244 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



astical, an action which seldom cometh upon the stage: 

 then the reign of a minor : then an offer of an usurpation, 

 though it was but as febris ephemera : then the reign of a 

 queen matched with a foreigner : then of a queen that 

 lived solitary and unmarried, and yet her government 

 so masculine as it had greater impression and operation 

 upon the states abroad than it any ways received from 

 thence : and now last, this most happy and glorious 

 event, that this island of Britain, divided from all the 

 world, should be united in itself; and that oracle of 

 rest given to Aeneas, Antiquam exquirite matrem^ should 

 now be performed and fulfilled upon the nations of 

 England and Scotland, being now reunited in the ancient 

 mother name of Britain, as a full period of all instability 

 and peregrinations : so that as it cometh to pass in massive 

 bodies, that they have certain trepidations and waverings 

 before they fix and settle ; so it seemeth that by the 

 providence of God this monarchy, before it was to settle 

 in your Majesty and your generations, (in which I hope 

 it is now established for ever,) it had these prelusive 

 changes and varieties. 



For Lives, I do find strange that these times have so 

 little esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the writing 

 of lives should be no more frequent. For although there 

 be not many sovereign princes or absolute commanders, 

 and that states are most collected into monarchies, yet are 

 there many worthy personages that deserve better than 

 dispersed report or barren elogies. For herein the in- 

 vention of one of the late poets is proper, and doth well 

 enrich the ancient fiction : for he feigneth that at the 

 end of the thread or web of every man's life there was a 

 little medal containing the person's name, and that Time 

 waited upon the shears, and as soon as the thread was cut, 

 caught the medals and carried them to the river of Lethe ; 

 and about the bank there were many birds flying up and 

 down, that would get the medals and carry them in their 

 beak a little while, and then let them fall into the river : 

 only there were a few swans, which if they got a name, 

 would carry it to a temple where it was consecrate. And 



