78 Bacon 



For narrations and relations of particular actions, there 

 were also to be wished a greater diligence therein ; for there 

 is no great action but hath some good pen which attends it. 

 And because it is an ability not common to write a good 

 history, as may well appear by the small number of them ; 

 yet if particularity of actions memorable were but tolerably 

 reported as they pass, the compiling of a complete history 

 of times mought be the better expected, when a writer should 

 arise that were fit for it : for the collection of such relations 

 mought be as a nursery garden, whereby to plant a fair and 

 stately garden, when time should serve. 



There is yet another portion of history which Cornelius 

 Tacitus maketh, which is not to be forgotten, especially with 

 that application which he accoupleth it withal, annals and 

 journals : appropriating to the former matters of estate, 

 and to the latter acts and accidents of a meaner nature. 

 For giving but a touch of certain magnificent buildings, he 

 addeth Cum ex dignitate populi Romani repertum sit, res 

 illustres annalibus talia diurnis urbis actis mandare. 1 So as 

 there is a kind of contemplative 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 a 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 of what passed day by day: for we see the chronicle 

 which was read before Ahasuerus, 2 when he could not take 

 rest, contained matter 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 particu 

 larity, even concerning his person and court ; 3 and it is yet 

 a 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 wise and grave men have used, containing a scattered 

 history of those actions which they have thought worthy of 



1 Tac. Ann. xiii. 31. a Esth. vi. i. 



3 See Plutarch, Sympos. i. Qu. 6. 



