154 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [Book 



his history, and those few letters of his which we have, and those 

 apophthegms 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 I 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 deficiencies to propound 

 concerning 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. 



POESV 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 that which nature hath severed, and sever that 

 which nature hath joined, and so make unlawful matches and divorces 

 of things, Pictoribus atque poetis, etc. It is taken in two senses, in 

 respect of words, or matter ; in the first sense, it is but a character of 

 stile, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the 

 present : in the latter, it is, as hath been said, one of the principal 

 portions of learning, and is nothing else but feigned history, which 

 may be stiled as well in prose as in verse. 



The use of this feigned history hath been to give some shadow of 

 satisfaction to the mind of man in those points wherein the nature of 

 things doth deny it, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul ; 

 by reason whereof there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, a move 

 ample greatness, a more exact goodness, and a more absolute variety, 

 than can be found in the nature of things. Therefore, because the 

 acts or events of true history have not that magnitude which satisfieth 

 the mind of man, poesy feigneth acts and events greater and more 

 heroical : because true history propoundeth the successes and issues of 

 actions not so agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore 

 poesy feigns them more just in retribution, and more according to 

 revealed providence : because true history reprcsenteth actions and 

 events more ordinary, and less interchanged ; therefore poesy cndueth 

 them with more rareness, and more unexpected and alternative 

 variations : so as it appeareth that poesy serveth and conferred 1 , to 

 magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was ever 

 thought to have some participation of divineness, because it doth raise 

 and erect the mind, by submitting the shows of things to the desiiec of 

 the mind ; whereas reason doth buckle and bow the mind unto the 

 nature of things. 



And we see, that by these insinuations and congruities with man s 

 nature and pleasure, joined also with the agreement and consort it 

 hath with music, it hath had access and estimation in rude times an&amp;lt;l 

 barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded. 



The division of poesy, which is aptest in the propriety thereof, be 

 sides those divisions which are common unto it with history ; as feigned 

 chronicles, feigned lives, and the appendices of history, as feigned 



