THE SECOND BOOK 89 



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 form 

 ality or ceremony, and the like. Letters are according 

 to all the variety of occasions, advertisements, advices, 

 directions, propositions, petitions, commendatory, ex- 

 postulatory, satisfactory, of compliment, of pleasure, 

 of discourse, and all other passages 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 apoph 

 thegms 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 I do not insist, because I have no 

 deficiencies to propound concerning them. 



5. Thus much therefore concerning history, which is 

 that part of learning which answereth to one of the 

 cells, domiciles, or offices of the mind of man ; which 

 is that of the memory. 



IV. 1. Poesy is a part of learning in measure of 

 words for the most part restrained, but in all other 

 points extremely licensed, and doth truly refer to the 

 imagination ; which, being not tied to the laws of 

 matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath 

 severed, and sever that which nature hath joined ; 

 and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things ; 

 * Pictoribus atque poetis, &c. It is taken in two senses 



