102 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [iV. 2. 



retribution, and more according to revealed providence. 

 Because true history representeth actions and events more 

 ordinary and less interchanged, therefore poesy endueth 

 them with more rareness, and more unexpected and 

 alternative variations. So as it appeareth that poesy 

 serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to 

 delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have 

 some participation of divineness, because it doth raise 

 and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things 

 to the desires of the mind ; whereas reason doth buckle 

 and bow the mind unto the nature of things. And we 

 see that by these insinuations and congruities with man s 

 nature and pleasure, joined also with the agreement and 

 consort it hath with music, it hath had access and estim 

 ation in rude times and barbarous regions, where other 

 learning stood excluded. 



3. The division of poesy which is aptest in the pro 

 priety thereof (besides those divisions which are common 

 unto it with history, as feigned chronicles, feigned lives, 

 and the appendices of history, as feigned epistles, feigned 

 orations, and the rest) is into poesy narrative, represent 

 ative, and allusive. The narrative is a mere imitation of 

 history, with the excesses before remembered ; choosing 

 for subject commonly wars and love, rarely state, and 

 sometimes pleasure or mirth. Representative is as a 

 visible history ; and is an image of actions as if they were 

 present, as history is of actions in nature as they are, (that 

 is) past. .Allusive or parabolical is a narration applied 

 only to express some special purpose or conceit. Which 

 latter kind of parabolical wisdom was much more in use 

 in the ancient times, as by the fables of ^Esop, and the 

 brief sentences of the seven, and the use of hieroglyphics 

 may appear. And the cause was, for that it was then of 



