The Right Hon ble S r Francis Bacon Baron of Verulam Viscount of S t Albans L d High Chancellor of England BACONIANA Or Certain Genuine REMAINS OF S R. Francis Bacon Baron of VERULAM AND Viscount of St. ALBANS In Arguments Civil and Moral Natural Medical Theological and Bibliographical Now the First time faithfully Published An ACCOUNT of these Remains and of all his Lordship 's other Works is given by the Publisher in a Discourse by way of INTRODUCTION LONDON Printed by I. D. for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1679. A TABLE OF THE Contents Baconiana Politico-moralia Under this Head are Contained 1. SIR Francis Bacon 's Charge against Frances Countess of Somerset about poysoning of Sir Tho. Overbury p. 3. 2. His Charge against Robert Earl of Somerset touching the same matter p. 14. 3. His Letter to the Vniversity of Cambridg when he was sworn Privy-Counsellor In Latine p. 37. In English p. 39. 4. His Letter to King James touching the Chancellor's Place p. 41. 5. His Letter to King James for the Relief of his Estate p. 45. 6. His Remaining Apothegms p. 53. 7. A Supply of his Ornamenta Rationalia or Judicious Sentences 1. Out of the Mimi of Publius in Latine and English p. 60. 2. Out of his own Writings p. 65. Baconiana Physiologica Containing I. A Fragment of his Abecedarium Naturae in Latine p. 77. and English p. 84. II. His Inquisition touching the Compounding of Metals p. 92. III. His Articles of Questions touching Minerals 1. Concerning the Incorporation and Union of Metals p. 104. 2. Dr. Meveril's Answers to them p. 110. 3. Concerning the Separation of Metals and Minerals p. 114. 4. Dr. Meverel's Answers to them p. 116. 5. Concerning the Variation of Metals and Minerals p. 118. 6. Dr. Meverel's Answers p. 123. 7. Concerning the Restitution of Metals p. 127. 8. Dr. Meverel's Answer p. 128. IV. The Lord Bacon's Inquisition concerning the Versions Transmutations Multiplications and Effections of Bodies p. 129. V. His Speech about the Recovery of Drown'd Mineral Works p. 131. VI. His Experiments about Weight in Air and Water p. 134. VII His Experiments for Profit p. 138. VIII His Experiments about the Commixâ—ure of Liquors by Simple Composition only p. 140. IX A Catalogue of Bodies Attractive and not Attractive with Observations upon them in Latine p. 145. in English p. 149. Baconiana Medica Under this Head are Contained 1. His Paper about Prolongation of Life called by him Grains of Youth p. 155. 2. A Catalogue of Astringents Openers and Cordials instrumental to long Life p. 161. 3. An Extract by his Lordship out of his Book of the Prolongation of Life for his own use p. 167. 4. His Medical Receipts against the Stone c. p. 171. Baconiana Theologica Under this Head are Contained 1. His Questions of the Lawfulness of a War for the Propagation of Religion p. 179. 2. Two Prayers of his one called the Students the other the Writers Prayer p. 181 182. Baconiana Bibliographica Under this Head are Contained I. Papers written by Himself relating to his Books As 1. His Letter to the Queen of Bohemia to whom he sent his Book of a War with Spain p. 187. 2. A Letter of the Lord Bacon's to the Vniversity of Cambridg upon his sending to them his Book De Augm. Scient in Latine p. 189 in English p. 190. 3. His Letter to the same Vniversity upon his sending to them his Novum Organum in Latin p. 191. in Engl. p. 192. 4. His Letter to Trinity College in Cambridg upon his sending to them his Book of the Advancement of Learning in Latine p. 193. in English p. 194. 5. His Letter to the Bishop of Lincoln about his Speeches c. p. 195. 6. His Letter to Father Fulgentio about all his Writings in English p. 196. 7. To Marquess Fiat about his Essays in French p. 201. in English p. 202. 8. Part of his last Testament concerning his Writings p. 203. II. Papers written by others relating to his Books and Life As 1. A Letter to him from the Vniversity of Oxford in Latine p. 204. in English p. 206. upon his having sent to them his Book De Augmentis Scientiarum 2. A Letter from Dr. Maynwaring to Dr. Rawley about the Lord Bacon's Confession of Faith p. 209. 3. A Letter from Dr. Rawley to Mounsieur Aelius Deodate in Latine p. 214. in English p. 215. concerning his publishing the Lord Bacon's Works 4. Mounsieur Deodate's Answer in Latine p. 217. and English p. 219. 5. Mr. Isaac Gruter's Three Letters to Dr. Rawley in Latine p. 221 231 238. in English p. 225 234 240. concerning the Lord Bacon's Works 6. An Account of the Life and Writings of the Lord Bacon by Sir W. Dugdale together with Insertions by the Publisher p. 242. 7. A Character of the Lord Bacon by Dr. Heylin p. 263. 8. A Character by Dr. Sprat p. 264. 9. A Character of his Philosophy by Mr. Cowley p. 267. Liber cui Titulus Baconiana c. IMPRIMATUR Ex Aedibus Lambethanis Nov. 20. 1678. Geo. Thorp Rev mo in C. P. D. Dom. Gulielmo Archiep. Cant. a Sacris Domesticis ERRATA In the Introduction PAge 6. Line 24. Read Sprang P. 11. l. 12. r. Site l. 28. for that r. the. P. 13. Margent l. 2. for with r. inter P. 15. l. 26. for to r. and. P. 16 l. 9. for to r. for P. 24. l. 18. r. â—nlarged l. 25. for were r. wear P. 27. l. 23. for his r. this P. 40. l. 9. for precious r considerable P. 43. l. 29. r. compare them P. 57. l. 13. for of r. the. P. 59. l. 16. for Edward 3d. r. Edit 3d. P. 60. l. 8. put a period after publish'd P. 62. l. 19. r. Methodical P. 71. l. 24. r. though they In the Book P. 20. l. 11. blot out but. P. 33. l. 4. for in r. is P. 37. l. 23. r. relictum P. 61. l. 21. blot out even P. 79. l. 24. blot out Add. P. 83. l. 12. r. vellâ—cationes P. 85. l. 21. for Impossibility r. in Possibility P. 89. l. 20. for interspect r. intersperse P. 95. l. 19. r. it will P. 119. l. 2. r. Arborescents P. 125. l. 18. r. fittest P. 132. l. 26 27. for the whole Intellects r. your noble Intellects P. 135. l. 29. r. differ P. 139. l. 11. r. rawns P. 146. l. 7. for hewed r. â—eaved P. 148. l. 10. r. ipsam P. 149. l. 10. for Sheaves r. Shivers P. 16. 2 l. 9. r. mullein P. 165. l. 13. r. Cupparus P. 167. l. 2. r. Puls P. 168. l 28. for with juyce r. which I use P. 189. l. 16. r. legitimè P. 192. l. 15. r. it is P. 199. l. 19 20. r. prodromi P. â—01 l. 4. for file r. filz l. 9. for non r. mon. l. 23. for ex r. et P. 208. l. 9. blot out c. P. 215. l. 3. r. generosissime Domine l. 4. r. addictissimus P.
from the Hague had occasioned so late an Answer to it He deserves pardon who offends against his will And who will endeavour to make amends for this involuntary delay by the study of such kindness as shall be vigilant in Offices of Friendship as often as occasion shall be offer'd The Design of him who translated into French the Natural History of the Lord Bacon of which I gave account in my former Letters is briefly exhibited in my Brother's Preface which I desire you to peruse as also in your next Letter to send me your Judgment concerning such Errors as may have been committed by him That Edition of my Brother's of which you write that you read it with a great deal of Pleasure shall shortly be set forth with his Amendments together with some Additions of the like Argument to be substituted in the place of the New Atlantis which shall be there omitted These Additions will be the same with those in the Version of the formentioned Frenchman put into Latine seeing we could not find the English Originals from which he translates them Unless you when you see the Book shall condemn those Additions as adulterate For your Observations on those Places either not rightly understood or not accurately turned out of the English by you published which from one not a Native in his first Essay and growing in Knowledg together with his Years if they be many no Man needs wonder at it who understands the Physiological variety of an Argument of such extent and rendred difficult by such an heap of things of which it consists and for the expressing of which there is not a supply of words from the Ancients but some of a new stamp and such as may serve for present use are required I intreat you not to deny me the sight of them That so I may compare them with the Corrections which my Brother now with God did make with a very great deal of pains But whether the truth of them answers his diligence will be best understood by your self and those few others by whom such Elegancies can be rightly judged of I send you here a Catalogue of those writings a These were the Papers which J. Gruter afterwards publish'd under the title of Scripta Philosophica which I had in MS. out of the study of Sir William Boswel and which I now have by me either written by the Lord Bacon himself or by some English Amanuensis but by him revised as the same Sir Willam Boswel who was pleased to admit me to a most intimate familiarity with him did himself tell me Among my Copies as the Catalogue which comes with this Letter shews you will find the History of rare and dense Bodies but imperfect though carried on to some length I had once in my hands an entire and thick Volume concerning Heavy and Light Bodies but consisting only of a naked delineation of the Model which the Lord Bacon had framed in his Head in titles of Matters without any description of the Matters themselves There is here enclosed a Copy of that Contexture b This Letter came to my hands without that Copy See in lieu of it Topica de Gravi Levi in lib. 5. cap. 3. de Augm. Scien containing only the Heads of the Chapters and wanting a full handling from that rude Draught which supplement I dispair of For the Book of Dense and Rare Bodies which you have by you perfected by the Author's last Hand as likewise the Fragments which are an Appendix to it I could wish that they might be here publish'd in Holland together with those hitherto unpublish'd Philosophical Papers copied by me out of M S S. of Sir William Boswel seeing if they come out together they will set off and commend one another I have begun to deal with a Printer who is a Man of great Diligence and Curiosity I will so order the matter that you shall have no reason to complain of my Fidelity and Candor if you leave that Edition to me Care shall be taken by me that it be not done without honourable mention of your self But be it what it will you shall resolve upon it shall abate nothing of the offices of our Friendship which from this beginning of it shall still further be promoted upon all occasions Lewis Elzevir wrote me word lately from Amsterdam that he was designed to begin shortly an Edition in Quarto of all the Works of the Lord Bacon in Latine or English But not of the English without the Translation of them into Latine And he desir'd my advice and any assistance I could give him by Manuscripts or Translations to the end that as far as possible those Works might come abroad with advantage which have been long receiv'd with the kindest Elogies and with the most attested Applause of the Learned World If you have any thing in your Mind or your Hands whence we may hope for assistance in so famous a Design and conducing so much to the Honour of those who are Instrumental in it pray let me know it and reckon me henceforth amongst the devout Honourers of the name of the Lord Bacon and of your own Vertues I expect from you what you know about the Ancestors of the Lord Bacon especially concerning his Father Nicholas Bacon concerning his Youth his Studies in Cambridg his Travels his Honours his Office of Chancellour and his deposal from it by Sentence of Parliament The former I will undertake in a more florid and free Style expatiating in his just Praises the latter with a wary Pen lest out of my Commentary of the Life of this most Learned Man matter be offered of pernicious Prating to Slanderers and Men of dishonest Tempers From the Hague May 29. 1652. The second Letter of Mr. Isaac Gruter to Dr. Rawley concerning the Writings of the Lord Bacon V. R. Gulielmo Rawlejo S. S. Theologiae Doctori S. P. D. Isaacus Gruterus Vir Reverende DE responsi tui tarditate queri non licet cùm difficultas trajectûs facile moram injiciat ex anno in hiemem declivi dum tuas dares atque abunde in iis inveniat quo se pascat desiderium tantò uberiori accessione quantò cunctantius ad manus nostras fortassis pervenisse dici potest Et quamvis pauxillum erat quod praeter gratias proindiculo reponerem ejus tamen id momenti visum est ut supprimere diutius noluerim praesertim cùm nefas mihi haberetur Smithum responso carere virum amicissimum cujus in Res nostras studio quicquid in me est curae debetur affectúsque nihil imminuti parte in quam sane non levem Rawleius venit ut in Trigam coäluisse dici queat optimè consentientes animos Illustrissimi Herois Verulamii quà m sancta apud me sit existimatio etsi perquam sollicitè ostendisse me putabam faciam tamen ut in posterum religiosius me operam dedisse quo hoc literato orbi innotesceret
of saying things The Vnderstanding f Nov. Organ l. 1. Aph. 49. p. 44 45. is not only made up of dry Light but it receives an infusion from the Will and Affections And that begets such Sciences as the Heart desireth For a Man soonest believes that which he would have to be true Wherefore he rejects difficult Truths through impatience in inquiring and sober Truths because they restrain his hope or desire and the deeper Natural Truths by reason of Superstition and the Light of Experiments by reason of Arrogance and Pride lest the Mind should seem to be conversant in mean and transitory Things and Paradoxes out of respect to the opinion of the Vulgar In sum the Will seasons and infects the Mind by innumerable Ways and by such as are sometimes not at all perceived Now how think you doth Spinoza shew this opinion to be a gross and fundamental Mistake Why by denying that there is any such thing in Man as a Will as if that general name was ever used to signifie a particular Act and not rather to express the general notion of that Power By telling us that all Volitions are particular Acts and as fatally determin'd by a Chain of Physical Causes as any effects whatsoever of Natural Bodies So that we are like to learn well from his Philosophy how to amend our Erroneous Assent whilst it teacheth us that it is necessary and not to be mended unless Men could have other Bodies and there were another Scheme of Nature It must be confess'd that the Lord I write of was not without Infirmities Intellectual or Moral And the latter of these have made the greater Noise from the greatness of his Fall I do not here pretend to speak of an Angel but of a Man And no Man great in Wit and high in Office can live free from suspicion of both kinds of Errors For that Heat which is instrumental in making a great Wit is apt to disorder the attention of the Mind and the stability of the Temper And High Place because it giveth power to Opportunity though no Athority to offend is ever look'd on with a jealous Eye And corrupt Men who mete by their own Measures think no Man can be Great and Innocent too His Lordship own'd it under his Hand g In his Letter to King James March 25. 1620. In the Cab. that He was frail and did partake of the Abuses of the Times And surely he was a partaker of their Severities also though they proved by accident happy Crosses and Misfortunes Methinks they are resembled by those of Sir George Sommers who being bound by his Employment to another Coast was by Tempest cast upon the Barmudas And there a Shipwrack'd Man made full discovery of a new temperate fruitful Region which none had before inhabited and which Mariners who had only seen its Rocks had esteemed an inaccessible and enchanted Place The great cause of his Suffering is to some a secret I leave them to find it out by his words to King Iames h See Mr. Bushels Extract p. 19. I wish said he that as I am the first so I may be the last of Sacrifices in your Times And when from private Appetite it is resolv'd that a Creature shall be sacrific'd it is easie to pick up sticks enough from any Thicket whither it hath straid to make a Fire to offer it with But whatsoever his Errors were or the causes of his Misfortunes they are over-ballanc'd by his Vertues and will die with Time His Errors were but as some Excrescencies which grow on those Trees that are fit to build the Palaces of Kings For though they are not proper and natural Parts yet they do not very much deprive the Body of its use and value And further to express my self by a more decent Image a Comparison of his own His Fall will be to Posterity but as a little Picture of Night-work remaining amongst the Fair and Excellent Tables of his Acts and Works i Epist to Bishop Andrew◠These I distinguish into two kinds His Mechanical Inventions and his Writings I doubt not but his Mechanical Inventions were many But I can call to mind but Three at this time and of them I can give but a very broken Account And for his Instruments and Ways in recovering deserted Mines I can give no account at all though certainly without new Tools and peculiar Inventions he would never have undertaken that new and hazardous Work Of the three Inventions which come now to my Memory the First was an Engine representing the motion of the Planets Of this I can say no more than what I find in his own words in one of his Miscellany Papers in Manuscript The words are these I did once cause to be represented to me by Wires the motion of some Planets in fact as it is without Theories of Orbs c. And it seemed a strange and extravagant Motion One while they moved in Spires forwards another while they did unwind themselves in Spires backwards One while they made larger Circles and higher another while smaller Circles and lower One while they mov'd to the North in their Spires another while to the South c. His Second Invention was a secret Curiosity of Nature whereby to know the Season of every Hour of the Year by a Philosophical Glass placed with a small proportion of Water in a Chamber This Invention I describe in the words of him from whom I had the notice of it Mr. Thomas Bushel k See his Extract p. 17. one of his Lordships Menial Servants a Man skilful in discovering and opening of Mines and famous for his curious Water-Works in Oxfordshire by which he imitated Rain Hail the Rain-bow Thunder and Lightning This secret cannot be that Instrument which we call Vitrum Calendare or the Weather-Glass the Lord Bacon in his Writings l Hist. of life and death p. 22. speaking of that as a thing in ordinary use and commending not Water ‖ In Form◠Calid◠◠24. p. 176. Org. but rectifi'd Spirit of Wine in the use of it Nor being an Instrument made with Water is it likely to have shewed changes of the Air with so much exactness as the later Baroscope made with Mercury And yet it should seem to be a secret of high value by the Reward it is said to have procured For the Earl of Essex as he in his Extract pag. 17. reporteth when Mr. Bacon had made a Present of it to him was pleas'd to be very bountiful in his Thanks and bestow upon his Twicknam-Park and its Garden of Paradise as a place for his Studies I confess I have not Faith enough to believe the whole of this Relation And yet I believe the Earl of Essex was extremely Liberal and free even to Profuseness that he was a great lover of Learned Men being in some sort one of them himself m MS. Hist. of Q. Eli◠p. 39. and that with singular Patronage he
For the former of these I will not lead your Lordships into it because I will engrieve nothing against a Penitent neither will I open any thing against him that is absent The one I will give to the Laws of Humanity and the other to the Laws of Justice for I shall always serve my Master with a good and sincere Conscience and I know that he accepteth best Therefore I will reserve that till to morrow and hold my self to that which I called the Stage or Theater whereunto indeed it may be fitly compared for that things were first contained within the Invisible Judgments of God as within a Curtain and after came forth and were acted most worthily by the King and right well by his Ministers Sir Thomas Overbury was murthered by Poison Septemb. 15. 1613. This foul and cruel Murder did for a time cry secretly in the Ears of God but God gave no answer to it otherwise than by that Voice which sometime he useth which is Vox Populi the Speech of the People For there went then a Murmur that Overbury was poisoned and yet the same submiss and low Voice of God the Speech of the Vulgar People was not without a Counter-tenor or Counter-blast of the Devil who is the common Author both of Murder and Slander for it was given out that Overbury was dead of a foul Disease and his Body which they had made Corpus Iudaicum with their Poisons so as it had no whole part must be said to be leprosed with Vice and so his Name poisoned as well as his Body For as to Dissoluteness I have not heard the Gentleman noted with it his Faults were of Insolency Turbulency and the like of that kind Mean time there was some Industry used of which I will not now speak to lull asleep those that were the Revengers of the Blood the Father and the Brother of the Murdered And in these terms things stood by the space of two years during which time God did so blind the two great Procurers and dazle them with their Greatness and blind and nail fast the Actors and Instruments with security upon their Protection as neither the one looked about them nor the other stirred or fled or were conveyed away but remained here still as under a privy Arrest of God's Judgments insomuch as Franklin that should have been sent over to the Palsgrave with good store of Money was by God's Providence and the Accident of a Marriage of his diverted and stayed But about the beginning of the Progress the last Summer God's Judgments began to come out of their depths And as the revealing of Murder is commonly such as a Man said à Domino hoc factum est it is God's work and it is marvellous in our eyes so in this particular it was most admirable for it came forth first by a Complement a matter of Courtesy My Lord of Shrewsbury that is now with God recommended to a Councellor of State of special Trust by his place the late Lieutenant * Called in Sir H. Wotton 's Reliq p. 413. Elvis In Sir A. Welden 's Court of K. Iames p. 107. Elwaies In Aulic Coquin p. 141. Ellowaies In Sir W. Dugdales Baron of Eng. Tom 2. p. 425. Elways In Baker Yelvis p. 434. Helwisse only for Acquaintance as an honest and worthy Gentleman and desired him to know him and to be acquainted with him That Councellor answered him civilly That my Lord did him a favour and that he should embrace it willingly but he must let his Lordship know that there did lie a heavy imputation upon the Gentleman Helwisse for that Sir Tho. Overbury his Prisoner was thought to have come to a violent and an untimely Death When this Speech was reported back by my Lord of Shrewsbury to Helwisse percussit iliâ—ò animum he was strucken with it and being a politick Man and of likelihood doubting that the matter would break forth at one time or other and that others might have the start of him and thinking to make his own Case by his own Tale resolved with himself upon this occasion to discover unto my Lord of Shrewsbury and that Councellor that there was an Attempt whereunto he was privy to have poisoned Overbury by the hands of his Underkeeper Weston but that he checked it and put it by and disswaded it But then he left it thus that it was but as an Attempt or an untimely Birth never executed and as if his own Fault had been no more but that he was honest in forbidding but fearful of revealing and impeaching or accusing great Persons And so with this fine point thought to save himself But that Councellor of Estate wisely considering that by the Lieutenant's own Tale it could not be simply a Permission or Weakness for that Weston was never displaced by the Lieutenant notwithstanding that Attempt and coupling the Sequel by the beginning thought it matter fit to be brought before his Majesty by whose appointment Helwisse set down the like Declaration in writing Upon this Ground the King playeth Salomon's part gloria Dei celare rem gloria Regis investigare rem and sets down certain Papers of his own hand which I might term to be Claves Iustitiae Keys of Justice and may serve both for a Precedent for Princes to imitate and for a Direction for Iudges to follow And his Majesty carried the Ballance with a constant and steady hand evenly and without prejudice whether it were a true Accusation of the one part or a Practice and factious Scandal of the other Which Writing because I am not able to express according to the worth thereof I will desire your Lordships anon to hear read This excellent Foundation of Justice being laid by his Majesties own hand it was referred unto some Councellors to examine further who gained some Degrees of Light from Weston but yet left it imperfect After it was referred to Sir Ed. Cook Chief Justice of the Kings Bench as a Person best practised in Legal Examinations who took a great deal of indefatigable pains in it without intermission having as I have heard him say taken at least three hundred Examinations in this Business But these things were not done in a Corner I need not speak of them It is true that my Lord Chief Justice in the dawning and opening of the Light finding the matter touched upon these great Persons very discreetly became Suitor to the King to have greater Persons than his own Rank joined with him whereupon your Lordships my Lord High Steward of England my Lord Steward of the King's House and my Lord Zouch were joined with him Neither wanted there this while Practice to suppress Testimony to deface Writings to weaken the Kings Resolution to slander the Justice and the like Nay when it came to the first solemn Act of Justice which was the Arraignment of Weston he had his lesson to stand mute which had arrested the whole Wheel of Justice but this dumb Devil by
Weston touching Overbury's state of Body or Health were ever sent up to the Court though it were in Progress and that from my Lady such a thirst and listening this Lord had to hear that he was dispatched Lastly There was a continual Negotiation to set Overbury's Head on work that he should make some recognition to clear the honour of the Lady and that he should become a good Instrument towards her and her Friends All which was but entertainment For your Lordships shall plainly see divers of my Lord of Northampton's Letters whose hand was deep in this Business written I must say it in dark Words and Clauses That there was one thing pretended and another intended That there was a real Charge and there was somewhat not real a main drift and a dissimulation Nay further there be some passages which the Peers in their wisdom will discern to point directly at the Impoisonment After this Inducement followed the Evidence it self The Lord Bacon's Letter to the University of Cambridg Rescriptum Procuratoris Regis Primarii ad Academiam Cantabrigiensem quando in Sanctius Regis Consilium cooptatus fuit GRatae mihi fuere Literae vestrae atque Gratulationem vestram ipse mihi gratulor Rem ipsam ita mihi Honori voluptati fore duco si in hâc mente maneam ut Publicis Utilitatibus studio indefesso perpetuis curis puro affectu inserviam Inter partes autem Reipublicae nulla Animo meo charior est quà m Academiae Literae Idque vita mea anteacta declarat scripta Itaque quicquid mihi accesserit id etiam vobis accessisse existimare potestis Neque vero Pacrocinium meum vobis sublatum aut diminutum esse credere debetis Nam ea pars Patroni quae ad consilium in causis exhibendum spectat integra manet Atque etiam si quid gravius accideriâ— ipsum perorandi Munus licentiâ Regis obtentâ relictâ—m est Quodque Iuris Patrocinio deerit id auctiore potestate compensabitur Mihi in votis est ut quemadmodum à privatorum clientelarum negotiis ad Gubeâ—nacula Reipublicae translatus jam sum Ita postrema Aetatis meae pars si vita suppetit etiam à publicis curis ad otium Literas devehi possit Quinetiam saepius subit illa Cogitatio ut etiam in tot tantis Negotiis tamen singulis annis aliquos dies apud vos deponam Vt ex majore vestrarum rerum notitiâ vestris utilitatibus melius consulere possim 5. Julij 1616. Amicus vesâ—er maximè Fidelis Benevolus Fr. Bacon The same in English by the Publisher The Answer of the Lord Bacon then Attorney General to the University of Cambridg when he was sworn of the Privy Council to the King YOur Letters were very acceptable to me and I give my self joy upon your Congratulation The thing it self will I suppose conduce to my Honour and Satisfaction if I remain in the mind I now am in by unwearied study and perpetual watchfulness and pure affection to promote the Publick Good Now among the Parts of the Common-wealth there are none dearer to me than the Vniversities and Learning And This my manner of Life hitherto and my Writings do both declare If therefore any good Fortune befalls me you may look upon it as an accession to your selves Neither are you to believe that my Patronage is either quite removed from you or so much as diminished For that part of an Advocate which concerneth the giving of Counsel in Causes remaineth entire Also if any thing more weighty urgent falleth out the very Office of Pleading the King's leave being obtained is still allow'd me And whatsoever shall be found wanting in my Juridical Patronage will be compensated by my more ample Authority My wishes are that as I am translated from the Business of private Men and particular Clients to the Government of the Common-wealth so the latter part of my Age if my Life be continued to me may from the Publick Cares be translated to leisure and study Also this thought comes often into my mind amidst so many Businesses and of such moment every year to lay aside some days to think on You That so having the greater insight into your Matters I may the better consult your Advantage Iuly the 5th 1616. Your most faithful and kind Friend Fr. Bacon Sir Francis Bacon's Letter to King Iames touching the Chancellors Place It may please Your most Excellent Majesty YOur worthy Chancellour * Chaenc Egerton I fear goeth his last day God hath hitherto used to weed out such Servants as grew not fit for Your Majesty But now He hath gather'd to Himself one of the choicer Plants in Your Majesties Garden But Your Majesties Service must not be mortal Upon this heavy Accident I pray your Majesty in all humbleness and sincerity to give me leave to use a few words I must never forget when I moved your Majesty for the Attorney's Place that it was your own sole Act and not my Lord of Somerset's who when he knew your Majesty had resolv'd it thrust himself into the Business to gain thanks And therefore I have no reason to pray to Saints I shall now again make Oblation to your Majesty first of my Heart then of my Service thirdly of my Place of Attorney and fourthly of my Place in the Star-Chamber I hope I may be acquitted of Presumption if I think of it both because my Father had the Place which is some civil inducement to my desire and I pray God your Majesty may have twenty no worse years than Queen Elizabeth had in her Model after my Father's placing and chiefly because the Chancellor's place after it went to the Law was ever conferred upon some of the Learned Counsel and never upon a Judg. For Audley was raised from King's Serjeant my Father from Attorney of the Wards Bromlie from Sollicitor Puckering from Queen's Serjeant Egerton from Master of the Rolls having newly left the Attorney's place For my self I can only present your Majesty with Gloria in Obsequio yet I dare promise that if I sit in that Place your Business shall not make such short turns upon you as it doth But when a Direction is once given it shall be pursued and performed And your Majesty shall only be troubled with the true Care of a King which is to think what you would have done in chief and not how for the Passages I do presume also in respect of my Father's Memory and that I have been always gracious in the Lower-House I have some interest in the Gentlemen of England and shall be able to do some good Effect in rectifying that Body of Parliament which is Cardo Rerum For let me tell your Majesty That that part of the Chancellor's place which is to judg in equity between Party and Party that same Regnum Iudiciale which since my Father's time is but too much enlarged concerneth your Majesty
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
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
Lord Bacon's to the University of Cambridg upon his sending to their public Library his Novum Organum Almae Matri Academiae Cantabrigiensi CVm vester filius sim Alumnus voluptati mihi erit Partum meum nuper editum vobis in gremium dare Aliter enim velut pro exposito eum haberem Nec vos moveat quòd via nova sit Necesse est enim talia per Aetatum seculorum circuitus evenire Antiquis tamen suus constat honos ingenij scilicet Nam Fides verbo Dei experientiae tantùm debetur Scientias autem ad Experientiam retrahere non conceditur At easdem ab Experientiâ de integro excitare operosum certè sed pervium Deus vobis studiis vestris faveat Filius vester Amantissimus Franc. Verulam Cancel The same in English by the Publisher SEeing I am your Son and your Disciple it will much please me to repose in your Bosom the Issue which I have lately brought forth into the World for otherwise I should look upon it as an exposed Child Let it not trouble you that the Way in which I go is new Such things will of necessity happen in the Revolutions of several Ages However the Honour of the Ancients is secured That I mean which is due to their Wit For Faith is only due to the Word of God and to Experience Now for bringing back the Sciences to Experience is not a thing to be done But to raise them a-new from Experience is indeed a very difficult and laborious but not a hopeless Undertaking God prosper you and your Studies Your most loving Son Francis Verulam Chancel A Letter of the Lord Bacon's written to Trinity College in Cambridg upon his sending to them his Book of the Advancement of Learning Franc. Baro de Verulamio Vice-comes Sancti Albani percelebri Collegio Sanctae Individuae Trinitatis in Cantabrigia Salutem REs omnes earúmque progressus initiis suis debentur Itaque cùm initia Scientiarum è fontibus vestris hauserim incrementa ipsarum vobis rependenda existimavi Spero itidem fore ut haec nostra apud vos tanquani in solio nativo felicius succrescant Quamobrem vos hortor ut salvâ animi modestiâ ergà Veteres reverent◠ipsi quoque scientiarum augmentis non desitis Verùm ut post volumina sacra verbi Dei Scripturarum secundo loco volumen illud magnu◠Operum Dei Creaturarum strenuè prae omnibus Libris qui pro Commentariis tantùm haberi debent evolvatis Valete The same in English by the Publisher Francis Baron of Verulam Viscount of St. Albans to the most Famous College of the holy and undivided Trinity in Cambridg Health THe progresses of Things together with themselves are to be ascribed to their Originals Wherefore seeing I have derived from your Fountains my first beginnings in the Sciences I thought it fit to repay to you the Increases of them I hope also it may so happen that these Things of ours may the more prosperously thrive among you being replanted in their native Soil Therefore I likewise exhort you that ye your selves so far as is consistent with all due Modesty and Reverence to the Ancients be not wanting to the Advancement of the Sciences But that next to the study of those sacred Volumns of God the holy Scriptures ye turn over that great Volume of the Works of God his Creatures with the utmost diligence and before all other Books which ought to be looked on only as Commentaries on those Texts Farewel The Lord Chancellour Bacon's Letter to Dr. Williams then Lord Bishop of Lincoln concerning his Speeches c. MY very good Lord I am much bound to your Lordship for your Honourable Promise to Dr. Rawley He chuseth rather to depend upon the same in general than to pitch upon any particular which modesty of Choice I commend I find that the Ancients as Cicero Domesthenes Plinius Secundus and others have preserved both their Orations and their Epistles In imatation of whom I have done the like to my own Which nevertheless I will not publish while I live But I have been bold to bequeath them to your Lordship and Mr. Chancellor of the Dutchy My Speeches perhaps you will think fit to publish The Letters many of them touch too much upon late Matters of State to be published yet I was willing they should not be lost I have also by my Will erected two Lectures in Perpetuity in either University one with an Endowment of 200 l per Annum apiece They to be for Natural Phylosophie and the Sciences thereupon depending which Foundations I have required my Executors to order by the advice and direction of your Lordship and my Lord Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield These be my thoughts now I rest Your Lordships most Affectionate to do you Service A Letter written in Latine by the Lord Verulam to Father Fulgentio the Venetian concerning his Writings and now Translated into English by by the Publisher Most Reverend Father I Must confess my self to be a Letter in your Debt but the Excuse which I have is too too just For I was kept from doing you right by a very sore Disease from which I am not yet perfectly delivered I am now desirous to communicate to your Fatherhood the Designs I have touching those Writings which I form in my Head and begin not with hope of bringing them to Perfection but out of desire to make Experiment and because I am a Servant to Posterity For these things require some Ages for the ripening of them I judg'd it most convenient to have them Translated in the Latine Tongue and to divide them into certain Tomes The first Tome consisteth of the Books of the Advancement of Learning which as you understand are already finish'd and publish'd and contain the Partition of Sciences which is the First part of my Instauration The Novum Organum should have immediately follow'd But I interpos'd my Moral and Political Writings because they were more in Readiness And for them they are these following The first is The History of Henry the 7th King of England Then follows that Book which you have call'd in your Tongue Saggi Morali But I give a graver name to that Book and it is to go under the Title of Sermones Fideles Faithful Sayings or Interiora Rerum The Inside of Things Those Essayes will be increased in their number and enlarged in the handling of them Also that Tome will contain the Book of the Wisdom of the Ancients And this Tome as I said doth as it were interlope and doth not stand in the Order of the Instauration After these shall follow the Organum Novum to which a second part is yet to be added which I have already compriz'd and measur'd in the Idea of it And thus the Second Part of my Instauration will be finished As for the Third Part of the Instauration that is to say the Natural History it is
plainly a Work for a King or a Pope or for some College or Order and cannot be by Personal Industry performed as it ought Those Portions of it which have already seen the Light to wit concerning Winds and touching Life and Death They are not pure History by reason of the Axioms and larger Observations which are interposed But they are a kind of mixed Writings composed of Natural History and a rude and imperfect Instrument or Help of the Understanding And this is the Fourth Part of the Instauration Wherefore that Fourth Part shall follow and shall contain many Examples of that Instrument more exact and much more fitted to Rules of Induction Fifthly There shall follow a Book to be entitled by us Prodromus Philosophiae Secundae The Fore-runner of Secondary Philosophy This shall contain our Inventions about new Axioms to be raised from the Experiments themselves that they which were before as Pillars lying uselesly along may be raised up And this we resolve on for the Fifth Part of our Instauration Lastly There is yet behind the Secondary Philosophy it self which is the Sixth Part of the Instauration Of the perfecting this I have cast away all hopes but in future Ages perhaps the Design may bud again Notwithstanding in our Prodromiâ— or Prefatory Works such I mean only which touch almost the Vniversals of Nature there will be laid no inconsiderable foundations of this Matter Our Meanness you see attempteth great Things placing our hopes only in this that they seem to proceed from the Providence and Immense Goodness of God And I am by two Arguments thus persuaded First I think thus from that zeal and constancy of my Mind which has not waxed old in this Design nor after so many Years grown cold and indifferent I remember that about Forty Years ago I compos'd a Iuvenile Work about these things which with great Confidence and a Pompous Title I called Temporis Partum Maximum * Or it may â—e Masculum as I find it â—ead eâ—sewhere or the most considerable Birth of Time Secondly I am thus persuaded because of its infinite Vsefulness for which reason it may be ascribed to Divine Encouragement I pray your Fatherhood to commend me to that most Excellent Man Signior Molines to whose most delightful and prudent Letters I will return answer shortly if God permit Farewel most Reverend Father Your Most assured Friend Francis St. Alban A Letter of the Lord Bacon's in French to the Marquess Fiat relating to his Essays Monsieur l' Ambassadeur mon Filâ—z VOyant que vostre Excellence faict et traite Mariages non seulement entre les Princes d' Angleterre et de France mais aussi entre les Langues puis que faictes traduire â—on Liure de l' Advancement des Sciences en Francois i' ai bien voulu vous envoyer mon Liure dernierement imprimé que i' avois pourveu pour vous mais i' estois en doubte de le vous envoyer pour ce qu' il estoit escrit en Anglois Mais a' cest ' Heure pour la raison susdicte ie le vous envoye C ' est un Recompilement de mes Essayes Morales et Civiles mais tellement enlargiés et enrichiés tant de Nombre que de Poix que c ' est de fait un Oeuvre nouveau Ie vous baise les Mains et reste Vostre tres Affectionée Ami 〈◊〉 tres humble Serviteur The same in English by the Publisher My Lord Embassador My Son SEeing that your Excellency makes and treats of Marriages not only betwixt the Princes of France and England but also betwixt their Languages for you have caus'd my Book of the Advancement of Learning to be Translated into French I was much inclin'd to make you a Present of the last Book which I published and which I had in readiness for you I was sometimes in doubt whether I ought to have sent it to you because it was written in the English Tongue But now for that very Reason I send it to you It is a Recompilement of my Essaies Moral and Civil but in such manner enlarged and enriched both in Number and Weight that it is in effect a new Work I kiss your Hands and remain Your most Affectionate and most humble Servant c. A Transcript by the Publisher out of the Lord Bacon's last Will relating especially to his Writings FIrst I bequeath my Soul and Body into the Hand of God by the blessed Oblation of my Saviour the one at the time of my Dissolution the other at the time of my Resurrection For my Burial I desire it may be at St. Michael's Church near St. Albans There was my Mother buried and it is the Parish Church of my Mansion-House of Gorhambury and it is the only Christian Church within the Walls of Old Verulam I would have the Charge of my Funeral not to exceed 300 l. at most For my Name and Memory I leave it to Foreign Nations and to mine own Country-Men after some Time be passed over But towards that durable part of Memory which consisteth in my Writings I require my Servant Henry Percy to deliver to my Brother Constable all my Manuscript-Compositions and the Fragments also of such as are not Finished to the end that if any of them be fit to be Published he may accordingly dispose of them And herein I desire him to take the advice of Mr. Selden and Mr. Herbert of the Inner Temple and to publish or suppress what shall be thought fit In particular I wish the Elegie which I writ in felicem Memoriam Elizabethae may be Published Papers written by others concerning the Writings of the Lord Bacon A Letter from the University of Oxford to the Lord Bacon upon his sending to them his Book De Augmentis Scientiarum Praenobilis quod in Nobilitate paenè miraculum est Scientissime Vicecomes NIhil concinnius tribuere Amplitudo vestra nihil gratius accipere potuit Academia quà m Scientias Scientias quas prius inopes exiguas incultas emiserat accepit tandem nitidas proceras Ingenii tui copiis quibus unicè augeri potuerant uberrimè dotatas Grande ducit munus illud sibi à peregrino si tamen peregrinus sit tam propè consanguineus auctius redire quod Filiolis suis instar Patrimonii impendit libentèr agnoscit hic nasci Musas alibi tamen quam domi suae crescere Creverunt quidem sub Calamo tuo qui tanquam strenuus literarum Alcides Columnas tuas Mundo immobiles propriâ Manu in Orbe Scientiarum plus ultrà statuisti Euge exercitatissimum Athletam qui in aliorum patrocinandis virtutibus occupatissimus alios in scriptis propriis teipsum superâsti Quippe in illo Honorum tuorum fastigio viros tantùm literatos promovisti nunc tandem ô dulce prodigium etiam literas Onerat Clientes beneficii hujus augustior Munificentia cujus in accipiendo Honor apud nos manet in
all the Metals incorporate with Vitriol all with Iron poudered all with Flint c. Some few of these would be inquired of to disclose the nature of the rest Whether Metals or other Fossiles will incorporate with molten Glass and what Body it makes The quantity in the mixture would be well considered for some small quantity perhaps will incorporate as in the Allays of Gold and Silver Coin Upon the Compound Body three things are chiefly to be observed The Colour the Fragility or Pliantness the Volatility or Fixation compared with the simple Bodies For present use or profit this is the Rule Consider the price of the two simple Bodies consider again the dignity of the one above the other in use then see if you can make a Compound that will save more in price than it will lose in dignity of the use As for Example Consider the price of Brass-Ordnance consider again the price of Iron-Ordnance and then consider wherein the Brass-Ordnance doth excel the Iron-Ordnance in Use Then if you can make a Compound of Brass and Iron that will be near as good in use and much cheaper in price then there is profit both to the Private and the Common-wealth So of Gold and Silver the price is double of twelve The dignity of Gold above Silver is not much the splendor is a like and more pleasing to some Eyes as in Cloth of Silver silvered Rapiers c. The main dignity is That Gold bears the Fire which Silver doth not but that is an excellency in Nature but it is nothing at all in use for any dignity in use I know none but that silvering will fully and canker more than gilding which if it might be corrected with a little mixture of Gold there is profit And I do somewhat marvel that the latter Ages have lost the Ancient Electrum which was a mixture of Silver with Gold whereof I conceive there may be much use both in Coin Plate and Gilding It is to be noted That there is in the version of Metals impossibility or at least great difficulty as in making of Gold Silver Copper On the other side in the adulterating or counterfeiting of Metals there is deceit and villany But it should seem there is a middle way and that is by new Compounds if the ways of incorporating were well known What Incorporation or Inbibition Metals will receive from Vegetables without being dissolved in their Substance As when the Armorers make their Steel more tough and pliant by aspersion of Water or Juice of Herbs when Gold being grown somewhat churlish by recovering is made more pliant by throwing in shreds of tanned Leather or any Leather oiled Note That in these and the like shews of Inbibition it were good to try by the Weights whether the weight be increased or no for if it be not it is to be doubted that there is no inbibition of Substance but only that the application of that other Body doth dispose and invite the Metal to another posture of parts than of it self it would have taken After the Incorporation of Metals by simple Colliquefaction for the better discovery of the Nature and Consents and Dissents of Metals it would be likewise tried by incorporating of their Dissolutions There is to be observed in those Dissolutions which will not easily incorporate what the Effects are As the Bullition the Precipitation to the bottom the Ejaculation towards the top the Suspension in the midst and the like Note That the dissents of the Menstrual or strong Waters may hinder the incorporation as well as the dissents of the Metals themselves Therefore where the Menstrua are the same and yet the Incorporation followeth not you may conclude the Dissent is in the Metals but where the Menstrua are several not so certain Dr. Meverell's Answers to the Lord Bacon's Questions concerniug the Compounding Incorporating or Union of Metals and Minerals GOld will incorporate with Silver in any proportion Plin. lib. 33. cap. 4. Omni Auro inest Argentum vario pondere alibi denâ alibi nonâ alibi octavâ parte ubicunque quinta Argenti portio invenitur Electrum vocatur The Body remains fixt solid and coloured according to the proportion of the two Metals Gold with Quicksilver easily mixeth but the product is imperfectly fixed and so are all other Metals incorporate with Mercury Gold incorporates with Lead in any proportion Gold incorporates with Copper in any proportion the common Allay Gold incorporates with Brass in any proportion And what is said of Copper is true of Brass in the union of other Metals Gold will not incorporate with Iron Gold incorporates with Tin the ancient Allay Isa. 1. 25. What was said of Gold and Quicksilver may be said of Quicksilver and the rest of Metals Silver with Lead in any proportion Silver incorporates with Copper Pliny mentions such a mixture for triumphales Statuae lib. 33. ix miscentur Argento tertia pars aeris Cyprii tenuissimi quod coronarium vocant Sulphuris vivi quantum Argenti The same is true of Brass Silver incorporates not with Iron Wherefore I wonder at that which Pliny hath lib. 33. ix Miscuit denario Triumvir Antonius ferrum And what is said of this is true in the rest for Iron incorporateth with none of them Silver mixes with Tin Lead incorporates with Copper Such a mixture was the Pot-Metal whereof Pliny speaks lib. 34. ix Ternis aut quaternis libris plumbi Argentarii in centenas aeris additis Lead incorporates with Tin The mixture of these two in equal proportions is that which was anciently called Ptumbum Argentarium Plin. 34. xvii Copper incorporates with Tin Of such a mixture were the Mirrors of the Romans Plin. atque ut omnia de speculis peragantur hoc loco optima apud Majores erant Brundisâ—na stanno aere mistis lib. 83. ix Compounded Metals now in use 1. Fine Tin The mixture is thus Pure Tin a 1000 pound temper 50 pound Glass of Tin 3 pound 2. Course Pewter is made of fine Tin and Lead Temper is thus made The dross of pure Tin four pound and a half Copper half a pound 3. Brass is made of Copper and Calaminaris 4. Bell-Metal Copper 1000 pound Tin from 300 to 200 pound Brass 150 pound 5. Pot-Metal Copper and Lead 6. White Alkimie is made of Pan-Brass 1 pound and Arsenicum 3 ounces 7. Red Alkimie is made of Copper and Auripigmen There be divers imperfect Minerals which will incorporate with the Metals Being indeed Metals inwardly but clothed with Earths and Stones As Pyritis Calaminaris Mysi Chalcyti Sory Vitriolum Metals incorporate not with Glass except they be brought into the form of Glass Metals dissolved The dissolution of Gold and Silver disagree so that in their mixture there is great Ebullition Darkness and in the end a precipitation of a black Pouder The mixture of Gold and Mercurie agree Gold agrees with Iron In a word the dissolution of Mercury and Iron agree with
all the rest Silver and Copper disagree and so do Silver and Lead Silver and Tin agree The Lord Bacon's Articles of Inquiry concerning Minerals The second Letter of the Cross-Row touching the separation of Metals and Minerals SEparation is of three sorts The First is the separating of the pure Metal from the Ore or Dross which we call Refining The Second is the drawing one Metal or Mineral out of another which we call Extracting The Third Is the separating of any Metal into his Original or Materia Prima or Element or call them what you will which Work we will call Principiation For Refining we are to enquire of it according to the several Metals as Gold Silver c. Incidently we are to inquire of the First Stone or Ore or Marcasite of Metals severally and what kind of Bodies they are and of the degrees of Richness Also we are to enquire of the means of Separating whether by Fire parting Waters or otherwise Also for the manner of Refining you are to see how you can multiply the heat or hasten the opening and so save charge in the Fining The means of this in Three manners that is to say In the Blast of the Fire In the manner of the Furnace to multiply Heat by Union and Reflection and by some Additament or Medicines which will help the bodies to open them the sooner Note the Quickning of the Blast and the Multiplying of the Heat in the Furnace may be the same for all Metals but the Additaments must be several according to the Nature of the Metals Note again That if you think that the multiplying of the Additaments in the same proportion that you multiply the Ore the Work will follow you may be deceived for quantity in the Passive will add more Resistance than the same quantity in the Active will add force For Extracting you are to enquire what Metals contain others and likewise what not As Lead Silver Copper Silver c. Note Although the Charge of Extraction should excede the Worth yet that is not the matter For at least it will discover Nature and Possibility the other may be thought on afterwards We are likewise to inquire what the differences are of those Metals which contain more or less other Metals and how that agrees with the poorness or richness of the Metals or Ore in themselves As the Lead that contains most Silver is accounted to be more brittle and yet otherwise poorer in it self For Principiation I cannot affirm whether there be any such thing or not and I think the Chymists make too much ado about it but howsoever it be be it Solution or Extraction or a kind of Conversion by the Fire it is diligently to be inquired what Salts Sulphur Vitriol Mercury or the like Simple Bodies are to be found in the several Metals and in what quantity Doctor Meverel's Answers to the Lord Bacon's Questions touching the separations of Metals and Minerals 1. FOr the means of Separating After that the Ore is washed or cleansed from the Earth there is nothing simply necessary save only a Wind Furnace well framed narrow above and at the Hearth in shape Oval sufficiently fed with Charcoal and Ore in convenient proportions For Additions in this First Separation I have observed none the Dross the Mineral brings being sufficient The Refiners of Iron observe that that Iron-Stone is hardest to melt which is fullest of Metal and that easiest which hath most Dross But in Lead and Tin the contrary is noted Yet in melting of Metals when they have been calcined formerly by Fire or Strong-Waters there is good use of Additaments as of Borax Tartar Armoniac and Salt-Peter 2. In Extracting of Metals Note That Lead and Tin contain Silver Lead and Silver contain Gold Iron contains Brass Silver is best separated from Lead by the Test. So Gold from Silver Yet the best way for that is Aqua Regia 3. For Principiation I can truly and boldly affirm that there are no such principles as Sal Sulphur and Mercury which can be separated from any perfect Metals For every part so separated may easily be reduced into perfect Metal without Substitution of that or those principles which Chymists imagin to be wanting As suppose you take the Salt of Lead this Salt or as some name it Sulphur may be turned into perfect Lead by melting it with the like quantity of Lead which contains principles only for it self I acknowledg that there is Quick-Silver and Brimstone found in the imperfect Minerals but those are Nature's remote Materials and not the Chymists Principles As if you dissolve Antimony by Aqua Regia there will be real Brimstone swimming upon the Water as appears by the colour of the Fire when it is burnt and by the smell The Lord Bacon's Articles of Inquiry concerning Metals and Minerals THe Third Letter of the Cross-Row touching the Variation of Metals into several Shapes Bodies or Natures the particulars whereof follow Tincture Turning to Rust. Calcination Sublimation Precipitation Amalgamatizing or Turning into a soft body Vitrification Opening or Dissolving into Liquor Sproutings or Branchings or Arboressâ—s Induration and Mollification Making Tough or Brittle Volatility and Fixation Transmutation or Version For Tincture It is to be inquired how Metal may be tinged through and through and with what and into what Colours As tinging Silver Yellow tinging Copper White and tinging Red Green Blew especially with keeping the Lustre Item Tincture of Glasses Item Tincture of Marble Flint or other Stone For turning into Rust two things are chiefly to be inquired By what Corasives it is done and into what Colours it turns As Lead into White which they call Cerus Iron into Yellow which they call Crocus Martis Quicksilver into Vermilion Brass into Green which they call Verdigrease For Calcination how every Metal is calcined and into what kind of Body and what is the exquisitest way of Calcination For Sublimation To enquire the manner of Subliming and what Metals indure Subliming and what body the Sublimate makes For Precipitation likewise by what strong Water every Metal will precipitate and with what Additaments and in what time and into what body So for Amalgama what Metals will endure it what are the means to do it and what is the manner of the body For Vitrification likewise what Metals will endure it what are the means to do it into what Colour it turns and further where the whole Metal is turned into Glass and where the Metal doth but hang in the Glassy parts Also what weight the Vitrified body bears compared with the Crude body Also because Vitrification is accounted a kind of Death of Metals what Vitrification will admit of turning back again and what not For Dissolution into Liquour we are to enquire what is the proper Menstruum to dissolve any Metal and in the Negative what will touch upon the one and not upon the other and what several Menstrua will dissolve any Metal and which most exactly Item