which Bacon supposed it to consist was believed by him, not only at this time but ever after, to be a sound one.1

A BRIEF DISCOURSE TOUCHING THE HAPPY UNION OF THE KINGDOMS OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.

Dedicated in private to His Majesty.2

And

I do not find it strange (excellent King) that when Heraclitus, he that was surnamed the obscure, had set forth a certain book which is not now extant, many men took it for a discourse of nature, and many others took it for a treatise of policy and matter of estate. For there is a great affinity and consent between the rules of nature, and the true rules of policy: the one being nothing else but an order in the government of the world, and the other an order in the government of an estate. therefore the education and erudition of the kings of Persia was in a science which was termed by a name then of great reverence, but now degenerate and taken in ill part: for the Persian magic, which was the secret literature of their kings, was an observation of the contemplations of nature and an application thereof to a sense politic; taking the fundamental laws of nature, with the branches and passages of them, as an original and first model, whence to take and describe a copy and imitation for government.

After this manner the aforesaid instructors set before their kings the examples of the celestial bodies, the sun, the moon, and the rest, which have great glory and veneration, but no rest or intermission; being in a perpetual office of motion, for the cherishing, in turn and in course, of inferior bodies: expressing likewise the true manner of the motions of government, which though they ought to be swift and rapid in respect of dispatch and the occasions, yet are they to be constant and regular, without wavering or confusion.

So did they represent unto them how the heavens do not enrich themselves by the earth and the seas, nor keep no dead stock or untouched treasures of that they draw to them from below; but whatsoever moisture they do levy and take from

1 See Advancement of Learning,' Philos. Works, Vol. III. p. 348; and De Aug. Scient. Vol. I. p. 542.

2 Harl. MSS. 532, fo. 61.

3 an application of the contemplations and observations of nature unto : R.

both elements in vapours, they do spend and turn back again in showers; only holding and storing them up for a time, to the end to issue and distribute them in season.

But chiefly they did express and expound unto them the fundamental law of nature, whereby all things do subsist and are preserved; which is, That every thing in nature, although it have his private and particular affection and appetite, and doth follow and pursue the same in small moments, and when it is delivered and free from more general and common respects, yet nevertheless when there is question or case for sustaining of the more general, they forsake their own particularities and proprieties, and attend and conspire to uphold the public.

So we see the iron in small quantity will ascend and approach to the loadstone upon a particular sympathy: but if it be any quantity of moment, it leaveth his appetite of amity with the loadstone, and like a good patriot falleth to the earth, which is the place and region of massy bodies.

So again the water and other like bodies do fall towards the centre of the earth, which is (as was said) their region or country: and yet we see nothing more usual in all water-works and engines, than that the water (rather than to suffer any distraction or disunion in nature) will ascend, forsaking the love to his own region or country, and applying itself to the body next adjoining.

But it were too long a digression to proceed to more examples of this kind. Your Majesty yourself did fall upon a passage of this nature in your gracious speech of thanks unto your counsel, when acknowledging princely their vigilancies and well-deservings, it pleased you to note, that it was a success and event above the course of nature, to have so great change with so great a quiet forasmuch as sudden and great mutations, as well in state as in nature, are rarely without violence and perturbation. So as still I conclude there is (as was said) a congruity between the principles of Nature and Policy. And lest that instance may seem to oppone to this assertion, I may even in that particular, with your Majesty's favour, offer unto you a type or pattern in nature, much resembling this event in your estate; namely earthquakes, which many of them bring ever much terror and wonder, but no actual hurt; the earth trembling for a moment, and suddenly stablishing in perfect quiet as it was before.

1 vigilancie: MS.

This knowledge then, of making the government of the world a mirror for the government of a state, being a wisdom almost lost (whereof the reason I take to be because of the difficulty for one man to embrace both philosophies) I have thought good to make some proof (as far as my weakness and the straits of time will suffer) to revive in the handling of one particular, wherewith now I most humbly present your Majesty. For truly (as hath been said) it is a form of discourse anciently used towards kings; and to what king should it be more proper than to a king that is studious to conjoin contemplative virtue and active virtue together?

Your Majesty is the first king that had the honour to be lapis angularis, to unite these two mighty and warlike nations of England and Scotland under one sovereignty and monarchy. It doth not appear by the records and monuments1 of any true history, nor scarcely by the fiction and pleasure of any fabulous narration or tradition of any antiquity, that ever2 this island of Great Britain was united under one king before this day. And yet there be no mountains nor races of hills, there be no seas nor great rivers, there is no diversity of tongue or language, that hath invited or provoked this ancient separation or divorce. The lot of Spain was to have the several kingdoms of the continent (Portugal only except) to be united, in an age not long past; and now in our age that of Portugal also, which was the last that held out, to be incorporate with the rest. The lot of France hath been much about the same time likewise to have re-annexed to that crown the several duchies and portions which were in former times dismembered. The lot of this island is the last, reserved for your Majesty's happy times by the special providence and favour of God, who hath brought your Majesty to this happy conjunction with great consent of hearts, and in the strength of your years, and in the maturity of your experience. It resteth therefore but that (as I promised) I set before your Majesty's princely consideration the grounds of uature touching the union and commixture of bodies, and the correspondency which they have with the grounds of policy in the conjunction of states and kingdoms.

First, therefore, that position Vis unita fortior, being one of the common notions of the mind, needeth not much to be intradition, that ever, of any antiquity: R.

1 memories: R.

duced or illustrated. We see the sun (when he entereth and while he continues under the sign of Leo) causeth more vehement heats than when he is in Cancer, what time his beams are nevertheless more perpendicular. The reason whereof, in great part, hath been truly ascribed to the conjunction and corradiation in that place of heaven of the sun with the four stars of the first magnitude, Sirius, Canicula, Cor Leonis, and Cauda Leonis.

So the moon likewise, by ancient tradition, while she is in the same sign of Leo, is said to be at the heart, or to respect the heart which is not for any affinity which that place of heaven can have with that part of man's body, but only because the moon is then (by reason of the conjunction and nearness with the stars aforenamed) in greatest strength of influence, and so worketh upon that part in inferior bodies which is most vital and principal.

So we see waters and liquors in small quantity do easily putrefy and corrupt; but in large quantity subsist long, by reason of the strength they receive by union.

So in earthquakes, the more general do little hurt, by reason of the united weight which they offer to subvert; but narrow and particular earthquakes have many times overturned whole towns and cities.

So then this point touching the force of union is evident. And therefore it is more fit to speak of the manner of union. Wherein again it will not be pertinent to handle one kind of union, which is union by victory; when one body doth merely subdue another, and converteth the same into his own nature, extinguishing and expulsing what part soever of it it cannot overcome. As when the fire converteth the wood into fire, purging away the smoke and the ashes as unapt matter to inflame: or when the body of a living creature doth convert and assimilate food and nourishment, purging and expelling whatsoever it cannot convert. For these representations do answer in matter of policy to union of countries by conquest; where the conquering state doth extinguish, extirpate, and expulse any part of the state conquered, which it findeth so contrary as it cannot alter and convert it. And therefore, leaving violent unions, we will consider only of natural unions.

The difference is excellent which the best observers in nature

do take between compositio and mistio, putting together and mingling the one being but a conjunction of bodies in place, the other in quality and consent: the one the mother of sedition and alteration, the other of peace and continuance: the one rather a confusion than an union, the other properly an union. Therefore we see those bodies which they call imperfecte mista last not, but are speedily dissolved. For take for example snow or froth, which are compositions of air and water, and in them you may behold how easily they sever and dissolve, the water closing together and excluding the air.

So those three bodies which the alchemists do so much celebrate as the three principles of things, that is to say, Earth, Water, and Oil, (which it pleaseth them to term Salt, Mercury, and Sulphur), we see if they be united only by composition or putting together, how weakly and rudely they do incorporate: for water and earth maketh but an unperfect slime if1 they be forced together by agitation, yet upon a little settling the earth resides in the bottom. So water and oil, though by agitation it be brought into an ointment, yet after a little settling the oil will float on the top. So as such unperfect minglings continue no longer than they are forced, and still in the end the worthiest gets above.

But otherwise it is of Perfect Mixture. For we see those three bodies, of Earth, Water, and Oil, when they are joined in a vegetable or a mineral, they are so united, as without great subtlety of art and force of extraction they cannot be separated and reduced into the same simple bodies again. So as the dif ference between compositio and mistio clearly set down is this; that compositio is the joining or putting together of bodies without a new form and mistio is the joining or putting together of bodies under a new form. For the new form is commune vinculum, and without that the old forms will be at strife and discord.

Now to reflect this light of Nature upon Matter of Estate; there hath been put in practice in government these two several kinds of policy in uniting and conjoining states and kingdoms; the one to retain the ancient forms still severed, and only conjoined in sovereignty; the other to superinduce a new form agreeable and convenient to the entire estate. The former of 1 and if: R.