ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 107 



under one sceptre. Thus as massive bodies, drawn aside 

 from their course, experience certain waverings and trepi 

 dations before they fix and settle, so this monarchy, before 

 it was to settle in your Majesty and your heirs, in whom 

 I hope it is established forever, seems by the providence of 

 God to have undergone these mutations and deflections as 

 a prelude to stability. 



With regard to lives, we cannot but wonder that our own 

 times have so little value for what they enjoy, as not more 

 frequently to write the lives of eminent men. For though 

 kings, princes, and great personages are few, yet there are 

 many other excellent men who deserve better than vague 

 reports and barren elogies. Here the fancy of a late poet, 

 who has improved an ancient fiction, is not inapplicable. 

 He feigns that at the end of the thread of every man s life, 

 there hung a medal, on which the name of the deceased is 

 stamped; and that Time, waiting upon the shears of the 

 fatal sister, as soon as the thread was cut, caught the medals, 

 and threw them oat of his bosom into the river Lethe. He 

 also represented many birds flying over its banks, who 

 caught the medals in their beaks, and after carrying them 

 about for a certain time, allowed them to fall in the river. 

 Among these birds were a few swans, who used, if they 

 caught a medal, to carry it to a certain temple consecrated 

 to immortality. Such swans, however, are rare in our age. 

 And although many, more mortal in their affections than 

 their bodies, esteem the desire of fame and memory but 

 a vanity, and despise praise, while they do nothing that 

 is praiseworthy &quot;animos nil magnae laudis egentes&quot;; 3 yet 

 their philosophy springs from the root, &quot;non prius laudes 

 contempsimus quam laudanda facere desivimus&quot;; and does 

 not alter Solomon s judgment &quot;the memory of the just 

 shall be with praises; bat the name of the wicked shall 

 rot&quot;; 4 the one flourishing, while the other consumes or 

 turns to corruption. So in that laudable way of speaking 



3 JRn. v. 751. 4 Prov&amp;gt; x 7^ 



