Remains The Lord Bacon's Questions about the Lawfulness of a War for the Propagating of Religion Questions wherein I desire Opinion joyned with Arguments and Authorities WHether a War be lawful against Infidels only for the Propagation of the Christian Faith without other cause of Hostility Whether a War be lawful to recover to the Church Countries which formerly have been Christian though now Alienate and Christians utterly extirped Whether a War be lawful to free and deliver Christians that yet remain in Servitude and subjection to Infidels Whether a War be lawful in Revenge or Vindication of Blasphemy and Reproaches against the Deity and our Saviour or for the ancient effusion of Christian Blood and Cruelties upon Christians Whether a War be lawful for the Restoring and purging of the Holy Land the Sepulchre and other principal places of Adoration and Devotion Whether in the Cases aforesaid it be not Obligatory to Christian Princes to make such a War and not permissive only Whether the making of a War against the Infidels be not first in order of Dignity and to be preferr'd before extirpations of Heresies reconcilements of Schisms reformation of Manners pursuits of just Temporal Quarrels and the like Actions for the Publick Good except there be either a more urgent Necessity or a more evident Facility in those Inferior Actions or except they may both go on together in some Degree Two Prayers compos'd by Sir Francis Bacon Baron of Verulam and Viscount of St. Albans The First Prayer called by his Lordship The Student's Prayer TO God the Father God the Word God the Spirit we pour forth most humble and hearty Supplications that He remembring the Calamities of Mankind and the Pilgrimage of this our Life in which we wear out Days few and evil would please to open to us new Refreshments out of the Fountains of his Goodness for the alleviating of our Miseries This also we humbly and earnestly beg that Humane things may not prejudice such as are Divine neither that from the unlocking of the Gates of Sense and the kindling of a greater Natural Light any thing of Incredulity or Intellectual Night may arise in our Minds towards Divine Mysteries But rather that by our Mind throughly cleansed and purged from Phancy and Vanities and yet subject and perfectly given up to the Divine Oracles there may be given unto Faith the things that are Faith's Amen The Second Prayer called by his Lordship The Writer's Prayer THou O Father who gavest the Visible Light as the First-born of thy Creatures and didst pour into Man the Intellectual Light as the top and consummation of thy Workmanship be pleased to protect and govern this Work which coming from thy Goodness returneth to thy Glory Thou after Thou hadst review'd the Works which thy Hands had made beheldest that every Thing was very Good and Thou didst rest with Complacencie in them But Man reflecting on the Works which he had made saw that all was Vanity and vexation of Spirit and could by no means acquiesee in them Wherefore if we labour in thy Works with the sweat of our Brows Thou wilt make us partakers of thy Vision and thy Sabbath We humbly beg that this Mind may be stedfastly in us and that Thou by our Hands and also by the Hands of others on whom Thou shalt bestow the same Spirit wilt please to conveigh a largeness of new Alms to thy Family of Mankind These things we commend to Thy everlasting Love by our Iesus thy Christ God with us Amen Baconiana Bibliographica OR CERTAIN REMAINS OF THE LORD BACON Concerning His Writings To these are added Letters and Discourses by others upon the same Argument In which also are contained some Remarks concerning his Life LONDON Printed for R. C. at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1679. Remains Bibliographical Written by the Lord Bacon HIMSELF The Lord Chancellor Bacon's Letter to the Queen of Bohemia * Inâ—he year 1625. in Answer to one from her Majesty and upon sending to her his Book about a War with Spain It may please your Majesty IHave received your Majesties Gracious Letter from Mr. Secretary Morton who is now a Saint in Heaven It was at a time when the great Desolation of the Plague was in the City and when my self was ill of a dangerous and tedious Sickness The first time that I found any degree of Health nothing came sooner to my Mind than to acknowledg your Majesties great Favour by my most humble Thanks And because I see your Majesty taketh delight in my Writings and to say truth they are the best Fruits I now yield I presume to send your Majesty a little Discourse of mine touching a War with Spain which I writ about two Years since which the King your Brother liked well It is written without Bitterness or Invective as Kings Affairs ought to be carried But if I be not deceived it hath Edge enough I have yet some Spirits left and remnant of Experience which I consecrate to the King's Service and your Majestie 's for whom I pour out my daily Prayers to God that he would give your Majesty a Fortune worthy your rare Vertues Which some good Spirit tells me will be in the end I do in all reverence kiss your Majestie 's Hands ever resting Your Majestie 's most humble and devoted Servant Francis St. Alban A Letter of the Lord Bacon's to the University of Cambridg upon his sending to their Public Library his Book of the Advancement of Learning Franciscus Baro de Verulamio Vicecomes Sancti Albani Almae Matri inclytae Academiae Cantabrigiensi Salutem DEbita Filii qualia possum persolvo Quod verò facio idem â—vos hortor ut Augmentis Scientiarum strenuè incumbatis in Animi modestiâ— libertatem ingenii retineatis neque Talentum à veteribus concreditum in sudario reponatis Affuerit proculdubiò Affulserit divini Luminis Gratia si humiliatâ submissâ Religioni Philosophiâ Clavibus sensûs ligitimè dextrè utamini amoto omni contradictionis studio quisque cum Alio ac si ipse secum disputet Valete The same in English by the Publisher Francis Baron of Verulam and Viscount of St. Albans to the Indulgent Mother the famous University of Cambridg Health I Here repay you according to my Ability the Debts of a Son I exhort you also to do the same thing with my self That is to bend your whole might towards the Advancement of the Sciences and to retain freedom of Thought together with humility of Mind and not to suffer the Talent which the Ancients have deposited with you to lie dead in a Napkin Doubtless the favour of the Divine Light will be present and shine amongst you if Philosophy being submitted to Religion you lawfully and dextrously use the Keys of Sense and if all study of Opposition being laid aside every one of you so dispute with another as if he were arguing with himself Fare ye well A Letter of the
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
least more than the acquitting of your Conscience for Justice But it is the other Parts of a Moderator amongst your Council of an Overseer over your Iudges of a Planter of fit Iustices and Governors in the Country that importeth your Affairs and these Times most I will add likewise that I hope by my Care the Inventive Part of your Council will be strengthned who now commonly do exercise rather their Iudgments than their Inventions and the Inventive Part cometh from Projectors and Private Men which cannot be so well In which kind my Lord of Salisbury had a good Method To conclude If I were the Man I would be I should hope that as your Majesty of late hath won Hearts by Depressing you should in this lose no Hearts by Advancing For I see your People can better skill of Concretum than Abstractum and that the Waves of their Affection flow rather after Persons than Things So that Acts of this nature if this were one do more good than twenty Bills of Grace If God call my Lord Chancellor the Warrants and Commissions which are requisite for the taking of the Seal and for working with it and for reviving of Warrants under his Hand which die with him and the like shall be in readiness And in this Time presseth more because it is the end of a Term and almost the beginning of the Circuits so that the Seal cannot stand still But this may be done as heretofore by Commission till your Majesty hath resolved on an Officer God ever preserve your Majesty Your Majesties most humble Subject and bounden Servant F. Bacon A Letter written * About a year and half after his Retirement by the Lord Bacon to King James for Relief of his Estate May it please your most Excellent Majesty IN the midst of my misery which is rather asswaged by Remembrance than by Hope my chiefest worldly comfort is to think That since the time I had the first Vote of the Commons House of Parliament for Commissioner of the Union until the time that I was this last Parliament chosen by both Houses for their Messenger to your Majesty in the Petition of Religion which two were my first and last Services I was ever more so happy as to have my poor Services graciously accepted by your Majesty and likewise not to have had any of them miscarry in my Hands Neither of which points I can any ways take to my self but ascribe the former to your Majestie 's Goodness and the latter to your prudent Directions which I was ever careful to have and keep For as I have often said to your Majesty I was towards you but as a Bucket and a Cistern to draw forth and conserve your self was the Fountain Unto this comfort of nineteen years prosperity there succeded a comfort even in my greatest adversity somewhat of the same nature which is That in those offences wherewith I was charged there was not any one that had special relation to your Majesty or any your particular Commandments For as towards Almighty God there are Offences against the first and second Table and yet all against God So with the Servants of Kings there are Offences more immediate against the Sovereign Although all Offences against Law are also against the King Unto which Comfort there is added this Circumstance That as my Faults were not against your Majesty otherwise than as all Faults are so my Fall was not your Majesties Act otherwise than as all Acts of Justice are yours This I write not to insinuate with your Majesty but as a most humble Appeal to your Majesties gracious remembrance how honest and direct you have ever found me in your Service whereby I have an assured belief that there is in your Majesties own Princely Thoughts a great deal of serenity and clearness to me your Majesties now prostrate and cast-down Servant Neither my most gracious Sovereign do I by this mention of my Services lay claim to your Princely Grace and Bounty though the priviledg of Calamity doth bear that form of Petition I know well had they been much more they had been but my bounden Duty Nay I must also confess that they were from time to time far above my merit over and super-rewarded by your Majesties Benefits which you heaped upon me Your Majesty was and is that Master to me that raised and advanced me nine times thrice in Dignity and six times in Office The places indeed were the painfullest of all your Services But then they had both Honour and Profits And the then Profits might have maintained my now Honour if I had been wise Neither was your Majesties immediate liberality wanting towards me in some Gifts if I may hold them All this I do most thankfully acknowledg and do herewith conclude That for any thing arising from my self to move your Eye of pity towards me there is much more in my present Misery than in my past Services save that the same your Majesties Goodness that may give relief to the one may give value to the other And indeed if it may please your Majesty this Theme of my Misery is so plentiful as it need not be coupled with any thing else I have been some Body by your Majesties singular and undeserved favour even the prime Officer of your Kingdom Your Majesties Arm hath been over mine in Council when you presided at the Table so near I was I have born your Majesties Image in Metal much more in Heart I was never in nineteen years Service chidden by your Majesty but contrariwise often overjoyed when your Majesty would sometimes say I was a good Husband for you though none for my self sometimes That I had a way to deal in Business suavibus modis which was the way which was most according to your own Heart And other most gracious speeches of Affection and Trust which I feed on to this day But why should I speak of these things which are now vanished but only the better to express the Downfal For now it is thus with me I am a year and an half old in Misery though I must ever acknowledg not without some mixture of your Majesties Grace and Mercy For I do not think it possible that any you once loved should be totally miserable Mine own Means through mine own Improvidence are poor and weak little better than my Father left me The poor Things which I have had from your Majesty are either in Question or at Courtesy My Dignities remain Marks of your Favour but Burdens of my present Fortune The poor Remnants which I had of my former Fortunes in Plate or Jewels I have spread upon poor Men unto whom I owed scarce leaving my self a convenient Subsistence So as to conclude I must pour out my Misery before your Majesty so far as to say Si deseris tu perimus But as I can offer to your Majesties compassion little arising from my self to move you except it be my extream Misery which I
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
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
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
given to his Majesty which seemed then to stand upon doubtful Terms and passed upon this Speech b P. 47. The Eighth 12 Iacobi when the House was in great Heat and much troubled about the Vndertakers who were thought to be some able and forward Gentlemen who were said to have undertaken that the King's Business should pass in that House as his Majesty could wish c P. 48. His Speeches in the House of Lords are Two The First To the Lords at a Conference in the Parliament 7 Iacobi by him then Solicitor moving them to joyn with the Commons to obtain liberty to treat of a Composition with his Majesty for Wards and Tenures d P. 42. The Second when he was Chancellor to Mr. Serjeant Richardson chosen then Speaker of the House of Commons be-being a Reply to his Excuse aud Oration e P. 94. His Speeches to King Iames were also Two The First A Speech by him chosen by the Commons to present a Petition touching Purveyors deliver'd to his Majesty at White-Hall in the second Year of his Reign f P. 5. The Second a Speech used to the King by him then Solicitor and chosen by the Commons for the presenting of the Instrument of their Grievances in the Parliament 7 Iacobi g P. 41. His Speeches in the Chancery are Two likewise The First At the taking of his Place in Chancery when made Lord-Keeper h P. 79. The Second To Sir William Iones upon his calling to be Lord Chief Justice of Ireland Anno 1617. i P. 89. In the Star-Chamber he used a Speech to the Judges and others before the Summer Circuits being then Lord-Keeper and also Lord-Protector for his Majesty was at that time in Scotland Anno 1617. k P. 87. In the Common-Pleas he used a Speech to Justice Hutton when he was called to be one of the Judges in the Common-Pleas l P. 93. In the Exchequer-Chamber he used a Speech to Sir Iohn Denham when he was call'd to be one of the Barons of the Exchequer m P 91. There also he used an Argument being Solicitor General in the Case of the Post-nati of Scotland n Publ. first in 4 ◠Lon. 1641. before the Lord-Chancellor and all the Judges of England o 〈…〉 ◠in Resusc. part 2. p. 37. The Question in this Case was Whether a Child born in Scotland since King Iames's coming to the Crown of England was Naturaliz'd in England or no His Lordship argued for the Affirmative For his Charges they were these following First His Charge at the Sessions holden for the Verge in the Reign of King Iames declaring the Latitude and Jurisdiction thereof p Pub. in 4 ◠Lon. 1662. and reprinted in the 2d part of Resusc. By the Verge is meant a Plat of twelve Miles round laid to the King 's settled Mansion-House subject to special exempted Jurisdiction depending upon his Person and great Officers This his Lordship called an Half-pace or Carpet spread about the King's Chair of Estate and he judged that it ought to be cleared and void more than other places of the Kingdom that Offences might not seem to be shrowded under the King's Wings Secondly His Charge in the Star-Chamber against Duels q See Resusc. 2d Part. p. 1. to which may be added the Decree of the Star-Chamber in the same Case r In part 2. of Resusc. p. 9. Thirdly His Charge in the Star-Chamber against William Talbot touching the Doctrine of Suarez concerning the Deposing and Killing of Excommunicated Kings s Res. 1 part p. 53. Fourthly His Charge in the same Court against Mr. I. S. for Scandalizing and Traducing in the Public Sessions Letters sent from the Lords of the Council touching the Benevolence t P. 60. Fifthly His Charge in the same Court against M. L. S. W. and H. I. for Traducing the King's Justice in the proceedings against Weston one of the Instruments in the empoysoning of Sir Thomas Overbury u P. 72. Sixthly His Charge in the Kings-Bench against Owen for affirming conditionally That if the King were Excommunicated it were lawful to kill him w P. 68. Seventhly His Charge in the Kings-Bench against the Lord Sanquere x In part 2. of Resusc. p. 15. a Scotish Nobleman who in private Revenge had suborned Robert Carlile to murther Iohn Turner a Master of Fence Eighthly His Charge before the Lord High Steward Lord Elesmere and the Peers against the Countess and Earl of Somerset y Now first publ at the beginning of these Remains His Lordship's Seventh Writing touching Civil Policy in Special is his Reading on the Statute of Vses z Pub. in 4 ◠Lon. 1642. The Eighth is call'd Observations upon a Libel publish'd Anno 1592 in Defamation of the Queen's Government a Resusc p. 103. In these Observations his Lordship hath briefly set forth the present State of those Times but he hath done the same thing more at large in his Memorial of Queen Elizabeth The Ninth is A true Report of the Treason of Dr. Roderigo Lopez a Spaniard and a Physician attending upon the Person of the Queen who was in Confederacy with certain Spanish Agents and hired by the King of Spain to poyson her Majesty b Pag. 151. The Tenth is His Apologie touching the Earl of Essex in which he cleareth himself of Ingratitude by the plain reasons of the Case and doth not as many others have done increase the suspicion by the very Excuse c Publ. in 4 ◠Lon. 1642. and in 16 ◠An. 1651. and reprinted in the 2d part of Resusc. The Eleventh is Advice to King Iames touching Mr. Sutton's Estate in the settling of which in the Hospital of the Chartreaux the Event sheweth that his Lordship was mistaken when he called it A Sacrifice without Salt d Reusc p 265. He proposed four other Ends of that great heap of Alms to the King's Majesty As first The Erection of a College for Controversies for the encountring and refuting of Papists Secondly The Erection of a Receipt for the word Seminary he refus'd to make use of for Converts from the persuasions of Rome to the Reformed Religion Thirdly A settlement of Stipends for Itinerary Preachers in Places which needed them as in Lancashire where such care had been taken by Queen Elizabeth And lastly An increase of Salary to the Professors in either University of this Land Wherefore his Lordship manifesting himself not against the Charity but the manner of disposing it it was not well done of those who have publickly defam'd him by declaring their jealousies of Bribery by the Heir The Twelfth is A Proposition to King Iames touching the Compiling and Amendment of the Laws of England written by him when he was Attourney General and one of the Privy-Council e Pag. 271. The Thirteenth is An Offer to King Iames of a Digest to be made of the Laws of England
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
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
forbidden us to expect any more of his Râ—mains in Latine or English He addeth in express Terms that nothing further remained in his Hands He meant when he said this that such Writings of his Lordship were to be esteemed as not in being which were not worthy to appear This meaning of his he more plainly deliver'd in his Preface to the Collection called Resuscitatio There he saith That he had left nothing to a future hand which he found to be of moment or communicable to the public save only some few Latine Works soon after to be publish'd He deliver'd himself from the Obligation of that Promise in the Year fifty eight publishing then with all due care those Latine Works e Opus Posth Philos. Civil Theologica F. B. B. de Ver. Soon after he was accus'd by an obscure Prefacer to a new Edition of the Essays in Octavo as one that had still concealed some of his Lordship's Philosophical Treasures In vindication of himself from this Censure I find him using these words in one of his papers wherein he animadverteth on that preface I have publish'd all I thought fit or a well advised Man would have thought fit to be publish'd by me He judged some papers touching Matters of Estate to tread too near to the heels of Truth and to the times of the Persons concerned from which now they are further remov'd by the distance of Twenty Years He thought his Lord's Letters concerning his Fall might be injurious to his Honour and cause the old Wounds of it to bleed anew whereas if the remembrance of them had not been fresh in the Minds of many and in the Books of some the Collection of the Cabala had revived part of it in a corrupt Copy and the matter of those Letters is of such a nature as afterwards I shall shew that it rather cleareth his Lordship's Fame than throws more dirt upon it For the Philosophical Remains he judged them unfit to be committed to the Press because they were but Fragments and such too as his Lordship's last Hand had not rendred Correct The excess of Veneration which he had for his Lordship inclin'd him to think nothing worthy to bear his Name which was not a Masterpiece And for this Reason If Surreptitious Copies had not moved him to do his Lordship right by printing the true ones we had wanted divers Papers which the World now enjoys and receives with thankfulness And where the substance is Gold Men will readily accept it though in the Ore and unrefined Nor is it any disparagement to the Inventory of his Lordship's philosophical Goods if there are numbred amongst them certain broken uncoined pieces of valuable Metal Some few imperfect Papers about his Lordship's private Affairs or of very little moment in Philosophy are still kept where they ought to be in private Hands But those which have been judged worthy the Light by those Learned and Prudent Men whom I have consulted are now with no small Labour communicated to the World For so blotted were some of the Papers so torn so disjoynted so intermixed in Contents of a different Nature that the Sense as it now stands may seem like Mercury reduced to its proper Form after its divers Shapes and Transmutations Now these Remains which I have been moved to publish I have digested according to the nature of their Contents and reduc'd them to these several Heads of Arguments Civil and Moral Physiological Medical Theological and Bibliographical Under the first Head of Remains Civil and Moral are contained these Papers The First is His Charges against the Countess and Earl of Somerset touching the death of Sir Thomas Overbury The proper place for these Charges was in the first part of the Resuscitatio f Resusc p. 7â— before his Charge against three Persons for Scandal and traducing of the King's Justice in the proceedings against Weston But Dr. Rawley as appeared by a Note of his on the Margent of those papers did at that time forbear the inserting of them lest they should be offensive to some then alive Now more than Sixty Years have passed since the end of that Tragedy and the News of it was told in the Ears of the World and the Story was made publick and lasting by the Press both before and after g Seâ— it in Sir W. Dugdale's Baron of Eng. Tome 2â— P. 425. c. the Doctor 's death And what Curtain soever our Prudence would draw we could not conceal so public a Matter Nor is it fitting we should For thereby we should endeavour to hide from Men one useful Memorial of Divine Justice A Memorial apt to deter Greatness from a Practice which if it were common there would be no safe eating or drinking or breathing in Courts At the Trial some Body of bad Memory and no better Pen wrote down most imperfectly a little of that which Mr. Attorney had spoken largely and elegantly upon this solemn Occasion And in the Year fifty one a time of general Licence this Scribble was publish'd h In the Pamphlet entituled â— True and Historical Rel. of the Poyson of Sir Tho. Overbury in 12 â— The Publisher had the confidence to affirm that the Narrative was Collected out of the Papers of Sir Francis Bacon i 'T is so said in the Title Page which by the Copies I set forth 't is manifest the Relator never had seen But a good Name in the Title-page was an useful Bush for the putting off the crude and unfined Matter in the Book it self Little hath the Relator told of much which was said by Mr. Attorney and that which he hath told he hath repeated in such ill manner that it is no longer Sir Francis Bacon's but his own In one Place k Pag. 107 108. he introduceth Mr. Attorney speaking thus This is the second time since the King 's coming these thirteen Years that any Peers have been Arraigned and both these times your Grace hath had the Place of High Steward The first was Grey and Cobham and though they were Convicted yet Execution follow'd not no Noble Blood hath been spilt since his Majestie 's Reign The first was Revenge of Treason against Male-contents and this of the particular offence to a private Subject against those that have been so high in the King's Grace and Favour and therefore deserves to be written in a Sun-beam but his being the best Master in in the World hinders him not from being the best King for He can as well plain a Hill as raise a Wall a good Lesson to put to my Lords the Peers He is Lieutenant to him who is no respecter of persons Now how curtail'd how incoherent how mean and unelegant is this in comparison of that which Mr. Attorney spake For he spake that which followeth In all this mean time the King hath Reigned in his White Robe not sprinkled with any one drop of Blood of any of his Nobles of this Kingdom Nay such have
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
are four Heads of Proofs to prove you guilty my Lord of Somerset of this Impoisonment whereof two are precedent to the Imprisonment the third is present and the fourth is following or subsequent For it is in Proofs as it is in Lights there is a direct Light and there is a reflexion of Light or Back-Light The first Head or Proof thereof is That there was a root of Bitterness a mortal Malice or Hatred mixed with deep and bottomless Fears that you had towards Sir Thomas Overbury The second is That you were the principal Actor and had your hand in all those Acts which did conduce to the Impoisonment and which gave opportunity and means to effect it and without which the Impoisonment could never have been and which could serve or tend to no other end but to the Impoisonment The third is That your hand was in the very Impoisonment it self which is more than needs to be proved that you did direct Poison that you did deliver Poison that you did continually hearken to the success of the Impoisonment and that you spurred it on and called for dispatch when you thought it lingred And lastly That you did all the things after the Impoisonment which may detect a guilty Conscience for the smothering of it and avoiding punishment for it which can be but of three kinds That you suppressed as much as in you was Testimony That you did deface and destroy and clip and misdate all Writings that might give light to the Impoisonment and that you did fly to the Altar of Guiltiness which is a Pardon and a Pardon of Murder and a Pardon for your Self and not for your Lady In this my Lord I convert my speech to you because I would have you attend the Points of your Charge and so of your Defence the better And two of these Heads I have taken to my self and left the other two to the King 's two Serjeants For the first main part which is the mortal Hatred coupled with Fear that was in my Lord of Somerset towards Overbury although he did palliate it with a great deal of hypocrisie and dissimulation even to the end I shall prove it my Lord Steward and you my Lords and Peers manifestly by matter both of Oath and Writing The root of this Hatred was that that hath cost many a Man's Life that is Fear of discovering Secrets Secrets I say of a high and dangerous nature wherein the course that I will hold shall be this First I will shew that such a Breach and Malice was between my Lord and Overbury and that it burst forth into violent Menaces and Threats on both sides Secondly That these Secrets were not light but of a high nature for I will give you the Elevation of the Pole They were such as my Lord of Somerset for his part had made a Vow That Overbury should neither live in Court nor Country That he had likewise opened himself and his own fears so far that if Overbury ever came forth of the Tower either Overbury or himself must die for it And of Overbury's part he had threatned my Lord That whether he did live or die my Lord's shame should never die but he would leave him the most odious Man of the World And farther that my Lord was like enough to repent it in the place where Overbury wrote which was the Tower of London He was a true Prophet 〈◊〉 that So here in the height of the Secrets Thirdly I will shew you that all the King's Business was by my Lord put into Overbury's Hands So as there is work enough for Secrets whatsoever they were And like Princes Confederates they had their Ciphers and Iargons And lastly I will shew you that it is but a Toy to say that the Malice was only in respect he spake dishonourbly of the Lady or for doubt of breaking the Marriage For that Overbury was a Coadjutor to that Love and the Lord of Somerset was as deep in speaking ill of the Lady as Overbury And again it was too late for that Matter for the Bargain of the Match was then made and past And if it had been no more but to remove Overbury from disturbing of the Match it had been an easy matter to have banded over Overbury beyond Seas for which they had a fair way but that would not serve their turn And lastly Periculum periculo vincitur to go so far as an Impoisonment must have a deeper malice than flashes For the Cause must bear a proportion to the Effect For the next general Head of Proofs which consists in Acts preparatory to the middle Acts they are in eight several points of the Compass as I may term it First That there were devices and projects to dispatch Overbury or to overthrow him plotted between the Countess of Somerset the Earl of Somerset and the Earl of Northampton before they fell upon the Impoisonment For always before Men fix upon a course of Mischief there be some rejections but die he must one way or other Secondly That my Lord of Somerset was principal Practicer I must speak it in a most perfidious manner to set a Train or Trap for Overbury to get him into the Tower without which they never durst have attempted the Impoisonment Thirdly That the placing of the Lieutenant Helwisse one of the Impoisoners and the displacing of Waade was by the means of my Lord of Somerset Fourthly That the placing of Weston the under-Keeper who was the principal Impoisoner and the displacing of Cary and the doing of all this within fifteen days after Overbury's Commitment was by the means and countenance of my Lord of Somerset And these two were the active Instruments of the Impoisonment And this was a Business that the Ladies power could not reach unto Fifthly That because there must be a time for the Tragedy to be acted and chiefly because they would not have the Poisons work upon the sudden And for that the strength of Overbury's Nature or the very custom of receiving Poison into his Body did overcome the Poisons that they wrought not so fast therefore Overbury must be held in the Tower And as my Lord of Somerset got him into the Trap so he kept him in and abused him with continual hopes of Liberty and diverted all the true and effectual means of his Liberty and made light of his Sickness and Extremities Sixthly That not only the Plot of getting Overbury into the Tower and the devices to hold him and keep him there but the strange manner of his close keeping being in but for a Contempt was by the device and means of my Lord of Somerset who denied his Father to see him denied his Servants that offered to be shut up close Prisoners with him and in effect handled it so that he was close Prisoner to all his Friends and open and exposed to all his Enemies Seventhly That the Advertisement which my Lady received from time to time from the Lievtenant or
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
prudentia summâ eloquentia tenaci memoriâ sacris consiliis alterum columen Of person very corpulent most quick Wit singular Prudence admirable Eloquence special Memory and another Pillar to the Privy-Council Of his Death this is said * This Account is inserted by the Publisher who took it out of a Paper of the Lord Bacon's to be the occasion He had his Barber rubbing and combing his Head And because it was very hot the Window was open to let in a fresh Wind. He fell asleep and awaked all distemper'd and in a great sweat Said he to the Barber Why did you let me sleep Why my Lord said he I durst not wake your Lordship Why then saith my Lord Keeper you have killed me with Kindness So he removed into his Bed-Chamber and within a few days died Whereupon being Interred on the South-side of the Quire in St. Paul's Cathedral within the City of London he had a noble Monument r Hist. of St. Paul's Cath. p. 71. there erected to his Memory with this Epitaph Hic Nicolaum ne Baconem conditum existima illum tam diu Britannici Regni secundum columen Exitium malis Bonis Asylum caeca quem non extulit ad hunc honorem sors sed Aequitas Fides Doctrina Pietas unica Prudentia Neu fortè raptum crede qui unica brevi vitâ perenni emerit duas agit vitam secundam caelites inter animas Fama implet orbem vita quae illi tertia est Hac positum in arâ est Corpus olim animi Domus Ara dicata sempiternae Memoriae That is * This Translation is done by the Publisher for the benefit of the English Reader Think not that this Shrine contains that Nicholas Bacon who was so long the second Pillar of Great Britain the Scourge of the Vicious and the Sanctuary of the Good Whom blind Fortune did not exalt to that height of Honour but his Equity Fidelity Learning Piety singular Prudence Neither believe him to be by chance snatch'd away who by one short Life purchased two in Life Eternal He lives his second Life among the Heavenly Spirits His Fame filleth the World which is his third Life In this Altar is reposed his Body sometime the House of his Soul an Altar dedicated to his perpetual Memory Thus much touching the Parentage of this Francis his Birth s Liâ—e of c. by Dr. Rawley being at York-House in the Strand upon the twenty second day of Ianuary Anno 1560. 2 Eliz. It is observed t Life of c. by Dr. Rawley that in his tender Years his Pregnancy was such as gave great indication of his future high Accomplishments in so much as Queen Elizabeth took notice of him and called him The young Lord-Keeper also that asking him how old he was though but a Boy he answered that he was two years younger than her Majesties most happy Reign As to his Education he was u Ibid. of Trinity College in Cambridg under the tuition of Doctor Iohn Whitgift then Master there but afterwards the renowned Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Where having with great proficiency spent some time he was sent x Ibid. into France with Sir Amias Paulet her Majestie 's Leiger Ambassador and thence intrusted with a Message y Ibid. to the Queen which he performed with much approbation and so returned After this coming from Travail and applying himself to the study of the Common Law he was seated z Ibid. in Grays-Inn Where in short time he became so highly esteemed for his Abilities as that in 30 Eliz. being then but 28 years of Age that honourable Society chose a Orig. Iurid p. 295. a. him for their Lent Reader And in 32 Eliz. was made b Pat. 32 Eliz. p. 11. one of the Clerks of the Council In 42 Eliz. being c Orig. Iu. 295. b. double Reader in that House and affecting much the Ornament thereof he caused d Ib. 272. b. that beautiful Grove of Elms to be planted in the Walks which yet remain And upon the 23 of Iuly 1 Iac. was Knighted e MS. in offic Arm. at White-Hall Shortly after which viz. in 2 Iac. he was made f Pat. 2 Jac. p. 12. one of the King's Council learned having therewith a grant g Pat. 2 Jac. p. 12. of forty Pounds per annum Fee and in 5 Iac. constituted h Pat. 11. Jac. p. 5. his Majestie 's Solicitor General In 9 Iac. he was made i Pat. 9. Jac. p. joynt Judge with Sir Thomas Vavasor then Knight Marshal of the Knight Marshal's Court then newly erected within the Verge of the King's House and in 11 Iac. 27 Octob. being made k Pat. 5 Jac. p. 14. Attorney General was sworn l Annal. R. Jac. per Cambd. of the Privy Council In 14 Iac. he was constituted m lb. in an 1617. Lord Keeper of the Great Seal 7 Martii being then fifty four years of Age. ‖ An Insertion by the Publisher It is said in a * The Court of King James p. 115 116. Libel in which are many other notorious Slanders that the Duke of Buckingham to vex the very Soul of the Lord Chancellour Egerton in his last Agony did send Sir Francis Bacon to him for the Seals and likewise that the dying Chancellor did hate that Bacon should be his Successor and that his Spirit not brooking this usage he sent the Seals by his Servant to the King and shortly after yielded his Soul to his Maker In which few words there are two palpable Untruths For first The King himself sent for the Seal not the Duke of Buckingham And he sent for it not by Sir Francis Bacon a Aulicus â—cquinariae p. 171. but by Secretary Winwood with this Message that himself would be his Under-Keeper and not dispose of the Place of Chancellour while he lived Nor did any receive the Seal out of the King's sight till the Lord Egerton died which soon fell out Next The Lord Chancellour Egerton was willing that Master Attorney Bacon should be his Successor and ready to forward his Succession So far was he from conceiving hatred against him either upon that or any other Account The Lord Egerton was his Friend in the Queen's time and I find Mr. Bacon making his acknowledgements in a Letter to him in these words which I once transcribed from the unpublish'd Original For my placing your Lordship best knoweth that when I was most dejected with her Majestie 's strange dealing towards me it pleased you of your singular favour so far to comfort and encourage me as to hold me worthy to be excited to think of succeeding your Lordship in your second Place Signifying in your plainness that no Man should better content your self Which your exceeding favour you have not since carried from both in pleading the like signification into the hands of some of my best Friends and also in an honourable and
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
have truly laid open so looking up to your Majesty 's own self I should think I committed Cain's fault if I should despair Your Majesty is a King whose Heart is as unscrutable for secret motions of Goodness as for depth of Wisdom You are Creator-like Factive and not Destructive You are the Prince in whom hath been ever noted an aversation against any thing that savoured of an hard Heart as on the other side your Princely Eye was wont to meet with any motion that was made on the relieving part Therefore as one that hath had the happiness to know your Majesty near hand I have most Gracious Sovereign Faith enough for a Miracle much more for a Grace that your Majesty will not suffer your poor Creature to be utterly defaced nor blot that Name quite out of your Book upon which your Sacred Hand hath been so oft for new Ornaments and Additions Unto this degree of compassion I hope God above of whose Mercy towards me both in my Prosperity and Adversity I have had great Testimonies and Pledges though mine own manifold and wretched unthankfulnesses might have averted them will dispose your Princely Heart already prepared to all Piety And why should I not think but that thrice Noble Prince who would have pulled me out of the Fire of a Sentence will help to pull me if I may use that homely phrase out of the Mire of an abject and sordid condition in my last days And that excellent Favorite of yours the goodness of whose Nature contendeth with the greatness of his Fortune and who counteth it a Prize a second Prize to be a good Friend after that Prize which he carrieth to be a good Servant will kiss your Hands with joy for any Work of Piety you shall do for me And as all commiserable Persons especially such as find their Hearts void of all malice are apt to think that all Men pity them I assure my self that the Lords of your Council who out of their Wisdom and Nobleness cannot but be sensible of humane Events will in this way which I go for the Relief of my Estate further and advance your Majesty's Goodness towards me For there is as I conceive a kind of Fraternity between Great Men that are and those that have been being but the several Tenses of one Verb. Nay I do further presume that both Houses of Parliament will love their Justice the better if it end not in my ruin For I have been often told by many of my Lords as it were in excusing the severity of the Sentence that they knew they left me in good Hands And your Majesty knoweth well I have been all my life long acceptable to those Assemblies not by flattery but by moderation and by honest expressing of a desire to have all things go fairly and well But if it may please your Majesty for Saints I shall give them Reverence but no Adoration my Address is to your Majesty the Fountain of Goodness your Majesty shall by the Grace of God not feel that in Gift which I shall extreamly feel in Help For my Desires are moderate and my Courses measured to a Life orderly and reserved hoping still to do your Majesty honour in my way Only I most humbly beseech your Majesty to give me leave to conclude with those words which Necessity speaketh Help me dear Sovereign Lord and Master and pity me so far as I that have born a Bag be not now in my Age forced in effect to bear a Wallet nor I that desire to live to study may not be driven to study to live I most humbly crave pardon of a long Letter after a long silence God of Heaven ever bless preserve and prosper your Majesty Your Majesties poor ancient Servant and Beadsman Fr. St. Alb. Certain Apothegms of the Lord Bacon's hitherto unpublished 1. PLutarch said well It is otherwise in a Common-wealth of Men than of Bees The Hive of a City or Kingdom is in best condition when there is least of noise or Buzze in it 2. The same Plutarch said of Men of weak Abilities set in Great Place that they were like little Statues set on great Bases made to appear the less by their Advancement 3. He said again Good Fame is like Fire When you have kindled it you may easily preserve it but if once you extinguish it you will not easily kindle it again at least not make it burn as bright as it did 4. The Answer of Apollonius to Vespasian is full of excellent * This Apothegm is also found in his Essay of Empire P. 107 Instruction Vespasian asked him What was Nero's overthrow He answered Nero could touch and tune the Harp well but in Government sometimes he used to wind the Pins too high sometimes to let them down too low And certain it is that nothing destroyeth Authority so much as the unequal and untimely enterchange of Power pressed too far and relaxed too much 5. Queen Elizabeth seeing Sir Edward in her Garden look'd out at her Window and asked him in Italian What does a Man think of when he thinks of nothing Sir Edward who had not had the effect of some of the Queen's Grants so soon as he had hop'd and desir'd paused a little and then made answer Madam He thinks of a Woman's Promise The Queen shrunk in her Head but was heard to say Well Sir Edward I must not confute you Anger makes dull Men witty but it keeps them poor 6. When any Great Officer Ecclesiastical or Civil was to be made the Queen would enquire after the Piety Integrity Learning of the Man And when she was satisfied in these Qualifications she would consider of his Personage And upon such an Occasion she pleas'd once to say to me Bacon How can the Magistrate maintain his Authority when the Man is despis'd 7. In Eighty Eight when the Queen went from Temple-Bar along Fleetstreet the Lawyers were rank'd on one side and the Companies of the City on the other said Master Bacon to a Lawyer that stood next him do but observe the Courtiers If they bow first to the Citizens they are in Debt if first to us they are in Law 8. King Iames was wont to be very earnest with the Country Gentlemen to go from London to their Country Houses And sometimes he would say thus to them Gentlemen at London you are like Ships in a Sea which show like nothing but in your Country Villages you are like Ships in a River which look like great things 9. Soon after the death of a great Officer who was judged no advancer of the King's Matters the King said to his Sollicitor Bacon who was his Kinsman Now tell me truly what say you of your Cousin that is gone Mr. Bacon answered Sir since your Majesty doth charge me I 'le e'ne deal plainly with you and give you such a character of him as if I were to write his Story I do think he was no fit Counsellor to make your
Affairs better but yet he was fit to have kept them from growing worse The King said On my So'l Man in the first thou speakest like a True Man and in the latter like a Kinsman 10. King Iames as he was a Prince of great Judgment so he was a Prince of a marvellous pleasant humour and there now come into my mind two instances of it As he was going through Lusen by Greenwich he ask'd what Town it was they said Lusen He ask'd a good while after What Town is this we are now in They said still 't was Lusen On my So'l said the King I will be King of Lusen 11. In some other of his Progresses he ask'd how far 't was to a Town whose name I have forgotten they said Six miles Half an hour after he ask'd again one said Six miles and an half The King alighted out of his Coach and crept under the Shoulder of his Led Horse And when some ask'd his Majesty what he meant I must stalk said he for yonder Town is shie and flies me 12. Count Gondomar sent a Complement to my Lord St. Albans wishing him a good Easter My Lord thank'd the Messenger and said He could not at present requite the Count better than in returning him the like That he wished his Lordship a good Passover 13. My Lord Chancellor Elsmere when he had read a Petition which he dislik'd would say What! you would have my hand to this now And the Party answering yes He would say further Well so you shall Nay you shall have both my hands to 't And so would with both his hands tear it in pieces 14. I knew a * See this also in his Essay of Dispatch p. 143. Wise Man that had it for a by-word when he saw Men hasten to a Conclusion Stay a little that we may make an end the sooner 15. Sir Francis Bacon was wont to say of an angry Man who suppressed his Passion That he thought worse than he spake and of an angry Man that would chide That he spoke worse than he thought 16. He was wont also to say That Power in an ill Man was like the Power of a black Witch He could do hurt but no good with it And he would add That the Magicians could turn Water into Blood but could not turn the Blood again to Water 17. When Mr. Attourney Cook in the Exchequer gave high words to Sr. Francis Bacon and stood much upon his higher Place Sir Francis said to him Mr. Attourney The less you speak of your own greatness the more I shall think of it and the more the less 18. Sir Francis Bacon coming into the Earl of Arundel's Garden where there were a great number of Ancient Statues of naked Men and Women made a stand and as astonish'd cryed out The Resurrection 19. Sir Francis Bacon who was always for moderate Counsels when one was speaking of such a Reformation of the Church of England as would in effect make it no Church said thus to him Sir The Subject we talk of is the Eye of England And if there be a speck or two in the Eye we endeavour to take them off but he were a strange Oculist who would pull out the Eye 20. The same Sir Francis Bacon was wont to say That those who left useful Studies for useless Scholastic Speculations were like the Olympic Gamsters who abstain'd from necessary Labours that they might be fit for such as were not so 21. He likewise often used this Comparison * See the Substance of this in Nov. Org. Ed. Lugd. Bat. p. 105. inter Cogitata visa p. 53. The Empirical Philosophers are like to Pismires they only lay up and use their Store The Rationalists are like to Spiders they spin all out of their own Bowels But give me a Philosopher who like the Bee hath a middle faculty gathering from abroad but digesting that which is gathered by his own virtue 22. The Lord St. Alban who was not overhasty to raise Theories but proceeded slowly by Experiments was wont to say to some Philosophers who would not go his Pace Gentlemen Nature is a Labyrinth in which the very hast you move with will make you lose your way 23. The same Lord when he spoke of the Dutchmen used to say That we could not abandon them for our safety nor keep them for our profit And sometimes he would express the same sense on this manner We hold the Belgic Lion by the Ears 24. The same Lord when a Gentleman seem'd not much to approve of his Liberality to his Retinue said to him Sir I am all of a Piece If the Head be lifted up the inferiour parts of the Body must too 25. The Lord Bacon was wont to commend the Advice of the plain old Man at Buxton that sold Beesoms A proud lazy young Fellow came to him for a Beesom upon Trust to whom the Old Man said Friend hast thou no Mony borrow of thy Back and borrow of thy Belly they 'l ne're ask thee again I shall be dunning thee every day 26. Solon * See this in his Essay of the true Greatness of Kingdoms p. 171. said well to Craesus when in ostentation he shewed him his Gold Sir if any other come that has better Iron than you he will be master of all this Gold 27. Iack Weeks said of a great Man just then dead who pretended to some Religion but was none of the best livers Well I hope he is in Heaven Every Man thinks as he wishes but if he be in Heaven 't were pity it were known Ornamenta Rationalia A supply by the Publisher of certain weighty and elegant Sentences some made others collected by the Lord Bacon and by him put under the above-said Title and at present not to be found A Collection of Sentences out of the Mimi of Publius Englished by the Publisher 1. A Leator quantò in Arte est melior tantò est nequior A Gamster the greater Master he is in his Art the worse Man he is 2. Arcum intensio frangit Animum remissio Much bending breaks the Bow much unbending the Mind 3. Bis vincit qui se vincit in Victoriâ He conquers twice who upon Victory overcomes himself 4. Cùm vitia prosint peccat Qui rectè facit If Vices were upon the whole matter profitable the virtuous Man would be the sinner 5. Benè dormit qui non sentit quòd malè dormiat He sleeps well who feels not that he sleeps ill 6. Deliberare utilia mora est tutissima To deliberate about useful things is the safest delay 7. Dolor decrescit ubi quò crescat non habet The flood of Grief decreaseth when it can swell no higher 8. Etiam Innocentes cogit mentiri dolor Pain makes even the Innocent Man a Lyar. 9. Etiam celeritas in desiderio mora est 〈◊〉 in desire swiftness it self is delay 10. Etiam capillus unus habet umbram suam The smallest Hair casts a