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THE WISDOM OF THE

ANCIENTS.

Written in Latin by the Right Honourable Sir FRANCIS BACON, Knight, Baron of Verulam, and Lord Chancellor of England.

Done into English by Sir ARTHUR GORGES, Knight.

This Tranflation was first printed in 12mo, " London, Imprinted by John Beale, 1619," and dedicated to Elizabeth, daughter of K. James, wife of the unfortunate Elector Palatine.

HE poet Spenfer wrote his "Daphnaida, an Elegy," upon the death of Lady Douglas Howard, daughter and heir of Henry Lord Howard, Viscount Bindon, and wife of Arthur Gorges, Efq. In the dedication to Helena, Marquess of Northampton, he fays, "The occafion why I wrote the fame, was as well the great good fame which I heard of her deceased, as the particular good will which I bear unto her husband Master Arthur Gorges a lover of learning and virtue; whofe house, as your Ladyfhip by marriage hath honoured, fo do I find the name of them, by many notable records, to be of great antiquity in this realm; and fuch as have ever borne themselves with honourable reputation to the world, and unspotted loyalty to their prince and country: befides fo lineally are they defcended from the Howards, as that the Lady Anne Howard, eldest

daughter to John Duke of Norfolk, was wife to Sir Edmund, mother to Sir Edward, and grandmother to Sir William and Sir Thomas Gorges, knights. And therefore I do afsure myself that no due honour done to the white Lion but will be most grateful to your Ladyship, whose husband and children do so nearly participate with the blood of that noble family."

DEDICATION.

To the High and Illuftrious Princess the Lady Elizabeth of Great Britain, Duchess of Baviere, Countess Palatine of the Rhine, and chief Electress of the Empire.

MADAM,

MONG many the worthy Chancellors of this famous Ifle, there is observed in Sir Thomas More, and Sir

Francis Bacon an admirable sympathy of wit and humour: witness those grave monuments of invention and learning wherewith the world is fo plentifully enriched by them both. I will inftance only in the conceived Utopia of the one, and the revealed Sapientia Veterum of the other. Whereof the first, under a mere idea of a perfect State government, contains an exact difcovery of the vanities and disorders of real countries; and the second, out of the folds of Poetical Fables, lays open those deep Philosophical mysteries which had been so long locked up in the casket of Antiquity: so that it is hard to judge to

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