For of
pictures or images we see some are unfinished, some are perfect, and
some are defaced. So of histories we may find three kinds:
memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities; for memorials are
history unfinished, or the first or rough drafts of history; and
antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which
have casually escaped the shipwreck of time.
(2) Memorials, or preparatory history, are of two sorts; whereof the
one may be termed commentaries, and the other registers.
Commentaries are they which set down a continuance of the naked
events and actions, without the motives or designs, the counsels,
the speeches, the pretexts, the occasions, and other passages of
action. For this is the true nature of a commentary (though Caesar,
in modesty mixed with greatness, did for his pleasure apply the name
of a commentary to the best history of the world). Registers are
collections of public acts, as decrees of council, judicial
proceedings, declarations and letters of estate, orations, and the
like, without a perfect continuance or contexture of the thread of
the narration.
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