THE SECOND BOOK 249 



man consist of words and deeds; whereof history doth 

 properly receive and retain in memory the deeds, and if 

 words, yet but as inducements and passages to deeds ; so 

 are there other books and writings, which are appropriate 

 to the custody and receipt of words only ; which likewise 

 are of three sorts ; Orations, Letters, and Brief Speeches 

 or Sayings. Orations are pleadings, speeches of counsel ; 

 laudatives, invectives, apologies, reprehensions ; orations of 

 formality or ceremony, and the like. Letters are accord- 

 ing to all the variety of occasions ; advertisements, advices, 

 directions, propositions, petitions, commendatory, expostu- 

 latory, satisfactory, of compliment, of pleasure, of discourse, 

 and all other passages of action. And such as are written 

 from wise men are, of all the words of man, in my 

 judgment the best ; for they are more natural than orations 

 and public speeches, and more advised than conferences or 

 present speeches. So again letters of affairs from such as 

 manage them or are privy to them are of all others the 

 best instructions for history, and to a diligent reader the 

 best histories in themselves. For Apophthegms, it is a 

 great loss of that book of Caesar's ; for as his history and 

 those few letters of his which we have and those apoph- 

 thegms which were of his own excel all men's else, so I 

 suppose would his collection of Apophthegms have done ; 

 for as for those which are collected by others, either 1 have 

 no taste in such matters, or else their choice hath not been 

 happy. But upon these three kinds of writings I do not 

 insist, because I have no deficiences to propound concern- 

 ing y them. 



/Thus much therefore concerning History ; which is that 

 part of learning which answereth to one of the cells, 

 domiciles, or offices of the mind of man ; which is that of 

 the Memory. 



Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words for 

 the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely 

 licensed, and doth truly refer to the Imagination ; which, 

 being not tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join O,M 

 that which nature hath severed, and sever that which 



