I 4 8 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



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. 



Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two sorts, whereof the 

 one may be termed Commentaries, and the other Registers. Com 

 mentaries are they which set down a continuance of the naked events 

 and actions, without the motives or designs, the counsels, ib 

 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 Com- 

 liicntary 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. 



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, pas 

 sages of books that concern not story, and the like, do save and recover 

 somewhat from the deluge of time. 



In these kinds of imperfect histories I do assign no deficience, for 

 they are tanquam imperfecte mista, and therefore any deficience in 

 them is but their nature. 



As for the corruptions and moths of history, which are Epitomes, 

 the use of them deservcth to be banished, as all men of sound judgment 

 have confessed, as those that have fretted and corroded the sound 

 bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought them into base and 

 unprofitable dregs. 



History, which may be called Just and Perfect History, is of three 

 kinds, according to the object which it propounded!, or pretendeth t&amp;lt;i 

 represent : for it either representeth a time, or a person, or an action. 

 The first we call Chronicles, the second Lives, and the third Narra 

 tions, or Relations. 



Of these, although the first be the most complete and absolute kind 

 of history, and hath most estimation and glory, yet the second excelleth 

 it in profit and use, and the third in verity and sincerity. For history 

 of times reprasenteth the magnitude of actions, and the public faces 

 and deportments of persons, and passeth over in silence the smaller 

 passages and motions of men and matters. 



But such being the workmanship of God, as he doth hang the 

 greatest weight upon the smallest wires, maxima eminimissuspeiide.ns, 

 it comes therefore to pass, that such histories do rather set forth the 

 pomp of business than the true and inward resorts thereof. But lives, 

 if they be well written, propounding to themselves a person to repre 

 sent, in whom actions, both greater and smaller, public and private, 

 have a commixture, must of a necessity contain a more true, native, 

 and lively representation So again narrations and relations of actions, 



