The Second Book 73 



of one art to the use of another, when the experiences of 

 several mysteries shall fall under the consideration of one 

 man's mind; but further, it will give a more true and real 

 illumination concerning causes and 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. I, 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 continu- 

 ance 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 public acts, as decrees of council, judicial 

 proceedings, declarations and letters of state, 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, proverbs, traditions, private 

 records and evidences, fragments 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 defici- 



^ Virg. Georg. iv. 387, sqq. 



' Cf. Nov. Org. i. 77. 



'Story here=history: " librorum neutiquam historicorum." 



