that our own laws be reviewed and recompiled: than the which I think there cannot be a work that his Majesty can undertake in these his times of peace, more politic, more honourable, nor more beneficial to his subjects in all ages. . . . For this continual heaping up of laws without digesting them maketh but a chaos and confusion, and turneth the laws many times to become but snares for the people, as was well said, Pluet super eos laqueos: non sunt autem pejores laquei quam laquei legum. And therefore this work I esteem to be indeed a work (rightly to term it) heroical, and that which if I might live to see, I would not desire to live after."1 On the 28th of July 1608, in a sheet of private memoranda concerning "Policy," we find these:

"Persuade the King in glory, aurea condet sæcula.

"New laws to be compounded and collected: lawgiver perpetuus princeps."2

The next day, "the recompiling of the laws of England" is set down in a list of his own "services on foot."3 And it was probably in pursuance of the design here indicated that he addressed or thought of addressing a letter to the King, of which all we have and all we know is the unfinished draft which follows; and the date must remain altogether uncertain, because such a letter, referring as it does to a subject which was never absent from his thoughts, might have been begun at any time.

May it please your Majesty, 4

Thinking often, as I ought, of your Majesty's virtue and fortune, I do observe not without admiration that those civil acts of sovereignty which are of the greatest merit, and therefore of truest glory, are by the providence of God manifestly put into your hands, as a chosen vessel to receive from God, and an excellent instrument to work amongst men, the best and noblest things. The highest degree of sovereign honour is to be the founder of a kingdom or estate; for as in the acts of God the creation is more than the conservation, and as amongst men the birth-day is accounted the chiefest of the days of life, so to found a kingdom is more worthy than to augment or to administer the same. And this is an honour that no man can take from your Majesty, that the day of your coming to the crown of England was as the birth-day of the kingdom intire 1 Vol. III. p. 366. note. 2 Commentarius, vol. iv. p. 73. 3 Ibid. p. 94.

Gibson's Papers, vol. viii. f. 222. A draft, apparently, though not in Bacon's hand: dictated, probably. No date or docket.

Britain. The next degree of sovereign honour is the plantation of a country or territory, and the reduction of a nation from waste soil and barbarous manners to a civil population. And in this kind also your Majesty hath made a fair and prosperous beginning in your realm of Ireland. The third eminent act of sovereignty is to be a lawgiver; whereof he speaketh,

Pace datâ terris, animum ad civilia vertit

Jura suum, legesque tulit justissimus author.

And another saith, Ecquid est, quod tam propriè dici potest actum ejus qui togatus in republicá cum potestate imperioque versatur, quam lex? Quære acta Gracchi, leges Semproniæ proferentur: quære Syllæ, Cornelia. Quid? Cneii Pompeii tertius consulatus in quibus actis consistit? Nempe legibus. A Cæsare ipso si quæreres quidnam egisset in urbe et toga, leges multas se respondeat et præclaras tulisse.

In the Parliament of 1614, among the Bills of Grace offered to the Houses, was "an act giving authority to certain Commissioners to review the state of penal laws, to the end that such as are obsolete and snaring may be repealed, and such as are fit to continue and concern one matter may be reduced respectively into one clear form of law." It was brought in by Bacon and read a first time on the 2nd of May. Upon the premature dissolution of that Parliament, he urged the King (his position giving him then more opportunities of offering advice) to appoint Commissioners accordingly, who might prepare bills for the next Parliament; to set on foot at once a revision and expurgation of the "Year books," which contained the history of the law for the time past; and at the same time to appoint competent reporters of all legal cases for the time to come. And now on his further rise to the dignity of a Privy Councillor he makes it his first voluntary service to draw attention to the subject once more, entering more particularly into a consideration of the measures to be taken.

Like other of his greater projects for the benefit of mankind, it was well meant and well aimed, rather than successful. But subsequent history, if it shows that his persuasions and endeavours produced little effect in the way of remedy, shows likewise how much that very remedy was wanted, and how much the disease

1 Vol. V. pp. 15. 41.

2 See "Memorial touching the Review of Penal Laws and the Amendment of the Common Law," printed in the last Volume, p. 84.

has been aggravated and made more difficult to deal with by the postponement of it. One advantage there is, indeed, which modern law-reformers enjoy over their predecessors in this matter,— a universal feeling that the remedy must be postponed no longer. If the task is heavier than it was in Bacon's time, the forces at our command are greater. Instead of a single councillor to urge, and a single king with an empty exchequer to provide means, we have now all the highest officers of State and Law, with the full support of both houses of Parliament, of the Press, and of the people, recognizing the paramount importance of the work, and seriously bent on getting it done. We may fairly hope, therefore, that in the course of another generation or two the obstructions will be withdrawn or over-ridden, and the work accomplished. Whenever that shall be, the credit will of course go to the man who happens to be most conspicuous among those who are in the field when it is won. But when its history is written, there will remain on record a remarkable testimony to the value of this early contribution of Bacon's to the cause. For when, on the 9th of March, 1826, the late Sir Robert Peel, then Home Secretary, moved for leave to bring in his bill for the consolidation of the laws relating to theft, he asked permission to use this very paper for the preface of his speech, as comprising in a short compass every argument that could be cited in favour of the measure he proposed to introduce, and satisfactorily confuting every objection that could be brought against it. "The lapse of two hundred and fifty years has increased," he said, "the necessity of the measure which Lord Bacon then proposed, but it has produced no argument in favour of the principle, no objection adverse to it, which he did not anticipate."

It was first printed by Dr. Rawley in the Resuscitatio, p. 271; and I have not met with the original manuscript, or any independent copy.

A PROPOSITION TO HIS MAJESTY BY SIR FRANCIS BACON, KNIGHT, HIS MAJESTY'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL, AND ONE OF HIS PRIVY COUNCIL; TOUCHING THE COMPILING AND AMENDMENT OF THE LAWS OF ENGLAND.

Your Majesty, of your favour, having made me Privy-Councillor, and continuing me in the place of your Attorney-General, (which is more than was these hundred years before) I do not understand it to be, that by putting off the dealing in causes such advantage of truth, and avoidance of flattery, and with such

between party and party, I should keep holy-day the more; but that I should dedicate my time to your service with less distraction. Wherefore, in this plentiful accession of time which I have now gained, I take it to be my duty not only to speed your commandments and the business of my place, but to meditate and to excogitate of myself, wherein I may best, by my travels, derive your virtues to the good of your people, and return their thanks and increase of love to you again. And after I had thought of many things, I could find, in my judgment, none more proper for your Majesty as a master, nor for me as a workman, than the reducing and recompiling of the laws of England.

Your Majesty is a King blessed with posterity; and these Kings sort best with acts of perpetuity, when they do not leave them instead of children, but transmit both line and merit to future generations. You are a great master in justice and judicature, and it were pity that the fruit of that virtue should die with you. Your Majesty also reigneth in learned times; the more in regard of your own perfections and patronage of learning; and it hath been the mishap of works of this nature, that the less learned time hath wrought upon the more learned; which now will not be so. As for myself, the law is my profession, to which I am a debtor. Some little helps I may have of other learning, which may give form to matter; and your Majesty hath set me in an eminent place, whereby in a work which must be the work of many I may the better have coadjutors. Therefore not to hold your Majesty with any long preface in that which I conceive to be nothing less than words, I will proceed to the matter which matter itself nevertheless requireth somewhat briefly to be said, both of the dignity, and likewise of the safety and convenience of this work and then to go to the main; that is to say, to shew how the work is to be done: which incidently also will best demonstrate that it is no vast nor speculative thing, but a real and feasible. Callisthenes, that followed Alexander's court, and was grown in some displeasure with him, because he could not well brook the Persian adoration, at a supper (which with the Grecians was ever a great part talk) was desired, because he was an eloquent man, to speak of some theme; which he did; and chose for his theme the praise of the Macedonian nation; which though it were but a filling thing to praise men to their faces, yet he did it with

life, as the hearers were so ravished with it that they plucked the roses off from their garlands, and threw them upon him; as the manner of applauses then was. Alexander was not pleased with it, and by way of discountenance said It was easy to be a good orator in a pleasing theme: But, (saith he to Callisthenes,) turn your stile, and tell us now of our faults, that we may have the profit, and not you only the praise. Which he presently did, with such a force, and so piquantly, that Alexander said, The goodness of his theme had made him eloquent before; but now it was the malice of his heart that had inspired him.

1. Sir, I shall not fall into either of those two extremes concerning the laws of England; they commend themselves best to them that understand them; and your Majesty's Chief Justice of your Bench hath in his writings magnified them not without / cause. Certainly they are wise, they are just, and moderate laws; they give to God, they give to Cæsar, they give to the subjects, that which appertaineth. It is true, they are as mixt as our language, compounded of British, Roman, Saxon, Danish, Norman customs. And as our language is so much the richer, so the laws are the more complete: neither doth this attribute less to them, than those that would have them to have stood out the same in all mutations; for no tree is so good first set, as by transplanting.

2. As for the second extreme, I have nothing to do with it by way of taxing the laws. I speak only by way of perfiting them, which is easiest in the best things: for that which is far amiss hardly receiveth amendment; but that which hath already, to that more may be given. Besides, what I shall propound is not to the matter of the laws, but to the manner of their registry, expression, and tradition: so that it giveth them rather light than any new nature. This being so, for the dignity of the work I know scarcely where to find the like: for surely that scale and those degrees of sovereign honour are true and rightly marshalled: First the founders of estates; then the lawgivers; then the deliverers and saviours after long calamities; then the fathers of their countries, which are just and prudent princes; and lastly, conquerors; which honour is not to be received amongst the rest, except it be where there is an addition of more country and territory to a better government than that was of the conquered. Of these, in my judgment, your Majesty may with