114 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



great use, not only for eloquence, but for the knowledge 

 of things themselves. But the letters of wise men upon 

 serious affairs are yet more serviceable in points of civil 

 prudence, as of all human speech nothing is more solid or 

 excellent than such epistles, for they contain more of nat 

 ural sense than orations, and more ripeness than occasional 

 discourses: so letters of state affairs, written in the order of 

 time by those that manage them, with their answers, afford 

 the best materials for civil history. 



Nor do apothegms only serve for ornament and delight, 

 but also for action and civil use, as being the edge-tools of 

 speech 



&quot;Secures aut mucrones verborum,&quot; 1 



which cut and penetrate the knots of business and affairs; 

 for occasions have their revolutions, and what has once 

 been advantageously used may be so again, either as an 

 old thing or a new one. Nor can the usefulness of these 

 sayings in civil affairs be questioned, when Caesar himself 

 wrote a book upon the subject, which we wish were ex 

 tant; for all those we have yet seen of the kind appear to 

 be collected with little choice and judgment. 



CHAPTEE XIII 



The Second leading Branch of Learning Poetry. Its Division into Narra 

 tive, Dramatic, and Parabolic. Three Examples of the latter 

 species detailed 



POETRY is a kind of learning generally confined to the 

 measure of words, but otherwise extremely licentious, 

 and truly belonging to the imagination, which, being 

 unrestrained by laws, may make what unnatural mixtures 

 and separations it pleases. It is taken in two senses, or 

 with respect to words and matter. The first is but a char- 



1 Cicero s Epis. Fam. ix. 



