precepts, positions, extending to much variety of 
     occasions; whereupon we will stay awhile, offering to 
     consideration some number of examples.

Bacon has much to say of Solomon as the forerunner of 
himself. In fact, he derives (pp. 39­40) his pedagogical theory 
of aphorism from Solomon:

          So like wise in the person of Salomon the King, we 
     see the gift or endowment of wisdom and learning, both 
     in Salomon’s petition and in God’s assent thereunto, 
     preferred before all other terrene and temporal felicity. By 
     virtue of which grant or donative of God Salomon became 
     enabled not only to write those excellent Parables or 
     Aphorisms concerning divine and moral philosophy; but 
     also to compile a Natural History of all verdure, from the