon
this despatch from court, the earl assembled the principal justices and
freeholders of the country ; and speaking to them in that imperious
language, wherein the king had written to him, which needed not,
save that a harsh business was unfortunately fallen into the hands of a
harsh man, did not only irritate the people, but make them conceive,
by the stoutness and haughtiness of "delivery of the king's errand, that
himself was the author or principal persuader of that counsel ; where
upon the meaner sort routed together, and suddenly assaulting the
earl in his house, slew him, and divers of his servants : and rested not
there, but creating for their leader Sir John Egremond, a factious
person, and one that had of a long time borne an ill talent towards the
king ; and being animated also by a base fellow, called John a Chamber,
a very boutefeu,1 who bare much sway amongst the vulgar and popular,
entered into open rebellion ; and gave out in flat terms, that they
would go against King Henry, and fight with him for the maintenance
of their liberties.
When the king was advertised of this new insurrection, being almost
a fever that took him every year, after his manner little troubled there
with, he sent Thomas, earl of Surrey, whom he had a little before not
only released out of the Tower, and pardoned, but also received to
special favour, with a competent power against the rebels, who
fought with the principal band of them, and defeated them, and took
alive John a Chamber, their firebrand. As for Sir John Egremond, he
fled into Flanders to the Lady Margaret of Burgundy, whose palace
was the sanctuary and receptacle of all traitors against the king.
John a Chamber was executed at York in great state ; for he was
hanged upon a gibbet raised a stage higher in the midst of a square
gallows, as a traitor paramount ; and a number of his men that were
his chief accomplices were hanged upon the lower story round about
him ; and the rest were generally pardoned. Neither did the king
himself omit his custom, to be first or second in all his warlike exploits,
making good his word, which was usual with him when he heard of
rebels, that he desired but to see them. For immediately after he had
sent down the earl of Surrey, he marched towards them himself in
person. And although in his journey he heard news of the victory,
yet he went on as far as York, to pacify and settle those countries ;
and that done, returned to London, leaving the earl of Surrey for his
lieutenant in the northern parts, and Sir Richard Tunstal for his
principal commissioner, to levy the subsidy, whereof he did not remit
a denier.
About the same time that the king lost so good a servant as the earl
of Northumberland, he lost likewise a faithful friend and ally of James
the Third, king of Scotland, by a miserable disaster. For this unfor
tunate prince, after a long smother of discontent, and hatred of many
of his nobility and people breaking forth at times into seditions and
alterations of court, was at last distressed by them, having taken arms,
1 Incendiary.
4*a HENRY THE SEVENTH.
and surprised the person of Prince James, his son, partly by force,
partly by threats, that they would otherwise deliver up the kingdom to
the king of England, to shadow their rebellion, and to be the titular
and painted head of those arms. Whereupon the king, finding himself
too weak, sought unto King Henry, as also unto the pope, and the
king of France, to compose those troubles between him and hi?
subjects. The kings accordingly interposed their mediation in a
round and princely manner : not only by way of request and persua
sion, but also by way of protestation and menace ; declaring, That
they thought it to be the common cause of all kings, if subjects should
be suffered to give laws unto their sovereign, and that they would
accordingly resent it, and revenge it. But the rebels, that had shaken
off the greater yoke of obedience, had likewise cast away the lesser tie
of respect. And fury prevailing above fear, made answer, That there
was no talking of peace, except the king would resign his crowa
Whereupon treaty of accord taking no place, it came to a battle at
Bannocksbourn by Strivelin : in which battle the king, transported with
wrath and just indignation, inconsiderably fighting and precipitating
the charge, before his whole numbers came up to him, was, notwith
standing the contrary express and strait commandment of the prince
his son, slain in the pursuit, being fled to a mill, situate in a field,
where the battle was fought.
As for the pope's ambassy, which was sent by Adrian de Castello,
an Italian legate, and perhaps, as those times were, might have pre
vailed more, it came too late for the ambassy, but not for the ambassa
dor. For passing through England and being honourably entertained,
and received of King Henry, who ever applied himself with much
respect to the see of Rome, he fell into great grace with the king, and
great familiarity and friendship with Morton the chancellor : insomuch
as the king taking a liking to him, and finding him to his mind,
preferred him to the bishopric of Hereford, and afterwards to that of
Bath and Wells, and employed him in many of his affairs of state,
that had relation to Rome. He was a man of great learning, wisdom,
and dexterity in business of state ; and having not long after ascended
to the degree of cardinal, paid the king large tribute of his gratitude,
in diligent and judicious advertisement of the occurrents of Italy.
Nevertheless, in the end of his time, he was partaker of the conspiracy,
which Cardinal Alphonso Petrucci and some other cardinals had
plotted against the life of Pope Leo. And this offence, in itself so
heinous, was yet in him aggravated by the motive thereof, which was
not malice or discontent, but an aspiring mind to the papacy. And
in this height of impiety there wanted not an intermixture of levity and
folly ; for that, as was generally believed, he was animated to expect
the papacy by a fatal mockery, the prediction of a soothsayer, which
was, " That one should succeed pope Leo, whose name should be
Adrian, an aged man of mean birth, and of great learning and
wisdom." By which character and figure he took himself to be
described, though it were fulfilled of Adrian the Fleming, son of a
Dutch brewer, cardinal of Tortosa, and preceptor unto Charles the
Fifth ; the same that, not changing his Christian name, was afterwards
sailed Adrian the Sixth,
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 433
But these things happened in the year following, which was the fifth
of this king. But in the end of the fourth year the king had called
again his parliament, not, as it seemeth, for any particular occasion of
state : but the former parliament being ended somewhat suddenly, in
regard of the preparation for Britain,1 the king thought he had not
remunerated his people sufficiently with good laws, which evermore
was his retribution for treasure. And finding by the insurrection in
the north, there was discontentment abroad, in respect of the subsidy,
he thought it good to give his subjects yet farther contentment and
comfort in that kind. Certainly his times for good commonwealth's
laws did excel. So as he may justly be celebrated for the best lawgiver
to this nation, after King Edward the First : for his laws, whoso marks
them well, are deep, and not vulgar ; not made upon the spur of a
particular occasion for the present, but out of providence of the future,
to make the estate of his people still more and more happy ; after the
manner of the legislators in ancient and heroical times.
First, therefore, he made a law, suitable to his own acts and times :
for as himself had in his person and marriage made a final concord, in
the great suit and title for the crown ; so by this law he settled the
like peace and quiet in the private possessions of the subjects :
ordaining, "That fines thenceforth should be final, to conclude all
strangers' rights ; " and that upon fines levied and solemnly proclaimed,
the subject should have his time of watch for five years after his title
accrued ; which if he forepassed, his right should be bound for ever
after ; with some exception nevertheless of minors, married women,
and such incompetent persons.
This statute did in effect but restore an ancient statute of the realm,
which was itself also made but in affirmance of the common law. The
alteration had been by a statute, commonly called the statute of
non-claim, made in the time of Edward the Third. And surely this
law was a kind of prognostic of the good peace, which since his time
hath, for the most part, continued in this kingdom until this day : for
statutes of non-claim are fit for times of war, when men's heads are
troubled, that they cannot intend their estate ; but statutes that quiet
possessions are fittest for times of peace, to extinguish suits and
contentions, which is one of the banes of peace.
Another statute was made, of singular policy, for the population
apparently, and, if it be thoroughly considered, for the soldiery and
military forces of the realm.
Enclosures at that time began to be more frequent, whereby arable
land, which could not be manured without people and families, was
turned into pasture, which was easily rid by a few herdsmen ; and
tenances for years, lives, and at will, whereupon much of the yeomanry
lived, were turned into demesnes. This bred a decay of people, and,
by consequence, a decay of towns, churches, tithes, and the like. The
king likewise knew full well, and in no wise forgot, that there ensued
withal upon this a decay and diminution of subsidies and taxes ; for
the more gentlemen, ever the lower books of subsidies. In remedying
of this inconvenience the king's wisdom was admirable, and the
parliament's at that time. Enclosures they would not forbid, for that
*• Brittany,
424 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
had been to forbid the improvement of the patrimony of the kingdom ;
nor tillage they would not compel, for that was to strive with nature
and utility ; but they took a course to take away depopulating
enclosures and depopulating pasturage, and yet not by that name, or
by any imperious express prohibition, but by consequence. The
ordinance was, " That all houses of husbandry, that were used with
twenty acres of ground and upwards, should be maintained and kept
up for ever ; together with a competent proportion of land to be used
and occupied with them ; " and in no wise to be severed from them, as
by another statute, made afterwards in his successor's time, was more
fully declared : this upon forfeiture to be taken, not by way of popular
action, but by seizure of the land itself by the king and lords of the fee,
as to half the profits, till the houses and lands were restored. By this
means the houses being kept up, did of necessity enforce a dweller ;
and the proportion of land for occupation being kept up, did of
necessity enforce that dweller not to be a beggar or cottager, but a man
of some substance, that might keep hinds and servants, and set the
plough on going. This did wonderfully concern the might and
mannerhood of the kingdom, to have farms as it were of a standard,
sufficient to maintain an able body out of penury, and did in effect
amortise a great part of the lands of the kingdom unto the hold and
occupation of the yeomanry or middle people, of a condition between
gentlemen and cottagers or peasants. Now, how much this did
advance the military power of the kingdom, is apparent by the true
principles of war and the examples of other kingdoms. For it hath
been held by the general opinion of men of best judgment in the
wars, howsoever some few have varied, and that it may receive some
distinction of case, that the principal strength of an army consisteth in
the infantry or foot. And to make good infantry, it requireth men
bred, not in a servile or indigent fashion, but in some free and plentiful
manner. Therefore if a state run most to noblemen and gentlemen,
and that the husbandmen and ploughmen be but as their workfolks
and labourers, or else mere cottagers, which are but housed beggars,
you may have a good cavalry, but never good stable bands of foot ; like
to coppice woods, that if you leave in them staddles too thick, they
will run to bushes and briers, and have little clean underwood. And
this is to be seen in France and Italy, and some other parts abroad,
where in effect all is noblesse or peasantry, I speak of people out of
towns, and no middle people ; and therefore no good forces of foot :
insomuch as they are enforced to employ mercenary bands of Switzers,
and the like, for their battalions of foot. Whereby also it comes
to pass, that those nations have much people, and few soldiers.
Whereas the king saw, that contrariwise it would follow, that England,
though much less in territory, yet should have infinitely more soldiers
of their native forces than those other nations have. Thus did the
king secretly sow Hydra's teeth ; whereupon, according to the poet's
fiction, should rise up armed men for the service of the kingdom.
The king also, having care to make his realm, as well by sea as by
land, for the better maintenance of the navy, ordained, " That wines
and woads from the parts of Gascoign and Languedoc should not be
brought but in English bottoms;" bowing the ancient policy of this
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 425
estate, from consideration of plenty to consideration of power. For
that almost all the ancient statutes incite by all means merchant-
strangers to bring in all sorts of commodities ; having for end
cheapness, and not looking to the point of state concerning the naval
power.
The king also made a statute in that parliament, monitory and
minatory towards justices of peace, that they should duly execute
their office, inviting complaints against them, first to their fellow-
justices, then to the justices of assize, then to the king or chancellor :
and that a proclamation which he had published of that tenor should
be read in open sessions four times a year, to keep them awake.
Meaning also to have his laws executed, and thereby to reap either
obedience or forfeitures, wherein towards his latter times he did decline
too much to the left hand, he did ordain remedy against the practice
that was grown in use, to stop and damp informations upon penal laws,
by procuring informations by collusion to be put in by the confederates
of the delinquents, to be faintly prosecuted, and let fall at pleasure ;
and pleading them in bar of the informations, which were prosecuted
with effect.
He made also laws for the correction of the mint, and counterfeiting
of foreign coin current. And that no payment in gold should be made
to any merchant-stranger, the better to keep treasure within the realm,
for that gold was the metal that lay in the least room.
He made also statutes for the maintenance of drapery, and the
keeping of wools within the realm ; and not only so, but for stinting
and limiting the prices of cloth, one for the finer, and another for the
coarser sort. Which I note, both because it was a rare thing to set
prices by statute, especially upon our home commodities ; and because
of the wise model of this act, not prescribing prices, but stinting them
not to exceed a rate ; that the clothier might drape accordingly as he
might afford.
Divers other good statutes were made that parliament, but these were
the principal. And here I do desire those into whose hands this work
shall fall, that they do take in good part my long insisting upon the
laws that were made in this king's reign. Whereof I have these
reasons ; both because it was the pre-eminent virtue and merit of this
king to whose memory I do honour ; and because it hath some
correspondence to my person ; but chiefly because, in my judgment, it
is some defect even in the best writers of history, that they do not
often enough summarily deliver and set down the most memorable
laws that passed in the times whereof they writ, being indeed
the principal acts of peace. For though they may be had in original
books of law themselves ; yet that informeth not the judgment of kings
and counsellors, and persons of estate, so well as to see them described,
and entered in the table and portrait of the times.
About the same time the king had a loan from the city of four
thousand pounds ; which was double to that they lent before, and was
duly and orderly paid back at the day, as the former likewise had been :
the king ever choosing rather to borrow too soon, than to pay too late,
and so keeping up his credit.
Neither had the king yet cast off his cares and hopes touching
•jafi HENRY THE SEVENTH.
Britain, but thought to master the occasion by policy, though his arms
had been unfortunate ; and to bereave the French king of the fruit of
his victory. The sum of his design was, to encourage Maximilian to
go on with his suit, for the marriage of Anne, the heir of Britain, and
to aid him to the consummation thereof. But the affairs of
Maximilian were at that time in great trouble and combustion, by a
rebellion of his subjects in Flanders ; especially those of Bruges and
Gaunt,1 whereof the town of Bruges, at such time as Maximilian was
there in person, had suddenly armed in tumult, and slain some of his
principal officers, and taken himself prisoner, and held him in durance,
till they had enforced him and some of his counsellors, to take
a solemn oath to pardon all their offences, and never to question and
revenge the same in time to come. Nevertheless Frederick th-
emperor would not suffer this reproach and indignity offered to his son
to pass, but made sharp wars upon Flanders, to reclaim and chastise
the rebels. But the Lord Ravenstein, a principal person about
Maximilian, and one that had taken the oath of abolition with his
master, pretending the religion thereof, but indeed upon private
ambition, and, as it was thought, instigated and corrupted from France,
forsook the emperor and Maximilian his lord, and made himself a head
of the popular party, and seized upon the towns of Ipres2 and Sluice 3
with both the castles : and forthwith sent to the Lord Cordes, governor
of Picardy under the French king, to desire aid ; and to move him,
that he, on the behalf of the French king, would be protector of the
united towns, and by force of arms reduce the rest. The Lord Cordes
was ready to embrace the occasion, which was partly of his own
setting, and sent forthwith greater forces than it had been possible
for him to raise on the sudden, if he had not looked for such a summons
before, in aid of the Lord Ravenstein and the Flemings, with
instructions to invest the towns between France and Bruges. The
French forces besieged a little town called Dixmude, where part
of the Flemish forces joined with them. While they lay at this siege,
the king of England, upon pretence of the safety of the English pale
about Calais, but in truth being loth that Maximilian should become
contemptible, and thereby be shaken off by the states of Britain about
this marriage, sent over the Lord Morley with a thousand men, under
the Lord D'Aubigny, then deputy of Calais, with secret instructions to
aid Maximilian, and to raise the siege of Dixmude. The Lord
D'Aubigny, giving it out that all was for the strengthening of the
English marches, drew out of the garrisons of Calais, Hammes, and
Guines, to the number of a thousand men more. So that with the
fresh succours that came under the conduct of the Lord Morley, they
made up to the number of two thousand or better. Which forces
joining with some companies of Almains, put themselves into Dixmude,
not perceived by the enemies ; and passing through the town, with
some reinforcement from the forces that were in the town assailed
the enemies' camp negligently guarded, as being out of fear ; where
there was a bloody fight, in which the English and their partakers
obtained the victory, and slew to the number of eight thousand men,
with the loss on the English part of a hundred or thereabouts ; amongst
1 Ghent. * Ypres, » Sluys.
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 4x7
whom \V:LS the Lord Morley. They took also their great ordnance,
with much rich spoils, which they carried to Newport ; whence the
Lord D'Aubigny returned to Calais, leaving the hurt men and some
other voluntaries in Newport. But the Lord Cordes being at Ipres with
a great power of men, thinking to recover the loss and disgrace of the
fight at Dixmude, came presently on, and sat down before Newport,
and besieged it ; and after some days' siege, he resolved to try the
fortune of an assault. Which he did one day, and succeeded therein
so far, that he had taken the principal tower and fort in that city, and
planted upon it the French banner. Whence nevertheless they were
presently beaten fortb Hy the English, by the help of some fresh
succours of archers arriving by good fortune, at the instant, in the
haven of Newport. Whereupon the Lord Cordes, discouraged, and
measuring the new succours, which were small, by the success, which
was great, levied his siege. By this means matters grew more
exasperate between the two kings of England and France, for that, in
the war of Flanders, the auxiliary forces of French and English were
much blooded one against another. Which blood rankled the more,
by the vain words of the Lord Cordes, that declared himself an open
enemy of the English, beyond that that appertained to the present
service ; making it a common by-word of his, " That he could be content
to lie in hell seven years, so he might win Calais from the English."
The king having thus upheld the reputation of Maximilian, advised
him now to press on his marriage with Britain to a conclusion. Which
Maximilian accordingly did, and so far forth prevailed, both with the
young lady and with the principal persons about her, as the marriage
was consummated by proxy, with a ceremony at that time in these
parts new. For she was not only publicly contracted, but stated, as a
bride, and solemnly bedded ; and after she was laid, there came in
Maximilian's ambassador with letters of procuration, and in the pre
sence of sundry noble personages, men and women, put his leg,
stripped naked to the knee, between the espousal sheets ; to the end,
that that ceremony might be thought to amount to a consummation
and actual knowledge. This done, Maximilian, whose property1 was
to leave things then when they were almost come to perfection, and to
end them by imagination ; like ill archers, that draw not their arrows
up to the head; and who might as easily have bedded the lady him
self, as to have made a play and disguise of it, thinking now all
assured, neglected for a time his farther proceeding, and intended his
wars. Meanwhile the French king, consulting his divines, and finding
that this pretended consummation was rather an invention of court,
than any ways valid by the laws of the church, went more really to
work, and by secret instruments and cunning agents, as well matrons
about the young lady as counsellors, nrst sought to remove the point
of religion and honour out of the mind of the lady herself, wherein
there was a double labour. For Maximilian was not only contracted
unto the lady, but Maximilian's daughter was likewise contracted to
King Charles. So as the marriage halted upon both feet, and was not
clear on either side. But for the contract with King Charles, the ex
ception .lay plain and fair ; for that Maximilian's daughter was under
1 Characteristic.
428 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
years of consent, and so not bound by law, but a power of disagree
ment left to either part. But for the contract made by Maximilian
with the lady herself, they were harder driven : having nothing to
allege, but that it was done without the consent of her sovereign lord
King Charles, whose ward and client she was, and he to her in place
of a father : and therefore it was void and of no force for want of such
consent. Which defect, they said, though it would not evacuate a
marriage after cohabitation and actual consummation, yet it was
enough to make void a contract. For as for the pretended consumma
tion, they made sport with it, and said, " That it was an argument that
Maximilian was a widower, and a cold wooer, that could content him
self to be a bridegroom by deputy, and would not make a little journey
to put all out of question." So that the young lady, wrought upon by
these reasons, finely instilled by such as the French king, who spared
for no rewards or promises, had made on his side ; and allured like
wise by the present glory and greatness of King Charles, being also a
young king, and a bachelor, and loth to make her country the seat of
a long and miserable war, secretly yielded to accept of King Charles.
But during this secret treaty with the lady, the better to save it from
blasts of opposition and interruption, King Charles resorting to his
wonted arts, and thinking to carry the marriage as he had carried the
wars, by entertaining the king of England in vain belief, sent a solemn
ambassage by Francis Lord of Luxemburg, Charles Marignian, and
Robert Gagvien, general of the order of the Bom Homines of the
Trinity, to treat a peace and league with the king ; accoupling it with
an article in the nature of a request, that the French king might with
the king's good will, according unto his right of seigniory and tutelage
dispose of the marriage of the young duchess of Britain, as he should
think good ; offering by a judicial proceeding to make void the
marriage of Maximilian by proxy. Also all this while, the better to
amuse the world, he did continue in his court and custody the
daughter of Maximilian, who formerly had been sent unto him, to be
bred and educated in France ; not dismissing or renvoying her, but
contrariwise professing and giving out strongly that he meant to pro-
reed with that match. And that for the duchess of Britain, he desired
only to preserve his right of seigniory, and to give her in marriage to
some such ally as might depend upon him.
When the three commissioners came to the court of England, they
delivered their ambassage unto the king, who remitted them to his
council, where some days after they had audience, and made their
proposition by the prior of the Trinity, who though he were third in
place, yet was held the best speaker of them, to this effect : —
" My lords, the king our master, the greatest and mightiest king
that reigned in France since Charles the Great, whose name he beareth,
hath nevertheless thought it no disparagement to his greatness at this
time to propound a peace, yea, and to pray a peace with the king of
England. For which purpose he hath sent us his commissioners,
instructed and enabled with full and ample power to treat and con.
elude, giving us farther in charge, to open in some other business the
secrets of his own intentions. These be indeed the precious love-
tokens between great kings, to communicate one with another the
H8NRY THE SEVENTH. 4*9
true state of their affairs, and to pass by nice points of honour, which
ought not to give law unto affection. This I do assure your lordship
— it is not possible for you to imagine the true and cordial love that
the king our master beareth to your sovereign, except you were near
him as we are. He useth his name with so great respect, he remem-
bereth their first acquaintance at Paris with so great contentment,
nay, he never speaks of him, but that presently he falls into discourse
of the miseries of great kings, in that they cannot converse with their
equals, but with servants. This affection to your king's person and
virtues God hath put into the heart of out master, no doubt for the
good of Christendom, and for purposes yet unknown to us all. For
other root it cannot have, since it was the same to the earl of Rich
mond that it is now to the king of England. This is, therefore, the first
motive that makes our king to desire peace and league with your
sovereign — good affection, and somewhat that he finds in his own
heart. This affection is also armed with reason of estate. For our
king doth in all candour and frankness of dealing open himself unto
you, that having an honourable, yea, and an holy purpose, to make a
voyage and war in remote parts, he considereth that it will be of no
small effect, in point of reputation to his enterprise, if it be known
abroad that he is in good peace with all his neighbour princes, and
especially with the king of England, whom for good causes he esteemeth
most.
" But now, my lords, give me leave to use a few words to remove all
scruples and misunderstanding between your sovereign and ours con
cerning some late actions, which if they be not cleared may perhaps
hinder this peace. To the end that for matters past neither king may
conceive unkindness of other, nor think the other conceiveth unkind-
ness of him. The late actions are two : that of Britain and that of
Flanders. In both which it is true that the subjects' swords of both
kings have encountered and stricken, and the ways and inclinations
also of the two kings, in respect of their confederates and allies, have
severed.
" For that of Britain, the king your sovereign knoweth best what
hath passed. It was a war of necessity on our master's part. And
though the motives of it were sharp and piquant as could be, yet did
he make that war rather with an olive branch than a laurel branch in
his hand, more desiring peace than victory. Besides, from time to
t'me he sent, as it were, blank papers to your king to write the condi
tions of peace. For though both his honour and safety went upon it,
yet he thought neither of them too precious to put into the king of
England's hands. Neither doth our king on the other side make any
unfriendly interpretation of your king's sending of succours to the duke
of Britain ; for the king knoweth well that many things must be done
of kings for satisfaction of their people ; and it is not hard to discern
what is a king's own. But this matter of Britain is now, by the act of
God, ended and passed ; and, as the king hopeth, like the way of a
ship in the sea, without leaving any impression in either of the kings'
minds, as he is sure for his part it hath not done in his.
" For the action of Flanders, as the former of Britain was a war of
necessity, so this was a war of justice, which with a good king is of
43° HENRY THE SEVENTH.
equal necessity with danger of estate, for else he should leave to be a.
king. The subjects of Burgundy are subjects in chief to the crown of
France, and their duke the homager and vassal of France. They had
wont to be good subjects, howsoever Maximilian hath of late dis
tempered them. They fled to the king for justice and deliverance
from oppression. Justice he could not deny ; purchase he did not
seek. This was good for Maximilian, if he could have seen it in
people mutinied, to arrest fury and prevent despair. My lords, it may
be this I have said is needless, save that the king our master is tender
in anything that may but glance upon the friendship of England. The
amity between the two kings, no doubt, stands entire and inviolate,
and that their subjects' swords have clashed it is nothing unto the
public peace of the crowns, it being a thing very usual in auxiliary
forces of the best and straitest confederates to meet and draw blood
in the field. Nay, many times there be aids of the same nation on
both sides, and yet it is not, for all that, a kingdom divided in itself.
" It resteth, my lords, that I impart unto you a matter that I know
your lordships all will much rejoice to hear, as that which importeth
the Christian common-weal more than any action that hath happened
of long time. The king our master hath a purpose and determination
to make war upon the kingdom of Naples, being now in the possession
of a bastard slip of Arragon, but appertaining unto his majesty by clear
and undoubted right, which if he should not by just arms seek to
recover, he could neither acquit his honour nor answer it to his
people. But his noble and Christian thoughts rest not here ; for his
resolution and hope is, to make the reconquest of Naples but as a
bridge to transport his forces into Grecia, and not to spare blood or
treasure, if it were to the impawning of his crown and dispeopling of
France, till either he hath overthrown the empire of the Ottomans or
taken it in his way to paradise. The king knoweth well that this is a
design that could not arise in the mind of any king that did not
steadfastly look up unto God, whose quarrel this is, and from whom
cometh both the will and the deed ; but yet is agreeable to the person
that he beareth, though unworthy, of the thrice Christian king and the
eldest son of the Church. Whereunto he is also invited by the example,
in more ancient time, of King Henry the Fourth of England, the first
renowned king of the house of Lancaster, ancestor, though not pro
genitor to your king, who had a purpose, towards the end of his time,
as you know better, to make an expedition into the Holy Land; and
by the example also, present before his eyes, of that honourable and
religious war which the king of Spain l now maketh, and hath almost
brought to perfection, for the recovery of the realm of Granada from
the Moors. And although this enterprise may seem vast and un
measured, for the king to attempt that by his own forces, wherein
heretofore a conjunction of most of the Christian princes hath found
work enough, yet his majesty wisely considereth, that sometimes
smaller forces being united under one command are more effectual in
proof, though not so promising in opinion and fame, than much
greater forces, variously compounded by associations and leagues,
which commonly in a short time after their beginnings turn to dis-
* Ferdinand.
ttENRY THE SEVENTH. 43*
filiations and divisions. But, my lords, that which is as a voice from
heaven, that calleth the king to this enterprise, is a rent at this time in
the house of the Ottomans. I do not say but there hath been brother
against brother in that house before, but never any that had refuge to
the arms of the Christians, as now hath Gemes, brother unto Bajazet
that reigneth, the far braver man of the two, the other being between
a monk and a philosopher, and better read in the Alcoran and
Averroes, than able to wield the sceptre of so warlike an empire. This,
therefore, is the king our master's memorable and heroical resolution
for an holy war. And because he carrieth in this the person of a
Christian soldier, as well as of a great temporal monarch, he beginneth
with humility, and is content for this cause to beg peace at the hands
of other Christian kings. There remaineth only rather a civil request
than any essential part of our negotiation which the king maketh to
the king your sovereign. The king, as all the world knoweth, is lord
in chief of the duchy of Britain. The marriage of the heir belongeth
to him as guardian. This is a private patrimonial right, and no
business of estate ; yet, nevertheless, to run a fair course with your
king, whom he desires to make another himself, and to be one and the
same thing with him, his request is, that with the king's favour and
consent he may dispose of her in marriage as he thinketh good, and
make void the intruded and pretended marriage of Maximilian, accord
ing to justice. This, my lords, is all that I have to say, desiring your
pardon for my weakness in the delivery."
Thus did the French ambassadors with great show of their king's
affection, and many sugared words, seek to addulce1 all matters between
the two kings, having two things for their ends — the one to keep the
king quiet till the marriage of Britain was past ; and this was but a
summer fruit, which they thought was almost ripe, and would be soon
gathered. The other was more lasting, and that was to put him into
such a temper as he might be no disturbance or impediment to the
voyage for Italy. The lords of the council were silent, and said only,
" That they knew the ambassadors would look for no answer till they
had reported to the king," and so they rose from council.. The king
could not well tell what to think of the marriage of Britain. He saw
plainly the ambition of the French king was to impatronize himself of
the duchy ; but he wondered he would bring into his house a litigious
marriage, especially considering who was his successor. But weighing
one thing with another, he gave Britain for lost, but resolved to make
his profit of this business of Britain as a quarrel for war, and that of
Naples as a wrench and mean for peace, being well advertised how
litrongly the king was bent upon that action. Having, therefore,
conferred divers times with his council, and keeping himself somewhat
close, he gave a direction to the chancellor for a formal answer to the
ambassadors, and that he did in the presence of his council. And
after calling the chancellor to him apart, bade him speak in such
language as was fit for a treaty that was to end in a breach ; and gave
him also a special caveat that he should not use any words to discourage
the voyage of Italy. Soon after the ambassadors were sent for to the
council, and the lord chancellor spake to them in this sort : —
1 To sweeten.
43* HENRY THE SEVENTH.
41 My lords ambassadors, I shall make answer, by the king's
commandment, unto the eloquent declaration of you, my lord prior, in
a brief and plain manner. The king forgetteth not his former love
and acquaintance with the king your master : but of this there
needeth no repetition. For if it be between them as it was, it is
well ; if there be any alteration, it is not words that will make it up.
" For the business of Britain, the king findeth it a little strange that
the French king maketh mention of it as a matter of well deserving at
his hand : for that deserving was no more but to make him his
instrument to surprise one of his best confederates. And for the mar
riage, the king would not meddle with it, if your master would marry by
the book and not by the sword.
" For that of Flanders, if the subjects of Burgundy had appealed to
your king as their chief lord, at first by way of supplication, it might
have had a show of justice : but it was a new form of process, for
subjects to imprison their prince first, and to slay his officers, and
then to be complainants. The king saith, that sure he is, when the
French king and himself sent to the subjects of Scotland, that had
taken arms against their king, they both spake in another style, and
did in princely manner signify their detestation of popular attentates
upon the person or authority of princes. But, my lords ambassadors,
the king leaveth these two actions thus : that on the one side he hath
not received any manner of satisfaction from you concerning them ;
and on the other, that he doth not apprehend them so deeply, as in
respect of them to refuse to treat of peace, if other things may go hand
in hand. As for the war of Naples, and the design against the Turk :
the king hath commanded me expressly to say, that he doth wish with
all his heart to his good brother the French king, that his fortunes may
succeed according to his hopes and honourable intentions. And
whensoever he shall hear that he is prepared for Grecia, as your
master is pleased now to say that he beggeth a peace of the king, so
the king will then beg of him a part in that war.
" But now, my lords ambassadors, I am to propound unto you
somewhat on the king's part : the king your master hath taught our
king what to say and demand. You say, my lord prior, that your king
is resolved to recover his right to Naples, wrongfully detained from
him. And that if he should not thus do, he could not acquit his
honour, nor answer it to his people. Think, my lords, that the king
our master saith the same thing over again to you touching Normandy,
Guienne, Anjou, yea, and the kingdom of France itself. I cannot
express it better than in your own words. If, therefore, the French
king shall consent that the king our master's title to France, at least
tribute for the same, be handled in the treaty, the king is content to go
on with the rest, otherwise he refuseth to treat."
The ambassadors, being somewhat abashed with this demand,
answered in some heat : That they doubted not, but the king their
sovereign's sword would be able to maintain his sceptre : and they
assured themselves, he neither could nor would yield to any diminution
of the crown of France either in territory or regality : but, howsoever,
they were too great matters for them to speak of, having no commission.
It was replied, that the king looked for no other answer from them
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 433
but would forthwith send his own ambassadors to the French king,
There was a question also asked at the table — whether the French
king would agree to have the disposing of the marriage of Britain with
an exception and exclusion, that he should not marry her himself?
To which the ambassadors answered ; That it was so far out of their
king's thoughts, as they had received no instructions touching the
same. Thus were the ambassadors dismissed, all save the prior ; and
were followed immediately by Thomas, earl of Ormond, and Thomas
Goldenston, prior of Christ-Church in Canterbury, who were presently
sent over into France. In the mean space, Lionel, bishop of Concordia,
was sent as nuncio from Pope Alexander the Sixth 1 to both kings, to
move a peace between them. For Pope Alexander, rinding himself
pent and locked up by a league and association of the principal states
of Italy, that he could not make his way for the advancement of his
own house, which he immoderately thirsted after, was desirous to
trouble the waters in Italy, that he might fish the better ; casting the
net, not out of St. Peter's, but out of Borgia's bark. And doubting
lest the fears from England might stay the French king's voyage into
Italy, despatched this bishop to compose all matters between the two
kings, if he could : who first repaired to the French king, and finding
him well inclined, as he conceived, took on his journey towards
England, and found the English ambassadors at Calais, on their way
towards the French king. After some conference with them, he was
in honourable manner transported over into England, where he had
audience of the king. But notwithstanding he had a good ominous
name to have made a peace, nothing followed : for in the mean time the
purpose of the French king to marry the duchess could be no longer
dissembled. Wherefore the English ambassadors, finding how things
went, took their leave, and returned. And the prior also was warned
from hence to depart out of England. Who, when he turned his back,
more like a pedant than an ambassador, dispersed a bitter libel, in
Latin verse, against the king ; unto which the king, though he had
nothing of a pedant, yet was content to cause an answer to b« made
in like verse ; and that as speaking in his own person, but in a style
of scorn and sport.
About this time also was born the king's second son Henry, who
afterwards reigned. And soon after followed the solemnization of the
marriage between Charles and Anne, duchess of Britain, with whom
he received the duchy of Britain as her dowry, the daughter of
Maximilian being a little before sent home. Which, when it came to
the ears of Maximilian, who would never believe it till it was done,
being ever the principal in deceiving himself, though in this the
French king did very handsomely second it, in tumbling it over and
over in his thoughts, that he should at one blow, with such a double
scorn, be defeated, both of the marriage of his daughter and his own,
upon both which he had fixed high imaginations, he lost all patience,
and casting off the respects fit to be continued between great kings,
even when their blood is hottest, and most risen, fell to bitter invectives
against the person and actions of the French king. And, by how much
he was the less able to do, talking so much the more, spake all the
1 The infamous Borgia.
F F
434 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
injuries he could devise of Charles, saying : That he was the most
perfidious man upon the earth, and that he had made a marriage
compounded between an advowtry and a rape ; which was done, he
said, by the just judgment of God ; to the end that, the nullity thereof
being so apparent to all the world, the race of so unworthy a person
might not reign in France. And forthwith he sent ambassadors as
well to the king of England, as to the king of Spain, to incite them to
war, and to treat a league offensive against France, promising to
concur with great forces of his own. Hereupon the king of England,
going nevertheless his own way, called a parliament, it being the
seventh year of his reign ; and the first day of the opening thereof,
sitting under his cloth of estate, spake himself unto his lords and
commons in this manner : —
" My lords, and you the commons, when I purposed to make a war
in Britain, by my lieutenant, I made declaration thereof to you by my
chancellor. But now that I mean to make a war upon France in
person, I will declare it to you myself. That war was to defend
another man's right, but this is to recover our own ; and that ended
by accident, but we hope this shall end in victory.
" The French king troubles the Christian world : that which he hath
is not his own, and yet he seeketh more. He hath invested himself of
Britain : he maintained! the rebels in Flanders : and he threateneth
Italy. For ourselves, he hath proceeded from dissimulation to neglect ;
and from neglect to contumely. He hath assailed our confederates :
he denieth our tribute : in a word, he seeks war : so did not his father,
but sought peace at our hands ; and so perhaps will he, when good
counsel or time shall make him see as much as his father did.
" Meanwhile, let us make his ambition our advantage ; and let us
not stand upon a few crowns of tribute or acknowledgement, but, by
the favour of Almighty God, try our right for the crown of France
itself; remembering that there hath been a French king prisoner in
England, and a king of England crowned in France. Our con
federates are not diminished. Burgundy is in a mightier hand than
ever, and never more provoked. Britain cannot help us, but it may
hurt them. New acquests are more burden than strength. The
malecontents of his own kingdom have not been base, popular, nor
titulary impostors, but of a higher nature. The king of Spain, doubt
ye not, will join with us, not knowing where the French king's ambition
will stay. Our holy father the pope likes no Tramontanes in Italy.
But howsoever it be, this matter of confederates is rather to be thought
on than reckoned on. For God forbid but England should be able to
get reason of France without a second.
" At the battles of Cressy, Poictiers, Agincourt, we were of ourselves.
France hath much people, and few soldiers. They have no stable
bands of foot. Some good horse they have ; but those are forces
which are least fit for a defensive war, where the actions are in the
assailant's choice. It was our discords only that lost France ; and, by
the power of God, it is the good peace which we now enjoy that will
recover it. God hath hitherto blessed my sword. I have, in this time
that I have reigned, weeded out my bad subjects, and tried my good.
My people and I know one another, which breeds confidence and if
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 435
there should be any bad blood left in the kingdom, an honourable
foreign war will vent it or purify it. In this great business let me have
your advice and aid. If any of you were to make his son knight, you
might have aid of your tenants by law. This concerns the knighthood
and spurs of the kingdom, whereof I am father ; and bound not only
to seek to maintain it, but to advance it : but for matter of treasure
let it not be taken from the poorest sort, but from those to whom the
benefit of the war may redound. France is no wilderness ; and I,
that profess good husbandry, hope to make the war, after the begin
nings, to pay itself. Go together in God's name, and lose no time ;
for I have called this parliament wholly for this cause."
Thus spake the king ; but for all this, though he showed great
forwardness for a war, not only to his parliament and court, but to his
privy council likewise, except the two bishops and a few more, yet
nevertheless in his secret intentions he had no purpose to go through
with any war upon France. But the truth was, that he did but traffic
with that war, to make his return in money. He knew well that
France was now entire and at unity with itself, and never so mighty
many years before. He saw by the taste that he had of his forces sent
into Britain, that the French knew well enough how to make war with
the English, by not putting things to the hazard of a battle, but wearing
them by long sieges of towns, and strong fortified encampings. James
the Third of Scotland, his true friend and confederate, gone ; and
James the Fourth, that had succeeded, wholly at the devotion of
France, and ill affected towards him. As for the conjunctions of
Ferdinando of Spain and Maximilian, he could make no foundation
upon them. For the one had power, and not will ; and the other had
will, and not power. Besides that, Ferdinando had but newly taken
breath from the war with the Moors ; and merchanted at this time
with France for the restoring of the counties of Russignon and
Perpignian, oppignorated l to the French. Neither was he out of fear
of the discontents and ill blood within the realm ; which having used
always to repress and appease in person, he was loth they should find
him at a distance beyond sea, and engaged in war. Finding therefore
the inconveniences and difficulties in the prosecution of a war, he
cast with himself how to compass two things. The one, how by the
declaration and inchoation of a war to make his profit. The other,
how to come off from the war with the saving of his honour. For
profit, it was to be made two ways ; upon his subjects for the war, and
upon his enemies for the peace ; like a good merchant, that maketh
his gain both upon the commodities exported, and imported back
again. For the point of honour, wherein he might suffer for giving
over the war, he considered well, that as he could not trust upon the
aids of Ferdinando and Maximilian for supports of war, so the
impuissance of the one, and the double proceeding of the other, lay
fair for him for occasions to accept of peace. These things he did
wisely foresee, and did as artificially conduct, whereby ail things fell
into his lap as he desired.
For as for the parliament, it presently took fire, being affectionate,
of old, to the war of France ; and desirous afresh to repair the
— mortgaged.
*• F %
436 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
dishonour they thought the king sustained by the loss of Britain.
Therefore they advised the king, with great alacrity, to undertake the
war of France. And although the parliament consisted of the first
and second nobility, together with principal citizens and townsmen,
yet worthily and justly respecting more the people, whose deputies
they were, than their own private persons, and finding by the lord
chancellor's speech the king's inclination that way, they consented
that commissioners should go forth for the gathering and levying of a
benevolence from the more able sort. This tax, called a benevolence,
was devised by Edward the Fourth, for which he sustained much envy.
It was abolished by Richard the Third by act of parliament, to
ingratiate himself with the people ; and it was now revived by the
king, but with consent of parliament, for so it was not in the time of
King Edward the Fourth. But by this way he raised exceeding
great sums. Insomuch as the City of London, in those days, con
tributed nine thousand pounds and better ; and that chiefly levied
upon the wealthier sort. There is a tradition of a dilemma, that
bishop Morton the chancellor used, to raise up the benevolence to
higher rates ; and some called it his fork, and some his crotch. For
he had couched an article in the instructions to the commissioners
who were to levy the benevolence ; " That if they met with any that
were sparing, they should tell them, that they must needs have,
because they laid up : and if they were spenders, they must needs
have, because it was seen in their port and manner of living." So
neither kind came amiss.
This parliament was merely a parliament of war ; for it was in
substance but a declaration of war against France and Scotland, with
some statutes conducing thereunto : as the severe punishment of
mort-pays, and keeping back of soldiers' wages in captains ; the like
severity for the departure of soldiers without licence ; strengthening of
the common law in favour of protections for those that were in the
king's service ; and the setting the gate open or wide for men to sell
or mortgage their lands, without fines for alienation, to furnish them
selves with money for the war ; and lastly, the voiding of all Scottish
men out of England. There was also a statute for the dispersing of
the standard of the exchequer throughout England ; thereby to size
weights and measures ; and two or three more of less importance.
After the parliament was broken up, which lasted not long, the
king went on with his preparations for the war of France ; yet
neglected not in the mean time the affairs of Maximilian for the
quieting of Flanders, and restoring him to his authority amongst his
subjects. For at that time the lord of Ravenstein, being not only a
subject rebelled, but a servant revolted, and so much the more
malicious and violent, by the aid of Bruges and Gaunt, had taken the
town and both the castles of Sluice, as we said before : and having,
by the commodity of the haven, gotten together certain ships and
barks, fell to a kind of piratical trade ; robbing and spoiling, and
taking prisoners the ships and vessels of all nations, and passed
along the coast towards the mart of Antwerp, or into any part of
Brabant, Zealand, or Friezeland ; being ever well victualled from
Picardy, besides the commodity of victuals from Sluice, and thi
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 437
country adjacent, and the avails of his own prizes. The French
assisted him still underhand ; and he likewise, as all men do that
have been of both sides, thought himself not safe, except he depended
upon a third person.
There was a small town some two miles from Bruges towards the
sea, called Dam ; which was a fort and approach to Bruges, and had
a relation also to Sluice.
This town the king of the Romans had attempted often, not for any
worth of the town in itself, but because it might choke Bruges, and cut
it off from the sea, and ever failed. But therewith the duke of Saxony
came down into Flanders, taking upon him the person of an umpire,
to compose things between Maximilian and his subjects; but being,
indeed, fast and assured to Maximilian. Upon this pretext of
neutrality and treaty, he repaired to Bruges ; desiring of the estates
of Bruges, to enter peaceably into their town, with a retinue of some
number of men of arms fit for his estate ; being somewhat the more,
as he said, the better to guard him in a country that was up in arms :
and bearing them in hand, that he was to communicate with them of
divers matters of great importance for their good. Which having
obtained of them, he sent his carriages and harbingers before him, to
provide his lodging. So that his men of war entered the city in good
array, but in peaceable manner, and he followed. They that went
before inquired still for inns and lodgings, as if they would have
rested there all night ; and so went on till they came to the gate that
leadeth directly towards Dam : and they of Bruges only gazed upon
them, and gave them passage. The captains and inhabitants of Dam
also suspected no harm from any that passed through Bruges ; and
discovering forces afar off, supposed they had been some succours
that were come from their friends, knowing some dangers towards
them. And so perceiving nothing but well till it was too late, suffered
them to enter their town. By which kind of slight,1 rather than strata
gem, the town of Dam was taken, and the town of Bruges shrewdly
blocked up, whereby they took great discouragement.
The duke of Saxony, having won the town of Dam, sent immediately
to the king to let him know, that it was Sluice chiefly, and the Lord
Ravenstein that kept the rebellion of Flanders in life : and that if it
pleased the king to besiege it by sea, he also would besiege it by land
and so cut out the core of those wars.
The king, willing to uphold the authority of Maximilian, the better
to hold France in awe, and being likewise sued unto by his merchants,
for that the seas were much infested by the barks of the Lord
Ravenstein, sent straightways Sir Edward Poynings, a valiant man,
and of good service, with twelve ships, well furnished with soldiers
and artillery, to clear the seas, and to besiege Sluice on that part.
The Englishmen did not only coop up the Lord Ravenstein, that he
stirred not, and likewise hold in strait siege the maritime part of the
town, but also assailed one of the castles, and renewed the assault so
for twenty days' space, issuing still out of their ships at the ebb, as
thev made great slaughter of them of the castle ; who continually
1 Trick— sleight.
438 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
fought with them to repulse them, though of the English part also
were slain a brother of the Earl of Oxford's, and some fifty more.
But the siege still continuing more and more strait, and both the
castles, which were the principal strength of the town, being distressed,
the one by the duke of Saxony and the other by the English ; and a
bridge of boats, which the lord of Ravenstein had made between both
castles, whereby succours and relief might pass from the one to the
other, being on a night set on fire by the English ; he despairing to
hold the town, yielded at the last the castles to the English, and the
town to the duke of Saxony by composition. Which done, the duke
of Saxony and Sir Edward Poynings treated with them of Bruges, to
submit themselves to Maximilian their lord, which after some time
they did, paying in some good part the charge of the war, whereby the
Almains and foreign succours were dismissed. The example of
Bruges other of the revolted towns followed, so that Maximilian grew
to be out of danger, but, as his manner was to handle matters, never
out of necessity. And Sir Edward Poynings, after he had continued
at Sluice some good while till all things were settled, returned unto
the king, being then before Boloign.
Somewhat about this time came letters from Ferdinando and
Isabella, king and queen of Spain, signifying the final conquest of
Granada from the Moors, which action, in itself so worthy, king
Ferdinando, whose manner was never to lose any virtue for the show
ing, had expressed and displayed in his letters at large, with all the
particularities and religious punctos and ceremonies that were
observed in the reception of that city and kingdom, showing amongst
other things that the king would not by any means in person enter the
city, until he had at first aloof seen the cross set up upon the greater
tower of Granada, whereby it became Christian ground. That like
wise, before he would enter, he did homage to God above, pronounc
ing by a herald from the height of that tower that he did acknowledge
to have recovered that kingdom by the help of God Almighty, and
the glorious Virgin, and the virtuous apostle Saint James, and the holy
father Innocent the Eighth, together with the aids and services of his
prelates, nobles, and commons. That yet he stirred not from his
camp till he had seen a little army of martyrs, to the number of seven
hundred and more Christians, that had lived in bonds and servitude
as slaves to the Moors, pass before his eyes, singing a psalm for their
redemption, and that he had given triL. .e unto God by alms and
relief extended to them all for his admission into the city. These
things were in the letters, with many more ceremonies of a kind of
holy ostentation.
The king, ever willing to put himself into the consort or choir of all
religious actions, and naturally affecting much the king of Spain, as
far as one king can affect another, partly for his virtues, and partly for
a counterpoise to France, upon the receipt of these letters sent all his
nobles and prelates that were about the court, together with the mayor
and aldermen of London, in great solemnity to the church of Paul,
there to hear a declaration from the lord chancellor, now cardinal.
When they were assembled, the cardinal, standing upon the upper
most step, or half-pace, before the choir, and all the nobles, j -relates,
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 439
and governors of the city at the foot of the stairs, made a speech to
them, letting them know that they were assembled in that consecrated
place to sing unto God a new song. For that, said he, these many
years the Christians have not gained new ground or territory upon the
infidels, nor enlarged and set farther the bounds of the Christian
world. But this is now done by the prowess and devotion ot
Ferdinando and Isabella, sovereigns of Spain, who have, to their
immortal honour, recovered the great and rich kingdom of Granada
and the populous and mighty city of the same name from the Moors,
having been in possession thereof by the space of seven hundred years
and more ; for which this assembly and all Christians are to render
laud and thanks unto God, and to celebrate this noble act of the king
of Spain, who in this is not only victorious but apostolical, in the gain
ing of new provinces to the Christian faith. And the rather for that
this victory and conquest is obtained without much effusion of blood ;
whereby it is to be" hoped that there shall be gained not only new
territory, but infinite souls to the Church of Christ, whom the
Almighty, as it seems, would have live to be converted. Herewithal
he did relate some of the most memorable particulars of the war and
victory. And after his speech ended, the whole assembly went
solemnly in procession, and Te Deum was sung.
Immediately after the solemnity, the king kept his Mayday at his
palace of Shene, now Richmond ; where, to warm the blood of his
nobility and gallants against the war, he kept great triumphs of joust
ing and tourney during all that month. In which space it so fell out
that Sir James Parker and Hugh Vaughan, one of the king's gentle
men ushers, having had a controversy touching certain arms that the
king-at-arms had given Vaughan, were appointed to run some courses
one against another. And by accident of a faulty helmet that Parker
had on, he was stricken into the mouth at the first course, so that his
tongue was borne unto the hinder part of his head, in such sort that
he died presently upon the place. Which, because of the controversy
precedent and the death that followed, was accounted amongst the
vulgar as a combat or trial of right. The king, towards the end of
this summer, having put his forces wherewith he meant to invade
France in readiness, but so as they were not yet met or mustered
together, sent Urswick, now made his almoner, and Sir John Risley,
to Maximilian, to let him know that he was in arms, ready to pass the
seas into France, and did but expect to hear from him, when and
v/here he did appoint to join with him, according to his promise made
unto him by Countebalt, his ambassador.
The English ambassadors having repaired to Maximilian, did find
his power and promise at a very great distance, he being utterly un
provided of men, money, and arms for any such enterprise. For
Maximilian, having neither wing to fly on, for that his patrimony of
Austria was not in his hands, his father being then living, and on the
other side his matrimonial territories of Flanders being partly in dowry
to his mother-in-law, and partly not serviceable in respect of the late
rebellions, was thereby destitute of means to enter into war. The
ambassadors saw this well, but wisely thought fit to advertise the king
thereof, rather than to return themselves, till the king's farther pleasure
440 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
were known ; the rather for that Maximilian himself spake as great a:»
ever he did before, and entertained them with dilatory answers, so as
the formal part of their ambassage might well warrant and require
their farther stay. The king hereupon, who doubted as much before,
and saw through his business from the beginning, wrote back to the
ambassadors, commending their discretion in not returning, and
willing them to keep the state wherein they found Maximilian as a
secret, till they heard farther from him ; and meanwhile went on with
his voyage royal for France, suppressing for a time this advertisement
touching Maximilian's poverty and disability.
But this time was drawn together a great and puissant army into the
city of London, in which were Thomas marquis Dorset, Thomas earl
of Arundel, Thomas earl of Derby, George earl of Shrewsbury,
Edmond earl of Suffolk, Edward earl of Devonshire, George earl of
Kent, the earl of Essex, Thomas Earl of Ormond, with a great number
of barons, knights, and principal gentlemen, and amongst them
Richard Thomas, much noted for the brave troops that he brought
out of Wales. The army rising in the whole to the number of five-
and-twenty thousand foot, and sixteen hundred horse, over which the
king, constant in his accustomed trust and employment, made Jasper
duke of Bedford and John earl of Oxford generals under his own
person. The ninth of September, in the eighth year of his reign, he
departed from Greenwich towards the sea, all men wondering that he
took that season, being so near winter, to begin the war, and some
thereupon gathering it was a sign that the war would not be long.
Nevertheless the king gave out the contrary, thus : — "That he intend
ing not to make a summer business of it, but a resolute war, without
term prefixed, until he had recovered France, it skilled not much when
he began it, especially having Calais at his back, where he might
winter if the season of the war so required." The sixth of October he
embarked at Sandwich, and the same day took land at Calais, which
was the rendezvous where all his forces were assigned to meet. But
in this his journey towards the seaside, wherein, for the cause that we
shall not speak of, he hovered so much the longer, he had received
letters from the Lord Cordes, who the hotter he was against the
English in time of war, had the more credit in a negotiation of
peace, and besides, was held a man open and of good faith. In which
letters there was made an overture of peace from the French king,
with such conditions as were somewhat to the king's taste ; but thL
was carried at the first with wonderful secrecy. The king was no
sooner come to Calais, but the calm winds of peace began to blow.
For first, the English ambassadors returned out of Flanders from
Maximilian, and certified the king that he was not to hope for any aid
from Maximilian, for that he was altogether unprovided. His will was
good, but he lacked money. And this was made known and spread
through the army. And although the English were therewithal
nothing dismayed, and that it be the manner of soldiers upon bad
news to speak the more bravely ; yet nevertheless it was a kind of
Ereparative to a peace. Instantly in the neck of this, as the king had
lid it, came news that Ferdinando and Isabella, sovereigns of Spain,
had concluded a peace with King Charles, and that Charles had
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 441
restored unto them the counties of Russignon and Perpignian, which
formerly were mortgaged by John, king of Arragori, Ferdinando's
father, unto France for three hundred thousand crowns, which debt
was also upon this peace by Charles clearly released. This came also
handsomely to put on the peace, both because so potent a confederate
was fallen off, and because it was a fair example of a peace bought, so
as the king should not be the sole merchant in this peace. Upon
these airs of peace the king was content that the bishop of Exeter and
the Lord d'Aubigny, governor of Calais, should give a meeting unto
the Lord Cordes, for the treaty of a peace. But himself, nevertheless,
and his army, the fifteenth of October, removed from Calais, and in
four days' march sat him down before Boloign.
During this siege of Boloign, which continued near a month, there
passed no memorable action nor accident of war; only Sir John
Savage, a valiant captain, was slain, riding about the walls of the town
to take a view. The town was both well fortified and well manned,
yet it was distressed and ready for an assault ; which, if it had been
given, as was thought, would have cost much blood, but yet the town
would have been carried in the end. Meanwhile a peace was con
cluded by the commissioners, to continue for both the kings' lives
Where there was no article of importance, being in effect rather a
bargain than a treaty. For all things remained as they were, save
that there should be paid to the king seven hundred and forty-five
thousand ducats in present, for his charges in that journey ; and five-
and-twenty thousand crowns yearly, for his charges sustained in the
aid of the Britons. For which annual, though he had Maximilian
bound before for those charges, yet he counted the alteration of the
hand as much as the principal debt. And besides, it was left some
what indefinitely when it should determine or expire, which made the
English esteem it as a tribute carried under fair terms. And the
truth is, it was paid both to the king and to his son King Henry the
Eighth, longer than it could continue upon any computation of
charges. There was also assigned by the French king, unto all the
king's principal councillors, great pensions, besides rich gifts for the
present ; which, whether the king did permit, to save his own purse
from rewards, or to communicate the envy of a business, that was dis
pleasing to his people, was diversely interpreted. For certainly the
king had no great fancy to own this peace. And, therefore, a little
before it was concluded, he had underhand procured some of his best
captains and men of war to advise him to a peace, under their hands,
in an earnest manner, in the nature of a supplication. But the truth is
this peace was welcome to both kings : — To Charles, for that it assured
unto him the possession of Britain, and freed the enterprise of Naples ;
to Henry, for that it filled his coffers, and that he foresaw at that time
a storm of inward troubles coming upon him, which presently after
brake forth. But it gave no less discontent to the nobility and
principal persons of the army, who had many of them sold or engaged
their estates upon the hopes of the war. They stuck not to say,
" That the king cared not to plume his nobility and people to feather
himself." And some made themselves merry with that the king
had said in Parliament, "That after the war was once begun,
442 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
he doubted not but to make it pay itself," saying, he had kept
promise.
Having risen from Boloign he went to Calais, where he stayed some
time. From whence also he wiote letters, which was a courtesy that
he sometimes used, to the mayor of London, and the aldermen his
brethren, half bragging what great sums he had obtained for the
peace, knowing well that full coffers of the king is ever good news to
London. And better news it would have been, if their benevolence
had been but a loan. And upon the seventeenth of December
following he returned to Westminster, where he kept his Christmas.
Soon after the king's return, he sent the Order of the Garter to
Alphonso, duke of Calabria, eldest son to Ferdinando, king of Naples,
an honour sought by that prince to hold him up in the eyes of the
Italians, who, expecting the arms of Charles, made great account of
the amity of England for a bridle to France. It was received by
Alphonso with all the ceremony and pomp that could be devised, as
things used to be carried that are intended for opinion. It was sent
by Urswick, upon whom the king bestowed this ambassage to help
him after many dry employments.
At this time the king began again to be haunted with spirits, by the
magic and curious arts of the Lady Margaret, who raised up the
ghost of Richard, duke of York, second son to King Edward the
Fourth, to walk and vex the king. This was a finer counterfeit stone
than Lambert Simnel, better done and worn upon greater hands,
being graced after with the wearing of a king of France and a king of
Scotland, not of a duchess of Burgundy only. And for Simnel there
was not much in him, more than that he was a handsome boy, and
did not shame his robes. But this youth, of whom we are now to
speak, was such a mercurial, as the like hath seldom been known, and
could make his own part if at any time he chanced to be out. Where
fore this being one of the strangest examples of a personation that
ever was in elder or later times, it deserveth to be discovered and
related at the full ; although the king's manner of showing things by
pieces, and by dark lights, hath so muffled it, that it hath left it almost
as a mystery1 to this day.
The Lady Margaret, whom the king's friends called Juno, because
she was to him as Juno was to yEneas, stirring both heaven and hell
to do him mischief, for a foundation of her particular practices against
him, did continually, by all means possible, nourish, maintain, and
divulge the flying opinion, that Richard, duke of York, second son to
Edward the Fourth, was not murdered in the Tower, as was given
out, but saved alive. For that those who were employed in that
barbarous fact, having destroyed the elder brother, were stricken with
remorse and compassion towards the younger, and set him privily at
liberty to seek his fortune. This lure she cast abroad, thinking that
this fame and belief, together with the fresh example of Lambert
Simnel, would draw at one time or other some birds to strike upon it.
She used likewise a farther diligence, not committing all to chance ,*
for she had some secret espials, like to the Turks' commissioners fol
1 There appear te be good grounds for thinking he «ros no impostor. See Hepwortk
Devon's " Two Queens," Appendix to " Catherine.'
1HE SEVENTH. 443
children of tribute, to look abroad for handsome and graceful youths,
to make Plantagenets and dukes of York. At the last she did light on
one in whom all things met, as one would wish, to serve her turn for a
counterfeit of Richard, duke of York.
This was Perkin Warbeck, whose adventures we shall now describe.
For first, the years agreed well. Secondly, he was a youth of fine
favour and shape. But more than that, he had such a crafty and
bewitching fashion, both to move pity, and to induce belief, as was
like a kind of fascination and enchantment to those that saw him or
heard him. Thirdly, he had been from his childhood such a
wanderer, or, as the king called him, such a landloper, as it was
extreme hard to hunt out his nest and parents. Neither again could
any man, by company or conversing with him, be able to say or detect
well what he was, he did so flit from place to place. Lastly, there was
a circumstance, which is mentioned by one that wrote in the same
time, that is very likely to have made somewhat to the matter— which
is, that King Edward the Fourth was his godfather. Which, as it is
somewhat suspicious for a wanton prince to become gossip1 in so
mean a house, and might make a man think that he might indeed have
in him some base blood of the house of York ; so at the least, though
that were not, it might give the occasion to the boy, in being called
King Edward's godson, or perhaps in sport King Edward's son,
to entertain such thoughts into his head. For tutor he had none, for
ought that appears, as Lambert Simnel had, until he came unto the
Lady Margaret, who instructed him.
Thus therefore it came to pass : — There was a townsman of
Tournay, that had borne office in that town, whose name was John
Osbeck, a convert Jew, married to Catherine de Faro, whose business
drew him to live for a time with his wife at London in King Edward
the Fourth's days ; during which time he had a son by her, and being
known in court, the king, either out of religious nobleness, because he
was a convert, or upon some private acquaintance, did him the
honour to be godfather to his child, and named him Peter. But
afterwards, proving a dainty and effeminate youth, he was commonly
called by the diminutive of his name, Peterkin, or Perkin. For as for
the name of Warbeck, it was given him when they did but guess at it,
before examinations had been taken. But yet he had been so much
talked on by that name, as it stuck by him after his true name of
Osbeck was known. While he was a young child, his parents
returned with him to Tournay. Then was he placed in a house of a
kinsman of his, called John Stenbeck, at Antwerp, and so roved up
and down between Antwerp and Tournay, and other towns of
Flanders, for a good time ; living much in English company, and
having the English tongue perfect. In which time, being grown a
comely youth, he was brought by some of the espials of the Lady
Margaret into her presence. Who viewing him well, and seeing that
he had a face and personage that would bear a noble fortune ; and
rinding him otherwise of a fine spirit and winning behaviour ; though!
she had now found a curious piece of marble to carve out an image oi
* Sponsor,
444 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
the duke of York. She kept him by her a great while, but with
extreme secrecy. The while she instructed him by many cabinet
conferences. First, in princely behaviour and gesture ; teaching him
how he should keep state, and yet with a modest sense of his
misfortunes. Then she informed him of all the circumstances and
particulars that concerned the person of Richard, duke of York, which
he was to act ; describing unto him the personages, lineaments, and
features of the king and queen his pretended parents ; and of his
brother and sisters, and divers others, that were nearest him in his
childhood ; together with all passages, some secret, some common,
that \vere fit for a child's memory, until the death of King Edward.
Then she added the particulars of the time from the kh/g's death,
until he and his brother were committed to the Tower, as well during
the time he was abroad, as while he was in sanctuary. As for the
times while he was in the Tower, and the manner of his brother's
death, and his own escape, she knew they were things that a very few
could control ; and therefore she taught him only to tell a smooth and
likely tale of those matters, warning him not to vary from it. It was
agreed likewise between them, what account he should give of his
peregrination abroad, intermixing many things which were true, and
such as they knew others could testify, for the credit of the rest ; but
still making them to hang together with the part he was to play. She
taught him likewise how to avoid sundry captious and tempting
questions, which were like to be asked of him. But in this she found
him of himself so nimble and shifting, as she trusted much to his own
wit and readiness ; and therefore laboured the less in it. Lastly, she
raised his thoughts with some present rewards, and farther promises ;
setting before him chiefly the glory and fortune of a crown if things
went well, and a sure refuge to her court, if the worst should fall.
After such time as she thought he was perfect in his lesson, she began
to cast with herself from what coast this blazing star should first
appear, and at what time it must be upon the horizon of Ireland ; for
there had the like meteor strong influence before. The time of the
apparition to be, when the king should be engaged into a war with
France. But well she knew, that whatsoever should come from her,
would be held suspected. And therefore, if he should go out of
Flanders immediately into Ireland, she might be thought to have
some hand in it. And besides, the time was not yet ripe, for that the
two kings were then upon terms of peace. Therefore she wheeled
about ; and to put all suspicion afar off, and loth to keep him any
longer by her, for that she knew secrets are not long-lived, she sent
him unknown into Portugal with the Lady Brampton, an English lady,
that embarked for Portugal at that time, with some privado of her
own, to have an eye upon him ; and there he was to remain, and to
expect her farther directions. In the mean time she omitted not to
prepare things for his better welcome and accepting, not only in the
kingdom of Ireland, but in the court of France. He continued in
Portugal about a year ; and by that time the king of England called
his parliament, as hath been said, and declared open war against
France. Now did the sign reign, and the constellation was come.
under which Perkin should appear. And therefore he was straight
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 445
sent unto by the duchess to go for Ireland, according to the first
designment. In Ireland he did arrive at the town of Cork. When he
was thither come, his own tale was, when he made his confession
afterwards, that the Irishmen, finding him in some good clothes, came
flocking about him, and bare him down that he was the duke of
Clarence that had been there before. And after that he was Richard
the Third's base son. And lastly, that he was Richard, duke of York,
second son of Edward the Fourth. But that he, for his part,
renounced all these things, and offered to swear upon the holy
evangelists, that he was no such man ; till at last they forced it upon
him, and bade him fear nothing, and so forth. But the truth is, that
immediately upon his coming into Ireland, he took upon him the said
person of the duke of York, and drew unto him complices and
partakers by all the means he could devise. Insomuch as he wrote
his letters unto the earls of Desmond and Kildare, to come in to his
aid, and be of his party ; the originals of which letters are yet extant.
Somewhat before this time, the duchess had also gained unto her a
near servant of King Henry's own, one Stephen Frion, his secretary
for the French tongue ; an active man, but turbulent and discontented.
This Frion had fled over to Charles, the French king, and put himself
into his service, at such time as he began to be in open enmity
with the king. Now King Charles, when he understood of the person
and attempts of Perkin, ready of himself to embrace all advantages
against the king of England, instigated by Frion, and formerly pre
pared by the Lady Margaret, forthwith despatched one Lucas and this
Frion, in the nature of ambassadors to Perkin, to advertise him of the
king's good inclination to him, and that he was resolved to aid him to
recover his right against King Henry, an usurper of England, and an
enemy of France ; and wished him to come over unto him at Paris.
Perkin thought himself in heaven now that he was invited by so great
a king in so honourable a manner ; and imparting unto his friends in
Ireland for their encouragement, how fortune called him, and what
great hopes he had, sailed presently into France. When he was come
to the court of France, the king received him with great honour :
saluted, and styled him by the name of the duke of York ; lodged him,
and accommodated him with in great state. And the better to give
him the representation and the countenance of a prince, assigned him
a guard for his person, whereof the Lord Congresall was captain. The
courtiers likewise, though it be ill mocking with the French, applied
themselves to their king's bent, seeing there was reason of state for it.
At the same time there repaired unto Perkin divers Englishmen of
quality : Sir George Neville, Sir John Taylor, and about one hundred
more ; and amongst the rest, this Stephen Frion, of whom we spake,
who followed his fortune both then and for a long time after, and was
indeed his principal counsellor and instrument in all his proceedings.
But all this on the French king's part was but a trick, the better to
bow King Henry to peace. And therefore upon the first grain of
incense that was sacrificed upon the altar of peace at Boloign, Per
kin was smoked away. Yet would not the French king deliver
him up to King Henry, as he was laboured to do, for his honour's
sake, but warned him away and dismissed him. And Perkin, on his
446 U2NKY THE SEVENTH.
part, was as ready tobe gone, doubtinghe might be caught up under-hand.
He therefore took his way into Flanders, unto the duchess of Burgundy ;
pretending that having been variously tossed by fortune, he directed his
course thither as to a safe harbour : no ways taking knowledge that he
had ever been there before, but as if that had been his first address. Tha
duchess, on the other part, made it as new and strange to see him; pre
tending, at the first, that she was taught and made wise by the example
of Lambert Simnel, how she did admit of any counterfeit stuff; though
even in that, she said, she was not fully satisfied. She pretended at
the first, and that was ever in the presence of others, to pose him and
sift him, thereby to try whether he were indeed the very duke of York
or no. But seeming to receive full satisfaction by his answers, she
then feigned herself to be transported with a kind of astonishment,
mixt of joy and wonder, at his miraculous deliverance ; receiving him
as if he were risen from death to life ; and inferring, that God, who
had in such wonderful manner preserved him from death, did likewise
reserve him for some great and prosperous fortune. As for his
dismission out of France, they interpreted it, not as if he were
detected or neglected for a counterfeit deceiver, but contrariwise, that
it did show manifestly unto the world, that he was some great matter ;
for that it was his abandoning that, in effect, made the peace ; being
no more but the sacrificing of a poor distressed prince unto the utility
and ambition of two mighty monarchs. Neither was Perkin, for his
part, wanting to himself, either /in gracious or princely behaviour, or
in ready and opposite answers, or in contenting and caressing those
that did apply themselves unto him, or in pretty scorn and disdain to
those that seemed to doubt of h\m ; but in all things did notably
acquit himself; insomuch as it was generally believed, as well
amongst great persons as amongst the vulgar, that he was indeed
Duke Richard. Nay, himself, with long and continued counterfeiting,
and with oft telling a lie, was turned by habit almost into the thing he
seemed to be ; and from a liar to a believer. The duchess, therefore,
as in a case out of doubt, did him all princely honour, calling him
always by the name of her nephew, and giving him the delicate title of
the White Rose of England : and appointed him a guard of thirty
persons, halberdiers, clad in a party-coloured livery of murrey and
blue, to attend his person. Her court likewise, and generally the
Dutch and strangers, in their usage towards him, expressed no less
respect.
'Ihe news hereof came blazing and thundering over into England,
that the duke of York was sure alive. As for the name of Perkin
Warbeck, it was not at that time come to light, but all the news ran
upon the duke of York ; that he had been entertained in Ireland,
bought and sold in France, and was now plainly avowed, and in great
honour in Flanders. These fames took hold of divers ; in some upon
discontent ; in some upon ambition ; in some upon levity and desire
of change ; in some few upon conscience and belief ; but in most upon
simplicity ; and in divers out of dependence upon some ot the better
sort, who did in secret favour and nourish these bruits. And it was
not long ere these rumours of novelty had begotten others of scandal
and murmur against the king and his government, taxing him for a
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 447
great taxer of his people, and discountenancer of his nobility. The
loss of Britain, and the peace with France, were not forgotten. But
chiefly they fell upon the wrong that he did his queen, in that he did
not reign in her right. Wherefore they said that God had now
brought to light a masculine branch of the house of York, that would
not be at his courtesy, howsoever he did depress his poor lady. And
yet, as it fareth in the things which are current with the multitude, and
which they affect, these fames grew so general, as the authors were
lost in the generality of speakers. They being like running weeds
that have no certain root ; or like footings up and down, impossible to
be traced ; but after a while these ill humours drew to a head, and
settled secretly in some eminent persons — which were, Sir William
Stanley, lord chamberlain oi the king's household, the lord Fitzwalter,
Sir Simon Mountfort, and Sir Thomas Thwaites. These entered into
a secret conspiracy to favour Duke Richard's title. Nevertheless none
engaged their fortunes in this business openly, but two, Sir Robert
Clifford and Master William Barley, who sailed over into Flanders,
sent indeed from the party of the conspirators here, to understand the
truth of those things that passed there, and not without some help of
moneys from hence ; provisionally to be delivered, if they found and
were satisfied that there was truth in these pretences. The person of
Sir Robert Clifford, being a gentleman of fame and family, was ex
tremely welcome to the Lady Margaret ; who, after she had conference
with him, brought him to the sight of Perkin, with whom he had often
speech and discourse. So that, in the end, won either by the duchess
to affect, or by Perkin to believe, he wrote back into England, that he
knew the person of Richard, duke of York, as well as he knew his own,
and that this young man was undoubtedly he. By this means all
things grew prepared to revolt and sedition here, and the conspiracy
came to have a correspondence between Flanders and England.
The king on his part was not asleep ; but to arm or levy forces yet,
he thought would but show fear, and do this idol too much worship.
Nevertheless the ports he did shut up, or at least kept a watch on
them, that none should pass to or fro that was suspected ; but for
the rest, he chose to work by countermine. His purposes were two :
the one, to lay open the abuse ; the other, to break the knot cf the
conspirators. To detect the abuse, there were but two ways : the first,
to make it manifest to the world that the duke of York was indeed
murdered ; the other, to prove that were he dead or alive, yet Perkin
was a counterfeit. For the first, thus it stood. There were but four
persons that could speak upon knowledge to the murder of the duke
of York : Sir James Tirrel, the employed man from King Richard,
John Dighton and Miles Forrest, his servants, the two butchers or
tormentors, and the priest of the Tower, that buried them ; of which
four Miles Forrest and the priest were dead, and there remained alive
only Sir James Tirrel and John Dighton. These two the king caused
to be committed to the Tower, and examined touching the manner of
the death of the two innocent princes. They agreed both in a tale,
as the king gave out, to this effect : that King Richard having directed
his warrant for the putting of them to death to Brackenbury, the
lieutenant of the Tower, was by him refused ; whereupon the kinj
448 HENRV THE SEVENTH.
directed his warrant to Sir James Tirrel, to receive the keys of the
Tower from the lieutenant, for the space of a night, for the king's
special service. That Sir James Tirrel accordingly repaired to the
Tower by night, attended by his two servants aforenamed, whom he
had chosen for that purpose. That himself stood at the stair-foot,
and sent these two villains to execute the murder. That they smothered
them in their bed ; and, that done, called up their master to see their
naked dead bodies, which they had laid forth. That they were buried
under the stairs, and some stones cast upon them. That when the
report was made to King Richard, that his will was done, he gave Sir
James Tirrel great thanks, but took exception to the place of their
burial, being too base for them that were king's children ; whereupon,
another night, by the king's warrant renewed, their bodies were re
moved by the priest of the Tower, and buried by him in some place,
which, by means of the priest's death soon after could not be known.
Thus much was then delivered abroad, to be the effect of those
examinations ; but the king, nevertheless, made no use of them in any
of his declarations ; whereby, as it seems, those examinations left the
business somewhat perplexed. And as for Sir James Tirrel, he was
soon after beheaded in the Tower-yard for other matters of treason.
But John Dighton, who, it seemeth, spake best for the king, was forth
with set at liberty, and was the principal means of divulging this
tradition. Therefore this kind of proof being left so naked, the king
used the more diligence in the latter, for the tracing of Perkin. To
this purpose he sent abroad into several parts, and especially into
Flanders, divers secret and nimble scouts and spies, some feigning
themselves to fly over unto Perkin, and to adhere unto him ; and some
under other pretences, to learn, search, and discover all the circum
stances and particulars of Perkin's parents, birth, person, travels up
and down ; and in brief, to have a journal, as it were, of his life and
doings. He furnished these his employed men liberally with money
to draw on and reward intelligences ; giving them also in charge, to
advertise continually what they found, and nevertheless still to go
on. And ever as one advertisement and discovery called up another,
he employed other new men, where the business did require it. Others
he employed in a more special nature and trust, to be his pioneers in
the main countermine. These were directed to insinuate themselves
into the familiarity and confidence of the principal persons of the
party in Flanders, and so to learn what associates they had, and cor
respondents, either here in England, or abroad; and how far every one
engaged, and what new ones they meant afterwards to try or board.
Arid as this for the persons, so for the actions themselves, to discover
to the bottom, as they could, the utmost of Perkin's and the conspira
tors', their intentions, hopes, and practices. These latter best-be-trust
spies had some of them farther instructions, to practise and draw off
the best friends and servants of Perkin, by making remonstrance to
them, how weakly his enterprise and hopes were built, and with how
prudent and potent a king they had to deal ; and to reconcile them to
the king, with promise of pardon and good conditions of reward.
And, above the rest, to assail, sap, and work into the constancy of Sir
Robert Clifford ; and to win him, if they could, being the man that
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 449
knew most of their secrets, and who, being won away, would most
appal and discourage the rest, and in a manner break the knot.
There is a strange tradition, that the king, being lost in a wood of
suspicions, and not knowing whom to trust, had both intelligence with
the confessors and chaplains of divers great men ; and for the better
credit of his espials abroad with the contrary side, did use to have
them cursed at Paul's, by name, amongst the bead-roll of the king's
enemies, according to the custom of those times. These espials plied
their charge so roundly, as the king had an anatomy of Perkin alive ;
and was likewise well informed of the particular correspondent con
spirators in England, and many other mysteries were revealed ; and
Sir Robert Clifford, in especial, won to be assured to the king, and
industrious and officious for his service. The king, therefore, receiving
a rich return of his diligence, and great satisfaction touching a number
of particulars, first divulged and spread abroad the imposture and
juggling of Perkin's person and travels, with the circumstances thereof,
throughout the realm ; not by proclamation, because things were yet
in examination, and so might receive the more or the less, but by
court-fames, which commonly print better than printed proclamations.
Then thought he it also time to send an ambassage unto Archduke
Philip,1 into Flanders, for the abandoning and dismissing of Perkin.
Herein he employed Sir Edward Poynings, and Sir William Warham,
doctor of the canon law. The archduke was then young, and governed
by his council, before whom the ambassadors had audience ; and Dr.
Warham spake in this manner : —
" My lords, the king our master is very sorry, that England and
your country here of Flanders, having been counted as man and wife
for so long time, now this country of all others should be the stage
where a base counterfeit should play the part of a king of England ;
not only to his grace's disquiet and dishonour, but to the scorn and
reproach of all sovereign princes. To counterfeit the dead image of a
king in his coin is a high offence by all laws, but to counterfeit the
living image of a king in his person, exceedeth all falsifications, except
it should be that of a Mahomet, or an antichrist, that counterfeit divine
honour. The king hath too great an opinion of this sage council, to
think that any of you is caught with this fable, though way may be
given by you to the passion of some, the thing in itself is so improbable.
To set testimonies aside of the death of Duke Richard, which the king
hath upon record, plain and infallible, because they may be thought to
be in the king's own power, let the thing testify for itself. Sense and
reason no power can command. Is it possible, trow you, that King
Richard should damn his soul, and foul his name with so abominable
a murder, and yet not mend his case ? Or do you think that men of
iDlood, that were his instruments, did turn to pity in the midst of their
execution ? Whereas in cruel and savage beasts, and men also, the
first draught of blood doth yet make them more fierce and enraged.
Do you not know, that the bloody executioners of tyrants do go to
such errands with a halter about their neck ; so that if they perform
not, they are sure to die for it ? And do you think that these men
would hazard their own lives, for sparing another's? Admit they
The son of Mary of Burgundy, and heir of that duchy and the Low Countries.
" G C»
450 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
should have saved him ; what should they have done with him ? Turn
him into London streets, that the \vatchmenr or any passenger that
should light upon him, might carry him before a justice, and so all
come to light ? Or should they have kept him by them secretly ?
That surely would have required a great deal of care, charge, and
continual fears. But, my lords, I labour too much in a clear business.
The king is so wise, and hath so good friends abroad, as now he
knoweth Duke Perkin from his cradle. And because he is a great
prince, if you have any good poet here, he can help him with notes to
write his life ; and to parallel him with Lambert Simnel, now the king's
falconer. And therefore, to speak plainly to your lordships, it is the
strangest thing in the world, that the Lady Margaret, excuse us if we
name her, whose malice to the king is both causeless and endless,
should now, when she is old, at the time when other women give over
child-bearing, bring forth two such monsters ; being not the births of
nine or ten months, but of many years. And whereas other natural
mothers bring forth children weak, and not able to help themselves,
she bringeth forth tall striplings, able soon after their coming into the
world to bid battle to mighty kings. My lords, we stay unwillingly
upon this part. We would to God that lady would once taste the joys
which God Almighty doth serve up unto her in beholding her niece to
reign in such honour and with so much royal issue, which she might
be pleased to account as her own. The king's request unto the arch
duke and your lordships might be, that according to the example of
King Charles, who hath already discarded him, you would banish this
unworthy fellow out of your dominions. But because the king may
justly expect more from an ancient confederate than from a new
reconciled enemy, he maketh his request unto you to deliver him up
into his hands ; pirates and impostors of this sort being fit to be
accounted the common enemies of mankind, and no ways to be
protected by the law of nations."
After some time of deliberation, the ambassadors received this
short answer : —
" That the archduke, for the love of King Henry, would in no sort
aid or assist the pretended duke, but in all things conserve the amity he
had with the king ; but for the duchess dowager, she was absolute in the
lands of her dowry, and that he could not let1 her to dispose of her
own."
The king, upon the return of the ambassadors, was nothing satisfied
with this answer ; for well he knew that a patrimonial dowry carried
no part of sovereignty or command of forces. Besides, the ambassadors
told him plainly, that they saw the duchess had a great party in the
archduke's council ; and that howsoever it was carried in a course of
connivance, yet the archduke underhand gave aid and fartherance to
Perkin. Wherefore, partly out of courage, and partly out of policy, the
king forthwith banished all Flemings, as well their persons as their
wares, out of his kingdom ; commanding his subjects likewise, and by
name his merchants adventurers, which had a resiance2 at Antwerp,
to return, translating the mart, which commonly followed the English
cloth, unto Calais, and embarred also all farther trade for the future*
1 Hiuder * A residence.
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 451
This the king did, being sensible in point of honour not to suffer a
pretender to the crown of England to affront him so near at hand, and
he to keep terms of friendship with the country where he did set up.
But he had also a farther reach ; for that he knew well that the subject?
of Flanders drew so great commodity from the trade of England, as by
this embargo they would soon wax weary of Perkin, and that the
tumult of Flanders had been so late and fresh, as it was no time for the
prince to displease the people. Nevertheless, for form's sake, by way
of requital, the archduke did likewise banish the English out of
Flanders, which in effect was done to his hand.
The king, being well advertised that Perkin did more trust upon
friends and partakers within the realm than upon foreign arms,
thought it behoved him to apply the remedy where the disease lay, and
to proceed with severity against some of the principal conspirators
here within the realm, thereby to purge the ill humours in England and
to cool the hopes in Flanders ; wherefore he caused to be apprehended,
almost at an instant, John Ratcliffe Lord Fitzwalter, Sir Simon Mount-
fort, Sir Thomas Thwaites, William D'Aubigney, Robert Ratcliffe,
Thomas Cressenor, and Thomas Astwood. All these were arraigned,
convicted, and condemned for high treason, in adhering and promising
aid to Perkin. Of these the Lord Fitzwalter was conveyed to Calais,
and there kept in hold and in hope of life, until soon after, either
impatient or betrayed, he dealt with his keeper to have escaped, and
thereupon was beheaded. But Sir Simon Mountfort, Robert Ratcliffe,
and William D'Aubigney, were beheaded immediately after their con
demnation. The rest were pardoned, together with many others,
clerks and laics, amongst which were two Dominican friars, and
William Worseley, dean of Paul's, which latter sort passed examination,
but came not to public trial.
The lord chamberlain at that time was not touched, whether it were
that the king would not stir too many humours at once, but, after the
manner of good physicians, purge the head last, or that Clifford, from
whom most of these discoveries came, reserved that piece for his own
coming over, signifying only to the king, in the meantime, that he
doubted there were some greater ones in the business, whereof he
would give the king farther account when he came to his presence.
Upon Allhallows-day even, being now the tenth year of the king's
reign, the king's second son Henry was created duke of York ; and as
well the duke as divers others, noblemen, knights-bachelors, and
gentlemen of quality, were made knights of the Bath, according to the
ceremony. Upon the morrow after Twelfth-day, the king removed
from Westminster, where he had kept his Christmas, to the Tower of
London. This he did as soon as he had advertisement that Sii
Robert Clifford, in whose bosom or budget most of Perkin's secrets
were laid up, was come into England. And the place of the Tower
was chosen to that end, that if Clifford should accuse any of the great
ones, they might, without suspicion or noise, or sending abroad of war
rants, be presently attached, the court and prison being within the
cincture of one wall. After a day or two the king drew unto him a
selected council, and admitted Clifford to his presence, who first fell
down at his feet, and in all humble manner craved the king's pardon ;
G G 2
459 HEVRY THE SEVENTH.
which the king then granted, though he were indeed secretly assured
of his life before. Then commanded to tell his knowledge, he did,
amongst many others, of himself, not interrogated, impeach Sir
William Stanley,1 the lord chamberlain of the king's household.
The king seemed to be much amazed at the naming of this lord, as
if he had heard the news of some strange and fearful prodigy. To
hear a man that had done him service of so high a nature as to save
his life and set the crown upon his head, a man that enjoyed by his
favour and advancement so great a fortune both in honour and
riches, — a man that was tied unto him in so near a band of alliance,
his brother having married the king's mother, — and, lastly, a man to
whom he had committed the trust of his person, in making him his
chamberlain ; that this man, no ways disgraced, no ways discontent,
no ways put in fear, should be false unto him. Clifford was required
to say over again and again the particulars of his accusation, being
warned, that in a matter so unlikely, and that concerned so great a
servant of the king's, he should not in any wise go too far. But the
king, finding that he did sadly and constantly, without hesitation or
varying, and with those civil protestations that were fit, stand to that
that he had said, offering to justify it upon his soul and life, he caused
him to be removed. And after he had not a little bemoaned himself
unto his council there present, gave order that Sir William Stanley
should be restrained in his own chamber where he lay before, in the
square tower ; and the next day he was examined by the lords. Upon
his examination he denied little of that wherewith he was charged, nor
endeavoured much to excuse or extenuate his fault ; so that, not very
wisely, thinking to make his offence less by confession, he made it
enough for condemnation. It was conceived that he trusted much to
his former merits, and the interest that his brother had in the king.
But those helps were overweighed by divers things that made against
him, and were predominant in the king's nature and mind. First, an
over-merit ; for convenient merit, unto which reward may easily reach,
doth best with kings. Next, the sense of his power; for the king
thought that he that could set him up was the more dangerous to pull
him down. Thirdly, the glimmering of a confiscation ; for he was the
richest subject for value in the kingdom, there being found in his
castle of Holt forty thousand marks in ready money and plate, besides
jewels, household-stuff, stocks upon his grounds, and other personal
estate, exceeding great. And for his revenue in land and fee it was
three thousand pounds a-year of old rent, a great matter in those
times. Lastly, the nature of the time ; for if the king had been out
of fear of his own estate, it was not unlike he would have spared his
life. But the cloud of so great a rebellion hanging over his head made
him work sure. Wherefore, after some six weeks' distance of time,
which the king did honourably interpose, both to give space to his
brother's intercession, and to show to the world that he had a conflict
with himself what he should do, he was arraigned of high treason and
condemned, and presently after beheaded.
Yet is it to this day left but in dark memory, both what the case of
l Stanley had turned the issue of the battle of Bosworth Field by passing over to Rich
mond.
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 453
this noble person was for which he suffered, and what likewise was the
ground and cause of his defection, and the alienation of his heart from
the king. His case was said to be this : that in discourse between Sir
Robert Clifford and him he had said, " That if he were sure that that
young man were King Edward's son he would never bear arms against
him." This case seems somewhat a hard case, both in respect of the
conditional and in respect of the other words. But for the con
ditional, it seemeth the judges of that time, who were learned men,
and the three chief of them of the privy-council, thought it was a
dangerous thing to admit ifs and ands, to qualify words of treason,
whereby every man might express his malice and blanch his danger.
And it was like to the case, in the following times, of Elizabeth
Barton, the holy maid of Kent, who had said, " That if King Henry
the Eighth did not take Catherine his wife again, he should be
deprived of his crown, and die the death of a dog." And infinite
cases may be put of like nature, which it seemeth the grave judges
taking into consideration, would not admit of treasons on condition.
And as for the positive words, " That he would not bear arms against
King Edward's son," though the words seern calm, yet it was a plain
and direct overruling of the king's title, either by the line of Lancaster
or by Act of Parliament ; which no doubt pierced the king more than
if Stanley had charged his lance upon him in the field. For if Stanley
would hold that opinion that a son of King Edward had still the better
right, he being so principal a person of authority and favour about the
king, it was to teach all England to say as much ; and therefore, as
those times were, that speech touched the quick. But some writers
do put this out of doubt, for they say that Stanley did expressly
promise to aid Perkin, and sent him some help of treasure.
Now for the motive of his falling off from the king. It is true that
at Bosworth Field the king was beset, and in a manner enclosed
round about by the troops of King Richard, and in manifest danger of
his life, when this Stanley was sent by his brother with three thousand
men to his rescue, which he performed so that King Richard was slain
upon the place. So as the condition of mortal men is not capable of
a greater benefit than the king received by the hands of Stanley, being
like the benefit of Christ, at once to save and crown ; for which service
the king gave him great gifts, made him his counsellor and chamber
lain, and somewhat contrary to his nature, had winked at the great
spoils of Bosworth Field, which came almost wholly to this man's
hands, to his infinite enriching. Yet, nevertheless, blown up with the
conceit of his merit, he did not think he had received good measure
from the king, at least not pressing down and running over, as he ex
pected. And his ambition was so exorbitant and unbounded, as he
became suitor to the king for the earldom of Chester, which ever being
a kind of appendage to the principality of Wales, and using to go to
the king's son, his suit did not only end in a denial, but in a distaste ;
the king perceiving thereby that his desires were intemperate, and his
cogitations vast and irregular, and that his former benefits were but
cheap and lightly regarded by him ; wherefore the king began not to
brook him well. And as a little leaven of new distaste doth commonly
iour the whole lump of former merits, the king's wit began now to
454 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
suggest unto his passion that Stanley at Bosworth Field, though he
came time enough to save his life, yet he stayed long enough to
endanger it. But yet having no matter against him, he continued him
in his places until this his fall.
After him was made lord chamberlain, Giles, Lord D'Aubigney, a
man of great sufficiency and valour, the more because he was gentle
and moderate.
There was a common opinion, that Sir Robert Clifford, who now
was become the state informer, was from the beginning an emissary
and spy of the king's ; and that he fled over into Flanders with his
consent and privity. But this is not probable ; both because he never
recovered that degree of grace which he had with the king before his
going over ; and chiefly, for that the discovery which he had made
touching the lord chamberlain, which was his great service, grew not
from any thing he learned abroad, for that he knew it well before he
went.
These executions, and especially that of the lord chamberlain, which
was the chief strength of the party, and by means of Sir Robert Clifford,
who was the most inward man of trust amongst them, did extremely
quail the design of Perkin and his complices, as well through discour
agement as distrust ; so that they were now, like sand without lime, ill
bound together ; especially as many as were English, who were at a
gaze, looking strange one upon another, not knowing who was faithful
to their side ; but thinking, that the king, what with his baits, and
what with his nets, would draw them all unto him that were anything
worth. And indeed it came to pass, that divers came away by the
thread, sometimes one, and sometimes another. Barley, that was
joint commissioner with Clifford, did hold out one of the longest, till
Perkin was far worn ; yet made his peace at the length. But the fall
of this great man, being in so high authority and favour, as was
thought, with the king ; and the manner of carriage of the business
as if there had been secret inquisition upon him for a great time before ;
and the cause for which he suffered, which was little more than for
saying in effect that the title of York was better than the title of
Lancaster — which was the case of almost every man, at the least in
opinion— was matter of great terror amongst all the king's servants
and subjects ; insomuch as no man almost thought himself secure, and
men durst scarce commune or talk one with another, but there was 3
general diffidence everywhere : which nevertheless made the king
rather more absolute than more safe. For "bleeding inwards, and
shut vapours, strangle soonest, and oppress most."
Hereupon presently came forth swarms and volleys of libels, which
are the gusts of liberty of speech restrained, and the females of sedition,
containing bitter invectives and slanders against the king and some of
the council ; for the contriving and dispersing whereof, after great
diligence of inquiry, five mean persons were caught up and executed.
Meanwhile the king did not neglect Ireland, being the soil where
these mushrooms and upstart weeds, that spring up in a night, did
chiefly prosper. He sent therefore from hence for the better settling
of his affairs there, commissioners of both robes, the prior of Lanthony,
to be his chancellor in that kingdom ; and Sir Edward Poynings, with
HENRY THE. SEVENTH, 455
a power of men, and a marshal commission, together with a civil
power of his lieutenant, with a clause, that the earl of Kildare, then
deputy, should obey him. But the wild Irish, who were the principal
offenders, fled into the woods and bogs, after their manner ; and those
that knew themselves guilty in the pale fled to them ; so that Sir
Edward Poynings was enforced to make a wild chase upon the wild
Irish ; where, in respect of the mountains and fastnesses, he did little
good. Which, either out of a suspicious melancholy upon his bad
success, or the better to save his service from disgrace, he would needs
impute unto the comfort that the rebels should receive underhand
from the earl of Kildare ; every light suspicion growing upon the earl,
in respect of the Kildare that was in the action of Lambert Simnel,
and slain at Stokefield. Wherefore he caused the earl to be appre
hended, and sent into England ; where, upon examination, he cleared
himself so well, as he was replaced in his government. But Poynings,
the better to make compensation of the meagreness of his service in
the wars by acts of peace, called a parliament ; where was made that
memorable act, which at this day is called Poynings' law, whereby all
the statutes of England were made to be of force in Ireland : for before
they were not, neither are any now in force in Ireland, which were
made in England since that time, which was the tenth year of the king.
About this time began to be discovered in the king that disposition,
which afterwards, nourished and whet on by bad counsellors and
ministers, proved the blot of his times : which was the course he took
to crush treasure out of his subjects' purses, by forfeitures upon penal
laws. At this men did startle the more at this time, because it
appeared plainly to be in the king's nature, and not out of his necessity,
he being now in float for treasure : for that he had newly received the
peace-money from France, the benevolence-money from his subjects,
and great casualties upon the confiscations of the lord chamberlain,
and divers others. The first noted case of this kind was that of Sir
William Capel, alderman of London ; who, upon sundry penal laws,
was condemned in the sum of seven and twenty hundred pounds, and
compounded with the king for sixteen hundred : and yet after, Empson
would have cut another chop out of him, if the king had not died in
the instant.
The summer following, the king, to comfort his mother, whom he
did always tenderly love and revere, and to make open demonstration
to the world, that the proceedings against Sir William Stanley, which
•were imposed upon him by necessity of state, had not in any degree
diminished the affection he bare to Thomas his brother, went in
progress to Latham to make merry with his mother and the earl, and
lay there divers days.
During this progress, Perkin Warbeck, finding that time and
temporizing, which, whilst his practices were covert and wrought well
in England, made for him ; did now, when they were discovered and
defeated, rather make against him, for that when matters once go
fiown the hill, they stay not without a new force ; resolved to try his
adventure in some exploit upon England — hoping still upon the
affections of the common people towards the house of York. Which
body of common people he thought was not to be practised upon, as
45« HENRY THE SEVENTH.
persons of quality are ; but that the only practice upon their affections
was to set up a standard in the field. The place where he should
make his attempt he chose to be the coast of Kent.
The king by this time was grown to such a height of reputation for
cunning and policy, that every accident and event that went well, was
laid and imputed to his foresight, as if he had set it before : as in this
particular of Perkin's design upon Kent. For the world would not
believe afterwards, but the king, having secret intelligence of Perkin's
intention for Kent, the better to draw it on, went of purpose into the
north afar off, laying an open side unto Perkin, to make him come to
the close, and so to trip up his heels, having made sure in Kent before
hand.
But so it was, that Perkin had gathered together a power of all
nations, neither in number, nor in the hardiness and courage of the
persons, contemptible, but in their nature and fortunes to be feared, as
well of friends as enemies ; being bankrupts, and many of them felons,
and such as lived by rapine. These he put to sea, and arrived upon
the coast of Sandwich and Deal in Kent, about July (1495).
There he cast anchor, and to prove the affections of the people, sent
some of his men to land, making great boasts of the power that was to
follow. The Kentish men, perceiving that Perkin was not followed by
any English of name or account, and that his forces consisted but of
strangers born, and most of them base people and freebooters, fitter to
spoil a coast than to recover a kingdom, resorting unto the principal
gentlemen of the country, professed their loyalty to the king, and
desired to be directed and commanded for the best of the king's
service. The gentlemen, entering into consultation, directed some
forces in good number to show themselves upon the coast : and some
of them to make signs to entice Perkin's soldiers to land, as if they
would join with them : and some others to appear from some other
places, and to make semblance as if they fled from them, the better to
encourage them to land. But Perkin, who by playing the prince, or
else taught by Secretary Frion, had learned thus much, that people
under command do use to consult, and after to march in order, and
rebels contrariwise run upon a head together in confusion, considering
the delay of time, and observing their orderly and not tumultuary
arming, doubted the worst. And therefore the wily youth would not
set one foot out of his ship, till he might see things were sure. Where
fore the king's forces, perceiving that they could draw on no more
than those that were formerly landed, set upon them and cut them in
pieces, ere they could fly back to their ships. In which skirmish,
besides those that fled and were slain, there were taken about a
hundred and fifty persons. Which, for that the king thought, that to
punish a few for example was gentleman's pay, but for rascal people,
they were to be cut off every man, especially in the beginning of an
enterprise : and likewise for that he saw, that Perkin's forces would
now consist chiefly of such rabble and scum of desperate people,
he therefore hanged them all for the greater terror. They were
brought to London all railed in ropes, like a team of horses in a cart,
and were executed, some of them at London and Wapping, and the
last at divers places upon the sea-coast of Kent, Sussex, and Norfolk,
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 457
f6r sea-marks or light-houses, to teach Perkin's people to avoid the
coast. The king being advertised of the landing of the rebels
thought to leave his progress ; but being certified the next day,
that they were partly defeated, and partly fled, he continued his
progress, and sent Sir Richard Guildford into Kent in message ; who
calling the country together, did much commend from the king their
fidelity, manhood, and well handling of that serivce ; and gave them
all thanks, and, in private, promised reward to some particulars.
Upon the sixteenth of November, this being the eleventh year of the
king, was holden the Serjeants' feast at Ely Place, there being nine
Serjeants of that call. The king, to honour the feast, was present with
his queen at the dinner ; being a prince that was ever ready to grace
and countenance the professors of the law ; having a little of that, that
as he governed his subjects by his laws, so he governed his laws by his
lawyers.
This year also the king entered into league with the Italian
potentates for the defence of Italy against France ; for King Charles
had conquered the realm of Naples, and lost it again, in a kind of
felicity of a dream. He passed the whole length of Italy without
resistance ; so that it was true which Pope Alexander was wont to say,
" That the Frenchmen came into Italy with chalk in their hands, to
mark up their lodgings, rather than with swords to fight." He likewise
entered and won, in effect, the whole kingdom of Naples itself, without
striking stroke. But presently thereupon he did commit and multiply
so many errors, as was too great a task for the best fortune to
overcome. He gave no contentment to the barons of Naples, of the
faction of the Angeovines ; but scattered his rewards according to the
mercenary appetites of some about him. He put all Italy upon their
guard, by the seizing and holding of Ostia, and the protecting of the
liberty of Pisa : which made all men suspect that his purposes looked
farther than his title of Naples. He fell too soon at differences with
Ludovico Sfortia (Sforza), who was the man that carried the keys
which brought him in, and shut him out. He neglected to ex
tinguish some relics of the war. And lastly, in regard of his easy
passage through Italy without resistance, he entered into an overmuch
despising of the arms of the Italians ; whereby he left the realm of
Naples, at his departure, so much the less provided. So that not long
after his return, the whole kingdom revolted to Ferdinando the
younger, and the French were quite driven out. Nevertheless, Charles
did make both great threats and great preparations to re-enter Italy
once again. Wherefore at the instance of divers of the states of Italy,
and especially of Pope Alexander, there was a league concluded
between the said pope, Maximilian, king of the Romans, Henry, king
of England, Ferdinando and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, for so
they are constantly placed in the original treaty throughout, Augustino
Barbadico, duke of Venice, and Ludovico Sfortia, duke of Milan, for
the common defence of their estates ; wherein, though Ferdinando of
Naples was not named as principal, yet no doubt the kingdom of
Naples was tacitly included as a fee of the Church.
There died also this year Cecile, duchess of York, mother to King
Edward the Fourth, at her castle of Barkhamsted, being of extreme
458 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
years, and who had lived to see three princes of her body crowned,
and four murdered. She was buried at Foderingham, by her
husband.1
This year also, the king called his parliament, where many laws
were made of a more private and vulgar nature than ought to detain
the reader of a history. And it may be justly suspected by the pro
ceedings following, that as the king did excel in good commonwealth
laws, so nevertheless he had, in secret, a design to make use of them,
as well for collecting of treasure as for correcting of manners ; and so
meaning thereby to harrow his people, did accumulate them the
rather.
The principal law that was made this parliament, was a law of a
strange nature, rather just than legal, and more magnanimous than
provident. This law did ordain : That no person that did assist in
arms, or otherwise, the king for the time being, should after be im
peached therefor, or attainted, either by the course of the law or by act
of parliament. But if any such act of attainder did happen to be
made, it should be void and of none effect ; for that it was agreeable
to reason of estate that the subject should not inquire of the justness
of the king's title, or quarrel ; and it was agreeable to good conscience
that, whatsoever the fortune of the war were, the subject should not
suffer for his obedience. The spirit of this law was wonderful pious
and noble, being like, in matter of war, unto the spirit of David in
matter of plague, who said, " If I have sinned, strike me ; but what
have these sheep done?" Neither wanted this law parts of prudent
and deep foresight ; for it did the better take away occasion for the
people to busy themselves to pry into the king's title ; for that how
soever it fell, their safety was already provided for. Besides, it could
not but greatly draw unto him the love and hearts of the people,
because he seemed more careful for them than for himself. But yet
nevertheless it did take off from his party that great tie and spur of
necessity, to fight and go victors out of the field, considering their
lives and fortunes were put in safety and protected, whether they stood
to it or ran away. But the force and obligation of this law was in
itself illusory, as to the latter part of it, by a precedent act of parlia
ment to bind or frustrate a future. For a supreme and absolute
power cannot conclude itself, neither can that which is in nature
revocable be made fixed, no more than if a man should appoint or
declare by his will, that if he made any latter will it should be void.
And for the case of the act of parliament, there is a notable precedent
of it in King Henry the Eighth's time, who, doubting he might die in
the minority of his son, procured an act to pass, that no statute made
during the minority of a king should bind him or his successors,
except it were confirmed by the king under his great seal at his full
age. But the first act that passed in King Edward the Sixth's time
was an act of repeal of that former act, at which time, nevertheless,
the king was minor. But things that do not bind may satisfy for the
time.
There was also made a shoaring or under-propping act for the bene
volence — to make the sums which any person had agreed to pay, and
1 SI e had made a second marriage after Richard of York's death
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 459
nevertheless were not brought in, to be leviable by course of law ;
which act did not only bring in the arrears, but did indeed countenance
the whole business, and was pretended to be made at the desire of those
that had been forward to pay.
This parliament also was made that good law which gave the attaint
upon a false verdict between party and party, which before was a kind
of evangile, and irremediable. It extends not to causes capital, as well
because they are for the most part at the king's suit, as because in
them, if they be followed in course of indictment, there passeth a
double jury, the indicters and the triers, and so not twelve men, but
four-and-twenty. But it seemeth that was not the only reason ; for
this reason holdeth not in the appeal. But the great reason was, lest
it should tend to the discouragement of jurors in cases of life and death,
if they should be subject to suit and penalty where the favour of life
maketh against them. It extendeth not also to any suit where the de
mand is under the value of forty pounds, for that in such cases of petty
value it would not quit the charge to go about again.
There was another law made against a branch of ingratitude in
women, who having been advanced by theirhusbands or their husbands'
ancestors, should alien, and thereby seek to defeat the heirs, or those
in remainder, of the lands whereunto they had been so advanced. The
remedy was, by giving power to the next to enter for a forfeiture.
There was also enacted that charitable law for the admission of poot
suitors in forma pauperis, without fee to counsellor, attorney, or clerk,
whereby poor men became rather able to vex than unable to sue.
There were divers other good laws made that parliament, as we said
before ; but we still observe our manner, in selecting out those that
are not of a vulgar nature.
The king this while, though he sat in parliament as in full peace, and
seemed to account of the designs of Perkin,jwho was now returned into
Flanders, but as a May-game ; yet having the composition of a wise
king, stout without and apprehensive within, had given order for the
watching of beacons upon the coasts, and erecting more where they
stood too thin, and had a careful eye where this wandering cloud would
break. But Perkin, advised to keep his fire, which hitherto burned as
it were upon green wood, alive with continual blowing, sailed again
into Ireland, whence he had formerly departed, rather upon the
hopes of France than upon any unreadiness or discouragement he
found in that people. But in the space of time between, the king's
diligence and Poyning's commission had so settled things there, as
there was nothing left for Perkin but the blustering affection of wild
and naked people. Wherefore he was advised by his council, to seek
aid of the king of Scotland, a prince young and valorous, and in good
terms with his nobles and people, and ill affected to King Henry. At
this time also both Maximilian and Charles of France began to bear no
good will to the king ; the one being displeased with the king's prohi
bition of commerce with Flanders, the other holding the king for
suspect, in regard of his late entry into league with the Italians.
Wherefore, besides the open aids of the duchess of Burgundy, which
did with sails and oars put on and advance Perkin's designs, there
wanted not some secret tides from Maximilian and Charles, which
460 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
did farther his fortunes ; insomuch as they, both by their secret
letters and messages, recommended him to the king of Scotland.
Perkin therefore coming into Scotland upon those hopes, with a
well-appointed company, was by the king of Scots, being formerly well
prepared, honourably welcomed, and soon after his arrival admitted
to his presence, in a solemn manner : for the king received him in
state in his chamber of presence, accompanied with divers of his
nobles. And Perkin well attended, as well with those that the king
had sent before him, as with his own train, entered the room where
the king was, and coming near to the king, and bowing a little to
embrace him, he retired some paces back, and with a loud voice, that
all that were present might hear him, made his declaration in this
manner : —
" High and mighty king, your grace, and these your nobles here
present, may be pleased benignly to bow your ears, to hear the
tragedy of a young man, that by right ought to hold in his hand the ball
of a kingdom ; but by fortune is made himself a ball, tossed from misery
to misery, and from place to place. You see here before you the spectacle
of a Plantagenet, who hath been carried from the nursery to the
sanctuary ; from the sanctuary to the direful prison ; from the prison
to the hand of the cruel tormentor ; and from that hand to the wide
wilderness, as I may truly call it, for so the world hath been to me.
So that he that is born to a great kingdom, hath not ground to set
his foot upon, more than this where he now standeth by your princely
favour. Edward the Fourth, late king of England, as your grace
cannot but have heard, left two sons, Edward and Richard, duke of
York, both very young. Edward, the eldest, succeeded their father in
the crown, by the name of King Edward the Fifth: but Richard, duke
of Gloucester, their unnatural uncle, first thirsting after the kingdom,
through ambition, and afterwards thirsting for their blood, out of
desire to secure himself, employed an instrument of his, confident to
him, as he thought, to murder them both. But this man that was
employed to execute that execrable tragedy, having cruelly slain King
Edward, the eldest of the two, was moved, partly by remorse,
and partly by some other means, to save Richard his brother; making
a report nevertheless to the tyrant, that he had performed his com
mandment to both brethren. This report was accordingly believed,
and published generally : so that the world hath been possessed of an
opinion, that they both were barbarously made away ; though ever
truth hath some sparks that fly abroad, until it appear in due time,
as this hath had. But Almighty God, that stopped the mouth of the
lion, and saved little Joash from the tyranny of Athaliah, when she
massacred the king's children, and did save Isaac, when the hand was
stretched forth to sacrifice him, preserved the second brother. For I
myself, that stand here in your presence, am that very Richard, duke
of York, brother of that unfortunate prince, King Edward the Fifth,
now the most rightful surviving heir male to that victorious and most
noble Edward, of that name the fourth, late king of England. For
the manner of my escape, it is fit it should pass in silence, or, at least,
in a more secret relation ; for that it may concern some alive, and the
memory of some that are dead. Let it suffice to think, that I had
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 461
then a mother living, a queen, and one that expected daily such a
commandment from the tyrant, for the murdering of her children.
Thus in my tender age escaping by God's mercy out of London, I was
secretly conveyed over sea ; where after a time the party that had me
in charge, upon what new fears, change of mind, or practice, God
knoweth, suddenly forsook me. Whereby I was forced to wander
abroad, and to seek mean conditions for the sustaining of my life.
Wherefore distracted between several passions, the one of fear to be
known, lest the tyrant should have a new attempt upon me, the other
of grief and disdain to be unknown, and to live in that base and
servile manner that I did ; I resolved with myself to expect the
tyrant's death, and then to put myself into my sister's hands, who was
next heir to the crown. But in this season it happened one Henry
Tudor, son to Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, to come from
France and enter into the realm, and by subtile and foul means to
obtain the crown of the same, which to me rightfully appertained ;
so that it was but a change from tyrant to tyrant. This Henry, my
extreme and mortal enemy, so soon as he had knowledge of my being
alive, imagined and wrought all the subtile ways and means he could,
to procure my final destruction ; for my mortal enemy hath not only
falsely surmised me to be a feigned person, giving me nick-names, so
abusing the world, but also, to defer and put me from entry into
England, hath offered large sums of money to corrupt the princes and
their ministers, with whom I have been retained ; and made importune
labours to certain servants about my person, to murder or poison me,
and others to forsake and leave my righteous quarrel, and to depart
from my service, as Sir Robert Clifford, and others. So that every
man of reason may well perceive that Henry, calling himself king of
England, needed not to have bestowed such great sums of treasure,
nor so to have busied himself with importune and incessant labour
and industry, to compass my death and ruin, if I had been such a
feigned person. But the truth of my cause being so manifest, moved
the most Christian King Charles, and the lady duchess dowager of
Burgundy, my most dear aunt, not only to acknowledge the truth
thereof, but lovingly to assist me. But it seemeth that God above, for
the good of this whole island, and the knitting of these two kingdoms
of England and Scotland in a strait concord and amity, by so great an
obligation, hath reserved the placing of me in the imperial throne of
England for the arms and succours of your grace. Neither is it the
first time that a king of Scotland hath supported them that were bereft
and spoiled of the kingdom of England, as of late, in fresh memory, it
was done in the person of Henry the Sixth. Wherefore, for that your
grace hath given clear signs, that you are in no noble quality inferior
to your royal ancestors ; I, so distressed a prince, was hereby moved
to come and put myself into your royal hands, desiring your assistance
to recover my kingdom of England ; promising faithfully to bear
myself towards your grace no otherwise than if I were your own
natural brother ; and will, upon the recovery of mine inheritance,
gratefully do you all the pleasure that is in my utmost power."
After Perkin had told his tale, King James answered bravely and
wisely : " That whosoever he were, he should not repent him of
4^3 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
putting himself into his hands." And from that time forth, though
there wanted not same about him that would have persuaded him that
all was but an illusion ; yet notwithstanding, either taken by Perkin's
amiable and alluring behaviour, or inclining to the recommendation
of the great princes abroad, or willing to take an occasion of a war
against King Henry, he entertained him in all things, as became the
person of Richard, duke of York ; embraced his quarrel ; and, the
more to put it out of doubt, that he took him to be a great prince, and
not a representation only, he gave consent that this duke should take
to wife the Lady Catharine Gordon, daughter to the earl of Huntley,
being a near kinswoman to the king himself, and a young virgin of
excellent beauty and virtue.
Not long after, the king of Scots in person, with Perkin in his
company, entered with a great army, though it consisted chiefly of
borderers, being raised somewhat suddenly, into Northumberland.
And Perkin, for a perfume before him as he went, caused to be
published a proclamation l of this tenor following, in the name of
Richard, duke of York, true inheritor of the crown of England : —
" It hath pleased God, who putteth down the mighty from their seat,
and exalteth the humble, and suffereth not the hopes of the just to
perish in the end, to give us means at the length to show ourselves
armed unto our lieges and people of England. But far be it from us
to intend their hurt or damage, or to make war upon them, otherwise
than to deliver ourselves and them from tyranny and oppression. For
our mortal enemy Henry Tudor, a false usurper of the crown of
England, which to us by natural and lineal right appertaineth, know
ing in his own heart our undoubted right, we being the very Richard,
duke of York, younger son, and now surviving heir male of the noble
and victorious Edward the Fourth, late king of England, hath not
only deprived us of our kingdom, but likewise by all foul and wicked
means sought to betray us, and bereave us of our life. Yet if his
tyranny only extended itself to our person, although our royal blood
teacheth us to be sensible of injuries, it should be less to our grief.
But this Tudor, who boasteth himself to have overthrown a tyrant,
hath ever since his first entrance into his usurped reign, put little in
practice, but tyranny and the feats thereof.
" For King Richard, our unnatural uncle, although desire of rule did
blind him, yet in his other actions, like a true Plantagenet, was noble,
and loved the honour of the realm, and the contentment and comfort
of his nobles and people. But this our mortal enemy, agreeable to the
meanness of his birth, hath trodden under-foot the honour of this
nation ; selling our best confederates for money, and making merchan
dize of the blood, estates, and fortunes of our peers and subjects, by
feigned wars, and dishonourable peace, only to enrich his coffers.
Nor unlike hath been his hateful misgovernment and evil deportments
at home. First, he hath, to fortify his false quarrel, caused divers
nobles of this our realm, whom he held suspect and stood in dread of,
to be cruelly murdered j as our cousin Sir William Stanley, lord
1 The original of this proclamation remaineth with Sir Robert Cotton, a worthy preserver
and treasurer of rare antiquities, from whose manuscripts I have had much light for the
furnishing of this work. (Bacon.)
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 463
chamberlain, Sir Simon Mountfort, Sir Robert Ratcliffe, William
D'Aubigney, Humphrey Stafford, and many others, besides such as
have dearly bought their lives with intolerable ransoms : some of which
nobles are now in the sanctuary. Also he hath long kept, and yel
keepeth in prison, our right entirely well-beloved cousin, Edward, son
and heir to our uncle, duke of Clarence, and others : withholding from
them their rightful inheritance, to the intent they should never be of
might and power to aid and assist us at our need, after the duty of
their legiances. He also married by compulsion certain of our sisters,
and also the sister of our said cousin the earl of Warwick, and divers
other ladies of the royal blood, unto certain of his kinsmen and friends
of simple and low degree ; and putting apart all well disposed nobles,
he had none in favour and trust about his person, but Bishop Fox, Smith,
Bray, Lovel, Oliver King, David Owen, Risely, Tubervile, Tiler,
Chomley, Empson, James Obart, John Cut, Garth, Henry Wyat, and
such other caitiffs and villains J of birth, which by subtile inventions,
and pilling of the people, have been the principal finders, occa-
sioners, and counsellors of the misrule and mischief now reigning in
England.
" We, remembering these premises, with the great and execrable
offences daily committed and done by our foresaid great enemy and
his adherents, in breaking the liberties and franchises of our mother
the holy church, upon pretences of wicked and heathenish policy, to
the high displeasure of Almighty God, besides the manifold treasons,
abominable murders, manslaughters, robberies, extortions, and daily
pilling of the people by dismes, taxes, tallages, benevolences, and
other unlawful impositions, and grievous exactions, with many other
heinous effects, to the likely destruction and desolation of the whole
realm : shall by God's grace, and the help and assistance of the great
lords of our blood, with the counsel of other sad persons, see that the
commodities of our realm be employed to the most advantage of the
same ; the intercourse of merchandize betwixt realm and realm to be
ministered and handled as shall more be to the common weal and
prosperity of our subjects ; and all such dismes, taxes, tallages,
benevolences, unlawful impositions, and grievous exactions, as be
above rehearsed, to be foredone and laid apart, and never from
henceforth to be called upon, but in such cases as our noble
progenitors, kings of England, have of old time been accustomed to
have the aid, succour, and help of their subjects, and true
liege-men.
" And farther, we do, out of our grace and clemency, hereby as well
publish and promise to all our subjects remission and free pardon of
all by-past offences whatsoever, against our person or estate, in adhering
to our said enemy, by whom we know well they have been misled, if they
shall within time convenient submit themselves unto us. And for such
as shall come with the foremost to assist our righteous quarrel, we shall
make them so far partakers of our princely favour and bounty, as shall
be highly for the comfort of them and theirs, both during their life and
after their death • as also we shall, by all means which God shall put
* Oflow birth— villein* or serfs.
464 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
into our hands, demean ourselves to give royal contentment to all
degrees and estates of our people, maintaining the liberties ofholy church
in their entire, preserving the honours, privileges, and pre-eminences
of our nobles, from contempt and disparagement according to the
dignity of their blood. We shall also unyoke our people from all
heavy burdens and endurances, and confirm our cities, boroughs, and
towns, in their charters and freedoms, with enlargement where it shall
be deserved ; and in all points give our subjects cause to think, that
the blessed and debonair government of our noble father King Edward,
in his last times, is in us revived.
" And forasmuch as the putting to death, or taking alive of our said
mortal enemy, may be a mean to stay much effusion of blood, which
otherwise may ensue, if by compulsion or fair promises he shall draw
after him any number of our subjects to resist us, which we desire to
avoid, though we be certainly informed, that our said enemy is pur
posed and prepared to fly the land, having already made over ^reat
masses of the treasure of our crown, the better to support him in
foreign parts, we do hereby declare, that whosoever shall take or
distress our said enemy, though the party be of never so mean a con-
ditition, he shall be by us rewarded with a thousand pound in money,
forthwith to be laid down to him, and a hundred marks by the year of
inheritance ; besides that he may otherwise merit, both toward God
and all good people, for the destruction of such a tyrant.
" Lastly, we do all men to wit, and herein we take also God to wit
ness, that whereas God hath moved the heart of our dearest cousin,
the king of Scotland, to aid us in person in this our righteous quarrel ;
it is altogether without any pact or promise, or so much as demand of
any thing that may prejudice our crown or subjects : but contrariwise,
with promise on our said cousin's part, that whensoever he shall find
us in sufficient strength to get the upper hand of our enemy, which we
KODC will be very suddenly, he will forthwith peaceably return into his
own kingdom ; contenting himself only with the glory of so honourable
an enterprise, and our true and faithful love and amity : which we shall
ever by the grace of Almighty God, so order, as shall be to the great
comfort of both kingdoms."
But Parkin's proclamation did little edify with the people of Eng
land ; neither was he the better welcome for the company he came in.
Wherefore the king of Scotland seeing none came in to Perkin, nor
none stirred anywhere in his favour, turned his enterprise into a road j1
and wasted and destroyed the county of Northumberland with fire
and sword. But hearing that there were forces coming against him,
and not willing that they should find his men heavy and laden with
booty, he returned into Scotland with great spoils, deferring farther
prosecution till another time. It is said, that Perkin, acting the part
of a prince handsomely, when he saw the Scottish fell to waste the
country, came to the king in a passionate manner, making great
lamentation, and desired, that that might not be the manner of making
the war ; for that no crown was so dear to his mind, as that he desired
to purchase it with the blood and ruin of his country. Whereunto the
» A raid
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 4^5
k'mg answered half in sport, that he doubted much he was careful for
that that was none of his, and that he should be too good a steward
for his enemy, to save the country to his use.
By this time, being the eleventh year of the king, the interruption of
trade between the English and the Flemish began to pinch the mer
chants of both nations very sore : which moved them, by all means
they could devise, to affect and dispose their sovereigns respectively,
to open the intercourse again ; wherein time favoured them. For the
archduke and his council began to see that Perkin would prove but a
runagate and citizen of the world ; and that it was the part of children
to fall out about babies. And the king on his part, after the attempts
upon Kent and Northumberland, began to have the business of Perkin
in less estimation ; so as he did not put it to account in any consulta
tion of state. But that that moved him most was, that being a king
that loved wealth and treasure, he could not endure to have trade sick,
nor any obstruction to continue in the gate vein, which disperseth that
blood. And yet he kept state so far, as first to be sought unto.
Wherein the merchant adventurers likewise, being a strong company
at that time, and well under-set with rich men, and good order, did
hold out bravely ; taking off the commodities of the kingdom, though
they lay dead upon their hands for want of vent. At the last, com
missioners met at London to treat : on the king's part. Bishop Fox,
lord privy seal, Viscount Wells, Kendal, prior of Saint John's, War-
ham, master of the rolls, who began to gain much upon the king's
opinion ; Urswick, who was almost ever one ; and Risely : on the
archduke's part, the Lord Bevers, his admiral, the Lord Verunsel, presi
dent of Flanders, and others. These concluded a perfect treaty, both
of amity and intercourse, between the king and the archduke ; con
taining articles both of state, commerce, and free fishing. This is that
treaty which the Flemings call at this day intercursus magnus ; both
because it is more complete than the precedent treaties of the third
and fourth year of the king ; and chiefly to give it a difference from
the treaty that followed in the one-and-twentieth year of the king,
which they call intercursus malus. In this treaty, there was an ex
press article against the reception of the rebels of either prince by
other ; purporting, That if any such rebel should be required, by the
prince whose rebel he was, of the prince confederate, that forthwith
the prince confederate should by proclamation command him to avoid
the country : which if he did not within fifteen days, the rebel was
to stand proscribed, and put out of protection. But nevertheless
in this article Perkin was not named, neither perhaps contained,
because he was no rebel. But by this means his wings were dipt ot
his followers that were English. And it was expressly comprised
in the treaty, that it should extend to the territories of the duchess
dowager. After the intercourse thus restored, the English merchants
came again to their mansion at Antwerp, where they were received
with procession and great joy.
The winter following, being the twelfth year of his reign, the king
railed again his parliament ; where he did much exaggerate both the
malice, and the cruel predatory war lately made by the king of Scot
land : that that king, being in amity with him, and no ways provoked,
H U
*66 HENRV THE SEVENTH.
should so burn in hatred towards him, as to drink of the lees and
dregs of Perkin's intoxication, who was everywhere else detected and
discarded : and that when he perceived it was out of his reach to
do the king any hurt, he had turned his arms upon unarmed and
unprovided people, to spoil only and depopulate, contrary to the laws
both of war and peace, concluding, that he could neither with honour,
nor with the safety of his people, to whom he did owe protection, let
pass these wrongs unrevenged. The parliament understood him well,
and gave him a subsidy, limited to the sum of one hundred and
twenty thousand pounds, besides two fifteens : for his wars were
always to him as a mine of treasure of a strange kind of ore ; iron at
the top, and gold and silver at the bottom. At this parliament, for
that there had been so much time spent in making laws the year
before, and for that it was called purposely in respect of the Scottish
war, there were no laws made to be remembered. Only there passed
a law, at the suit of the merchant adventurers of England, against the
merchant adventurers of London, for monopolizing and exacting upon
the trade : which it seemeth they did a little to save themselves, after
the hard time they had sustained by want of trade. But those innova
tions were taken away by parliament.
But it was fatal to the king to fight for his money ; and though
he avoided to fight with enemies abroad, yet he was still enforced to fight
for it with rebels at home : for no sooner began the subsidy to be
levied in Cornwall, but the people there began to grudge and murmur.
The Cornish being a race of men stout of stomach, mighty of body
and limb, and that lived hardly in a barren country, and many of them
could, for a need, live under ground, that were tinners. They
muttered extremely, that it was a thing not to be suffered, that for a
little stir of the Scots, soon blown over, they should be thus grinded to
powder with payments : and said, it was for them to pay that had too
much, and lived idly. But they would eat their bread that they got
with the sweat of their brows, and no man should take it from them.
And as in the tides of people once up, there want not commonly
stirring winds to make them more rough ; so this people did light upon
two ringleaders or captains of the rout. The one was Michael Joseph,
a blacksmith or farrier of Bodmin, a notable talking fellow, and no
\ess desirous to be talked of; the other was Thomas Flammock, a
»awyer, who, by telling his neighbours commonly upon any occasion
that the law was on their side, had gotten great sway amongst them.
This man talked learnedly, and as if he could tell how to make a
rebellion, and never break the peace. He told the people, that sub
sidies were not to be granted, nor levied in this case ; that is, for wars
of Scotland : for that the law had provised another course, by service
of escuage, for those journeys ; much less when all was quiet, and war
was made but a pretence to poll and pill the people. And therefore that
it was good they should not stand like sheep before the shearers, but
put on harness, and take weapons in their hands. Yet to do no creature
hurt, but go and deliver the king a strong petition, for the laying down
of those grievous payments, and for the punishment of those that had
given him that counsel ; to make others beware how they did the like
in time to come. And said, for his part, he did not see how they
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 467
Could do the duty of true Englishmen, and good liege-men, except they
did deliver the king from such wicked ones, that would destroy both
him and the country. Their aim was at archbishop Morton and Sir
Reginald Bray, who were the king's screens in this envy.
After that these two, Flammock and the blacksmith, had by joint
and several pratings found tokens of consent in the multitude, they
offered themselves to lead them, until they should hear of better men
t ) be their leaders, which they said would be ere long : telling them
f rther, that they would be but their servants, and first in every danger;
but doubted not but to make both the west-end and the east-end
of England to meet in so good a quarrel ; and that all, rightly under
stood, was but for the king's service. The people, upon these seditious
instigations, did arm, most of them with bows, and arrows, and bills,
and such other weapons of rude and country people, and forthwith
under the command of their leaders, which in such cases is ever
at pleasure, marched out of Cornwall through Devonshire unto Taunton
in Somersetshire, without any slaughter, violence, or spoil of the
country. At Taunton they killed in fury an officious and eager com
missioner for the subsidy, whom they called the provost of Perin.
Thence they marched to Wells, where the Lord Audley, with whom
their leaders had before some secret intelligence, a nobleman of
an ancient family, but unquiet and popular, and aspiring to ruin, came
in to them, and was by them, with great gladness and cries of joy,
accepted as their general ; they being now proud that they were led by
a nobleman. The Lord Audley led them on from Wells to Salisbury,
and from Salisbury to Winchester. Thence the foolish people, who, in
effect, led their leaders, had a mind to be led into Kent, fancying that
the people there would join with them ; contrary to all reason or
judgment, considering the Kentish men had showed great loyalty and
affection to the king so lately before. But the rude people had heard
Flammock say, that Kent was never conquered, and that they were the
freest people of England. And upon these vain noises, they looked for
great matters at their hands, in a cause which they conceited to be for
the liberty of the subject. But when they were come into Kent, the
country was so well settled, both by the king's late kind usage towards
them, and by the credit and power of the earl of Kent, the Lord Aber-
gavenny, and the Lord Cobham, as neither gentleman nor yeoman
came in to their aid ; which did much damp and dismay many of the
simpler sort ; insomuch as divers of them did secretly fly from the
army, and went home : but the sturdier sort, and those that were most
engaged, stood by it, and rather waxed proud than failed in hopes and
courage. For as it did somewhat appal them, that the people came
not in to them ; so it did no less encourage them, that the king's forces
had not set upon them, having marched from the west unto the east of
England. Wherefore they kept on their way, and encamped upon
Blackheath, between Greenwich and Eltham ; threatening either
to bid battle to the king, for now the seas went higher than to Morton
and Bray, or to take London within his view ; imagining with them
selves, there to find no less fear than wealth.
But to return to the king. When first he heard of this commotion
of the Cornish men, occasioned by the subsidy, he was much troubled
H H 2
468 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
therewith ; not for itself, but in regard of the concurrence of other
dangers that did hang over him at that time. For he doubted, lest a
war from Scotland, a rebellion from Cornwall, and the practices and
conspiracies of Perkin and his partakers, would come upon him at
once, knowing well that it was a dangerous triplicity to a monarchy, to
have the arms of a foreigner, the discontents of subjects, and the title
of a pretender to meet. Nevertheless the occasion took him in some
part well provided. For as soon as the parliament had broken up, the
king had presently raised a puissant army to war upon Scotland. And
King James of Scotland likewise, on his part, had made great prepara
tions, either for defence, or for new assailing of England. But as for
the king's forces, they were not only in preparation, but in readiness
presently to set forth, under the conduct of D'Aubigny, the lord
chamberlain. But as soon as the king understood of the rebellion of
Cornwall, he stayed those forces, retaining them for his own service
and safety. But therewithal he despatched the earl of Surrey into the
north, for the defence and strength of those parts, in case the Scots
should stir. But for the course he held towards the rebels, it was
utterly differing from his former custom and practice : which was ever
full of forwardness and celerity to make head against them, or to set
upon them as soon as ever they were in action. This he was wont to
do. But now, besides, that he was attempered by years, and less in
love with dangers, by the continued fruition of a crown, it was a time
when the various appearance to his thoughts of perils of several
natures, and from divers parts, did make him judge it his best and
surest way, to keep his strength together in the seat and centre of his
kingdom : according to the ancient Indian emblem, in such a swelling
season, to hold the hand upon the middle of the bladder, that no side
might rise. Besides, there was no necessity put upon him to alter his
counsel. For neither did the rebels spoil the country, in which case it
had been dishonour to abandon his people : neither on the other side
did their forces gather or increase, which might hasten him to precipi
tate and assail them before they grew too strong. And lastly, both
reason of estate and war seemed to agree with this course : for that
insurrections of base people are commonly more furious in their
beginnings. And by this means also he had them the more at vantage,
being tired and harassed with a long inarch ; and more at mercy,
being cut off far from their country, and therefore not able by any
sudden flight to get to retreat, and to renew the troubles.
When, therefore, the rebels were encamped on Blackheath upon the
hill, whence they might behold the city of London, and the fair valley
about it, the king knowing well, that it stood him upon, by how much,
the more he had hitherto protracted the time in not encountering
them, by so much the sooner to despatch with them, that it might
appear to have been no coldness in fore-slowing, but wisdom in choos
ing his time, resolved with all speed to assail them, and yet with that
providence and surety, as should leave little to venture or fortune.
And having very great and puissant forces about him, the better to
master all events and accidents, he divided them into three parts —
the first was led by the earl of Oxford in chief, assisted by the earls
of Essex and Suffolk. These noblemen were appointed, with some
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 469
cornets of horse, and bands of foot, and good store of artillery, wheel
ing about to put themselves beyond the hill where the rebels were en
camped ; and to beset all the skirts and descents thereof, except those
that lay towards London ; thereby to have these wild beasts, as it
were, in a toil. The second part of his forces, which were those that
were to be most in action, and upon which he relied most for the for
tune of the day, he did assign to be led by the lord chamberlain, who
was appointed to set upon the rebels in front, from that side which is
towards London. The third part of his forces, being likewise great
and brave forces, he retained about himself, to be ready upon all
events to restore the fight, or consummate the victory ; and mean
while to secure the city. And for that purpose he encamped in person
in Saint George's Fields, putting himself between the city and the
rebels. But the city of London, especially at the first, upon the near
encampment of the rebels, was in great tumult : as it useth to be with
wealthy and populous cities, especially those which for greatness and
fortune are queens of their regions, who seldom see out of their win
dows, or from their towers, an army of enemies. But that which
troubled them most, was the conceit, that they dealt with a rout of
people, with whom there was no composition, or condition, or orderly
treating, if need were ; but likely to be bent altogether upon rapine
and spoil. And although they had heard that the rebels had behaved
themselves quietly and modestly by the way as they went, yet they
doubted much that would not last, but rather make them more
hungry, and more in appetite to fall upon spoil in the end. Where
fore there was great running to and fro of people, some to the gates,
some to the walls, some to the water-side : giving themselves alarms
and panic fears continually. Nevertheless, both Tate the Lord
Mayor, and Shaw and Haddon the sheriffs, did their part stoutly and
well, in arming and ordering the people. And the king likewise did
adjoin some captains of experience in the wars, to advise and assist
the citizens. But soon after, when they understood that the king had
so ordered the matter, that the rebels must win three battles before
they could approach the city, and that he had put his own person
between the rebels and them, and that the great care was, rather how
to impound the rebels that none of them might escape, than that any
doubt was made to vanquish them, they grew to be quiet and out of
fear ; the rather for the confidence they reposed, which was not small,
in the three leaders, Oxford, Essex, and D'Aubigny ; all men well
famed and loved amongst the people. As for Jasper, duke of Bedford,
whom the king used to employ with the first in his wars, he was then
sick, and died soon after.
It was the two-and-twentieth of June, and a Saturday, which was
Ihe day of the week the king fancied, when the battle was fought ;
though the king had, by all the art he could devise, given out a false
day, as if he prepared to give the rebels battle on the Monday
following, the better to find them unprovided, and in disarray. The
lords that were appointed to circle the hill, had some days before
planted themselves, as at the receit, in places convenient. In the
afternoon, towards the decline of the day, which was done, the better
to keep the rebels in opinion that they should not fight that day, the
47« HENRY THE SEVENTH.
Lord D'Aubigny marched on towards them, and first beat some troops
of them from Deptford Bridge, where they fought manfully ; but, being
in no great number, were soon driven back, and fled up to their main
army upon the hill. The army, at that time, hearing of the approach
t)f the king's forces, were putting themselves in array, not without
much confusion. But neither had they placed, upon the first high
ground towards the bridge, any forces to second the troops below,
that kept the bridge ; neither had they brought forwards their main
battle, which stood in array far into the heath, near to the ascent of
the hill. So that the earl with his forces mounted the hill, and
recovered the plain without resistance. The Lord D'Aubigny charged
them with great fury ; insomuch as it had like, by accident, to have
branded the fortune of the day : for, by inconsiderate forwardness in
fighting at the head of his troops, he was taken by the rebels, but
immediately rescued and delivered. The rebels maintained the fight
for a small time, and for their persons shewed no want of courage ;
but being ill armed, and ill led, and without horse or artillery, they
were with no great difficulty cut in pieces, and put to flight. And for
their three leaders, the Lord Audley, the blacksmith, and Flammock,
as commonly the captains of commotions are but half-couraged men,
suffered themselves to be taken alive. The number slain on the
rebels' part were some two thousand men ; their army amounting, as
it is said, unto the number of sixteen thousand. The rest were, in
effect, all taken ; for that the hill, as was said, was encompassed with
the king's forces round about. On the king's part there died about
three hundred, most of them shot with arrows, which were reported
to be of the length of a tailor's yard : so strong and mighty a bow the
Cornishmen were said to draw.
The victory thus obtained, the king created divers bannerets, as well
upon Blackheath, where his lieutenant had won the field, whither he
rode in person to perform the said creation, as in St. George's Fields,
where his own person had been encamped. And for matter of
liberality, he did, by open edict, give the goods of all the prisoners
unto those that had taken them ; either to take them in kind, or com
pound for them, as they could. After matter of honour and liberality,
followed matter of severity and execution. The Lord Audley was led
from Newgate to Tower Hill, in a paper coat painted with his own
arms ; the arms reversed, the coat torn, and he at Tower Hill beheaded.
Flammock and the blacksmith were hanged, drawn, and quartered at
Tyburn : the blacksmith taking pleasure upon the hurdle, as it seemeth
by words that he uttered, to think that he should be famous in after
times. The king was once in mind to have sent down Flammock and
the blacksmith to have been executed in Cornwall, for the more terror:
but being advertised that the country was yet unquiet and boiling, he
thought better not to irritate the people farther. All the rest were
pardoned by proclamation, and to take out their pardons under seal,
as many as would. So that, more than the blood drawn in the field,
the king did satisfy himself with the lives of only three offenders, for
the expiation of this great rebellion.
It was a strange thing to observe the variety and inequality of the
king's executions and pardons : and a man would think it, at the first*
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 47 1
a kind of lottery or chance. But, looking into it more nearly, one
shall find there was reason for it, much more, perhaps, than after so
long a distance of time, we can now discern. In the Kentish commo
tion, which was but a handful of men, there were executed to the
number of one hundred and fifty ; and in this so mi ghty a rebellion
but three. Whether it were that the king put to account the men that
were slain in the field, or that he was not willing to be severe in a
popular cause, or that the harmless behaviour of this people, that came
from the west of England to the east, without mischief almost, or spoil
of the country, did somewhat mollify him, and move him to compas
sion ; or lastly, that he made a great difference between people that
did rebel upon wantonness, and them that did rebel upon want.
After the Cornishmen were defeated, there came from Calais to the
king an honourable ambassage from the French king, which had
arrived at Calais a month before, and there was stayed in respect of
the troubles,but honourably entertained and defrayed. The king, at their
first coming, sent unto them, and prayed them to have patience, till a
little smoke, that was raised in his country, were over, which would
soon be ; slighting, as his manner was, that openly, which nevertheless
he intended seriously.
This ambassage concerned no great affair, but only the prolongation
of days for payment of moneys, and some other particulars of the
frontiers. And it was, indeed, but a wooing ambassage, with good
respects to entertain the king in good affection ; but nothing was done
or handled to the derogation of the king's late treaty with the Italians.
But during the time that the Cornishmen were in their march
towards London, the king of Scotland, well advertised of all that
passed, and knowing himself sure of a war from Englaud, whensoever
those stirs were appeased, neglected not his opportunity ; but thinking
the king had his hands full, entered the frontiers of England again
with an army, and besieged the castle of Norham in person, with part
of his forces, sending the rest to forage the country. But Fox, bishop
of Duresme, a wise man, and one that could see through the present
to the future, doubting as much before, had caused his castle of Nor
ham to be strongly fortified, and furnished with all kind of munition ;
and had manned it likewise with a very great number of tall soldiers,
more than for the proportion of the castle, reckoning rather upon a
sharp assault than a long siege. And for the country, likewise, he had
caused the people to withdraw their cattle and good's into fast places,
that were not of easy approach ; and sent in post to the earl of Surrey,
who was not far off, in Yorkshire, to come in diligence to the succour.
So as the Scottish king both failed of doing good upon the castle, and
his men had but a catching harvest of their spoils : and when he un
derstood that the earl of Surrey was coining on with great forces, he
returned back into Scotlond. The earl, finding the castle freed, and
the enemy retired, pursued with all celerity into Scotland, hoping to
have overtaken the Scottish king, and to have given him battle ; but,
not attaining him in time, sat down before the castle of Aton, one of
the strongest places, then esteemed, between Berwick and Edinburgh,
which in a small time he took. And soon after, the Scottish king
\etired farther into his country, and the weather being extraordinary
47 i HENRY THE SEVENTH
foul and stormy, the earl returned into England, So that the expedi
tions on both parts were, in effect, but a castle taken, and a castle
distressed ; not answerable to the puissance of the forces, nor to the
heat of the quarrel, nor to the greatness of the expectation.
Amongst these troubles, both civil and external, came into England
from Spain, Peter Hialas, some call him Elias, surely he was the
forerunner of the good hap that we enjoy at this day : for his ambas-
sage set the truce between England and Scotland ; the truce drew on
the peace ; the peace the marriage ; and the marriage the union of
the kingdoms ; a man of great wisdom, and, as those times were, not
unlearned ; sent from Ferdinando and Isabella, sovereigns of Spain,
unto the king, to treat a marriage between Catherine, their second
daughter, and Prince Arthur. This treaty was by him set in a very
good way, and almost brought to perfection. But it so fell out by the
way, that upon some conference which he had with the king touching
this business, the king, who had a great dexterity in getting suddenly
into the bosom of the ambassadors of foreign princes, if he liked the
men, insomuch as he would many times communicate with them of his
own affairs, yea, and employ them in his service, fell into speech and
discourse incidently, concerning the ending of the debates and differ
ences with Scotland. For the king naturally did not love the barren
wars with Scotland, though he made his profit of the noise of them.
And he wanted not in the council of Scotland, those that would advise
their king to meet him at the half-way, and to give over the war with
England ; pretending to be good patriots, but indeed favouring the
affairs of the king. Only his heart was too great to begin with Scot
land for the motion of peace. On the other side, he had met with an
ally of Ferdinando of Arragon, as fit for his turn as could be. For
after that King Ferdinando had, upon assured confidence of the mar
riage to succeed, taken upon him the person of a fraternal ally to the
king, he would not let, in a Spanish gravity, to counsel the king in his
own affairs. And the king on his part, not being wanting to himself,
but making use of every man's humours, made his advantage of this
in such things as he thought either not decent, or not pleasant to pro
ceed from himself ; putting them off as done by the council of Ferdi
nando. Wherefore he was content that Hialas, as in a matter moved
find advised from Hialas himself, should go into Scotland, to treat of
a concord between the two kings. Hialas took it upon him, and
coming to the Scottish king, after he had with much art brought King
James to hearken to the more safe and quiet counsels, wrote unto the
king, that he hoped that peace would with no great difficulty cement
and close, if he would send some wise and temperate counsellor of
his own, that might treat of the conditions. Whereupon the king
directed Bishop Fox, who at that time was at his castle of Norham, to
confer with Hialas, and they both to treat with some commissioners
deputed from the Scottish king. The commissioners of both sides
met. But after much dispute upon the articles and conditions of
peace, propounded upon either part, they could not conclude a peace.
The chief impediment thereof was the demand of the king to have
Perkin delivered into his hands, as a reproach to all kings, and a per
son not protected by the law pf nations, The king of Scotland, on
ft 4 NX Y THE SEVENTH. 473
the other side, peremptorily denied so to do, saying, that he, for his
part, was no competent judge of Perkin's title ; but that he had re
ceived him as a suppliant, protected him as a person fled for refuge,
espoused him with his kinswoman, and aided him with his arms, upon
the belief that he was a prince ; and therefore, that he could not now
with his honour so unrip, and, in a sort, put a lie upon all that he
had said and done before, as to deliver him up to his enemies. The
bishop likewise, who had certain proud instructions from the king, at
the least in the front, though there were a pliant clause at the foot,
that remitted all to the bishop's discretion, and required him by no
means to break off in ill terms, after that he had failed to obtain the
delivery of Perkin, did move a second point of his instructions, which
was, that the Scottish king would give the king an interview in person
at Newcastle. But this being reported to the Scottish king, his answer
was, that he meant to treat a peace, and not to go a begging for it.
The bishop also, according to another article of his instructions,
demanded restitution of the spoils taken by the Scottish, or damages
for the same. But the Scottish commissioners answered that that
was but as water spilt upon the ground, which could not be gotten up
again ; and that the king's people were better able to bear the loss,
than their master to repair it. But in the end, as persons capable of
reason, on both sides they made rather a kind of recess than a breach
of treaty, and concluded upon a truce for some months following.
But the king of Scotland, though he would not formally retract his
judgment of Perkin, wherein he had engaged himself so far ; yet in
his private opinion upon often speech with the Englishmen, and divers
other advertisements, began to suspect him for a counterfeit. Where
fore in a noble fashion he called him unto him, and recounted the
benefits and favours that he had done him in making him his ally,
and in provoking a mighty and opulent king by an offensive war in
his quarrel, for the space of two years together; nay more, that he
had refused an honourable peace, whereof he had a fair offer, if he
would have delivered him ; and that, to keep his promise with him, he
had deeply offended both his nobles and people, whom he might not
hold in any long discontent : and therefore required him to think of
his own fortunes, and to choose out some fitter place for his exile :
telling him withal, that he could not say, but the English had forsaken
him before the Scottish, for that, upon two several trials, none had
declared themselves on his side ; but nevertheless, he would make
good what he said to him at his first receiving, which was, that he
should not repent him for putting himself into his hands ; for that he
would not cast him off, but help him with shipping and means to
transport him where he should desire. Perkin, not descending at all
from his stage-like greatness, answered the king in few words, that he
saw his time was not yet come ; but whatsoever his fortunes were, he
should both think and speak honour of the king. Taking his leave,
he would not think of Flanders, doubting it was but hollow ground
for him since the treaty of the archduke, concluded the year before ;
but took his lady, and such followers as would not leave him, and
sailed over into Ireland.
This twelfth year of the king? a little before this time, Pope Alex-
474 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
ander, who Id red best those princes that were furthest off, and with
whom he had least to do, taking very thankfully the king's late
entrance into league for the defence of Italy, did remunerate him with
an hallowed sword and cap of maintenance sent by his nuncio. Pope
Innocent had done the like, but it was not received in that glory : for
the king appointed the mayor and his brethren to meet the pope's
orator at London Bridge, and all the streets between the bridge foot,
and the palace of Paul's, where the king then lay, were garnished with
the citizens standing in their liveries. And the morrow after, being
Allhallows day, the king, attended with many of his prelates, nobles,
and principal courtiers, went in procession to Paul's, and the cap and
sword were borne before him. And after the procession, the king
himself remaining seated in the quire, the lord archbishop, upon the
greeze1 of the quire, made a long oration : setting forth the greatness
and eminency of that honour which the pope, in these ornaments and
ensigns of benediction, had done the king ; and how rarely, and upon
what high deserts, they used to be bestowed : and then recited the
king's principal acts and merits, which had made him appear worthy
in the eyes of his holiness, of this great honour.
All this while the rebellion of Cornwall, whereof we have spoken,
seemed to have no relation to Perkin ; save that perhaps Perkin's
proclamation had stricken upon the right vein, in promising to lay
down exactions and payments, and so had made them now and then
have a kind thought on Perkin. But now these bubbles by much
stirring began to meet, as they used to do upon the top of water. The
king's lenity (by that time the Cornish rebels, who were taken and
pardoned, and, as it was said, many of them sold by them that had
taken them, for twelve pence and two shillings apiece, were come
down into their country), had rather emboldened them, than reclaimed
them ; insomuch as they stuck not to say to their neighbours and
countrymen, that the king did well to pardon them, for that he knew
he should leave few subjects in England, if he hanged all that were of
their mind : and began whetting and inciting one another to renew
the commotion. Some of the subtilest of them, hearing of Perkin's
being in Ireland, found means to send to him to let him know, that if
he would come over to them, they would serve him.
When Perkin heard this news, he began to take heart again, and
advised upon it with his council, which were principally three ; Herne,
a mercer, that had fled for debt ; Skelton, a tailor, and Astley, a
scrivener ; for Secretary Frion was gone. These told him, that he
was mightily overseen, both when he went into Kent, and when he
went into Scotland ; the one being a place so near London, and under
the king's nose ; and the other a nation so distasted with the people
of England, that if they had loved him never so well, yet they would
never have taken his part in that company. But if he had been so
happy as to have been in Cornwall at the first, when the people begaft
to take arms there, he had been crowned at Westminster before this
time. For these kings, as he had now experience, would sell pool
princes for shoes. But he must rely wholly upon the people ; and there-
* Steps.
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 475
fore advised him to sail over with all possible speed into Cornwall:
which accordingly he did ; having in his company four small barks,
with some six score or seven score fighting men. He arrived in Sep
tember at Whitsand Bay, and forthwith came to Bodmin, the black
smith's town ; where there assembled unto him to the number of three
thousand men of the rude people. There he set forth a new proclama
tion, stroking the people with fair promises, and humouring them with
invectives against the king and his government. And as it fareth with
smoke, that never loseth itself till it be at the highest, he did now be
fore his end raise his style, entitling himself no more Richard, duke of
York, but Richard the Fourth, king of England. His council ad
vised him by all means to make himself master of some good walled
town ; as well to make his men find the sweetness of rich spoils, and
to allure to him all loose and lost people, by like hopes of booty ; as
to be a sure retreat to his forces, in case they should have an ill day,
or unlucky chance in the field. Wherefore they took heart to them,
and went on, and besieged the city of Exeter, the principal town for
strength and wealth in those parts.
When they were come before Exeter, they forbare to use any force
at the first, but made continual shouts and outcries to terrify the
inhabitants. They did likewise in divers places call and talk to them
from under the walls, to join with them, and be of their party: telling
them, that the king would make them another London, if they would
be the first town that should acknowledge him. But they had not
the wit to send to them, in any orderly fashion, agents 01 chosen men,
to tempt them, and to treat with them. The citizens on their part
showed themselves stout and loyal subjects ; neither was there so
much as any tumult or division amongst them, but all prepared them
selves for a valiant defence, and making good the town. For well
they saw, that the rebels were of no such number or power, that they
needed to fear them as yet ; and well they hoped, that before their
numbers increased, the king's succours would come in. And, howso
ever, they thought it the extremest of the evils to put themselves at
the mercy of those hungry and disorderly people. Wherefore, setting
all things in good order within the town, they nevertheless let down
with cords, from several parts of the walls privily, several messengers,
that if one came to mischance another might pass on, which should
advertise the king of the state of the town, and implore his aid. Perkii?
also doubted that succours would come ere long, and therefore resolved
to use his utmost force to assault the town ; and for that purpose
having mounted scaling-ladders in divers places upon the walls, made
at the same instant an attempt to force one of the gates. But having
no artillery nor engines, and finding that he could do no good by
ramming with logs of timber, nor by the use of iron bars, and iron
crows, and such other means at hand, he had no way left him but to
set one of the gates on fire, which he did. But the citizens well per
ceiving the danger, before the gate could be fully consumed, blocked
up the gate, and some space about it on the inside, with faggots and
other fuel, which they likewise set on fire, and so repulsed fire with
fire : and in the mean time raised up rampiers of earth, and cast up
deep trenches, to serve instead of wall and gate. And for the
«76 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
scaladoes, they had so bad success, as the rebels were driven from the
walls with the loss of two hundred men.
The king when he heard of Perkin's siege of Exeter, made sport
with it, and said to them that were about him, that the king of rake-
hells was landed in the west, and that he hoped now to have the
honour to see him, which he could never yet do. And it appeared
plainly to those that were about the king, that he was indeed much
ioyed with the news of Perkin's being in English ground, where he
could have no retreat by land ; thinking now, that he should be cured
of those privy stitches which he had long had about his heart, and at
some times broken his sleeps, in the midst of all his felicity. And to^
set all men's hearts on fire, he did by all possible means let it appear,v
that those that should now do him service to make an end of these
troubles, should be no less accepted of him, than he that came upon
the eleventh hour, and had the whole wages of the day. Therefore
now, like the end of a play, a great number came upon the stage at
once. He sent the lord chamberlain, and the Lord Brook, and Sir
Rice ap Thomas, with expedite forces to speed to Exeter, to the rescue
of the town, and to spread the fame of his own following in person
with a royal army. The earl of Devonshire, and his son, with the
Carews, and the Fulfordes, and other principal persons of Devon
shire, uncalled from the court, but hearing that the king's heart was
so much bent upon this service, made haste with troops that they had
raised, to be the first that should succour the city of Exeter, and
prevent l the king's succours. The duke of Buckingham likewise,
with many brave gentlemen, put themselves in arms, not staying either
the king's or the lord chamberlain's coming on, but making a body of
forces of themselves, the more to endear their merit ; signifying to
the king their readiness, and desiring to know his pleasure. So
that, according to the proverb, in the coming down, every saint did
help.
Perkin, hearing this thunder of arms, and preparations against
him from so many parts, raised his siege, and marched to Taunton ;
beginning already to squint one eye upon the crown and another upon
the sanctuary ; though the Cornishmen were become like metal often
fired and quenched, churlish, and would sooner break than bow ;
swearing and vowing not to leave him till the uttermost drop of their
blood were split. He was at his rising from Exeter between six and
seven thousand strong, many having come unto him after he was set
before Exeter, upon fame of so great an enterprise, and to partake of
the spoil ; though upon the raising of the siege some did slip away.
When he was come near Taunton, he dissembled all fear, and seemed
all the day to use diligence in preparing all things ready to fight.
But about midnight, he fled with three-score horse to Bewdley2 in the
New Forest, where he and divers of his company registered them
selves sanctuary men, leaving his Cornishmen to the four winds ; but
yet thereby easing them of their vow, and using his wonted compas
sion, not to be by when his subjects' blood should be spilt. The king,
as soon as he heard of Perkin's flight, sent presently five hundred
1 Forestall— go before. 2 Beaulieu Abtxy,
HENKY THE SEVENTH, 477
horse to pursue and apprehend him, before he should get either to the
sea, or to that same little island called a sanctuary. But they came
too late for the latter of these. Therefore all they could do, was to
beset the sanctuary, and to maintain a strong watch about it, till the
king's pleasure were farther known. As for the rest of the rebels,
they, being destitute of their head, without stroke stricken, submitted
themselves unto the king's mercy. And the king, who commonly
drew blood, as physicians do, rather to save life than to spill it, and
was never cruel when he was secure ; now he saw the danger was
past, pardoned them all in the end, except some few desperate persons,
which he reserved to be executed, the better to set off his mercy towards
the rest. There were also sent with all speed some horse to St.
Michael's Mount in Cornwall, where the Lady Catherine Gordon was
left by her husband, whom in all fortunes she entirely loved ; adding
the virtues of a wife to the virtues of her sex. The king sent in the
greater diligence, not knowing whether she might be with child,
whereby the business would not have ended in Perkin's person. When
she was brought to the king, it was commonly said that the king
received her not only with compassion, but with affection ; pity giving
more impression to her excellent beauty. Wherefore comforting her
to serve as well his eye as his fame, he sent her to his queen, to remain
with her ; giving her a very honourable allowance for the support of
her estate, which she enjoyed both during the king's life, and many
years after. The name of the White Rose, which had been given to
her husband's false title, was continued in common speech to her true
beauty.
The king went forwards on his journey, and made a joyful entrance
into Exeter, where he gave the citizens great commendations and
thanks : and taking the sword he wore from his side, he gave it to the
mayor, and commanded it should be ever after carried before him.
There also he caused to be executed some of the .ringleaders of the
Cornishmen, in sacrifice to the citizens whom they had put in fear and
trouble. At Exeter the king consulted with his council, whether he
should offer life to Perkin if he would quit the sanctuary, and volun
tarily submit himself. The council were divided in opinion : some
advised the king to take him out of sanctuary per force, and to put
him to death, as in a case of necessity, which in itself dispenseth with
consecrated places and things : wherein they doubted not also but
the king should find the pope tractable to ratify his deed, either by
declaration, or, at least, by indulgence. Others were of opinion, since
all was now safe, and no further hurt could be done, that it was not
worth the exposing of the king to new scandal and envy. A third
sort fell upon the opinion, that it was not possible for the king ever,
either to satisfy the world well touching the imposture, or to learn out
the bottom of the conspiracy, except by promise of life and pardon,
and other fair means, he should get Perkin into his hands. But they
did all in their preambles much bemoan the king's case, with a kin|
of indignation at his fortune ; that a prince of his high wisdom and
virtue, should have been so long and so oft exercised and vexed with
idols. But the king said, that it was the vexation of God Almighty
Himself to be vexed with idols, and therefore that that was not to
478 HENRY TH& SEVENTrt.
trouble any of his friends ; and that for himself, he always despised
them ; but was grieved that they had put his people to such trouble
and misery. But in conclusion, he leaned to the third opinion, and
so sent some to deal with Perkin : who seeing himself prisoner, and
destitute of all hopes, having tried princes and people, great and
small, and found all either false, faint or unfortunate, did gladly accept
of the condition. The king did also, while he was at Exeter, appoint
the Lord Darcy, and others, commissioners, for the finding of all such
as were of any value, and had any hand or partaking in the aid of
Perkin, or the Cornishmen, either in the field or in the flight.
These commissioners proceeded with such strictness and severity,
as did much obscure the king's mercy in sparing of blood, with the
bleeding of so much treasure. Perkin was brought into the king's
court, but not to the king's presence ; though the king, to satisfy his
curiosity, saw him sometimes out of a window, or in passage. He was
in show at liberty, but guarded with all care and watch that was pos
sible, and willed to follow the king to London. But from his first
appearance upon the stage, in his new person of a sycophant or
juggler, instead of his former person of a prince, all men may think
how he was exposed to the derision not only of the courtiers, but also
of the common people, who flocked about him as he went along ; that
one might know afar off where the owl was, by the flight of birds, some
mocking, some wondering, some cursing, some prying and picking
matter out of his countenance and gesture to talk of : so that the
false honour and respects which he had so long enjoyed, was plentifully
repaid in scorn and contempt. As soon as he was come to London,
the king gave also the city the solace of this May-game ; for he was
conveyed leisurely on horseback, but not in any ignominious fashion,
through Cheapside and Cornhill to the Tower ; and from thence back
again to Westminster, with the churm l of a thousand taunts and
reproaches. But to amend the show, there followed a little distance
off Perkin, an inward counsellor of his, one that had been sergeant
farrier to the king. This fellow, when Perkin took sanctuary, chose
rather to take a holy habit than a holy place, and clad himself like a
hermit, and in that weed wandered about the country, till he was dis
covered and taken. But this man was bound hand and foot upon the
horse, and came not back with Perkin, but was left at the Tower, and
within few days after executed. Soon after, now that Perkin could
tell better what himself was, he was diligently examined ; and after
his confession taken, an extract was made of such parts of them, as
were thought fit to be divulged, which was printed and dispersed
abroad : wherein the king did himself no right : for as there was a
laboured tale of particulars, of Perkin's father and mother, and grand-
sire and grandmother, and uncles and cousins, by names and sur
names, and from what places he travelled up and down ; so there was
little or nothing to purpose of anything concerning his designs, or
any practices that had been held with him ; nor the d'uchess of
Burgundy herself, that all the world did take knowledge of, as the
person that had put life and being into the whole business, so much
1 Clamour — confused noises.
tiENRY THE SEVENTH. 479
as named or pointed at. So that men, missing of that they looked
for, looked about for they knew not what, and were in more doubt
than before ; but the king chose rather not to satisfy, than to kindle
coals. At that time also it did not appear by any new examination
«r commitments, that any other person of quality was discovered or
appeached, though the king's closeness made that a doubt dormant.
About this time a great fire in the night-time suddenly began at the
king's palace of Shene, near unto the king's own lodgings, whereby a
great part of the building was consumed, with much costly household
stuff, which gave the king occasion of building from the ground that
fine pile of Richmond, which is now standing.
Somewhat before this time also, there fell out a memorable accident:
There was one Sebastian Gabato,1 a Venetian, dwelling in Bristol, a
man seen and expert in cosmography and navigation. This man see
ing the success, and emulating perhaps the enterprise of Christophorus
Columbus, in that fortunate discovery towards the south-west, which
had been by him made some six years before, conceited with himself,
that lands might likewise be discovered towards the north-west. And,
surely, it may be he had more firm and pregnant conjectures of it, than
Columbus had of this at the first. For the two great islands of the old
and new world, being, in the shape and making of them, broad to
wards the north, and pointed towards the south, it is likely that the
discovery first began where the lands did nearest meet. And there
had been before that time a discovery of some lands, which they took
to be islands, and were indeed the continent of America, towards the
north-west.2 And it may be that some relation of this nature coming
afterwards to the knowledge of Columbus, and by him suppressed
(desirous rather to make his enterprise the child of his science and
fortune, than the follower of a former discovery), did give him better
assurance that all was not sea, from the west of Europe and Africa unto
Asia, than either Seneca's prophecy, or Plato's antiquities, or the nature
of the tides and land-winds, and the like, which were the conjectures
that were given out, whereupon he should have relied : though I am
not ignorant, that it was likewise laid unto the casual and wind-
beaten discovery, a little before, of a Spanish pilot, who died in the
house of Columbus. But this Gabato, bearing the king in hand, that
Ve would find out an island endued with rich commodities, procured
him to man and victual a ship at Bristol for the discovery of that
island : with whom ventured also three small ships of London mer
chants, fraught with some gross and slight wares, fit for commerce with
barbarous people. He sailed, as he affirmed at his return, and made a
chart thereof, very far westwards, with a quarter of the north, on the
north side of Terra de Labrador, until he came to the latitude of sixty-
seven degrees and a half, finding the seas still open. It is certain, also,
that the king's fortune had a tender of that great empire of the West
Indies. Neither was it a refusal on the king's part, but a delay by
accident, that put by so great an acquest;3 for Christophorus Columbus,
refused by the king of Portugal, who would not embrace at once both
1 Cabot. * These discoveries were made by the Norsemen.
3 Acquisition.
480 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
east and west, employed his brother, Bartholomseus Columbus, unto
King Henry, to negotiate for his discovery ; and it so fortuned, that he
was taken by pirates at sea, by which accidental impediment he was
long ere he came to the king : so long, that before he had obtained a
capitulation with the king for his brother, the enterprise by him was
achieved, and so the West Indies by providence were then reserved for
the crown of Castile. Yet this sharpened the king so, that not only in
this voyage, but again, in the sixteenth year of his reign, and likewise
in the eighteenth thereof, he granted forth new commissions for the
discovery and investing of unknown lands.
In this fourteenth year also, by God's wonderful providence, that
boweth things unto His will, and hangeth great weights upon small
wires, there fell out a trifling and untoward accident, that drew on
great and happy effects. During the truce with Scotland, there were
certain Scottish young gentlemen that came into Norham town, and
there made merry with some of the English of the town : and having
little to do, went sometimes forth and would stand looking upon the
castle. Some of the garrison of the castle, observing this their doing
twice or thrice, and having not their minds purged of the late ill blood
of hostility, either suspected them, or quarrelled them for spies, where
upon they fell at ill words, and from words to blows, so that many
were wounded of either side, and the Scottish men, being strangers in
the town, had the worst, insomuch that some of them were slain, and
the rest made haste home. The matter being complained on, and
often debated before the wardens of the marches of both sides, and no
good order taken, the king of Scotland took it to himself, and being
much kindled, sent a herald to the king to make protestation, that if
reparation were not done, according to the conditions of the truce, his
king did denounce war. The king, who had often tried fortune, and
was inclined to peace, made answer, that what had been done was
utterly against his will and without his privity ; but if the garrison
soldiers had been in fault, he would see them punished, and the truce
in all points to be preserved. But this answer seemed to the Scottish
king but a delay to make the complaint breathe out with time, and
therefore it did rather exasperate him than satisfy him. Bishop Fox,
understanding from the king that the Scottish king was still discontent
and impatient, being troubled that the occasion of breaking of the truce
should grow from his men, sent many humble and deprecatory letters
to the Scottish king to appease him. Whereupon King James, molli
fied by the bishop's submissive and eloquent letters, wrote back unto
nim, that though he were in part moved by his letters, yet he should
not be fully satisfied except he spake with him, as well about the com
pounding of the present differences, as about other matters that might
concern the good of both kingdoms. The bishop, advising first with
the king, took his journey for Scotland. The meeting was at Melross,
an abbey of the Cistercians, where the king then abode. The king
first roundly uttered unto the bishop his offence conceived for the
insolent breach of truce, by his men of Norham Castle ; whereunto
Bishop Fox made such humble and smooth answer, as it was like oil
unto the wound, whereby it began to heal : and this was done in the
presence of the king and his council. After, the king spake with the
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 481
bishop apart, and opened himself unto him, saying, that these tem
porary truces and peaces were soon made and soon broken, but that
he desired a straiter amity with the king of England ; discovering his
mind, that if the king would give him in marriage the Lady Margaret,
his eldest daughter, that indeed might be a knot indissoluble. That
he knew well what place and authority the bishop deservedly had with
his master : therefore, if he would take the business to heart, and deal
in it effectually, he doubted not but it would succeed well. The bishop
answered soberly, that he thought himself rather happy than worthy
to be an instrument in such a matter, but would do his best endeavour.
Wherefore the bishop returning to the king, and giving account what
had passed, and rinding the king more than well disposed in it, gave
the king advice, first to proceed to a conclusion of peace, and then to
go on with the treaty of marriage by degrees. Hereupon a peace was
concluded, which was published a little before Christmas, in the four
teenth year of the king's reign, to continue for both the kings5 lives,
and the over-liver of them, and a year after. In this peace there was
an article contained, that no Englishman should enter into Scotland,
and no Scottishman into England, without letters commendatory from
the kings of either nation. This at first sight might seem a means to
continue a strangeness between the nations ; but it was done to lock in
the borderers.
This year there was also born to the king a third son, who was
christened by the name of Edmund, and shortly after died. And much
about the same time came news of the death of Charles, the French
king, for whom there were celebrated solemn and princely obsequies.
It was not long but Perkin, who was made of quicksilver, which is
hard to hold or imprison, began to stir ; for, deceiving his keepers, he
took him to his heels, and made speed to the sea-coast. But presently
all corners were laid for him, and such diligent pursuit and search
made, as he was fain to turn back, and get him to the house of Bethle
hem, called the Priory of Shene (which had the privilege of sanctuary),
and put himself into the hands of the prior of that monastery. The
prior was thought a holy man, and much reverenced in those days. He
came to the king, and besought the king for Perkin's life only, leaving
him otherwise to the king's discretion. Many about the king were
again more hot than ever to have the king to take him forth and hang
him But the king, that had a high stomach, and could not hate any
that he despised, bid "Take him forth and set the knave in the
stocks ;" and so promising the prior his life, he caused him to be brought
forth. And within two or three days after, upon a scaffold set up in
the Palace Court at Westminster, he was fettered and set in the
stocks for the whole day. And the next day after, the like was done
by him at the Cross in Cheapside, and in both places he read his con
fession, of which we made mention before ; and was from Cheapside
conveyed and laid up in the Tower. Notwithstanding all this, the
king was, as was partly touched before, grown to be such a partner
with fortune, as nobody could tell what actions the one and what the
other owned ; for it was believed generally that Perkin was betrayed,
and that this escape was not without the king's privity, who had him
all the time of his flight in a line, and that the king did this to pick 4
I I
i«a HENRY THE SEVENTH.
quarrel to him to put him to death, and to be rid of him at once ; but
this is not probable. For that the same instruments who observed
him in his flight might have kept him from getting into sanctuary.
But it was ordained that this winding-ivy of a Plantagenet should
kill the true tree itself; for Perkin, after he had been a while in the
Tower, began to insinuate himself into the favour and kindness of his
keepers, servants to the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Digby, being
four in number — Strangeways, Blewet, Astwood, and Long Roger.
These varlets, with mountains of promises, he sought to corrupt, to
obtain his escape ; but knowing well that his own fortunes were made
so contemptible, as he could feed no man's hopes, and by hopes he
must work, for rewards he had none, he had contrived with himself a
vast and tragical plot, which was to draw into his company Edward
Plantagenet, earl of Warwick, then prisoner in the Tower, whom the
weary life of a long imprisonment, and the often and renewing fears
of being put to death, had softened to take any impression of counsel
for his liberty. This young prince he thought the servants would look
upon, though not upon himself; and, therefore, after that by some
message by one or two of them, he had tasted of the earl's consent, it
was agreed that these four should murder their master the lieutenant
secretly in the night, and make their best of such money and portable
goods of his as they should find ready at hand, and get the keys of the
Tower and presently let forth Perkin and the earl. But this con
spiracy was revealed in time, before it could be executed. And in this
again the opinion of the king's great wisdom did surcharge him with
a sinister fame, that Perkin was but his bait to entrap the earl of War
wick. And in the very instant while this conspiracy was in working,
as if that also had been the king's industry, it was fatal that there
should break forth a counterfeit earl of Warwick, a cordwainer's son,
whose name was Ralph Wilford, a young man taught and set on by an
Augustine friar, called Patrick. They both from the parts of Suffolk
came forwards into Kent, where they did not only privily and under
hand give out that this Wilford was the true earl of Warwick, but also
the friar, finding some light credence in the people, took the boldness
in the pulpit to declare as much, and to incite the people to come in to
his aid. Whereupon they were both presently apprehended, and the
young fellow executed, and the friar condemned to perpetual imprison-
ment. This also happening so opportunely, to represent the danger to
the king's estate from the earl of Warwick, and thereby to colour the
king's severity that followed, together with the madness of the friar so
vainly and desperately to divulge a treason before it had gotten any
manner of strength ; and the saving of the friar's life, which neverthe
less was indeed but the privilege of his order, and the pity in the com
mon people, which if it run in a strong stream, doth ever cast up
scandal and envy, made it generally rather talked than believed that
all was but the king's device. But howsoever it were, hereupon Per
kin, that had offended against grace now the third time, was at the
last proceeded with, and by commissioners of oyer and terminer,
arraigned at Westminster, upon divers treasons committed and perpe
trated after his coming on land within this kingdom, for so the judges
advised, for that- he was a foreigner, and condemned, and a few days
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 4&\
after executed at Tyburn, where he did again openly read his confes
sion, and take it upon his death to be true. This was the end of this
little cockatrice of a king, that was able to destroy those that did not
espy him first. It was one of the longest plays of that kind that hath
been in memory, and might perhaps have had another end, if he had
not met with a king both wise, stout, and fortunate.
As for Perkin's three counsellors, they had registered themselves
sanctuary men when their master did ; and whether upon pardon
obtained or continuance within the privilege, they came not to be pro
ceeded with.
There were executed with Perkin the mayor of Cork and his son,
•who had been principal abettors of his treasons. And soon after were
likewise condemned eight other persons about the Tower conspiracy,
whereof four were lieutenant's men ; but of those eight but two were
executed. And immediately after was arraigned before the earl of
Oxford, then for the time high-steward of England, the poor prince,
the earl of Warwick ; not for the attempt to escape simply, for that
was not acted ; and besides, the imprisonment not being for treason,
the escape, by law, could not be treason, but for conspiring with Per
kin to raise sedition, and to destroy the king : and the earl confessing
the indictment, had judgment, and was shortly after beheaded on
Tower-hill.
This was also the end, not only of this noble and commiserable
person Edward the earl of Warwick, eldest son to the duke of Clar
ence, but likewise of the line male of the Plantagenets, which had
flourished in great royalty and renown from the time of the famous
king of England, King Henry the Second. Howbeit it was a race
often dipped in their own blood. It hath remained since only trans
planted into other names, as well of the imperial line as of other noble
nouses. But it was neither guilt of crime nor reason of state that
could quench the envy that was upon the king for this execution, so
that he thought good to export it out of the land, and to lay it upon
his new ally, Ferdinando, king of Spain. For these two kings under
standing one another at half a word, so it was that there were letters
showed out of Spain whereby, in the passages concerning the treaty of
the marriage, Ferdinando had written to the king in plain terms that
he saw no assurance of his succession as long as the earl of Warwick
lived, and that he was loth to send his daughter to troubles and dan
gers. But hereby, as the king did in some part remove the envy from
himself, so he did not observe that he did withal bring a kind of male
diction and infausting1 upon the marriage as an ill prognostic, which
in event so far proved true, as both Prince Arthur enjoyed a very small
time after the marriage, and the Lady Catharine herself, a sad and a
religious woman, long after, when King Henry the Eighth his resolu
tion of a divorce from her was first made known to her, used some
words that she had not offended, but it was a judgment of God, for
that her former marriage was made in blood, meaning that of the earl
of Warwick.
This fifteenth year of the king there was a great plague both in
1 Fatality
I I 2
484 HENRV TUn SEVENTtt.
London and in divers parts of the kingdom ; wherefore the king, after
often change of places, whether to avoid the danger of the sickness,
or to give occasion of an interview with the archduke, or both, sailed
over with his queen to Calais. Upon his coming thither the archduke
sent an honourable ambassage unto him, as well to welcome him into
those parts, as to let him know that if it pleased him he would come
and do him reverence. But it was said withal that the king might be
pleased to appoint some place that were out of any walled town
or fortress, for that he had denied the same upon like occasion to the
French king ; and though, he said, he made a great difference between
the two kings, yet he would be loth to give a precedent, that might
make it after to be expected at his hands by another whom he trusted
less. The king accepted of the courtesy, and admitted of his excuse,
And appointed the place to be at Saint Peter's Church without Calais.
But withal he did visit the archduke with ambassadors sent from him
self, which were the Lord St. John, and the secretary, unto whom the
archduke did the honour, as, going to mass at St. Omer's, to set the
Lord St. John on his right hand and the secretary on his left, and so
to ride between them to church. The day appointed for the interview
the king went on horseback some distance from Saint Peter's Church,
to receive the archduke ; and upon their approaching, the archduke
made haste to light, and offered to hold the king's stirrup at his
alighting, which the king would not permit, but descending from
horseback they embraced with great affection, and withdrawing into
the church to a place prepared, they had long conference, not only
upon the confirmation of former treaties and the freeing of commerce,
but upon cross marriages, to be had between the duke of York, the
king's second son, and the archduke's daughter ; and again between
Charles,1 the archduke's son and heir, and Mary, the king's second
daughter. But these blossoms of unripe marriages were but friendly
wishes and the airs of loving entertainment, though one of them came
afterwards to conclusion in treaty, though not in effect. But during
the time that the two princes convened and communed together in the
suburbs of Calais, the demonstrations on both sides were passing
hearty and affectionate, especially on the part of the archduke ; who,
besides that he was a prince of an excellent good nature, being con
scious to himself how drily the king had been used by his council in
the matter of Perkin, did strive by all means to recover it in the king's
affection. And having also his ears continually beaten with the coun
sels of his father and father-in-law, who, in respect of their jealous
hatred against the French king, did always advise the archduke
to anchor himself upon the amity of King Henry of England, was glad
upon this occasion to put in ure 2 and practice their precepts, calling
the king patron and father, and protector, — these very words the king
repeats when he certified of the loving behaviour of the archduke to
the city, and what else he could devise to express his love and observ
ance to the king. There came also to the king the governor of
Picardy and the bailiff of Amiens, sent from Lewis the French king to
do him honour, and to give him knowledge of his victory and winning
1 Afterwards the famous Emperor of Germany. * Use.
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 485
of the duchy of Milan. It seemeth the king was well pleased with the
honours he received from those parts while he was at Calais, for
he did himself certify all the news and occurrents of them in every
particular, from Calais, to the mayor and aldermen of London, which
no doubt made no small talk in the city ; for the king, though he
could not entertain the good will of the citizens, as Edward the Fourth
did, yet by affability and other princely graces did ever make very
much of them, and apply himself to them.
This year also died John Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, chan
cellor of England, and cardinal. He was a wise man, and eloquent,
but in his nature harsh and haughty ; much accepted by the king, but
envied by the nobility, and hated :>f the people. Neither was his
name left out of Perkin's proclamation for any good will, but they
would not bring him in amongst the king's casting counters, because
he had the image and superscription upon him of the pope, in his
honour of cardinal. He won the king with secrecy and diligence, but
chiefly because he was his old servant in his less fortunes ; and also
for that, in his affections, he was not without an inveterate malice
against the house of York, under whom he had been in trouble. He
was willing also to take envy from the king, more than the king was
willing to put upon him : for the king cared not for subterfuges, but
would stand envy, and appear in any thing that was to his mind ;
which made envy still grow upon him more universal, but less daring.
But in the matter of exactions, time did after show, that the bishop in
feeding the king's humour did rather temper it. He had been by
Richard the Third committed, as in custody, to the duke of Bucking
ham, whom he did secretly incite to revolt from King Richard. But
after the duke was engaged, and thought the bishop should have been
his chief pilot in the tempest, the bishop was gotten into the cock-boat,
and fled over beyond seas. But whatsoever else was in the man, he
deserveth a most happy memory, in that he was the principal mean of
joining the two roses. He died of great years, but of strong health
and powers.
The next year, which was the sixteenth year of the king, and the
year of our Lord one thousand five hundred, was the year of jubilee at
Rome. But Pope Alexander, to save the hazard and charges of men's
journeys to Rome, thought good to make over those graces by ex
change, to such as would pay a convenient rate, seeing that they
could not come to fetch them. For which purpose was sent into
England, Jasper Pons, a Spaniard, the pope's commissioner, better
chosen than were the commissioners of Pope Leo afterwards employed
for Germany ; for he carried the business with great wisdom, and
semblance of holiness ; insomuch as he levied great sums of money
within this land to the pope's use, with little or no scandal. It was
thought the king shared in the money. But it appeareth by a letter
which Cardinal Adrian, the king's pensioner, wrote to the king from
Rome some few years after, that this was not so. For this cardinal,
being to persuade Pope Julius, on the king's behalf, to expedite the bull
of dispensation for the marriage between Prince Henry and the Lady
Catharine, finding the pope difficile in granting thereof, doth use it
as a principal argument concerning the king's merit towards that see,
486 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
that he had touched none of those deniers which had been levied by
Pons in England. But that it might the better appear, for the satis
faction of the common people, that this was consecrated money, the
same nuncio brought unto the king a brief from the pope, wherein
the king was exhorted and summoned to come in person against the
Turk ; for that the pope, out of the care of an universal father, seeing
almost under his eyes the successes and progresses of that great enemy
of the faith, had had in the conclave, and with the assistance of the
ambassadors of foreign princes, divers consultations about a holy war,
and a general expedition of Christian princes against the Turk ;
wherein it was agreed and thought fit, that the Hungarians, Polonians,
and Bohemians, should make a war upon Thracia ; the French and
Spaniards upon Graecia; and that the pope, willing to sacrifice himself in
so good a cause, in person, and in company of the king of England,
the Venetians, and such other states as were great in maritime power,
would sail with a puissant navy through the Mediterranean unto
Constantinople. And that to this end, his holiness had sent nuncios
to all Christian princes ; as well for a cessation of all quarrels and
differences amongst themselves, as for speedy preparations and con
tributions of forces and treasure for this sacred enterprise.
To this the king, who understood well the court of Rome, made an
answer rather solemn than serious ; signifying,
" That no prince on earth should be more forward and obedient, both
by his person, and by all his possible forces and fortunes, to enter into
this sacred war, than himself. But that the distance of place was such,
as no forces that he should raise for the seas, could be levied or pre
pared but with double the charge, and double the time, at the least,
that they might be from the other princes, that had their territories
nearer adjoining. Besides, that neither the manner of his ships, hav
ing no galleys, nor the experience of his pilots and mariners, could be
so apt for those seas as theirs. And therefore that his holiness might
do well to move one of those other kings, who lay fitter for the pur
pose, to accompany him by sea. Whereby both all things would be
sooner put in readiness, and with less charge, and the emulation and
division of command, which might grow between those kings of France
and Spain, if they should both join in the war by land upon Grascia,
might be wisely avoided ; and that for his part he would not be want
ing in aids and contribution. Yet, notwithstanding, if both these
kings should refuse, rather than his holiness should go alone, he would
wait upon him as soon as he could be ready ; always provided, that he
might first see all differences of the Christian princes amongst them
selves fully laid down and appeased, as for his own part he was in
none, and that he might have some good towns upon the coast in Italy
put into his hands, for the retreat and safeguard of his men."
With this answer Jasper Pons returned, nothing at all discontented;
and yet this declaration of the king, as superficial as it was, gave him
that reputation abroad, as he was not long after elected by the knights
of Rhodes protector of their order ; all things multiplying to honour in
a prince, that had gotten such high estimation for his wisdom and
sufficiency.
There were these two last years some proceedings against heretics,
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 487
which was rare in this king's reign, and rather by penances than by
fire. The king had, though he were no good schoolman, the honour to
convert one of them by dispute at Canterbury.
This year, also, though the king were no more haunted with sprites,
for that by the sprinkling, partly of blood and partly of water, he had
chased them away ; yet nevertheless he had certain apparitions that
troubled him, still showing themselves from one region, which was the
house of York. It came so to pass, that the earl of Suffolk, son to Eliza
beth, eldest sister to King Edward the Fourth, by John, duke of Suffolk,
her second husband, and brother to John, earl of Lincoln, that was
slain at Stokefield, being of a hasty and choleric disposition, had killed
a man in his fury ; whereupon the king gave him his pardon. But,
either willing to leave a cloud upon him, or the better to make
him feel his grace, produced him openly to plead his pardon. This
wrought in the earl, as in a haughty stomach it useth to do ; for the
ignominy printed deeper than the grace. Wherefore he being discon
tent, fled secretly into Flanders unto his aunt the duchess of Burgundy.
The king startled at it ; but, being taught by troubles to use fair and
timely remedies, wrought so with him by messages, the Lady Margaret
also growing, by often failing in her alchemy, weary of her experiments ;
and partly being a little sweetened, for that the king had not touched
her name in the confession of Perkin, that he came over again upon
good terms, and was reconciled to the king.
In the beginning of the next year, being the seventeenth of the king,
the Lady Catharine, fourth daughter of Ferdinando and Isabella, king
and queen of Spain, arrived in England at Plymouth the second of
October, and was married to Prince Arthur in Paul's the fourteenth
of November following ; the prince being then about fifteen years of
age, and the lady about eighteen. The manner of her receiving, the
manner of her entry into London, and the celebrity of the marriage,
were performed with great and true magnificence, in regard of cost,
show, and order. The chief man that took the care was Bishop Fox,
who was not only a grave counsellor for war or peace, but also a good
surveyor of works, and a good master of ceremonies, and anything
else that was fit for the active part, belonging to the service of the
court or state of a great king. This marriage was almost seven years
in treaty, which was in part caused by the tender years of the marriage
couple, especially of the prince ; but the true reason was, that these two
princes, being princes of great policy and profound judgment, stood a
great time looking upon one another's fortunes, how they would go ;
knowing well, that in the meantime the very treaty itself gave abroad
in the world a reputation of a strait conjunction and amity between
them, which served on both sides to many purposes that their several
affairs required, and yet they continued still free. But in the end, when
the fortunes of both the princes did grow every day more and more
prosperous and assured, and that looking all about them they saw no
better conditions, they shut it up.
The marriage money the princess brought, which was turned over to
the king by act of renunciation, was two hundred thousand ducats ;
whereof one hundred thousand were payable ten days after the
solemnization, and the other hundred thousand at two payments
488 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
annual ; but part of it to be in jewels and plate, and a due course set
down to have them justly and indifferently prized. The jointure or
advancement of the lady, was the third part of the principality of
Wales, and of the dukedom of Cornwall, and of the earldom of
Chester, to be after set forth in severality ; and in case she came to be
queen of England, her advancement was left indefinite, but thus,—*
that it should be as great as ever any former queen of England had.
In all the devices and conceits of the triumphs of this marriage,
there was a great deal of astronomy : the lady being resembled to
Hesperus, and the prince to Arcturus, and the old King Alphonsus,
that was the great astronomer of kings, and was ancestor to the lady,
was brought in, to be the fortune-teller of the match. And whosoever
had those toys in compiling, they were not altogether pedantical ; but
you may be sure, that King Arthur the Briton, and the descent of the
Lady Catharine from the house of Lancaster, was in no wise forgotten.
But as it should seem, it is not good to fetch fortunes from the stars ;
for this young prince, that drew upon him at that time, not only the
hopes and affections of his country, but the eyes and expectations of
foreigners, after a few months, in the beginning of April, deceased at
Ludlow castle, where he was sent to keep his resiance and court, as
Prince of Wales. Of this prince, in respect he died so young, and by
reason of his father's manner of education, that did cast no great lustre
upon his children, there is little particular memory ; only thus much
remaineth, that he was very studious and learned, beyond his years,
and beyond the custom of great princes.
There was a doubt ripped up in the times following, when the
divorce of King Henry the Eighth from the Lady Catharine did so
much busy the world, whether Arthur was bedded with his lady or no,
whereby that matter in fact, of carnal knowledge, might be made part
of the case. And it is true, that the lady herself denied it, or at least
her counsel stood upon it, and would not blanch that advantage,
although the plenitude of the pope's power of dispensing was the main
question. And this doubt was kept long open, in respect of the two
queens that succeeded, Mary and Elizabeth, whose legitimations were
incompatible one with another, though their succession was settled by
act of Parliament. And the times that favoured Queen Mary's legiti
mation would have it believed that there was no carnal knowledge
between Arthur and Catharine. Not that they would seem to dero
gate from the pope's absolute power to dispense even in that case ;
but only in point of honour, and to make the case more favourable and
smooth. And the times that favoured Queen Elizabeth's legitimation,
which were the longer and the latter, maintained the contrary. So
much there remaineth in memory, that it was half a year's time
between the creation of Henry Prince of Wales and Prince Arthur's
death, which was construed to be, for to expect a full time, whereby it
might appear whether the Lady Catharine were with child by Prince
Arthur or no. Again, the lady herself procured a bull, for the better
corroboration of the marriage, with a clause of vel forsan cognitam^
which was not in the first bull. There was given in evidence also,
when the cause of the divorce was handled, a pleasant passage, which
was : that in a morning Prince Arthur, upon his up-rising from bed
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 489
with her, called for drink, which he was not accustomed to do, and
finding the gentleman of his chamber that brought him the drink to
smile at it, and to note it, he said merrily to him : that he had been in
the midst of Spain, which was a hot region, and his journey had made
him dry ; and that if the other had been in so hot a clime, he would
have been drier than he. Besides, the prince was upon the point of
sixteen years of age when he died, and forward, and able in body.
The February following, Henry, duke of York, was created prince of
Wales, and earl of Chester and Flint ; for the dukedom of Cornwall
devolved to him by statute. The king also being fast-handed, and loth
to part with a second dowry, but chiefly being affectionate both by his
nature, and out of politic considerations to continue the alliance with
Spain, prevailed with the prince, though not without some reluctation,
such as could be in those years, for he was not twelve years of age,
to be contracted with the Princess Catharine : the secret providence of
God ordaining that marriage to be the occasion of great events and
changes.
The same year were the espousals of James, king of Scotland, with
the Lady Margaret, the king's eldest daughter ; which was done by
proxy, and published at Paul's Cross, the five-and-twentieth of January,
and Te Deum solemnly sung. But certain it is, that the joy of the city
thereupon showed, by ringing of bells and bonfires, and such other
incense of the people, was more than could be expected, in a case of so
great and fresh enmity between the nations, especially in London,
which was far enough off from feeling any of the former calamities of
the war ; and therefore might be truly attributed to a secret instinct
and inspiring which many times runneth not only in the hearts of
princes, but in the pulse and veins of people, touching the happiness
thereby to ensue in time to come. This marriage was in August fol
lowing consummated at Edinburgh ; the king bringing his daughter
as far as Colliweston on the way, and then consigning her to the
attendance of the earl of Northumberland, who, with a great troop of
lords and ladies of honour, Drought her into Scotland, to the king her
husband.
This marriage had been in treaty by the space of almost three years
from the time that the king of Scotland did first open his mind to
Bishop Fox. The sum given in marriage by the king was ten thousand
pounds ; and the jointure and advancement assured by the king of
Scotland was two thousand pounds a year, after King James his death,
and one thousand pounds a year in present, for the lady's allowance
or maintenance. This to be set forth in lands, of the best and most
certain revenue. During the treaty, it is reported that the king remitted
the matter to his council ; and that some of the table, in the freedom
of counsellors, the king being present, did put the case, — that if God
should take the king's two sons without issue, that then the kingdom of
England would fall to the king of Scotland, which might prejudice
the monarchy of England. Whereunto the king himself replied : that
if that should be, Scotland would be but an accession to England, and
not England to Scotland, for that the greater would draw the less ;
and that it was a safer union for England than that of France. This
passed as an oracle, and silenced those that moved the question.
490 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
The same year was fatal, as well for deaths as marriages, and that
with equal temper. For the joys and feasts of the two marriages were
compensed with the mournings and funerals of Prince Arthur, of whom
we have spoken, and of Queen Elizabeth, who died in childbed in the
Tower, and the child lived not long after. There died also that year
Sir Reginald Bray, who was noted to have had with the king the
greatest freedom of any counsellor ; but it was but a freedom the better
to set off flattery. Yet he bare more than his just part of envy for the
exactions.
At this time the king's estate was very prosperous ; secured by the
amity of Scotland, strengthened by that of Spain, cherished by that of
Burgundy, all domestic troubles quenched, and all noise of war, like a
thunder afar off, going upon Italy. Wherefore nature, which many
times is happily contained and refrained by some bands of fortune,
began to take place in the king ; carrying, as with a strong tide, his
affections and thoughts unto the gathering and heaping up of treasure.
And as kings do more easily find instruments for their will and
humour, than for their service and honour, he had gotten for his
purpose, or beyond his purpose, two instruments, Empson and
Dudley, whom the people esteemed as his horse-leeches and shearers,
bold men and careless of fame, and that took toll of their master's
grist. Dudley was of a good family, eloquent, and one that could put
hateful business into good language. But Empson, that was the son
of a sieve-maker, triumphed always upon the deed done, putting off all
other respects whatsoever. Those two persons being lawyers in science,
and privy counsellors in authority, as the corruption of the best things
is the worst, turned law and justice into wormwood and rapine. For
first, their manner was to cause divers subjects to be indicted of sundry
crimes, and so far forth to proceed in form of law ; but when the bills
were found, then presently to commit them ; and nevertheless not to
produce them in any reasonable time to their answer, but to suffer
them to languish long in prison, and by sundry artificial devices and
.^errors to extort from them great fines and ransoms, which they termed
compositions and mitigations.
Neither did they, towards the end, observe so much as the half- face
of justice, in proceeding by indictment ; but sent forth their precepts
to attach men and 'convent1 them before themselves, and some others,
at their private houses, in a court of commission ; and there used to
shuffle up a summary proceeding by examination, without trial of jury,
assuming to themselves there to deal both in pleas of the crown and
controversies civil.
Then did they also use to inthral and charge the subjects' lands with
tenures in capite, by finding false offices, and thereby to work upon
them for wardships, liveries, premier seizins, and alienations, being
the fruits of those tenures, refusing upon divers pretexts and delays,
to admit men to traverse those false offices according to the law.
Nay, the king's wards, after they had accomplished their full age,
could not be suffered to have livery of their lands, without paying
excessive fines, far exceeding all reasonable rates. They did also
1 To call before a judge and jury.
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 491
vex men with informations ot intrusion, upon scarce colourable
titles.
When men were outlawed in personal actions, they would not
permit them to purchase their charters of pardon, except they paid
great and intolerable sums ; standing upon the strict point of law,
which upon outlawries giveth forfeiture of goods ; nay, contrary to all
law and colour, they maintained the king ought to have the half of
men's lands and rents, during the space of full two years, for a pain in
case of outlawry. They would also ruffle with jurors, and enforce
them to find as they would direct, and if they did not, convent them,
imprison them, and fine them.
These and many other courses, fitter to be buried than repeated,
they had of preying upon the people ; both like tame hawks for their
master, and like wild hawks for themselves ; insomuch as they grew
to great riches and substance. But their principal working was upon
penal laws, wherein they spared none, great nor small ; nor considered
whether the law were possible or impossible, in use or obsolete ; but
raked over all old and new statutes, though* many of them were made
with intention rather of terror than of rigour, having ever a rabble of
promoters, questmongers, and leading jurors at their command, so as
they could have anything found either for fact or valuation.
There remaineth to this day a report that the king was on a
time entertained by the earl of Oxford, that was his principal servant
both for war and peace, nobly and sumptuously at his castle at
Henningham : and at the king's going away, the earl's servants
stood, in a seemly manner, in their livery coats, with cognizances,
ranged on both sides, and made the king a lane. The king called the
earl to him, and said, " My lord, I have heard much of your hospitality,
but I see it is greater than the speech : these handsome gentlemen
and yeomen, which I see on both sides of me, are sure your menial
servants." The earl smiled and said, " It may please your grace, that
were not for mine own ease : they are most of them my retainers, that
are come to do me service at such a time as this, and chiefly to see
your grace." The king started a little, and said, " By my faith, my
lord, I thank you for my good cheer, but I may not endure to have my
laws broken in my sight ; my attorney must speak with you." Arid it
is part of the report, that the earl compounded for no less than fifteen
thousand marks. And to show farther the king's extreme diligence,
I do remember to have seen long since a book of accompt of Empson's,
that had the king's hand almost to every leaf by way of signing, and
was in some places postilled in the margin with the king's hand
likewise, where was this remembrance ; —
" Item, Received of such a one five marks, for a pardon to be
procured ; and if the pardon do not pass, the money to be repaid :
except the party be some other ways satisfied."
And over against this Memorandum, of the king's own hand,
" Otherwise satisfied."
Which I do the rather mention, because it shows in the king a near
ness, but yet with a kind of justness. So these little sands and grains
of gold and silver, as it seemeth, helped not a little to make up the
great heap and bank.
492 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
But meanwhile, to keep the king awake, the earl of Suffolk, having
been too gay at Prince Arthur's marriage, and sunk himself deep in
debt, had yet once more a mind to be a knight-errant, and to seek
adventures in foreign parts, and taking his brother with him, fled
again into Flanders. That, no doubt, which gave him confidence,
was the great murmur of the people against the king's government ;
and being a man of a light and rash spirit, he thought every vapour
would be a tempest. Neither wanted he some party within the
kingdom ; for the murmur of people awakes the discontents of nobles;
and again, that calleth up commonly some head of sedition. The
king resorting to his wonted and tried arts, caused Sir Robert Curson,
captain of the castle at Hammes, being at that time beyond sea,
and therefore less likely to be wrought upon by the king, to fly from
his charge, and to feign himself a servant of the earl's. This knight,
having insinuated himself into the secrets of the earl, and finding by
him upon whom chiefly he had either hope or hold, advertised the
king thereof in great secrecy; but nevertheless maintained his own
credit and inward trust with the earl. Upon whose advertisements,
the king attached William Courtney, earl of Devonshire, his brother-
in-law, married to the Lady Catherine, daughter to King Edward the
Fourth; William De la Pole, brother to the earl of Suffolk, Sir James
Tirrel, and Sir John Windham, and some other meaner persons, and
committed them to custody. George Lord Abergavenny, and Sir
Thomas Green, were at the same time apprehended; but as upon less
suspicion, so in a freer restraint, and were soon after delivered. The
earl of Devonshire being interested in the blood of York, that was
rather feared than nocent ; yet as one that might be the object of
others plots and designs, remained prisoner in the Tower, during the
king's life. William De la Pole was also long restrained, though not so
straitly. But for Sir James Tirrel, against whom the blood of the
innocent princes, Edward the Fifth and his brother, did still " cry
from under the altar," and Sir John Windham, and the other meaner
ones, they were attainted and executed; the two knights beheaded.
Nevertheless, to confirm the credit of Curson, who belike had not yet
done all his feats of activity, there was published at Paul's Cross,
about the time of the said executions, the pope's bull of excommuni
cation and curse against the earl of Suffolk and Sir Robert Curson,
and some others by name ; and likewise in general against all the
abettors of the said earl: wherein it must be confessed that heaven
was made too much to bow to earth, and religion to policy. But soon
after, Curson, when he saw the time, returned into England, and
withal into wonted favour with the king, but worse fame with the
people. Upon whose return the earl was much dismayed, and seeing
himself destitute of hopes, the Lady Margaret also, by tract of time
and bad success, being now become cool in those attempts, after some
wandering in France and Germany, and certain little projects, no
better than squibs of an exiled man, being tired out, retired again into
the protection of the Archduke Philip, in Flanders, who by the death
of Isabella was at that time king of Castile in the right of Joan his
wife.
This year, being the nineteenth of his reign, the king called his
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 493
parliament; wherein a man may easily guess how absolute the king
took himself to be with his parliament, when Dudley, that was so
hateful, was made speaker of the House of Commons. In this
parliament there were not made any statutes memorable touching
public government; but those that were, had still the stamp of the
king's wisdom and policy.
There was a statute made for the disannulling of all patents of
lease or grant, to such as came not upon lawful summons to serve the
king in his wars, against the enemies or rebels, or that should depart
without the king's license ; with an exception of certain persons of the
long robe ; providing nevertheless that they should have the king's
wages from their house, till their return home again. There had been
the like made before for offices, and by this statute it was extended to
lands. But a man may easily see by many statutes made in this king's
time, that the king thought it safest to assist martial law by law of
parliament.
Another statute was made prohibiting the bringing in of manufactures
of silk wrought by itself, or mixt with any other thread. But it was
not of stuffs of whole piece, for that the realm had of them no manu
facture in use at that time, but of knit silk, or texture of silk, as
ribbons, laces, cauls, points, and girdles, &c., which the people of
England could then well skill to make. This law pointed at a true
principle: "That where foreign materials are but superfluities, foreign
manufactures should be prohibited;" for that will either banish the
superfluity, or gain the manufacture.
There was a law also of resumption of patents of gaols, and the
reannexing of them to the sheriffwicks ; privileged officers being no
less an interruption of justice than privileged places.
There was likewise a law to restrain the by-laws, or ordinances of
corporations, which many times were against the prerogative of the
king, the common law of the realm, and the liberty of the subject,
being fraternities in evil. It was therefore provided, that they should
not be put in execution, without the allowance of the chancellor,
treasurer, and the two chief justices, or three of them, or of the two
justices of circuit where the corporation was.
Another law was, in effect, to bring in the silver of the realm to the
mint, in making all clipped, minished, or impaired coins of silver, not
to be current in payments ; without giving any remedy of weight, but
with an exception only of reasonable wearing, which was as nothing
in respect of the uncertainty ; and so, upon the matter, to set the mint
on work, and to give way to new coins of silver, which should be then
minted.
There likewise was a long statute against vagabonds, wherein two
things may be noted ; the one, the dislike the parliament had of
gaoling of them, as that which was chargeable, pesterous, and of no
open example; the other, that in the statutes of this king's time, for
this of the nineteenth year is not the only statute of that kind, there
are ever coupled the punishment of vagabonds, and forbidding of dice
and cards, and unlawful games, unto servants and mean people, and
the putting down and suppressing of alehouses, as strings of one root
together, and as if the one were unprofitable without the othe*
494 ftENRY THE SEVENTH.
As for riot and retainers, there passed scarce any parliament in this
time without a law against them: the king ever having an eye to
might and multitude.
There was granted also that parliament a subsidy, both from the
temporality and the clergy. Andjyet, nevertheless, ere the year expired,,
there went out commissions for a general benevolence, though therfc
were no wars nor fears. The same year the city gave five thousand
marks for confirmation of their liberties ; a thing fitter for the begin
nings of kings' reigns, than the latter ends. Neither was it a small
matter that the mint gained upon the late statute, by the recoinage of
groats and half-groats, now twelve-pences and six-pences. As for
Empson and Dudley's mills, they did grind more than ever: so thai it
was a strange thing to see what golden showers poured down upon
the king's treasury at once, — the last payments of the marriage-money
from Spain, the subsidy, the benevolence, the recoinage, the redemption
of the city's liberties, the casualties. And this is the more to be
marvelled at, because the king had then no occasions at all of wars
or troubles. He had now but one son and one daughter unbestowed.
He was wise ; he was of a high mind ; he needed not to make riches
his glory; he did excel in so many things else; save that certainly
avarice doth ever find in itself matter of ambition. Belike he thought
to leave his son such a kingdom, and such a mass of treasure, as he
might choose his greatness where he would.
This year was also kept the Serjeants' feast, which was the second
call in this king's days.
About this time Isabella, queen of Castile, deceased; a right noble
lady, and an honour to her sex and times, and the corner-stone of the
greatness of Spain that hath followed. This accident the king took
not for news at large, but thought it had a great relation to his own
affairs, especially in two points, the one for example, the other for
consequence. First, he conceived that the case of Ferdinando of
Aragon, after the death of Queen Isabella, was his own case after the
death of his own queen; and the case of Joan, the heir unto Castile,
was the case of his own son prince Henry. For if both of the kings
had their kingdoms in the right of their wives, they descended to the
heirs, and did not accrue to the husbands. And although his own
case had both steel and parchment more than the other, that is to say,
a conquest in the field and an act of parliament, yet notwithstanding,
that natural title of descent in blood did, in the imagination even of
a wise man, breed a doubt that the other two were not safe nor sufficient.
Wherefore he was wonderful diligent to inquire and observe what
became of the king of Aragon, in holding and continuing the kingdom
of Castile; and whether he did hold it in his own right, or as adminis
trator to his daughter, and whether he were like to hold it in fact, or
to be put out by his son-in-law. Secondly, he did revolve in his mind,
that the state of Christendom might by this late accident have a turn;
for whereas before time, himself with the conjunction of Aragon and
Castile, which then was one, and the amity of Maximilian and Philip
his son the archduke, was far too strong a party for France ; he began
to fear, that now the French king, who had great interest in the
affections of Philip, the young king of Castile, and Philip himself, now
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 495
king of Castile, who was in ill terms with his father-in-law about the
present government of Castile, and thirdly, Maximilian, Philip's father,
who was ever variable, and upon whom the surest aim that could be
taken was, that he would not be long as he had been last before, would
all three, being potent princes, enter into some strait league and
confederation among themselves; whereby though he should not be
endangered, yet he should be left to the poor amity of Aragon ; and
whereas he had been heretofore a kind of arbiter of Europe, he should
now go less, and be over-topped by so great a conjunction. He had
also, as it seems, an inclination to marry, and bethought himself of
some fit conditions abroad: and amongst others he had heard of the
beauty and virtuous behaviour of the young queen of Naples, the
widow of Ferdinando the younger, being then of matronal years of
seven and twenty ; by whose marriage he thought that the kingdom
of Naples, having been a goal for a time between the king of Aragon
and the French king, and being but newly settled, might in some part
be deposited in his hands, who was so able to keep the stakes.
Therefore he sent in ambassage or message three confident persons,
Francis Marsin, James Braybrooke, and John Stile, upon two several
inquisitions rather than negotiations; the one touching the person
and condition of the young queen of Naples, the other touching all
particulars of estate that concerned the fortunes and intentions of
Ferdinando. And because they may observe best, who themselves
are observed least, he sent them under colourable pretexts; giving
them letters of kindness and compliment from Catharine, the princess,
to her aunt and niece, the old and young queen of Naples, and
delivering to them also a book of new articles of peace ; which, not
withstanding it had been delivered unto Doctor de Puebla, the lieger
ambassador of Spain here in England, to be sent ; yet for that the
king had been long without hearing from Spain, he thought good those
messengers, when they had been with the two queens, should likewise
pass on to the court of Ferdinando, and take a copy of the book with
them. The instructions touching the queen of Naples were so curious
and exquisite, being as articles whereby to direct a survey, or framing
a particular of her person, for complexion, favour, feature, stature,
health, age, customs, behaviour, conditions, and estate, as, if the king
had been young, a man would have judged him to be amorous ; but,
being ancient, it ought to be interpreted, that sure he was very chaste,
for that he meant to find all things in one woman, and so to settle his
affections without ranging. But in this match he was soon cooled,
when he heard from his ambassadors, that this young queen had had
a goodly jointure in the realm of Naples, well answered during the
time of her uncle Frederick, yea, and during the time of Lewis the
French king, in whose division her revenue fell ; but since the time
that the kingdom was in Ferdinando's hands, all was assigned to the
army and garrisons there, and she received only a pension or exhibition
out of his coffers.
The other part of the inquiry had a grave and diligent return, in
forming the king at full of the present state of King Ferdinando. By
this report it appeared to the king, that Ferdinando did continue the
government of Castile, as administrator unto his daughter Joan, by
49$ HENRY THE SEVENTH.
the title of Queen Isabella's will, and partly by the custom of the
kingdom, as he pretended. And that all mandates and grants were
expedited in the name of Joan, his daughter, and himself as adminis
trator, without mention of Philip, her husband. And that King Ferdi-
nando, howsoever he did dismiss himself of the name of king of Castile,
yet meant to hold the kingdom without account, and in absolute
command.
It appeareth also, that he flattered himself with hopes, that King
Philip would permit unto him the government of Castile during his
life ; which he had laid his plot to work him unto, both by some coun
sellors of his about him, which Ferdinando had at his devotion, and
chiefly by promise, that in case Philip gave not way unto it, he would
marry some young lady, whereby to put him by the succession of
Aragon and Granada, in case he should have a son ; and lastly, by
representing unto him that the government of the Burgundians, till
Philip were by continuance in Spain made as natural of Spain, would
not be endured by the Spaniards. But in all those things, though
wisely laid down and considered, Ferdinando had failed ; but that
Pluto was better to him than Pallas.
In the same report, also, the ambassadors being mean men, and
therefore the more free, did strike upon a string which was somewhat
dangerous ; for they declared plainly, that the people of Spain, both
nobles and commons, were better affected unto the part of Philip, so
he brought his wife with him, than to Ferdinando ; and expressed the
reason to be, because he had imposed upon them many t^xes and
tallages, which was the king's own case between him and his son.
There was also in this report a declaration of an overture of mar
riage, which Amason, the secretary of Ferdinando, had made unto the
ambassadors in great secret, between Charles, prince of Castile, and
Mary, the king's second daughter ; assuring the king that the treaty
of marriage then on foot for the said prince and the daughter of
France would break ; and that she the said daughter of France should
be married to Angolesme, that was the heir apparent of France.
There was a touch also of a speech of marriage between Ferdinando
and Madame de Fois, a lady of the blood of France, which afterwards
indeed succeeded. But this was reported as learned in France, and
silenced in Spain.
The king, by the return of this ambassage, which gave great light
unto his affairs, was well instructed, and prepared how to carry himself
between Ferdinando, king of Aragon, and Philip, his son-in-law, king
of Castile ; resolving with himself to do all that in him lay, to keep
them at one within themselves ; but howsoever that succeeded, by a
moderate carriage, and bearing the person of a common friend, to lose
neither of their friendships ; but yet to run a course more entire with
the king of Aragon, but more laboured and officious with the king of
Castile. But he was much taken with the overture of marriage with
his daughter Mary ; both because it was the greatest marriage of
Christendom, and for that it took hold of both allies.
But to corroborate his alliance with Philip, the winds gave him an
interview ; for Philip choosing the winter season, the better to surprise
the king of Aragon, set forth with a great navy out of Flanders for
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 4P7
Spain, in the month of January, the one-and-t\ventieth year of the
king's reign. But himself was surprised with a cruel tempest, that
scattered his ships upon the several coasts of England ; and the ship
wherein the king and queen were, with two other small barks only,
torn and in great peril, to escape the fury of the weather, thrust into
Weymouth. King Philip himself, having not been used, as it seems,
to the sea, all wearied and extreme sick, would needs land to refresh his
spirits, though it was against the opinion of his council, doubting it
might breed delay, his occasions requiring celerity.
The rumour of the arrival of a puissant navy upon the coast made
the country arm. And Sir Thomas Trenchard, with forces suddenly
raised, not knowing what the matter might be, came to Weymouth.
Where, understanding the accident, he did in all humbleness and
humanity invite the king and queen to his house ; and forthwith
despatched posts to the court. Soon after came Sir John Carew like
wise, with a great troop of men well armed ; using the like humblenesa
and respects towards the king, when he knew the case. King Philip,
doubting that they being but subjects, durst not let him pass away
again without the king's notice and leave, yielded to their entreaties to
stay till they heard from the court. The king, as soon as he heard
the news, commanded presently the earl of Arundel to go to visit the
king of Castile, and let him understand that as he was very sorry for
his mishap, so he was glad that he had escaped the danger of the seas,
and likewise of the occasion himself had to do him honour ; and
desiring him to think himself as in his own land ; and that the king
made all haste possible to come and embrace him. The earl came to
him in great magnificence, with a brave troop of three hundred horse ;
and, for more state, came by torch-light. After he had done the kind's
message, King Philip, seeing how the world went, the sooner to get
away, went upon speed to the king at Windsor, and his queen followed
by easy journeys. The two kings, at their meeting, used all the
caresses and loving demonstrations that were possible. And the king
of Castile said pleasantly to the king, " That he was now punished for
that he would not come within his walled town of Calais, when they
met last." But the king answered, " That walls and seas were nothing
where hearts were open ; and that he was here no otherwise but to be
served," After a day or two's refreshing, the kings entered into speech
of renewing the treaty ; the kings saying, that though King Philip's
person were the same, yet his fortunes and state were raised ; in which
case a renovation of treaty was used amongst princes. But while these
things were in handling, the king choosing a fit time, and drawing the
king of Castile into a room, where they two only were private, and
laying his hand civilly upon his arm, and changing his countenance a
little from a countenance of entertainment, said to him, " Sir, you have
been saved upon my coast, I hope you will not suffer me to wreck upon
yours." The king of Castile asked him what he meant by that speech ?
" I mean it," saith the king, " by that same harebrain wild fellow, my
subject, the earl of Suffolk, who is protected in your country, and
begins to play the fool, when all others are weary of it." The king of
Castile answered, " I had thought, Sir, your felicity had been above
those thoughts ; but if it trouble you, I will banish him." The king
K K
49& HENRY THE SEVENTH.
replied, " Those hornets were best in their nest, and worst when they
did fly abroad ; and that his desire was to have him delivered to him."
The king of Castile, herewith a little confused, and in a study, said,
" That can I not do with my honour, and less with yours ; for you will
be thought to have used me as a prisoner.'3 The king presently said,
" Then the matter is at an end, for I will take that dishonour upon me,
and so your honour is saved." The king of Castile, who had the king
in great estimation, and besides remembered where he was, and knew
not what use he might have of the king's amity, for that himself was
new in his estate of Spain, and unsettled both with his father-in-law
and with his people, composing his countenance, said, " Sir, you give
law to me, but so will I to you. You shall have him, but, upon your
honour, you shall not take his life." The king, embracing him, said,
" Agreed." Saith the king of Castile, " Neither shall it dislike you, if
I send to him in such a fashion, as he may partly come with his own
good will." The king said, " It was well thought of; and if it pleased
him, he would join with him, in sending to the earl a message to that
purpose." They both sent severally, and meanwhile they continued
feasting and pastimes. The king being, on his part, willing to have
the earl sure before the king of Castile went ; and the king of Castile
being as willing to seem to be enforced. The king also, with many
wise and excellent persuasions, did advise the king of Castile to be
ruled by the counsel of his father-in-law Ferdinando ; a prince so
prudent, so experienced, so fortunate. The king of Castile, who was
in no very good terms with his said father-in-law, answered, " That if
his father-in-law would suffer him to govern his kingdoms, he should
govern him."
There were immediately messengers sent from both kings, to recall
the earl of Suffolk, who, upon gentle words used to him, was soon
charmed, and willing enough to return ; assured of his life, and hoping
of his liberty. He was brought through Flanders to Calais, and thence
landed at Dover, and, with sufficient guard, delivered and received at
the Tower of London. Meanwhile, King Henry, to draw out the time,
continued his feastings and entertainments, and after he had received
the king of Castile into the fraternity of the Garter, and for a reciprocal
had his son, the prince, admitted to the order of the Golden Fleece,
he accompanied King Philip and his queen to the city of London ;
where they were entertained with the greatest magnificence and triumph,
that could be upon no greater warning. And as soon as the earl of
Suffolk had been conveyed to the Tower, which was the serious part,
the jollities had an end, and the kings took leave. Nevertheless,
during their being here, they, in substance, concluded that treaty,
which the Flemings term " intercursus malus? and bears date at
Windsor : for there be some things in it more to the advantage of the
English, than of them ; especially, for that the free fishing of the
Dutch upon the coasts and seas of England, granted in the treaty of
" undecimo" was not by this treaty confirmed. All articles that con
firm former treaties being precisely and warily limited and confirmed
to matter of commerce only, and not otherwise.
It was observed that the great tempest which drove Philip into
England, blew down the golden eagle from the spire of Paul's, and in
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 499
the fall, it fell upon a sign of the black eagle, which was in Paul's
churchyard, in the place where the school-house now standeth, and
battered it, and brake it down ; which was a strange stooping of a
hawk upon a fowl. This the people interpreted to be an ominous
prognostic upon the imperial house, which was, by interpretation also,
fulfilled upon Philip, the emperor's son, not only in the present disaster
of the tempest, but in that that followed ; for Philip arriving into
Spain, and attaining the possession of the kingdom of Castile without
resistance, insomuch as Ferdinando, who had spoke so great before,
was with difficulty admitted to the speech of his son-in-law, sickened
soon after, and deceased. Yet after such time, as there was an
observation by the wisest of that court, that if he had lived, his father
would have gained upon him in that sort, as he would have governed
his councils and designs, if not his affections. By this, all Spain
returned into the power of Ferdinando in state, as it was before ; the
rather, in regard of the infirmity of Joan his daughter, who loving her
husband, by whom she had many children, dearly well, and no less
beloved of him, howsoever her father, to make Philip ill-beloved of
the people of Spain, gave out that Philip used her not well, was unable
in strength of mind to bear the grief of his decease, and fell distracted
of her wits.1 Of which malady, her father was thought no ways to
endeavour the cure, the better to hold his legal power in Castile. So
that, as the felicity of Charles the Eighth was said to be a dream, so
the adversity of Ferdinando was said likewise to be a dream, it passed
over so soon.
About this time, the king was desirous to bring into the house of
Lancaster celestial honour, and became suitor to Pope Julius to
canonize King Henry the Sixth for a saint ; the rather, in respect oi
that his famous prediction of the king's own assumption to the crown
Julius referred the matter, as the manner is, to certain cardinals, to
take the verification of his holy acts and miracles ; but it died under
the reference. The general opinion was, that Pope Julius was too
dear, and that the king would not come to his rates. But it is more
probable, that that pope, who was extremely jealous of the dignity of
the See of Rome, and of the acts thereof, knowing that King Henry
the Sixth was reputed in the world abroad but for a simple man, was
afraid it would but diminish the estimation of that kind of honour, if
there were not a distance kept between innocents and saints.
The same year, likewise, there proceeded a treaty of marriage between
the king and the Lady Margaret, duchess dowager of Savoy, only
daughter to Maximilian, and sister to the king of Castile ; a lady wise,
and of great good fame. This matter had been in speech between
the two kings at their meeting, but was soon after resumed ; and
therein was employed, for his first piece, the king's then chaplain,
and after the great prelate, Thomas Wolsey. It was in the end con
cluded, with great and ample conditions for the king, but with promise
de future only. It may be the king was the rather induced unto it,
for that he had heard more and more of the marriage to go on between
his great friend and ally, Ferdinando of Aragon, and Madame de
1 Shs »f watching for days by the corpse, hoping that Philip would revive.
K K 2
5oo HENRY THE SEVENTH.
Fois, whereby that king began to piece with the French king, from
whom he had been always before severed. So fatal a thing it is, for
the greatest and straitest amities of kings at one time or other, to have
a little of the wheel ; nay, there is a farther tradition in Spain, though
not with us, that the king of Aragon, after he knew that the mar
riage between Charles, the young prince of Castile, and Mary, the
king's second daughter, went roundly on, which, though it was first
moved by the king of Aragon, yet it was afterwards wholly advanced
and brought to perfection by Maximilian, and the friends on that side
entered into a jealousy, that the king did aspire to the government of
Castilia, as administrator during the minority of his son-in-law ; as
if there should have been a competition of three for that government :
Ferdinando, grandfather on the mother's side ; Maximilian, grand
father on the father's side; and King Henry, father-in-law to the
young prince. Certainly, it is not unlike but the king's government,
carrying the young prince with him, would have been, perhaps, more
welcome to the Spaniards, than that of the other two. For the
nobility of Castilia, that so lately put out the king of Aragon in
favour of king Philip, and had discovered themselves so far, could
not be but in a secret distrust and distaste of that king ; and as for
Maximilian, upon twenty respects, he could not have been the man.
But this purpose of the king's seemeth to me, considering the king's
safe courses, never found to be enterprising or adventurous, not
greatly probable, except he should have had a desire to breathe
warmer, because he had ill lungs. This marriage with Margaret was
protracted from time to time, in respect of the infirmity of the king,
who now, in the two-and twentieth of his reign, began to be troubled
with the gout ; but the defluxion taking also into his breast, wasted
his lungs, so that thrice in a year, in a kind of return, and especially
in the spring, he had great fits and labours of the phthisic ; neverthe
less, he continued to intend business with as great diligence, as before
in his health ; yet so, as upon this warning, he did likewise now more
seriously think of the world to come, and of making himself a saint,
as well as King Henry the Sixth, by treasure better employed, than to
be given to Pope Julius ; for, this year, he gave greater alms than
accustomed, and discharged all prisoners about the city, that lay for
fees or debts under forty shillings. He did also make haste with
religious foundations ; and in the year following, which was the three-
and-twentieth, finished that of the Savoy. And hearing also of the
bitter cries of his people against the oppressions of Dudley and Emp-
son, and their complices, partly by devout persons about him, and
partly by public sermons, the preachers doing their duty therein, he
was touched with great remorse for the same. Nevertheless, Empson
and Dudley, though they could not but hear of these scruples in the
king's conscience, yet, as if the king's soul and his money were in
several offices, that the one was not to intermeddle with the other,
went on with as great rage as ever ; for the same three-and-twentieth
year was there a sharp prosecution against Sir William Capel, now
the second time, and this was for matters of misgovernment in his
mayoralty ; the great matter being, that in some payments he had
taken knowledge of false moneys, and did not his diligence to examine
HENRY THE SEVENTH. $ot
and beat it oat, who were the offenders. For this, and some other
things laid to his charge, he was condemned to pay two thousand
pounds ; and being a man of stomach, and hardened by his former
troubles, refused to pay a mite ; and, belike, used some untoward
speeches of the proceedings, for which he was sent to the Tower, and
there remained till the king's death. Knesworth likewise, that had
been lately mayor of London, and both his sheriffs, were for abuses in
their offices questioned, and imprisoned, and delivered upon one thou
sand four hundred pounds paid. Hawis, an alderman of London, was
put in trouble, and died with thought and anguish, before his business
came to an end. Sir Lawrence Ailmer, who had likewise been mayor
of London, and his two sheriffs, were put to the fine of one thousand
pounds. And Sir Lawrence, for refusing to make payment, was com
mitted to prison, where he stayed till Empson himself was com
mitted in his place.
It is no marvel, if the faults were so light, and the rates so heavy,
that the king's treasure of store, that he left at his death, most of it in
secret places, under his own key and keeping, at Richmond, amounted,
as by tradition it is reported to have done, unto the sum of near
eighteen hundred thousand pounds sterling ; a huge mass of money
even for these times.
The last act of state that concluded this king's temporal felicity,
was the conclusion of a glorious match between his daughter Mary,
and Charles, prince of Castile, afterwards the great emperor, both
being of tender years ; which treaty was perfected by Bishop Fox, and
other his commissioners at Calais, the year before the king's death.
In which alliance, it seemeth, he himself took so high contentment,
as in a letter which he wrote thereupon to the city of London, com
manding all possible demonstrations of joy to be made for the same,
he expresseth himself, as if he thought he had built a wall of brass
about his kingdom : when he had for his sons-in-law, a king of
Scotland and a prince of Castile and Burgundy. So as now there
was nothing to be added to this great king's felicity, being at the top
of all worldly bliss, in regard of the high marriages of his children, his
great renown throughout Europe, and his scarce credible riches, and
the perpetual constancy of his prosperous successes, but an opportune
death, to withdraw him from any future blow of fortune ; which cer
tainly (in regard of the great hatred of his people, and the title of his
son, being then come to eighteen years of age, and being a bold prince
and liberal, and that gained upon the people by his very aspect and
presence), had not been impossible to have come upon him.
To crown also the last year of his reign, as well as his first, he did
an act of piety, rare, and worthy to be taken into imitation. For he
granted forth a general pardon ; as expecting a second coronation in
a better kingdom. He did also declare in his will, that his mind was,
that restitution should be made of those sums which had been unjustly
taken by his officers.
And thus this Solomon of England, for Solomon also was too heavy
upon his people in exactions, having lived two-and-fifty years, and
thereof reigned three-and-twenty years and eight months, being in
perfect memory, and in a most blessed mind, in a great calm of a
502 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
consuming sickness passed to a better world, the two-and-twentitth
of April, 1508, at his palace of Richmond, which himself had built.
This king, to speak of him in terms equal to his deserving, was one
of the best sort of wonders ; a wonder for wise men. He had parts,
both in his A'irtues and his fortune, not so fit for a common-place, as
for observation. Certainly he was religious, both in his affection and
observance. But as he could see clear, for those times, through super
stition, so he would be blinded, now and then, by human policy. He
advanced churchmen : he was tender in the privilege of sanctuaries,
though they wrought him much mischief. He built and endowed
many religious foundations, besides his memorable hospital of the
Savoy ; and yet was he a great almsgiver in secret ; which showed,
that his works in public were dedicated rather to God's glory than
his own.
He professed always to love and seek peace ; and it was his usual
preface in his treaties, that when Christ came into the world, peace
was sung ; and when he went out of the world, peace was bequeathed.
And this virtue could not proceed out of fear or softness, for he was
valiant and active, and therefore, no doubt, it was truly Christian and
moral. Yet he knew the way to peace was not to seem to be desirous
to avoid wars ; therefore would he make offers and fames of wars, till
he had mended the conditions of peace. It was also much, that one
that was so great a lover of peace, should be so happy in war. For
his arms, either in foreign or civil wars, were never unfortunate ;
neither did he know what a disaster meant. The war of his coming
in, and the rebellions of the earl of Lincoln, and the Lord Audley,
were ended by victory. The wars of France and Scotland, by peaces
sought at his hands. That of Britain, by accident of the duke's death.
The insurrection of the Lord Lovel, and that of Perkin at Exeter, and
in Kent, by flight of the rebels before they came to blows. So that
his fortune of arms was still inviolate : the rather sure, for that in the
quenching of the commotions of his subjects, he ever went in person :
sometimes reserving himself to back and second his lieutenants, but
ever in action ; and yet that was not merely forwardness, but partly
distrust of others.
He did much maintain and countenance his laws : which, neverthe
less, was no impediment to him to work his will ; for it was so handled,
that neither prerogative nor profit went to diminution. And yet as he
would sometimes strain up his laws to his prerogative, so would he
also let down his prerogative to his parliament. For mint, and wars,
and martial discipline, things of absolute power, he would nevertheless
bring to parliament. Justice was well administered in his time, save
where the king was party ; save also that the council-table inter
meddled too much with meum and ttium. For it was a very court of
justice during his time, especially in the beginning ; but in that part
both of justice and policy, which is the durable part, and cut, as it
were, in brass or marble, which is the making of good laws, he did
excel. And with his justice, he was also a merciful prince ; as in
whose time, there were but three of the nobility that suffered : the
earl of Warwick, the lord chamberlain, and the Lord Audley : though
the first two were instead of numbers, in the dislike and obloquy of
HENRY THE SEVENTH. 503
the people. But there were never so great rebellions expiated with so
little blood, drawn by the hand of justice, as the two rebellions of
Blackheath and Exeter. As for the severity used upon those which
were taken in Kent, it was but upon a scum of people.1 His pardons
went ever both before and after his sword. But then he had withal
a strange kind of interchanging of large and unexpected pardons, with
severe executions ; which, his wisdom considered, could not be im
puted to any inconstancy or inequality, but either to some reason
which we do not now know, or to a principle he had set unto himself,
that he would vary, and try both ways in turn. But the less blood he
drew, the more he took of treasure. And as some construed it, he
•vas the more sparing in the one, that he might be the more pressing
in the other; for both would have been intolerable. Of nature
assuredly he coveted to accumulate treasure, and was a little poor in
admiring riches. The people, into whom there is infused, for the
preservation of monarchies, a natural desire to discharge their princes,
though it be with the unjust charge of their counsellors and ministers,
did impute this unto Cardinal Morton and Sir Reginald Bray, who,
as it after appeared, as counsellors of ancient authority with him, did
so second his humours, as nevertheless they did temper them ; whereas
Empson and Dudley, that followed, being persons that had no reputa
tion with him, otherwise than by the servile following of his bent, did
not give way only, as the first did, but shape him way to those extre
mities, for which himself was touched with remorse at his death, and
which his successor renounced, and sought to purge. This excess of
his had at that time many glosses and interpretations. Some thought
the continual rebellions wherewith he had been vexed, had made him
grow to hate his people ; some thought it was done to pull down their
stomachs, and to keep them low ; some, for that he would leave his
son a golden fleece ; some suspected he had some high design upon
foreign parts : but those perhaps shall come nearest the truth, that
fetch not their reasons so far off, but rather impute it to nature, age,
peace, and a mind fixed upon no other ambition or pursuit. Where-
unto I should add, that having every day occasion to take notice of
the necessities and shifts for money of other great princes abroad, it
did the better, by comparison, set off to him the felicity of full coffers.
As to his expending of treasure, he never spared charge which his
affairs required ; and in his buildings was magnificent, but his rewards
were very limited : so that his liberality was rather upon his own state
and memory, than upon the deserts of others.
He was of a high mind, and loved his own will, and his own way ;
as one that revered himself, and would reign indeed. Had he been a
private man, he would have been termed proud. But in a wise prince,
it was but keeping of distance, which indeed he did towards all ; not
admitting any near or full approach, either to his power, or to his
secrets, for he was governed by none. His queen, notwithstanding she
had presented him with divers children, and with a crown also, though
he would not acknowledge it, could do nothing with him. His mother
he reverenced much, heard little. For any person agreeable to him
1 Bacon's contempt for the people belonged to his age, but is certainly repulsive even with
Jus excuse
504 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
for society, such as was Hastings to King Edward the Fourth, or
Charles Brandon after to King Henry the Eighth, he had none ;
except we should account for such persons, Fox, and Bray, and
Empson, because they were so much with him ; but it was but as the
instrument is much with the workman. He had nothing in him of vain
glory, but yet kept state and majesty to the height ; being sensiblej
that majesty maketh the people bow, but vain glory boweth to them.
To his confederates abroad he was constant and just, but not open.
But rather such was his inquiry, and such his closeness, as they stood
in the light towards him, and he stood in the dark to them ; yet with
out strangeness, but with a semblance of mutual communication of
affairs. As for little envies, or emulations upon foreign princes, which
are frequent with many kings, he had never any ; but went sub
stantially to his own business. Certain it is, that though his reputation
was great at home, yet it was greater abroad ; for foreigners, that could
not see the passages of affairs, but made their judgments upon the
issues of them, noted that he was ever in strife, and ever aloft. It
grew also from the airs which the princes and states abroad received
from their ambassadors and agents here ; which were attending the
court in great number ; whom he did not only content with courtesy,
reward, and privateness, but, upon such conferences as passed with
them, put them in admiration, to find his universal insight into the
affairs of the world ; which though he did suck chiefly from themselves,
yet that which he had gathered from them all, seemed admirable to
every one. So that they did write ever to their superiors in high terms,
concerning his wisdom and art of rule ; nay, when they were returned,
they did commonly maintain intelligence with him. Such a dexterity
he had to impropriate to himself all foreign instruments.
He was careful and liberal to obtain good intelligence from all parts
abroad ; wherein he did not only use his interest in the liegers here,
and his pensioners, which he had both in the court of Rome, and other
the courts of Christendom, but the industry and vigilance of his own
ambassadors in foreign parts. For which purpose his instructions
were ever extreme, curious, and articulate ; and in them more articles
touching inquisition, than touching negotiation ; requiring likewise
from his ambassadors an answer, in particular distinct articles, respec
tively to his questions.
As for his secret spials, which he did employ both at home and
abroad, by them to discover what practices and conspiracies were
against him, surely his case required it ; he had such moles perpetually
working and casting to undermine him. Neither can it be repre
hended ; for if spials be lawful against lawful enemies, much more
against conspirators and traitors. But indeed to give them credence
by oaths or curses, that cannot be well maintained ; for those are too
holy vestments for a disguise. Yet surely there was this farther good
in his employing of these flies and familiars ; that as the use of them
was cause that many conspiracies were revealed, so the fame and
suspicion of them kept, no doubt, many conspiracies from being
attempted.
Towards his queen he was nothing uxorious, nor scarce indulgent ;
but companiable and respective, and without jealousy. Towards his
HENRY THE SEVENTH. • 505
children he was full of paternal affection, careful of their education,
aspiring to their high advancement, regular to see that they should not
want of any due honour and respect, but not greatly willing to cast any
popular lustre upon them.
To his council he did refer much, and sat oft in person ; knowing it
to be the way to assist his power, and inform his judgment. In which
respect also he was fairly patient of liberty, both of advice, and of vote,
till himself were declared. He kept a straight hand on his nobility,
and chose rather to advance clergymen and lawyers, which were
more obsequious to him, but had less interest in the people ; which
made for his absoluteness, but not for his safety. Insomuch as, I am
persuaded, it was one of the causes of his troublesome reign ; for that
his nobles, though they were loyal and obedient, yet did not co-operate
with him, but let every man go his own way. He was not afraid of an
able man, as Lewis the Eleventh was ; but contrariwise, he was served
by the ablest men that were to be found ; without which his affairs
could not have prospered as they did. For war, Bedford, Oxford,
Surrey, D'Aubigny, Brooke, Poynings ; for other affairs, Morton, Fox,
Bray, the prior of Lanthony, Warham, Urswick, Hussey, Frowick, and
others. Neither did he care how cunning they were that he did
employ ; for he thought himself to have the master-reach. And as he
chose well, so he held them up well ; for it is a strange thing, that
though he were a dark prince, and infinitely suspicious, and his times
full of secret conspiracies and troubles, yet in twenty-four years' reign,
he never put down, or discomposed counsellor, or near servant,
save only Stanley, the lord chamberlain. As for the disposition of his
subjects in general towards him, it stood thus with him : that of the
three affections, which naturally tie the hearts of the subjects to their
sovereigns, love, fear, and reverence, he had the last in height, the
second in good measure, and so little of the first, as he was beholden
to the other two.
He was a prince, sad, serious, and full of thoughts, and secret
observations, and full of notes and memorials of his own hand,
especially touching persons ; as, whom to employ, whom to reward,
whom to inquire of, whom to beware of, what were the dependencies,
what were the factions, and the like ; keeping, as it were, a journal of
his thoughts. There is to this day a merry tale, that his monkey,
set on as it was thought by one of his chamber, tore his principal
note-book all to pieces, when by chance it lay forth ; whereat the
court, which liked not those pensive accounts, was almost tickled with
sport.
He was indeed full of apprehensions and suspicions ; but as he did
easily take them, so he did easily check them and master them ;
whereby they were not dangerous, but troubled himself more than
others. It is true, his thoughts were so many, as they could not well
always stand together ; but that which did good one way, did hurt
another. Neither did he at sometimes weigh them aright in their pro
portions. Certainly, that rumour which did him so much mischief,
that the duke of York should be saved, and alive, was, at the first, of
his own nourishing ; because he would have more reason not to reign
in the right of his wife. He was affable, and both well and fair spoken ;
$o6 HENRY THE SEVENTH.
and would use strange sweetness and blandishments of words, where
he desired to effect or persuade anything that he took to heart. He
was rather studious than learned, reading most books that were of any
worth, in the French tongue ; yet he understood the Latin, as appeareth
in that Cardinal Hadrian and others, who could very well have written
French, did use to write to him in Latin.
For his pleasures, there is no news of them; and yet by his instruc
tions to Marsin and Stile, touching the queen of Naples, it seemeth he
could interrogate well touching beauty. He did by pleasures, as great
princes do by banquets, come and look a little upon them, and turn
away. For never prince was more wholly given to his affairs, nor
in them more of himself ; insomuch as in triumphs of justs and
tourneys, and balls, and masks, which they then called disguises, he
was rather a princely and gentle spectator, than seemed much to be
delighted.
No doubt, in him, as in all men, and most of all in kings, his
fortune wrought upon his nature, and his nature upon his fortune. He
attained to the crown, not only from a private fortune, which might
endow him with moderation, but also from the fortune of an exiled
man, which had quickened in him all seeds of observation and industry.
And his times being rather prosperous than calm, had raised his con
fidence by success, but almost marred his nature by troubles. His
wisdom, by often evading from perils, was turned rather into a dexterity
to deliver himself from dangers, when they pressed him, than into a
providence to prevent and remove them afar off. And even in nature,
the sight of his mind was like some sights of eyes — rather strong at
hand, than to carry afar off. For his wit increased upon the occa
sion ; and so much the more, if the occasion were sharpened by
danger. Again, whether it were the shortness of his foresight, or the
strength of his will, or the dazzling of his suspicions, or what it was,
certain it is, that the perpetual troubles of his fortunes, there being no
more matter out of which they grew, could not have been without some
great defects and main errors in his nature, customs, and proceed
ings, which he had enough to do to save and help with a thousand
little industries and watches. But those do best appear in the story
itself. Yet take him with all his defects, if a man should compare
him with the kings his concurrents in France and Spain, he shall find
him more politic than Lewis the Twelfth of France, and more entire
and sincere than Ferdinando of Spain. But if you shall change Lewis
the Twelfth for Lewis the Eleventh, who lived a little before, then the
consort is more perfect. For that Lewis the Eleventh, Ferdinando,
and Henry, may be esteemed for the tres magi of kings of those ages.
To conclude, if this king did no greater matters, it was long of himself: *
for what he minded he compassed.
He was a comely personage, a little above just stature, well and
straight limbed, but slender. His countenance was reverend, and a
little like a churchman ; and as it was not strange, or dark, so neither
was it winning or pleasing, but as the face of one well disposed. But
it was to the disadvantage of the painter, for it was best when he
spake.
1 It was by his own will.
HENRY THE EIGHTH. 507
His worth may bear a tale or two, that may put upon him somewhat
that may seem divine. When the Lady Margaret, his mother, had
divers great suitors for marriage, she dreamed one night, that one in
the likeness of a bishop in pontifical habit did tender her Edmund,
earl of Richmond, the king's father, for her husband, neither had she
ever any child but the king, though she had three husbands. One day
when King Henry the Sixth, whose innocency gave him holiness,
was washing his hands at a great feast, and cast his eye upon King
Henry, then a young youth, he said : " This is the lad that shall
possess quietly that, that we now strive for." But that, that was truly
divine in him was that he had the fortune of a true Christian, as well
as of a great king, in living exercised, and dying repentant ; so as he
had a happy warfare in both conflicts, both of sin and the cross.
He was born at Pembroke Castle, and lieth buried at Westminster,
in one of the stateliest and daintiest monuments of Europe, both for the
chapel and for the sepulchre. So that he dwelleth more richly dead,
in the monument of his tomb, than he did alive in Richmond, or any
of his palaces. I could wish he did the like in this monument of his
fame.
THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF KING HENRY
THE EIGHTH.
AFTER the decease of that wise and fortunate king, Henry the
Seventh, who died in the height of his prosperity, there followed, as
useth to do, when the sun setteth so exceeding clear, one of the fairest
mornings of a kingdom that hath been known in this land, or anywhere
else. A young king, about eighteen years of age, for stature, strength,
making, and beauty, one of the goodliest persons of his time. And
though he were given to pleasure, yet he was likewise desirous of
glory ; so that there was a passage open in his mind, by glory, for
virtue. Neither was he unadorned with learning, though therein he
came short of his brother Arthur. He had never any the least pique,
difference, or jealousy, with the king his father, which might give any
occasion of altering court or council upon the change ; but all things
passed in a still.1 He was the first heir of the White and Red rose ;
so that there was no discontented party now left in the kingdom, but
all men's hearts turned towards him ; and not only their hearts, but
their eyes also ; for he was the only son of the kingdom. He had no
brother ; which, though it be a comfortable thing for kings to have,
yet it draweth the subjects' eyes a little aside. And yet, being a
married man in those young years, it promised hope of speedy issue
to succeed in the crown. Neither was there any queen mother, who
might share any way in the government, or clash with his counsellors
for authority, while the king intended his pleasure. No such thing as
any great and mighty subject, who might any way eclipse or overshade
the imperial power. And for the people and state in general, they
were in such lowness of obedience, as subjects were like to yield, who
1 Quietly.
508 ELIZABETH.
had lived almost four-and-twenty years under so politic a king as his
father ; being also one who came partly in by the sword ; and had so
high a courage in all points of regality ; and was ever victorious in
rebellions and seditions of the people. The crown extremely rich and
full of treasure, and the kingdom like to be so in a short time. For
there was no war, no dearth, no stop of trade, or commerce ; it was
only the crown which had sucked too hard, and now, being full, and
upon the head of a young king, was like to draw less. Lastly, he was
inheritor of his father's reputation, which was great throughout the
world. He had strait alliance with the two neighbour states, an
ancient enemy in former times, and an ancient friend, — Scotland and
Burgundy. He had peace and amity with France, under the assur
ance, not only of treaty and league, but of necessity and inability in
the French to do him hurt, in respect that the French king's designs
were wholly bent upon Italy ; so that it may be truly said, there had
scarcely been seen or known, in many ages, such a rare concurrence
of signs and promises, and of a happy and flourishing reign to ensue,
as were now met in this young king, called after his father's name,
Henry the Eighth.
QUEEN ELIZABETH.
BOTH nature and fortune conspired to render Queen Elizabeth the
ambition of her sex, and an ornament to crowneofheads. This is not
a subject for the pen of a monk, or any such cloistered writer. For
such men, though keen in style, are attached to their party ; and
transmit things of this nature unfaithfully to posterity. Certainly this
is a province for men of the first rank ; or such as have sate at the
helm of states ; and been acquainted with the depths and secrets of
civil affairs.
All ages have esteemed a female government a rarity ; if prosperous,
a wonder ; and if both long and prosperous, almost a miracle. But
this lady reigned forty-four years complete, yet did not outlive her
felicity. Of this felicity I purpose to say somewhat, without running
into praises ; for praise is the tribute of men, but felicity the gift of
God.
And first, I account it a part of her felicity, that she was advanced
to the throne from a private fortune. For it is implanted in the nature
of men, to esteem unexpected success an additional felicity. But what
I mean, is, that princes educated in courts, as the undoubted heirs of
a crown, are corrupted by indulgence, and thence generally rendered
less capable, and less moderate in the management of affairs. And,
therefore, we find those the best rulers, who are disciplined by both
fortunes. Such was, with us, King Henry the Seventh, and with the
French, Louis the Twelfth, who both of them came to the crown
almost at the same time, not only from a private, but also from an
adverse and rugged fortune; and the former proved famous for his
prudence, the other for his justice. In the same manner this princess
also had the dawn of her fortune chequered, but in her reign it proved
unusually constant and steady. From her birth, she was entitled to
ELIZABETH. 509
the succession, but afterwards disinherited, and then postponed. In
the reign of her brother, her fortune was more favourable and serene ;
but in the reign of her sister, more hazardous and tempestuous. Nor
was she advanced on a sudden from a prison to the throne, which
might have made her haughty and vindictive, but being restored to her
liberty, and still growing in hopes, at last in a happy calm, she obtained
the crown without opposition or competitor. And this I mention to
show that Divine Providence intending an excellent princess, prepared
and advanced her by such degrees of discipline.
Nor ought the misfortunes of her mother to sully the glory of her
birth, especially, because it is evident that King Henry the Eighth was
engaged in a new amour before his rage kindled against Queen Anne ;
and because the temper of that king is censured by posterity, as ex
ceedingly prone both to amours and jealousies, and violent in both,
even to the effusion of blood. Add to this, that she was cut off through
an accusation manifestly improbable, and built upon slight conjectures,
as was then secretly whispered ; and Queen Anne herself protested her
innocence with an undaunted greatness of mind, at the* time of her
death. For, by a faithful and generous messenger, as she supposed,
she, just before her execution, sent this message to the king: "That
his majesty constantly held on in his purpose of heaping new honours
upon her, for that first he rais-ed her from a private gentlewoman, to
the honour of a marchioness ; next advanced her into a partnership of
his bed and kingdom ; and when now there remained no higher earthly
honour, he designed to promote her an innocent to the crown of mar
tyrdom." But the messenger durst not carry this to the king, now
plunged in a new amour; though fame, the asserter of truth, has
transmitted it to posterity.
Again, it is no inconsiderable, part of Queen Elizabeth's felicity, that
the course of her reign was not only long, but fell within that season
of her life which is fittest for governing. Thus she began her reign
at twenty-five, and continued it to the seventieth year of her age. So
that she neither felt the harshness of a minority, the checks of a
governor's power, nor the inconveniences of extreme old age, which is
attended with miseries enough in private men, but in crowned heads,
besides the ordinary miseries, it usually occasions a decay of the
government, and ends with an inglorious exit. For scarce any king
has lived to extreme old age, without suffering some diminution in
empire and esteem. Of this we have an eminent instance in Philip
the Second, king of Spain, a potent prince, and admirably versed in
the arts of government, who, in the decline of life, was thoroughly
sensible of this misfortune, and therefore wisely submitted to the
necessity of things, voluntarily quitted his acquisitions in France,
established a firm peace with that kingdom, and attempted the like
with others, that so he might leave all quiet and composed to his
successor. Queen Elizabeth's fortune, on the contrary, was so
constant and fixed, that no declension of affairs followed her lively,
though declining age ; nay, for an assured monument of her felicity,
she died not till the rebellion of Ireland ended in a victory, lest her
glory should otherwise have appeared any way ruffled or incomplete.
It should likewise be considered over what kind of people she
510 ELIZABETH.
reigned. For had her empire fallen among the Palmyrenians, or in
soft unwarlike Asia, it had been a less wonder, since a female in the
throne would have suited an effeminate people ; but in England, a
hardy military nation, for all things to be directed and governed by a
woman, is a matter of the highest admiration.
Yet this temper of her people, eager for war, and impatient of peace,
did not prevent her from maintaining it all her reign. And this peace
able disposition of hers joined with success, I reckon one of her chiefest
praises ; as being happy for her people, becoming her sex, and a
satisfaction to her conscience. Indeed, about the tenth year of her
reign, there rose a small commotion in the north of her kingdom, but
it was presently suppressed. The rest of her reign passed in a secure
and profound peace. And I judge it a glorious peace for two reasons,
which, though they make nothing to its merit, yet contribute much to
its honour. The one, that it was rendered more conspicuous and
illustrious by the calamities of our neighbours, as by so many flames
about us. The other, that the blessings of peace were not unattended
with the glory of arms, since she not only preserved, but advanced
the honour of the English name for martial greatness. For what by
the supplies she sent into the Netherlands, France, and Scotland ; the
expeditions by sea to the Indies, and some of them round the world ;
the fleets sent to infest Portugal, and the coasts of Spain ; and what
by the frequent conquests and reductions of the Irish rebels, we suffered
no decay in the ancient military fame and virtue of our nation.
It is likewise a just addition to her glory, that neighbouring princes
were supported in their thrones by her timely aids ; and that suppliant
states, which, through the misconduct of their kings, were abandoned,
devoted to the cruelty of their ministers, the fury of the multitude, and
all manner of desolation, were relieved by her.
Nor were her counsels less beneficent than her supplies, as having
so often interceded with the king of Spain, to reconcile him to his
subjects in the Netherlands, and reduce them to obedience, upon some
tolerable conditions. And she, with great sincerity, importuned the
kings of France, by repeated admonitions, to observe their own edicts,
that promised peace to their subjects. It is true her advice proved
ineffectual, for the common interest of Europe would not allow the
first, lest the ambition of Spain being uncurbed, should fly out, as
affairs then stood, to the prejudice of the kingdoms and states of
Christendom ; and the latter was prevented by the massacre of so
many innocent men, who, with their wives and children, were butchered
in their own houses by the scum of the people, armed and let loose
like so many beasts of prey upon them by public authority.1 This
bloodshed cried aloud for vengeance, that the kingdom stained by so
horrible an impiety might be expiated by intestine slaughter. How
ever, by interposing, she performed the part of a faithful, prudent, and
generous ally.
There is also another reason for admiring this peaceful reign, so
much endeavoured and maintained by the queen, viz., that it did not
1 By Catherine de Medici and Charles IX. on the eve of the St. Bartholomew ; when the
Huguenots were massacred.
ELIZABETH. 5x1
proceed from any disposition of the times, but from her own prudent
and discreet conduct. For as she struggled with faction at home upon
account of religion, and as the strength and protection of this kingdom
was a kind of bulwark to all Europe against the extravagant ambition
and formidable power of Spain, there wanted no occasion of war ; yet,
with her force and policy, she surmounted these difficulties. This ap
peared by the most memorable event in point of felicity, that ever hap
pened through the whole course of affairs in our time. For when the
Spanish Armada entered our seas, to the terror of all Europe, and with
such assurance of victory, they took not a single boat of ours, nor
burnt the least cottage, nor touched our shore, but were defeated in
the engagement, dispersed by a miserable flight, and frequent wrecks,
and so left us at home in the enjoyment of an undisturbed peace.
Nor was she less happy in disappointing conspiracies, than in
subduing the forces of her open enemies. For several plots against
her life were fortunately discovered, and defeated. And yet upon this
account, she was not the more fearful or anxious of her person, for she
neither doubted her guards, nor confined herself to her palace, but
appeared in public as usual, remembering her deliverance, but for
getting her danger.
The nature of the times wherein she flourished must also be con
sidered. For some ages are so barbarous and ignorant, that men
may be as easily governed as sheep. But this princess lived in a
learned and polite age, when it was impossible to be eminent without
great parts, and a singular habit of virtue.
Again, female reigns are usually eclipsed by marriage, and all the
praises thus transferred upon the husband ; whilst those who'^live
single appropriate the whole glory to themselves. And this is more
peculiarly the case of Queen Elizabeth, because she had no supporters
of her government but those of her own making : she had no brother,
no uncle, nor any other of the royal family to partake her cares, and
share in her administration. And for those she advanced to places of
trust, she kept such a tight rein upon them, and so distributed her
favours, that she laid each of them under the greatest obligation and
concern to please her, whilst she always remained mistress of herself.
She was indeed childless, and left no issue behind her ; which has
been the case of many fortunate princes, as of Alexander the Great,
Julius Caesar, Trajan, &c., and is a disputed point ; some taking it
for a diminution of felicity, as if men could not be completely happy
unless blessed both in their own persons, and in their children ; and
others accounting it the perfection of felicity, which then alone seems
to be complete, when fortune has no more power over it ; which, if
children are left behind, can never be the case.
She had likewise her outward embellishments ; a tall stature, a
graceful shape and make, a most majestic aspect, mixed with sweet
ness, and a happy state of health. Besides all this, she was strong
and vigorous to the last ; never experienced a reverse of fortune, nor
felt the miseries of old age, and obtained that complacency in death
which Augustus Caesar so passionately desired, by a gentle and easy
exit.1 This is also recorded of that excellent emperor, Antoninus Pius,
1 Unhappily this is a misrepresentation of Bacon's. Elizabeth died very miserably.
ri2 ELIZABETH.
whose death resembled a sweet and gentle slumber. So likewise in
the distemper of the queen, there was nothing shocking, nothing pre
saging, nothing unbecoming of human nature. She was not desirous
of life, nor impatient under sickness, nor racked with pain. She had
no dire or disagreeable symptom ; but all things were of that kind, as
argued rather the frailty, than the corruption or disgrace of nature.
Being emaciated by an extreme dryness of body, and the cares that
attend a crown, and never refreshed with wine, or with a full and
plentiful diet, she was, a few days before her death, struck with a
dead-palsy ; yet, what is unusual in that distemper, retained, in some
degree, her speech, memory, and motion. In this condition she con
tinued but a little while, so that it did not seem the last act of her life,
but the fint step to her death. For to live long after our faculties are
impaired, is accounted miserable ; but for death to hasten on with a
gradual loss of the senses, is a gentle, a pleasing, and an easy
dissolution.
To fill up the measure of her felicity, she was exceeding i.-ppy,
not only in her own person, but also in the abilities and virtues of
her ministers of state ; for she had the fortune to meet with such
as perhaps this island never before produced at one time. But
God, when he favours princes, raises up and adorns the spirits of
their ministers also.
There remain two posthumous felicities, which may seem more
noble and august than those that attended her living — the one is that
of her successor, and the other of her memory ; for she had such a
successor, who, though he may exceed and eclipse her greatness by
his masculine virtues, his issue, and a new accession of empire, yet
is zealous of her name and glory, and gives a kind of perpetuity to
her acts, having made little change either in the choice of ministers or
the method of government, so that a son rarely succeeds a father with
less alteration or disturbance.
As for her memory, it is so much in the mouths and so fresh in the
minds of men, that envy being extinguished, and her fame lit up by
death, the felicity of her memory seems to vie with the felicity of her
life ; frr if through party zeal or difference in religion a factious report
be spread abroad, it is neither true nor can be long-lived. And for
this reason in particular I have made the present collection of her
felicities and the marks of the Divine favour towards her, that no
malicious person might dare to curse where God has so highly
blessed.
If it should be here objected, as Cicero objected to Caesar, " We
have matter enough to admire, but would gladly see something to
praise," I answer, that true admiration is a superlative degree of praise.
Nor could that felicity above described be the portion of any, but
such as are remarkably supported and indulged by the Divine favour,
and in some measure worked it out by their own morals and virtues.
I shall, however, add a word or two as to the morals of the queen, but
only in such particulars as have occasioned some malicious tongues
to traduce her.
As to her religion, she was pious, moderate, constant, and an enemy
to novelty ; and for her piety, though the marks of it are most con-
ELIZABETH. 513
ipicuous in her acts and administrations, yet there were risible marks
of it, both in the course of her life and her ordinary conversation.
She was seldom absent from divine service and other duties of religion,
either in her chapel or closet ; she was very conversant in the Scrip
tures and writings of the fathers, especially St. Augustine. Herself
composed certain prayers upon some emergent occasions. When she
mentioned the name of God, though in ordinary discourse, she gene
rally added the title of Creator, and composed both her eyes and
countenance to some sort of humility and reverence, which I have
myself often observed.
As to what some have given out, that she was altogether unmindful
of mortality, so as not to bear the mention of old age or death, it is
absolutely false, for, several years before her death, she would often
facetiously call herself " the old woman," and discourse about what
kind of epitaph she liked, adding, that she was no lover of pompous
titles, but only desired her name might be recorded in a line or two,
which should briefly express " her name, her virginity, the time of her
reign, the reformation of religion under it, and her preservation of
peace " It is true, in the flower of her age, being importuned to
declare her successor, she answered, " That she could by no means
endure a shroud to be held before her eyes while she was living."
And yet, some years before her death, at a time when she was thought
ful, and probably meditating upon her mortality, one of her familiars
mentioning in conversation that several great offices and places in the
state were kept vacant too long, she rose up and said, with more than
ordinary warmth, " That she was sure her place would not be long
vacant."
As to her moderation in religion, it may require some pause, because
of the severity of the laws made against her subjects of the Romish
persuasion ; but I will mention such things as were well known and
carefully observed by myself. It is certain she was in her sentiments
averse to the forcing of conscience, yet, on the other hand, she would
not suffer the state to be endangered under the pretence of conscience
and religion. Hence she concluded, that to allow a liberty and tolera
tion of two religions by public authority in a military and high-mettled
nation, that might easily fall from difference in judgment to blows,
would be certain destruction. Thus, in the beginning of her reign,
when all things looked suspicious, she kept some of the prelates, who
were of a more turbulent and factious spirit, prisoners at large, though
not without the warrant of the law ; but to the rest of both orders she
used no severe inquisition, but protected them by a generous con
nivance. And this was the posture of affairs at first. Nor did she
abate much of this clemency, though provoked by the excommuni
cation of Pope Pius Quintus, which might have raised her indignation,
and driven her to new measures, but still she retained her own generou
temper ; for this prudent and courageous lady was not moved with
the noise of those terrible threats, being secure of the fidelity and
affection of her subjects, and of the inability of the Popish faction
within the kingdom to hurt her, unless seconded by a foreign enemy.
But about the three-and-twentieth year of her reign the face of
changed. This difference of the times is not artfully feigned to
L L
SI4 ELIZABETH.
serve a turn, but stands expressed in the public records, and en-raven
as it were in leaves of brass ; for before that year none of her subjcct.5
of the Romish religion had been punished with any severity by the
laws formerly enacted. But now the ambitious and monstrous designs
of Spain, to conquer this kingdom, began by degrees to open them
selves ; a principal part of which was, by all public ways and means,
to raise a faction in the heart of the kingdom of such as were disaffected
and desirous of innovation, in order to join the enemy upon the inva
sion. Their hopes of effecting this were grounded upon the difference
there was amongst us in religion, whence they resolved to labour this
point effectually. And the seminaries at that time budding, priests
were sent into England to sow and raise up an affection for the
Romish religion, to teach and inculcate the validity of the pope's
excommunication in releasing subjects from their allegiance, and to
awaken and prepare men's minds to an expectation of a change in the
government.
About the same time Ireland was attempted by an invasion and the
name and government of Queen Elizabeth vilified and traduced by
scandalous libels; in short, there was an unusual swelling in the state,
the prognostic of a greater commotion. Yet I will not affirm that all
the priests were concerned in the plot, or privy to the designs then
carrying on, but only that they were corrupt instruments of other
men's malice. It is, however, attested by the confession of many,
that almost all the priests sent into this kingdom from the year above-
mentioned to the thirtieth year of the queen, wherein the design of
Spain and the pope was put in execution by the armada, had it in
their instructions, among other parts of their function, to insinuate
" That affairs could not possibly continue long as they were, that they
would soon put on a new face, that the pope and the Catholic princes
would take care for the English state, provided the English were not
their own hindrance." Again, some of the priests had manifestly
engaged themselves in plots and contrivances, which tended to the
undermining and subverting of the government, and as the strongest
proof, the whole train of the plot was discovered by letters intercepted
from several parts, wherein it was expressly mentioned, " That the
vigilancy of the queen and her council, in respect of the Catholics
would be baffled, because the queen only watched that no nobleman
or person of distinction should rise to head the Catholic faction;
whereas the design they laid was, that all things should be disposed
and prepared by private men of an inferior rank without their
conspiring or consulting together, but wholly in the secret way of
confession." And these were the artifices then practised, which are so
familiar and customary to that order of men.
In such an impending storm of dangers the queen was obliged, by
the law of necessity, to restrain such of her subjects as were disaffected
and rendered incurable by these poisons, and who in the meantime
began to grow rich by retirement and exemption from public offices;
and accordingly some severer laws were enacted. But the evil daily
increasing, and the origin thereof being charged upon the seminary
priests, bred in foreign parts, and supported by the bounty and
Benevolence of foreign princes, the professed enemies of this kingdom,
EL1ZADE TH. 515
which priests had lived in places where the name of Queen Elizabeth
was always tacked to the titles of heretic, excommunicated, and
accursed, and who, though they themselves were not engaged in the
treasonable practices, yet were known to be the intimate friends of
such as had set their hands to villanies of that kind, and who by their
arts and poisonous insinuations had infected the whole body of the
Catholics, which before was less malignant; there could no other
remedy be found but the forbidding such persons all entrance into this
kingdom upon pain of death, which at last, in the twenty-seventh year
of her reign, was accordingly enacted.
Yet the event itself, which followed soon after, when so violent
storm fell upon this kingdom with all its weight, did not in the least
abate the envy and hatred of these men, but rather increased it, as if
they had divested themselves of all affection to their country. And
afterwards indeed, though our fears of Spain, the occasion of this
severity, were abated ; yet because the memory of the former times
was deeply imprinted in men's minds, and because it would have
looked like inconstancy to have abrogated the laws already made, or
remissness to have neglected them, the very constitution and nature of
affairs suggested to the queen that she could not with safety return to
the state of things that obtained before the three-and-twentieth year
of her reign.
To this may be added the industry of some to increase the revenues
of the exchequer, and the earnestness of the ministers of justice, who
usually regard no other safety of their country but what consists in
the law, both which called loudly for the laws to be put in execution.
However, the queen, as a specimen of her good nature, so far took oft
the edge of the law, that but a few priests in proportion were put to
death. And this we may say not by way of defence, for the case
needs none, as the safety of the kingdom turned upon it ; and as the
measure of all this severity came far short of those bloody massacres
that are scarce fit to be named among Christians, and have proceeded
rather from arrogance and malice than from necessity in the Catholic
countries, and thus we think we have made it appear that the queen
was moderate in the point of religion, and that the change which
ensued was not owing to her nature, but to the necessity of the times.
The greatest proof of her constancy in religion and religious
worship is, that notwithstanding popery, which in her sister's reign
had been strenuously established by public authority and the utmost
diligence, began now to take deep root, and was confirmed by the
consent and zeal of all those in office and places of trust ; yet because
it was not agreeable to the Word of God, nor to the primitive purity,
nor to her own conscience, she, with much courage and with very few
helps, extirpated and abolished it. Nor did she do this precipitantly
or in a heat, but prudently and seasonably, as may appear from many
particulars, and among the rest from a certain answer she occasionally
made ; for upon her first accession to the throne, when the prisone ^
according to custom, were released, as she went to chapel, a courti 5
who took a more than ordinary freedom, whether of his own motia
or set on by a wiser head, delivered a petition into her hand, and in
a great concourse of people, said aloud, " T^at there were still four
516 ELIZABETH.
or five prisoners unjustly detained, that he came to petition for their
liberty as well as the rest, and these were the four Evangelists and
the Apostle St. Paul, who had been long imprisoned in an unknown
tongue, and not suffered to converse with the people." The queen
answered with great prudence, " That it was best to consult them first,
whether they were willing to be released or no." And by thus striking
a surprising question with a wary, doubtful answer, she reserved the
whole matter entirely in her own breast.
Nor yet did she introduce this alteration timorously, and by fits
and starts, but orderly, gravely, and maturely ; after a conference
betwixt the parties, and calling a parliament; and thus, at length,
within the compass of one year, she so ordered and established all
things belonging to the church, as not to suffer the least alteration
afterwards, during her reign. Nay, almost every session of parliament,
her public admonition was, that no innovation might be made in the
discipline or rites of the church. And thus much for her religion.
Some of the graver sort may, perhaps, aggravate her levities ; in
loving to be admired and courted, nay, and to have love-poems made
on her ; and continuing this humour longer than was decent for her
years : yet to take even these matters in a milder sense, they claim a
due admiration; being often found in fabulous narrations; as that of
" a certain queen in the fortunate islands, in whose court love was
allowed, but lust banished." Or if a harsher construction can be put
upon them, they are still to be highly admired ; as these gaieties did
not much eclipse her fame, nor in the least obscure her grandeur, nor
injure her government, nor hinder the administration of her affairs; for
things of this sort are rarely so well tempered and regulated in princes.
This queen was certainly good and moral; and as such she desired
to appear. She hated vice, and studied to grow famous by honourable
courses. Thus, for example, having once ordered an express to be
written to her ambassador, containing certain instructions, which he
was privately to impart to the queen-mother of France, her secretary
inserted a clause for the ambassador to use, importing, " That they
were two queens, from whose experience and arts of government, no
less was expected than from the greatest kings." She could not bear
the comparison; but ordered it to be struck out, saying, "She
used quite different arts and methods of government, from the queen-
mother."
She was, also, not a little pleased, if any one by chance had dropped
such an expression as this, "That though she had lived in a private
station, her excellencies could not have passed unobserved by the eye
of the world." So unwilling was she, that any of her virtue, or praise,
should be owing to the height of her fortune.
But if I should enter upon her praises, whether moral or political,
I must either fall into a common-place of virtues, which will be
unworthy of so extraordinary a princess ; or if I would give them their
proper grace and lustre, I must enter into a history of her life ; which
requires more leisure and a richer vein than mine. To speak the truth,
the only proper encomiast of this lady is time ; which, for so many
ages as it has run, never produced anything like her, of the same sex,
for the government of a kingdom.
HENRY, PRINCE Of WALES. gt?
THE PRAISE OF HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES.
HENRY, prince of Wales, eldest son of the king of Great Britain,
happy in the hopes conceived of him, and now happy in his memory,
died on the 6th of November, 1612, to the extreme concern and regret
of the whole kingdom, being a youth who had neither offended nor
satiated the minds of men. He had by the excellence of his disposi
tion excited high expectations among great numbers of all ranks ; nor
had through the shortness of his life disappointed them. One capital
circumstance added to these was the esteem in which he was com
monly held of being firm to the cause of religion : and men of the
best judgment were fully persuaded that his life was a great support
and security to his father from the danger of conspiracies ; an evil
against which our age has scarce found a remedy ; so that the people's
love of religion and the king overflowed to the prince ; and this con
sideration deservedly heightened the sense of the loss of him. His
person was strong and erect ; his stature of a middle size ; his limbs
well made ; his gait and deportment majestic ; his face long and
inclining to leanness ; his habit of body full ; his look grave, and the
motion of his eyes rather composed than spirited. In his countenance
were some marks of severity, and in his air some appearance of
haughtiness. But whoever looked beyond these outward circum
stances, and addressed and softened him with a due respect and
seasonable discourse, found the prince to be gracious and easy, so
that he seemed wholly different in conversation from what he was in
appearance, and in fact raised in others an opinion of himself very
unlike what his manner would at first have suggested. He was un
questionably ambitious of commendation and glory, and was strongly
affected by every appearance of what is good and honourable, which
in a young man is to be considered as virtue. Arms and military men
were highly valued by him ; and he breathed himself something war
like. He was much devoted to the magnificence of buildings and
works of all kinds, though in other respects rather frugal ; and was a
lover both of antiquity and arts. He showed his esteem of learning
in general more by the countenance which he gave to it, than by the
time which he spent in it. His conduct in respect of morals did him
the utmost honour ; for he was thought exact in the knowledge and
practice of every duty. His obedience to the king his father was
wonderfully strict and exemplary : towards the queen he behaved
with the highest reverence : to his brother he was indulgent ; and had
an entire affection for his sister, whom he resembled in person as
much as that of a young man could the beauty of a virgin. The
instructors of his younger years (which rarely happens) continued
high in his favour. In conversation, he both expected a proper
decorum and practised it. In the daily business of life, and the allot
ment of hours for the several offices of it, he was more constant and
regular than is usual at his age. His affections and passions were
not strong, but rather equal than warm. With regard to that of love,
there was a wonderful silence, considering his age, so that he passed
that d?.ncrerou= time of his youth in the highest fortune, and in a
•518 t/ISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.
vigorous state of health, without any remarkable imputation of gal
lantry. In his court no person was observed to have any ascendant
over him, or strong interest with him : and even the studies with
which he was most delighted had rather proper times assigned them,
than were indulged to excess, and were rather repeated in their turns,
than that any one kind of them had the preference of and controlled
the rest : whether this arose from the moderation of his temper, and
that in a genius not very forward, but ripening by slow degrees, it
did not yet appear what would be the prevailing object of his inclina
tion. He had certainly strong parts, and was endued both with
curiosity and capacity; but in speech he was slow, and in some
measure hesitating. But whoever diligently observed what fell from
him, either by way of question or remark, saw it to be full to the
purpose, and expressive of no common genius. So that under that
slowness and infrequency of discourse, his judgment had more the
appearance of suspense and solicitude to determine rightly, than of
weakness and want of apprehension. In the meantime he was won
derfully patient in hearing, even in business of the greatest length ;
and this with unwearied attention, so that his mind seldom wandered
from the subject, or seemed fatigued, but he applied himself wholly
to what was said or done, which (if his life had been lengthened) pro
mised a very superior degree of prudence. There were indeed in the
prince some things obscure, and not to be discovered by the sagacity
of any person, but by time only, which was denied him ; but what
appeared were excellent, which is sufficient for his fame.
He died in the nineteenth year of his age, of an obstinate fever,
which during the summer, through the excessive heat and dryness of
the season, unusual to islands, had been epidemical, though not fatal,
but in autumn became more mortal. Fame, which, as Tacitus says,
is more tragical with respect to the deaths of princes, added a sus
picion of poison : but as no signs of this appeared, especially in his
stomach, which uses to be chiefly affected by poison, this report soon
vanished.
THE BEGINNING OF THE HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.
BY the decease of Elizabeth, queen of England, the issues of King
Henry the Eighth failed, being spent in one generation, and three
successions. For that king, though he were one of the goodliest
persons of his time, yet he left only by his six wives three children,
who, reigning successively, and dying childless, made place to the
line of Margaret, his eldest sister, married to James the Fourth, king
of Scotland. There succeeded therefore to the kingdom of England,
James the Sixth, tnen king of Scotland, descended of the same
Margaret both by father and mother : so that by a rare event in the
pedigrees of kings, it seemed as if the Divine Providence, to extinguish
and take away all envy and note of a stranger, had doubled upon his
person, within the circle of one age, the royal blood of England, by
both parents. This succession drew towards it the eyes ' " ;i.l .ne;i,
HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN. 519
being one of the most memorable accidents that had happened a
long time in the Christian world. For the kingdom of France having
been reunited in the age before in all the provinces thereof formerly
dismembered ; and the kingdom of Spain being, of more fresh memory,
united and made entire, by the annexing of Portugal in the person of
Philip the Second ; there remained but this third and last union for
the counterpoising of the power of these three great monarchies, and
the disposing of the affairs of Europe thereby to a more assured and
universal peace and concord. And this event did hold men's observa
tions and discourses the more, because the island of Great Britain,
divided from the rest of the world, was never before united in itself
under one king, notwithstanding the people be of one language, and not
separate by mountains or great waters ; and notwithstanding also that
the uniting of them had been in former times industriously attempted
both by war and treaty. Therefore it seemed a manifest work of
Providence, and a case of reservation for these times ; insomuch that
the vulgar conceived that now there was an end given, and a consum
mation to superstitious prophecies, the belief of fools, but the talk
sometimes of wise men, and to an ancient tacit expectation which had
by tradition been infused and inveterated into men's minds. But as
the best divinations and predictions are the politic and probable fore
sight and conjectures of wise men, so in this matter the providence of
King Henry the Seventh was in all men's mouths ; who being one of
the deepest and most prudent princes of the world, upon the delibera
tion concerning the marriage of his eldest daughter into Scotland,
had, by some speech uttered by him, showed himself sensible and
almost prescient of this event.
Neither did there want a concurrence of divers rare external circum
stances, besides the virtues and condition of the person, which gave
great reputation to this succession. A king in the strength of his
years, supported with great alliances abroad, established with royal
issue at home, at peace with all the world, practised in the regiment
of such a kingdom, as might rather enable a king by variety of
accidents than corrupt him with affluence or vain-glory ; and one
that, besides his universal capacity and judgment, was notably exer
cised and practised in matters of religion and the church, which in
these times, by the confused use of both swords, are become so inter
mixed with considerations of estate, as most of the counsels of
sovereign princes or republics depend upon them ; but nothing did
more fill foreign nations with admiration and expectation of his suc
cession than the wonderful and, by them, unexpected consent of all
estates and subjects of England, for the receiving of the king without
the least scruple, pause, or question. For it had been generally
dispersed by the fugitives beyond the seas, who, partly to apply them
selves to the ambition of foreigners, and partly to give estimation and
value to their own employments, used to represent the state of Eng
land in a false light, that after Queen Elizabeth's decease there must
follow in England nothing but confusions, interreigns, and perturba
tions of estate, likely far to exceed the ancient calamities of the civil
wars between the houses of Lancaster and York, by how much more
the dissensions were like to be more mortal and bloody when foreign
S2o HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.
competition should be added to domestical, and divisions for religion
to matter of title to the crown. And in special, Parsons the Jesuit,
under a disguised name, had not long before published an express
treatise, wherein, whether his malice made him believe his own
fancies, or whether he thought it the fittest way to move sedition, like
evil spirits, which seem to foretell the tempest they mean to move, he
laboured to display and give colour to all the vain pretences and
dreams of succession which he could imagine, and thereby had pos
sessed many abroad that knew not the affairs here, with those his
vanities. Neither wanted there here within this realm divers persons
both wise and well affected, who, though they doubted not of the
undoubted right, yet setting before themselves the waves of people's
hearts, guided no less by sudden and temporary winds than by the
natural course and motion of the waters, were not without fear what
might be the event. For Queen Elizabeth being a princess of extreme
caution, and yet one that loved admiration above safety, and knowing
the declaration of a successor might in point of safety be disputable,
but in point of admiration and respect assuredly to her disadvantage,
had from the beginning set it down for a maxim of estate to impose a
silence touching succession. Neither was it only reserved as a secret
of estate, but restrained by severe laws, that no man should presume
to give opinion or maintain argument touching the same ; so, though
the evidence of right drew all the subjects of the land to think one
thing, yet the fear of danger of law made no man privy to others'
thought. And therefore it rejoiced all men to see so fair a morning of
a kingdom, and to be thoroughly secured of former apprehensions, as
a man that awaketh out of a fearful dream. But so it was, that not
only the consent but the applause and joy was infinite, and not to be
expressed, throughout the realm of England, upon this succession ;
whereof the consent, no doubt, may be truly ascribed to the clearness
of the right, but the general joy, alacrity, and gratulation, were the
effects of differing causes. For Queen Elizabeth, although she had
the use of many both virtues and demonstrations that might draw and
knit unto her the hearts of her people, yet nevertheless carrying a
hand restrained in gift, and strained in points of prerogative, could
not answer the votes either of servants or subjects to a full content
ment, especially in her latter days, when the continuance of her reign,
which extended to five-and-forty years, might discover in people their
natural desire and inclination towards change ; so that a new court
and a new reign were not to many unwelcome. Many were glad, and
especially those of settled estate and fortune, that the fears and uncer
tainties were overblown, and that the die was cast. Others, that had
made their way with the king, or offered their service in the time of
the former queen, thought now the time was come for which they had
prepared ; and generally all such as had any dependence upon the
late earl of Essex, who had mingled the service of his own ends with
the popular pretence of advancing the king's title, made account their
cause was amended. Again, such as might misdoubt they had given
the king any occasion of distaste, did contend by their forwardness
and confidence to show it was but their fastness to the former govern
ment, and that those affections ended with the time. The papists
JULIUS
nourished their hopes, by collating the case of the papists in England
and under Queen Elizabeth, and the case of the papists in Scotland
under the king ; interpreting that the condition of them in Scotland was
the less grievous, and divining of the king's government here accord
ingly, besides the comfort they ministered to themselves from the
memory of the queen his mother. The ministers, and those which
stood for the presbytery, thought their cause had more sympathy with
the discipline of Scotland than the hierarchy of England, and so took
themselves to be a degree nearer their desires. Thus had every
condition of persons some contemplation of benefit, which they pro
mised themselves — over-reaching, perhaps, according to the nature
of hope, but yet not without some probable ground of conjecture. At
which time also there came forth in print the king's book, entitled
Bacri\LKov Ao>poi>, containing matter of instruction to the prince his
son touching the office of a king ; which book falling into every man's
hand, filled the whole realm, as with a good perfume or incense,
before the king's coming in ; for being excellently written, and having
nothing of affectation, it did not only satisfy better than particular
reports touching the king's disposition, but far exceeded any formal
or curious edict or declaration, which could have been devised
of that nature, wherewith princes in the beginning of their reigns do
use to grace themselves, or at least express themselves gracious in the
eyes of their people. And this was for the general the state and con
stitution of men's minds upon this change ; the actions themselves
passed in this manner
****** *
The rest is 'wanting.
JULIUS CESAR.
JULIUS OESAR, at the first, encountered a rugged fortune, which turned
to his advantage : for this curbed his pride, and spurred his industry.
He was a man of unruly passions and desires ; but extremely clear
and settled in his judgment and understanding: as appears by his
ready address to extricate himself both in action and discourse; for
no man ever resolved quicker, or spoke clearer. But his will and
appetite were restless, and ever launched out beyond his acquisitions ;
yet the transitions of his actions were not rash, but well concerted:
for he always brought his undertakings to complete and perfect
periods. Thus, after having obtained numerous victories, and procured
a great degree of security in Spain, he did not slight the remains of
the civil war in that country; but having, in person, seen all things
fully composed and settled there, he immediately went upon his
expedition against the Parthians.
He was, without dispute, a man of a great and noble soul; though
rather bent upon procuring his own private advantage, than good to
the public : for he referred all things to himself, and was the truest
centre of his own actions. Whence flowed his great and almost
perpetual felicity and success; for neither his country nor religion,
$aa JUUUS
neither good offices, relations, nor friends, could check or moderate
his designs. Again, he was not greatly bent upon preserving his
memory; for he neither established a state of things, built lasting
monuments, nor enacted laws of perpetuity, but worked entirely for
his own present and private ends ; thus confining his thoughts within
the limits of his own times. It is true, he endeavoured after fame and
reputation, as he judged they might be of service to his designs; but
tertainly, in his heart, he rather aimed at power than dignity, and
courted reputation and honours only as they were instruments of
power and grandeur. So that he was led, not by any laudable course
of discipline, but by a kind of natural impulse, to the sovereignty; which
he rather affected to seize, than appear to deserve.
This procedure ingratiated him with the people, who had no dignity
to lose ; but, among the nobility and gentry, who desired to retain
their honours, it gained him the character of a bold, aspiring
man. And certainly they judged right; for he was naturally very
audacious, and never put on the appearance of modesty but to serve
a turn. Yet this daring spirit of his was so tempered, that it neither
subjected him to the censure of rashness, or intolerable haughtiness,
nor rendered his nature suspected ; but was taken to proceed from a
certain simplicity and freedom of behaviour, joined with the nobility
of his birth. And in all other respects he had the reputation, not of
a cunning and designing, but of an open and sincere man. And
though he was a perfect master of dissimulation, and wholly made up
of art, without leaving anything to nature but what art had proved,
yet nothing of design or affectation appeared in his carriage : so that
he was thought to follow his own natural disposition. He did not,
however, stoop to any mean artifices, which men unpractised in the
world, who depend not upon their own strength, but the abilities of
others, employ to support their authority : for he was perfectly skilled
in all the ways of men, and transacted everything of consequence in
his own person, without the interposition of others.
He had the perfect secret of extinguishing envy, and thought it
proper in his proceedings to secure this effect, though with some
diminution of his dignity. For being wholly bent upon real power,
he almost constantly declined, and contentedly postponed all the
empty show, and gaudy appearance of greatness : till at length,
whether satiated with enjoyment, or corrupted by flattery, he affected
even the ensigns of royalty, the style and diadem of a king, which
proved his ruin. He entertained the thought of dominion from his
very youth ; and this was easily suggested to himby the example of Sylla
the affinity of Marius, the emulation of Pompey, and the corruption
and troubles of the tiroes. But he paved his way to it in a wonderful
manner: first, by a popular and seditious, and afterwards by a military
and imperial force. For at the entrance he was to break through the
power and authority of the senate ; which remaining entire, there waf
no passage to an immoderate and extraordinary sovereignty. Nex^
the power of Crassus and Pompey was to be subdued, which could
not be but by arms. And, therefore, like a skilful architect of his own
fortune, he began and carried on his first structure by largesses ; by
corrupting the courts of justice; by renewing the memory of Caius
JULIUS CAESAR. 523
Marius and his party, whilst most of the senators and nobility were
of Sylla's faction ; by the Agrarian laws ; by seditious tribunes, whom
he instigated ; by the fury of Catiline, and his conspirators, whom he
secretly favoured; by the banishment of Cicero, upon whom the
authority of the senate turned; and other the like artifices: but what
finished the affair, was the alliance of Crassus and Pompey, joined
with himself.
Having thus secured all matters on this side, he directly turned to
the other; he was now made proconsul of Gaul for five years, and
afterwards continued for five more; he was furnished with arms,
legions, and commanded a warlike province, adjacent to Italy. For
he knew that, after he had strengthened himself with arms and a
military power, neither Crassus nor Pompey could make head against
him; the one trusting to his riches, the other to his fame and repu
tation; the one decaying in age, the other in authority; and neither
of them resting upon true and solid foundations. And all this succeeded
to his wish ; especially as he had bound and obliged all the senators,
magistrates, and those who had any power, so firmly to himself, by
private benefits, that he feared no conspiracy or combination against
his designs ; till he had openly invaded the state. And though this
was ever his scheme, and at last put in execution, yet he did not
unmask; but what by the reasonableness of his demands, his pretences
of peace, and moderating his successes, he turned the whole load of
envy upon the opposite party; and appeared to take arms of necessity,
for his own preservation and safety. The emptiness of this pretence
manifestly appeared when the civil wars were ended; all his rivals,
that might give him any disturbance, slain ; and he possessed of the
regal power; for now he never once thought of restoring the republic,
nor so much as pretended it. Which plainly showed, as the event
confirmed, that his designs were all along upon the sovereignty ; and,
accordingly, he never seized occasions as they happened, but raised
and worked them out himself.
His principal talent lay in military matters; wherein he so excelled,
that he could not only lead, but mould an army to his mind. For he
was as skilful in governing men's passions, as in conducting affairs;
and this he did not by any ordinary discipline, that taught his soldiers
obedience, stung them with shame, or awed them by severity; but in
such a manner, as raised a suprising ardour and alacrity in them, and
made them confident of victory and success; thus endearing the
soldiery to him, more than was convenient for a free state. And as
he was well versed in war of all kinds, and as he joined civil and
military arts together, nothing could come so suddenly upon him, but
he had an expedient ready for it; nothing so adverse, but he drew
some advantage from it.
He had a due regard to his person; for in great battles he would
sit in his pavilion, and manage all by adjutants. Whence he received
a double advantage ; as thus coming the seldomer in danger; and it
case of an unfortunate turn, could animate and renew the fight, bj
his own presence, as by a fresh supply. In all his military preparations
he did not square himself to precedents only, but ever with exquisite
judgment, took new measures, according to the present exigence.
524 AUGUSTUS CAESAR.
He was constant, singularly beneficent, and indulgent in his friend
ships; but made such choice of friends, as easily showed that he
sought for those who might forward, and not obstruct his designs.
And as he was both by nature and habit led, not to be eminent among
great men, but to command among inferiors, he made friends of
mean and industrious persons, to whom he alone gave law. As for
the nobility, and his equals, he contracted friendship with them just
as they might serve his turn ; and admitted none to his intimacies,
but such whose whole expectations centered upon him.
He was tolerably learned; but chiefly in what related to civil policy.
For he was well versed in history; and perfectly understood both the
edge and weight of words : and because he attributed much to his
good stars, he affected to be thought skilful in astronomy. His
eloquence was .natural to him, and pure.
He was given to pleasures, and profuse in them, which served at his
first setting out as a cloak to his ambition ; for no danger was appre
hended from one of this cast. Yet he so governed his pleasures, that
they were no prejudice to himself, nor business ; but rather whetted
than blunted the vigour of his mind. He was temperate in diet, not
delicate in his amours, and pleasant and magnificent at public shows.
This being his character, the same thing at last was the means of
his fall which at first was a step to his rise, viz., his affectation of
popularity : for nothing is more popular than to forgive our enemies.
Through which virtue, or cunning, he lost his life.
AUGUSTUS C.ESAR.
IF ever a mortal had a great, serene, well-regulated mind, it was
Augustus Caesar ; as appears by the heroical actions of his early youth.
For men of a turbulent nature commonly pass their youth in various
errors, and in their middle age first begin to show themselves ; but
those of a sedate and calm disposition may shine even in the bud.
And as the perfection of the mind, like that of the body, consists in
health, gracefulness, and strength ; in the latter he was inferior to his
uncle Julius ; but in beauty and health of mind superior. For Julius
Caesar, being of a restless, discomposed spirit, as those generally
prove who are troubled with the falling-sicknesses, yet cleared the way
to his own ends with the utmost address and prudence. His error
was the not rightly fixing his ends; but with an insatiable and
unnatural appetite still pursuing further views. Whereas Augustus,
sober and mindful of his mortality, seemed to have thoroughly weighed
his ends, and laid them down in admirable order. For first he desired
to have the sovereign rule, next he endeavoured to appear worthy of
it, then thought it but reasonable, as a man, to enjoy his exalted
fortune, and lastly, he turned his thoughts to such actions as might
perpetuate his name, and transmit some image and effect of his
government to futurity. Hence in his youth he affected power; in
his middle age, dignity ; in his decline of life, pleasure ; and in his old
age, fame, and the good of posterity.
GLOSSARY
OF OBSOLETE WORDS, AND ALSO OF MODERN WORDS USED
IN ANOTHER SENSE.
A.
Apace, adv. hastily, fast, at a
Bartholomew-tide, s. 24th of Au
Abaie, v. t. to blunt, to depress
Able, adj. sufficient
Above, prep more than
Absurd, adj. unreasonable, un
great rate
Apparent, adj. manifest
Appetite in, desirous of rising
Apposed, p.p. questioned
Approaches, s. encroachments
gust
Base, ad. lowered or degraded
into, Essay XXIX.
Basilisk, s. akindof largecannon.
Become, v. in Essay XLV. in the
accountable ; also eccentric,
Apricocks, s. apricots
sense of to betake one's self
or ridiculous
Apt, adj. adapted
Bemoan, v. to lament
Abuse, n. deception
Arbitrament, s. arbitration
Bent, s. a grass, well known still
v. to deceive
Argumw,(s. matter for reflection
by that name
Abusing, s. deceiving, taking
or thought
Berecynthia, s. a name for
advantage of
Arietation, s. an assault with a
Cybele
Accept, of, v.t. receives
„-, ccommodate, v. to adapt one
battering ram
Arras, s. tapestry — first made at
Bestowing of a child, placing,
settling it
self, to conform to circum
the town of that name
Beaver, s. the vizor of a helmet
stances
Array, s. to set troops in order
which had openings in it for
Account upon, v. to reckon, to
of battle
the eyes ; when down it
acknowledge
Artificer;, s. skilled workmen
covered the face
Acquaints them, v. makes them
Artillery, s. Any engines of
Births, s. offspring
acquainted
war were in the middle ages
Blab, s. a revealer of secrets
Actor, s. used also as speaker in
called artillery ; the name is
from foolish talkativeness
Essay XXV.
now applied only to the iarge
Blanch, v. to flinch, to avoid,
Aculeate, adj. pointed
Adatnant, s. the loadstone, used
cannon in use.
Ask, v. used in the sense of re
to slur, to pass over, to leave
blank
figuratively for attraction
Admirable, wonderful
quire, several times in the
Essa\ s, &c.
Blushing, s. cause for blushing,
shame. See Essay XXVII.
Admire to, to wonder at with
Asp, s. aspen tree
Board, s. table
admiration
Aspects, s. used of the stars by
Body-horse, s. the shaft-horse.
Ado, s. fuss, bustle
astrologers, to indicate the ap
(Wright)
Adust, p.p. parched, burnt up,
burning inwardly. See Essay
XXXVI.
pearance of a planet according
to its position amongst the
constellations
Bonnets, s. hats of men as well
as of women
Boscage, s. woodlands
Adventive, s. the thing or person
Assay, v. attempt
Brave, adj. fine
dental
the sense of orders
Break, v. to accustom, to train
Adventure, s. fortune, risk
Assured, p.p. trustworthy
Braiding, a. embroidering
Adventure to, v. to risk, to \en-
Athwart, prep, nautical term,
Broke, v. to negotiate, or deal as
ture
across
brokers
Advised, v. careful in, deliberate
A ttemper, v. to moderate, curb,
Brok n music, s. occasional
Advoutress, s. adultress
Aiquinoctia, s. the equinoxes
restrain
Aver^ation, s. aversion
music as an accompaniment
Bruit, noise, cry
Affect to, v. to aim at, to desire,
Avert, v. to turn away
to like
Avoided, pp. left a place
Affection, s. liking, inclination for
Avoidances, s. outlets
C.
Aim, io take an, v. to estimate,
Away, to, with anything, to re
judge of
move it. See Isaiah 1. 13 :
Can, "not to can," not to be
Alley, s. a walk or bowling green
" The calling of assemblies I
able
All one, the same
cannot away with."
Canticle, s. a hymn or song, not
Allow, v. to approve of
generally here a divine sung
Almatgne, s. Germany.
Capable of, s. being equal to
Ambages, s. a needless multi
B.
Card, s. chart ; or card on which
plicity of words, circumlocu
tion
Babble r, s. an idle talker, one who
the points of the compass are
marked
Ambassy, s. embassy
Amiable, adj. lovable
speaks much and foolishly
Balladine;, s. ballet-dancers
Cast, v. to consider, to continue,
to decide, to preponderate
And, used as if
Banquet* is used in Essay XLV.
Castor eum, s. castor, asubstanca
Answered, p.p. guaranteed
for halls of general entertain
found in the beaver
Anteeamera, s. an antechamber
ment
Catchpole, s. a bailiff
Anti-mask, s. a comic interlude
Barbarous, adj. is used in Essay
Cautels, s. cunning, subtlety,
between the acts of a mask j
XXXVII., for barbarians; u
caution
to which it served as a foil
is not expressive of cruelty
Cavillations, s cavellings
Antiques, s. grotesque figures
Barriers, s. lists, the enclosed
Celsitude, s. height, altitude
introduced in an anti-mask
$!**•% for tournaments
Censuret s, opinion
5*6
GLOSSARY.
Certiinty, s. trustworthiness,
Continent, that which contains
Deputy, s. the title of the Viceroy
steadfastness
Contrariwise, adv. on the con
of Ireland at that 'imc
Cession, s. concession
trary
Derive, v. to turn aside. Essay
Challenge to, v. to claim
Chamairis, s. the dwarf Iris, or
Controversy, s. disputes
Convenient, adj. suitable. See
IX.
Destitute, v. to leave destitute
flag
Prov. xxx. 8 : " Feed me with
Diet, to, v. to take or.e's food.
Chapmen, s cheapeners, buyers,
food convenient for me."
Essay^XVIIL, "To diet in a
Charge, s. cost.
of living, his conduct
Difficilness, s. stubborncss
Chargeable, adj. expensive,
Converse, v. to be engaged
Digladiation, s. a combat with
costly
Convert, v. to change
swords, a quarrel
Charges, s. expenses
Check, v. to hinder
Convince, v to refute
Copulate p. p. coupled with, uni
Disable, v. to damage
Disadvantageable, adj. disad
Choler. v. anger
ted with
vantageous
Chop, v. to bandy words, to
Cornelian tree, the cornelian
Discern, v. to observe ordi tin-
change or barier
Chopping, s. bargaining and ex
cherry or dog wood, a tree
yielding small edible fruit like
guish
Discoursing, adj. rambling, dis
changing
cherries ; it is also called the
cursive
Churchmen, s. ecclesiastics
cornel tree
Discover, v. to disclose, to un
Civil, ad. orderly, letine i, also
Cornelians, s. the fruit of the
veil
belonging to ordinary civiliza
cornel or cornelian tree
Discovery, s. disclosure
tion
Corn-master, s. a dealer or owner
Dispeople, v. to depopulate
Civility, s civilization
of grain
Displant, v. to displace, to drive
Clamour, v. to disturb with a
Correspondence, hold to, corre
out, or remove
noise, to make a noise about
spond to, to bear a proportion
Displeasure, v. to displease
Clear, adj. open
Corroborate, strengthened, con
Disposition, s. arrangement
Cloistered, s. surrounded with
firmed
Disreputation, s. disrepute
cloisters
Count, v. to consider
Dissolve, v. to annul, do away
Close, adj. secret
Countervail, v. to outvie
with
Closeness, s. secrecy, reserve,
Courages, s. energy and bravery,
Distance, s. variance ; also in
reticence
valour
Essay XV., separating
Clove gilly flower, s. a sort of
Course of, in Essay XXIV. it
Distasted, p.p. disgusted
small carnation
means "in its course," speak
Dittv, s. a song
Coarctation, s. pressure, con
ing of time
Divers, adj. different
traction, confinement, re
Course, out of, out of order
Diversely, adv. differently
straint
Creature, s. anything created
Doctor, s. a teacher
Coemption, s. a buying up
Collect, v. to infer, to gather
Cringe, s. servile gesture
Crook, to twist or pervert
Doctrine, s. teaching
Do, v. In Essay LVIII. it
Collier, s. an owner of coal
Cror,!-clau:es, s. opposing con
means pro-luce, as " I do not
mines
Colliquation, s. the act of melt
tradictory clauses
Cunningly, adv. skilfully,
think these years do (produce)
any good effects "
ing, a lax state of fluid in
cleverly
Dole, s. distribution in chnrity
animal bodies
Curious, adj. nice, or extremely
Dol r, s. pain as well as grief
Colour, v. to make appear, to
accurate ; in Essay IX., rare,
Donative, s. a gift of m:>ney
present the best aspect of a
not common
Dortoir or dorture, a dorm i lory
Commendatory letters, s. letters
Curiosities, S. nice, or extremely
also to expect, as in Essay
of recommendation
ingenious questions out of the
LVIII.
Commiserabie, adj., worthy of
being commiserated
common.
Curiosity, s. In Essay XLVI.
Drive, v. carry on. \Ve still say
to drive a prosperous, or a
Commodities, s. In Essay
" Of gardens," it means elabo-
thriving trade
XLIL, " Commodities of
tion
Dr\ blow, s. a sarcasm, a smart
Common, adj. belonging to all,
great attention. Essay L.
public, belonging to two
Currently, adv. without inter
Commonplaces, s. trite sayings,
mission
not new or striking
Custom, s. tax, or impost
R
Communicate, p p. snared
to impart
late
Compass, s. circuit
D.
Ejj.dual, adj. efficient
Composition, s temperament
Effeminate, v. to become effemi
Compoit d, v. to settle
Dain'ily, ad. elegantly, with
nate
Comprehend, v. to include, to
great nireness
Ejaculation, s. a darting forth,
embrace
Dainty adj. eleg-nt, nice
in Kssay IX.
Condemned men, s. conv'cts
Damascene, s. damson
Elaborate, p p. elaborated
Confederate, pp. leagued, united
Deceivable, adj., deceptive
Election, s. choice
Conference, s. consultation
Deceive, v. to deprive the trees
El nck<!s, s. fallacious arguments
Confer, v. to consult
of nourishment. Essay XLVI.,
Embase, v. to deteriorate
Confidence, credit, boldness
to defraud
Embassa e, s. embassy
Conscience, used for conscious
Decent adj. becoming, graceful,
Lmulat ion, s. strife or con t ca
ness in Essay XI.
proper
tion
Consenting, p.p. agreeing
Consort in, in concert, in com
pany with
Deduced, p p. brought down
Deet>, adj. profound
Deface, v. to destroy
Encrease s produce
End, s. intention, aims
Emanger v. to run the risk
Consocial, to associate, to hold
together
Defatigation, s. weariness
Deliver, v. to describe. Essay
Endan ering, s danger, : peril
Engagt into to involve n.
Contain, v. to restrict, to restrain
XLV.
Engagement, s obligation
Contend, \. endeavour
Deliver, v. to let in, to admit.
Engines, s. skilful contrivance*
Content, s. that which is con
Essay XLVI., to bring in
E signs, s insignia
tained
Deprave, v. to misrepresent, to
Ensue, v. to result, to follow fr. a|
Content, v to render content, to
give satisfaction
disparage. Essay XLIX.
Depravation, s. slai4?r
Enteriace v. to insert
Entetpi iser. v. an adventurer
GLOSSARY.
5a7
Bntertaittmfnt, s. a means of
drawing off attention, a diver
sion
Epicure, s. Epicurean
Equipollent, adj. equivalen*
greeting, s. establishing
Espial, s. a spy
Estate, s. state, condition
Estivation, s. a summer-house
or place for summer
Situation, s. agitation
Ethiop, s. Ethiopian
Evil- favoured, adj. ill-looking,
bad
Exaltation, s. at its strongest
influence. An allusion to the
old astrology when a planet is
said to be in exaltation
Except, v. to make exception
Excusition, s excuse
Exercised, p.p. practised in
Expect, v. wait lor
Exquisite, a. perfect, over par
ticular, fastidious
Extenuate, v. to weaken
Externe, adj. external
Exulceration, s corrosion, which
forms an ulcer
F.
Facile, adj. easily talked over,
fickle
Facility, s. a yielding to persua
sion, fickleness
Faculty, s. ability
Fain, adj. glad, or obliged to do
anything
Faint, v to become feeble, to
lose confidence, to falter in
work. " Lest ye be wearied
and faint in your minds," Hcb.
xii. 3 ; and in many other
verses of Scripture.
Fair, adv. handsomely
Fair, adj. beautiful or handsome
Fall v. to chance, to happen
Fallax, s. a fallacy
Fame*, s. reputation ; also ru
mours or reports
Fare, v. to happen
Fashion, s. habit
Fast, adj. firm, tenacious
Faster, adv. closer
Favour, s. countenance, features
Fears, s. objects of fe;,r
Feat, a. ingenious, skilful, af
fected
felicity, s. good fortune
Fellow, s. companion, equal
Fetchabout, v. to go about, to go
a roundabout way to say a
thing
Fetching, s. killing or striking at
a distance
Flag, s. the Iris
Flash, 3. metaphorically a short
time. " The Persians and
Macedonians had it for a
flash," i.e., as a flash of light
appears and disappears rapidly.
Essay XXIX.
Flashy, adj. showy, but without
taste
Flos Africanus, s. the African
marigold
Flout, s a taunt, an insult, a jest
Flower de luce, s. the fleur-de-^s
Flux s. fluctuation
Following, s. sect, disciples, fol
lowers
Fond, a<*v foolish, silly, weak
Footpace, s. a raised platform for
a chair of state, a dais
Foreconceiving, p.p. preconceiv
ing
Foresee, s. to provide, to look
forward
Fowl, s. a bird of any kind
Fowler, s. a bird-catcher
Frame, out of, in disorder
Frettellaria. s. Fritillary
Friar ly, a. friar-like
Fronted, p p. confronted
Froward, adj. perverse, cross
Frowardness, s. perversity, ill-
humour
Fume, s. smoke, vapour
Funambulos, s. rope walkers
or dancers
Furniture, s. trappings, harness
Futile, adj. loquacious
G.
Gadding, adj. going about with
out any fixed purpose
Galliard, s. a French dance then
fashionable
Gallo-Grtzcia, s. Galatia
Garnished, p.p. ornamented
Gaudery, s. nnery
Gemination, s. a doubling
Gingles, s. jingles or rattles
Ginniting, s. a Jennitin^ apple
Globe s. a world : in Essay XI.
a world of precepts, a conglo
meration of precepts
Glo'ious, adj. ostentatious,
boastful
Glory, s. ostentation, display,
lustre, boastfulness
Going awitt, s. trying to do a
thing
Going forth, s. an outlet
Goings, s. movements, actions
Goodly, ad}, fine, handsome
Gracing, s. compliment
Gracious, adj. pleasing, amiable
C-mcia, s. Greece
Grecians, s. Greeks
Gros*, in, s. in the mass
Grounded, p.p. well founded
Ground, s. In music the name
given to a composition in
which the bass, consisting o a
few bars of independent notes,
is continually repeated to a
continually varying melody.
Grounds, s. soils, lands
Grow behind, v. to get in arrears
Growing silk, s. the produce of
the silk cotton tree of South
America. (Authority, W. Aid is
Wright)
Habilitatioiis, s. qualifications
Hslflights, s. twilight, "between
the lights " we say now
Handle, to treat of, to discuss
Handicraftsmen, s. artisans
Handy-work, s. manufacture
Hap, v. to happen
Hardest, adj. hardiest
Hardy, adj. bold
Healths, s. toasts
Hfarken to, v. to get information
Herba ntuscaria, s. the grape
hyacinth (Wright)
Hyacinthus orientalis, s. the
cultivated hyacinth, brought
over towards the close ot
Elizabeth's reign
Hirelings, s. hired servants, slill
used
Hold, v. to adhere
Hold with, v. to agree with ; still
used by the people as " I don't
hold with that"
Hortatives, s. exhortations
Huke, s. a cloak
Humanity, s. human nature
Humourous, ar1', »ancilul, full of
humours
Husband, to, v. to farm, to culti
vate
Husband, s. an economist
Husbanding, s. cultivation of tb."
soil, economising
III, adj. bad
lllaqueatioiis, s. ensnarings
Image y, s figures on tapestry,
or in painting and sculpture
Jmbase, v. to degrade
embossments, s. projections in
buildings
Impart, to communicate
Impertinences, s. matters irrele
vant to a subject
Impertinency , s. irrelevance
Impertinent, adj. irrelevant
Importeth not, v. is not of much
consequence
Importune, ad. importunate
Impose upon, to lay a restraint
upon
Imposlumation, s. a tumour
Imprinting, adj. impressive
Impropriate, v. to appropriate
Imbowed windows, s. bay win
dows
Incensed, p.p. burnt
Inceptions,^, beginnings
Incommodities, s. disadvantages
Inconformity, s. want of agree
ment
Indifferent, adj. impartial
Indignities, s. acts tj cause
shame: Essay II.
Infamed, p.p. infamous
Injirm, v. to weaken
Infortunate, adj. unfortunate
Ino rdinate, adj. ungovei nab.e
Inquisitions, v. investigat.ons
Inspire, v. to breathe in the
spirit
Insolation, s. isolation
Intend, v. to aim at, to under
stand
Intention, s. endeavour
Interlace, v. to mix up together
Interlocution, s. conversation
Intervenient, adj. intervening
Inure, v. to make use ot
Iniiol-ved, p.p. intricate
Inward, adj. intimate, interior
J.
?ade, v. to overdrive, to weary
eopardy, s. deacily peril
Joy, 10, v. to rejoice
5Fust, adj. exact
Just, s. a tournament or tilt
Kind, s. way
Knap, s. a knoll
Kneetiwber, crookpd. branches
of trees
GLOSSARY.
Knit, used for, to fasten. Essay
XV.
Kenning, s. knowledge or sight
Nestlingt s. place for buuiflng
nests
Nephew, s. used for a grandson
in Essay XXIX.
Pleasuring, p.p. pleasing
Plentiful, idj lavish ^
Ply, s, a bend or twist
Point-advice, adj. in perfect ordef
New men, s. parvenus
Poler, s. :-n exacter of fees
L.
Nice, adj. scrupulous, fastidious
Poling, . cf'-ingfees •'
Niceness, s. daintiness,fastidious-
/Wftfcr, s liticiansJ:
Lsudatives, s. panegyrics,
praises
ness
Noblesse, s. nobility
/Wf, s. th-<«rJowest back-part of
the head. Hence " the poll-
Lead man, s. owner of lead
Notable, adj. remarkable
tax," or head-tax, a tax on
mines
Note, s. observation
every one.
Lead, s. a leaded roof
Novelties, s innovations
Popular, adj. democratic
Learnings, v. sciences
Nourish, v. to receive nourish
Popularities, s. popular repre
Leese, v. to lose
ment
sentatives
Let, v. to hinder
Poser, s. an examiner, especially
Lifts, step of a horse
Lis,ht, v. to happen, turn out
0.
one who tries to puzzle Hence
a difficult question is some
Light, adj. slight, of no import
ance
Lightly, adv. easily
Lightsome, v. light
Livelv, adv. vividly
Loading, adj. laden, or to aggra-
Object, p p. exposed
Obliged, p.p. bound
Obnoxious to, subject to, com
pelled to comply with
Obtain, v. to gain, also to attain
times called a. poser.
Practise, v. plot
Precedent, adj. previous
Predigcslion, s. premature diges
tion
Prefer before, v. to put before, to
vate.in Essay XIII ,i.r., ' To | to
promote over another
1 e on the loading part." ! Oes, s. spangles
Preoccupate, v. to anticipate
Lodging, s. sleeping room
Offer, s. an attempt
Prescription, s. a title to any
Looses, s. discharging an arrow
Officious, adj. ready to help or
thing, a claim, the character
from the sling
Lot, s. spell or charm
Lurch, v. to swallow or eat
serve
Ointment, s. perfume
Opinion, s. reputation
for doing a thing
Presently, adv. directly, instantly
Prest, adj. ready, Irom prett
greedily
Oraculous, adj. oracular
French
Orange-tawny, adj. of a dark
Pretend, v. to pretext, to claim
M.
orange colour
Prevail, v. to succeed
Ostcnsive, adj. showing, exhibit-
Prevent, v. to go before
Main, adj. great, ot conse
„'"*.
Price s. value. See Matthew,
quence
Ordering, s. arrangement
xiii. 46
Main, s. the important part
Over-great, adj. excessive
Prick, v. to set or plant out
Mainly, adv. vigorously
Ovcr-grca ness, excessive great
Privado, s. private friend, con
Maintain, v. to uphold
ness
fidant
Makeforth , v. to proceed
Over-live, v. to survive >.
Private, s. privacy
Malign, adj. malignant
Managed, adj. ridden by a good
horseman
Over-power ; s. excessive power
Over-speaking, adj. speaking too
much
Prfvateness, privacy
Privy, ad. private
Proper, adj. belong to, are pecu
Marish, adj. marshy
liar to
Mar, v. to spoil, to defeat
Propound, v. to set forth, or
Masteries, to try, v. to contend
propose
for superiority
P.
Propriety, s. property, belonging
Mastery, s. rule, superiority
to
Material, adj. matter-of-fact
Pair, v. to impair
glasses
Mean, s. medium
Palm, s. a handbreadth
Puling, s. whining
Mere, adj. absolute, complete
Pardon, s. permission. Essay
Pnntos, s. punctilios
Merely, adv. completely
XLIII.
Purprise, s. precint
Mereslone, s. a boundary stone
Melocotone, s. a kind of wall
Part. s. party
Particular, adj. partial
Pytkomssa, s. a pythoness or
prophetess, the priestess of
fruit
A/«M of war, soldiers
Pass, v. to surpass
Postages, s. digressions; also ex
Apollo, possessed of the spirit
of divination
Mercury rod, the Caduceus of
change of views
Mercury
Mew, v. to moult
Passing, surpassingly, ex
tremely, thought to be excel
Militi •, s. an armed force of any
lent
Q-
kind at that time, soldiers
Pawns, s. pledges
Mint-man, s. a man skilled in
Pennyworth, s. a purchase, the
Quadlins, s. codlings, an *f>nla
coinage
just value for the money
Quality, s. rank
Mirabiliaties, wonders or won
Percase, adj. perhaps
Quarrel, s. a reason or argu
der seekers
Perceiving, s. perceptions— T i
ment for
Mislike, v. to dislike
Peremptory, adj. over-ruling, :\-
Quarter, to keep, v. to keep in its
Model, s. plan
possible to avoid
proper place
i\, ui-i^erati 'i>, s obsequiousness,
Perish, v. to destroy
Qui 'dity, s. a barbarous old
fawning, obedience
Personage, s. a portrait or like
scholastic term, used lot
M unite, v. to fortify
,Wuik melon, s. the common
ness either real or imaginary
Phantasm, s. a phantom
essence or a captious question
Quire, s. a choir
melon
Piece, v. to fit
Musk rose, s. moss rose
Mystery, s. a hi<iden meaning,
Pint apple trees, s. pine trees
Plant, to colonise
something concealed, a play
Plantation, s. colony
R.
Plash, s. a pond or pool
Platform, s. plan
Races o] hofsfs, s. breeds
N.
Plausible, adj. deserving of ap
Kange, v. to set in order
plause
Ranged, set in row.-,
Name, s. reputation
Play-pleasure, s. the pleasure of
Kanges, s rows
Naught, a'^s bad. 'i-orth little
a spectator at a play
Rasps, s. raspberries
GLOSSARY.
529
Rattiest, adv. soonest earliest
Sort, v. to agree, to associate
Towardness, s. docility, promise
Ravening, adj. greedy for prey
Recamera, s. a back room
with, to result from
Sorts, s. classes, kinds
Townsmen, s. citizens
Toy, s. a mere trifle, a jest
Receipt, s. a receptacle
Redargutions, s. refut-.tions
Referendaries, s. reff'^es
Refrained, p.p. ' in check,
curL 1
Ren-aimng, s. i urbing or re
Spangs, s. spangles
Speculative, adj. inquiring
Spend, v. to consume or exhaust
Spials, s. spies
Spinosity, crabbedness
Staddles, s. young trees left
Transcendencies, s. extravagan
ces
Trash, s. rubbish, anything de
spised
Travail, s. labour, toil, work
Treaties. Essav III., treatises
straining
standing after the underwood | Tribunitious, adj. like a tribune,
Regard in, because
has been cleared out \ rebellious, turbulent
Regiment, s. regimen
Staid, p.p. steady i Triumph, s, a festival procession
Reiglement, s. regulation
Stale, s. slatemate at chess
or feast
Reins, s. the lower part of the
Stand, s. a standstill
Trivial, adj. trite
back
Stand, with, v. to be consistent
Troth, s. truth
Reluctation, s. repugnance
with
Turk, the Great, s. the Sultan ol
Rtmoras, s. delays : literally, the
State, s. estate
Turkey
sucking fish
Statua s. statue
Turn. s. a purpose
Remove, s. removal
2>tick, v. hesitate, answer not
Typocosmy, s. a representation of
Remover, v. a man who wishes
readily
the world
constantly for change
Stiff, adj. stubborn
Reposed, p.p. calm, settled
Sttrps, s. races, families
Reputed, p.p. how spoken of
Resemblance, s. in this sense.
Stir, to move, to excite
Stands, s. delays, standstills
U.
Essay LVI., a comparison
Resembled, p.p. compared
Resorts, s. places of assembly
Respect, v. to regard, to rever
ence
Store, s. a quantity, a good
supply
Staved, p.p. warmed by a stove
Stout, adj. bold, determined,
brave
Unawares, adv. unexpectedly
Unblessed, adj. cursed
Uncomely, adj. unbecoming
Underfoot, adj. beneath its value
Rest, s. having decided to make
a final or decisive risk on a
battle
Stoutest, adj. boldest, bravest
Straight, adv, immediately
Straightways, adv. directly
Under sheri fries, s. the offices
of under sheriffs
Understanding, adj. intelligent,
Rest, v. to remain
Strain, s. aim, also effort to
wise
Restrained, p.p. curbed
Retardation, s. delay, hindrance
strain upwards
Strait, adj. strict, narrow, tight
Underletter, s. a contractor
Undertaking, adj. ready t<*
Retiring, s. retirement
Reverendf adj. venerable
Ribes, adj. the flowering currant
tree
Right, adj. very; "it is very
earth," Essay XXIII.
Round, adj. plain, straight
Substantive, adj. substantial
Success, s. result, whether good
or bad, in Essay XLVII.
Sufficiency, s. ability, capacity
Sufficient, adj. able, capable
Suga^man, s. the owner of •
sugar plantation
undertake, enterprising
Unlike, adv. unlikely
Unpleasing, adj. unpleasant
Unproper, adj. improper
Unready, adj. obstinate, un
manageable
Unsecreting, 3. disclosure, reve
forward, unvarnished.
Suite, s. order, succession
lation
Suppeditation, s. supply, aid af-
Ure, s. use
Use, s. interest, "use of money"
g
Surcharge, s. an overcharge
Used, p.p. practised
Sustentation, s. sustenance
Swelling, s. arrogance
Sad , adj. sombre, dark coloured
Sweetwoods, s. cinnamon, Ac.
Saltness, s. wit, i.e., "attic
salt"
Sy&.'tfa, the Sibyl
V.
Sanctuary ment s. men who
Prttt, s. disposition, inclination,
claimed the privileges of sanc
turn of mind
tuary in churches, or in Bacon's
Vecture, s. carriage
time in Alsatia or Blackfriars.
T.
Ventosity, s. swelling
Sarza, s. sarsaparilla
Vermiculate, a. resembling the
Scant, adv. scarcely
Tables, s. tablets
tracks of worms
Scant, to, v. to diminish, or
7a£«, v. captivate, attract
Version, s. direction, turn given
limit
Temper, s. temperament
to a thing
Seat, s. site
Temperature, s. temperament
Vindicative, adj. vindictive
Secret, adj. used for silent
7>wd, v. to wait on or attend to
Visor, s. a mask, or the front-
Secreted, p.p. kept secret
Seek, to, v. to be at a loss
Tender, adj. delicate
Tendering, s. careful attendance,
piece of the helmet.
Voice, v. to voice a thing is to
Seeled. See note at p. 69
nursing
proclaim it aloud
Sensible of, sensitive to
Sensible, adj. sensitive and vivid
Sensual, adj. appealing to the
Tenderly, adv. with considera
tion, delicately
. trtn, s. the predicate of a logical
Votary, adj. voluntary, or the
resolution of a votary
Vouch, v. to answer for
senses
M ./position
Vulgar, adj. common, well-
Sentence, n. opinion, decision
Text, s. any quotation spoken on
known
Sequester, v. to withdraw
'errene, ad. earthly
Several, ad. separate
Shrewd, adj. mischievous
Shrift, s. confession'
Theologues, s. theologians
Theomachy, s. opposition to the
divine will
W.
Simulation, s. pretence
Sindon, *. a wrapper, a sort of
scarf
Singular, adj. single
Slug, s, hindrance
Smother, s. to stifle as with
Throughlights, s. windows op
posite each other
Tiller, s. labourer of the ground
Timber-man, s. a man possessed
of trees or timber
Touch, v. to refer to, to mention
Waggishness, s, fun, jesting
Wait upon, v. to watch
Wanton, s. an idle or dissol jte
person
Warden, s. a large pear fof
smoke
Touch, s. touching speech, sen
baking
Soberly, adj. moderately
sitiveness
Wax, v. to grow
Softly, adv. gently
Aftftft the Shah of Persia
Touching, prep, with reference to
Tourney, s. a tournament
Way, to keep, to keep pace
Ways, no, adv. in no wa^
M M
530
GLOSSARY.
Weal, s. good, advantage, pros
perity, the same as wealth, but
iised figuratively
Welt, s. a small cord covered
with cloth and sewed on to
seams or borders to strengthen
them, called now pipings —
used by Bacon for a border or
Wltijffifi-i, 9. people who fre-
qu.-mly change tneir opinions,
Whisperer, s. a secret detrac
tor
Whit. s. the smallest bit. " Not
a whit" is "not at all."
Will, v. to desire, to wish
Windfall, s. anything blown
down, also a sudden good
gift
With, n. a willow twig. See
J udj,res, xvi. , 7 : "If they bind
u»e with green ivitlit."
Wondtntutitt, s. sufprtitti
Wont, p. p. accustomed
Z.
Ztalant, s zealot
Zeals, s. tcalous eicrtioot
THE END
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, WHITKFRIARS.
o
inwtMT) SAMUEL 'O
BINDING SECT. SEP 2 0 1966
PR
2206
A3
1892
Bacon, Francis, viscount
St. Albans
Essays
PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11