Historia Naturalis Experimentalis de Formâ Calidi joyned to the Historia Ventorum b Hist. Vent p. 129 191. see Resusc. 2d Part. p. 53. and inserted also into the Organum c Nov. Organ De Motu p. 314. de Forma Calidi p. 158. and by R. G. made English For it was his Lordship's design d Nov. Organ in distrib Op. P. 13. not merely to exhibit an History of Bodies but moreover to procure a distinct and comparative one of their Virtues such as those of Density and Rarity Consistency and Fluidity Gravity and Levity Heat and Cold. Such a Collection of Natural History was of necessity to be undertaken a-new For the Collections which were before in Mens Hands were but a small and inconsiderable heap when the Chaff and Fable were sifted from them though the more considerable for that Separation And further as his Lordship noteth e De Augment Scâ—en l. z. c. 3. p. 135. too many of these Histories were at first framed rather for Delight and Table-talk than for Philosophy Stories were feigned for the sake of their Morals and they were frequently taken upon groundless Trust and the later Writers borrowed out of the more Ancient and were not Experimenters but Transcribers And such a one was Pliny himself both in his larger and lesser Work I mean that of Solinus who is but Pliny contracted There are who have accused the Lord Bacon himself for taking Experiments too readily upon Trust and without deliberate and discreet Choice To such I will return Answer in his own words The Rejection f Nat. Hist. Cent. 1. p. 6. Exper. 25. which I continually use of Experiments though it appeareth not is infinite but yet if an Experiment be probable in the Work and of great use I receive it but deliver it as doubtful The Fourth Part of the Instauration designed was Scala Intellectû s. To this there is some sort of entrance in his Lordship's distribution of the Novum Organum and in a Page or two under that Title of Scala published by Gruter g See Scripta p. 379. But the Work it self passed not beyond the Model of it in the Head of the Noble Author That which he intended was a particular Explication and Application of the Second Part of the Instauration which giveth general Rules for the Interpretation of Nature by gradual Instances and Examples He thought that his Rules without some more sensible Explication were like Discourses in Geometry or Mechanics without Figures and Types of Engines He therefore designed to select certain Subjects in Nature or Art and as it were to draw to the Sense a certain Scheme of the beginning and progress of Philosophical Disquisition in them shewing by degrees where our consideration takes Root and how it spreadeth and advanceth And some such thing is done by those who from the Cicatricula or from the Punctum Saliens observe and register all the Phaenomena of the Animal unto its Death and after it also in the Medical or Culinarie or other use of its Body together with all the train of the Thoughts occasioned by those Phaenomena or by others in compare with them And because he intended to exhibit such Observations as they gradually arise therefore he gave to that Designed Work the Title of the Scale or Ladder of the Vnderstanding He also expressed the same Conceit by another Metaphor h See Scriptae p. 384. advising Students to imitate Men who by going by degrees from several Eminencies of some very high Mountain do at length arrive at the Top or Pike of it The Fifth Part of the Instauration design'd was what he call'd Prodromi sive Anticipationes Philosophiae Secundae To this we find a very brief Entrance in the Organum i In Distrib Op. p. 17. and the Scripta publish'd by Gruter k Virul scrip p. 385. Prodromi c. And though his Lordship is not known to have composed any part of this Work by it self yet something of it is to be Collected from the Axioms and greater Observations interspersed in his Natural Histories which are not pure but mixed Writings The Anticipations he intended to pay down as Use till he might furnish the World wit the Principal in The Sixth and last Part of his Instauration designed which was Philosophia Secunda sive Scientia Activa This General Philosophy founded upon Sensible Nature or Artificial Experiments and built up by degrees in Observations and Axioms he at length despaired of and commended to Posterity Time only can throughly finish what his Lordship began and sufficiently commend his Diligence and Sagacity who collected so many Materials and dispos'd them into such Order and made in so short a Time and for the most part in the midst of Civil Business such mighty Preparations towards the building of the House of Wisdom After having mentioned the several Parts of this great Work which concerneth especially Body Natural we proceed to enumerate others of his Lordship's Writings which concern Civil or Religious Matters And though most of them are of a mixed nature and History is seldom written without some Political Reflections yet to those who are not over Nice the division of them into Historical and Political may be passable His Historical Works are these The first Is the History of Henry the Seventh l Published first 1622. written Elegantly by his Lordship in the English Tongue and Addressed to his Highness the Prince of Wales and turned afterwards into Latine An History which required such a Reporter those Times being Times both of great Revolution and Settlement through the Division and Union of the Roses This was the First Book which he Compos'd after his Retirement from an Active Life m See the Cat. of his Works then written in his Life by D. R. Upon which occasion he wrote thus to the Bishop of Winchester n In Epist. bef Dial of an holy War Being as I am no more able to do my Country Service it remaineth unto me to do it Honour Which I have endeavoured to do in my Work of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh The Second is the Fragment of the History of Henry the Eighth printed at the end of his Lordship's Miscellany Works of which the best Edition is that in Quarto in the Year 1629. This Work he undertook upon the Motion of King Charles the First but a Greater King not lending him time he only began it for that which we have of it was it seems but one Mornings Work The Third is a Memorial intituled the Felicities of Queen Elizabeth o See in the Resusc the Letter to Mr. Matthew p. 37. This was written by his Lordship in Latine p Publ. among his Opuscula p. 177. only A Person of more good Will than Ability translated it into English q Anne 1651. in 16. and call'd it in the singular Her Felicity But we have also a Version much more
cherish'd the hopeful Parts of Mr. Bacon who also studied his Fortunes and Service Yet Mr. Bacon himself where he professeth his unwillingness to be short in the commemoration of the favours of that Earl is in this great one perfectly silent n Bacon's Apol. conc the Eaerl of Essex p. 54 55. But there is in his Apologie another Story which may seem to have given to Mr. Bushel the occasion of his Mistake After the Queen had deny'd to Mr. Bacon the Solicitor's Place for the which the Earl of Essex had been a long and earnest suitor on his behalf it pleased that Earl to come to him from Richmond to Twicknam-Park and thus to break with him Mr. Baconâ— the Queen hath deny'd me the Place for you you fare ill because you have chosen me for your Mean and Dependance You have spent your thoughts and time in my Matters I die if I do not do somewhat towards your Fortune You shall not deny to accept a piece of Land which I will bestow upon you And it was it seems so large a piece that he under-sold it for no less than Eighteen Hundred Pounds His Third Invention was a kind of Mechanical Index of the Mind And of this Mr. Bushel o In his Extract p. 17 18. hath given us the following Narrative and Description His Lordship presented to Prince Henry Two Triangular Stones as the First-fruits of his Philosophy to imitate the Sympathetical Motion of the Load-stone and Iron although made up by the Compounds of Meteors as Star-shot Jelly and other like Magical Ingredients with the reflected Beams of the Sun on purpose that the warmth distill'd into them through the moist heat of the Hand might discover the affection of the Heart by a visible sign of their Attraction and Appetite to each other like the hand of a Watch within ten Minutes after they are laid on a Marble Table or the Theatre of a great Looking-Glass I write not this as a feigned Story but as a real Truth for I was never quiet in my Mind till I had procured these Jewels of my Lord's Philosophy from Mr. Archy Primrose the Prince's Page Of this I find nothing either in his Lordship's Experiments p Nat. Hist. Cent. 10. Exp. 939. c. p. 205. touching Emission or Immateriate Virtues from the Minds and Spirits of Men or in those concerning the secret Virtue of Sympathy and Antipathy q Ibid. Exp. 960. c. p. 211. Wherefore I forbear to speak further in an Argument about which I am so much in the dark I proceed to subjects upon which I can speak with much more assurance his Inimitable Writings Now of the Works of the Lord Bacon many are extant and some are lost in whole or in part His Abecedarium Naturae is in part lost and there remaineth nothing of it besides the Fragment lately retrieved and now first publish'd But this loss is the less to be lamented because it is made up with advantage in the second and better thoughts of the Author in the two first Parts of his Instauration The World hath sustain'd a much greater loss in his Historia Gravis Levis which I fear is wholly perished It is true he had gone no further than the general Delineation of this Work but those Out-lines drawn by so great an Artist would have much directed others in describing those important Phenomena of Nature Also his Collection of Wise and Acute Sentences entituled by him Ornamenta Rationalia is either wholly lost or in some obscure place committed to Moths and Cobwebs But this is here in some sort supplied partly out of his own Works and partly out of those of one of the Ancients Lost likewise is a Book which he wrote in his Youth he call'd it Temporis Partus Maximus r See the Eâ—ist to Fulgen. the Greatest Birth of Time Or rather Temporis Partus Masculus the Masculine Birth of Time For so Gruter found it call'd in some of the Papers of Sir William Boswel s See the Page afâ—er the Title of Scripta Philosophica This was a kind of Embrio of the Instauration and if it had been preserved it might have delighted and profited Philosophical Readers who could then have seen the Generation of that great Work as it were from the first Egg of it Of those Works of the Lord Bacon's which are Extant some he left imperfect that he might pursue his Design in others As the New Atlantis Some he broke off on purpose being contented to have set others on-wards in their way as The Dialogue of a Holy War In some he was prevented by Death as in the History of Henry the Eighth Of some he despaired as of the Philosophia Prima of which he left but some few Axioms And lastly some he perfected as some parts of the Great Instauration And amongst all his Works that of his Instauration deserveth the first place He thought so himself saying to Dr. Andrews then Lord Bishop of Winchester t In Epist. Dedic before his Advertisement touching a holy War This is the Work which in my own judgment Si nunquam fallit Imago I do most esteem In this Work he designed to take in pieces the former Model of Sciences to lay aside the rotten Materials to give it a new Form and much Enlargement and to found it not upon Imagination but Reason helped by Experience This Great Instauration was to consist of Six Parts The First Part proposed was the Partitions of the Sciences And this the Author perfected in that Golden Treatise of the Advancement of Learning addressed to King Iames a Labour which he termed u In his Letter to Sir T. Bodley p. 34. Resus the comfort of his other Labours This he first wrote in two Books in the English Tongue in which his Pen excelled And of this First Edition that is to be meant which with some Truth and more Modesty he wrote to the Earl of Salisbury telling him w In a Letter in Resusc. p. 31. That in his Book he was contented to awake better Spirits being himself like a Bell-ringer who is first up to call others to Church Afterwards he enlargeth the Second of those Two Discourses which contained especially the abovesaid Partition and divided the Matter of it into Eight Books And knowing that this Work was desired beyond the Seas and being also aware that Books written in a modern Language which receiveth much change in a few Years were out of use he caus'd that part of it which he had written in English to be translated into the Latine Tongue by Mr. Herbert and some others who were esteemed Masters in the Roman Eloquence Notwithstanding which he so suted the Style to his Conceptions by a strict Castigation of the whole Work that it may deservedly seem his own The Translation of this Work that is of much of the Two Books written by him in English he first commended to Dr. Playfer
a Professour of Divinity in the University of Cambridg using amongst others these words to him The x Collect of Letters in Resusc. p. 33 34. privateness of the Language considered wherein the Book is written excluding so many Readers as on the other side the obscurity of the Argument in many parts of it excludeth many others I must account it a second Birth of that Work if it might be translated into Latine without manifest loss of the Sence and Matter For this purpose I could not represent to my self any Man into whose hands I do more earnestly desire that Work should fall than your Self For by that I have heard and read I know no Man a greater Master in commanding Words to serve Matter The Doctor was willing to serve so Excellent a Person and so worthy a Design and within a while sent him a Specimen of a Latine Translation But Men generally come short of themselves when they strive to out-doe themselves They put a force upon their Natural Genius and by straining of it crack and disable it And so it seems it happened to that Worthy and Elegant Man Upon this great Occasion he would be over-accurate and he sent a Specimen of such superfine Latinity that the Lord Bacon did not encourage him to labour further in that Work in the penning of which he desired not so much neat and polite as clear Masculine and apt Expression The whole of this Book was rendred into English by Dr. Gilbert Wats of Oxford and the Translation has been well received by many But some there were who wished that a Translation had been set forth in which the Genius and Spirit of the Lord Bacon had more appeared And I have seen a Letter written by certain Gentlemen to Dr. Rawley wherein they thus importune him for a more accurate Version by his own Hand It is our humble sute to you and we do earnestly solicit you to give your self the Trouble to correct the too much defective Translation of de Augmentis Scientiarum which Dr. Watts hath set forth It is a thousand pities that so worthy a Piece should lose its Grace and Credit by an ill Expositor since those Persons who read that Translation taking it for Genuine and upon that presumption not regarding the Latine Edition are thereby robbed of that benefit which if you would please to undertake the Business they might receive This tendeth to the dishonour of that Noble Lord and the hindrance of the Advancement of Learning This Work hath been also translated into French upon the motion of the Marquis Fiat But in it there are many things wholly omitted many things perfectly mistaken and some things especially such as relate to Religion wilfully perverted Insomuch that in in one place he makes his Lordship to magnifie the Legend A Book sure of little Credit with him when he thus began one of his Essays * Essay of Atheism I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend and the Talmud and the Alcoran than that this Universal Frame is without a Mind The fairest and most correct Edition of this Book in Latine is that in Folio printed at London Anno 1623. And whosoever would understand the Lord Bacon's Cypher y In l. 6. c. 1. let him consult that accurate Edition For in some other Editions which I have perused the form of the Letters of the Alphabet in which much of the Mysterie consisteth is not observed But the Roman and Italic shapes of them are confounded To this Book we may reduce the first four Chapters of that imperfect Treatise published in Latine by Isaac Gruter z Inter Scripta Philos. fol. 75. and called The Description of the Intellectual Globe they being but a rude draught of the Partition of the Sciences so accurately and methodically disposed in this Book of the Advancement of Learning To this Work also we may reduce the Treatise called Thema Coeli published likewise in Latine by Gruter And it particularly belongeth to the Fourth Chapter and the Third Book of it as being a Discourse tending to an improvement of the System of the Heavens which is treated of in that place the Houses of which had God granted him life he would have understood as well almost as he did his own For the same Reason we may reduce to the same place of the Advancement the Fifth Sixth and Seventh Chapters of the Descriptio Globi Intellectualis above remembred a See Verulam's Scripta Philos. p. 90 c. The Second Part of his Great Instauration and so considerable a part of it that the Name of the whole is given to it is his Novum Organum Scientiarum written by himself in the Latine Tongue and printed also most beautifully and correctly in Folio at London b 1620. and in 2dâ— part Res. part of this Orga. is publ in an Engl. Version This Work he Dedicated to King Iames with the following Excuse That if he had stolen any time for the Composure of it from his Majestie 's other Affairs he had made some sort of Restitution by doing Honour to his Name and his Reign The King wrote to him then Chancellor a Letter of thanks with his own Hand c Dated Octob. 16. 1620. See Collect. of Letters in Resusc. p. 83. and this was the first part of it My Lord I have received your Letter and your Book than the which you could not have sent a more acceptable Present to me How thankful I am for it cannot better be expressed by me than by a firm Resolution I have taken First to read it through with Care and Attention though I should steal some Hours from my Sleep having otherwise as little spare Time to read it as you had to write it And then to use the liberty of a true Friend in not sparing to ask you the question in any Point whereof I stand in doubt Nam ejus est explicare cujus est condere as on the other part I will willingly give a due commendation to such Places as in my Opinion shall deserve it In the mean time I can with comfort assure you that you could not have made choice of a Subject more befitting your Place and your Universal and Methodical Knowledg Three Copies of this Organum were sent by the Lord Bacon to Sir Henry Wotton one who took a pride as himself saith in a certain Congeniality with his Lordship's Studies And how very much he valued the Present we may learn from his own words You Lordship said he * Sir H. Wotton ' s Remains p. 298 299. hath done a great and ever-living Benefit to all the Children of Nature and to Nature her self in her uttermost extent of Latitude Who never before had so noble nor so true an Interpreter or as I am readier to style your Lordship never so inward a Secretary of her Cabinet But of your Work which came but this Week to my hands I shall find occasion to speak
Accurate and Judicious performed by Doctor Rawley r Publ. in Resusc. p. 181 c. who was pleased to take that Labour upon him because he understood the value his Lordship put upon this Work for it was such that I find this Charge given concerning it in his last Will and Testament In particular I wish the Elogie which I writ in Felicem Memoriam Elizabethae may be published For the Occasion of it his Lordship telleth it thus in a Letter to Sir George Carey s Resusc p. 45. then in France to whom he sent it Because one must begin I thought to provoke your remembrance of me by a Letter And thinking to fit it with somewhat besides Salutations it came to my mind that this last Summer-Vacation by occasion of a factious Book that endeavour'd to verifie Misera Faemina the Addition of the Pope's Bull upon Queen Elizabeth I did write a few Lines in her Memorial which I thought you would be pleased to reade both for the Argument and because you were wont to bear affection to my Pen. Verum ut aliud ex alio If it came handsomely to pass I would be glad the President de * Thuanus Thou who hath written an History as you know of that Fame and Diligence saw it Chiefly because I know not whether it may not serve him for some use in his Story Wherein I would be glad he did right to the Truth and to the Memory of that Lady as I perceive by that he hath already written he is well inclined to do The Fourth is the Beginning of the History of Great Britain This was an Essay sent to King Iames whose Times it considered A Work worthy his Pen had he proceeded in it seeing as he t See Collect. of Letters in Resusc. p. 30. Letter to King James And p. 28 29 30. the Letter to the Lord Chancellor Egerton concerning this Subject saith he should have written of Times not only since he could remember but since he could observe and by way of Introduction of Times as he further noteth of strange Variety the Reign of a Child the offer of an Usurpation by the Lady Iane though it were but as a Diary Ague the Reign of a Lady married to a Forreigner and the Reign of a Lady solitary and unmarried His Lordship who had given such proof of his Skill in writing an History of England leaving the World to the unspeakable loss of the learned part of it his late Majesty a great favourer of that Work and wise in the choice of fit Workmen encourag'd Sir Henry Wotton to endeavour it by his Royal Invitation and a Pension of 500 l. per annum This Proposal was made to that Excellent Man in his declining Years and he died after the finishing some short Characters of some few Kings which Characters are publish'd in his Remains u Reliqu Wotton p. 100. But this new Undertaking diverted him from a Work in which he had made some considerable Progress the Life of Luther and in it the History of the Reformation as it was begun and carried on in Germany Of which Work the Papers they say are lost and in a Current of Time of no great depth sunk beyond all possible Recovery The Fifth is the Imago Civilis Iulii Caesaris The Sixt Imago Civilis Augusti Caesaris Both of them w Among the Opuscula p. 195. short personal Characters and not Histories of their Empire And written by his Lordship in that Tongue which in their Times was at its height and became the Language of the World A while since they were translated into English and inserted into the First Part of the Resuscitation x See Resusc. Edw. 3d. p. 214. In the Seventh Place I may reckon his Book De Sapientiâ Veterum written by him in Latine y See his Letter to Mr. Matthews in Resusc. p. 38. and set forth a second time with Enlargement and translated into English by Sir Arthur Gorges z This Translation is lately added to the Essays in Octavo A Book in which the Sages of former Times are rendred more Wise than it may be they were by so dextrous an Interpreter of their Fables It is this Book which Mr. Sandys means in those words which he hath put before his Notes on the Metamorphosis of Ovid * Pag. 18. Of Modern Writers I have received the greatest Light from Geraldus Pontanus Ficinus Vives Comes Scaliger Sabinus Pierius and the Crown of the latter the Vicount of Saint Albans It is true the design of this Book was Instruction in Natural and Civil Matters either couched by the Ancients under those Fictions or rather made to seem to be so by his Lordship's Wit in the opening and applying of them But because the first ground of it is Poetical Story therefore let it have this place till a fitter be found for it For his Lordship 's Political Writings they are such as relate either to Ecclesiastical or Civil Polity His Writings which relate to Ecclesiastical Polity for he was not willing a See his Epistle to Bishop Andrews that all his Labours should go into the City and none into the Church are the three following The First is a Discourse b In Resusc. p. 233. it was published before without his Lordship's Name in Quarto 1640. bearing the Title of Certain Considerations touching the better Pacification and Edification of the Church of England and dedicated to King Iames. The Second c In Resusc. p. 162. is an Advertisement touching the Controversies of the Church of England The Third is a Dialogue touching an Holy War All written at first in English by his Lordship The First of these toucheth the Settlement of Doctrine The Second the Settlement of Discipline amongst the Christians in England The Third of Propagation of the Faith amongst Vnbelievers In all which it is plain that his Lordship dealt in the Affairs of the Church as he was wont to do in Civil Matters Suavibus Modis and in the Mean Accordingly he was wont to compare himself to the Miller of Granchester a Village by Cambridg Of him his Lordship telleth that he was wont to pray for Peace among the Willows For whilst the Winds blew the Wind-mills wrought and his Water-mill was less Custom'd d See Letter to Mr Matthew in Resusc. p. 36. His Lordship was for pacifying Disputes knowing that Controversies of Religion would hinder the Advancement of Sciences His Writings which relate to Civil Polity are very considerable and yet they fall much short of that which he had sometimes in design For he aimed at the complete Model of a Commonwealth though he hath left only some preparation towards it in his Doctrine of Enlarging the bounds of Empire and in a few Abhorisms concerning Vniversal Iustice e In Augm. Scient l. 8 c. 3. p. 668. to p. 690 c. He also made a Proposal to King Iames of a Digest of
the Laws of England But other Studies together with want of Time and Assistance prevented the ripening of these Thoughts Now his Lordship's Writings in this Argument of Civil Polity are either more General or such as have more Especial respect to the several Dominions of the King of England His Political Writings of a more general Nature are his Apothegms and Essays besides the Excerpta out of the Advancement above remembred Both these contain much of that Matter which we usually call Moral distinguishing it from that which is Civil In the handling of which sort of Argument his Lordship has been esteemed so far to excel that he hath had a Comment written on him as on an Author in Ethics f See V. Placcii Comment in l. 7. Aug. Scient de Philosophiâ Morali augendâ in Octavo Franc. an 1677. and an Advancer of that most useful part of Learning Notwithstanding which I am bold to put these Books under this Head of Matter Political Both because they contain a greater portion of that Matter and because in true Philosophy the Doctrine of Politics and Ethics maketh up but one Body and springeth from one Root the End of God Almighty in the Government of the World The Apothegms of which the first g Apoth printed in Oct. Lon. 1625. is the best Edition were what he saith also h See his Epistle to Bishop Andrews of his Essays but as the Recreations of his other Studies They were dictated one Morning out of his Memory and if they seem to any a Birth too inconsiderable for the Brain of so great a Man they may think with themselves how little a time he went with it and from thence make some allowance Besides his Lordship hath receiv'd much Injury by late Editions i Even by that added but not by Dr. Rawley to the Resuscitatio 〈◊〉 3d. of which some have much enlarged but not at all enriched the Collection stuffing it with Tales and Sayings too infacetiou◠for a Ploughman's Chimney-Corner And particularly in the Collection not long since publish'd k In Octavo Lon. 1669. and call'd The Apothegms of King James King Charles the Marquess of Worcester the Lord Bacon and Sir Thomas Moor his Lordship is dealt with very rudely For besides the addition of Insipid Tales there are some put in which are Beastly and Immoral l Ex. gr Apotheg 183 184. Such as were fitter to have been joyned to Aretine or Aloysia than to have polluted the chaste Labours of the Baron of Verulam To those Apothegms may be referred these now publish'd The Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral though a By-work also do yet make up a Book of greater weight by far than the Apothegms And coming home to Men's Business and Bosomes his Lordship entertain'd this persuasion concerning them m See Epist. Ded. to the D. of Bucks that the Latine Volume might last as long as Books should last His Lordship wrote them in the English Tongue and enlarged them as Occasion serv'd and at last added to them the Colours of Good and Evil which are likewise found in his Book De Augmentis n Lib. 6. c. 3. p. 453. The Latine Translation of them was a Work performed by divers Hands by those of Doctor Hacket late Bishop of Lichfield Mr. Benjamin Iohnson the learned and judicious Poet and some others whose Names I once heard from Dr. Rawley but I cannot now recal them To this Latine Edition he gave the Title of Sermones Fideles after the manner of the Iews who call'd the words Adagies or Observations of the Wise Faithful Sayings that is credible Propositious worthy of firm Assent and ready Acceptance And as I think he alluded more particularly in this Title to a passage in Ecclesiastes * Eccles. 12. 10 11. where the Preacher saith that he sought to find out Verba Delectabilia as Tremellius rendreth the Hebrew pleasant Words that is perhaps his Book of Canticles and Verba Fidelia as the same Tremellius Faithful Sayings meaning it may be his Collection of Proverbs In the next Verse he calls them Words of the Wise and so many Goads and Nails given Ab eodem Pastore from the same Shepherd of the Flock of Israel In a late Latine Edition of these Essays there are subjoyned two Discourses the one call'd De Negotiis the other Faber Fortunae But neither of these are Works newly publish'd but Treatises taken out of the Book De Augmentis o Lib. 8. c. 2. p. 585 c. To this Book of Essays may be annexed that Fragment of an Essay of Fame which is extant already in the Resuscitatio p Resusc p. 281. His Lordship 's Political Writings of a more special Nature as relating to the Polity and various Affairs of the several Dominions of the King of England are very many though most of them short As First a Discourse of the Union of England and Scotland q In Resusc. p. 197. Secondly Articles and Considerations touching the Union aforesaid r Page 206. Thirdly Considerations touching the Plantation in Ireland s Pag. 255. Fourthly Considerations touching the Queen's Service in Ireland t P. 16. Of Coll. of Letters Fifthly Considerations touching a War with Spain u Pub. in the Mis. works in Quarto An. 1629. reprinted in 2d part of Resusc. then the Over-match in this part of the World though now in meaner Condition Sixthly His several Speeches by which I mean not only those which go under that Name but likewise his several Charges they being much of the same Nature though deliver'd ex Officio which the other were not always These Speeches and Charges are generally Methodically Manly Elegant Pertinent and full of Wise Observations as those are wont to be which are made by Men of Parts and Business And I shall not pass too great a Complement upon his Lordship if I shall say That 't was well for Cicero and the honour of his Orations that the Lord Bacon compos'd his in another Language Now his Speeches and Charges are very many and I set them down in the following Catalogue His Speeches in Parliament to the Lower House are Eight The First 39 Elizabeth upon the Motion of Subsidy w Resusc p. 1. of D. R's Edition The Second 5 Iacobi concerning the Article of General Naturalization of the Scotish Nation x P. 10. The Third concerning the Union of Laws y P. 24. The Fourth 5 Iacobi being a Report in the House of Commons of the Earls of Salisbury and Northampton concerning the Grievances of the Merchants occasioned by the Practice of Spain z P. 29. The Fifth 7 Iacobi persuading the House of Commons to desist from further Question of receiving the King's Messages by their Speaker and from the Body of the Council as well as from the King's Person a P. 45. The Sixth 7 Iacobi in the end of the Session of Parliament persuading some Supply to be
History of Life and Death The second Latine Collection was lately publish'd c Fran. ad Moenum 1665. in Fol. at Francfort on the Meyn It pretendeth in the Title to contain all his Lordship's Extant Works whether Philosophical Moral Political or Historical Although besides the Books in the foremention'd Collection it containeth only his Lordship's Life without any mention of Dr. Rawley who wrote it the Organon the Scripta the Sylva Sylvarum the Felicities of Queen Elizabeth the Images of Julius and Augustus Caesar and the Epistle to Fulgentius without the Opuscula to which that Epistle is annexed In this Collection the Nova Atlantis is as I noted a while ago most absurdly called Novus Atlas and the other Books are most falsly Printed And yet the Stationer who I suppose by his performance was both Corrector and Publisher does tell us of this Edition that it was purged of all Faults But his Collection cannot be so purged unless the whole Volume be made one entire Blot Posterity I hope will do his Lordship Honour and Benefit to themselves in a larger and more accurate Collection of his Works These Latine ones as also the Miscellanies and the two parts of the Resuscitatio which are the only attempt in English being far short of perfection Thus far I have travell'd in an Account such as it is of those Genuine Writings of the Lord Bacon which are already publish'd and which being like Medals of Gold both rich in their Matter and beautiful in their Form have met with a very great and well nigh equal number of Purchasers and Admirers This general Acceptance of his Works has expos'd him to that ill and unjust usage which is common to Eminent Writers For on such are fathered sometimes Spurious Treatises sometimes most Corrupt Copies of good Originals sometimes their Essays and first Thoughts upon good Subjects though laid aside by them Unprosecuted and Uncorrected and sometimes the very Toys of their Youth written by them in trivial or loose Arguments before they had arriv'd either at ripeness of Judgment or sobriety of Temper The veriest Straws like that of Father Garnet are shewn to the World as admiral Reliques if the least stroaks of the Image of a celebrated Author does but seem to be upon them The Press hath been injurious in this kind to the Memory of Bishop Andrews to whom it owed a deep and solemn Reverence It hath sent forth a Pamphlet upon an Idle Subject under the venerable Name of that great Man who like the Grass in hot Countries of which they are wont to say that it groweth Hay was born Grave and Sober And still further to aggravate the Injury it hath given to that Idle Subject the idler Title of the Ex-ale-tation of Ale In such an unbecoming manner it hath dealt long ago d About the Year 1658. with the very Learned and Ingenious Author of the Vulgar Errors It hath obtruded upon him whilst alive a dull and worthless Book stollen for the most part out of the Physic's of Magirus by a very Ignorant Person A Plagiary so ignorant and so unskilful in his Rider that not distinguishing betwixt Laevis and Levis in the said Magirus he hath told us of the Liver that one part of it is gibboâ—s and the other light And yet he had the confidence to call this Scribble The Cabinet of Nature unlocked An arrogant and fanciful Title of which his true Humility would no more have suffer'd him to have been the Father than his great Learning could have permitted him to have been the Author of the Book For I can assure the Reader upon my knowledg that as he is a Philosopher very inward with Nature so he is one who never boasts of his Acquaintance with her Neither hath the Lord Bacon gone without his share in this Injustice from the Press He hath been ill dealt with in the Letters printed in the Cabala and Scrinia under his Name For Dr. Rawley professed that though they were not wholly False yet they were very corrupt and embased Copies This I believe the rather having lately compar'd some Original Letters with the Copies in that Collection and found them imperfect And to make a particular Instance in comparing the Letter of Sir Walter Raleigh to Sir Robert Car of whom a Fame had gone that he had begg'd his Estate I found no fewer then forty Differences of which some were of moment Our Author hath been still worse dealt with in a Pamphlet in Octavo concerning the Trial of the Earl and Countess of Somerset And likewise in one in Quarto which beareth the Title of Bacon's Remains though there cannot be spied in it so much as the Ruines of his beautiful Genius His Lordship and other such memorable Writers having formerly been subject to such Abuses it is probable that many will at first suspect the faithfulness of this Collection and look upon that as adulterate Ware which is of such a sudden here brought forth to them out of the Dark But let them first make trial and then pass Sentence And if they have sufficient knowledg of the peculiar Air of this Author they will not only believe that these Remains are his but also set a value upon them as none of his most useless and wast Papers They say the Feather of a Phoenix is of price And here such will own they have some little of the Body as well as part of the Plumage It is difficult to imitate such great Authors in so lively and exact a form as without suspicion to pass for them They who are the most artificial Counterfeits in this way do not resemble them as the Son does the Father but at best as the dead Picture does the living Person And those who have true skill in the Works of the Lord Verulam like great Masters in Painting can tell by the Design the Strength the way of Colouring whether he was the Author of this or the other Piece though his Name be not to it For the Reader who has been less versed in his Books he may understand that nothing is here offered to him as the Labour of that Lord which was not written either by his own Hand or in Copies transcrib'd by the most faithful Pen of his Domestic Chaplain Dr. William Rawley A Person whom his Lordship chiefly us'd in his Life-time in Writing down Transcribing Digesting and Publishing his Composures and to whom at his death he expressed his Favour by bequeathing to him in Money One Hundred Pounds and in Books the great Bibles of the King of Spain I refer him who doubteth of my Veracity in this Matter to my worthy Friend Mr. Iohn Rawley the Executor of the said Reverend Doctor by whose care most of these Papers have been preserved for the public Good and who can bear me witness if occasion serveth that I have not herein impos'd upon the World It is true that Dr. Rawley in his Preface to the Opuscula of his Lordship hath
Aere Mass. Maj. Inquisitio septuagesima Triplex Chy sive de Igne Mass. Maj. Inquisitio septuagesima prima Triplex Psi sive de Coelestibus Mass. Maj. Inquisitio septuagesima secunda Triplex Omega sive de Meteoricis Conditiones Entium Supersunt ad inquirendum in Abecedario Conditiones Entium quae videntur esse tanquam Transcendentia parùm stringunt de Corpore Naturae tamen eo quo utimur inquirendi modo haud parum afferent Illustrationis ad reliqua Primò igitur cum optimè observatum fuerit à Democrito Naturam rerum esse copiâ Materiae Individuorum varietate amplam atque ut ille vult infinitam Coitionibus verò speciebus in tantum finitam ut etiam angusta tanquam paupercula videri possit Quandoquidem tam paucae inveniantur species quae sint aut esse possint ut exercitum millenarium vix conficiant Cumque Negativa Affirmativis subjuncta ad informationem Intellectus plurimum valeant constituenda est Inquisitio de Ente non Ente Ea ordine est septuagesima tertia quaâ—druplex Alpha numeratur Cond Ent. Quadruplex Alpha sive de Ente non Ente Ad Possibile Impossibile nil aliud est quâ—m Potentiale ad Ens aut non Potentiale ad Ens. De eo Inquisitio septuagesima quarta consicitur quae quadruplex Beta numeratur Cond Ent. Quadruplex Beta sive de Possibili Impossibili Etiam Multum Paucum Rarum Consuetum sunt potentialia ad Ens in Quanto De iis Inquisitio septuagesima quinta esto quae quadruplex Gamma numeretur Cond Ent. Quadruplex Gamma sive de Multo Pauco Durabile Transitorium Aeternum Momentaneum sunt potentialia ad Ens in Duratione De illis septuagesima sexta Inquisitio esto quae quadruplex Delta numeratur Cond Ent. Quadruplex Delta sive de Durabili Transitorio Naturale Monstrosum sunt potentialia ad Ens per cursum Naturae per deviaationes ejus De iis Inquisitio septuagesima septima esto quae quadruplex Epsilon numeratur Cond Ent. Quadruplex Epsilon sive de Naturali Monstroso Naturale Artificiale sunt potentialia ad Ens sine Homine per Hominem De iis Inquisitio septuagesima octava conficitor quae quadruplex Zeta numeretur Cond Ent. Quadruplex Zeta sive de Naturali Artificiali Exempla in explicatione ordinis Abecedarij non adjunximus quia ipsae Inquisitiones continent totas Acies Exemplorum Tituli secundùm quos Ordo Abecedarij est dispositus nullo modo eam Authoritatem habento ut pro veris fixis rerum divisionibus recipiantur Hoc enim esset profiteri scire nos quae inquirimus Nam nemo res verè dispertit qui non naturam ipsarum penitùs cognovit Satis sit si ad ordinem inquirendi id quod nunc agitur commodè se habeant Norma Abecedarij Abecedarium hoc modo conficimus regimus Historia Experimenta omnino primas partes tenent Ea si enumerationem seriem rerum particularium exhibeant in Tabulas conficiuntur aliter sparsim excipiuntur Cùm vero Historia Experimenta saepissimè nos deserant praesertim Lucifera illa Instantiae Crucis per quas de veris rerum causis Intellectui constare possit Mandata damus de Experimentis novis Haec sint tanquam Historia Designata Quid enim aliud nobis primò viam ingredientibus relinquitur Modum Experimenti subtilioris explicamus ne error subsit atque ut alios ad meliores modos excogitandos excitemus Etiam Monita cautiones de Rerum fallacijs inveniendi erroribus quae nobis occurrunt aspergimus Observationes nostras super Historiam Experimenta subteximus ut Interpretatio Naturae magis sit in Procinctu Etiam Canones sed tamen Mobiles Axiomata inchoata qualia nobis inquirentibus non prominciantibus se offerunt constituimus Vtiles enim sunt si non prorsus verae Denique tentament a quaedam Interpretationis quandoque molimur licè t prorsus humi repentia vero Interpretationis nomine nullo modo ut arbitramur decoranda Quid enim nobis supercilio opus est aut impostura cum toties profiteamur nec nobis Historiam Experimenta qualibus opus est suppetere nec absque his Interpretationem Naturae perfici posse ideoque nobis satis esse si initiis rerum non desimus Perspicuitatis autem Ordinis gratiâ Aditus quosdam ad Inquisitiones instar praefationum substernimus Item Connexiones Vincula ne Inquisitiones sint magis abruptae interponimus Ad usum vero vellicationâ—s quasdam de Practicâ suggerimus Etiam Optativa eorum quae adhuc non habentur unâ cum proximis suis ad erigendam humanam industriam proponimus Neque sumus nescii Inquisitiones inter se aliquando complicari ita ut nonulla ex Inquisitis in Titulos diversos incidant Sed modum eum adhibebimus ut repetitionum fastidia rejectionum molestias quantum fieri possit vitemus postponentes tamen hoc ipsum quando necesse fuerit perspiiuitati docendi in Argumento tam obscuro Haec est Abecedarii Norma Regula Deus Vniversi Conditor Conservator Instaurator Opus hoc in Ascensione ad Gloriam suam in Descensione ad bonum humanum pro suâ erga homines benevolentia Misericordia proâ—tegat regat per Filium suum unicum Nobiscum Deum The same in English by the Publisher A Fragment of a Book written by the Lord Verulam and Entituled The Alphabet of Nature SEeing so many things are produc'd by the Earth and Waters so many things pass through the Air and are received by it so many things are chang'd and dissolv'd by Fire other Inquisitions would be less perspicuous unless the Nature of those Masses which so often occur were well known and explain'd To these we add Inquisitions concerning Celestial Bodies and Meteors seeing they are some of greater Masses of the number of Catholic Bodies * See the distribution in l. 2. c. 3. de Augm. Scient p. 234 135 136. Ed. Lugd. Bat. l 3. c. 4. p. 231. And c. 4. Globi Intellect p. 88 89. Greater Masses The 67th Inquisition The three-fold Tau or concerning the Earth The 68th Inquisition The three-fold Vpsilon or concerning the Water The 69th Inquisition The three-fold Phi or concerning the Air. The 70th Inquisition The three-fold Chi or concerning the Fire The 71st Inquisition The Three-fold Psi or concerning Celestial Bodies The 72d Inquisition The three-fold Omega or concerning Meteors Conditions of Entities THere yet remain as Subjects of our Inquiry in our Alphabet the Conditions of Beings which seem as it were Transcendentals and such as touch very little of the Body of Nature Yet by that manner of Inquisition which we use They will considerably illustrate the other Objects First Therefore seeing as Democritus
actae protinus Gratiae significarunt si curam amici qui hìc operam suam non frustra requiri passus est haud luserit fortuna trajectus varia è causa saepe dubij Nunc tantò majus mihi istud beneficium est quantò insigniorem frugem praestitit lectio non ignava par cum quibusdam ex officina Baconiana à me editis collatio aucticrem enim tibi debemus Historiam densi rari sed alia isto contenta Volumine priusquam non conspecta Vnum mirabar non exstare ibi caeteris aggregatam Verulamii Epistolam ad Henricum Savilium de adjumentis facultatum Intellectualium si ex literis olim tuis non vanè mihi recordanti subjicit Titulum appellata memoria saltem inscriptione non longè dissimili Si per oblivionem ibi forte non comparet scriniis tamen vestris inerrat optem videre Apographum in cujus usu bonam fidem non desiderabis nisi Anglicano Sermone scripta locum invenerit in majori opere quod vernacula duntaxat complectitur Id si nos scire patiaris an obtinendi Libri in quo Oratoria fo rs Epistolica digeruntur maternae Linguae partus spes ex promisso fuerit non immodesta animo meo consecrariâ— tui memoriam in cujus veneratione nunquam defatigabitur segnesceâ—â— alacritas obstrictissimi affectus Vale. Trajecti ad Mosam unde post duos trésve menses Novomagum migro Batavis futurus propior Per Smithaeum tamen transmittere ad me perges si quid volueris Kal. Julii St. N. CIO IOC LIX The same in English by the Publisher To the Reverend and most Learned William Rawley D. D. Isaac Gruter wisheth much Health Reverend Sir and my most dear Friend HOw much I hold my self honour'd by your Present of the Lord Bacon's Posthumous Works published lately by you in Latine my thanks immediately return'd had let you understand if ill Fortune in the Passage which is for divers causes uncertain had not deluded the care of a Friend who did here with much readiness undertake the Conveyance of them Now the Gift is by so much the greater by how much the more benefit I reap'd by diligent reading of those Papers and by comparing them with some of the Lord Bacon's Works which I my self had formerly published For to you we owe the more enlarged History de Denso Raro as also many other things contain'd in that Volume which saw not the Light before One Paper I wonder I saw not amongst them the Epistle of the Lord Bacon to Sir Henry Savil about the Helps of the Intellectual Powers spoken of long ago in your Letters under that or some such Title if my Memory does not deceive me If it was not forgotten and remains among your private Papers I should be glad to see a Copy of it in the use of which my Faithfulness shall not be wanting But perhaps it is written in the English Tongue and is a part of that greater Volume which contains only his English Works If you will please to let me understand so much and likewise give me assurance of obtaining that Book in which the Speeches and it may be the Letters of the Lord Bacon written by him in English are digested you will render your Memory sacred in my Mind in the veneration of which the chearfulness of a most devoted affection shall never be weary Farewel From Maestricht from whence after two or three Months I remove to Nimmeghen nigher to Holland But you may convey to me any thing you desire by Mr. Smith Iuly 1st New Style 1659. A brief Account of the Life and particularly of the Writings of the Lord Bacon written by that learned Antiquarie Sir William Dugdale Norroy King of Arms in the second Tome of his Book entituled The Baronage of England * Pag. 437. 438 439. together with divers Insertions by the Publisher Francis Lord Verulam Vicount St. Alban 16 Iac. COnsidering that this Person was so Eminent for his Learning and other great Abilities as his Excellent Works will sufficiently manifest though a short Narrative a Impr. Lond. an 1670. of his Life is already set forth by Doctor William Rawley his domestique Chaplain I am not willing to omit the taking notice of such particulars as are most memorable of him and therefore shall briefly recount partly from that Narrative and partly from other Authorities what I have observed in order thereto As to his Parentage he was b Ibid. the youngest of those two Male Children which Sir Nicholas Bacon of Redgrave in Com. Suff. Knight had by Anne his Wife one of the six Daughters of Sir Anthony Cook of Giddy-Hall in Com. Essex Knight a person much honoured for his Learning and being Tutor to King Edward the Sixth all those Daughters being exquisitely skilled c Annal. Eliz. per Cambd. in an 1576. in the Greek and Latine Tongues Which Nicholas having been a diligent Student of the Laws in d Life of c. by Dr. Rawley Grays-Inn was made e Pat. 38 H. 8. p. 6. the King's Attorney in the Court of Wards in 38 H. 8. and upon the death of that King which soon after happened had his Patent for the same trust renewed f Pat. 1 E. p. 3. m. 36. by his Son and Successor King Edward the Sixth In the sixth year of whose Reign he was constituted g Orig. Iucrid p. 298. Treasurer for that Noble Society of Grays-Inn whereof he had been so long a Member And being grown famous for his Knowledg was shortly after viz. in 1 Eliz. made h Pat. 1 â— p. 3. Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England and Knighted i M. 6. in offic Arm. f. ib. 67. b. which Office in his time was by Act of Parliament made equal in Authority with the Chancellours What I have otherwise observed of this Sir Nicholas Bacon is k Annal. Eliz. ut supra in â—n 1564. that being no friend to the Queen of Scots then Prisoner in England he was l Annal. Eliz. ut supra in â—n 1564. privy and assenting to what Hales had publisht in derogation to her Title as next and lawful Successor to Queen Elizabeth asserting that of the House of Suffolk before it for which Hales suffered m Ibid. Imprisonment and had not Cecil stood his faithful friend n Ibid. so might he nothing being more distastful to Queen Elizabeth than a dispute upon that point Next that in 14 Eliz. upon those Proposals made by the Nobility of Scotland for her enlargement he opposed o Ibid. in an 1571. it alleadging p Ibid. in an 1571. that no security could ballance the danger thereof Lastly That upon his death which happened in April An. 1579. 21 Eliz. this Character q Ib. in an 1579. is given of him by the learned Cambden viz. that he was Vir praepinguis ingenio acerrimo singulari
The Right Hon ble S r Francis Bacon Baron of Verulam Viscount of S t Albans L d High Chancellor of England BACONIANA Or Certain Genuine REMAINS OF S R. Francis Bacon Baron of VERULAM AND Viscount of St. ALBANS In Arguments Civil and Moral Natural Medical Theological and Bibliographical Now the First time faithfully Published An ACCOUNT of these Remains and of all his Lordship 's other Works is given by the Publisher in a Discourse by way of INTRODUCTION LONDON Printed by I. D. for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1679. A TABLE OF THE Contents Baconiana Politico-moralia Under this Head are Contained 1. SIR Francis Bacon 's Charge against Frances Countess of Somerset about poysoning of Sir Tho. Overbury p. 3. 2. His Charge against Robert Earl of Somerset touching the same matter p. 14. 3. His Letter to the Vniversity of Cambridg when he was sworn Privy-Counsellor In Latine p. 37. In English p. 39. 4. His Letter to King James touching the Chancellor's Place p. 41. 5. His Letter to King James for the Relief of his Estate p. 45. 6. His Remaining Apothegms p. 53. 7. A Supply of his Ornamenta Rationalia or Judicious Sentences 1. Out of the Mimi of Publius in Latine and English p. 60. 2. Out of his own Writings p. 65. Baconiana Physiologica Containing I. A Fragment of his Abecedarium Naturae in Latine p. 77. and English p. 84. II. His Inquisition touching the Compounding of Metals p. 92. III. His Articles of Questions touching Minerals 1. Concerning the Incorporation and Union of Metals p. 104. 2. Dr. Meveril's Answers to them p. 110. 3. Concerning the Separation of Metals and Minerals p. 114. 4. Dr. Meverel's Answers to them p. 116. 5. Concerning the Variation of Metals and Minerals p. 118. 6. Dr. Meverel's Answers p. 123. 7. Concerning the Restitution of Metals p. 127. 8. Dr. Meverel's Answer p. 128. IV. The Lord Bacon's Inquisition concerning the Versions Transmutations Multiplications and Effections of Bodies p. 129. V. His Speech about the Recovery of Drown'd Mineral Works p. 131. VI. His Experiments about Weight in Air and Water p. 134. VII His Experiments for Profit p. 138. VIII His Experiments about the Commixâ—ure of Liquors by Simple Composition only p. 140. IX A Catalogue of Bodies Attractive and not Attractive with Observations upon them in Latine p. 145. in English p. 149. Baconiana Medica Under this Head are Contained 1. His Paper about Prolongation of Life called by him Grains of Youth p. 155. 2. A Catalogue of Astringents Openers and Cordials instrumental to long Life p. 161. 3. An Extract by his Lordship out of his Book of the Prolongation of Life for his own use p. 167. 4. His Medical Receipts against the Stone c. p. 171. Baconiana Theologica Under this Head are Contained 1. His Questions of the Lawfulness of a War for the Propagation of Religion p. 179. 2. Two Prayers of his one called the Students the other the Writers Prayer p. 181 182. Baconiana Bibliographica Under this Head are Contained I. Papers written by Himself relating to his Books As 1. His Letter to the Queen of Bohemia to whom he sent his Book of a War with Spain p. 187. 2. A Letter of the Lord Bacon's to the Vniversity of Cambridg upon his sending to them his Book De Augm. Scient in Latine p. 189 in English p. 190. 3. His Letter to the same Vniversity upon his sending to them his Novum Organum in Latin p. 191. in Engl. p. 192. 4. His Letter to Trinity College in Cambridg upon his sending to them his Book of the Advancement of Learning in Latine p. 193. in English p. 194. 5. His Letter to the Bishop of Lincoln about his Speeches c. p. 195. 6. His Letter to Father Fulgentio about all his Writings in English p. 196. 7. To Marquess Fiat about his Essays in French p. 201. in English p. 202. 8. Part of his last Testament concerning his Writings p. 203. II. Papers written by others relating to his Books and Life As 1. A Letter to him from the Vniversity of Oxford in Latine p. 204. in English p. 206. upon his having sent to them his Book De Augmentis Scientiarum 2. A Letter from Dr. Maynwaring to Dr. Rawley about the Lord Bacon's Confession of Faith p. 209. 3. A Letter from Dr. Rawley to Mounsieur Aelius Deodate in Latine p. 214. in English p. 215. concerning his publishing the Lord Bacon's Works 4. Mounsieur Deodate's Answer in Latine p. 217. and English p. 219. 5. Mr. Isaac Gruter's Three Letters to Dr. Rawley in Latine p. 221 231 238. in English p. 225 234 240. concerning the Lord Bacon's Works 6. An Account of the Life and Writings of the Lord Bacon by Sir W. Dugdale together with Insertions by the Publisher p. 242. 7. A Character of the Lord Bacon by Dr. Heylin p. 263. 8. A Character by Dr. Sprat p. 264. 9. A Character of his Philosophy by Mr. Cowley p. 267. Liber cui Titulus Baconiana c. IMPRIMATUR Ex Aedibus Lambethanis Nov. 20. 1678. Geo. Thorp Rev mo in C. P. D. Dom. Gulielmo Archiep. Cant. a Sacris Domesticis ERRATA In the Introduction PAge 6. Line 24. Read Sprang P. 11. l. 12. r. Site l. 28. for that r. the. P. 13. Margent l. 2. for with r. inter P. 15. l. 26. for to r. and. P. 16 l. 9. for to r. for P. 24. l. 18. r. â—nlarged l. 25. for were r. wear P. 27. l. 23. for his r. this P. 40. l. 9. for precious r considerable P. 43. l. 29. r. compare them P. 57. l. 13. for of r. the. P. 59. l. 16. for Edward 3d. r. Edit 3d. P. 60. l. 8. put a period after publish'd P. 62. l. 19. r. Methodical P. 71. l. 24. r. though they In the Book P. 20. l. 11. blot out but. P. 33. l. 4. for in r. is P. 37. l. 23. r. relictum P. 61. l. 21. blot out even P. 79. l. 24. blot out Add. P. 83. l. 12. r. vellâ—cationes P. 85. l. 21. for Impossibility r. in Possibility P. 89. l. 20. for interspect r. intersperse P. 95. l. 19. r. it will P. 119. l. 2. r. Arborescents P. 125. l. 18. r. fittest P. 132. l. 26 27. for the whole Intellects r. your noble Intellects P. 135. l. 29. r. differ P. 139. l. 11. r. rawns P. 146. l. 7. for hewed r. â—eaved P. 148. l. 10. r. ipsam P. 149. l. 10. for Sheaves r. Shivers P. 16. 2 l. 9. r. mullein P. 165. l. 13. r. Cupparus P. 167. l. 2. r. Puls P. 168. l 28. for with juyce r. which I use P. 189. l. 16. r. legitimè P. 192. l. 15. r. it is P. 199. l. 19 20. r. prodromi P. â—01 l. 4. for file r. filz l. 9. for non r. mon. l. 23. for ex r. et P. 208. l. 9. blot out c. P. 215. l. 3. r. generosissime Domine l. 4. r. addictissimus P.
from the Bondage of Paul the Fifth who attempted to set his Foot upon it Galileo further improv'd the Doctrine of Copernicus discover'd by Telescopes new Stars in the Heavens wrote Dialogues concerning the System of the World and touching Local Motion which latter is the Key that openeth Nature But he descended not to the several Classes of Bodies in Nature and the particulars contained in them and their respective Motions and Uses Neither did he publish any thing till many Years had pass'd since Mr. Bacon had form'd and modelled in his thoughts his larger Idea of Experimental Knowledg His Sidereus Nuncius came not forth till towards the midst of the Reign of King Iames. And King Charles had sate some Years on his Throne er'e he publish'd his Dialogue of the System of the World Whereas Mr. Bacon had not only publish'd two Books of his Advancement in the beginning of K. Iames's Reign but early in the Queen's time as from his Letter to Fulgentio plainly appeareth he had written his Temporis Partus Maximus That Book pompous in its Title but solid in its Matter like a great Feather put sometimes on a good Head piece contained in it though in imperfect manner and so far as the greenness of his Years permitted the principal Rudiments of his Instauration The work therefore of the Instauration was an Original and a Work so vast and comprehensive in its design that though others in that Age might hew out this or the other Pillar yet of him alone it seemeth true that he fram'd the whole Model of the House of Wisdom In those days in which he began his Studies Aristotle was in effect the Pope in Philosophy The Lectures both in his private College and in the publick Schools were generally Expositions upon Aristotle's Text. And every Opinion wrote by him as his own was esteem'd as Authentick as if it had been given under the Seal of the Fisher. It was therefore a very singular Felicity in a young Gentleman to see further into Nature than that celebrated Philosopher at whose feet he was plac'd And it was as happy as it was extraordinary that he took distaste betimes at the Vulgar Physicks Use and Custome in that way might have reconciled it to him as it had done to others of great Learning For a Philosopher is like a Vine of which they say It must be set of a Plant and not of a Tree But though there was bred in Mr. Bacon so early a dislike of the Physiologie of Aristotle yet he did not despise him with that Pride and Haughtiness with which Youth is wont to be puffed up He had a just esteem of that great Master in Learning c De Augm. Scient l. 3. c. 4. Caeterum de viro tam Eximio certè ob acumen Ingenii mirabili Aristotele c and greater than that which Aristotle himself expressed towards the Philosophers that went before him For he endeavour'd some say to stifle all their Labours designing to himself an universal Monarchy over Opinions as his Patron Alexander did over Men. Our Heröe owned what was excellent in him but in his Inquiries into Nature he proceeded not upon his Principles He began the Work a-new and laid the foundation of Philosophick Theory in numerous Experiments By this Theory is not as I conceive so much to be understood that most abstracted and more narrow one of the meer nature and definition of Matter Motion Place Figure Sight Quantity and the like which a Man's Reason may find out by a few common and daily Appearances in Nature or Operations of Art But we are to understand by it a truer and fuller Knowledg of the Systeme of the World of the several Actions and Passions of Bodies in it and of the divers Ways whereby in themselves or by the application of Art to them they may be made serviceable to Humane Life Now this was a Work for a Man of a thousand Hands and as many Eyes and depended upon a distinct and comprehensive History of Nature It was a way laborious and tedious yet useful and honourable and in this like that way of the Snail which shineth though it is slow Such an useful and noble Philosophy did our Author design instead of the Art of Disputation which then generally prevail'd and which he compar'd to the condition of Children who are apt for Talk but not for Generation And certainly that Character was most due unto himself which he gave to Xenophanes of whom he said that he was a Man of a vast Conceit and that minded nothing but Infinitum d Hist. of Life Death p. 15. Easie it is to add to things already invented but to Invent and to do it under Discouragement when the World is prejudiced against the Invention and with loud Clamour hooteth at the Projector this is not an Undertaking for Dulness or Cowardize To do this argues an Inquisitive and Sagacious Wit A mind free from slavish prepossession a piercing Iudgment able to see through the mists of Authority a great Power in the Understanding giving to a Man sufficient Courage to bear up the Head against the common Current of Philosophical Doctrines and Force to beat out its own way in untravelled Places With such Intellectual Ability was the Lord Verulam endow'd And he stood on the old Paths and perceiv'd the unsoundness of their Bottom their intricate Windings their tendency to an useless End or rather to endless Disputation and the daily Justlings and Rencounters of those who travail'd in them And he looked attentively round about him and he espied a new and better and larger and safer way and he journey'd far in it himself and he left a Map of it for Posterity who might further pursue it and he has been happy in being follow'd by Men of the ablest Understandings with singular success and the Societies for improving of Natural Knowledg do not at this day depart from his Directions though they travel further than Death would suffer him to adventure I can at present call to remembrance but one Man who hath undervalued his Lordship's Method and it is the same Man who hath libell'd the Holy Scriptures themselves the Infidel Spinoza e B. D. Spinoza in Ep. 2. ad H. Oldenburg with op Posth p. 398 399. This Man objecteth against his Way that it faileth in the very entrance of it through a mistake about the Original of Error His Lordship's Opinion is the same with that which de Chart insisteth on in his latter Philosophy Both shew that therefore Man deceives himself because his Will being larger in its desires than the Vnderstanding is in its Comprehensions and hastning its opinion of such Objects as it covets to know before it hath sufficiently attended to them and obtain'd a clear and distinct perception of them does cause it to yield a blind and rash and therefore groundless Assent to insufficient Evidence His Lordship hath expressed it thus after his better way
more hereafter having yet read only the First Book thereof and a few Aphorisms of the Second For it is not a Banquet that Men may superficially taste and put up the rest in their Pockets but in truth a solid Feast which requireth due Mastication Therefore when I have once my self perused the whole I determine to have it read piece by piece at certain Hours in my Domestic College as an Ancient Author For I have learned thus much by it already that we are extremely mistaken in the Computation of Antiquity by searching it backwards because indeed the first Times were the youngest especially in points of Natural Discovery and Experience This Novum Organum containeth in it Instructions concerning a better and more perfect use of Reason in our Inquisitions after things And therefore the Second Title which he gave it was Directions concerning Interpretations of Nature And by this Art he designed a Logick more useful than the Vulgar and an Organon apter to help the Intellectual Powers than that of Aristotle For he proposed here not so much the Invention of Arguments as of Arts and in Demonstration he used Induction more than Contentious Syllogism and in his Induction he did not straightway proceed from a few particular Sensible Notions to the most general of all but raised Axioms by degrees designing the most general Notions for the last place and insisting on such of them as are not merely Notional but coming from Nature do also lead to her This Book containeth Three Parts The Preface the Distribution of the Work of the Great Instauration Aphorisms guiding to the Interpretation of Nature The Preface considereth the present unhappy state of Learning together with Counsels and Advices to advance and improve it To this Preface therefore are to be reduced the Indicia and the Proem in Gruter d Script p. 285. 479. concerning the Interpretation of Nature the First Book de Augmentis Scientiarum which treateth generally of their Dignity and Advancement and his Lordship ' s Cogitata Visa e Pub. by Gruter among the Scripta written by him in Latine without Intention of making them publick in that Form and sent to Dr. Andrews f Annâ— 1607. see Resusc. p. 35. as likewise to Sir Thomas Bodely with a desire to receive their Censures and Emendations The latter returned him a free and friendly Judgment of this Work in a large and learned Letter published in the Cabala in the English Tongue and by Gruter in the Latine g Inter Scripta Philos. p. 62. The like perhaps was done by the former though his Answer be not extant To the Distribution belongeth that Latine Fragment in Gruter h Inter Scripta p. 293. called The Delineation and Argument of the Second Part of the Instauration So doth that i Pag. 208. of the Philosophy of Parmenides and Telesius and especially Democritus For as he sheweth in the beginning of that Part he designed first to consider the Learning of which the World was possessed and then to perfect that and that being done to open new Ways to further Discoveries To the Aphorisms is reducible his Letter to Sir Henry Savil touching Helps for the Intellectual Powers written by his Lordship in the English k Reusc p 225 â— Tongue A part of Knowledg then scarce broken l 〈…〉 â— late Sâ—â—noza on that Subject Men believing that Nature was here rather to be follow'd than guided by Art and as necessary in his Lordship's Opinion as the grinding and whetting of an Instrument or the quenching it and giving it a stronger Temper Also there belong to this place the Fragment call'd Aphorismi Consilia de Auxiliis mentis And Sententiae Duodecim de Interpretatione Naturae both published by Gruter in the Latine Tongue in which his Lordship wrote them m See Script p. 448 451. In the bringing this Labour to Maturity he used great and deliberate Care insomuch that Dr. n D. R in Life of Lord Bacon Rawley saith he had seen Twelve Copies of it revised Year by Year one after another and every Year alter'd and amended in the Frame thereof till at last it came to the Model in which it was committed to the Press It was like a mighty Pyramid long in its Erection and it will probably be like to it in its Continuance Now he received from many parts beyond the Seas Testimonies touching this Work such as beyond which he could not he saith * In Epi. to Bishop Andrews expect at the first in so abstruse an Argument yet nevertheless he saith again he had just cause to doubt that it flew too high over Mens Heads He purpos'd therefore though he broke the order of Time to draw it down to the sense by some Patterns of Natural Story and Inquisition And so he proceeded to The Third Part of the Instauration which he called the Phaenomena of the Vniverse or the History Natural and Experimental subservient to the building of a true Philosophy This Work consisteth of several Sections The First is his Parasceve or Preparatory to the History Natural and Experimental It is a short Discourse written in Latine by the Author and annexed to the Novum Organum Scientiarum There is delivered in it in Ten Aphorisms the general manner of framing a Natural History After which followeth a Catalogue of particular Histories of Coelestial and Aereal Bodies and of those in the Terrestrial Globe with the Species of them Such as Metals Gems Stones Earths Salts Plants Fishes Fowls Insects Man in his Body and in his Inventions mechanic and liberal A late Pen has travelled in the Translation of this little Description of Natural History and it is extant in the Second Part of the Resuscitation To this Parasceve it is proper to reduce the Fragment of the Abecedarium Naturae and a short Discourse written in Latine by his Lordship and published by Gruter n Seâ— Ver. 〈◊〉 Phil. p. 323. It being what also its Title shews a Preface to the Phaenomena of the Vniverse or The Natural History Neither do we here unfitly place the Fable of the New Atlantis For it is the Model of a College to be Instituted by some King who philosophizeth for the Interpreting of Nature and the Improving of Arts. His Lordship did it seems think of finishing this Fable by adding to it a Frame of Laws or a kind of Vtopian Commonwealth but he was diverted by his desire of Collecting the Natural History which was first in his esteem This Supplement has been lately made by another Hand o See R. H. contin of N. Atlantis Octo. Lon. 1660. A great and hardy Adventure to finish a Piece after the Lord Verulam's Pencil This Fable of the New Atlantis in the Latine Edition of it and in the Franckfort Collection goeth under the false and absurd Title of Novus Atlas As if his Lordship had alluded to a Person or a Mountain and not to a great
Island which according to Plato perished in the Ocean The Second Section is the History of Winds written in Latine by the Author and by R. G. Gentleman turned into English It was Dedicated to King Charles then Prince as the First-fruits of his Lordship's Natural History and as a grain of Mustard-seed which was by degrees to grow into a Tree of Experimental Science This was the Birth of the first of those Six Months in which he determin'd God assisting him to write Six several Histories of Natural Things To wit of Dense and Rare Bodies of Heavy and Light Bodies of Sympathy and Antipathy of Salt Sulphur and Mercury of Life and Death and which he first perfected that of Winds which he calls the Wings by which Men flie on the Sea and the Beesoms of the Air and Earth And he rightly observeth concerning those Post-nati for as he saith they are not a part of the Six Days Works or Primary Creatures that the Generation of them has not been well understood because Men have been Ignorant of the Nature and Power of the Air on which the Winds attend as Aeolus on Iuno The English Translation of this Book of Winds is printed in the Second Part of the Resuscitatio as it is called though improperly enough for it is rather a Collection of Books already Printed than a Resuscitation of any considerable Ones which before slept in private Manuscript The Third Section is the History of Density and Rarity and of the Expansion and Coition of Matter in Space This Discourse was written by his Lordship in Latine and was publish'd very imperfectly by Gruter amongst other Treatises to which he gave the Title of Impetus Philosophici o See Verulamii Scripta p. 336 337 c. and very perfectly and correctly by Dr. Rawley out of whose Hands none of his Lordship's Works came lame and ill shapen into the World In this Argument his Lordship allowing that nothing is substracted or added to the total Sum of Matter does yet grant that in the same Space there may be much more or less of Matter and that for Instance sake there is ten times more of Matter in one Tun of Water than in one of Air. By which his Lordship should seem to grant what yet I do not find he does in any other place either that there is a Vacuum in Nature or Penetration of parts in Bodies The Third Section is the History of Gravity and Levity which as before was said was but design'd and remaineth not that I can hear of so much as in the rude draught of its Designation Only there are published his Lordship's Topics or Articles of Inquisition touching Gravity and Levity in his Book of Advancement q De Augm. Scient l. 5. ◠3. p 386. and a brief Aditus to this History annexed to the Historia Ventorum In that Aditus or Entrance he rejecteth the Appetite of heavy Bodies to the Center of the Earth as a Scholastic Fancy He taketh it for a certain Truth That Body does not suffer but from Body or that there is any local motion which is not solicited either from the parts of the Body it self which is moved or from Bodies adjacent either contiguously or in the next Vicinity or at least within the Orb of their Activity And lastly he commendeth the Magnetic Virtues introduced by Gilbert whom yet in this he disalloweth that he made himself as 't were a Magnet and drew every thing to his Hypothesis The Fourth Section is the History of Sympathy and Antipathy Of this we have only the Aditus annexed to that of Historia Gravis Levis and a few Instances in his Sylva Sylvarum r See Exper. 95 96 97. 462 480 to 498. In this History he designed to avoid Magical Fancies which raise the Mind in these things to an undue height and pretence of occultness of Quality which layeth the Mind asleep and preventeth further Inquiry into these useful secrets of Nature The Fifth Section is the History of Salt Sulphur and Mercury the three Principles of the common Chymists of which three he thought the first to be no primordial Body but a Compound of the two others knit together by an acid Spirit The Aditus s All these Aditus are transl into Engl. by the Trans of the History of Winds to this is annexed to that of Historia Sympathiae Antipathiae Rerum but the Treatise it self was I think never written The Sixth Section is the History of Life and Death written by his Lordship in Latine and first turn'd into English by an injudicious Translator and rendred much better a second time by an abler Pen made abler still by the Advice and Assistance of Dr. Rawley This Work though ranked last amongst the Six Monthly Designations yet was set forth in the second Place His Lordship as he saith inverting the Order in respect of the prime use of this Argument in which the least loss of time was by him esteemed very precious The Subject of this Book which Sir Henry Wotton t Remains p. 455. calleth none of the least of his Lordship's Works and the Argument of which some had before undertaken u Pansa de propag vitâ Octo. Lips 1615. but to much less purpose is the first of those which he put in his Catalogue of the Magnalia Naturae And doubless his Lordship undertook both a great and a most desirable Work of making Art short and Life easie and long And it was his Lordship's wish that the nobler sort of Physicians might not employ their times wholly in the sordidness of Cures neither be honoured for necessity only but become Coadjutors and Instruments of the Divine Omnipotence and Clemence in prolonging and renewing the Life of Man And in helping Christians who pant after the Land of Promise so to journey through this World's Wilderness as to have their Shoes and Garments these of their frail Bodies little worn and impair'd The Seventh and greatest Branch of the Third Part of the Instauration is his Sylva Sylvarum or Natural History which containeth many Materials for the building of Philosophy as the Organum doth Directions for the Work It is an History not only of Nature freely moving in her Course as in the production of Meteors Plants Minerals but also of Nature in constraint and vexed and tortur'd by Humane Art and Experiment And it is not an History of such things orderly ranged but thrown into an Heap For his Lordship that he might not discourage other Collectors did not cast this Book into exact Method for which reason it hath the less Ornament but not much the less Use. In this Book are contain'd Experiments of Light and Experiments of Use as his Lordship was wont to distinguish and amongst them some Extraordinary and others Common He understood that what was Common in one Country might be a Rarity in another For which Reason Dr. Caius when in Italy thought it worth his pains to make
a large and Elegant Description of Our way of Brewing His Lordship also knew well that an Experiment manifest to the Vulgar was a good ground for the Wise to build further upon And himself rendred Common ones extraordinary by Admonitions for further Trials and Improvements Hence his Lordship took occasion to say w Nat. Hist. Cent. 1. p. 25. Exper. 93. that his writing of Sylva Sylvarum was to speak properly not a Natural History but a high kind of Natural Magic Because it was not only a description of Nature but a breaking of Nature into great and strange Works This Book was written by his Lordship in the English Tongue and translated by an obscure Interpreter into French and out of that Translation into Latine by Iames Gruter in such ill manner that they darkned his Lordship's Sence and debased his Expression Iames Gruter was sensible of his Miscarriage being kindly advertised of it by Dr. Rawley And he left behind him divers amendments published by his Brother Isaac Gruter in a second Edition x Amstel 1661. in 16 ◠Yet still so many Errors have escaped that the Work requireth a Third Hand Mounsieur Aelius Deodatus had once engaged an able Person in the translation of this Book one who could have done his Lordship right and oblig'd such Readers as understood not the English Original He began and went through the Three first Centuries and then desisted being desired by him who set him on work to take his hand quite off from that Pen with which he moved so slowly His Translation of the Third Century is now in my Hands but that of the two first I believe is lost His Lordship thus began that Third Century in English All Sounds whatsoever move round that is to say on all sides upwards downwards forwards and backwards This appeareth in all Instances Sounds do not require to be conveyed to the sense in a right Line as Visibles do but may be arched Though it be true they move strongest in a right Line which nevertheless is not caused by the rightness of the Line but by the shortness of the Distance Linea rect a brevissima And therefore we see if a Wall be between and you speak on the one side you hear it on the other which is not because the Sound passeth through the Wall but archeth over the Wall These words are thus turned by Iames Gruter in his last Edition and tollerably well Especially if we compare with some other places in his Translation Omnes soni qualescunque sint in circulum moventur hoc est in omnes partes sursum deorsum antrorsum retrorsum quod omnes docent instantiae Soni non requirunt ut rectâ lineâ ad sensum devehantur quemadmodum visibilia sed potest esse arcuata quamvis verum sit quòd fortissimè per rectam lineam moveant Neque tamen id lineae debetur rectitudini sed minori intervallo Linea enim recta est brevissima Hinc si quis ab alterâ interjecti Parietis parte vocem proferat ab alterâ queat exaudiri non quòd vox Parietem transeundo penetret sed quòd arcuata ultra parietem ascendat But the Translator employed by Mounsieur Deodate turned them after this better manner Omnes in universum Soni in Orbem feruntur In omnem videlicet partem sursum deorsum antrorsum retrorsum Hoc in omnibus exemplis cernitur Soni non in rectâ tantùm lineâ ad sensum deferri necesse habent quemadmodum visilia sed inflexa arcuata devehi possunt Quanquam in rectâ lineâ fortissimè moveantur Vbi tamen non hoc imputandum Rectitudini Linae sed brevitati Intervalli Recta enim linea eadem brevissima est Itaque experimur muro interjecto vocem ex adversâ parte muri exaudiri quae ex alterâ ejus parte prolata fuerit Auditur autem non quòd per murum penetret sed quòd eum transcendat motu flexuoso The Judicious Reader may discern by this little how much this latter Translator excell'd the former in comprehending and expressing his Lordship's Sence And yet I cannot say that throughout those Three Centuries in which he hath labour'd he hath every where truly hit his Conceit His Lordship had a very peculiar Vein with him and I may resemble it to the singurity in the Face of Cardan who tells us in his own Life that he set to Painters of divers Countries yet could never have the Air of it taken by them Whilst I am speaking of this Work of his Lordship's of Natural History there comes to my mind a very Memorable Relation reported by him who bare a part in it the Reverend Dr. Rawley One day his Lordship was dictating to that Doctor some of the Experiments in his Sylva The same day he had sent a Friend to Court to receive for him a final Answer touching the effect of a Grant which had been made him by King Iames. He had hitherto only hope of it and hope deferr'd and he was desirous to know the event of the Matter and to be free'd one way or other from the suspence of his thoughts His Friend returning told him plainly that he must thenceforth despair of that Grant how much soever his Fortunes needed it Be it so said his Lordship and then he dismissed his Friend very chearfully with thankful acknowledgments of his Service His Friend being gone he came straightway to Dr. Rawley and said thus to him Well Sir Yon Business won't go on let us go on with this for this is in our Power And then he dictated to him afresh for some Hours without the least hesitancie of Speech or discernible interruption of Thought To this Work of Natural History may be reduc'd his Lordship's Treatises De Sono Auditu De Metallis Mineralibus De Magnete De Versionibus Transmutationibus Multiplicationibus Effectionibus Corporum De Luce Lumine y The Paper De Luce Lumine is also extant among the Scripta Philosophica p. 485. All publish'd by Dr. Rawley in the Collection call'd Opuscula Varia Posthuma Francisci Bacom We may likewise reduce to the same place the Paper De Fluxu Refluxu Maris published by Isaac Gruter amongst the Scripta z Scripta Philosophica p. 178. c. and that other De Ratione Inveniendi causas Fluxus Refluxus Maris a See this turn'd into English by R. G. in Resusc Part 2. p. 90. See it in Latine at the end of the Tract De Motu annexed to the Histor. Ventor p. 91. as also the Baconiana Physiologica and Medica in these Remains There may be further added his Cogitationes De Naturâ Rerum De Sectione Corporum Continuo Vacuo and the Fragment called Filum Labyrinthi sive Legitima Inquisitio de Motu All publish'd by the same Mr. Gruter in the same Book Likewise the Treatises De Motûs sive Virtutis activae variis Speciebus
the Water and see whether it will gather a Crust about it After the Questions of his Lordship about Minerals and the Answers of Dr. Meverel there follows in the Fourth Place an Inquisition concerning the Versions Transmutations Multiplications and Effections of Bodies not hitherto publish'd in the English Tongue in which his Lordship wrote it x See D. R's Translation among the Opuscula Fifthly There is annexed a certain Speech touching the recovery of Drowned Mineral Works prepared as Mr. Bushel saith for that Parliament under which he fell His Lordship no doubt had such a Project and he might prepare a Speech also for the Facilitating of it But that this is a true Copy of that Speech I dare not avouch His Lordship's Speeches were wont to be digested into more Method his Periods were more round his Words more choice his Allusions more frequent and manag'd with more decorum And as no Man had greater command of Words for the illustration of Matter than his Lordship so here he had Matter which refus'd not to be cloth'd in the best Words The Sixth Paper about Natural Things containeth certain Experiments about weight in Air and Water The Seventh containeth a few Proposals to the Country-Man called Experiments for Profit The Eighth Experiments about the Commixture of Liquors The Ninth a Catalogue of Bodies Attractive and not Attractive with Experimental Observations about them Under the Third Head of Medical Remains is contain'd in the First place a Paper which he called Grains of Youth In it he prescribeth divers things as means to keep up the Body in its Vigour Amongst these is the Receipt of the Methusalem Water against the Driness of Age which his Lordship valued and used Next follows a Catalogue of Astringents Openers and Cordials Instrumental to Health Then comes in the Third place an Extract by his Lordship for his own use out of the History of Life and Death together with some new Advices in order to Health Last of all there are added Four Medical Receipts The First is his Lordship's Broth and Fomentation against the Stone which I judg'd acceptable to the Public seeing his Receipt against the Gout had been so though it worketh not an Infallible Cure And here it may seem strange that his Lordship does not mention Spirit of Nitre which he so often used and which a very ingenious Experimenter y Dr. Grew in his Exper. of the Luâ—â—â—tion arising from Affus of Menstruums upon all sorts of Bodies p. 10â— hath noted to be the best of Acids against the Stone The Second is the Receipt of an Oyntment called by his Lordship Vnguentum Fragrans sive Romanum By this he meaneth an Unguent which consisteth of Astringents preventing excess of Transpiration and Cordials comforting the Parts And he called it I suppose the Roman Vnguent because that People did eminently make use of Baths and Anointings He himself held that the anointing with Oyl was one of the most potent Operations to long Life z Hist. of Life Death of the Oper. upon Exclusion of Air. â— 21. P. 37. and that it conduced to Health both in Winter by the exclusion of the cold Air and in Summer by detaining the Spirits within and prohibiting the resolution of them and keeping of the force of the Air which is then most predatory Yet it was his Lordship's opinon that it was best to anoint without Bathing though he thought Bathing without Anointing bad The Third and Fourth are Receipts to comfort the Stomach One of them he calleth a Secret and I suppose it might be communicated to him by Sir Henry Wotton For Sir Henry speaks of his preparation of a certain Wood a In Reliqu Wotton P. 473. as of a rare Receipt to Coroborate the Viscera and to keep the Stomack in Tono Under the Fourth Head of Theological Remains are contain'd only a few Questions about the lawfulness of a Holy War and two Prayers one for a Philosophical Student the other for a Writer The substance of these two Prayers is extant in Latine in the Organon b Nov. Organum p. 19. ad Calc partis primae and Scripta c Scripta Philos. P. 451. and after the Title-Page Under the Fifth Head of Bibliographical Remains are contained some of his Lordship 's own Papers concerning his Works and likewise some Letters and Discourses of others upon the same Subject together with a few interspersed Remarks concerning his Life His Lordship's Papers are these Six The First is a Letter to Elizabeth the Sister of King Charles the Martyr and Wife to Frederic Prince Palatine of the Rhine a Princess who found so many Thorns in the Crown of Bohemia She pleased to write to his Lordship and he return'd Answer and sent along with it as a Present his Discourse of a War with Spain though neither came to her Hands till after his Lordship's Death The Second is a Letter to the Vniversity of Cambridg when he sent them his Book of the Advancement of Learning The Third is a Letter to the same University upon his sending to them his Novum Organum This he wrote in a loose sheet of paper the former in one of the spare leaves at the beginning of the Book The Fourth is a Letter to Trinity College in Cambridg of which Society he had been a Member upon his sending thither the aforesaid Book De Augmentis Scientiarum The Fifth is a Letter to the Bishop of Lincoln in which I note the goodness of his Lordship's Nature whilst he still maintaineth his Friendship with him though he had succeeded him in his place of Lord-Keeper For Envy hates every one that sits in that Chair from whence it self is fallen The Sixth is a Letter to Father Fulgentio a Divine if I mistake not of the Republic of Venice and the same who wrote the Life of his Colleague the excellent Father Paul The Seventh is a Letter to the Marquess Fiat then Embassadour from France soon after the Marriage betwixt his late Majesty and Henrietta Maria in the knitting of which he had been employ'd This Marquess was the Person who impatient of seeing so Learned a Man was admitted to his Lordship when he was very ill and confin'd to his Bed and who saluted him with this high Compliment Your Lordship hath been to me hitherto like the Angels of which I have often heard and read but never saw them before To which piece of Courtship he return'd such answer as became a Man in those Circumstances Sir the Charity of others does liken me to an Angel but my own Infirmities tell me I am a Man The Eighth is a Transcript out of his Lordship's Will concerning his Writings There in particular manner he commendeth to the Press the Felicities of Queen Elizabeth This I noted before and observe it here again as an Argument of the Impartiality of his Lordship's Judgment and Affection He was zealous in bearing testimony to the wise Administration of the Public Affairs
in those Times in which himself advanced little either in Profit or Honour For he was hindred from growing at Court by a great Man who knew the slenderness of his Purse and also fear'd that if he grew he might prove Taller than himself d See his Lordship's Letter to Sir R. C. in Câ—ll of Letters in 1st part of Resusc. p. 87. and that in p. 110 111. The little Art used against him was the representing of him as a Speculator though it is plain no Man dealt better and with kinder ways in public Business than himself And it generally ripened under his Hands For the Papers written by others touching his Lordship and his Labours they are these The First is a Letter from the University of Oxford to his Lordship upon his sending to them his Book of Advancement of Learning in its second and much enlarged Edition It should seem by a Passage towards the end of this Letter that the Letter which his Lordship sent to them together with his Book was written like the first to the Vniversity of Cambridg in one of the spare leaves of it and contain'd some wholesome Admonitions in order to the pursuit of its Contents The Second is a Letter from Dr. Maynwaring to Dr. Rawley concering his Lordship's Confession of Faith This is that Dr. Maynwaring whose Sermon upon Eccles. 8. 2. c. gave such high Offence about One and Fifty Years ago For some Doctrines which he noteth in his Lordship's Confession the Reader ought to call to mind the times in which his Lordship wrote them and the distaste of that Court against the proceedings of Barnevelt whose State-faction blemish'd his Creed The rest are Letters of Dr. Rawley Mounsieur Deodate Isaac Gruter touching the Edition of his Lordship's Works An Account of his Lordship's Life and Writings by Sir William Dugdale together with some new Insertions Characters of his Lordship and his Philosophy by Dr. Heylin Dr. Sprat and Mr. Abraham Cowley All these Papers I have put under the Title of Baconiana in imitation of those who of late have publish'd some Remains of Learned Men and called them Thuana Scaligerana Perroniana These then are the particular Writings in which I have labour'd and in setting forth of which I have undertaken the lower Office of a Prefacer And I think it more desireable to write a mean Preface to a good Book than to be Author of a mean Book though graced with a Preface from some excellent Pen As it is more Honour with a plain White Staff to go before the King than being an unpolish'd Magistrate of a mean and antiquated Corporation to be usher'd forth with a Mace of Silver T. T. Novemb. 30. 1678. The Lord Bacon's REMAINS Civil and Moral The Charge ‖ Given May 24. 1616. by way of Evidence by Sir Francis Bacon his Majesties Attourney General before the Lord High Steward * The Lord Chancelor Egerton Lord Ellesmere and the Earl of Bridgwater and the Peers against Frances Countess of Somerset concerning the poysoning of Sir Thomas Overbury IT may please your Grace my Lord High Steward of England and you my Lords the Peers I am very glad to hear this unfortunate Lady doth take this Course to confess fully and freely and thereby to give Glory to God and to Justice It is as I may term it the Nobleness of an Offender to confess and therefore those meaner Persons upon whom Justice passed before confessed not she doth I know your Lordships cannot behold her without compassion Many things may move you her Youth her Person her Sex her noble Family yea her Provocations if I should enter into the Cause it self and Furies about her but chiefly her Penitency and Confession But Justice is the work of this Day the Mercy-Seat was in the inner part of the Temple the Throne is publick But since this Lady hath by her Confession prevented my Evidence and your Verdict and that this Day 's labour is eased there resteth in the Legal Proceeding but for me to pray that her Confession may be recorded and Judgment thereupon But because your Lordships the Peers are met and that this day and to morrow are the Days that crown all the former Justice and that in these great Cases it hath been ever the manner to respect Honour and Satisfaction as well as the ordinary Parts and Forms of Justice the Occasion it self admonisheth me to give your Lordships and the Hearers this Contentment as to make Declaration of the Proceedings of this excellent Work of the King's Justice from the beginning to the end It may please your Grace my Lord High Steward of England this is now the second time within the space of thirteen years Reign of our Happy Sovereign that this high Tribunal Seat ordained for the Trial of Peers hath been opened and erected and that with a rare event supplied and exercised by one and the same Person which is a great Honour unto you my Lord Steward In all this mean time the King hath reigned in his white Robe not sprinkled with any one Drop of the Blood of any of his Nobles of this Kingdom Nay such have been the Depths of his Mercy as even those Noble-Mens Bloods against whom the Proceeding was at Winchester Cobham and Grey were attainted and corrupted but not spilt or taken away but that they remained rather Spectacles of Iustice in their continual Imprisonment than Monuments of Iustice in the Memory of their Suffering It is true that the Objects of his Justice then and now were very differing for then it was the Revenge of an Offence against his own Person and Crown and upon Persons that were Male-Contents and Contraries to the State and Government but now it is the Revenge of the Blood and Death of a particular Subject and the Cry of a Prisoner it is upon Persons that were highly in his Favour whereby his Majesty to his great Honour hath shewed to the World as if it were written in a Sun-beam that he is truly the Lieutenant of him with whom there is no respect of Persons that his Affections Royal are above his Affections private that his Favours and Nearness about him are not like Popish Sanctuaries to privilege Malefactors and that his being the best Master in the World doth not let him from being the best King in the World His People on the other side may say to themselves I will lie down in Peace for God the King and the Law protect me against great and small It may be a Discipline also to great Men especially such as are swoln in their Fortunes from small beginnings that the King is as well able to level Mountains as to fill Vallies if such be their desert But to come to the present Case The great Frame of Justice my Lords in this present Action hath a Vault and hath a Stage A Vault wherein these Works of Darkness were contrived and a Stage with Steps by which it was brought to Light
plainly a Work for a King or a Pope or for some College or Order and cannot be by Personal Industry performed as it ought Those Portions of it which have already seen the Light to wit concerning Winds and touching Life and Death They are not pure History by reason of the Axioms and larger Observations which are interposed But they are a kind of mixed Writings composed of Natural History and a rude and imperfect Instrument or Help of the Understanding And this is the Fourth Part of the Instauration Wherefore that Fourth Part shall follow and shall contain many Examples of that Instrument more exact and much more fitted to Rules of Induction Fifthly There shall follow a Book to be entitled by us Prodromus Philosophiae Secundae The Fore-runner of Secondary Philosophy This shall contain our Inventions about new Axioms to be raised from the Experiments themselves that they which were before as Pillars lying uselesly along may be raised up And this we resolve on for the Fifth Part of our Instauration Lastly There is yet behind the Secondary Philosophy it self which is the Sixth Part of the Instauration Of the perfecting this I have cast away all hopes but in future Ages perhaps the Design may bud again Notwithstanding in our Prodromiâ— or Prefatory Works such I mean only which touch almost the Vniversals of Nature there will be laid no inconsiderable foundations of this Matter Our Meanness you see attempteth great Things placing our hopes only in this that they seem to proceed from the Providence and Immense Goodness of God And I am by two Arguments thus persuaded First I think thus from that zeal and constancy of my Mind which has not waxed old in this Design nor after so many Years grown cold and indifferent I remember that about Forty Years ago I compos'd a Iuvenile Work about these things which with great Confidence and a Pompous Title I called Temporis Partum Maximum * Or it may â—e Masculum as I find it â—ead eâ—sewhere or the most considerable Birth of Time Secondly I am thus persuaded because of its infinite Vsefulness for which reason it may be ascribed to Divine Encouragement I pray your Fatherhood to commend me to that most Excellent Man Signior Molines to whose most delightful and prudent Letters I will return answer shortly if God permit Farewel most Reverend Father Your Most assured Friend Francis St. Alban A Letter of the Lord Bacon's in French to the Marquess Fiat relating to his Essays Monsieur l' Ambassadeur mon Filâ—z VOyant que vostre Excellence faict et traite Mariages non seulement entre les Princes d' Angleterre et de France mais aussi entre les Langues puis que faictes traduire â—on Liure de l' Advancement des Sciences en Francois i' ai bien voulu vous envoyer mon Liure dernierement imprimé que i' avois pourveu pour vous mais i' estois en doubte de le vous envoyer pour ce qu' il estoit escrit en Anglois Mais a' cest ' Heure pour la raison susdicte ie le vous envoye C ' est un Recompilement de mes Essayes Morales et Civiles mais tellement enlargiés et enrichiés tant de Nombre que de Poix que c ' est de fait un Oeuvre nouveau Ie vous baise les Mains et reste Vostre tres Affectionée Ami 〈◊〉 tres humble Serviteur The same in English by the Publisher My Lord Embassador My Son SEeing that your Excellency makes and treats of Marriages not only betwixt the Princes of France and England but also betwixt their Languages for you have caus'd my Book of the Advancement of Learning to be Translated into French I was much inclin'd to make you a Present of the last Book which I published and which I had in readiness for you I was sometimes in doubt whether I ought to have sent it to you because it was written in the English Tongue But now for that very Reason I send it to you It is a Recompilement of my Essaies Moral and Civil but in such manner enlarged and enriched both in Number and Weight that it is in effect a new Work I kiss your Hands and remain Your most Affectionate and most humble Servant c. A Transcript by the Publisher out of the Lord Bacon's last Will relating especially to his Writings FIrst I bequeath my Soul and Body into the Hand of God by the blessed Oblation of my Saviour the one at the time of my Dissolution the other at the time of my Resurrection For my Burial I desire it may be at St. Michael's Church near St. Albans There was my Mother buried and it is the Parish Church of my Mansion-House of Gorhambury and it is the only Christian Church within the Walls of Old Verulam I would have the Charge of my Funeral not to exceed 300 l. at most For my Name and Memory I leave it to Foreign Nations and to mine own Country-Men after some Time be passed over But towards that durable part of Memory which consisteth in my Writings I require my Servant Henry Percy to deliver to my Brother Constable all my Manuscript-Compositions and the Fragments also of such as are not Finished to the end that if any of them be fit to be Published he may accordingly dispose of them And herein I desire him to take the advice of Mr. Selden and Mr. Herbert of the Inner Temple and to publish or suppress what shall be thought fit In particular I wish the Elegie which I writ in felicem Memoriam Elizabethae may be Published Papers written by others concerning the Writings of the Lord Bacon A Letter from the University of Oxford to the Lord Bacon upon his sending to them his Book De Augmentis Scientiarum Praenobilis quod in Nobilitate paenè miraculum est Scientissime Vicecomes NIhil concinnius tribuere Amplitudo vestra nihil gratius accipere potuit Academia quà m Scientias Scientias quas prius inopes exiguas incultas emiserat accepit tandem nitidas proceras Ingenii tui copiis quibus unicè augeri potuerant uberrimè dotatas Grande ducit munus illud sibi à peregrino si tamen peregrinus sit tam propè consanguineus auctius redire quod Filiolis suis instar Patrimonii impendit libentèr agnoscit hic nasci Musas alibi tamen quam domi suae crescere Creverunt quidem sub Calamo tuo qui tanquam strenuus literarum Alcides Columnas tuas Mundo immobiles propriâ Manu in Orbe Scientiarum plus ultrà statuisti Euge exercitatissimum Athletam qui in aliorum patrocinandis virtutibus occupatissimus alios in scriptis propriis teipsum superâsti Quippe in illo Honorum tuorum fastigio viros tantùm literatos promovisti nunc tandem ô dulce prodigium etiam literas Onerat Clientes beneficii hujus augustior Munificentia cujus in accipiendo Honor apud nos manet in
negari haud possit Neque enim procedet ista contrahendi omnia Baconiana in unum volumen molitio nisi te consulto ad symbolas tam insigni editione dignas invitato ut lectoris jam pridem ex praevio eorum quae circumferuntur gustu cupidi concilietur gratia ex illibatâ auctarii non poenitendi novitate Gallo interpreti qui sua nescio unde consarcinavit centonésque consuit locus non dabitur in magno Syngrammate Ut autem separatim cum Historia Naturali excudatur exoticum opus per excerpta hinc inde corrogatum latinitate meâ donatum spero à te impetrari patieris Interesse enim puto cum Verulamiana genuina Gallici Sermonis induta cultu passim prostent ut sciat transmarinus lector è quibus filis contexta sit istius libri tela quà m verum sit quod Anonymus iste in prefatione ad Lectorem de te innominato scribit Verba ejus frater meus B. M. Latinè 〈◊〉 in primâ editione Historiae Naturalis cùm de fide Authoris ignoti dubitaret Ego in secundâ dabo repetita justis confossa notis ut moneantur in quorum manus perventurum sit istud opus supposititium esse aâ—t potius ex avulsis sparsim laciniis consutum quicquid specioso Verulamii titulo munitum venditat Author Nisi forte speciatim tuo nomine suggerere libet isti loco inserenda in cautelam ne quid Gloriae celeberimi viri detrahat vel malignitas vel inconsideratum studium Virgil. Si me fata meis paterentur ducere vitam auspiciis in Angliam evolarem ut quicquid Verulamianae officinae servas in scriniis tuis ineditum coram inspicerem oculos saltem haberem arbitros si possessio negetur mercis nondum publicae Nunc vota impatientis desiderii sustentabo spe aliquando videndi quae fidis mandata latebris occasionem exspectant ut tutò in lucem educantur non enecentur suffocato partu Utinam interim videre liceat Apographum epistolae ad Henricum Savilium circa adjumenta facultatum intellectualium caetera enim Latinae monetae persuadeor statione sua moveri non posse in temporarium usum Vale. Trajecti ad Mosam Martii 20. S. N. CIO IOC LV. The same in English by the publisher To the Reverend William Rawley D. D. Isaac Gruter wisheth much health Reverend Sir IT is not just to complain of the slowness of your Answer seeing that the difficulty of the Passage in the season in which you wrote which was towards Winter might easily cause it to come no faster Seeing likewise there is so much to be found in it which may gratifie Desire and perhaps so much the more the longer it was e're it came to my Hands And although I had little to send back besides my Thanks for the little Index a A Note of some Papers of the Lord Bacon's in D. R's hands yet that seemed to me of such moment that I would no longer suppress them especially because I accounted it a Crime to have suffer'd Mr. Smith b Of Christ's Colledg in Cambridg and Keeper of the publick Library there to have been without an Answer Mr. Smith my most kind Friend and to whose care in my Matters I owe all Regard and Affection yet without diminution of that part and that no small one neither in which Dr. Rawley hath place So that the Souls of us Three so throughly agreeing may be aptly said to have united in a Triga Though I thought that I had already sufficiently shew'd what Veneration I had for the Illustrious Lord Verulam yet I shall take such care for the future that it may not possibly be deny'd that I endeavour'd most zealously to make this thing known to the learned World But neither shall this Design of setting forth in one Volume all the Lord Bacon's Works proceed without consulting you and without inviting you to cast in your Symbol worthy such an excellent Edition That so the Appetite of the Reader provoked already by his publish'd Works may be further gratifi'd by the pure novelty of so considerable an Appendage For the French Interpreter who patch'd together his Things I know not whence c Certain spurious Papers added to his Translation of the Advancement of Learning and tack'd that motley piece to him they shall not have place in this great Collection But yet I hope to obtain your leave to publish apart as an Appendix to the Natural History that Exotick Work gather'd together from this and the other place of his Lordships Writings and by me translated into Latine For seeing the genuine Pieces of the Lord Bacon are already Extant and in many Hands it is necessary that the Forreign Reader be given to understand of what Threds the Texture of that Book consists and how much of Truth there is in that which that shameless person does in his Preface to the Reader so stupidly write of you My Brother of blessed Memory turn'd his words into Latine in the first Edition of the Natural History having some suspition of the Fidelity of an unknown Author I will in the second Edition repeat them and with just severity animadvert upon them That they into whose hands that Work comes may know it to be suppositious or rather patch'd up of many distinct Pieces how much soever the Authour bears himself upon the specious Title of Verulam Unless perhaps I should particularly suggest in your Name that these words were there inserted by way of Caution and lest Malignity and Rashness should any way blemish the Fame of so eminent a Person Si me Fata meis paterentur ducere vitam Auspiciis to use the words of Virgil. If my Fate would permit me to live according to my Wishes I woâ—ud flie over into England that I might behold whatsoever remaineth in your Cabinet of the Verulamian Workmanship and at least make my Eyes witnesses of it if the possession of the Merchandize be yet denied to the Publick At present I will support the Wishes of my impatient desire with hope of seeing one Day those Issues which being committed to faithful Privacie wait the time 'till they may safely see the Light and not be stifled in their Birth I wish in the mean time I could have a sight of the Copy of the Epistle to Sir Henry Savil concerning the Helps of the Intellectual Powers For I am persuaded as to the other Latine Remains that I shall not obtain for present use the removal of them from the place in which they now are Farewel Maestricht March 20. New Style 1655. The Third Letter written by Mr. Isaac Gruter to Dr. Rawley concerning the Writings of the Lord Bacon Reverendo Doctissimoque viro Gulielmo Rawleio S. Theologiae Doctori S. P. D. Isaacus Gruterus Vir Reverende amicissime QVanta in parte honoris deputarem missa Verulamii posthuma quae è tuo non ita pridem Museo Latina prodiere
218. l. 2. r. contriverim P. 222. l. 23. for tum r. Tu. P. 232. l. 23. r. vertit P. 237. l. 4. r. would P. 239. l. 4. r. â—nerat l. 12. r. consecrari l. 14. r. segnescens P. 249. l. 29 30. for carried r. varied P. 250. l. 5. r. you to call P. 253. l. 19. r. Courts P. 254. Margent l. 1. for R. this r. L. this P. 257. Margent l. 1. for â—Twas r. they were P. 259. l. 8 9. after Nature put a Semicolon after parted a Colon. A DISCOURSE BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION In which the Publisher endeavoureth an Account of the PHILOSOPHY MECHANIC INVENTIONS and WRITINGS of Sir FRANCIS BACON Baron of Verulam and Viscount of St. Albans And particularly of these REMAINS now set forth by him under the Title of BACONIANA LONDON Printed for R. C. at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1679. AN ACCOUNT Of all the Lord BACON'S WORKS IT is my purpose to give a true and plain Account of the Designs and Labours of a very great Philosopher amongst us and to offer to the World in some tollerable Method those Remains of his which to that end were put into my Hands Something of this hath been done already by his Lordship himself and something further hath been added by the Reverend Dr. Rawley But their Remarks lay scattered in divers Places and here they are put under one View and have received very ample Enlargements In this last and most comprehensive Account I have on purpose used a loose and Asiatic Style and wilfully committed that venial fault with which the Laconian in Boccalini is merrily taxed who had said that in three words which he might possibly have express'd in two I hop'd by this means to serve the more effectually ordinary Readers who stand chiefly in need of this Introduction and whose Capacities can be no more reach'd by a close and strict Discourse than Game can be taken by a Net unspread For any praise upon the account of this small Performance it is not worth the while to be solicitous about it Yet sometimes mean Men get a stock of Reputation by gathering up the Fragments of the Learned as Beggars they say have gotten Estates by saving together the Alms of the Rich. If that falls not out here where it is not expected it will be abundantly enough to me if the Inferiour Reader may have Benefit and any Honour may be done to the Memory of his Lordship whose more General Encomium I shall first set down and then annex a particular Narrative of those Designs and Labours of his which may be said not only to merit buteven to exceed all my Commendations I begin as I said with his Lordship's Praise in a more general way And here I affirm with good assurance for Truth is bold that amongst those few who by the strength of their private Reason have resisted popular Errors and avanced real and useful Learning there has not arisen a more Eminent Person than the Lord High Chancellor Bacon Such great Wits are not the common Births of Time And they surely intended to signifie so much who said of the Phoenix though in Hyperbole as well as Metaphor that Nature gives the World that Individual Species but once in five hundred Years It is true There lived in part of the last and this Century many memorable Advancers of Philosophical Knowledg I mean not here such as Patricius or Telesius Brunus Severinus the Dane or Campanella These indeed departed from some Errors of the Ancients but they did not frame any solid Hypothesis of their own They only spun new Cobwebs where they had brush'd down the old Nay I intend not in this place either de Chart or Gassendi They were certainly great Men but they appeared somewhat later and descended into the depths of Philosophy after the Ice had been broken by others And those I take to have been chiefly Copernicus Father Paul the Venetian Galileo Harvey Gilbert and the Philosopher before-remembred Sir Francis Bacon who if all his Circumstances be duly weigh'd may seem to excel them all He was by Profession a common Lawyer by Office in the Queen's time one of the Clerks of the Council in the Reign of King Iames one of the King's Counsel Learned then Solicitor General and one of the Iudges in the Knight-Marshals Court then Attorney General and one of the King's Privy-Council then Lord-Keeper of the Great Seal and during the Kings absence in Scotland Lord Protector And last of all Lord High Chancellor of England So that in such a Life as his so thickly set with Business of such Height it is a Miracle that all Seeds of Philosophy were not daily overdropped and in a short time quite choaked and that any one of them sprung up to Maturity And yet his prosper'd beyond those of the Philosophers before-mentioned though they were not pressed on with such a crowd of secular Business For Copernicus he concern'd himself especially in the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies in reviving and perfecting the obsolete Doctrine of Philolaus touching the motion of the Earth and in setting free the Planets from those many Epicycles Eccentrics and Concentries in which Ptolomy and others had entrangled them And he well understood the Course of the Stars though he did not much study that natural motive Power which carries them about in their several Elliptics The like Remark may be made concerning Mr. Gilbert who applied himself particularly to the consideration of Magnetic Powers as also concerning Dr. Harvey who inquired principally into the Generation of Animals and the motion of the Heart Subjects in which he made great progress though into the former the help of Microscopes would have given him further insight a See Dr. Highmore of Generation P. 70 71. and in both he rather pursued the proofs of his Hypotheses than the nature of the Mechanic force which produced those great Effects Father Paul was a more general Philosopher and the Head of a Meeting of Vertuosi in Venice He excelled in Mechanics in Mathematics of all kinds in Philological Learning in Anatomy In his Anatomical Studies he exercis'd such Sagacity that he made further discoveries in the fabrick of the Eye and taught Aqua-pendente those new Speculations which he publish'd on that Subject he found out saith Fulgentio the Valvulae in the Veins and began the Doctrine of the Circulation of the Blood Though there is reason to believe that he receiv'd the hints of it from Sir Henry Wotton who himself had taken them from Dr. Harvey a Cartes diss de Methodo P. 46. Herveo laus â—aec tribuenda est quò d primam in istâ materiâ— glacâ—em fâ—egerit c. But the present state of the Affairs of Venice so requiring Father Paul bent his Studies to Ecclesiastical Polity and chiefly employ'd his Pen in detecting the Usurpations and Corruptions of the Papacy Endeavouring so far as Books could do it to preserve the Neck of that Republick