94 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [ll. 8. 



ever conducted, had much intermixture with the affairs of 

 Europe, balancing and inclining them variably ; in whose 

 time also began that great alteration in the state eccle 

 siastical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stage. 

 Then the reign of a minor : then an offer of an usurpation 

 (though it was but zsfebris 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 Brittany, divided from all the 

 world, should be united in itself: and that oracle of rest 

 given to ^Eneas, antiquam exquirite matrem, should now 

 be performed and fulfilled upon the nations of England 

 and Scotland, being now reunited in the ancient mother 

 name of Brittany, as a full period of all instability and 

 peregrinations. So that as it cometh to pass in massive 

 bodies, that they have certain trepidations and waverings 

 before they fix and settle, so it seemeth that by the pro 

 vidence of God this monarchy, before it was to settle in 

 your majesty and your generations (in which I hope it is 

 now established for ever), it had these prelusive changes 

 and varieties. 



9. For lives, I do find strange that these times have so 

 little esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the writings 

 of lives should be no more frequent. For although there 

 be not many sovereign princes or absolute commanders, 

 and that states are most collected into monarchies, yet 

 are there many worthy personages that deserve better 

 than dispersed report or barren elogies. For herein 

 the invention of one of the late poets is proper, and 

 doth well enrich the ancient fiction. For he feigneth 



