FOR bestowing fome vacant hours (by that excellent Perfonages direction, to whom I am equally obliged for my Employment and my Leafure) in an attempt fo agreeable to the lord Verulam's judgment, which may be seen in the next page; and fo purfuant of fir Robert Naunton's defigne, which may be traced in the following Book; another perfon's abilities might have gained applaufe, and my weakness may deferve an excufe, notwithstanding my years, (if yet any man be too young to read and obferve) or my profeffion (if yet a divine should not (as times go) be as well read in Men, as Books :) efpecially fince I gratifie to man's fondness, writing not a Panegyrick, but an History: nor pleasure any perfons malice; defigning Obfer

.

Obfervations, rather than Invectives: nor tyre any man's patience: fetting down rather the remarkes of mens publick capacities, than the minute paffages of their private lives: but innocently discourse the most choice inftances our ENGLISH hiftories afford for the three great qualifications of men (1. Nobleneffe in behaviour: 2. Dexterity in business; and 3. Wisdome in government) among which are twenty-eight fecretaries of ftate, eight chancellours, eighteen lord treasurers, fixteen chamberlains, who entertain gentlemen with obfervations becoming their extraction, and their hopes, touching,

1. The rise of states-men.

2. The beginning of families.
3. The method of greatness.

4.

The conduct of courtiers.

5. The miscarriages of favourites, and what-ever may make them either wife or

wary.

The chancellour of France had a picture, - that to a common eye fhewed many little heads, and they were his Ancestors; but to

the

the more curious represented onely one great one, and that was his own.

It's intended that this book should to the vulgar read or express several particulars, i.e. all this laft ages Heroes; but to every gentleman it should intimate onely one, and that is himself.

It's eafily imaginable how unconcerned I am in the fate of this book, either in the history, or the obfervation; fince I have been fo faithful in the firft, that is not my own, but the Hiftorians; and fo careful in the fecond, that they are not mine, but the Hiftories.

DAVID LLOYD.

The Lord Bacon's Judgment of a Work of this nature.

HISTORY, which

may be called just and perfect history, is of three kinds, according to the object it propoundeth, or prétendeth to reprefent; for it either reprefenteth à a time, a perfon, or an action. The first we call chronicles, the fecond lives, and narrations, or relations.

the it

Of thefe; although the firft be the most compleat and abfolute kind of history, and hath most estimation and glory; yet the second excelleth it in profit and use; and the third in verity and fincerity. For hiftory of times reprefenteth the magnitude of actions, and the publick faces or deportments of perfons, and paffeth over in filence the smaller paffages and motions of men and matters.

But fuch being the workmanship of God, as he doth hang the greatest weight upon

the