yond the former: her profound discretion in assigning and appropriating every of them to their aptest employment: her penetrating sight in discovering every man's ends and drifts : her wonderful art in keeping servants in satisfaction, and yet in appetite: her inventing wit in contriving plots and overturns: her exact caution in censuring the propositions of others for her service: her foreseeing events: her usage of occasions:-he that shall consider of these, and other things that may not well be touched, as he shall never cease to wonder at such a queen, so he shall wonder the less, that in so dangerous times, when wits are so cunning, humours extravagant, passions so violent, the corruptions so great, the dissimulations so deep, factions so many, she hath notwithstanding done such great things, and reigned in felicity. To speak of her fortune, that which I did reserve for a garland of her honour; and that is, that she liveth a virgin, and hath no children; so it is that which maketh all her other virtues and acts more sacred, more august, more divine. Let them leave children that leave no other memory in their times. "Brutorum æternitas, soboles." Revolve in histories the memories of happy men, and you shall not find any of rare felicity but either he died childless, or his line spent soon after his death, or else was unfortunate in his children. Should a man have them to be slain by his vassals, as the posthumus of Alexander the Great was? or to call them his imposthumes, as Augustus Cæsar called his? Peruse the catalogue: Corne lius Sylla, Julius Cæsar, Flavius Vespasianus, Severus, Constantinus the Great, and many more. "Generare et liberi, humana: creare et operari, divina." In the Low Countries, the Lammas-day, the retreat of Ghent, the day of Zutphen, and the prosperous progress of this summer; the bravado in Portugal, and the honourable exploits in the aid of the French king, besides the memorable voyages in the Indies; and lastly, the good entertainment of the invincible navy, which was chased till the chasers were weary, after infinite loss, without taking a cock-boat, without firing a sheepcot, sailed on the mercies of the wind and the discretion of their adventures, making a perambulation or pilgrimage about the northern seas, and ignobling many shores and points of land by shipwreck; and so returned home with scorn and dishonour much greater than the terror and expectation of their setting forth. These virtues and perfections, with so great felicity, have made her the honour of her times, the admiration of the world, the suit and aspiring of greatest kings and princes, who yet durst never have aspired unto her, but as their minds were raised by love. But why do I forget that words do extenuate and embase matters of so great weight? Time is her best commender, which never brought forth such a prince, whose imperial virtues contend with the excellency of her person; both virtues contend with her fortune, and both virtue and fortune contend with her fame. "Orbis amor, famæ carmen, cœlique pupilla; The piece entitled 'The Praise of Henry Prince of Wales' (In Henricum Principem Walliæ Elogium Francisci Baconi), was first published in the original Latin, by Birch, along with an English Translation of his own, in his 'Letters, Speeches, &c., of Francis Bacon,' 1763. PART II. BACON'S PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS. INTRODUCTION. ALL Bacon's philosophical writings may be reduced to the scheme of his Instauratio Magna-may be arranged as either parts or appendages of that work. The spacious plan of the Instauratio, as sketched by Bacon himself, comprehends alike those of them that were published before it was conceived or announced, and whatever he afterwards wrote. In our examination or analysis, therefore, of these writings, we shall take them in the order in which they stand, or may most naturally be placed, in the Instauratio; but it will be convenient, for clearness of reference, that we also enumerate here the successive dates at which they were severally published. The 'Fragment of the Colours of Good and Evil, otherwise entitled 'Places of Persuasion and Dissuasion, was published, with the first edition of the Essays, in 1597. This tract, as we shall find, has been incorporated by Bacon himself in the De Augmentis Scientiarum, or First Part of the Instauratio. The Two Books of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning,' were published in English in 1605. They were afterwards expanded by the author into the Nine Books of the Latin Treatise De Augmentis Scientiarum. The Latin treatise 'De Sapientia Veterum' (Of the Wisdom of the Ancients), of which an account has already been given among the Moral Works, may also be noticed here, as being in part incorporated with the De Augmentis Scientiarum. It was published by itself in 1610. The Novum Organum Scientiarum,' forming the Second Part of the Instauratio, was published in Latin in 1620. It was accompanied not only by its own proper Preface, but also by a Preface and other Prolegomena to the entire Instauratio, including, in particular, what is entitled the Distributio Operis, or exposition of the Six Parts of which that great work was to consist. This was the first announcement of the Instauratio Magna. In 1622 was published a portion of the Third Part of the Instauratio, under the title of 'Francisci Baconis de Verulamio, Vice-Comitis Sancti Albani, Historia Naturalis et Experimentalis ad Condendam Philosophiam; sive Phænomena Universi: Quæ est Instaurationis Magnæ Pars Tertia.' It consisted of the 'Historia Ventorum' (History of the Winds), with the Aditus, or Prefaces, of five other similar histories. This volume was followed in 1623 by the 'Historia Vitæ et Mortis' (History of Life and Death), another of the Six Histories intended for the Third Part of the Instauratio. In the same year, 1623, was published the entire treatise De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum' (On the Dignity and Advancement of the Sciences), in Nine Books; being a translation into Latin and expansion of the Two Books of the Advancement of Learning, and forming the First Part of the Instauratio. This was the last portion of the Instauratio published by Bacon himself. In 1627, after Bacon's death, his chaplain, Dr. Rawley, published the Ten Centuries of his Sylva Sylvarum, or Natural History,' in English, designed to form another portion of the Third Part of the Instauratio. It had been prepared for the press, and Rawley's Preface to it had been written, before the death of the author. In 1653 Isaac Gruter published at Amsterdam, in a 66 duodecimo volume of about 500 pages, a collection of what he called the Writings of Bacon in Natural and Universal Philosophy-Francisci Baconi de Verulamio Scripta in Naturali et Universali Philosophia'-all, as he states, new to the world, and copied from manuscripts carefully corrected by the author, and bequeathed by him to the care of the most noble William Boswell, that is, Sir William Boswell, minister or agent of James I. and Charles II. in Holland. And it is true that in his will Bacon, after directing his executors, and especially Sir John Constable, and his very good friend, Mr. Bosvile," to take care that of all his writings, meaning his printed works, both English and Latin, there may be books fair bound and placed in the king's library, and in the libraries of the University of Cambridge, and of Trinity College, and of Bennett College, and of the University of Oxford, and of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of Eton College, adds; "Also I desire my executors, especially my brother Constable, and also Mr. Bosvile, presently after my decease, to take into their hands all my papers whatsoever, which are either in cabinets, boxes, or presses, and them to seal up until they may at their leisure peruse them." Nevertheless, most of the pieces printed by Gruter are, from whatever cause, extremely inaccurate; and some of them are evidently only the first drafts of what we have elsewhere in a more perfect form. Of several, however, we have no other original copies.* In the First Part of the collection entitled 'Resus * Three Letters from Gruter to Rawley are published by Tenison, with translations, in the Baconiana, pp. 221-241. In the first, dated from the Hague, 29th May, 1652, he says:-" I send you here a catalogue of those writings 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 William Boswel (who was pleased to admit me to a most intimate familiarity with him) did himself tell me." "These," Tenison notes, " were the papers which J. Gruter afterwards published under the title of Scripta Philosophica." |