58 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



is originally imbued with all knowledge; that which she 

 seems adventitiously to acquire in life being nothing more 

 fchan a return to her first conceptions, which had been over 

 laid by the grossness of the body. In no person so much 

 as your Majesty does this opinion appear more fully con 

 firmed, your soul being apt to kindle at the intrusion of 

 the slightest object; and even at the spark of a thought 

 foreign to the purpose to burst into flame. As the Scrip 

 ture says of the wisest king, &quot;That his heart was as the 

 sands of the sea, 3 which, though one of the largest bodies, 

 contains the finest and smallest particles of matter. In like 

 manner Grod has endowed your Majesty with a mind capable 

 of grasping the largest subjects and comprehending the least, 

 though such an instrument seems an impossibility in nature. 

 As regards your readiness of speech, I am reminded of that 

 saying of Tacitus concerning Augustus Caesar, &quot;Augusto 

 profluens ut quae principem virum deceret, eloquentia 

 fuit.&quot; 4 For all eloquence which is affected or over 

 labored, or merely imitative, though otherwise excellent, 

 carries with it an air of servility, nor is it free to follow 

 its own impulses. But your Majesty s eloquence is in 

 deed royal, streaming and branching out in nature s fash 

 ion as from a fountain, copious and elegant, original and 

 inimitable. And as in those things which concern your 

 crown and family, virtue seems to contend with fortune 

 your Majesty being possessed of. a virtuous disposition and 

 a prosperous government, a virtuous observance of the 

 duties of the conjugal state with most blessed and happy 

 fruit of marriage, a virtuous and most Christian desire of 

 peace at a time when contemporary princes seem no less 

 inclined to harmony so likewise in intellectual gifts there 

 appears as great a contention between your Majesty s nat 

 ural talents and the universality and perfection of your 

 learning. Nor indeed would it be easy to find any mon- 



3 III. Kings iv. 29. We may observe that Bacon invariably quotes from the 

 Vulgate, to which our references point. 



4 Tacitus, Annales, xiii. 3. 



