80 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



axioms than is hitherto attained. For like as a man's 

 disposition is never well known till he be crossed, nor 

 Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened and 

 held fast ; so the passages and variations of nature 

 cannot appear so fully in the liberty of nature as in the 

 trials and vexations of art. 



II. 1. For civil history, it is of three kinds ; not 

 unfitly to be compared with the three kinds of pictures 

 or images. For of pictures or images, we see some are 

 unfinished, some are perfect, and some are defaced. 

 So of histories we may find three kinds, memorials, 

 perfect histories, and antiquities ; for memorials are 

 history unfinished, or the first or rough draughts of 

 history ; and antiquities are history defaced, or some 

 remnants of history which have casually escaped the 

 shipwreck of time. 



2. Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two 

 sorts ; whereof the one may be termed commentaries, 

 and the other registers. Commentaries are they which 

 set down a continuance of the naked events and actions, 

 without the motives or designs, the counsels, the 

 speeches, the pretexts, the occasions and other passages 

 of action : for this is the true nature of a commentary 

 (though Caesar, in modesty mixed with greatness, did 

 for his pleasure apply the name of a commentary to the 

 best history of the world). Registers are collections 

 of pubUc acts, as decrees of council, judicial proceed- 

 ings, declarations and letters of estate, orations and the 

 like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of 

 the thread of the narration. 



3. Antiquities, or remnants of history, are, as was 

 said, ' tanquam tabula naufragii ' : when industrious 

 persons, by an exact and scrupulous diligence and 

 observation, out of monuments, names, words, pro- 

 verbs, traditions, private records and evidences, frag- 

 ments of stories, passages of books that concern not 

 story, and the like, do save and recover somewhat from 

 the deluge of time. 



4. In these kinds of unperfect histories I do assign 

 no deficience, for they are tanquam imperfecte mista ; 



