g0 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [I. 6. 
he be crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he 
was straitened and held fast; so the passages and vari- 
ations of nature cannot appear so fully in the liberty of 
nature as in the trials and vexations of art. 
Il. x. For civil history, it is of three kinds; not un- 
fitly 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 un- 
finished, or the first or rough draughts of history ; and 
antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of his- 
tory 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 Cesar, 
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 naufragi : 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. 
ee an a 
