150 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



of a crown by arms and title ; an entry by battle, an establishment 

 by marriage; and therefore times answerable, like waters after a tem 

 pest, full of working and swelling, though without extremity of storm : 

 but well passed through by the wisdom of the pilot, being one of the 

 most sufficient kings of all the number. Then followeth the reign of 

 a king, whose actions, howsoever conducted, had much intermixture 

 with the affairs of Europe, balancing and inclining them variably ; in 

 whose time also began that great alteration in the state ecclesiastical, 

 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 -/Eneas, &quot; Antiquam exquirite matrem,&quot; 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 waver 

 ings 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 there are many worthy personages that deserve 

 better than dispersed report or barren elogics. For 1/erein the inven 

 tion of one of the late poets is proper, and doth well inrich 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 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 

 consecrated. 



And though many men, more mortal in their affections than in 

 their bodies, do esteem desire of name and mem(&amp;gt;ry but as a vanity 

 and ventosity, 



Animi nil magn;u laudis egentes ; 



which opinion cometh from the root, &quot;non prius laudes contempsimus, 

 quam laudanda facere desivimus :&quot; yet that will not alter Solomon s 

 judgment, &quot;Memoria iusti cum laudibus, at impiorum nomen pu- 



