SECOND BOOK 



CHAPTER I 



General Divisions of Learning into History, Poetry, and Philosophy, in 

 relation to the Three Faculties of the Mind Memory, Imagination, 

 and Reason. The same Distribution applies to Theology 



TO THE KING 



IT is befitting, excellent King, that those who are blessed 

 with a numerous offspring, and who have a pledge in their 

 descendants that their name will be carried down to pos- 

 terity, should be keenly alive to the welfare of future times, in 

 which their children are to perpetuate their power and empire. 

 Queen Elizabeth, with respect to her celibacy, was rather a 

 sojourner than an inhabitant of the present world, yet she was 

 an ornament to her age and prosperous in many of her under- 

 takings. But to your Majesty, whom God has blessed with so 

 much royal issue, worthy to immortalize your name, it particu- 

 larly appertains to extend your cares beyond the present age, 

 which is already illuminated with your wisdom, and extend 

 your thoughts to those works which will interest remotest pos- 

 terity. Of such designs, if affection do not deceive me, there is 

 none more worthy and noble than the endowment of the world 

 with sound and fruitful knowledge. For why should a few 

 favorite authors stand up like Hercules's Columns, to bar fur- 

 ther sailing and discovery, especially since we have so bright and 

 benign a star in your Majesty to guide and conduct us ? 



It remains, therefore, that we consider the labors which 

 princes and others have undertaken for the advancement of 

 learning, and this markedly and pointedly, without digression 

 or amplification. Let it then be granted, that to the completion 

 of any work munificent patronage is as essential as soundness of 

 direction and conjunction of labors. The first multiplies en- 

 ergy, the second prevents error, and the third compensates for 

 human weakness. But the principal of these is direction, or the 



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