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with the full stretch of his powers. In them we are presented with all the wisdom which the deepest erudition could recover from the gulph of buried ages; and with all that also which the most sagacious and accurate observation could select from the spectacle of the passing scene: in them we behold imagination and knowledge equally successful in their exertions; this as the contributor of truths, and that as opening her affluent wardrobe for their dress; one like the earth throwing out of her bosom the organized forms of matter, and the other like the sun arraying them in an endless variety of hues.

Of the Essay, that most agreeable and perhaps most useful vehicle of instruction, my lord Bacon must be considered, at least in our country, as the inventor; and to the success of his attempt may be ascribed that numerous race of writers, to whose short and entertaining lessons the public mind may be regarded as principally indebted for its present cultivation and refinement.

Thus strongly recommended by their intrinsic worth, these Essays possess also an additional and accidental value, from the circumstance of their constituting all which, in some sense, remains of their admirable author. His other works, as it has been already remarked, are in fact extinct to the many, and now generally known only as a mighty name: and the writer of these short compositions, the great lord Bacon, may not improperly be considered as shrunk, like the ashes of an Alexander in a golden urn, within the limits of this little but sterling volume.

TO MR. ANTHONY BACON,

HIS DEAR BROTHER.

LOVING and beloved brother, I do now like some that have an orchard ill neighboured, that gather their fruit before it is ripe, to prevent stealing. These fragments of my conceits were going to print: to labour the stay of them had been troublesome, and subject to interpretation; to let them pass had been to adventure the wrong they might receive by untrue copies, or by some garnishment which it might please any that should set them forth to bestow upon them; therefore I held it best discretion to publish them myself, as they passed long ago from my pen, without any further disgrace than the weakness of the author; and as I did ever hold, there might be as great a vanity in retiring and withdrawing men's conceits (except they be of some nature) from the world, as in obtruding them: so in these particulars I have played myself the inquisitor, and find nothing to my understanding in them contrary or infectious to the state of religion or manners, but rather, as I suppose, medicinable: only I dislike now to put them out, because they will be like the late new halfpence, which though the silver were good, yet the pieces were small; but since they would not stay with their master, but would needs travel abroad, I have preferred them to you that are next myself; dedicating them, such as they are, to our love, in the depth whereof, I assure you, I sometimes wish your infirmities translated upon myself, that her majesty might have the service of so active and able a mind; and I might be with excuse confined to these contemplations and studies, for which I am fittest: so commend I you to the preservation of the Divine Majesty.

Your entire loving brother,

From my chamber at Gray's Inn,

this 30th of January, 1597.

FRANCIS BACON.

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TO MY LOVING BROTHER,

SIR JOHN CONSTABLE, KT.

My last Essays I dedicated to my dear brother, Mr. Anthony Bacon, who is with God. Looking among my papers this vacation, I found others of the same nature: which if I myself shall not suffer to be lost, it seemeth the world will not, by the often printing of the former. Missing my brother, I found you next; in respect of bond, both of near alliance,. and of straight friendship and society, and particularly of communication in studies; wherein I must acknowledge myself beholden to you: for as my business found rest in my contemplations, so my contemplations ever found rest in your loving conference and judgment: so wishing you all good, I remain

Your loving brother and friend,

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SOLOMON 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 I thought it therefore agreeable to my affection and obligation to your Grace, to prefix your name before them, both in English and 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 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 increase 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 servant,
FRANCIS ST. ALBAN.

ESSAYS.

I. OF TRUTH.

WHAT is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free will in thinking, as well as in acting: and though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth; nor again, that, when it is found, it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favour; but a natural, though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later schools of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies, where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets; nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open day-light, that doth not shew the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candlelights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that sheweth

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