Page:The Works of Francis Bacon (1884) Volume 1.djvu/401

 EDITOR S PREFACE. 273 performance, Sir Francis Bacon gave a singular proof of his capacity to please all parties in literature,, a.s in his political conduct he stood fair with all the parties in the nation. Tin- admirers of antiquity were charmed with this discourse, which seems expressly calculated to justify their admiration; and, on the other hand, their opposites were no less pleased with a piece, from which they thought they could demonstrate, that the sagacity of a modern genius, had found out much better meanings for the ancients than ever were meant by them.&quot; Ami Mallet, in his Life of Bacon, says, &quot; In 1G10 he published another treatise entitled Of the Wisdom of the Ancients. This work bears the same stamp of an original and in ventive genius with his other performances. Resolving not to tread in the steps of those who had gone before him, men, according to his own expression, not learned beyond certain common places, he strikes out a new tract for himself, and enters into the most secret recesses of this wild and shadowy region, so as to appear new on a known and beaten subject. Upon the whole, if we cannot bring ourselves readily to believe that there is all the physical, moral, and political mean ing veiled under those fables of antiquity, which he has discovered in them, we must own that it required no common penetration to be mistaken with so great an appearance of probability on his side. Though it still remains doubtful whether the ancients were so knowing as he attempts to show they were, the variety and depth of his own knowledge are, in that very attempt unques tionable.&quot; In the year 1G19, this tract was translated by Sir Arthur Georges. Prefixed to the work are two letters; the one to the Earl of Salisbury, the other to the University of Cambridge, which Georges omits, and dedicates his translation to the High and Illustrious Princess the Lady Elizabeth of Great Britain, Duchess of Baviare, Countess Palatine of Rheine, and Chief Electress of the Em pire. As this translation was published during the life of Lord Bacon, by a great admirer of his works, and as it is noticed by Archbishop Tenison, I have inserted it in this volume. I am not cer tain that I have done right, as it is my intention, with the translation of all the works, to publish a new translation of these fables; for which I am indebted to a member of the University of Oxford, who has lately so eminently distinguished himself for his classical attainments, and who will I trust forgive this expression of my affectionate respect for his virtuous exertions. It would be grateful to me to say more. . CIVIL HISTORY. At an early period of his life, Bacon was impressed with the importance of a History of England from the union of the Roses to the union of the Kingdoms. In the Advancement of Learning, pub lished in 1605, he says, &quot; But for modern histories, whereof there are some few very worthy, but the greatest part beneath mediocrity, leaving the care of foreign stories to foreign states, because I will not be curiosus in aliena republica, I cannot fail to represent to your majesty, the unworthiness of the history of England in the main continuance thereof, and the partiality and obliquity of that of Scotland, in the latest and largest author that I have seen; supposing that it would be honour for your majesty, and a work very memorable, if this island of Great Brittany, as it is now joined in monarchy for the ages to come : so were joined in one history for the times passed, after the manner of the sacred history, which draweth down the story of the ten tribes, and of the two tribes, as twins together. And if it shall seem that the greatness of this work may make it less exactly performed, there is an excellent period of much smaller compass of time, as to the story of England, that is to say, from the uniting of the roses, to the uniting of the kingdoms ; a portion of time wherein, to my understanding, there hath been the rarest varieties that in like number of successions of any heredi tary monarchy hath been known: for it beginneth with the mixed adoption of a crown by arms and title ; an entry by battle, an establishment by marriage : and therefore times answerable, like waters after a tempest, full of working and swelling, though without extremity of storm : but well passed through by tl&amp;lt;e 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 altera tion 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 go vernment so masculine that it had greater impression and operation upon the states abroad than ii 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 thus united in itself: and that oracle of rest, given to jEnoas. Antiquam exquirite matrem, 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 puiotl VOL. I. 35