Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/317

 real illumination concerning causes and axioms than is hitherto attained. For like as a man's disposition is never well known till he be crossed, nor Proteus ever changed shapes till he was straitened and held fast; so the passages and variations of nature cannot appear so fully in the liberty of nature, as in the trials and vexations of art.

For Civil History, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be compared with the three kinds of pictures or images; for of pictures or images, 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. Commentaries are they which set down a continuance of the naked events and actions, without the motives or designs, the counsels, the speeches, the pretexts, the occasions and other passages of action: for this is the true nature of a Commentary; though Cæsar, in modesty mixed with greatness, did for his pleasure apply the name of a Commentary 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, passages 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 deserveth 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 propoundeth, or pretendeth to represent: for it either represented a time, or a person, or an action. The first we call Chronicles, the second Lives, and the third Narrations 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 excellcth it in profit and use, and the third in verity and sincerity: for history of times representeth 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 é minimis suspendens," 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 represent in whom actions both greater and smaller, public and private, have a commixture, must of necessity contain a more true, native, and lively representation. So again Narrations and relations of actions, as the War of Peloponnesus, the Expedition of Cyrus Minor, the Conspiracy of Catiline, cannot but be more purely and exactly true than histories of times, because they may choose an argument comprehensible within the notice and instructions of the writer: whereas he that undertaketh the story of a time, especially of any length, cannot but meet with many blanks and spaces which he must be forced to fill up out of his own wit and conjecture.

For the History of Times, I mean of civil history, the providence of God hath made the distribution: for it hath pleased God to ordain and illustrate two exemplar states of the world for arms, learning, moral virtue, policy, and laws; the state of Græcia, and the state of Rome; the histories whereof occupying the middle part of time, have, more ancient to them, histories which may by one common name be termed the Antiquities of the world; and after them, histories which may be likewise called by the name of Modern History.

Now to speak of the deficiencies. As to the heathen antiquities of the world, it is in vain to note them for deficient; deficient they are no doubt, consisting most of fables and fragments; but the deficience cannot be holpen; for antiquity is like fame, "caput inter nubila condit;" her head is muffled from our sight. For the history of the exemplar states, it is extant in good perfection. Not but I could wish there were a perfect course of history for Grecia from Theseus to Philopœmen, (what time the affairs of Græcia were drowned and extinguished in the affairs of Rome;) and for Rome from Romulus to Justinianus, who may be truly said to be "ultimas Romanorum." In which sequences of story the text of Thucydides and Xenophon in the one, and the text of Livius, Polybius, Sallustius, Cæsar, Appianus, Tacitus, Herodianus in the other, to he kept entire without any diminution at all, and only to be supplied and continued. But this is matter of magnificence, rather to be commended than required: and we speak now of parts of