PREFACE. THIS Volume contains I. The Wisdom of the Ancients. II. Civil History. 1. History of Henry VII. III. Biography. 1. Queen Elizabeth. 2. Julius Cæsar. 3. Augustus Cæsar. 4. Henry, Prince of Wales. VOL. 3. b § 1. THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. The first edition of this work was published in Latin in the year 1609. It is entitled FRANCISCI BACONI EQVITIS AVRATI, PROCVRATORIS SE CVNDI, JACOBI REGIS MAGNE BRITANNIE VETERVM LIBER, AD INCLYTAM ACADEMIAM CANTABRIGIENSEM. LONDINI EXCUDEBAT ROBERTUS BAR KERUS SERENISSIMÆ REGIE ANNO 1609. 6 In February 27, 1610, Lord Bacon wrote "To MR. MATTHEW, upon sending his book De Sapientia Veterum.' 66 "Mr. Matthew, "I do very heartily thank you for your letter of "the 24th of August from Salamanca; and in recompence thereof I send you a little work of "mine that hath begun to pass the world. They " tell me my Latin is turned into silver, and become "current had you been here, you should have been my inquisitor before it came forth: but, I think, "the greatest inquisitor in Spain will allow it. 66 "But one thing you must pardon me if I make no "haste to believe, that the world should be grown "to such an ecstacy as to reject truth in philosophy, "because the author dissenteth in religion; no more "than they do by Aristotle or Averroes. My great "work goeth forward; and after my manner, I alter "ever when I add. So that nothing is finished till "all be finished. This I have written in the midst "of a term and parliament; thinking no time so "possessed, but that I should talk of these matters "with so good and dear a friend. And so with my "wonted wishes I leave you to God's goodness. "From Gray's-Inn, Feb. 27, 1610." And in his letter to Father Fulgentio, giving some account of his writings, he says, "My Essays "will not only be enlarged in number, but still more in substance. Along with them goes the little piece De Sapientia Veterum.'" 6 Bacon's sentiments with respect to these fables may be found in the " Advancement of Learning," and in the "De Augmentis," under the head of Poetry. In the Advancement of Learning" he says, "There remaineth yet another use of poesy parabo"lical, 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 mys"teries of religion, policy, or philosophy, are in"volved in fables or parables. Of this in divine poesy we see the use is authorized. In heathen 66 35 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: 66 66 66 66 "Illam Terra parens, irâ irritata deorum, "Extremam, ut perhibent, Coo Enceladoque sororem 66 expounded, that when princes and monarchs have suppressed actual and open rebels, then the malig nity of the people, which is the mother of rebellion, "doth bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations "of the state, which is of the same kind with rebel"lion, 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 absoluteness 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 Iman 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 66 66 justice. Nevertheless, in many the like encoun"ters, I do rather think that the fable was first, and "the exposition then devised, than that the moral "was first, and thereupon the fable framed. For I "find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus, that "troubled himself with great contention to fasten "the assertions of the Stoics upon the fictions of the "ancient poets; but yet that all the fables and fic❝tions 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 might have upon a more original tradition, is not easy to affirm; for he was not the "inventor of many of them." 66 66 66 In the treatise "De Augmentis," the same sentiments will be found with a slight alteration in the expressions. He says, "there is another use of parabolical poesy, opposite to the former, which "tendeth to the folding up of those things, the dignity whereof, deserves to be retired and distinguished, as with a drawn curtain: that is, when "the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, and 66 66 66 philosophy are veiled and invested with fables, "and parables. But whether there be any mystical "sense couched under the ancient fables of the 66 poets, may admit some doubt: and indeed for our 66 part we incline to this opinion, as to think, that “there was an infused mystery in many of the an"cient fables of the poets. Neither doth it move "us that these matters are left commonly to school"boys, and grammarians, and so are embased, that |