LETTERS FROM THE CABALA. 



69 



almost no writer of history hath had, in that I shall write 

 the times, not only since I could remember, but since I 

 could observe. And lastly, that it is only for your majesty s 

 reading. 



Sir Francis Bacon to the Lord Chancellor, touching 

 the History of Britain. 



It may please your good Lordship, 

 Some late act of his majesty, referred to some former 

 speech which I have heard from your lordship, bred in me a 

 great desire, and by strength of desire a boldness, to make an 

 humble proposition to your lordship, such as in me can be no 

 better than a wish ; but if your lordship should apprehend it, 

 it may take some good and worthy effect. The act I speak 

 of, is the order given by his majesty for the erection of a 

 tomb or monument for our late sovereign Queen Elizabeth; 

 wherein I may note much, but this at this time, that as her 

 majesty did always right to his majesty s hopes, so his high 

 ness doth, in all things, right to her memory; a very just 

 and princely retribution. But from this occasion, by a very 

 easy ascent, I passed farther, being put in mind, by this re 

 presentative of her person, of the more true and more perfect 

 representative, which is, of her life and government. For as 

 statues and pictures are dumb histories, so histories are speak 

 ing pictures ; wherein (if my affection be not too great, or my 

 reading too small,) I am of this opinion, that if Plutarch 

 were alive to write lives by parallels, it would trouble him, 

 for virtue and fortune both, to find for her a parallel 

 amongst women. And though she was of the passive sex, 

 yet her government was so active, as, in my simple opinion, 

 it made more impression upon the several states of Europe, 

 than it received from thence. But I confess unto your 

 lordship, I could not stay here, but went a little farther into 

 the consideration of the times which have passed since 

 King Henry the Eighth; wherein I find the strangest 



