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RELIGIOUS WRITINGS.

VII.

There are two other papers in the same bundle which are worth printing, because they help to show the sort of use Bacon made of these rough collections. One of them (fo. 114.) is dated 27th January 1595 (that is 1595-6), about fourteen months after the commencement of the Promus, but appears to have been revised and corrected at a later period. It seems to be a rudiment or fragment of one of those collections by way of provision or preparatory store for the furniture of speech and readiness of invention" which he recommends in the Advancement of Learning, and more at large in the De Augmentis (lib. vi. c. 3.) under the head of Rhetoric; and which, he says, "appeareth to be of two sorts; the one in resemblance to a shop of pieces unmade up, the other to a shop of things ready made up, both to be applied to that which is frequent and most in request: the former of these I will call antitheta and the latter formulæ.

"Antitheta are theses argued pro et contra, wherein men may be more large and laborious; but in such as are able to do it, to avoid prolixity of entry, I wish the seeds of the several arguments to be cast up into some brief and acute sentences, not to be cited, but to be as skeins or bottoms of thread, to be unwinded at large when they come to be used; supplying authorities and examples by reference.

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"Formule are but decent and apt passages and conveyances of speech, which may serve indifferently for differing subjects; as of preface, conclusion, digres‐ sion, transition, excusation, &c. For as in buildings there is great pleasure and use in the well-casting of

the stair-cases, entries, doors, windows, and the like: so in speech, the conveyances and passages are of special ornament and effect."1

Of these antitheta, a considerable collection is given in the De Augmentis by way of example. The Analogia Cæsaris contains several examples of these formulæ. The paper before us seems to belong rather to the former class. The sentences appear to have been written in the first instance consecutively, without any note of the subjects to which they are to be referred. The titles have been added afterwards in the margin. distinguish them here by Italics.

FORMULARIES, PROMUS. 27 Jan. 1595.

Against conceyt of difficulty or impossibility. Tentantes ad Trojam pervenere Graii.

Atque omnia pertentare.

Abstinence and negatives.

Qui in agone contendit a multis abstinet.

All the comaundmts. negative save two.

Curious, busy without judgm', good direction.

I

Parerga; moventes sed nil promoventes, operosities, nil ad sumam.

Claudus in via.

To give the grownd in bowling.

Like tempring with phisike, a good diett much better.

VOL. XIV.

1 Advancement of Learning, Book 2.

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