BOOK IL] EOYAL PATROXAGE CONSIDERED. 71 



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, tliat those wlio are blessed 

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

 descendants that their name w411 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 prosi)erous in many 

 of her undertakings. But to your Majesty, whom God has 

 blessed with so much royal issue, worthy to immortalize 

 your name, it particularly 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 posterity. 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 favourite authors 

 stand up like Hercules' Columns, to bar further sailing and 

 discovery, especially since we have so bright and benign a 

 star in your Majesty to guide and conduct us 1 



It remains, therefore, that we consider the labours which 

 princes and others have undertaken for the advancement of 

 learning, and this markedly and pointedly, without digres- 

 sion 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 labours. The 

 first multiplies energy, the second prevents error, and the 

 third compensates for liuman weakness. But the principal 

 of these is direction, or the pointing out and the delineatiou 



