Centaur, who was part a Man and part a Beast, expounded ingeniously, but corruptly, by Machiavel, that it belongeth to the Education and Difcipline of Princes to know how as well 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 of the like encounters, I do rather think that the Fable was first, and the Expofition devised, than that the Moral was first, and thereupon the Fable framed. For I find it was an ancient vanity in Chryfippus, that troubled himself with great contention to fasten the Affertions of the Stoics upon the 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 thofe 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 fuch inwardness in his own meaning; but what they might have upon a more original Tradition is not eafy to affirm; for he was not the Inventor of many of them."

The fame fentiments, with a flight alteration, occur again in the Treatife De Augmentis, where he fays, "There is another use of Parabolical Poefy oppofite to the former, which tendeth to the folding up of those things the Dignity whereof deserves to be retired and distinguished as with a drawn curtain; that is, when the Secrets and Myfteries of Religion, Policy, and Philosophy are veiled and invested with Fables and Parables. But

whether there be any mystical sense couched under the ancient Fables of the Poets, may admit of fome doubt: and, indeed, for our part, we incline to this opinion, as to think that there was an infused Myftery in many of the ancient Fables of the Poets. Neither doth it move us that these matters are left commonly to Schoolboys and Grammarians, and fo are embased, that we fhould therefore make a flight judgment upon them; but contrariwise, because it is clear that the Writings which recite these Fables, of all the Writings of Men, next to Sacred Writ, are the most ancient: and that the Fables themselves are far more ancient than they, (being alleged by those Writers, not as excogitated by them, but as credited and recepted before) and seem to be like a thin rarified air which, from the Traditions of much more ancient Nations fell into the Flutes of the Grecians. And because whatsoever hath hitherto been attempted for the interpretation of these Parables, by unfkilful men, not learned beyond common-places, in no measure fatisfies us, we have thought good to place Philofophy according to ancient Parables in the number of Defiderata.

Archbishop Tenifon, in his Baconiana thus speaks of this tract: "In the seventh place I may mention his book De Sapientiâ Veterum, written by him in Latin, set forth a second time with enlargement, and tranflated into English by Sir Arthur Gorges: A book in which the Sages of former times are rendered more wife than it may be they were, by fo dextrous an Interpreter of their

Fables. It is this book which Mr. Sandys means, in those words which he hath put before his Notes on the Metamorphofes of Ovid: ('Of Modern writers I have received the greatest light from Gyraldus, Pontanus, Ficinus, Comes, Scaliger, Sabinus, Pierius, and the crown of the latter, the Viscount of St. Albans.') The defign of this book was Inftruction in Natural and Civil matters, either couched by the Ancients under these Fictions, or rather made to feem fo by his Lordship's wit in the opening and applying of them."

The author of the Life of Bacon in the Biographia Britannica, fays, "That he might relieve himfelf a little from the Severity of these Studies, and, as it were, amuse himself with erecting a magnificent Pavilion, while his great Palace of Philosophy was building; he composed, and sent abroad in 1610, his celebrated Treatise Of the Wisdom of the Ancients, in which he fhewed that none had studied them more closely, was better acquainted with their beauties, or had pierced deeper into their meaning. There have been very few books published in this or in any other Nation which either deserved or met with more general applause, and scarce any that are like to retain it longer; for, in this performance, Sir Francis Bacon gave as fingular proof of his capacity to please all parties in Literature, as in his political conduct he stood fair with all parties in the Nation. The admirers of Antiquity were charmed with this discourse, which seems expreffly 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 demonftrate that the Sagacity of a modern Genius had found out much better meanings for the Ancients than ever were meant by them.” Mallet, in his meagre Life of Bacon, obferves that "This work bears the fame ftamp of an original and inventive genius with his other performances. Refolving not to tread in the steps of those who had gone before him, he strikes a new track for himself, and enters into the most secret receffes of this wild and fhadowy region, fo as to appear new on a known and beaten fubject. Upon the whole, if we can bring ourselves readily to believe that there is all this moral and political meaning 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 fo great a degree of probability on his fide. Though it ftill remains doubtful whether the Ancients were so knowing as he attempts to fhew they were, the variety and depth of his own knowledge are in that very attempt unquestionable."

The learned reader need not be reminded of the various ingenious attempts of the Germans in recent times to unveil the hidden meanings of the Mythological Fables, but few have furpaffed the ingenuity and keen perception of this early attempt of Bacon.

The principal editions of this work, which attained great popularity, are:

** Of this there were two impreffions with the fame date.

The tranflation of Sir Arthur Gorges has been given in the following pages, as it was published evidently under the fanction of the author, by one of his greatest admirers; and, although it would be poffible to render the Latin more closely, it has been thought, that, by retaining this version, the volume as a whole, obtains more uniformity of style, carrying the reader back to the time of its production.

To dwell upon the Character and Writings of this great man would now be fuperfluous, after the eloquent and judicious appreciation of both in the Effay of Mr. Macaulay, and in the Literary Hiftory of Mr. Hallam. But one of the most striking evidences of how far the Odium Theologicum can be carried, occurs in the recent pofthumous work "Examen de la Philofophie de Bacon," by the Count Jofeph De Maistre, in which Bacon is depicted as a monster of iniquity and a propagator of all that is falfe in Philofophy and Theology!

This reminds us that Bacon thought fuch perversity incredible. "I make no haste [he says] to believe that the world should be grown to fuch