barbarous regions, where other learning stood excluded.

The division of poesy, which is aptest in the propriety thereof, besides those divisions which are common unto it with history; as feigned chronicles, feigned lives, and the appendices of history, as feigned epistles, feigned orations, and the rest, is into Poesy Narrative, Representative, and Allusive.

The Narrative is a mere imitation of history, with the excesses before remembered, choosing for subject commonly wars and love; rarely state, and sometimes pleasure or mirth.

Representative is as a visible history, and is an image of actions as if they were present, as history is of actions in nature as they are, that is past.

Allusive or parabolical, is a narration applied only to express some special purpose or conceit: which latter kind of parabolical wisdom was much more in use in the ancient times, as by the fables of Æsop, and the brief sentences of the Seven, and the use of hieroglyphics, may appear. And the cause was, for that it was then of necessity to express any point of reason, which was more sharp or subtile than the vulgar, in that manner, because men in those times wanted both variety of examples and subtilty of conceit: and as hieroglyphics were before letters, so parables were before arguments. And nevertheless now, and at all times, they do retain much life and vigour, because reason cannot be so sensible, nor examples so fit.

But there remaineth yet another use of poesy parabolical, opposite to that which we last mentioned : for that tendeth to demonstrate and illustrate that which is taught or delivered, and this other to retire and obscure it: that is, when the secrets and mysteries of religion, policy, or philosophy, are involved in fables and parables.

Of this in divine poesy, we see, the use is authorized. In heathen poesy, we see, the exposition of fables doth fall out sometimes with great felicity, as in the fable that the giants being overthrown in their

war against the gods, the earth, their mother, in revenge thereof, brought forth Fame:

Illam Terra parens ira irritata deorum,
Extremam, ut perhibent, Cæo Enceladoque sororem

Progenuit. Expounded, that when princes and monarchies have suppressed actual and open rebels, then the malignity of people, which is the mother of rebellion, doth bring forth libels and slanders, and taxations of the states, which is of the same kind with rebellion, but more feminine. So in the fable, that the rest of the gods having conspired to bind Jupiter, Pallas called Briareus with his hundred hands to his aid : expounded, that monarchies need not fear any curbing of their absoluteness by mighty subjects, as long as by wisdom they keep the hearts of the people, who will be sure to come in on their side. So in the fable, that Achilles was brought up under Chiron the centaur, who was part a man and part a beast: expounded ingeniously, but corruptly, by Machiavel, that it belongeth to the education and discipline of princes, to know as well how to play the part of the lion in violence, and the fox in guile, as of the man in virtue and justice.

Nevertheless in many the like encounters, I do rather think that the fable was first, and the exposition devised, than that the moral was first, and thereupon the fable framed. For I find it was an ancient vanity in Chrysippus, that troubled himself with great contention to fasten the assertions of the Stoics upon

fictions of the ancient poets; but yet that all the fables and fictions of the poets were but pleasure and not figure, I interpose no opinion.

Surely of those poets which are now extant, even Homer himself, notwithstanding he was made a kind of scripture by the latter schools of the Grecians, yet I should without any difficulty pronounce, that his fables had no such inwardness in his own meaning; but what they might have upon a more original tradition, is not easy to affirm, for he was not the inventor of many of them.

a

In this third part of learning, which is poesy,

I can report no deficience. For being as a plant that cometh of the lust of the earth, without a formal seed, it hath sprung up, and spread abroad more than any other kind: but to ascribe unto it that which is due, for the expression of affections, passions, corruptions, and customs, we are beholden to poets more than to the philosophers' works; and for wit and eloquence, not much less than to orators' harangues. But it is not good to stay too long in the theatre. Let us now pass on to the judicial place or palace of the mind, which we are to approach and view with more reverence and attention.

The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath ; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation.

The light of nature consisteth in the notions of the mind, and the reports of the senses; for as for knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not original, as in a water, that, besides his own spring-head, is fed with other springs and streams. So then, according to these two differing illuminations or originals, knowledge is first of all divided into Divinity and Philosophy.

In Philosophy, the contemplations of man do either penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to nature, or are reflected or reverted upon himself. Out of which several inquiries there do arise three knowledges, divine philosophy, natural philosophy, and human philosophy, or humanity. For all things are marked and stamped with this triple character, of the power of God, the difference of nature, and the use of man. But because the distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a point; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and continuance, before it come to discontinue and break itself into arms and boughs: therefore it is good, before we enter into the former distribution, to erect and constitute one universal science, by the name of Philosophia prima, primitive or summary philosophy, as the main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide themselves; which science, whether I should report as deficient or no, I stand doubtful.

For I find a certain rhapsody of natural theology, and of divers parts of logic; and of that other part of natural philosophy, which concerneth the principles; and of that other part of natural philosophy, which concerneth the soul or spirit; all these strangely commixed and confused : but being examined, it seemeth to me rather a depredation of other sciences, advanced and exalted unto some height of terms, than any thing solid or substantive of itself.

Nevertheless I cannot be ignorant of the distinction which is current, that the same things are handled but in several respects. As for example, that logic considereth of many things as they are in notion ; and this philosophy, as they are in nature; the one in appearance, the other in existence: but I find this difference better made than pursued. For if they had considered quantity, similitude, diversity, and the rest of those external characters of things, as philosophers, and in nature; their inquiries must of force have been of a far other kind than they are.

For doth any of them, in handling quantity, speak of the force of union, how, and how

far it multiplieth virtue? Doth any give the reason, why some things in nature are so common and in so great mass, and others so rare, and in so small quantity? Doth any, in handling similitude and diversity, assign the cause why iron should not move to iron, which is more like, but move to the loadstone, which is less like? Why, in all diversities of things, there should be certain participles in nature, which are almost ambiguous, to which kind they should be referred? But there is a mere and deep silence touching the nature and operation of those common adjuncts of things, as in nature; and only a resuming and repeating of the force and use of them in speech or argument.

Therefore, because in a writing of this nature I avoid all subtilty, my meaning touching this original or universal philosophy is thus, in a plain and gross description by negative; “ That

6. That it be a recep“ tacle for all such profitable observations and ax“ ioms, as fall not within the compass of any of the

special parts of philosophy or sciences, but are “ more common and of a higher stage.'

Now that there are many of that kind, need not to be doubted. For example: is not the rule, Si inaqualibus æqualia addas, omnia erunt inæqualia, an axiom of justice as well as of the mathematics? And is there not a true coincidence between commutative and distributive justice, and arithmetical and geometrical proportion? Is not that other rule, Quæ in eodem tertio conveniunt, et inter se conveniunt, a rule taken from the mathematics, but so potent in logic, as all syllogisms are built upon it? Is not the observation, Omnia mutantur, nil interit, a contemplation in philosophy thus, that the quantum of nature is eternal? in natural theology thus ; that it requireth the same omnipotence to make somewhat nothing, which at the first made nothing somewhat; according to the Scripture, Didici quod omnia opera, quae fecit Deus, perseverent in perpetuum; non possumus eis quicquam addere, nec auferre,

Is not the ground, which Machiavel wisely and largely discourseth concerning governments, that the way to establish and preserve them, is to reduce them ad principia; a rule in religion and nature, as well as in civil administration? Was not the Persian magic a reduction or correspondence of the principles and architectures of nature, to the rules and policy of governments? Is not the precept of a musician, to fall from a discord or harsh accord upon a concord or sweet accord, alike true in affection? Is not the trope of music, to avoid or slide from the close or cadence, common with the trope of rhetoric, of deceiving expectation? Is not the delight of the quavering upon a stop in music, the same with the playing of light upon the water?