THE SECOND BOOK. 73 



the one, and the texts of Livius, Polybius, Sallustius, Caesar, 

 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 cdiena 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 king 

 doms ; 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 adeption 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 ihat 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 fcbris 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 ^Eneas, antiquam 

 c* 84 



