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It is true that in his Agricola he speaks well of Livy, but at the same time he places Fabius Rusticus exactly upon the same level with him: for he says "that Livy among the ancients, and Fabius Rusticus among the modern authors were the most eloquent": "Livius veterum, Fabius Rusticus recentium, eloquentissimi auctores" ; he, therefore, never could have spoken of Livy, as Bracciolini speaks of him in the Annals, as "famous, above others," "praeclarus in primis."

The sixth volume of the edition before us contains, beside the "Essays," the "History of King Henry VII.," with other fragmentary histories, and the "De Sapienda Veterum," with a translation, which, like the translations of the principal philosophical works in previous volumes, is executed with admirable spirit and appropriateness.

In Crispo et Livio reposint quædam; et si nemo religiosius timidiusques tractavit veterum scripta ... Græca ... vix attingit. From trifles, as they may seem to us at this distance of time, hostile ingenuity wove the web destined to enmesh the incautious Academicians.

I gave him, the true key thereof, viz. instructed him of their forms, characters, words, and last of all, how to give them vivification, and what number or numbers were appropriated to every planet: Cum multis aliis in libris veterum latentibus; aut perspicuè non intellectis. I was well acquainted with the Speculator of John a Windor, a scrivener, sometimes living in Newbury.

By multos veterum, T. means many ancients of real worth. So velut implies. A. is to be immortalized through his biographer. This is implied in narratus et traditus. Ancient authors thought it not improper to express a calm consciousness of merit and a proud confidence of immortality. T. is very modest and delicate in the manner of intimating his expectations.

An immoral and humanistic time, an immoral and humanistic man, have had at length a heart for the simpler, ruder less favoured classes of mankind; an eye for the bolder, grander, more solemn sights of Nature: modern times have begun, modern sympathies, modern art are in full swing. Mirator veterum, discipulusque memor, Defuit mini symmetria prisca. Peregi Quod potui; Veniam da mihi, posteritas.

In the footsteps of du Comte follows Bacon, in his De Sapientia Veterum; to the moral and physical allegories he adds political ones, as when Jove’s struggle with Typhoeus is made to symbolise a wise ruler’s treatment of a rebellion.

When he abandoned himself to it without reserve, as he did in the Sapientia Veterum, and at the end of the second book of the De Augmentis, the feats which he performed were not merely admirable, but portentous, and almost shocking. On those occasions we marvel at him as clowns on a fair-day marvel at a juggler, and can hardly help thinking that the devil must be in him.

De Sapientia Veterum is a fanciful attempt to show the deep meaning underlying ancient myths, a meaning which would have astonished the myth makers themselves. The History of Henry VII is a calm, dispassionate, and remarkably accurate history, which makes us regret that Bacon did not do more historical work.

Had the great Jesuit confined his playful erudition to profane people all would have been well with him; but as he trenched upon holy ground in the skittishness of his scepticism the ecclesiastical authorities set over him were bound to interfere: his superiors severely reprimanded him, his promotion in the Church was for ever after stopped, and the supreme French law court, the Parlement de Paris, suppressed the book containing the novel raciness: "Chronologiae ex Nummis Antiquis Restitutae Prolusio de Nummis Herodiadum": but wedded to his opinions, and stubborn in the maintenance of them, Hardouin reproduced the least reprehensible in his "Ad Censuram Scriptorum Veterum Prologomena."