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
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
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 Justice in their continual Imprisonment than Monuments of Justice 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 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 with 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 Malefactours 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 and the King and the Law protect me against the great and small It may be a Discipline also to great Men specially such as are swollen in their Fortunes from small beginnings that The King is as well able to level Mountains as to fill Valleys if such be their desert In another place l Page 119. Of the Arraignment of the L. of Somerset he thrusteth into the Speech of Sir Edward Cook a part of Sir Francis Bacon's and like the worser sort of Thieves he does not only rob but mangle him Sir Francis Bacon spake on this manner My Lords He is not the Hunter alone that lets slip the Dog upon the Deer but he that lodges the Deer or rouses him or puts him out or he that sets a Toyl that he cannot escape Instead of which the Relator hath substituted this absurd Sentence It is not he only that slips the Dog but he that loves the Toyl that kills the Deer This I thought was not unnecessary to be said in Vindication of Mr. Attorney's Honour which is vilely traduc'd in this Pamphlet where the Daw would personate the Orator The Second Paper is his Letter to the University of Cambridg to whom he was of Counsel upon occasion of his being Sworn of the Privy-Council to the King This I judged fit to bear that other company which is already printed m Resusc Letters p. 82 83. and answereth to their Congratulation at his first coming to the Place of Lord-Keeper The Third is his Letter to King Iames touching the Place of Lord High Chancellour of England upon the approaching death of the Chancellour Egerton The Fourth is a Letter to the same Prince for the relief of his Estate This with that other of Submission in the Cabala seem to some to blemish his Lordship's Honour to others to clear it For in this he appealeth to the King himself whether he had not ever found him direct and honest in his Service so as not once to be rebuked by him during Nineteen Years Employment He sheweth that his Fall was not the King's Act and that the Prince was ready to reach out his Hand to stay him from falling In the other he maketh this profession of his being free from malicious Injustice For the Bribery and Gifts wherewith I am charged when the Books of Hearts shall be opened I hope I shall not be found to have the troubled Fountain of a corrupt Heart in a depraved habit of taking Rewards to pervert Justice howsoever I may be frail and partake of the abuses of the Times The Fifth Paper is a Collection of his remaining Apothegms inferiour in number to those already published but not in weight Some of these he took from Eminent Persons and some from meaner ones having set it down from his Observation n In Impet. Philosoph p. 476. Rusticorum Proverbia nonnulla apposite ad veritatatem dicuntur Sus rostro c. that The Bolt of the Rustic often hits the Mark and that the Sow in rooting may describe the letter A though she cannot write an entire Tragedy The Sixth is a Supply of his Collection of Judicious and Elegant Sentences called by him Ornamenta Rationalia He also gave to those Wise and Polite Sayings the Title of Sententiae Stellares either because they were Sentences which deserved to be pointed to by an Asterisc in the Margent or because they much illustrated and beautify'd a Discourse in which they were disposed in due place and order as the Stars in the Firmament are so many glorious Ornaments of it and set off with their Lustre the wider and less adorned Spaces This Collection is either wholly lost or thrown into some obscure Corner but I fear the first I have now three Catalogues in my Hands of the unpublish'd Papers of Sir Francis Bacon all written by Dr. Rawley himself In every one of these appears the Title of Ornamenta Rationalia but in the Bundles which came with those Catalogues there 's not one of those Sentences to be found I held my self oblig'd in some sort and as I was able to supply this defect it being once in my power to have preserved this Paper For a Copy of it was long since offer'd me by that Doctor 's only Son and my dear Friend now with God Mr. William Rawley of whom if I say no more it is the greatness of my Grief for that irreparable loss which causeth my Silence I was the more negligent in taking a Copy presuming I might upon any occasion command the Original and because that was then in such good Hands Now there remains nothing with me but a general Remembrance of the quality of that Collection It consisted of divers short Sayings aptly and smartly expressed and containing in them much of good Sense in a little room These he either made or took from others being moved so to do by the same Reason which caus'd him to gather together his Apothegms which he saith he collected for his Recreation his Lordship's Diversions being of more value than some Men's Labours Nor do such Sentences and Apothegms differ much in their Nature For Apothegms are only somewhat longer and fuller of Allusion and tell the Author and the occasion of the Wise Saying and are but the same Kernel with the Shell and Leaf about it That which he faith of the one is true of the other They are both Mucrones Verborum o In Preface to his Apothegms pointed Speeches or Goads Cicero saith he calleth them Salinas Salt-pits that you may extract Salt out of and sprinkle it where you will They serve to be interlaced in continued Speech They serve to be recited upon occasion in
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
answerable Commendation of me to her Majesty Wherein I hope your Lordship if it please you call to mind did find me neither overweening in presuming too much upon it nor much deceived in my opinion of the Event for the continuing of it still in your self nor sleepy in doing some good Offices to the same purpose This favour of the Lord Egerton's which began so early continued to the last And thus much Sir Francis Bacon testified in a Letter to Sir George Villiers of which this is a part b Resuscit p. 65. of the Collect. of Letters My Lord Chancellor told me yesterday in plain terms that if the King would ask his opinion touching the Person that he would commend to succeed him upon Death or Disability he would name me for the fittest Man You may advise whether use may not be made of this Offer And the like appears by what Master Attorney wrote to King Iames during the sickness of my Lord Chancellor Amongst other things he wrote this to the King * Ibid. p. 50. It pleased my Lord Chancellor out of his ancient and great Love to me which many times in Sickness appeareth most to admit me to a great deal of Speech with him this Afternoon which during these three Days he hath scarcely done to any In the same * Court of K. James p. 119. Libel my Lord Bacon is reproach'd as a very necessitous Man and one for that Reason made Keeper by the Duke to serve such Turns as Men of better Fortunes would never condescend to And this also is a groundless and uncharitable Insinuation He had now enjoy'd a good while many profitable Places which preserv'd him from Indigence though his great Mind did not permit him to swell his Purse by them to any extraordinary Bigness And in the Queen's time when he was in meaner Circumstances he did not look upon himself as in that estate of Necessity which tempteth generous Minds to vile things Hear himself representing his Condition no Man knew it better or could better express it Thus he states his Case in the aforesaid unpublish'd Letter to the Lord Chancellor Egerton of the whole of which I sometime had the perusal though now much of it is lost and as I believe beyond all recovery My Estate said he I confess a truth to your Lordship is weak and Indebted and needeth Comfort For both my Father though I think I had greatest part in his Love of all his Children in his Wisdom served me in as a last Comer And my self in mine own Industry have rather referred and aspired to Vertue than to Gain whereof I am not yet wise enough to repent me But the while whereas Salomon speaketh That Want cometh first as a Wayfaring Man and after as an Armed Man I must acknowledg my self to be in primo gradu for it stealeth upon me But for the second that it should not be able to be resisted I hope in God I am not in that case For the preventing whereof as I do depend upon God's Providence all in all so in the same his Providence I see opened unto me three not unlikely expectations of Help The one my Practice the other some proceeding in the Queen's Service the third the Place I have in Reversion which as it standeth now unto me is but like another Man's Ground buttalling upon my House which may mend my Prospect but it doth not fill my Barn This Place he meaneth was the Registers Office in the Star-Chamber which fell to him in the time of King Iames and was worth about 1600 l. by the Year But to return from this Digression When Sir Francis Bacon was constituted Lord-Keeper the King admonisht him that he should Seal nothing rashly as also that he should Judg uprightly and not extend the Royal Prerogative too high After which viz. upon the seventh Day of May which was the first Day of Easter Term next ensuing he made his solemn proceeding c Ibid. to Westminster-Hall in this order First The Writing Clerks and inferiour Officers belonging to the Court of Chancery Next the Students of the Law Then the Gentlemen of his own Family After them the Sergeant at Arms and bearer of the Great Seal on foot Then himself on Horsback in a Gown of Purple Satin riding betwixt the Lord-Treasurer and Lord Privy-Seal Next divers Earls Barons and Privy-Councellors Then the Judges of the Courts at Westminster whose place in that proceeding was assigned after the Privy-Councellors And when he came into the Court the Lord-Treasurer and Lord Privy-Seal gave him his Oath the Clerk of the Crown reading it Upon the fourth of Ianuary 16 Iac. he was made Lord Chancellor d Claus. 16 Jac. in dorso p. 15. of England On the eleventh of Iuly next ensuing created e Pat. 16. Jac. p. 11. Lord Verulam and on the 27th of Ianuary 18 Iac. advanced f Pat. 18 Jac. p. 4. to the dignity of Vicount St. Alban his solemn Investiture g Annal. R. Jac. in an 1621. being then performed at Theobalds his Robe carried before him by the Lord Carew and his Coronet by the Lord Wentworth Whereupon he gave the King sevenfold thanks h Annal. R. Jac. in an 1621. first for making him his Solicitor secondly his Attorney thirdly one of his Privy Council fourthly Lord-Keeper of the Great Seal fifthly Lord-Chancellor sixthly Baron Verulam and lastly Vicount St. Alban But long he enjoyed not that great Office of Lord-Chancellor for in Lent 18 Iac. Corruption in the exercise thereof being objected i Orig. Iurid in Chr. p. 102. against him of which 't is believed his Servants were most guilty and he himself not much accessory the Great Seal was taken k This is inserted by the Publisher from him This Fall l Ibid. he foresaw yet he made no shew of that base and mean Spirit with which the Libel before remembred does unworthily charge him m Court of K. James 122 123. The late King of blessed Memory then Prince made a very differing observation upon him Returning from Hunting n Aul. Coqu p. 174. he espied a Coach attended with a goodly Troop of Horsemen who it seems were gathered together to wait upon the Chancellor to his House at Gorhambury at the time of his Declension The Prince smiling said Well! Do we what we can this Man scorns to go out like a Snuff And he commended his undaunted Spirit and excellent Parts not without some Regret that such a Man should be falling off It is true that after the Seal was taken from him he became a great example of Penitence and Submission But it was a Submission which both manifested his just sense of his Fault and the more Venial Nature of it as arising from Negligence rather than Avarice and Malice He shewed by it that there was not in his Heart that stiffness of Pride which openly denies or justifies those Crimes of which it self is
f In the Miscelan Works p. 137. 2d part of Resusc. The Fourteenth is The Elements of the Common Laws of England in a double Tract The one of the Rules and Maxims of the Common Law with their Latitude and Extent The other of the Vse of the Common Law for the preservation of our Persons Goods and good Names g In 4 â— Anno 1639. These he Dedicated to her Majesty whose the Laws were whilst the Collection was his The Fifteenth is a Draught of an Act against an usurious shift of Gain h See Resusc. part 2. p. 62. in delivering Commodities in stead of Money Touching these latter Pieces which may be termed Writings in Iuridical Polity and which he wrote as a debtor to his Profession it is beyond my Skill as well as out of the way of my Studies to pass a special Judgment on them Onely I may note it in the general that if he reached not so far in the Common Law as Sir Edward Cook and some other Ornaments of the long Robe the prepossession of his Mind by Philosophical Notions and his regard to Matters of Estate rather than to those of Law may be assigned as the true Causes of it For doubtless Parts were not wanting On this Subject it is that he thus writeth to Sir Thomas Bodley i Coll. of Letters in Resusc. p. 34. I think no Man may more truly say with the Psalm multùm incola fuit Anima mea than my self For I do confess since I was of any Understanding my Mind hath in effect been absent from that I have done And in absence are many Errors which I do willingly acknowledg and amongst the rest this great one that led the rest That knowing my self by inward Calling to be fitter to hold a Book than to play a Part I have led my Life in civil Causes for which I was not very fit by Nature and more unfit by the preoccupation of my Mind To a like purpose is this in a Manuscript Letter to the Lord Chancellor Egerton which I have sometimes perus'd I am not k M S. Letter of L. Bacons so deceived in my self but that I know very well and I think your Lordship is major Corde and in your Wisdom you note it more deeply than I can in my self that in Practising the Law I play not my best Game which maketh me accept it with a nisi quid potius as the best of my Fortune and a thing better agreeable to better Gifts than mine but not to mine And it appeareth by what he hath said in a Letter to the Earl of Essex l Coll. in Resusc. p. III. that he once thought not to practise in his Profession I am purposed said he not to follow the practice of the Law And my Reason is only because it drinketh too much Time which I have dedicated to better purposes To this Head of Polity relating to the Affairs of these Kingdoms we may reduce most of his Lordship's Letters published correctly in the Resuscitatio and in these Remains and from uncorrect Copies in the Cabala These they though often contain private Matters yet commonly they have Matters of Estate intermingled with them Thus his Letter to the Lord-Treasurer Burghley m P. 1. was writ in Excuse of his Speech in Parliament against the Triple Subsidy So many of the Letters to the Earl of Essex n Pag. â— 5 7. and Sir George Villiers o P. 76. relate plainly to the Irish Affairs So some Letters to King Iames relate to the Cases of Peacham p P. 48 51. Owen q P. 55. and others r P. 58. I S. to the Matter of his Revenue s 〈◊〉 57. to the New Company t P. 59 61 70. who undertook to Dye and Dress all the Cloaths of the Realm to the Praemunire in the Kings-Bench against the Chancery u P. 66. Most of the rest are a Miscellany and not reducible to one certain Head Last of all For his Lordship's Writings upon Pious Subjects though for the Nature of the Argument they deserve the first place yet they being but few and there appearing nothing so extraordinary in the composure of them as is found in his Lordships other Labours they have not obtain'd an earlier mention They are only these His Confession of Faith written by himself in English and turn'd into Latine by Dr. Rawley w Publ. in Engl. at the end of the Resus and in â—aâ—ine in the Oâ—â—scula p. 207. The Questions about an Holy War and the Prayers in these Remains And a Translation of certain of David's Psalms into English Verse With this last Pious Exercise he diverted himself in the time of his Sickness in the Year Twenty Five When he sent it abroad into the World x 'T was publ in Lond. An. 1625. in 4 â— and has lately been put into the 2d part of Resusc. he made a Dedication of it to his good Friend Mr. George Herbert For he judged the Argument to be sutable to him in his double Quality of a Divine and a Poet. His Lordship had very great judgment in Poetry as appeareth by his Discourse y In l. 2. de Augm. Scient c. 13. about it and he had some sort of Talent that way also Hence when the Queen had a purpose to Dine at his Lodging at Twicknam Park he prepared a Sonnet z See Apol. for the Earl of Essex p. 73. tending to the Reconcilement of her Majesty to the Earl of Essex then in Disfavour But it was very seldom that he courted these Muses and therefore his Vein does not appear so Elegant and Happy as Exercise might have made it The truth is 't is one of the hardest things in the World to excel in Poetry and to Attempt and not to Excel is to lose both Time and Reputation For in this Art Mediocrity will not pass for Vertue In this squeamish Age as Mounsieur Rapine saith in his Iudicious Reflections Verses are Ridiculous if they be not Admirable They are it seems like some Modern Dishes which if they have not an high taste occasion Disgust Now of these several Works of his Lordship 's already Publish'd of which a great part a See them in S. W. Dugdale at the â—nd of these Remains was written in that non ignobile Quinquennium of his recess from Business there is not yet made any exact Collection either in Latine or English though some attempts have been made in both those Languages The first Latine Collection was set forth accurately for so much of it by Dr. Rawley under the Title of Opera Moralia Civilia b Londini 1638. in Fol. see Dr. Rawley's Letter to M. Deodate and his Answer But it contained only the History of Henry the Seventhâ— the Essaies the Book of the Wisdom of the Ancients the Dialogue of an Holy War the New Atlantis the Book de Augmentis the History of Winds the