100 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING, [ill. 3 



blessings : and this is a work which hath passed through 

 the labour of many, and therefore I cannot present as 

 omitted. 



4. There are also other parts of learning which are 

 appendices to history. For all the exterior proceedings 

 of man consist of words and deeds; whereof history 

 doth properly receive and retain in memory the deeds, 

 and if words, yet but as inducements and passages to 

 deeds ; so are there other books and writings, which are 

 appropriate to the custody and receipt of words only ; 

 which likewise are of three sorts ; orations, letters, and 

 brief speeches or sayings. Orations are pleadings, 

 speeches of counsel, laudatives, invectives, apologies, 

 reprehensions, orations of formality or ceremony, and 

 the like. Letters are according to all the variety of oc 

 casions, advertisements, advices, directions, propositions, 

 petitions, commendatory, expostulatory, satisfactory, of 

 compliment, of pleasure, of discourse, and all other pas 

 sages of action. And such as are written from wise men 

 are of all the words of man, in my judgement, 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 apo 

 phthegms 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 



