Essayes; which, of all my other
workes, have beene most Currant: For that, as it seemes, they come home,
to Mens Businesse, and Bosomes. I have enlarged them, both in Number,
and Weight; So that they are indeed a New Worke. I thought it therefore
agreeable, to my Affection, and Obligation to your Grace, to prefix your
Name before them, both in English, and in Latine. For I doe conceive,
that the Latine Volume of them, (being in the Universall Language) may
last, as long as Bookes last. My Instauration, I dedicated to the King:
My Historie of Henry the Seventh, (which I have now also translated into
Latine) and my Portions of Naturall History, to the Prince: And these
I dedicate to your Grace; Being of the best Fruits, that by the good
Encrease, which God gives to my Pen and Labours, I could yeeld. God
leade your Grace by the Hand. Your Graces most Obliged and faithfull
Servant,

FR. ST. ALBAN

Of Truth

WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.
Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to
fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And
though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain
certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be
not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is
not only the difficulty and labor, which men take in finding out
of truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposeth upon men's
thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor; but a natural, though corrupt
love, of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians,
examineth the matter, and is at a stand, to think what should be in it,
that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with
poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake.
But I cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and open day-light, that
doth not show the masks, and mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half
so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the
price of a pearl, that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the
price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights.
A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt, that if
there were taken out of men's minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes,
false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would
leave the minds, of a number of men, poor sh