72 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [PAGES 



1. 8. neighbour, used as an adjective for neighbouring. 



1. 13. amplification, exaggeration. 



1. 15. temporal, opposed to ecclesiastical. 



1. 17. revolve, reflect upon. By Rome Bacon means the Roman 

 Empire before it was divided. By Grcecia he means the Eastern 

 half of the original empire, of which Constantinople was the 

 capital. The capital of the West was Rome. Peruse means to 

 survey. It means properly 'to use up,' and so to go through 

 thoroughly. 



1. 18. C33sar the Dictator, " Julius Csesar was invested with the 

 Dictatorship at first temporarily after the return from Spain in 

 49, then after the battle of Pharsalus from the autumn of 48 for 

 an indefinite time, lastly after the battle of Thapeus from the 

 1st January, 45, as an annual office, to which he was designated 

 at first for ten years, ultimately in 44 for life." Mommsen, vol. 

 iv. , p. 493. For the meaning of Dictator see on p. 29, 1. 9. 

 Bacon gives examples of the learning of Caesar below, pp. 57-60, 

 and on p. 52 he says that Marcus Antoninus was named The 

 Philosopher. 



1. 24. wits, the word wit is generally used simply as the 

 equivalent of mind. We must not expect original research or 

 profound knowledge from a king. If he can appropriate and re 

 peat what others have discovered, so as to create the impression 

 of being well informed, he has done all that is to be expected. 



1. 26. countenance and prefer, favour and promote. 



1. 29. in a king born, The learning of a sovereign who has been 

 raised to the throne from a private station excites no astonish 

 ment. Before his elevation he had the same leisure, and the 

 same incentives to work, that ordinary men have. 



1. 30. conjunction, a term borrowed from astrology, 



1. 31. profane, secular. We now use the word to signify im 

 pious. The word literally expresses what is in front of or outside 

 of the temple. Lat. fanum. 



1. 32. so as, so that. The phrase occurs repeatedly in the text, 

 and always in this sense. 



1. 34. Hermes, said to have been a great philosopher, king, and 

 priest, of Egypt. But the real Hermes, or the writer of the 

 works ascribed to him, was a neophyte Platonist of the second or 

 third century. E. The name, according to Dean Church, was 

 given to a vast series of writings on theology, philosophy, and 

 nature, which appear to have grown up in Egypt from the second 

 century onwards, and which, embodying Jewish and Christian, as 

 well as Eastern, Greek, and Egyptian ideas, were probably in 

 tended as a body of literature antagonistic to Christianity, giving 



