The Advancement of Learning
whereat Hippias was offended, and said, “More than for courtesy’s sake,
he did think much to dispute with any that did allege such base and
sordid instances.” Whereunto Socrates answereth, “You have reason, and
it becomes you well, being a man so trim in your vestments,” &c., and so
goeth on in an irony. But the truth is, they be not the highest
instances that give 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; and therefore
Aristotle noteth well, “That the nature of everything is best seen in his
smallest portions.” And for that cause he inquireth the nature of a
commonwealth, first in a family, and the simple conjugations of man and
wife, parent and child, master and servant, which are in every cottage.
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.
(6) 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
subtle, 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 connection 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 further, 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
appear so fully in the liberty of nature as in the trials and vexations
of art.
II. (1) For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be
compared with 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 drafts of history; and antiquities are history defaced, or
some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of
time.
(2) 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,
the occasions, and other passages of action. For this is the true nature
of a commentary (though Cæsar, 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 of council,
judicial proceedings, declarations and letters of estate, orations, and
the like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of the thread of
the narration.
(3) Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was said, _tanquam
tabula naufragii_: when industrious persons, by an exact and scrupulous
diligence and observation, out of monuments, names, words, proverbs,
traditions, private records and evidences, fragments of stories, passages
of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover
somewhat from the deluge of time.
(4) In these kinds of unperfect 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 judgment have confessed, as those that have fretted and corroded
the sound bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought them into base
and unprofitable dregs.
(5) History, which may be called just and perfect history, is of three
kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth, or pretendeth to
represent: for it either representeth a time, or a person, or an action.
The first we call chronicles, the second lives, and the third narrations
or relations. 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 è minimis_, _suspendens_, 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 represent, in whom
actions, both greater and smaller, public and private, have a commixture,
must of 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 conspiracy of Catiline, cannot but be
more purely and exactly true than histories of times, because they may
choose an argument comprehensible within the notice and instructions of
the writer: whereas he that undertaketh the story of a time, specially of
any length, cannot but meet with many blanks and spaces, which he must be
forced to fill up out of his own wit and conjecture.
(6) For the history of times, I 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, policy, and laws; the state of Græcia and the state of Rome; the
histories whereof occupying the middle part of time, have more ancient to
them histories which may by one common name be termed the antiquities of
the world; and after them, histories which may be likewise called by the
name of modern history.
(7) Now to speak of the deficiences. 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 holpen; 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 Græcia, from Theseus to
Philopœmen (what time the affairs of Græcia drowned and extinguished in
the affairs of Rome), and for Rome from Romulus to Justinianus, who may
be truly said to be _ultimus Romanorum_. In which sequences of story the
text of Thucydides and Xenophon in the one, and the texts of Livius,
Polybius, Sallustius, Cæsar, Appianus, Tacitus, Herodianus in the other,
to be kept entire, without any diminution at all, and only to be supplied
and continued. But this is a matter of magnificence, rather to be
commended than required; and we speak now of parts of learning
supplemental, and not of supererogation.
(8) 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 _curiosus in aliena 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 the 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 kingdoms; a portion of time wherein, to my
understanding, there hath been the rarest varieties 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 of working and swelling, though without
extremity of storm; but well passed through by the wisdom of the pilot,
being one of the most sufficient kings of all the number. Then followeth
the reign of a king, whose actions, howsoever conducted, had much
intermixture with the affairs of Europe, balancing and inclining them
variably; in whose time also began that great alteration in the state
ecclesiastical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stage. Then the
reign of a minor; then an offer of a usurpation (though it was but as
_febris ephemera_). Then the reign of a queen matched with a foreigner;
then of a queen that lived solitary and unmarried, 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
ÆNeas, _antiquam exquirite matrem_, should now be performed and fulfilled
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
peregrinations. 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.
(9) For lives, I do find strange that these times have so little esteemed
the virtues of the times, as that the writings 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 are
there many worthy personages that deserve better than dispersed report or
barren eulogies. For herein the invention 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 Lathe; 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
consecrate. And although many men, more mortal in their affections than