than I must leave to others; and I, for my part, shall be indifferently glad either to perform myself, or accept from another, that duty of humanity; "Nam qui erranti comiter monstrat viam," &c. (for it is courteous to direct those that err). I do foresee, likewise, that of those things which I shall enter and register as deficiencies and omissions, many will conceive and censure that some of them are already done and extant; others to be but curiosities, and things of no great use; and others to be of too great difficulty, and almost impossibility to be compassed and effected: but for the two first, I refer myself to the particulars; for the last, touching impossibility, I take it those things are to be held possible which may be done by some person› though not by every one; and which may be done by many, though not by any one; and which may be done in succession of ages, though not within the hourglass of one man's life; and which may be done by public designation, though not by private endeavour.

But, notwithstanding, if any man will take to himself rather that of Solomon, "Dicit piger, Leo est in via” (the sluggard saith, there is a lion in the way), than that of Virgil, "Possunt, quia posse videntur" (they are able, because they seem to be able); I shall be content that my labours be

esteemed but as the better sort of wishes; for as it asketh some knowledge to demand a question not impertinent, so it requireth some sense to make a wish not absurd.

The parts of human learning have reference to the three parts of Man's Understanding, which is the seat of learning: History to his Memory, Poesy to his Imagination, and Philosophy to his Reason. Divine learning receiveth the same distribution; for the spirit of man is the same, though the revelation of oracle and sense be diverse: so as theology consisteth also of history of the church; of parables, which is divine poesy; and of holy doctrine or precept: for as for that part which seemeth supernumerary, which is prophecy, it is but divine history; which hath that prerogative over human, as the narration may be before the fact as well as after.

History is "Natural, Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary;" whereof the three first I allow as extant, the fourth I note as deficient. For no man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning to be described and represented from age to age, as many have done the works of nature, and the state civil and ecclesiastical; without which the history of the world seemeth to me to be as the statue of Polyphemus with his eye out; that part being

wanting which doth most shew the spirit and life of the person: and yet I am not ignorant that in divers particular sciences, as of the jurisconsults, the mathematicians, the rhetoricians, the philosophers, there are set down some small memorials of the schools, authors, and books; and so likewise some barren relations touching the invention of arts or usages.

But a just story of learning, containing the antiquities and originals of knowledges and their sects, their inventions, their traditions, their diverse administrations and managings, their flourishings, their oppositions, decays, depressions, oblivions, removes, with the causes and occasions of them, and all other events concerning learning, throughout the ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be wanting.

The use and end of which work I do not so much design for curiosity, or satisfaction of those that are the lovers of learning, but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose; which is this, in few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and administration of learning. For it is not St. Augustine's nor St. Ambrose's works that will make so wise a divine as ecclesiastical history thoroughly read and observed; and the same reason is of learning.

History of "Nature" is of three sorts; of nature

in course, of nature erring or varying, and of nature altered or wrought; that is, history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts.

The first of these, no doubt, is extant, and that in good perfection; the two latter are handled so weakly and unprofitably, as I am moved to note them as deficient.

For I find no sufficient or competent collection of the works of nature which have a digression and deflexion from the ordinary course of generations, productions, and motions; whether they be singularities of place and region, or the strange events of time and chance, or the effects of yet unknown properties, or the instances of exception to general kinds it is true, I find a number of books of fabulous experiments and secrets, and frivolous impostures for pleasure and strangeness; but a substantial and severe collection of the heteroclites or irregulars of nature, well examined and described, I find not, especially not with due rejection of fables and popular errors: for as things now are, if an untruth in nature be once on foot, what by reason of the neglect of examination, and countenance of antiquity, and what by reason of the use of opinion in similitudes and ornaments of speech, it is never called down.

The use of this work, honoured with a prece

dent in Aristotle, is nothing less than to give contentment to the appetite of curious and vain wits, as the manner of mirabilaries is to do; but for two reasons, both of great weight; the one, to correct the partiality of axioms and opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and familiar examples ; the other, because from the wonders of nature is the nearest intelligence and passage towards the wonders of art: for it is no more but by following, and as it were hounding nature in her wanderings, to be able to lead her afterwards to the same place again.

Neither am I of opinion, in this history of marvels, that superstitious narrations of sorceries, witchcrafts, dreams, divinations, and the like, where there is an assurance and clear evidence of the fact, be altogether excluded. For it is not yet

known in what cases and how far effects attributed to superstition do participate of natural causes : and therefore howsoever the practice of such things is to be condemned, yet from the speculation and consideration of them light may be taken, not only for the discerning of the offences, but for the farther disclosing of nature. Neither ought a man to make scruple of entering into these things for inquisition of truth, as your majesty hath shewed in your own example; who with the two clear eyes