NOTE

formed at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, near Calais, in June, 1520. Charles and Henry met in July.

16 League: formed in 1480.

17 Guicciardini: a Florentine historian of Italy (1482-1540). 18 Lorenzius Medici: the famous Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent (1449-1492).

19 Livia: wife of Drusus, son of the emperor Tiberius.

20 Roxalana: a slave who became empress and who accomplished the death of her stepson Mustapha in order to secure the succession for one of her own sons.

21 Solyman: the Magnificent, reigned 1520-1566.

22 Murther: at Berkeley Castle, in 1327.

23 Advoutresses: adulteresses.

24 Crispus: executed in 326.

25 Constantinus the Great: emperor of Rome 306-337, the first to tolerate Christianity.

26 Demetrius: accused by his brother of having treasonable relations with Rome, and executed by his father in 179 B. C. Livy (xl, 24), whom B. follows, insists upon his innocence; modern historians think he was a traitor.

27 Selymus: same as Solyman.

28 Bajazet: a son of Roxalana, executed by Solyman. 29 Anselmus: 1033-1109, abp. from 1093. Supported the Pope in a dispute with William II and Henry I concerning the right of investiture.

30 Becket: 1118-1170, became abp. in 1162. He defended the Church's rights against Henry II, and was murdered in the cathedral at Canterbury. His shrine attracted many pilgrims.

31 Foreign authority: the Pope.

32 Vena porta: the portal or "gate" vein; see any standard physiology, e. g. Blaisdell, p. 138. B. supposed that the chyle was taken up by the veins converging to the vena porta: so commerce concentrates a country's resources in order to redistribute them. B. uses the term also in Henry VII. Instead of it, we should now probably speak of the heart. Ellis.

33 Leeseth: loses.

34 Janizaries: lit. "new soldiers;" they began in the reign of Amurath I, about 1360, and were the soldiers of the Turkish Court, who attended upon the emperor. They were recruited from Christian captives.

35 Pretorian bands: the body guard of the Roman emperors; see Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. v.

36 Like to heavenly bodies: in his Discourse touching the Union (Life, iii, 90) B. speaks similarly of the education of the Persian kings, whose tutors set before them the examples of the heavenly bodies, which have great glory but no rest; thus teaching that the motions of governments are to be constant, without wavering or confusion.

NOTE

XX. OF COUNSEL

1 The Counsellor: Isaiah ix, 6.

2 In counsel: Proverbs xx, 18, Vulgate, "judgments are strengthened by counsels."

3 Solomon's son: Rehoboam; cf. 1 Kings xii; xiv, 21-31. 4 Jupiter: Zeus; the myth is Greek.

5 Eat: an old form once singular, of the past tense. Ate comes from a plural form.

6 Cabinet: secret. Lat. "secret councils, which are commonly called cabinets." Note that B. confuses counsel and council.

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7 Worse than the disease: Harl. Ms. 5106 added: which hath turned Metis the wife to Metis the mistress, that is councils of state to which princes are married, to councils of gracious persons recommended chiefly by flattery and affection." Prudence counseled B. to strike this out.

8 Plenus rimarum: Terence, Eunuchus, i, 2, 25.

9 Able to grind: Lat. "strong to fight his own battles." 10 Henry the Seventh: king 1485-1509. Cf. B.'s Life.

11 Morton: John Morton (1420-1500), abp. of Canterbury, and chancellor.

12 Fox: Richard Fox (c. 1448-1528), bishop of Winchester, and founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In Henry VII (Works, ii, 64, 65), B. speaks of Morton and Fox as "vigilant men and secret, and such as kept watch with him [the king] almost upon all men else."

13 Non inveniet: cf. Essay i, note 13.

14 Principis est: Martial, Epigrams, viii, 15, 8.

15 Reverend: B. means reverent, as the ed. of 1612 reads.

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16 It was truly said: by Alphonso of Aragon (1416-1458), who was wont to say of himself that he was a great necromancer, for that he used to ask counsel of the dead: meaning books." Apophthegms, 105.

17 The Commission: met Oct. 20-Dec. 6, 1604.

18 Hoc agere: cf. "When the magistrates, bishops, priests, or other religious ministers go about any divine service or matter of religion, an herald ever goeth before them, crying out aloud, Hoc age." Plutarch, Lives, ii, 172.

19 Placebo: cf. Psalms cxvi, 9. Used in jest for flattery.

XXI. OF DELAYS

1 Sibylla: an old woman who offered to sell the Roman king Tarquin nine books. When he declined, she burnt three of the books and asked the same for the remaining six. The king now laughed at her. Then she burnt three more and asked the same for the three. The king was now advised by his augur to buy the books. The Romans used to consult the Sibylline books in times of political trouble.

2 The common verse: Cato, Distichs, ii, 26, quoted by Erasmus

NOTE

in his Adagia: Fronte capillata, post hæc Occasio calva, which Bullokar (1585) translated, "Behind Fortune is bald, in the forehead hairy." Cf. "to take Time by the forelock.' 3 Argus: appointed by Hera guardian of the cow into which Zeus had changed Ïo, daughter of Inachus, king of Argos. At Zeus's command Hermes put Argus to sleep with a flute and then cut off his head.

4 Briareus: son of Uranus (Heaven) and Gæa (Earth); with his brothers conquered the Titans when they made war upon the gods and secured the victory to Zeus. See Essay

XV.

5 The helmet of Pluto: in the Iliad, v, 845, Athene put on the cap of Hades (Pluto, the god of the dark lower world), that Ares might not recognize her. The cap which rendered its wearer invisible was also common in Germanic legend.

XXII. OF CUNNING

1 Pack the cards: deceive in arranging them.

R. quotes

from Quarles's Emblems, ii, 5, 23: "Thy cunning can but pack the cards; thou canst not play."

2 In their own alley: bowling-alley. They can bowl well only in the alley to which they are accustomed.

3 Mitte ambos: ascribed to Aristippus, a Greek philosopher and pupil of Socrates; he lived about 380 B. C.

4 The Jesuits: members of the Catholic Society of Jesus, founded in 1534.

5 Counsellor: A. thinks this was Sir Francis Walsingham (c. 1536-1590), who became Secretary of State and Privy Councillor in 1573.

6 Nehemias: the Greek form; cf. Nehemiah ii, 1.

7 As Narcissus did: cf. Tacitus, Annals, xi, 29, 30. When Messalina, the dissolute wife of the Emperor Claudius, had gone through the form of a marriage with Silius, Narcissus, a freedman, undertook to inform Claudius. He prevailed upon two women to break the news and then to call for him, in order to follow it up.

8 I knew two: S. thinks these were Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury (1563-1612), B.'s cousin, and Sir Thomas Bodley, (1545-1613), founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. 9 The cat: formerly cate or cake; has no connection with felines.

10 Tigellinus: Tacitus, Annals, xiv, 57.

11 Paul's: St. Paul's Cathedral in London, then a popular promenade and resort for both business and pleasure. 12 Resorts and falls: the sources or starting-points, and the conclusions or results.

13 Looses: discharges or shots of an arrow. B. means, to deliver good shots in concluding business.

NOTE

14 Wits of direction: men skilled in directing others.

15 Solomon saith: Proverbs xiv, 15.

XXIII. OF WISDOM FOR A MAN'S SELF

1 Shrewd: accursed, mischievous. known to be untrue.

The statement is now

2 Right earth: in nature exactly like the earth.

3 His own centre: cf. "The disciples of Thales say that the earth is the centre of the universe." Plutarch, Morals

(ed. Goodwin), iii, 155.

4 Centre of another: cf. Essay i, note 9.

5 Eccentric to: having a centre different from. Cf. Essay xvii, note 9.

6 Accessory: appendage, i. e. have but second place.

7 Set a bias in the game of bowls, a piece of lead inserted in one side of a bowl to deflect it from a straight course.

8 Wisdom of rats: cf. "When a house is ready to tumble down, the mice go out of it before; and first of all the spiders with their webs fall down." Pliny, Natural History, viii, 28.

9 Of the fox: cf. "[The fox] dwells in pits, which, however, it does not prepare, but which it seizes by craft after they have been dug out by the taxus or badger." Gesner, History of Animals, i, 957.

10 Of crocodiles: an old myth. "It is written that the crocodile will weep over a man's head when he hath devoured the body, and then he will eat the head up too." Bullokar, English Expositor.

11 Cicero: Letters, To his Brother Quintus, iii, 8.

XXIV. OF INNOVATIONS

1 Natural motion: a doctrine in harmony with the dogma of universal depravity. Cf. the motion of a stone falling to the ground with the forced motion which it has when thrown into the air.

2 Strongest at first: "Youth has modesty and a sense of shame, old age is somewhat hardened; a young man has kindness and mercy, an old man has become pitiless and callous; youth has a praiseworthy emulation, old age ill-natured envy; youth is inclined to religion and devotion by reason of its fervency and inexperience of evil, in old age piety cools through the lukewarmness of charity and long intercourse with evil, together with the difficulty of believing.” History of Life and Death, Works, x, 155.

3 Of course: the phrase is used in the literal sense.

4 New things: W. thinks B. had in mind Matthew ix, 16, 17. 5 Example of time: Jean Bodin (The Commonweal, 1576 (trans. Knolles), iv, 3) says a government should imitate

NOTE

the great God of nature, who causes a tree to grow insensibly from a seed.

6 Scripture: Jeremiah vi, 16.

XXV. OF DISPATCH

1 Affected: excessively desired.

2 Crudities: the Lat. crudus means "undigested."

3 Speed: the Lat. adds here, "but in a lower and even motion of the same [feet]."

4 False periods: sentences that appear to be but are not finished.

5 A wise man: Sir Amias Paulet; cf. Introduction, p. ix, and Apophthegms, 76.

6 Dear hand: cf. "at first hand,” ""at second hand." 7 The Spartans: "They [the Athenians] are revolutionary, equally quick in the conception and in the execution of every new plan; while you are conservative - careful only to keep what you have, originating nothing, and not acting even when action is most necessary." From the speech of the Corinthians to the Spartans, 432 в. C., Thucydides, trans. Jowett, i, sec. 70.

8 Spaniards: the proverb quoted is Italian; B. has substituted Span. muerte de for Ital. morte di. B. used the proverb also in a speech in Parliament on May 17, 1607, Life, iii, 351.

9 Curious: carefully wrought, elaborate.

10 Passages: Lat. "beautiful transitions."

11 Bravery: ostentation; Lat. "strivers for small glories." 12 Too material: Lat. "beware of coming down to the point at the beginning."

13 The work of many: B. was probably thinking of the ideal relation between the King and his Privy Council on the one hand, and the houses of Parliament on the other.

XXVI. OF SEEMING WISE

1 The Apostle: Paul, 2 Timothy iii, 5.

2 Magno conatu: Terence, The Self-Tormentor, iii, 5, 8. 3 Prospectives: glasses for seeing pictures as if the surfaces were solids; stereoscopes.

4 Cicero saith: Against Piso, vi.

5 Bear it: Lat. "think they will succeed."

6 Blanch: whiten, gloss over; Lat. "pass over the matter." 7 Gellius saith: it was rather Quintilian, the Roman rhetorician (35-95), who said (x, 1) of Seneca, "If he had not broken up the masses of matters with trivial sentiments, he would be approved rather by the agreement of the learned than by the favor of young men."

8 Plato: Protagoras, xxiii. Protagoras (c. 481-411 B. C.) and