"We have also engine-houses, where are prepared engines and instruments for all sorts of motions. There we imitate and practise to make swifter motions than any you have, either out of your muskets or any engine that you have; and to make them and multiply them more easily, and with small force, by wheels and other means and to make them stronger, and more violent than yours are; exceeding your greatest cannons and basilisks. We represent also ordnance and instruments of war, and engines of all kinds: and likewise new mixtures and compositions of gun-powder, wildfires burning in water, and unquenchable. Also fire-works of all variety both for pleasure and use. We imitate also flights of birds; we have some degrees of flying in the air; we have ships and boats for going under water 49, and brooking of seas; also swimming-girdles and sup. porters. We have divers curious clocks, and other like motions of return, and some perpetual motions. We imitate also motions of living creatures, by images of men, beasts, birds, fishes, and serpents. We have also a great number of other various 50 motions, strange for equality, fineness, and subtilty.

"We have also a mathematical-house, where are represented all instruments, as well of geometry as astronomy, exquisitely made.

"We have also houses of deceits of the senses; where we represent all manner of feats of juggling, false apparitions, impostures, and illusions; and their fallacies. And surely you will easily believe that we that have so many things truly natural which induce admiration, could in a world of particulars deceive the senses, if we would disguise those things and labour to make them seem more miraculous. But we do hate all impostures and lies; insomuch as we have severely forbidden it to all our fellows, under pain of ignominy and fines, that they do not shew any natural work or thing, adorned or swelling; but only pure as it is, and without all affectation of strangeness.

"These are (my son) the riches of Salomon's House.

"For the several employments and offices of our fellows; we have twelve that sail into foreign countries, under the names of other nations, (for our own we canceal ;) who bring us the books, and abstracts, and patterns of experiments of all other parts. These we call Merchants of Light.

"We have three that collect the experiments which are in all books. These we call Depredators.

"We have three that collect the experiments of all mechanical arts; and also of liberal sciences; and also of practices which are not brought into arts. These we call Mystery-men 51.

"We have three that try new experiments, such as themselves think good. These we call Pioners or Miners.

"We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. These we call Compilers 52.

"We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and cast about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for man's life, and knowledge as well for works as for plain demonstration of causes, means of natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call Dowry-men or Benefactors 53.

"Then after divers meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider of

49 A boat for going under water was one of Drebbel's inventions exhibited in 1620. Bacon in the De Augmentis refers to another, namely Drebbel's method of producing cold.-R. L. E.

50 The word "various," which seems to be redundant, is omitted in the translation. 51 In the translation they are called Venatores, hunters; a name, however, which does not seem to distinguish their peculiar office so accurately as "mystery-men," that is, men whose business was to inquire after mysteries, i.e. crafts.

52 These represent the formation of the tables comparentiæ, absentiæ in proximo, and graduum. See Novum Organum, ii. § 11-13.-R. L. E.

For compilers," the translation has divisores, distributors.

53 These represent the Vindemiatio prima. See Nov. Org. ii. § 20.-R. L. E.

the former labours and collections, we have three that take care, out of them, to direct new experiments, of a higher light, more penetrating into nature than the former. These we call Lamps.

"We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call Inoculators.

"Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries by experiments into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms 54. These we call Interpreters of Nature.

"We have also, as you must think, novices and apprentices, that the succession of the former employed men do not fail; besides a great number of servants and attendants, men and women. And this we do also: we have consultations, which of the inventions and experiments which we have discovered shall be published, and which not: and take all an oath of secrecy, for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret: though some of those we do reveal sometimes to the state, and some not.

"For our ordinances and rites: we have two very long and fair galleries: in one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions: in the other we place the statua's of all principal inventors. There we have the statua of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies : also the inventor of ships: your monk that was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder the inventor of music: the inventor of letters: the inventor of printing the inventor of observations of astronomy: the inventor of works in metal the inventor of glass: the inventor of silk of the worm the inventor of wine the inventor of corn and bread: the inventor of sugars and all these by more certain tradition than you have. Then have we divers inventors of our own, of excellent works; which since you have not seen, it were too long to make descriptions of them; and besides, in the right understanding of those descriptions you might easily err. For upon every invention of value, we erect a statua to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward. These statua's are some of brass; some of marble and touch-stone; some of cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned: some of iron; some of silver; some of gold.

"We have certain hymns and services, which we say daily, of laud and thanks to God for his marvellous works and forms of prayers, imploring his aid and blessing for the illumination of our labours, and the turning of them into good and holy uses.

"Lastly, we have circuits or visits of divers principal cities of the kingdom; where, as it cometh to pass, we do publish such new profitable inventions as we think good. And we do also declare natural divinations of diseases, plagues, swarms of hurtful creatures, scarcity, tempests, earthquakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of the year, and divers other things; and we give counsel thereupon what the people shall do for the prevention and remedy of them ".

And when he had said this, he stood up; and I, as I had been taught, kneeled down; and he laid his right hand upon my head, and said,, "God bless thee, my son, and God bless this relation which I have made. I give thee leave to publish it for the good of other nations; for we here are in God's bosom, a land unknown". And so he left me; having assigned a value of about two thousand ducats, for a bounty to me and my fellows. For they give great largesses where they come upon all occasions.

[THE REST WAS NOT PERFECTED.]

54 The translation adds that this was only done after consultation with the whole body. Quod faciunt non nisi consultatione et colloquis prius habitis cum sociis universis.

ESSAYS OR COUNSELS CIVIL AND

MORAL

PREFACE.

BY JAMES SPEDDING.

AMONG the innumerable editions of Bacon's Essays that have been published, there are only four which, as authorities for the text, have any original or independent value; namely those published by Bacon himself in 1597, in 1612, and in 1625; and the Latin version published by Dr. Rawley in 1638. The rest are merely reprints of one or other of these.

The edition of 1597 contained ten essays, together with the Meditationes Sacræ, and the Colours of Good and Evil. That of 1612, a small volume in 8vo., contained essays only; but the number was increased to thirty-eight, of which twenty-nine were quite new, and all the rest more or less corrected and enlarged. That of 1625, a 4to. and one of the latest of Bacon's publications, contained fiftyeight essays, of which twenty were new, and most of the rest altered and enlarged. The gradual growth of this volume, containing as it does the earliest and the latest fruits of Bacon's observation in that field in which its value has been most approved by universal and undiminished popularity, is a matter of considerable interest; and as the successive changes are not such as could be represented by a general description or conveniently specified in foot-notes, I have thought it best to reprint the two first editions entire, and add them in an appendix 1. Considering also that, although it has been thought expedient throughout the text of this edition of Bacon's works to modernize the spelling, it may nevertheless be convenient to the reader to have a specimen of the orthography of Bacon's time, I have taken this opportunity in giving one; and preserved the original spelling throughout both these reprints.

I have also been able to supply from a manuscript in the British Museum evidence of another stage in the growth of this volume, intermediate between the editions of 1597 and 1612; of which manuscript, in connexion with the reprint of the latter, a complete account will be given.

The text of the Essays is taken of course from the edition of 1625; a correct representation of which is nearly all that a modern reader requires. The only points in which the audience to which they now address themselves stands in a different position towards them from that to which they were originally addressed, appear to be,-first, knowledge of Latin, which is probably a less general accomplishment among the readers of books now than it was then; and secondly, familiarity with the ordinary language of that day, in which some expressions have worn out of use with time, and some have acquired new meanings. To meet these changes, I have in the first place translated the Latin quotations, in the same manner and upon the same principle which I have explained at length in my preface to the Advancement of Learning (pp. 40-41.); and in the second place, I have added an explanatory note wherever I have observed any expression which a modern reader is likely to misunderstand or not to understand. But I have not attempted to develope allusions, or to canvass historical statements, or to point out inaccuracies of quotation, where the difference does not affect the argument,—still less to entertain the reader with discourses of my own; conceiving that the worth of writings of this kind depends in great part

1 [Not given in the present edition.]

upon the rejection of superfluities, and that an annotator who is too diligent in producing all that he can find to say about his text runs a great risk of merely encumbering the reader with the very matter from which it was the author's labour to disembarrass him. I have even had my doubts whether in writings which remain as fresh as these, the very insertion of references to passages quoted be not an unwelcome interruption and an unwarrantable liberty. When a modern writer introduces, for ornament or illustration or impression, a line from Virgil or Milton, he never thinks of adding a reference to the book and verse; and I suppose that Mr. Singer would not look upon an asterisk and a foot-note, with Hor. Carm. I. 12.45 as any improvement to the elegant motto which occupies the blank page fronting the title of his very elegant edition of these Essays. Bacon's philosophical works stand in many respects in a different position. Their value is in great part historical and antiquarian. They no longer speak to us as to contemporaries. To understand their just import, we must be carried back to the time, and it is of importance to know what books were then in estimation and what authors were familiarly appealed to, and carried weight as vouchers. The Essays, on the contrary, have for us precisely the same sort of interest which they had for the generation to which they were immediately addressed; they "come home to men's business and bosoms" just in the same way; they appeal to the same kind of experience; the allusions and citations are still familiar, and produce the same kinds of impression on the imagination. So that I do not see why the reason which induced Bacon to cite an ancient saying, a tradition of the poets, an observation of one of the fathers, or a sentence from some classical writer, without specifying the volume and page where he found it, should not still, be held a reason for leaving them to produce the effect which he intended, unincumbered with a piece of information which I suppose he thought superfluous or inconvenient.

The Latin translation of the Essays, published by Dr. Rawley in 1638 among the Opera Moralia et Civilia, under the weightier 2 title of Sermones Fideles sive Interiora Rerum, has (as I said) an original and independent value. Whether any of them were actually translated by Bacon himself, or how far he superintended the work, it seems impossible to know. Mr. Singer indeed represents them, on the authority of the title 3, as having been put into Latin by Bacon himself "præterquam in paucis" but the words which he quotes occur in the title not of the Sermones Fideles, but of the whole volume, which contains four other works; the Sermones Fideles forming less than a fourth of the whole : so that for any thing these words imply they may themselves have been among the things excepted 4. As it is certain however that Bacon himself regarded the Latin version as that in which they were to live, we may be sure that he took care to have it properly done: only as it was not published till twelve years after his death, we cannot be sure that it was all finished before he died. Several hands are said to have been employed in the work, and in the absence of all specific information, it is not improbable that there are parts of it which he did not live to see completed. Taken with this caution however, the Latin translation must

2 Deinde sequetur libellus ille quem vestra lingua Saggi Morali appellastis. Verum illi libro nomen gravius impono: scilicet ut inscribatur Sermones Fideles, sive Interiora Rerum.-Bacon's Letter to Fulgentio.

3 "In the year 1638, Dr. Rawley, who had been Bacon's chaplain, published a folio volume, containing, amongst other works in Latin, a translation of the Essays, under the title of Sermones Fideles, ab ipso Honoratissimo Auctore, præterquam in paucis, Latinitate donati."-Pref. p. xvi.

4 Francisci Baconi . . . operum moralium et civilium tomus.

...

Qui con-
tinet

Historiam Regni Henrici Septimi Regis Angliæ.
Sermones Fideles, sive Interiora Rerum.

Tractatum de Sapientia Veterum.

Dialogum de Bello Sacro.

Et Novam Atlantidem.

Ab ipso Honoratissimo Auctore, præterquam in paucis, Latinitate donatus.

be accepted as a work of authority, and in one respect of superior authority to the original, because of later date.

I am not aware that any such value belongs to any of the translations into modern languages. An Italian translation of the Essays and the De Sapientia Veterum, published in London in 1618, with a dedicatory letter from Tobie Matthew to Cosmo de' Medici, may be presumed to have been made with Bacon's sanction; both because Matthew was so intimate a friend, and because it includes one essay which had not then been published 5, as well as a large extract from the letter to Prince Henry which Bacon had intended to prefix to the edition of 1612, but was prevented by his death. But there is no reason to suppose that Bacon had anything more to do with it. It is true that Andrea Cioli, who by Cosmo's direction brought out a new and revised edition of this volume at Florence in 1619, seems at first sight to speak of the translation as if it were Bacon's own composition-(ma non hò già voluto alterare alcuna di quelle parole, che forse nella lingua nostra non appariscono interamente proprie del senso, à che sono state in detta Opera destinate, per non torre all' Autore la gloria, che merita di havere cosi ben saputo esprimere i suoi Concetti in Idioma altretanto diverso dal suo, quanto è lontana da questa nostra la sua Regione)-but the supposition is hardly reconcilable with the words of Matthew's dedicatory letter (non può mancar la scusa à chi s'è ingegnato tradur li concetti di questo Autore, etc.); and in the absence of all other evidence is too improbable to be believed. Nor do Cioli's words necessarily imply more than that the translator was an Englishman. That the translation was not the work of an Italian,-and therefore not (according to Mr. Singer's conjecture) by Father Fulgentio,—they afford evidence which may be considered conclusive.

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

To the Right Honourable my very good Lo. the DUKE of BUCKINGHAM his Grace Lo. High Admiral of England.

I

EXCELLENT Lo. SALOMON Says, A good name is as a precious ointment; and I assure myself, such will your Grace's name be with posterity. For your fortune and merit both have been eminent. And you have planted things that are like to last. I do now publish my Essays; which, of all my other works, have been most current; for that, as it seems, they come home to men's business and bosoms. I have enlarged them both in number and weight; so that they are indeed a new work. thought it therefore agreeable to my affection and obligation to your Grace, to prefix your name before them, both in English and in Latin. For I do conceive that the Latin volume of them (being in the universal language) may last as long as books last. My Instauration I dedicated to the King; my History of Henry the Seventh (which I have now also translated into Latin), and my portions of Natural History, to the Prince; and these I dedicate to your Grace; being of the best fruits that by the good encrease which God gives to my pen and labours I could yield. God lead your Grace by the hand.

Your Grace's most obliged and

faithful seruant,

FR. ST. ALBAN.

5 Mr. Singer says two: but one of those he quotes-the Essay "Of Honour and Repu.

tation "-will be found in the edition of 1597.