280 EDITOR S PREFACE. To the Prince. " It may please your excellent highness, "I send your highness, in all humbleness, my book of Advancement of Learning, translated into Latin, but so enlarged as it may go for a new work. It is a book, I think, will live, and be a citizen of the world, as English books are not. For Henry the Eighth, to deal truly with your highness, I did so despair of my health this summer, as I was glad to choose some such work, as I might com pass within days; so far was I from entering into a work of length. Your highness s return hath been my restorative. When I shall wait upon your highness, I shall give you a farther account. So I most humbly kiss your highness s hands, resting "Your highness s most devoted servant. "I would (as I wrote to the duke in Spain) I could do your highness s journey any honour with my pen. It began like a fable of the poets; but it deserveth all in a piece a worthy narration." HISTORY 3F GREAT BRITAIN. The first letter upon this subject is " To the Lord Chancellor, touching the History of Britain. " It may please your good lordship, " Some late act of his majesty, referred to some former speech which I have heard from your lordship, bred in me a great desire, and the strength of desire a boldness to make an humble propo sition to your lordship, such as in me can be no better than a wish : but if your lordship should apprehend it, it may take some good and worthy effect. The act I speak of, is the order given by his majesty for the erection of a tomb or monument for our late sovereign Queen Elizabeth : l wherein I may note much, but only this at this time, that as her majesty did always right to his majesty s hopes, so his highness doth in all things right to her memory; a very just and princely retribution. But from this occasion, by a very easy ascent, I passed farther, being put in mind, by this representative of her person, of the more true and more vive representation, which is of her life and government: for as statues and pictures are dumb histories, so histories are speaking pictures; wherein if my affection be not too great, or my reading too small, I am of this opinion, that if Plu tarch were alive to write lives by parallels, it would trouble him both for virtue and fortune, to find for her a parallel amongst women. And though she was of the passive sex, yet her government was so active, as, in my simple opinion, it made more impression upon the several states of Europe, than it received from thence. But I confess unto your lordship I could not stay here, but went a little farther into the consideration of the times which have passed since King Henry VIII ; where in I find the strangest variety, that in so little number of successions of any hereditary monarchy hath ever been known. The reign of a child ; the offer of an usurpation, though it was but as a diary ague ; the reign of a lady married to a foreigner ; and the reign of a lady solitary and unmarried ; so that as it cometh to pass in massy bodies, that they have certain trepidations and wavering before they fix and settle; so it seemeth that by the providence of God this monarchy, before it was to settle in his majesty, and his generations, in which I hope it is now established forever, hath had these prelusive changes in these barren princes. Neither could I contain myself here, as it is easier for a man to multiply than to stay a wish, but calling to remembrance the unworthiness of the his tory of England, 2 in the main continuance thereof; and the partiality and obliquity of that of Scot land, in the latest and largest author 3 that I have seen : I conceived it would be honour for his
- "The monument here spoken of was erected in King Henry VIFs chapel at Westminster, in the year 1606."
- "The unworthiness of the history of England hath been long complained of by ingenious men, both of this and other
nations, Sir Francis Bacon hath expressed himself much to the same effect, though more at large in his second book of the Advancement of Learning: where he carries this period of remarkable events some what higher than in this letter, beginning with Hie union of the roses under Henry VII. and ending with the union of the kingdoms under King James. A portion of time tilled with so great and variable accidents both in church and state, and since so well discovered to the view of the world, that had other parts the same performance, we should not longer lie under any reproach of this kind. The reign of King Henry VII. was written by our author soon after his retirement, with so great beauty of style, and wisdom of observa tion, that nothing can be more entertaining; the truth of history not being disguised with" the false colours of romance. It was so acceptable to the P. of Wales, that when he became king, he commanded him to proceed with the reign of King Henry VIII. But my Lord Bacon meditating the history of nature, which he hardly lived to publish; his ill state of health, and succeeding death, put an end to this and other noble designs ; leaving the ecclesiastical and civil affairs of those times to be related by the learned pens of Dr. Burnet, notwithstanding the objections of the avowed enemies, and seeming friends to the reformation, and the Lord Herbert of Cherbury : that I think there is not much of moment to be expected from a future hand And for the annals of Queen Elizabeth compiled by Mr. Camden, the esteem of them is as universal as the language in wnith they are written. Nor must I forget in this place to take notice of two fair and large volumes lately published ! French by Monsieur de Larrey ; where building upon the foundations laid by these gentlemen, and some other memoirs, he hath not forgotten to do much honour to the English nation : beginning his history also with Henry VII." Stephens.
- "This I take to be meant of Buchanan s history of Scotland; a book much admired by some, though censured by many
for his partiality in favour of the lords, against Mary Queen of the Scots, and the regal power. In other respects, Archbishop Spotswocd informs us that be penned it with such judgment and eloquence, aa no country can show a better." Stephens.
