78 THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. 



of words only, which likewise are of three sorts orations, 

 letters, and brief speeches or sayings. Orations are pleadings, 

 speeches of counsel, laudative*, invectives, apologies, reprehen 

 sions, orations of formality or ceremony, and the like. Letters 

 are according to all the variety of occasions, advertisements, 

 advices, directions, propositions, petitions, commendatory, ex- 

 pos-tulatory, satisfactory, of compliment, of pleasure, of dis 

 course, and all other passages of action. And such as are 

 written from wise men, are of all the words of man, in^my 

 judgment, the best ; for they are more natural than orations 

 and public speeches, and more advised than conferences or 

 present speeches. So again letters of affairs from such as 

 manage them, or are privy to them, are of all others the best 

 instructions for history, and to a diligent reader the best histories 

 in themselves. For apophthegms, it is a great loss of that book 

 of Caesar s ; for as his history, and those few letters of his which 

 we have, and those apophthegms which were of his own, excel 

 all men s else, so I suppose would his collection of apophthegms 

 have done ; for as for those which are collected by others, either 

 I have no taste in such matters or else their choice hath not 

 been happy. But upon these three kinds of writings I do not 

 insist, because I have no deficiences to propound concerning 

 them. 



(5) Thus much therefore concerning history, which is that 

 part of learning which answereth to one of the cells, domiciles, 

 or offices of the mind of man, which is that of the memory. 



IV. (1) Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words, for 

 the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely 

 licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination ; which, being 

 not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which 

 nature hath severed, and sever that which nature hath joined, 

 and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things Pictori- 

 bus atque poetis, &c. It is taken in two senses in respect of 

 words or matter. In the first sense, it is but a character of 

 style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent for 

 the present. In the latter, it is as hath been said one of the 

 principal portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned 

 history, which may be styled as well in prose as in verse. 



(2) The use of this feigned history hath been to give some 

 shadow of satisfaction to the mind of man in those points 

 wherein the nature of things doth deny it, the world being in 

 proportion inferior to the soul ; by reason whereof there is, 

 agreeable to the spirit of man, a more ample greatness, a more 

 exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, than can be found 

 in the nature of things. Therefore, because the acts or eventh 



