THE SECOND BOOK 85 



we do acknowledge that which Cicero saith, borrowing 

 it from Demosthenes, that ' bona fama propria possessio 

 defunctorum ' ; which possession I cannot but note 

 that in our times it lieth much waste, and that therein 

 there is a deficience. 



10. For narrations and relations of particular 

 actions, there were also to be wished a greater diligence 

 therein ; for there is no great action but hath some 

 good pen which attends it. And because it is an 

 ability not common to write a good history, as may 

 well appear by the small number of them ; yet if 

 particularity of actions memorable were but tolerably 

 reported as they pass, the compiling of a complete 

 history of times mought be the better expected, when 

 a writer should arise that were fit for it : for the collec- 

 tion of such relations mought be as a nursery garden, 

 whereby to plant a fair and stately garden, when time 

 should serve. 



11. There is yet another partition of history which 

 Cornelius Tacitus maketh, which is not to be forgotten, 

 specially with that application which he accoupleth it 

 withal, annals and journals : appropriating to the 

 former matters of estate, and to the latter acts and 

 accidents of a meaner nature. For giving but a touch 

 of certain magnificent buildings, he addeth, ' Cum ex 

 dignitate populi Romani repertum sit, res illustres 

 annalibus, talia diumis urbis actis mandare.' So as 

 there is a kind of contemplative heraldry, as well as 

 civil. And as nothing doth derogate from the dignity 

 of a state more than confusion of degrees, so it doth 

 not a little imbase the authority of an history, to 

 intermingle matters of triumph, or matters of cere- 

 mony, or matters of novelty, with matters of state. 

 But the use of a journal hath not only been in the 

 history of time, but likewise in the history of persons, 

 and chiefly of actions ; for princes in ancient time had, 

 upon point of honour and policy both, journals kept, 

 what passed day by day. For we see the chronicle 

 which was read before Ahasuerus, when he could not 

 take rest, contained matter of affairs indeed, but such 



