5 BACON 



solitary and unmarried. And now, as a close, the glorious and 

 auspicious event of the union of an island, divided from the 

 rest of the world : so that we may say the old oracle which gave 

 rest to JEneas, " antiquam exquirite matrem,"& is fulfilled in 

 the union of England and Scotland under one sceptre. Thus 

 as massive bodies, drawn aside from their course, experience 

 certain waverings and trepidations before they fix and settle, 

 so this monarchy, before it was to settle in your Majesty and 

 your heirs, in whom I hope it is established forever, seems by 

 the providence of God to have undergone these mutations and 

 deflections as a prelude to stability. 



With regard to lives, we cannot but wonder that our own 

 times have so little value for what they enjoy, as not more fre- 

 quently to write the lives of eminent men. For, though kings, 

 princes, and great personages are few, yet there are many other 

 excellent men who deserve better than vague reports and bar- 

 ren eulogies. Here the fancy of a late poet, who has improved 

 an ancient fiction, is not inapplicable. He feigns that at the 

 end of the thread of every man's life, there hung a medal, on 

 which the name of the deceased is stamped; and that Time, 

 waiting upon the shears of the fatal sister, as soon as the thread 

 was cut, caught the medals, and threw them out of his bosom 

 into the river Lethe. He also represented many birds flying 

 over its banks, who caught the medals in their beaks, and, after 

 carrying them about for a certain time, allowed them to fall in 

 the river. Among these birds were a few swans, who used, if 

 they caught a medal, to carry it to a certain temple consecrated 

 to immortality. Such swans, however, are rare in our age. 

 And although many, more mortal in their affections than their 

 bodies, esteem the desire of fame and memory but a vanity, and 

 despise praise, whilst they do nothing that is praiseworthy 

 " animos nil magnse laudis egentes " \c yet their philosophy 

 springs from the root, " non prius laudes contempsimus quam 

 laudanda facere desivimus " ; and does not alter Solomon's 

 judgment " the memory of the just shall be with praises ; but 

 the name of the wicked shall rot " \d the one flourishing, whilst 

 the other consumes or turns to corruption. So in that laudable 

 way of speaking of the dead, " of happy memory ! of pious 

 memory ! " etc., we seem to acknowledge, with Cicero and De- 

 mosthenes, " that a good name is the proper inheritance of the 

 deceased " ;<? which inheritance is lying waste in our time, and 

 deserves to be noticed as a deficiency. 



